i am unemployed.

for whatever reasons, it is both refreshing and bittersweet all at once. i think, all the feelings that i had at any graduation or ending-banquet-type-thing hold true here, except, here, i wasn't honestly very close with many people in the experience. but the experience in and of itself provided this relationship of sorts, and the people i was involved with were close, enough. and i feel this sense of relief and closure all at once. i had much more intelligent things to say but this why don't you shut up computer froze after a long typed out blog in the hour of 3 am and i didn't want to retype. na na na na naaaaa. oh well. that's life. and then i start over. again.

i got this call yesterday to go read for this abridged four-performer version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. i squealed in the director's ear. it sounds like speech on speed. that's hot. (oh yes, i just referenced paris hilton). and i would get to work with super fun stage combat clown and former teacher, which would be fantastic!

enough about stuff going on in my life.

on to stuff going on in me.

i am torn. i am in one of those wonderfully liminal spaces of time where i would love to just move somewhere far, far away and start over, with everything. a new me, a different time, more people i don't know surrounding me, etc.

i feel nailed to the ground of yin-ser land because of my stupid lease. at least, through august. and then i have no idea. it sounds kinda sucky, but i am considering moving in with my parents for a little while so i could just work some crappy job and save money and head out to, wherever. i don't know...that while might have to be very little, because sometimes even a day trip there makes me want to curl up and cry.

i want so badly for the house i grew up in to be filled with laughter, and happy memories. and there are a few. but more, i remember the fights and the harsh words. and so i learn every day, every moment, to try and forgive. i don't, always.

i have the kind of mind that forgets where i dropped my keys, but i can recite every hurtful word every spoken to me.....

so there's this tension of what i want, and what i remember, and how i have failed and how other's have failed me, how i have failed God, how i am not perfect, i am no where near good or holy or clean. and i read, the old has gone and the new has come, and i don't see much change.

and there's this me that is trying to grow as the artist God has gifted me to be and also the woman he has gifted me to be and sometimes i don't focus on one at all and i don't even want to talk with anyone about it.

i don't know anyone that really cares enough to listen to me through it all, this side of Heaven.

i've opened up the communication lines with God again. they were closed for a long, long while.

if i ever ever ever get married (at this point, i don't feel to called to it for a while off) i want my mom to be my maid of honor. she listens and she cries on my shoulder.

i want to be that open, that transparent, and i'm not. i'm a big fake and i don't let many people in if anyone at all.

i'm still trying to figure out if i can.

there's this point where i need to let go. like...when i care about someone so very much i can't even put it in to words and they want to move on and i know that maybe it would be better if they did but i hold on, with this death grip, and why? because i want to be a good, forgiving, good, kind, good, nice, good person. but i don't even think i am that, most of the time. it's like...this sense of obligation drives me more than anything else when i "do good". so it's not this passionate striving for good as this journey or goal- it's just this time card. and it's based on emotions much of the time. so how do i let go when i have no idea what i am holding on to?

guess i better stop waiting.

my 84 year old grandmother (in response to a goodbye and behave yourself because you've still got a few hours left of your birthday from my dad)...

"well, at my age, you don't really need to say that. although (pause for a moment of deep thought) i do wish i had someone because i'd like to see what sex was like"

oh yes. i guess, i gotta get it from somewhere (the bluntness that is).

rachel yamagata will be playing at mr. smalls funhouse this friday! still not sure if i'm going...

i had my first pf changs experience friday. it was, typical, for a chain restaurant, minus that whole plate of food falling on me as a waiter dropped a tray of food directly behind me. no harm done, i was just a little surprised...i never quite expect a plate to smack me in the back and then shatter on the floor behind me in a place of food-getting. but, i did get my sweet and sour chicken and hot tea that came in a really cool french press tea pot for free.

i feel a bit more together every day, and i think it's because i realize more every day how much not-together i am. the honesty is freeing. i am regaining my confidence, and my sassiness. it disappeared for a while, or at least it was hibernating (damn northeastern winters). another reason to move someplace mainly sunny.

i think our souls change in the winters around here. i think we become more of who we would like to not be out of sheer desparation and boredom. there's not much to do that doesn't involve five layers of clothing besides sit around and talk...and it seems that there aren't too many people that can do that/want to do that about much besides yeungling, the steelers, and other non-related gossip.

i think my soul might die a little bit each winter. at least, when the winters are so long. so is my joy conditional? it's not supposed to be...but it probably is.

i want to pet my dog.

i've been wondering...

does culture instigate myths of stereotypes of race and gender? and regardless of whether or not [pop] culture instigates these stereotypes...does it [culture] enforce our beliefs of them?

i think so.

a discussion on racism started with fellow tour actors on a two hour drive back from a show last week.

i know, i know. don't go there. nothing about politics or religion, and don't have a conversation about race issues with a group who doesn't even communicate well about loading and unloading a 15 passenger van.

anyhow...

we went there. and it all started with the siting of a confederate flag, nearly immediately followed by a comment on ignorant back-woods folks and racism.

i disagreed.

i take the confederate flag as a symbol that can represent many different things to many different people (and it does).

most others in the van were along the strong lines of it being a racist symbol and that alone.

i disagreed.

the discussion went along the lines of race issues, symbolism, the civil war, the civil rights movement, interracial dating, "reverse" racism, and more.

it was a heated discussion, but for the most part, we were able to listen to each other.

i was so interested in the initial subject matter, however, that i felt compelled to research after getting back to my apartment. i pulled out the ol' Nation of Nations book and started looking up stuff about the civil war and trying to find info. about the confederate flag. i even called dr. jay case (who was extremely insightful and helpful).

i brought up my interest and research the next day before a show and was met with some hostility. a member of the tour who was not even a part of this conversation decided to try to rip me to shreds based on erroneous "evidence" and assumptions and his feelings. i was shocked that someone would talk to me like that, let alone in front of a group of people. i had just been reading about the matthew 18 principle for confrontation and i was really appalled because the person confronting me is a Christian and has been for a number of years, and likes to let others know it. just because this person is a Christian doesn't mean that s/he is perfect (i am fully aware, as i am not). but i couldn't believe that i would be talked to in such a way...so hateful and absolutely horrid.

in my shock i responded in a negative way my self, telling the offender to do the show without me and running off, making it to an elementary school bathroom stall and climbing on the toilet so as not to be seen by any children before bursting in to tears. the pms couldn't have helped the situation but i know it was far from the cause of it.

i composed myself and came back to do the show, knowing that more than one person depended on me. i cried through half of the show. so...i have no idea if this means that i am not cut out to act or if i need to sequester myself in to serious alone time before shows/performances or what.

either way...it was a learning experience. (another one).

i know we are all horrible human beings...fallen and full of sin. i still have a hard time understanding when we hurt each other...when someone hurts me. but i am trying to learn more about not needing to always understand (and let me say, i am fully aware this is going to be a long and arduous part of the journey).

in other news...

i am freaking out because in two weeks, i will be unemployed and still have no job. i don't know if i want to stay in pittsburgh or if i want to live with my parents and work a crappy job that makes me a lot of money for a while and audition like hell or if i want to keep auditioning and work a crappy job around here, to pay my dues, so to speak.

i had an amazing audition at the Cleveland Improv. Institute. and they called me back...so i was very excited. but they don't pay for rehearsals (2x week for four months before performances start) so it wasn't realistic for me to do that financially right now.

improv. is very fun though and i hope to do more of it in the [near] future.

i need a freaking job!

okay...now that that's out of my system. i will go grocery shopping. i will hang my clothes up and be able to see the floor of my bedroom. and i will watch gosford park.