Making Ends Meet

Or not, as in my case. Why is it such a struggle to get to a point where I am financially comfortable? Every month I look at my bank balance and see the stuff that I owe reducing but it's all so damn slow. And until that's paid back fully, I can't leave or move on. Well, I could, if it was to something better paid but I seem to be getting less and less good at thinking about my strengths and applying them properly to a job search. You wouldn't believe the amount of stuff I've convinced myself out of over the years. Believe me, it's been a lot of stuff. For someone who's reasonably self-confident in several areas of her life, it's quite difficult to believe how much confidence I lack in my abilities as a proper working person. Part of that's because I know how lazy I am and how many mistakes I can make. I worry so much when I think of the idiotic things that I have done over the years and I watch medical dramas with the knowledge that I could never do that job - think of the number of people I'd kill as a doctor. Terrifying. I just want to not have to work - I'd like to win the lottery and never have to work ever again. I don't think I'm any good at the whole working thing. So if anyone out there is able to make any impact on that, please think of me. The dude with the big glowy finger, yes, you there, it IS me. None of this "could be" rubbish (she says, referencing an advert that hasn't been on TV for years). I doubt I'm any more deserving than any one else and, to be honest, I probably would help myself out more than other people (do I have to reiterate that I'm not actually very nice?) but I would aim to boost the economy a little bit. But mainly, I am just so sick of getting to this point every single month and having to work out that I can't afford, well, anything beyond food for me and the cats (who have put on weight, which means I have to feed them less, which is a money-saver). It gets incredibly dull. I start dreaming of all of the things I will do next month when I get paid, they're not excessive dreams: I have managed to walk in my beloved grey boots so much that I have worn out the sole. I am debating whether to get them resoled or buy a new pair as it'd be about the same price. Indulgent foods from Waitrose - chocolate tart, mac and cheese, salami, Diet Coke (which I am so addicted to. Last month I had to stop buying it and spent the rest of the month suffering serious withdrawal. Even when I'd got over the actual pain of withdrawal, I had to deal with the things that made me start doing the caffeine thing in the first place- ie lack of concentration and extreme drowsiness. There's a nice quote in the remake of Freaky Friday (mother-daughter body-swap comedy. I understand that I'm one of the only people in the world who can recite embarrasing teenage girl-oriented films practically verbatim) where Jamie Lee Curtis has an epiphany: "oh, so that's why I've been craving caffeine all day. I thought I was dying" (while I'm on this film, I do think that the fact that Jamie Lee Curtis is happy to scream at her unmade-up face in the mirror and say "Ugh, I'm like the Cryptkeeper" is completely awesome - reasons to love Jamie Lee Curtis #3). I am now back on Diet Coke and loving it but know that I'll have to give it up again soon. I know it's bad for me, I know, I know. But it is the most glorious substance in the world as well, sigh. And the advertising is actually directed at me. I laugh every time I see the advert and The Meanie at work told me that the bride reminded her of me, which I found quite flattering). I have stomped over continuity in this post with that little section, haven't I? Returning to the point - the other thing I have to do with my tiny store of money left over from my pre-established outgoings is to put some money aside so I can dye my hair again in December. I know, right - dream big.

Milestone

I had a bit of a bad week last week diet-wise. I kept craving chocolate and the bit of my brain that has been saying "no. Do you need it or do you just want it? Hmm? Think about it, kitten" was clamouring with the rest of my brain for some chocolatey goodness. So I was fretting a bit that I've been piling it on and had put off weighing myself. This week is my attempt to get back into good habits, in theory, although despite running in my lunch hour on Monday, Big Sis and I spent the evening swathed in blankets, munching chocolate cakes and watching very skinny women on two, count 'em two, modelling reality TV shows. Living, how I love thee. I'm actually starting to wonder whether Make Me A Supermodel is actually better than ANTM - possibly because Tyra is so now so insane that ANTM has become one of the oddest viewing experiences. The audition process for series 12 took place in Las Vegas (there was some pre-credit nutty justification that 12 flipped is 21 which meant gambling which meant Las Vegas. Of course, Tyra, of course, carry on, you mentalist) at Caesar's Palace and there was a whole Goddess-themed thing going on. It was so ridiculous - the trainee goddesses walking on clouds while in the background, t-shirted and sunburnt tourists looked on, Tyra making her entrance with a load of centurions as the Goddess of Fierce - she is officially delusional now. Bless her. Even the Jays are starting to look a combination of resigned/scared for their lives.

When these men are nervous of excess, the Apocalypse is probably looming.

Anyway, back to me. I decided to weigh myself this morning despite recent chocolate cake consumption and have broken a significant barrier. I've plateaued around the same point for about a month or so, which I blame on the steady number of barbecues and such that have taken place over the summer. Apparently my willpower is reduced significantly when presented with sausages in buns and cupcake on tap. Anyway, the other stone that I'm planning to lose before I reassess the situation again feels attainable. There's a weight that I have to get to for my height and that's what I'm aiming for but as I'm losing weight from the good places (boobs, seriously, I think I've gone down a cup size, which is incredibly irritating as new bras are expensive and, dammit, I have other places where I would prefer to lose weight from first, y'know?) I don't want to end up disproportionate. I'm quite disproportionate enough as it is, I've got kind of a tapered shape - broad shoulders and chest and then tiny hips. When I was getting fitted for my wedding dress, the ladies who measured me said that my chest and waist were a perfect size 18 but my hips were a size 14. Which is quite a significant difference. And another reason for not having babies - thems is not child-bearing hips. So yeah, I kind of have to see what shape I get to as I progress and whether I like it. The main reason I'm doing this is because of the extended clothing opportunities it provides (health? Like I care about health - pah!) so if I don't like how my final shape looks in clothes, I have to do something about it again.

And I finally watched Michael McIntyre last night, instead of learning lines which is what I should have been doing, I'm so naughty at the moment. Although Mrs DA would insist that that is what I should have been doing. He is very funny and I like him but actually do feel excluded by some of his humour in a weird sort of way. He does an extended bit about a Man Drawer, which is filled with useless things like ex-currency coins, batteries of uncertain life, keys from old houses, electrical leads with no obvious function and instruction manuals for things that you don't even own any more. All of which I have. Not in one place admittedly, but I know exactly where these things are in my flat. I'm also no stranger to lofts. I know it's silly but every time I hear humour about typical man things and typical woman things, I get a little riled. I can't help it. I think it's because all of that humour is based around specifics of other people but is presented as generalities so where I'd laugh at it as a specific tale of "this is my life" I get annoyed by it as "this is everyone's life". Because, in that scenario, I'm a boy. And I want to be a girl. Just a mildly unconventional one who likes the things that boys like and has her own collection of keys.

Bullied

Woe is me, kids. Mrs Drunken Accomplice is a bully. She totally keeps having a go at me for not posting enough and several other things as well. She interrogates me with direct eye contact - "have you done ... yet?" Inevitably the answer is no, at which point she continues to stare in a slightly frostier way before she flings her eyes heavenward and says something scathing about how rubbish I am. Of course, she normally hasn't done something as well so will chime in with an example of her own rubbishness. Then we get drunk to the point of stupidness, have very long discussions about extremely important things that neither of us remember the next day, although we're sure that it involved monogamy at our get-together last night, before I stagger home. Last night this was literally the case. Anybody following me would have had cause for much mirth as I really must have looked odd. I was listening to the iPod and singing along, which I do anyway to be honest, but at one point decided to check that I wasn't being followed, turned around then swayed like the drunk fool I am and nearly fell. I also decided to run for parts of the way home and, due to recent weight loss, had to keep clutching the waistband of my jeans to keep them from falling down. Good times, good times. But yes, recently I have been sent to the doctor, been forced to watch Michael McIntyre (which I haven't done yet, ssh, she'll banish me), I have to carry a capo with me at all times, contact various people, organise my 30th birthday party and post on my blog. With Big Sis as my diary and Mrs DA as my to-do list, I don't have to organise myself at all, which is probably a good thing. She's right, I am rubbish.

The Blue Room happened and was much fun. It was extremely exciting getting to work with entirely new people in a different theatre. I found both the play and the approach challenging but fun. It was quite an intense process with precious little rehearsal time and space and I didn't actually meet everybody until five days before the performance, at which point I realised that I wasn't the only one quaking in fear. I've never seen a group of actors so thoroughly cowed as we all were at the beginning of that rehearsal. The actual day was surprisingly chilled, for me at least. I was in a maelstrom of panic in the morning until the point at which I reached the theatre and got myself set up. From then on I was probably the most calm - years of doing Dude, Where's My Script having taught me what real terror is. We had a day of extremely hard work - a walk-through of the changes between scenes, then a run through and then a dress rehearsal. We finished the dress rehearsal with 51 minutes before the show itself started and that was the point when the nerves hit. A horrible, endless, not-quite hour of make-up touch-ups, mirror checks, toilet visits (I introduced the new company to the term "Theatre Bum", which is the most typical effect of nerves on digestive system. It generally disappears once stepping onstage but I do live in fear that it will manifest as a a noisy fart during a play - hasn't happened yet, touch wood), pacing and jigging. One particularly surreal moment had all four ladies not presently onstage (The Girl had the unenviable task of going onstage 15 minutes before everyone else and getting into a fake bed while clad only in bra and knickers) dancing and giggling in order to try and control the little fits of energy from excessive adrenalin. Anyone who saw the grace and poise of The Actress in her scenes would have been tickled by the vision of her bouncing in the green room to imaginary music. The performance itself went well, I think. I had a bit of a fright in my first pass across the stage when I wobbled coming down the steps and then again just walking. On flat shoes. On a flat surface. There's me trying to be all elegant. Fail. Anyway, I had the first scene to regain my composure and then was flung into my scenes, which passed by incredibly quickly. I did worry about both my French accent and the fact that my second scene primarily consisted of my walking seductively from side-to-side of this quite long stage. No more wobbles, although the chairs upon which I was "doing it" with The Student threatened to fall as they had in the first runthough. I was so relieved when we got up from them without incident. And Big Sis and Big Blue paid me the huge compliment that I seemed to glide in my scene. I'd spent quite a lot of time walking a longer way home to practise my walk and had even set up a mirror in the living room for a couple of hours to observe my feet and leg position while walking and standing so felt that the work was repaid. The only annoying thing is that my standing position is affected by the fact that I lose my balance so easily when nervous and had to take a less attractive but steadier position when onstage to counteract the fact that I wobble so much. But I loved the challenges of the show - watching everyone else's scenes while remaining onstage (and boy, were those chairs uncomfortable), moving props and furniture while retaining the mood of the piece and having to walk around the entire stage to sing during the Actress and Playwright's scene, my favourite as it was by far the funniest and the actors had, being rather underdressed, decided to fight for the duvet and ended up making themselves corpse. Fortunately, we had been told that we could react while watching so I didn't feel too guilty about giggling along. But, all in all, a very rewarding experience. I'm really hoping to work with them again as I enjoyed it so much and will pester as much as I can bear to - one of the main reasons I could never do this acting thing professionally is my unwillingness to be a pain.

But, yeah... so... monkeys! I started writing that and it looked a little bit Eddie Izzard so I pushed it that extra way by adding monkeys. Because there is no mood that cannot be lifted by the simple adding of a monkey - either real or imaginary. I want a monkey. Anyway, I'm off to be cultural tonight and support Big Sis in her theatrical endeavours this evening, which should be fun. Apparently she gets beaten up so maybe I should try and save her like the little boy in Parenthood - "They're hurting my sister!" ("he's ruining the play, he's ruining the whole play!")

Phenomenal Woman

When I was a quiet girl at sixth form college, I found this poem during the course of my A Level English Literature classes. As someone who did not like the way she looked and had no experience with boys to speak of, it gave me something to aspire to. Not beauty but a complete confidence in yourself. Every so often in the intervening years, particularly when girding my loins and about to go into battle, I would recite "I'm a woman phenomenally" to myself and get a small amount of extra strength. Now, having stumbled across it again, I felt like I wanted to share it, which may well be some kind of copyright infringement but meh, there aren't that many of you who read this blog so just, shhh, okay? Anyway, I feel oddly proud thinking of myself then and now and how I've changed. And I think that, at least sometimes, I fulfil the promise of my aspirations. So, for everybody else who doesn't fit, or who needs a bit of extra strength on bad days or who needs something to aspire to, this is Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou:

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
I'm not cute or built to fit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me,
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

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?

You Won't Like Me When I'm Angry...

Seriously, I'm starting to worry that I'm going completely mental. The amount of anger I seem to be able to conjure at a moment's notice, which wrongly implies that I have some modicum of control over the situation, is quite extraordinary. I switched from being amused to being irate within about two minutes last night. I get annoyed at people - on the phone with people asking stupid questions at work, I snap from patience to irritation as soon as someone asks me the same question twice - and there are a couple of things that are in the process of making my blood really boil outside of work. These are things that I am backing away from because I am not the best person to deal with them and am trying to be all grown up but this makes me feel all ineffectual and instead of doing something about it, I get annoyed in private which is not good for the Anger, which wants to make itself heard. But, as annoyed as all this gets me, the main reason I suddenly flipped last night was that the idea of making conversation made me want to run for the hills, which I then did. I was quite glad I wore my trainers but I've got to get a new bag as mine flaps about a bit once I put on "speed". You know, when I "run". Anyway, so running away from a large group of people consisting of family, friends and people I know (I was quite amused that Murray in Flight of the Conchords has a friendship chart. I do think of people as categories - acquaintance, friend etc but mine tends to be based on a) whether I like them and b) if I do like them, whether they have made it obvious that they like me and, preferably, call me their friend. Maybe even write it down somewhere, like a legal document. I am terrified of assuming friendship where someone else sees only "someone I know". This goes hand in hand with the way that I will spot someone I know, possibly even a friend, in public and will then pretend I haven't so that I don't have to be the one that says hello just in case I'm ignored or they really didn't want to talk to me. Have I mentioned that I have issues?) is quite an odd thing to do. Maybe the problem I'm having is that I am naturally someone who wants to talk about everything as I feel it and the fact that there are many things I am currently stifling makes it really hard to sustain normal conversations so I'm avoiding it. Jeez, that actually makes sense. So what do I do about it now? Answers on a postcard.

Here Be Mingers

So my general sense of frustration and run-downedness has decided to give itself a physical form by appearing on my upper lip in the form of impetigo. I got it twice last year so this seems karmically unfair. Seriously, what did I do to deserve this? It's normally around for about two or three weeks during which time it hurts, itches, throbs and, worst of all, makes me feel hideous. I feel like I should have a leper's bell. I know that to other people it probably doesn't look like the horrific scabrous mass it feels like to me but they should try wearing it on their face for a while and see how they feel about it then. But this one is particularly evil. I'm considering a) cultivating facial hair, b) wearing a mask and/or burkha until it goes or c) hibernation. There's another annoying element, which is the fact that I know the entire process now. I am aware that it will become scabby, then take a while to piss off before leaving an attractive red mark that will stay for months. Months! I will probably have to wear make-up and everything. Ugh. And there appears to be no way of preventing it. I use an anti-bacterial spray thingy and anti-bacterial cleanser and toner - do they work? Nope. Annoying. Also, one final word of complaint for this paragraph, the antibiotics make me feel nauseous. That is all.

Play Hangover

Ems described it thus. That fug that colours everything post-play. When it's something that grips me as much as Closer did, it's a longer hangover and I'm not sure whether I'm really out of it. I really made myself vulnerable and open during the run and I don't seem to have regrown my armour again yet. I feel very emotionally exposed and all the things that I'm normally able to ignore - sense of general frustration and penned-in-ness - are there all of the time. I feel like a caged animal, just prowling around my boundaries and trying to find a point of escape but don't seem able to do it. I just watched Road, the next production, in my capacity as lighting designer (I don't know what I'm doing, ssh, don't tell anyone) and was shocked by how much of what the younger characters were expressing felt relevant to me. There should be more. More possibility. More magic.

This sense of feeling penned-in was one of the factors that broke up ToyBoy and me. I love him to bits but needed to be alone again and he felt the same and we'd got to a point where we were being irritable, which went against everything that had brought us together in the first place. It's made me think about what I really want. It all depends on who or what happens to me but I really don't feel, at the moment, like I want anything conventional at all. Not marriage, not domesticity, not children. At the moment I just want freedom. I want to live somewhere different for a while, a new city maybe. I want a new job, something that I maybe don't have to go to every day and which doesn't make it so easy for me to just sit there and let my thighs accumulate fat. I'd like to see new things and force myself out of my fear of change. I feel like I'm on the edge of something. I just need to wait until my responsibilities are sorted. And then I will wait and settle back into my comfortable rut and never do anything.

This is a pretty shapeless post, sorry. I guess the inside of my head is just feeling quite fragmented at the moment. Caged tigers lack concentration.

In Its Grip

I am currently taking a week off from work, hence posting at night rather than in the daytime. It feels very luxurious, in much the same way that waking up this morning naturally (without any alarm or need or anxiety!) felt extremely luxurious. As always, I have managed to be quite fantastically lazy. Although I must say that I really, properly needed to be. I hurt with tiredness on Saturday and felt that the play was going to break me. Last night, one of our nights off in the run, I had a rehearsal for The Overcoat, which is something I'm doing separately from the Bench, and I could barely stand for the length of it. I was grateful for the distraction provided by Steve and Meatball who were being tarts. Steve joined in with perfect comic timing - a meow response to a question, which creased up the company for a few moments. They are the world's best cats.

The play is going well. I'm currently feeling rather torn by it. Normally I wish a run could just carry on, but this is one of the first plays that I've done where I've almost needed it to end when it ends. I feel both sad and relieved after each performance. And that's probably how I will feel on the last night. I love doing it but I really don't know how good it is for me. I've really been living both in and as my character and it will be a wrench to say goodbye to that. I think Toyboy will be relieved. He loves acting as I do but has never lost himself in a play or character as much as I have in this so I think he has a bemused/jealous/wistful thing going on, particularly when his girlfriend starts acting in a rather schizophrenic fashion. When he saw it for the first time, he was surprised by how many lines he already knew - mainly because I'd been quoting it for months without realising. I stopped myself when we were talking last night because I smiled like Anna, which I have a feeling is going to be the case for a while.

I got a good review, which stunned me rather. I'm quite used to being forgotten in our local paper, so it was rather a shock to be reviewed in such a glowing fashion, although I always feel that he can't compliment one cast member without detracting from the achievements of the others. When it's a real group effort, which this is, we are working so hard together, it feels like a shame that any one of us is singled out, so much as I appreciated the praise there was a downside. And also, the pressure is immense. The second night was terrifying as I suddenly realised that I had to live up to expectations. The other reviews that we've had have been more evenhanded, which is a relief. My performance is one that I'm really proud of but it's grown out of responses and feelings and ideas that all come out of what everyone else has put in.

Right, I'm off to bed. We had a good audience tonight. There were quite a few of Beanie's students, which made things quite entertaining. Every time he swore there was little titter, bless them. I missed Ems, which was gutting as I really wanted to see her afterwards, mainly to get praise but also because I knew how much she loves the play and wanted her honest opinion. Which I'm looking forward to from Mrs Drunken Accomplice on Thursday as well. But right now I'm knackered so bed it is, although I have a heap of gunk to remove first! Ugh, makeup and heels, two things I'll be glad to see the back of, if nothing else.

Raring To Go

There's always a point in the preparing of a play when all you want to do is get on with it. Everything is ready, you've done as much as you can really do without killing the spirit of it - being overprepared can be as bad as being underprepared. And you just want and need an audience to lend you that je ne sais quoi that is the point of the whole endeavour. The actors need the adrenalin and the unpredictability that are the reasons why acting in a theatre has to be a better thrill than working in film or TV.

Tomorrow is the opening night of Closer. We've done our dress rehearsals, we all know what we're doing, the director thought that last night was "an absolute blinder" and the general feeling is a positive one. It was a bit of a funny one for me last night as I feel just exhausted. I've not been sleeping very well - the excitement at everything coming together last week, nerves, the responsibility of the costumes, and actually a certain amount of emotional upheaval. It's funny but I've really felt that it's burrowed under my skin. I don't know why, partly I think it's because the entire focus of the play is on the relationships and the associated emotions. There's no let up from the inner lives of the characters - it goes from intense conversation to intense conversation. It's very difficult to switch off from. So, due to the sheer weariness, last night felt a little bit like I had to really push it hard. I had a note from the previous night's dress rehearsal about always standing in the same position, which I had been worrying about but wasn't sure what to do - just change the legs? And then I got out there and looked a) like I was about to fall over or b) like I didn't know what to do with myself. Both of which were true. I also forgot a costume change, ironically as I had designed them, which meant that Big Sis as the dresser didn't think to correct me. I got the change done but then forgot to take on a prop and had to improvise. It's funny though, as soon as you distract yourself like that it really changes the way you play it and particularly useful for that scene as I'm supposed to be completely wrongfooted on my entrance. My Dad tells a story of a director who moves props marginally on a set so that actors are forced out of doing things automatically and it does work. As soon as you hit that point where you are thinking on your feet and trying to listen to what you're saying and what people are saying to you, it does become a bit more real.

The plan for tonight is that I just chill, I'm hoping that this helps with the whole sleeping thing. If all else fails, there is the wine! However, the main part of the problem is that I really, really want to get on with it. No matter how tired I am, I just wish it was Thursday night at 6.30 and I could get settled in the dressing rooms, talk bollocks with McFarley for a bit while changing (it fascinates me that she, one of the most beautiful people I've ever actually met in real life, has issues with the way that she looks. Us women are a bit mental), then get on with doing what I love best. I just wish life onstage lasted a bit longer. I like a world where I know what I'm saying all the time, where I know how to react, where I'm not goofy or weird. I like feeling an audience move with me, or against me depending on the part, it's such an awesome sensation making people laugh or cry or gasp. I hope this difficult, emotional, funny and cynical play grabs people in the way that I feel I've been grabbed by it in the process. All we can do is hope and I just can't wait until I know.

Starting to Focus

Although I say that, I had a remarkable lack of focus last night at rehearsal. I was doing really well, no giggling, no nothing, not even on the line that cracked me up last time we did the scene. Then, as I was doing some intense, lovelorn staring at McBride, I saw Beanie jump up in the corner of my eye as if suddenly remembering that he needed to be on and that was me done for about ten minutes. After trying to run it several times, we finally got through to the end of the scene, with me making strange wheezy, hysterical noises and trying not to cry with laughter. Then, as quickly as it had arrived, the corpsing stopped and I was on dry land again. It is such an odd phenomenon and hugely frustrating because, a lot of the time, the trigger is something not even faintly amusing and I don't even know why I keep laughing, but laugh I do and can't carry on sensibly until it's run its course. The worst one is still Dead Funny when we had our first custard pie rehearsal. I saw Big Blue get hit square on in the face with one, carried on for a bit and then just had to sit down and howl for a good five minutes. To be fair, though, with that one, seeing someone get hit with a custard pie is genuinely funny. As was smacking eggs on McBride's head in The Cripple of Inishmaan. Every so often I wish there were more instances when cracking eggs on someone is an acceptable thing to do. It's extremely satisfying.

I must admit that I do still want to find something to blame. Tiredness is always a good one as I am prone to hysteria when weary, and I do feel more than a little weary. I'll blame that.

But anyway, apart from the hysterics, it was a positive rehearsal last night. I am starting to feel that Anna is coming together. I've found my link with her; sarcasm as a defence mechanism. It's quite interesting because I've been consciously trying to stop myself from being overly derisive and sarcastic when on edge in recent years. It caused a lot of grief with the ex and it also made me feel extremely guilty when I'd lash out too quickly. Although it is still a weapon in my arsenal, I try not to let it be my first response. So, as Anna, I've got this immediate resource to draw on, in terms of lightning strike sarcasm and the insecurity that lives beneath it. It does imply a mere shell of confidence and I like that we have that in common. It makes her feel more like me and less like someone I'm intimidated by.

My Mum and Dad gave me some ideas to think about, which I have yet to implement. I tried yesterday but it didn't quite work so that's one to play about with a little bit more. I was quite amused that their consensus was that I am generally less good at playing normal people. I think my secret has to always be that, when tackling people who are normal, I have to drag them down to my level. Find their inner weirdo.

Now, if I could just conquer that giggling thing...

Tomorrow, or maybe Friday...

So, I had originally intended to post on Monday about this whole play thing as I've been pitched headfirst, overbalancing slightly, into rehearsals for Closer as of Sunday. We'd had a couple of preliminary meetings; a readthrough and a long discussion on characterisation, using personality tests as the main focus, which was new and different, but Sunday was our first standing-up-moving-around-doing-talking type rehearsal. I had been struggling with the character and the play since being cast. I feel a little intimidated by the character, she feels a bit like the cool girls in school to me. Effortlessly well-groomed, sardonic, completely comfortable with themselves and their attractiveness, intelligent and flirtatious. Next to them I always felt a bit like an idiotic and clumsy child, as I struggled to understand boys, do anything with my hair or have any conversation outside of my immediate, similarly insecure and socially inept, group of friends. So to be playing the character feels strangely presumptuous. Like I'm trying to be someone I'm not. Which is a funny way to feel, given that is what a lot of this acting malarkey is, in essence . However, I'm perfectly content to be an Irish egg-throwing bitch, or a sad and broody victim of infidelity or even Charlotte Bronte. I'm not saying I found those easy but I could really relate to them; they were all a bit on the edge, all misfits in their own special way. Anna is almost terrifyingly normal. And it seems like a very silly thing to say, but I'm not sure how good I am at being normal.

My insecurities about the character are really bleeding into rehearsal, so I spent all of Sunday's rehearsal feeling, and probably looking, like a skittish colt. Suffice to say, terrified is not really how I see Anna. On Tuesday's rehearsal, I was less obviously nervy but I'm so thrown by the intensity of the part and the play that I kept corpsing. I had to keep apologising and didn't know how to explain that it was nerves not concentration that was the problem. And everyone else seems to find it all so easy in comparison. On the plus side, I'm kind of getting there in my head so I think I should get better at each rehearsal. For a start, this has given me the drive I needed to just get on and workout/stop eating crap. Knowing that people are going to come and see me in a play where I'm described as "beautiful" and "bloody gorgeous" is quite a good reason for me to do something about my appearance, or at least the way that I feel about my appearance. I've been trying to move differently when walking and I take more stock of my surroundings, including the people I pass, and ideas or reactions from them. I've managed to learn my lines for most of the scenes that I've already done, which is something I don't normally do so early on, but the rhythms and patterns of the language are such that it just goes in and stays there. I've been trying to think of people who remind me of Anna so that I've got a hook to start with in terms of voice and movement. I'm getting there, I just hope that the nerves die down so I can get on with it. I've got this image in my head of what I want to project. But I found a nice Mamet quote about acting while looking for something else. I do agree with him, and it is something I try to do - not to do too much but to find a way to be as honest as possible so that the audience can feel what I'm feeling:

It's not the actor's job to embellish the play, but to do something more worthwhile and difficult: to resist embellishing it. It's when one resists the impulse to help that the truth emerges. The great actors I've seen in movies or on stage are capable of being quite still, and letting their uncertainty, fear and conficting desires emerge rather than trying to cover them up with their ideas.

Back in Business

I'm back at work after a very odd week off when I had a cold. I'd feel guilty about taking time off on Thursday and Friday, and then spend an hour coughing up mucus, which made me feel less guilty as I wouldn't have really wanted to do that at work. But I felt switched off for the whole week. I finally felt better on Saturday and it was as though I got switched on again and all the stuff that I'd forgotten to do came flooding back. Never a fun experience. Now, first day back, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and my hormones have ganged up on me. You'll be glad to know that I have just deleted a lengthy paranthesis debating the use of the word "ganged"; you dodged a bullet there, gentle reader, mainly because I'm not as good at grammar as I wish I was and didn't really know what I was talking about.

On Monday I valiantly struggled into work so I could have my interview. It went very well and my interview technique, which I will patent as the "what would Mrs Drunken Accomplice do?" technique, was quite successful. In the end I was their second choice which, dagnabbit, meant I still didn't get the job but my confidence is greatly improved. I then crawled home and spent most of the week curled up on the sofa. At least I got to see Toyboy a lot who is very proficient at hair stroking and being a human pillow, both of which are essential attributes for looking after me when I am poorly.

Eeshk, I write these gradually during the day and the end of the day came much quicker than expected today. I may, if I feel inclined, post again tomorrow. How exciting for you all.

Obsessions, niggles and just plain avoidance

Oh good lord. I'm supposed to be filling out two, count 'em, two application forms for two separate jobs for which the closing date is tomorrow. Why can I not just get on and finish them? To be fair, I am, on the whole, doing my actual work, but I really can't seem to be able to just get down and write my personal statement bit. I know what needs to be in there and how to sell myself but the act of actually getting it down on paper is causing me forehead wrinkles. And a red eye, apparently. I scared myself when I saw my reflection in the mirror, I looked a little bit like Trog's family in Trog and the Fire when they made a fire without ventilation (I've just been searching the interweb for a Trog screenshot but couldn't find one. Although I now wish to play the game Trog and see the film Trog, with Joan Crawford. Now that, my friends, is how to do some good, old-fashioned timewasting).

But my other obsessions are still jostling for superiority in my limited brain space and I do struggle to take my mind off of them, even if it jumps straight onto another one. The cats have been an obsession, with various minor ailments requiring treatment, this has led to a dip into my savings and a big dip into the generosity of my parents. This in turn leads to money obsession and then onto food yada yada yada.

The fun obsessions make life worth living. Currently I am obsessed with Adam and Joe, whose podcasts make me particularly happy if a little bit mad as I giggle in a solitary way on the train or in an office. The Temp, who seems to find me a particularly fascinating and hilarious human being, often gazes at me while giggling just for the joy of it. I like it, it reaffirms my belief that I am funny without needing to make too much of an effort. And she's not deranged in the way that that makes her sound. She's quite normal really, and I will really miss her when she goes next week. The other bad thing about the Adam and Joe thing is that I get behind on the podcasts and end up listening to the same ones a few times, which in turn leads me to quote it randomly in a way that makes absolutely no sense to anyone else. Fortunately Beanie commenced listening to the show recently and now at least understands "Stephen!"

I've also mourned the end of one of my obsessions as I have been joyfully taping the Gilmore Girls on E4 since September and I finally got to the final episode the other week. I cried. I am a big girl's blouse. I also wish that I was Lorelai Gilmore and lived in Stars Hollow. It started again from the beginning immediately after finishing so if you fancy watching something with completely random cultural references, girls who talk very quickly and the occasional bit of heartrending loveliness, go for it. Please see below for a quote (note to the wise, Lorelai and Rory are the mother and daughter Gilmore Girls. They are not sisters as my Mum asks every time I tried to make her watch it. Emily is Lorelai's mother and they have a less harmonious relationship and spend a lot of the time trying to torture the other in their own ways):

Lorelai: Heh, you know what I just realized? "Oy" is the funniest word in the entire world.
Rory: Hmm.
Lorelai: I mean think about it, you never hear the word "oy" and not smile. Impossible. Funny, funny word.
Emily: Oh dear God.
Lorelai: "Poodle" is another funny word.
Emily: Please drink your drink, Lorelai.
Lorelai: In fact, if you put "oy" and "poodle" together, in the same sentence, you'd have a great new catchphrase, you know? Like, "Oy with the poodles already."
Rory: Hehe.
Lorelai: So from now on, when the perfect circumstances arise, we will use our favorite new catchphrase:
Rory: Oy with the poodles already.
Lorelai: I'm telling you, it's knocking "Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" right out of first place.

My other obsession is the play that I've been cast in. It's a nice truth that every time I approach a play I worry about the fact that I'm doing something new. Yet again, it's a new challenge and one that really unnerves me as it is someone who is very different from me. I feel like I need to change the way that I move and look and my thoughts revolve around how to achieve this. I also want to get started so that I can put some of the ideas into practice. Very impatient!!!

Argh, I really should get going with the whole statement thing. It was a fun diversion, though. Ugh, on with selling myself...

Pretty but Insane

Hola! I just read a very funny post on one of the blogs that I read every day (is it comforting to know that although I am rubbish at getting on with writing them, I'm still reading them regularly? Nah, not so much) and wanted to share the love. I love Go Fug Yourself, full of witty snark and references to incredibly random pop culture, my favourite posts are the sections narrated by the magnificent J-Lo. So here's one of them bits for your edification. It's been quiet in the world of J-Lo 'cause of the twins and quiet on the Britney front, my other favourite narrator, so thank God she's back on track so that they can start mocking her again.

Things are going well in Kitten-Land. I'm currently cream-crackered as we're doing Wind in the Willows at the moment. It's our big Christmas show and we do these every other year because they're so ginormous - lots of props, fancy set and lots of characters played by a large cast who still have to do a lot of doubling. I've got five costumes and six costume changes and it is a little crazy backstage. We had Dress Rehearsal #1 last night and it was a real relief to know that I had time to actually do the changes, although I didn't exactly help myself by putting my boots on the wrong feet. It was like that bit in The Longest Day, except that I had time to change them over and didn't get shot. And I'm not German. And it isn't D-Day. So, okay, not so much like that bit in The Longest Day.

Big Blue and I are happy in our little flat; despite fun and games with mould and condensation, we've decided to extend our Tenancy Agreement. I'm thoroughly enjoying spending time with ToyBoy; we have a lot of fun. He dances with me, we warble away randomly and both of us are those annoying people who snog publicly, which is me making up for lost time from my barren teenage years, I think. Money is still an issue but meh, I'm coping. Family is well, parties are planned and I'm nearly there with Christmas, although I have completely given up on doing cards. The cats are well; Steve has resumed up her habit of snuggling under the duvet with me in the mornings while Meatball bullies Big Blue into playing the Light Game with her. In the rare evenings when we're all in at the moment, they take turns sitting on us while we drink wine and admire our Christmas decorations. It isn't perfect all the time, but it is really nice.

Unoriginality

I feel like the world and his wife is probably writing about money troubles. It's one of those things that everyone has niggling away at them at the moment. But this blog is nothing if not about the niggles in my brain and as a blog starts off as an entirely self-indulgent medium in the first place, you know what you're getting when you come over here.

I used to be really good at money. I knew how much I had and was always able to say no to stuff. I don't know when exactly the switch flipped in my brain that said "you have money so spend, spend, spend until it's all gone" but I wish I knew what to do to switch it back again. I read a financial advice column in the paper about a girl who is in a similar financial situation to me (although she definitely gets paid more because her little treats involve designer names) and the advice was that it's a slog and pretty thankless but the only way to get out of it is to save and pay things off and stop spending. And I, in my rational mind, know that this is brilliant advice. And yet, I keep spending. Annoyingly, this is also tied in to the compulsive eating part of my personality which spends way too much money on food and eats it too quickly. So I know that were I to put a stopper on the spending, I would also be able to lose weight. Which, on both sides, would be amazing. Losing weight would also mean that clothes shopping would be a) possible and b) more fun as it's easier to go charity shop shopping at a smaller size. People my size who give clothes to charity shops tend to have really bad taste in clothes, I don't know what that's all about. Obviously, I buck the trend.

The worst thing about stinting is getting obsessive about the clothes I'm not buying and the food I'm not eating. I hate being the boring girl on a diet who can't think about anything else. Life's too short.

Hoorah

So I totally passed my driving test yesterday. It still feels a bit unlikely. I kept putting off getting behind the wheel, mainly because of expense (and it was gosh-darned expensive so that was probably a good decision) but felt a bit strange about not being able to drive. And I have been, more and more, feeling the need, the need for speed. Or just the need to take the cats to the vet without having to disrupt other people's afternoons, or go shopping for furniture, or go on a daytrip out somewhere unreachable by train. I'm only using my Mum's car at the moment and I have no plans to buy my own car but just having that license is incredibly liberating. And such a relief. Weirdly though, I feel under pressure to be excited about it. People keep asking me whether I'm excited and whether I've already had a test spin and when I'm going to go out for the first time ya da ya da ya da. But why do I have to be so goshdarned excited? Is there something wrong with me that I'm mainly just relieved? I kind of feel that I've been so focussed on getting the job done that I'm slightly surprised by the fact that I have to do something afterwards. I think I've just got to get used to it first and I object to having other people's preconceptions forced upon me a little bit as well. Which is generally how I react to most things; a bit complicated, get confused and worried that I don't feel a certain way about things, get annoyed at being expected to feel a certain way about things and then relax. It's busy up in here, you know?