On And On And On

Well, I have obviously been a tad absent from the blogging world for quite a while. There is a rather distinct reason for this.

I.

Am.

Incredibly

...

something.

Sad, distracted, lazy, apathetic, anxious... all accurate words to describe my current state of being. Not at all busy, quite the opposite in fact, I haven't done this little in years. I'm distracted from bartending school, disenchanted with theatre, and utterly and completely ready to be anywhere but this citytownspace.

My past few posts have read more like sad livejournal ramblings, and that is really not what I created this blog to be about.

When I started this blog I was all about moving forward into this industry, this Twin Cities theatre industry I was oh-so-fond of /curious about. My theatrical life was bustling, with ASR readings starting, auditioning for R&J and doing all the South business. I was excited about everything and doing more than I'd ever done. But it was too much. I got caught up in the action of it all and the life kind of faded out of me.

I was living in one of those shallow action films where so much happens but nothing's really going on beneath the surface. All I wanted to do was keep going and doing so that I didn't have to stop and think or breathe or really feel much of anything. Everything that's going on (epic explosions as Main Character A jumps off a building, love scene with Love Interest B) is perfectly marvelous... but the characters are shallow and the writing's trite and shitty.

So summer brings with it peace. A lull. And I start to think. And we all know how dangerous thinking is.

For once, I've actually come to a few concrete solutions.

I'm running away in the fall. Getting out of dodge, getting a change of scene. I'm going to move to a bigger city and get an apartment and a job in a brand new place. I'm going to have a soul searching adventure. I'm going to find myself before I lose myself in another theatrical endeavor. I may audition for schools out east, I may not. I might audition for shows after a while, I'm not really sure.

All I am sure of is that I can't stand the thought of being in a classroom right now. I want to feel alive; I want to be out in the world making real mistakes and not classroom textbooks B- mistakes. I want to get off the computer and rollerblade around the lake because rollerblading is the greatest activity man has ever come up with. I want to eat a lot of wacky foods and play with the people I love. That's what I want. I want to be with the people I love doing things I love and learning by actually BEING!!! AND FUCKING UP! I love fucking up.

I fuck up more than most people and apologize a helluva lot less. I'm just good at hiding it sometimes. Hello. Actress.

I'm probably making huge mistakes by running away to work and not go to school. I plan on going to school eventually, I really really do. I know that it will always be there and I will one day be ready for it. But that day is not today.

And I don't want to use this blog as a journal anymore.

So it may be a while.

While I take this trip.

Before you hear from me again.

Wish me luck.

Basic Space

Open air.

Going out of town for July 4th. An illicit adventure with an illicit acquaintance to shady parts of a big loud city space. The most basic space I know is the space between us. I'm excited to run away. I may not come back.

I want to get out, friends. I want to flee the city and this life that I am oh-so-unsatisfied with.

My life:

I nanny three days a week. A twelve year old girl who loves the Twilight movies, anything Justin Bieber, and absolutely nothing else. This girl doesn't like to read and she doesn't write or really seem to think all that much. I know, SHOCK!, right? But that is ALL i did as a twelve year old girl. So I'm not entirely sure how to relate to her. And I'm there for her more as a role model than an actual "babysitter." She can pretty much take care of herself, her parents are just worried about her getting into trouble with some kids she's been hanging out with. So I sit around and watch Disney Chanel and get paid $8 an hour to be a "role model" to this kid.

With this money I paid for bartending school. A totally non-legit "school" that (I hope) is going to be a fun time, that is going to (I hope) find me a job, and give me something to do with my life. The guy who runs it is kind of sleazy, but at the same time I feel as though I'll be comfortable with him. Which is cool, because I know very little about mixing drinks and it's nice to feel like I can say "What's grenadine?" and not feel like a major idiot. I signed up yesterday, received flashcards and a packet, and was told to bring my flashcards every time I come in. There's sixtyish drinks I have to memorize, from whiskey and water to sex on the beach to martinis and daiquiris... daunting tasks, right?

That's the most exciting thing I'm doing with my life. I am one boring ass 18 year old. And I kind of love it.

I'm tired of being interesting. I'm tired of falling in love and breaking hearts and having my heart broken. Tired of thinking about how people's brains work, about characters and scripts and relationships. I just want to think about my 4th of July trip, how to make a Screaming Orgasm (shot of vodka, 3/4 shot kahlua, 1/2 shot amaretto, 1/2 shot Bailey's and hazelnuts. A regular Orgasm has sweet cream instead of Bailey's), and what is going to happen to the Fishers. I'm always afraid that I'm a boring person. But the thought of having a boring life is kind of appealing to me now.

Today my loverly lover cut my hair all off. And that's barely an exaggeration.

I've had shorter hair than this a couple times but not for a few years. I love having super short hair, I love love love it. Sometimes.

I'm starting to feel like short hair suited who I used to be much more than who I am now. And I don't honestly know how I feel about that. I want to be that spunky girl with glasses and the shy smile again... but... I think I've been her all along... I just got distracted by wanting to have sex and fall in love and grow up (or maybe avoid growing up). I think now that I feel more or less grown, I can re assess that girl I used to be. Use the spunky shyness but polish it off with the maturity and sex appeal I may or may not have grown into in the past year or two.

You can be a bartender with short hair, right?

I love my house and I love my roommate and I love my city. But right now I have this feeling like nothing's going to work out like I thought it would a month ago. At the end of summer I don't know where I'll be. Here or there?

Not so basic space.

I wish it was just you and me... all the in between's driving me crazy.

Cute outfit yesterday. Forgot shoes I suppose. It happens.

Stayed in bed today. Busy week ahead of me. Work and bartending school Mon-Wednes, shopping and Eclipse with my roomie's buds Thurs, and probably leaving for the weekend Friday. Maybe Saturday. We'll see. Either way I don't have as much time as I'd like... but then I don't think anyone does. Or they have to much. Dissatisfaction, the American Way.

I wonder if anyone will get it if I just need a change of space. I've always wanted to run away and now I'm afraid I won't have the guts.

We'll see.

I'll decide when I get back.

We'll see.

People Say That You'll Die Faster Than Without Water

Things are awfully new right now.

Well, pretty much just the house.

But that's a big enough thing to make everything else feel new.

I lived in the same house since I was two years old. Well, sans last summer, but that was such an odd situation and I had 8 roommates who were all significantly older than me. I was taken care of. Now it's just me and my lovely galpal roomie. We pay the electricity every month and food et cetera. Still cheaper then paying rent, but we have cats to feed (Slice and Toast) and doors and windows to lock. Responsibilities.

I'm being trained into the living on my own thing. I really appreciate it.

In other news, I am typing from my very own MacBook :) Graduation present along with the iPod Touch it came with. Which is just dandy as the screen is broken on my old one.

I'm also really loving the lack of theater in my life. I kind of want to be a lazy kid for a while, pretend I don't know what I want to do with my life like most of the other teenagers I know. I want to play Shadow of the Colossus and read 100 Bullets. Live off Six Feet Under and comic books. It's been too damn long since I've had this much time for myself, and I want to milk it as much as I possibly can.

It's good... all this newness.

I'm saving up for a tattoo. A dot dot dot ellipses on my hip. Because the spaces between things are just as important as the things themselves, and we say more in our pauses than our words could ever dream to communicate. Should be cheap. Three black dots.

Also MN School of Bartending. $300 for a few days of training, and placement in a job. Thinking of doing it with a pal-o-mine. Because how freaking cool would I be as a bartender? Nanny by day, bartender by night.

Hell yes, please.

Also read Tavi.

What an odd post.

The Imminent Future and Not So Distant Past

That's right folks, I graduate high school ON MONDAY!!

Today I went to South, got my Senior Checklist all signed and turned in, and grabbed me a cap and gown. It was the last time I'll be in that building in a very long time. Right now, at this moment, I feel incredibly surreal.

I recently found out that I won't be getting a job through Step-Up which is a major stresser... and I got some other quite personal bad news that, though I would not classify as a "stresser", is also stressing me out. I have never felt so at a crossroads; never missed the past quite as much as I do at this moment. I just looked through some photos from a few years ago, photos for my "Emma Through The Ages" graduation board, photos from the first year I did Fringe. From the best time of my life.

Acadia was the greatest experience of my life. Fringe '07 was the happiest time of my life.

I can't decide if I'm sad about that or not. You know, it's not as if I haven't been happy since then, I just haven't been so very carefree. I was still me, still sad brooding little Emma, quiet and shy and incredibly silly... I think I just had more fun. Now I feel like I don't have enough time to have fun. Silly, childish fun, like the fun you have when you're running through the streets downtown in the pouring rain, SCREAMING your favorite song at the top of your lungs. Fun like coming home, putting all your clothes in the dryer, putting on a boy's pajamas, and falling asleep by the fireplace.

That is my favorite memory.

I miss those boys.


This is it. I wrote this a while ago.
Called it "Inspired by Condensation." I'm pretty sure it was inspired by something else.
"Laughing so hard our eyes are littered with tears and we're rolling down the stairs in Boy #2's pajamas and blankets and blankets and more blankets. We can hear the rain still dripping outside and our clothes still stuffed into his dryer, rising and falling with a 'thump... thump.' We are happier than we could ever be in our own clothes, connected now through Boy #2's pajamas. Something is holding us together almost painfully, so strong that if we were to be torn apart right now we just might break. Our friendship is made stronger by those clothes we share, Boy #2's clothes. Boy #1 has the camera now and I stand at the top of the stairs and watch them play, the beautiful boys. My hair still sopping wet and I am the only one to whom this matters, those boys with their short hair simply don't care. But I don't want to get anyone or anything in his house wet. His house is clean. Sterile. Nothing like Boy #2 but perfect for moments like this. Our clumsy uncleanliness and pure childish happiness contrast with the bright and shiny nature of his home only to make us feel more alive.
We haven't been friends for that long. And we're oh-so-close. When you've danced in the rain, sung in the rain, ran through streets in the rain with someone, you're bonded. It's an odd experience I hope every teenager has had and it means too much to put into words. The rain brings freedom, and being freed together is something you can never relive, never experience again in quite the same way.
We fall asleep by the fire and then a year passes."

It was about twice as long but I wander from that memory and go into memories of fog and snow, sad, more contemplative memories. But, that's how strongly I felt about them, about those boys and about that time of my life.

I felt free.

I miss that.

Walking across the stage next week will be an incredibly non-freeing experience. I see very little freedom about graduation, friends, I know I should see more but all I see is responsibility.

I just want the Trilogy again. To be a kid. To have adventures and laugh and... I dunno. That was before all the drama started happening, before my life turned into a teen soap opera. I miss that time.

Nostalgia, I guess.

Severe nostalgia.

Anyone know where I can get a good time machine?

Or how to rob a bank?

These are the necessities of my life, folks.

Have a good night.

Fears

It's been a while and I think I got a lot to say so I'ma do two lil' ones.

I used to write for me and only me. The prospect of people consuming my words was just too graphic to handle. Like eating meat it seems savage to me now. I picture people’s eyes scanning my words, analyzing the flavor as the rough metaphors scrape down their throats and they swallow with difficulty. They digest my words with acidic complaints. Bad puns, they say, horrible word use and awful structure. They grimace at the flavor and walk away disgusted.
Maybe I’m just afraid of being bad.
I grew up being told that I’m talented.
And never believing it.
I’m afraid of my family and my friends being wrong. Afraid I’m a horrible actress and a worse writer. Afraid that my beautiful old grandmother only said the things she said because she’s a grandmother and that’s what they do.
But I like to write.
I do.
I want to write my story about the girl who ran away. The one who ran to Brazil and closed her eyes and woke up transported. I want to write about time and pain and the beauty of this world I love so much. I want to write something beautiful and original. I want to show people the truth and beauty of this world. The leaves in the trees.
But I think that everyone wants that.
I want to create.
Wonderful performances that bring audiences to tears and scripts or stories that make people think and smile and remember why they like their lives. The leaves in the trees.
I don’t know.
Maybe I’ll just study optometry.
It’s important. Being responsible for how people see the world, making sure they see what they are meant to see. The first thing people who get glasses notice is always the leaves in the trees. I want to show them the leaves in the trees.
I guess I can do that.
Either way.
We’ll see.
We’ll see.

Of Tears and Things

Lost is over.

Lost is over and I just don't know what to do with myself.

Damon Lindelof and Jack White should really chat... they are currently the loves of my life and I would really like them to create some crazy artistic love child. Also John Hughes and Quentin Tarantino.

Anyway.

I have this issue where I cry a lot, but can never do it onstage. For instance, the Lost finale: there was this recurring theme in which characters would do a certain thing; (this is me not spoiling anything for those of you intelligent enough to invest brainspace to this work of art) it happened about six times, and I cried like a baby every time. And then, of course, at the end, when the episode and the series were really honestly actually shockingly over and done with I was a veritable puddle.

However, when the forbidden love of my life is banished and I am being forced to take an epic sleeping potion in place of being married to another man... nothing. Not even a drop.

My nurse can cry but I cannot. Sense memory is bullshit and no matter how emotional I feel I just CAN'T CRY. This makes me achingly upset, friends. I feel like a horrid actress and an emotionally immature human being. If I think, if I feel like I am tapping into the same emotions I feel when the tears DO come, and the tears won't come? What does that mean about me? As am actress, a person? I'm probably over-reacting but it scares and angers me. Because of this and other things I'm frustrated with this career I've chosen for myself.

First of all, the logical part of my brain kicked in and reminded me that this is really not a career path that will sustain me and the family I eventually want to have. But I don't want to do anything else. There's never been anything else. Since I was an infant this is all I've wanted to do... besides becoming a fairy, but I'll always be working on that one.

A-I can't cry.
B-I'm awful with people. Interacting, socializing, not to mention networking which is pretty much the bane of my existence.
C-Drama. Already, even now, even TONIGHT I cannot avoid drama with theater people. And, let me tell you, I was NEVER a fan of drama... and I am becoming less and less fanish the more and more I witness and participate (willingly or not) in it.
D-The aforementioned fiscal problem
E-It's been a while since theater has fufilled me like it used to.

More on this last topic. I've been acting without a break since last June. Since Acadia. It's been lovely; Acadia was amazing and Rabbit Hole after it was genius. After Rabbit Hole, however, it fades. Perhaps due to stupid achingly regrettable personal drama, perhaps due to the fact that the shows I participated in weren't exactly... spectacular (by which I mean I did not have the most enjoyable time doing them, or they weren't quality: either/or/both depending on the show). It doens't really matter. All that matters is that I've lost myself in all these theatrics and I need a break to find that girl I know I am and be HER for a while. No Juliet, no Becca, no Amanda, just me. I miss me.

Well... me and my loves. My lovely loves I love oh-so-much. I cannot wait to do nothing but be around people I like this summer.

Sigh.

Imogen.

Readings.

Tonight was less than pleasurable. And I won't have a break from acting doing the readings. I'll be doing more acting than I have in a while, knowing the director. Which, on the one hand, is a good thing, because it will be more fulfilling acting then I've been doing recently. And on the other hand... I want a break.

And now we get into other things. Things like childhood and memories and how I've screwed myself over.

For a while there, friends, I was happier than I'd been in a long time. And then Lost ended (for some reason it coincided with it, I'm certain it was not the cause)... and now I'm confused again. I'd say lost but it's too easy.

I have been so very busy for this past year, and I know everyone says "Senior year goes by so fast" but Jesus H. Christ! I don't even REMEMBER this past year! Highlights, sure; all the dramatic BS that is my life... that I remember.... But where the time went? ... I think it went into working hard on things I thought would make me happy. And now... I realize that I've stopped paying attention to details; I've been obsessed with the big picture, with schedules and plans and making sure I can do all the big things I want to do. And that isn't where happiness is. Happiness isn't in making plans for your dreamhouse and family when you're twelve years old, or headlining as Juliet when you're 18. It's in that boys hand in your hand, that time he called you rapturous; your best friend's laugh or that time she cut your hair in her living room, the long bus ride home where you fell asleep on each other's shoulders. Or the way college students act during finals week-that progression of sleepless stressed study eyes to relieved relaxed i'm-going-home eyes. The way that pretty girl looked as she spun around the dance floor in her fairy dress. How happy your mother gets when the sun comes out. Baking in 90 degree weather because you want a cookie, dammit!

It's in details, moments. This is what children understand but adults oh-so-often fail to remember; it's that sense of wonder and amazement at all the little things that make children so beautiful.

I keep looking at the mistakes that I've made and I forget that I make them because I get caught up in those details, those moments. And I get lost when I try to be happy because I gloss over the details, moments, and look only at the repercussions of my stupid acts. (And most of my acts are pretty stupid, even the good ones.)

This is nothing profound or original. It's "stop and smell the flowers" reworded.

But, you know what, it's how I feel.

And I don't have to figure out the entirety of my future RIGHT NOW TONIGHT. What I do have to do is curl up in my bed, call a boy I love, and relax. Because I had a bad night, true, and maybe even a bad week. But tonight I stood on campus sharing a cigarette with my mother, I got a couple laughs from audience members, and left some hilariously embarrassing messages on my loverly lover's phone.

There's good in the bad, and even if there is bad in the good, the good is ALWAYS there. And if you look for it... you can find it... and if you give it a little nudge it'll multiply for you and grow into a smile and then a laugh and the bad fade fade fades away.

Tonight was bad... but tomorrow is going to be spectacular.

Yesiree.

50,000 Copies of My Face

Oh. My. Word.

Three nights of rehearsal and then we open R&J!!!! It's so magnificently nerve-racking, these few days before opening... everyone realizes that we've got less than a week left and panic starts spreading. But coming from Private Lives, I feel immune to the panic and I just enjoy the new experience of being here with these new people doing this new thing in this new place.

I love it.

I love doing this thing I do and I almost love the fact that it takes me until show week to feel mildly comfortable with the cast. I almost love being the awkward little kid, the baby of the group, asking for rides and not being able to go out with everyone else. Almost. But not really.

It's been like this forever and I just don't know how to shake it off. I'm just shy. That's the only way I can think of to put it; I'm shy and awkward and I don't do well with people. And that's one of the things that freaks me out about this "industry." My lack of social skills may hurt my career. And I kind of hate that because I'm okay with being socially awkward in all respects but the theater bit. I like to read and write more than party (although under the right circumstances I love partying) and in big groups I get lost most of the time.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT!!!

The point is that RIGHT NOW things are going good.





I mean, look at this. This is our poster. Coin Purse took out an ad in Vitamin of that poster... 50,000 copies of my face are going to be distributed. That's pretty freaking cool, don't you think? I don't want to come off as being big-headed or anything but I'm not going to lie and say I'm not proud of myself. I am. And I love that photo.

I love my life.

Even if I am awkward and fail in situations where everyone is laughing and bantering in the parking lots and I sit on the curb listening and wishing I knew how to join in, even if I'm younger and less experienced... I have so much fun doing what I do. I love the people making the tomfoolery and I love observing even if I'm too scared to join in.

Please come see my show!! If you can't read the poster it's this Thurs-Sat (20th-22nd) and next Thurs-Sat (27th-28th) at Blank Slate theater (499 Wacouta St. St.Paul) at 7 30 PM-- it's the basement of a church. Yeah, it's that legit :)

COME!! See my Juliet!!