Maybe I Just Need Another Cup of Coffee

I’m in a bad way.  The last couple weeks, I’ve developed this terrible habit of staying up until 2 a.m., sometimes writing, but mostly just roaming around the Internet looking for… something.  What the hell am I looking for?  Whatever it is, I don’t find it, and usually get caught up reading articles on Entertainment Weekly or Go Fug Yourself, or perusing the many fine blogs I enjoy.

Then I climb in bed at two next to a heavy-breathing Herbie and conk myself in the head a few hundred times.  Because I know what’s going to happen – I’m going to be a grumpy mommy in the morning, take a nap with Moo, accomplish nothing, and then stay up until two again, searching wildly on the Internet for… something.

Inspiration?  Ambition?  A fast, easy way to make lots of money?

I’m in some sort post-quest purgatory.  Again.  If I get in a show soon, I suppose that might change, but right now I’m just – aaaugh.  Ergh.   Euuuugh. 

Like that.

Everything’s just a bit out of whack.  I suspect that maybe a bold, whomping schedule change would help.  In bed by 10:30.  Up at 6.  WRITE.  Then eat breakfast RIGHT AWAY when Moo wakes up, instead of waiting an hour and then she takes an entire freaking hour to eat and then I’m nagging her to hurry up because it’s time to leave and then she gets upset and eats even slower, and then I’m yanking clothes on her and there’s no time to brush teeth, and then she’s put out and insists that she DOES NOT KNOW HOW to walk out the door or climb into her car seat, and because I’m sleep-deprived I snap at her and then we both pout, and that is no way to start the day.

I want to be a morning person.  I really do.  But I think the chances of me actually going to bed early and waking up early are slim to none.  I’ve tried it before.  I think the longest I’ve lasted is three weeks.

So what do I do?  What do I do?  It’s more than going to bed too late.  I need to… do something.  Write a book.  (When?)  Make money.  (How?)  Have another baby.  (Oh, I said I wasn’t going to talk about that.)

I want the answer to all this restlessness.  Maybe I’ll keep looking on the Internet.

One Year Old

Oh no, I missed my own anniversary!

September 8, 2008, I earnestly began my blog, and along with it my quest to rid myself of some theatrical baggage…  And good God, I must say I’m rather amazed and proud that I actually stuck with something!  For (over) a whole year!  Thanks for reading and sticking with me, my dear bloggie friends.

For old time’s sake, let’s celebrate in haiku:

Three auditions down
And I didn’t burst in flames
Gimme more, more, more

My quest is over,
My Moo is bigger, and now
The future is bright

(Except for dentists,
and getting older ugh ugh,
and dirty dishes.)

Umm, introspection?
Just not feeling it tonight,
Conan in my ear.

I think this calls for
A batch of rainbow cupcakes
And frosting (and booze).

Best Navel-Gazing

I received a sweet surprise yesterday at Tempe Little Theatre’s end-of-season party – an award with a guy on it who looks like he might have a bad tummyache, but actually he’s taking a bow.  My name is engraved on it and everything!  I even had to make a speech!  I thought about thanking Herbie, but after all we were in a small community room, not the Shrine Auditorium, and I thought people might roll their eyes.  I won the award for best actress in a featured role, for my little role as the crazed stage manager in “Kiss Me Kate” last fall.

To drop the ironic detachment for just a moment – it’s just so incredible to me that for so many years, I believed the theatre world was as impenetrable as, oh…the UCLA Medical Center last Thursday?  Complete with angry guards ready to beat me down upon approach.  I have found the opposite – theatre groups that have welcomed me, encouraged me, and even given me awards to boot.  I’m trying not to think about all the years I wasted sitting at home thinking it was such a scary world.  I’ll just enjoy my little tummyache man instead.

Looking ahead, Herbie says that I should audition for as many shows as I like and not worry about him and Moo.  (Herbie is a pretty wonderful guy.)  But I feel like I should try to get myself on some sort path that would lead to making money, not that my hazy plan (writing?? oh yeah, big moneymaker) is a surefire hit.  I’ve been struggling the last few months, missing the security of having a quest, knowing my purpose and even having a handy-dandy set of rules to follow.  Now I’m twisting – enjoying Mommyhood but feeling a whole lot of blankness all around me.  What’s next, little tummyache man?  Do tell, do tell.

So Now What?

Moo is still sleeping.  The house is cleanish.  I’ve watered the plants and fed the bird, checked all the celebrity gossip sites and even caught up on the news (yikes).

Also, I went to three auditions, performed in two shows, and turned 35.

 My quest is officially over.  So now what?

People keep asking me, “What’s next?”  And I keep asking myself the same thing.  I know that I want to take a break over the summer.  I know that this is an ideal time in our lives (economy notwithstanding) to try and add to our family.*  I also know that I don’t want to stop.  I obsessively check all the audition updates, and the local theaters’ web sites to see if they’ve posted their 2009-2010 seasons yet.

I dream of Sweet Charity, City of Angels, Oklahoma… and I dream about baby names.

I thought I would get to the end of my so-called quest with some kind of huge revelation:  A-HA!  You suck!  Give it up, get over it, and throw yourself into mommyhood!  Or A-HA!  You do not suck!  Directors are beating down your door and now you’re a professional actress!

I mean, I didn’t really think either of those exact situations would occur, but I did think that I would find – clarity.

Maybe I should review the questions I posed to myself at the beginning of this adventure.  After 14 years of letting fear get the best of me, I wanted to know the answers to these questions:

Do I have what it takes?

 - Well, that’s kind of a lame question, Mama.  Do I have what it takes to get cast in two community theatre shows?  Yes, apparently I do.  Do I have what it takes to get cast in a professional theatre?  Dunno.  Doubtful.  Definitely need some singing lessons.
 
Do I have the guts to try?

- Just barely.  Three auditions = three imaginary stomach flus, three nervous breakdowns, three episodes of extreme rudeness to husband.  But I did it.  And I learned that unlike when I was younger and believed that for success to count, I had to DO IT ON MY OWN, it’s okay to accept the support and encouragement of your friends, family, and kind blog-readers.  So from the bottom of my heart, thanks for the kick in the ass.

Is this still my dream, or is it time to let it go?

Definitively, it is not time to let go of my old childhood dream.  I love theatre as much as I always have, and maybe even more.  Even more, because this time around I’ve introduced Moo to theatre, and together we’ve become intoxicated by the joy of running around in circles, singing showtunes, waving your arms in the air, and (especially) wearing sparkly costumes.  Herbie, too.  Well, except for the sparkly costumes.  I’m proud that I’ve ushered Moo into this joyful world, thrilled that she loves it so much, and so happy that I will never have to hang my head when Moo asks me why I studied theatre but never performed, because I did find courage, I did perform, and I did get to see her clapping for me in the audience.  Maybe one day I’ll be clapping for her.

But as for what comes next?  …..?????……

I have always longed for clarity.  I remember once, many years ago, I was starting a new job as a waitress at Houston’s and I was scared to death, intimidated by the wall of liquor bottles, the towering plates I had to carry, the potential sneers from angry customers.  I sat on my bed working myself into a nervous frenzy and finally decided to lay down and try to rest before my shift began.  I had just moved to LA from New York, fleeing my floundering dreams and a bad relationship, and I was always on the edge of a panic attack.  As I lay back on the pillows, I repeated over and over, “I just want to be happy.  I just want to be happy.”

I had a dream that I was sitting at a computer, writing.  I paused to look over my shoulder and saw the man I loved with all my heart still sleeping in the bedroom.  Then I looked out the window and thought about the dance class I’d be taking later that afternoon.  Then I went back to typing.  I was perfectly happy.

I held onto that dream for a very long time, trying to find the right combination to unlock that fleeting vision of pure happiness.  I tried different jobs, different men, different colleges, different wardrobes, diets, outlooks.  I finally found the right man.  And it was only recently that I realized that no where in that vision of so-called happiness was there a little Moo.

 Maybe clarity only comes in timely little bursts, a peek through the window, not as a sustained state of mind.   And when I pause now to gaze out the window in the midst of my typing  – the child I love with all my heart sleeping down the hall, the man I love with all my heart puttering about the house – I realize that I am full, I am hopeful, and I am happy.

And I’ll just wait and see what comes next.

 

 

*Henceforth, if anyone asks me (ahem*family*ahem) about this particular issue, I will pretend that you have asked me about the weather and will answer thusly.  It IS getting hot, isn’t it!

Friday Blues

I’m having a little trouble remembering that I have a show to do tonight.  Having a break all week was nice, but the bad news about our canceled show makes all our effort feel a little futile, plus I’ve lost all the nervous energy I had leading up to last weekend’s shows.

All I want to think about is Moo’s birthday party. 

In a small way, I’m relieved that now I have all of Saturday to help Herbie get our house ready for the party on Sunday evening.  But Sunday will be even crazier - two cakes to decorate in the morning, then we’ll all rush off to the Sunday matinee (hopefully leaving behind a perfectly party-ready house), where the entire posse of cousins, aunts, sisters, and in-laws will watch the show, and then we’ll all rush back to our house to eat cake and open presents.

And, of course, declare the Grand Prize Winner in the home-made robot contest (winner picked by Moo).

And in all my errand-running, and fussing with prizes and cleaning and decorating, I kinda keep forgetting that I’m going to be on stage tonight singing and dancing.  Moo hasn’t forgotten, though.  She always wants me to sing songs from the show, discuss our costumes, and divulge her plans to introduce everyone in the cast to her favorite stuffed animals.

So why am I having trouble getting excited?  After all, my so-called quest is just three performances away from being dunzo.  Three more performances, and then – what?  I probably won’t be back on stage for a while.  For one thing, I am asking a lot of Herbie without exactly contributing to the family coffers.  Plus, Herbie and I might like to start on a much smaller-sized quest of our own very soon.

Maybe I don’t want to think about all this coming to an end.  I just hope it’s not another 15 years before I’m on stage again.  But at least then I’ll be old enough to actually play Mama Rose!

Unanswered Questions

Tonight, I really feel 35.  Or maybe even older.

I know it’s just because I’m so exhausted.  My back hurts all the time.  I miss my daughter and my husband.  Rehearsal has been intense and challenging, with moments of harmonic bliss and moments of fringe-fueled blind rage.

Somebody related to the production asked me today, “Are you an actress?”

And now I can’t get that question out of my mind.  Am I an actress?  Do I want to be an actress?  Do I want to pursue this as some sort of career, or something I do once a year as a fun hobby, or hell do I even want to do another show?  What happens after this show, besides my long lazy ride on the Boat of Inevitable Aging?

I don’t have an answer to that question.  But I know that at the moment the woman asked me, ‘Well, are you an actress?”  I wanted to reply, “No, I’m a mom.”

But I didn’t say anything.  Because at the moment, in my haze of rehearsal and mommy exhaustion, I feel a little lost.  I’ve accomplished what I’d hoped to, but what lies ahead?

I still don’t have answer.

35

I woke up yesterday and Herbie gave me a very special birthday present indeed – he took out the dirty diapers.

Dear sweet Herbie.

Then Moo and I headed over to my mom’s house, where a lovely girly breakfast awaited.  My mom got the fine china out and made baked pecan French toast, which made her house and my baby smell like syrup all day, a fine present in itself.  She even got mini powdered donuts, a favorite guilty treat, and Moo had two and a half… because it was a special day, of course.

After breakfast, I kissed Moo goodbye and trotted home to – do a load of laundry.  Wee.  We had a serious sock situation developing, and I just couldn’t put it off any longer or people would start calling us the Stinky Sock Family.  While I waited for the spin cycle to finish, I sat down at the computer and tried to write something about turning 35.

I found I had nothing to say.  I felt kind of glum, which took me by surprise.  Maybe it was just the unexpected grey day – I expect, nay DEMAND a beautiful birthday from Phoenix – that was one of the reasons to move back, because having a March 3 birthday almost anywhere else in the country pretty much guarantees rain, sleet, and often the very last snow storm of the winter.

But what is there to say?  I’m getting older.  So is everybody else.  I feel like I’ve accomplished some pretty cool things this year, and yet I wish I’d accomplished some of those things years ago.  Better late than blah blah blah.

Stumped for words, I treated myself to a birthday nap, and had a messed-up dream about falling asleep while driving to rehearsal, falling off an overpass but surviving, trying to find the freeway on-ramp again, and then witnessing a cowboy beheading his horse, after which the cowboy chased me down the freeway.

I woke up after 30 minutes and decided to get the hell outta the house. 

 Last year I spent my birthday shopping at some of my favorite vintage stores, so I decided to do the same.   As most moms know, shopping for anything besides groceries, baby clothes and birthday presents is pretty much impossible, and FORGET about breakable antiques.  So I meandered from store to store and picked up a few goodies that I worried Herbie would hate, treated myself to a latte and ended up back at my mom’s house in the late afternoon to pick up Moo.

And when Moo let me hold her and rock her in my arms for almost four straight, delectable minutes (a rarity in my busy girl’s life these days), I wondered if alone-time was what I needed last year, not this year, and perhaps I would have been less glum just playing with my daughter and my mom all day.

But with Moo’s beaming face back in my field of vision, my glumness began to dissipate.  I got home to find that Rosalind had baked me a batch of my favorite-in-the-whole-world cookies and left them on our doorstep.  Then Moo made me queen of the playroom by bestowing all her favorite toys upon me and repeatedly singing Happy Birthday to Mommmmmy!!

After Moo had “dinner” (three bites of english muffin pizza and 7 grape tomatoes does not equal dinner in my book) , I opened presents and Moo tried on my new shirt and scarf while I clutched the bracelet my sister made me with glee.  After Moo went to bed, Herbie ran out for Chinese food and returned with roses (and the Chinese food).  Then we watched “Heroes” and Herbie let me scoff and roll my eyes as much as I wanted.  (I love, but I hate… it’s just like that with Heroes.)

We slipped into a pad thai/cookie couch coma for a bit and then I dragged myself to the computer to try again to write something about turning 35.  Herbie offered to give me a backrub if I came to bed, but I really think I should try and finish writing…

WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING!

Yeah, so – 35.  Woo?  Gotta go.

We’re Not Old, We’re Awesome

Rosalind was shooting a wedding last week (not literally; with a camera) attended by a young foolish friend idiot she’d known for a while.  This 24-year-old filly flitted up at the end of the wedding to say goodbye to Rosalind.

“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked Rosalind.  “If not, we really want to set you up with Bobby.  He likes older women!”

Um.  WHAAAAAA?

Hold on.  WAIT.  Are we older women?

Are we even “women?”

I feel much more like a chick, or a lass, or even a babe, than a “woman.”  A woman has it all together – love life, career, and more than one pair of jeans that fit.  A woman does not eat Chex Mix for lunch and read Us Weekly and scratch in uncouth places.  A woman eats salmon salad and reads Vanity Fair and perfectly reapplies her lipstick without looking in a mirror.

Rosalind and I discussed the “older woman” issue at length.  Even Herbie got in on the conversation, although we were dismayed that he was not quite as SHOCKED as he should have been.

I mean, I think you have to be at the very least 45-years-old with a 20 year age gap to be considered an “older woman,” in the dating sense.  Demi Moore dating Ashton Kutcher – that’s an older woman relationship.  Cloris Leachman dating Jack Black – another good example.

But not-even-35?  I don’t think so.  However – if we’re not older women, what are we?  We’re certainly not young women anymore.  Herbie posited that we’re like adult tweens – twadults, perhaps?  Twomen?

No.  We’re in our PRIME, right? Prime time, time to make a rhyme (oops, a Sesame Street song snuck in there for a second).  We are ladies in our prime – in your 30’s, it allll comes together, right?  Career, love life, SEXuality, beauty, confidence, an awesome, flattering wardrobe and the perfect hairstyle…

Hmm… well, maybe it all just magically happens as soon as we turn 35.

But back to Rosalind at the wedding – as soon as her idiot friend realized her gaffe (right about the time Roz struck her with her patented Laser Eye of Death), she started frantically back-pedaling.

“I mean, I don’t mean you’re OLD, just that he likes, you know, mature women?  With experience?  Like smart and stuff?”

But Rosalind just shook her head, cutting her off.  “You need to go,” she told the twit.  “Now.”  The twit wimpered and fled.

Ha.

Take that, 20-something twits of the world.  We twadults aren’t going to take your crap anymore.  Now leave us alone – we have Chex Mix to eat and celebrity gossip to discuss.

Tomorrow we’ll eat canapes and discuss politics, I swear.

The Mean Reds

Herbie and Moo just left to go to my in-laws’ house for dinner so I could have the house to myself to work on learning music for the show.  Except that I left the little recorder doo-dad with all the music on it in the glove compartment of the car, which is currently…at my in-laws’ house with Herbie and Moo.

So that’s great.  I probably should have already downloaded the music onto my computer, like Herbie told me to 10 times, and then this wouldn’t have happened.

I guess now I have time to work on the ol’ blogola.  I find myself struggling to write lately – partly due to a case of the unbloggables – things not to be discussed on the blog (I mean, after all, my mother and my mother-in-law read it) – and partly because nothing’s HAPPENING, as far as Big Events go – I’m in purgatory before rehearsals start, and find myself twisting in the ether…worrying about everything that’s happening, worrying about what’s to come, and then what’s to come after that…

I think I foolishly bought into the idea that once I’d unloaded my Big Regret off my shoulders, everything in my life would just magically work out perfectly and be perfectly wonderful forever.  And here I am, I’ve finally succeeded in facing my fears, I’ve been cast in my second show, and everything is… not so great.

Everything is so fucking hard.

Sorry to go all Christian Bale on you, but now you know, Mom – sometimes I do say the f-word.  (I have a feeling you already knew that.)  And actually I use it much less now that I’m a mom.  It’s only hard in the car, these days.  Fucking drivers.

Anyway.  Of course I knew intellectually that life doesn’t work that way, but when everything started going my way personally and things started going the wrong way everywhere else, it just felt so unfair.

Maybe I shouldn’t have tempted fate?

Put On A Happy Face

Isn’t it statistically true that January is the most depressing month of the year? Suicide rates or something like that? Shouldn’t all these companies laying off thousands of workers maybe have considered those rates before announcing the bad news this month?

It is a depressing world out there, people. Bad news everywhere. How are we all doing? Everybody coping okay? We’re all going to make it, right?

It’s hard to even remember that I received great news just a week ago – that I’m going to be in another show – hooray….(crickets). Right now, all my brain cares about is my sick friend, the three moles that my dermatologist is “pretty confident” will turn out to be nothing (I would prefer “quite confident,” thank you), the terrifying state of our economy, and, oh… well, that’s enough, right?

Where do we look for comfort and hope? Oh, God, right right. Except our priest just ditched us for a church in Michigan and I am feeling slightly bitter. But yeah yeah, I’ll try the whole praying thing. Honestly, usually, I turn to cupcakes and ice cream in times like this (not that I’ve ever really experienced a time like this), but the tiny shorts say no way.

So of course, I turn to Moo. Moo, whose face flooded with joy when I handed her a tube of Thomas the Train toothpaste at Target today. Moo, who trusts me so much that her new favorite game is called “throw-myself-to-the-ground-and-Mommy-will-catch-me-and-it-will-be-hilarious.” Moo, who asks Herbie, “You have good time at gym, Daddy? You lift a weight or two?” Moo, whose nose wrinkles in devious rapture when we present her with a tiny bowl of cupcake sprinkles, which she then devours like some kind of crazed mongoose – if crazed mongeese enjoy cupcake sprinkles, I don’t know. Moo, who snuggles her head into my collarbone at church and then not-so-quietly wonders if it’s time to go get some food (a.k.a. communion) yet. Moo, whose giggles cannot be met with a frown. I can’t help but smile, even when – well, even when it’s January.