And On To The Next Big Push

So Nightmarish Responsibility No. 2 is now extremely imminent. It would be much less nightmarish had I been a bit more prepared but this is the real world and I don't do prepared. I barely manage to get up and get showered and dressed in the morning so it is unsurprising that I struggle a bit with anything that requires more organisation than just getting out the door every day. I feel bad that my lack of organisation impacts on other people but I have been part of a team from the very beginning so it isn't all my fault. I've just come out from my work appraisal where the recurring theme was "seriously, stop beating yourself up about stuff" which is a reflection of the fact that I really do know how to pile guilt on. Anyway, I've got a free evening tonight, during which I have nothing to except mend my costume from a play I was in 8 years ago (sounds like a stupid thing to do but we're doing an extract, innit), run through one set of lines, pile another set of lines (plus dubious French accent) on top of that in my brain, make an actual list as if I were an organised person, make a few phone calls meaning that me and Big Blue may well be in competition for the phone this evening for different bits of the same event, do a load of washing, make sure that I know exactly what is going on, where and when, and watch Dollhouse. Well, it's not like the latter is really contributing anything but I really, really want to watch it. Dammit.

Anyway, the dodgy French bit, which has nothing to do with Nightmarish Responsibility No. 2, is necessary because it's the bit that starts immediately after that one finishes. I'm in the unusual position of having a first rehearsal for something where I have to turn up with all of my lines learned and not really knowing the other people involved apart from having seen them on stage a few times. I guess it's like being an actual professional-type person. I wouldn't mind the line-learning thing but I quite like to hide behind the script for the first few rehearsals just to disguise the fact that I'm really terrified. I'm finding this particularly daunting because I'd like to make a good impression in order to be able to work with them again. I'd also like to be good out of sheer stubborn pride. I'm also scared because it's really tricky stuff to do with people you don't know very well - lots of physical contact - snogging and caressing and stuff. I'm expecting to be blushing for the whole rehearsal. However, I just read an interview with Michael Sheen for an Orange promotion, which I'll get back to after I have a mini-rant about due it being extraordinarily badly edited and proofread. I don't mind interviews that sound as though the interviewee is genuinely talking normally - it's quite charming. But, there's a way to do it that doesn't make the person who's typing it look like a moron. If he mentions Stephen Frears, maybe, just maybe, remember that it's spelt Stephen and make sure that you don't switch backwards from a ph to a v back to a ph. And, the biggest issue for me - this is a promotion. You are paying an actor to take part. You want to promote the actor and yourself. You know what makes you look really, really stupid? Referring to Michael Sheen as Martin in your promotional material. Twats. Deep breath, and continue. He said the following:

M: There is one other person I would like to talk about... which is the Director Declan Donnellan, who runs a theatre company called Cheek By Jowl. He had a huge effect on me as well. A lot of what I learnt about acting, I learnt from him, the stuff that I use all the time...
I remember him describing acting as being essentially "a really frightening experience," which is why everyone says, “I don’t know how you can be an actor”. A lot of what actors do is try to make themselves feel more comfortable and Declan always said, “don’t do it. Don't try and make yourself more comfortable. That's a mistake and all bad acting is based on trying to make yourself more comfortable in a frightening experience, during a frightening situation, and you have to do what you can to stop that. To allow it to be frightening and allow it to make you feel anxious and vulnerable and exposed. And that had a huge effect on me. If there was one note that anyone had ever given me in my life in terms of acting, that would be it. Don't base what you do in your work, or how you live your life, on trying to pretend that you're not frightened. Life is fairly frightening and the more you try to pretend that it's not, the more you start living an inauthentic life, and you become a more dishonest actor and dishonest storyteller... You can't connect to any emotion as an actor authentically if you can't connect to what you’re actually feeling at the moment. How can you pretend to be feeling what a character’s feeling if you're not acknowledging the essential truth of the moment, which is that you're doing something that's quite frightening?

My Window

One of the reasons I chose my room in the flat is because of the amazing window. Big Blue may well have the nicest looking room with masses of space and three wardrobes (albeit three wardrobes blighted with damp) but mine has a whacking great window and this possesses sufficient space for a seated human and several other bits and pieces. I have recently, pretty much since the summer started and the damp has been less persistent, taken to sitting in my window for extended periods. I sit on pillows, cushions, blankets, often with a glass of wine to hand, my iPod plugged in and sit for hours in my own little bubble. I cracked the lighting design there, I've written masses of stream of consciousness stuff (which I would be beyond embarrassed if anyone but me read) and I've made up playlists and learnt lines. Stevie has taken to joining me and the two of us have sat and watched our neighbours walk their dogs past our little vantage point, often doing double-takes when they see us. Stevie has at several points got distracted by her own reflection in the window as it gets darker outside and meows at herself and then at me in confusion. Last night, Big Blue came and sat on my bed with Meatball, who has a tendency to sit outside the room and complain if left to her own devices, and we chatted, in a post-party dissection type way. We'd spent the afternoon getting rained on at the Annual Bench BBQ, which normally stays rain-free - a bit disappointing - but we still got in several rounds of Novelty Flying Disc (I'm frowning at the word disc now, should it be disk? No, surely it's the right sort of disc? Disk? Disc? That has now lost all meaning to me. Carry on), which is officially a tradition of the party. It normally consists of incredibly bad aim courtesy of me and Big Sis, a lot of shouting, the loss and eventual rescue of discs in trees and at least one slapstick moment so funny that it stops play. Last year it was Penfold falling in wonderful, balletic slow motion over a bench. Yesterday, it was the moment when Finchy loosed the disc with great power between two players, who both missed it and which ended up felling the beautiful Jaspar who was in the middle of hosting. With great aplomb, he cried "ah, my last will and testicles", and a garden full of disc players were lost. I spent the evening downing water to re-hydrate myself, on the windowsill singing along to Aimee Mann and feeling deeply, deeply content.

Oh, yes...

And as a refreshing change from what is becoming an almost entirely head-clearing-out blog, this is me scamming money. I am doing the Race for Life again this year and would really appreciate donations from you lovely and generous people. Please visit my justgiving page here to give money to a really important cause.

Thank you, you're lovely!

Things To Think About At Four In The Morning

In many ways, I am in an enviable position. It is only me that I am responsible for, I have lots of people who I love and care about but ultimately there's just me. I don't have to do anything for anyone except when I choose to. No children, no husband, just two cats. I co-habit with Big Blue and we drift in and out, which suits both of us quite well - there's a nice overlap of interests and friends but not too much of an overlap. I don't have to eat with anyone, I don't have to check in with anyone (unless I, for example, walk home from someone's house in the dark and then have to text them to reassure them that I'm alive). I have things that I love - people and places and things that make me happy. I have a job that pays the bills and isn't too difficult with lots of benefits - regular hours, flexi-time and lots of holiday. Given that quite a lot of people are struggling financially, I shouldn't really complain.

So why am I still feeling a deep, deep sense of ennui? Partly, it's because I'm worn out. I've taken too much on at my busiest time of the year for work. A large part of the reason why I currently feel so low is that I am not doing my job very well. I keep making idiotic mistakes, which don't really count as mistakes, really, more like negligence. Something looks a bit complicated and I can't be bothered to work it out so I ignore it when it's a small problem and then keep ignoring it until it's become a problem the size of Alaska and I've caused problems for other people. I realised that I'd done this again today and I know how it's going to go - I'll fret about it, wake up at about 4 in the morning, panic, not get to sleep for an hour or two, then sleep so heavily that I wake up ridiculously late and have to rush around like a maniac before going to work and confessing my sins to my line manager who will look at it practically and help me fix it and make me feel that maybe it isn't entirely my fault and I'll forget about it until I do it again. When it becomes an entirely predictable pattern then I think you know that you have a problem.

I know I need to leave but I don't know what I want to do. Every time I think about doing admin, I feel really depressed. This is not what I want to be doing in five, ten, fifteen years' time. But I feel a bit depressed when I consider the options. Really, what I want to be is financially unburdened and able to go the places I want to go, meet the people I want to meet, listen to all the music I haven't listened to, read all of the books I want to, see the films I want to see, learn the things I want to learn. As I feel lower and more trapped, the less inclined I am to do all the things I want to do.

I was telling Big Sis how I feel when she drove me home from work this evening. Then I slipped into a little daydream about what would happen were I to go back in time to age 17 before I made all of the decisions that have now shaped my life but with all of the memories of this particular course of things still present in my mind. I would definitely do things differently, particularly if they didn't affect the person I've become as a result of the first choices I've made. I would take more risks, I think. Be more reassured in my intrinsic value as a human being. All things that I struggled with at that age.

The positive thing about my current way of thinking is that it ties me less to the things that I have been using as an excuse but which are essentially just my way of hiding my fear of change. I will miss my family. I will miss my friends and some good times. I may miss out on some acting opportunities. But those things will be there if the change that I am considering doesn't work.

Because what I'm gearing up to is the germ of an idea. Not an immediate one. It may take a couple of years, it may never happen (this is me we're talking about). But, it's difficult to explain, there's a person I want to be and at some point I lost my way towards becoming her.

I worry because I do this often. I convince myself that I need to get out and then stay. I look through all of the options and then decide on a route and then continue with the same habits, which compound on themselves until I'm in a worse situation than I was before. I'm dreadful for convincing myself that the safe option is best. For getting so caught up in things that suddenly a year is over and nothing has changed. If I look through my blog, I can see several instances of a new plan, a new direction and then everything stays the same. So what do I do next? How do I change? How do I become the Best Possible Alice?