Up To Speed

Since last I wrote here is a rambling list of what I've been up to:

I woke up in a friend's bed in Vancouver covered in bedbug bites, I bought three new pairs of shoes, I dug out all my summer clothes from #206, I took two steps forward and then one step back in terms of my commitment to my current relationship, I had a very expensive massage at a very expensive spa, I pulled an all nighter, I was proposed to (and not by Leon), I paid way too much to see a not so great musical, I had mind blowing sex, I got a chiropractic adjustment, I learned a lot about the power of negotiation, I shuddered at just how many ghosts really do exist for me in Vancouver, I met Leon's mom and brother, I downloaded some cool, new software onto my MacBook, I decided that my hair is starting to look like Garth's from Wayne's World, I had a 'cheat day' from my diet and enjoyed it thoroughly, I napped on the ferry, I found out that Anything Goes has already broken Chemainus' record in ticket sales after only one week of being open, I sat by a bonfire under an island sky, I scratched my bites and thought about Jordan, I worried about my hamstrings, I found out someone else I know is pregnant and this time the news really rattled my soul, I generally spent too much money, I wasn't sure if I was glad to return to Chemainus or just glad to escape a city filled with so much history, I smiled alot, I felt Martine's boob, I shopped for camping equipment at Canadian Tire and I tried yet again to be at peace with the uncertainty of my future.

Ya gotta love a run-on sentence.:-)

Ah, Genetics

Can you tell that we are related?? LOL. Ohmygod...my niece Emma, posing, exactly the way I would have at that age. Adorable, wonderful sweet lil' one. Ah, my first day off already done ... and it has been heavenly. I love my friends and I love Vancouver and I am totally, head over heels in love with Leon. Having him here in the city with me...well...really...it is...perfect.

If only every day could be a day off.

Baby Crazy

It feels like everyone in the world is having a baby.

Sharmaine sends me pictures of Bennett, a miracle baby as she was told by many doctors that she would most likely never conceive. My old friend Scott informs me on Facebook that he is now expecting and I find out on SJ's FB wall that her brother has just had his first, born into this world only yesterday. Charlie, newly moved to Houston with wife Chantelle, sends me an email with his new contact info and baby pictures and Enid-Raye and Bryce, buddies from CSL, shop around photos of Enid's beautiful bump. My ex Ryan can't help but email several updates of his baby Julia and Mark, who plays my husband in Murder on the Nile, announced a couple of weeks ago, that he and his wife are expecting their second. Christian, a college pal, will be welcoming his first into the world any day now and Kim from elementary school is adopting a baby girl from China.

And I am only getting started.

It is wild. Is it another baby boom or is my 30 year old uterus just noting all these infants with sharper than normal spidey-senses? Today at supper, I was driving along and almost crashed into a telephone pole because I saw a woman pull this beautiful baby out of a stroller. Who am I? I never used to be this girl! You know the kind, the kind that gets all soppy and sappy at the site of babies and secretly wishes to be pregnant. The truth is that I am not even remotely in a place in my life to have a baby. In fact, if all goes well, I will possibly have an IUD in place by the end of June. I might be in love, but am not convinced that Leon is daddy material and sometimes I am such a neurotic mess that I am pretty sure I would be a terrible mother.

And yet, and yet. I feel like I am missing out. My heart aches to shop at Babies'R'Us and longs to decorate a nursery. Like it or not I have become one of those girls. Now, I just gotta figure out my life a bit more so that a baby could possibly fit into it. Perfect. That should only take another 8 or 9 or or or..oh, who am I kidding?

Damned clock.

Alone at 3:00am

I opened the show tonight. I gave it my all and I twinkled. I did what I could do because that is why I was hired and because I like my cast and crew. If anyone deserves my best, they do.

But here I am, 3 o'clock in the morning, sitting in my bed alone and feeling - I dunno - numb. Bland. Beige. I hate to slime my negativity all over Leon and because of that - and the fact that he chooses to, on a daily basis, consume more alcohol than I know how to accept - I opt to come into my bedroom and sleep alone. I can't help but question if I am a very good girlfriend or performer and am pretty sure that if I could smear away the numb, I would find a swamp of self-pity, self-loathing and self-obsession. Ug, sounds like the perfect description of an actor.

During one the numbers tonight, as I bopped up and down in my bright blue bathing suit, I started to fantasize. It started with the memory of the coffee shop that Jordan and I went to the day he left me. It was in Kits and it was riddled with upwardly mobile couples, pushing their beautiful children in much too expensive strollers. Man, did I stare after these people's lives longingly, sitting beside a man I knew did not want to marry me or have a child with me. So, tonight, behind the protection of my prop sunglasses, I shut my eyes and pictured what I might be doing at that exact moment if I was living the life of one of those couples. I certainly wouldn't be wearing a blue bathing suit and singing with fake high squeeled excitment. I imagined that I would be in my home in Kits, curled up on a big, puffy couch, fire lit, reading. We would be playing Ella in the background and beside me on the end table would sit the baby monitor. My partner, funny and sweet, would be working on the tail ends of some creative endeavor - a painting? his novel? some composition piece? maybe even a design proposal for an advertising agency? We would be content and there would be no spotlights or applause. Since it is my fantasy, the evening would end with him and I stepping into the baby room's together to take a quiet look at our proudest piece of co-created art and then we would retreat to our amazing master suite and have great sex.

This kind of life used to be my definition of hell. It was too simple, too predictable, too suburban. Now, as I run off the stage hell bent for leather, ripping off my blonde wig to replace it with a black one as several different hands tear off my current costume while I hop on one foot toward my next entrance desperately trying to jam my red tap shoe onto my other foot before the next count of eight begins, I long for this simplicity. Now, as I watch my boyfriend shmooze and network the way every actor needs to as he cracks his fourth beer, casually flirting with the ASM as he reads a text message from his ex-girlfriend all the while checking out the possibilities of returning for next year's season, which would mean, of course, a result of him being gone for six months, I long for that simplicity. Is it because I am thirty and suddenly feel too old for all that crap? Or is it really just the grass-is-always-greener sydrome?

Two more days and I will be back in Vancouver for THREE DAYS OFF IN A ROW. Sheesh. My pulled hamstring, tired voice and battered soul needs these three days, like a crack addict needs their pipe.

It's gotta be only uphill from here.

Ex Sex

A week before opening and I can honestly say that being in this show is about as much fun as a root canal in hell.

Ooooooooo, yeah. I left the 'husband' for a reason. Why I thought getting back together would be a good idea, I am not sure. "But we have both changed," I thought. Lies, lies, lies. "It wasn't the fault of the marriage itself, but the attitude toward the marriage that was the problem!" Um, wrong again. I asked theatre for a divorce because when we were together, the worst was brought out in me. But then I went out into the world and found it really hard to 'date' all these new career paths that didn't quite fit either. So, alone and frustrated, my ex stumbled back into my life and held out a hand. And having had my heart newly broken, I panicked and fell backwards.

So, here I am. Lying awake in the bed of my ex-husband after some almost-good-but-really-just-a-bit-better-than-mediocre sex and my arm is stuck under his head. My entire body is going numb and I can't sleep. In fact, all I can think is - I shouldn't be here. I don't like who I am when I am with this man. I am whiny and insecure and negative. Here I am with my arm stuck under his arm as he snores away, perfectly content, and all I want is to slowly remove my arm so that he stays sleeping peacefully, get on a midnight ferry back to Vancouver and watch the horizon until he is, once again, a memory.

It has been said that when I bump into conflict, I run away. From relationships, from jobs, from friendships. This isn't all that inaccurate. But I have been married to the stage since I was four years old. And it seems that with theatre, running has been the thing I have been the least successful at accomplishing. It is the dysfunctional partnership that I can not tear myself away from. I love it and I hate it. I ran in 2004 and it sprung me into one of the most beautiful, painful, lost chapters of my life. It launched this Finding Me website and a journey of redefining myself. There has been nothing easy about being lost about what to do for a living, about how to love fully and completely, about who to be if I am not a dancer, singer, actor. But at least I wasn't taking the easy way out. Being back here, backstage pressed up against a brick wall, diminished and serving nothing but my ego, I am doing what is easy. It isn't less painful, just a pain that I am familiar with -- and somehow I let myself rest inside of that. Perhaps I needed to rest. Perhaps.

But now the sun is dawning and I am remembering that Safe is not the solution.

Hardest thing to accept is that now that this bed is made, now that my arm is stuck, I am going to have to lie in it...and under it.

At least until he wakes up.

Eggs and Ham and A Whole Lotta Cheese

With the cleanse over, I have started to once again Somersize and am, thank god, losing weight. For the first time since Christmas, I am pulling on my jeans without worry and smiling as I run my hand over my flat tummy. It is like letting myself out of a sort of prison of constant bloating and heaviness. Yes, I crave Dill Pickle Doritos in the worst way, but at least with Somersizing (which is essentially just food combining) I am no longer constantly hungry. I am feeling good about myself...except when I have to wear the tiny red, satin shorts and bathing suit costumes in Anything Goes. Wearing bathsuits under blaring lights beside tall, leggy women that weight 120 pounds is always a humbling experience.

Another thing that I have been up against in the last few days has been the coming to terms that I have fallen in love with an actor. Which means...ahhhhh, geeeee...which means a lifetime of contracts out of town, long distance relationships and plans that get cancelled and changed to accomodate auditions, last minute show opportunities, etc. All my Aidan wounds come rushing back to me when Leon turns to me and asks...how will you feel if I come back to Chemainus next year for the summer season? Ug. It just exhausts me. I have to then start networking myself to find out if I could get asked back and then return with him or come to terms with a guaranteed six months apart. We already have to be apart for two months in the fall when I do the Saskatchewan Artist's Workshop tour. You see what I mean? It all just starts to sink in...in love with an actor. Being a contract worker myself. Wanting to support him doing what he loves, but wanting to actually have a boyfriend that is around. Hard. I have been in this place and it was never easy. I am not sure how to do it differently this time around and I sure can tell you I would like there to be different results.

And, of course, I have to go now to rehearsal. We open this show in a week and time is of the essence. I will blog more when things settle down. All is well, I am happy, busy, getting skinnier.

Red tap shoes await.

Room mates are anxiously waiting at the door.

I must say farewell.

Bye.

The Basement Online

Over the last couple of months I have collected many photographs of the antics that Leon, Sylvie and I have gotten up to in our apartment, infamously coined "The Basement"...

Here are some of my favorites collected in the newest of Konkin's Kick Ass Photo Gallery...

Breaking The Mold

In about a month I will turn 31. And before I leave behind this monumental 30th year of my life, I wanna break as many molds as possible. Rock my own boat. Shake things up. Challenge the stories I have told about myself to myself for a long time.

Two really cool molds that I have already broken are as follows: I have been cooking! Nothing spectacular, but I have been doing more than pouring myself a bowl of cereal or poppin' open a bag of chips. I have been turning on stoves all of my own accord and making myself the wonderfully bland concoctions of brown rice and veggies that I am allowed to eat on my cleanse (which is going quite well...I mean, I could eat human flesh I am so hungry, but other than that, a true success). Before the cleanse, I made Leon a great Pad Thai which took two pots and a frying pan all going at the same time! And I feel more motivated then ever before to try new and different things in the kitchen. Small steps, but that is a HUGE mold to break.

Another thing that I did at the urging of my darling Leon, is eat fish. I have said that I hate seafood for sooooo long that I couldn't really remember what it was about seafood that I disliked. So, Leon put a piece of wild BC salmon in my mouth and told me to chew (he is quite bossy with me, which is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me...lol). I chewed and you know what? It wasn't that bad!! Then on Monday night at the Campbell's I ate an entire piece of Halibut and didn't mind it. I didn't LOVE it, but it wasn't at all replusive either. Fascinating!

Two other things I might try in the next four weeks as part of this mold breaking plan --- go for a run (in celebration of my time with Jax) and try smoking pot. Just once. Once for each. Except running --- if I like that, for some reason, I will continue on. As for the pot, It is more about facing a deep fear that I have about letting an outside source alter my control. But I don't think that it is something I am looking to do to add to the quality of my life. Just one try and perhaps during the camping trip that a bunch of us are planning on taking for my 31st birthday. I am a BC resident now, after all.

I extend the challenge to all my readers to break one of their own molds. Find a story you have told about yourself and let it go. "I don't sing in public" could become a trip this weekend to a kareoke bar. "I am attracted to bad boys" could become accepting a date with that really good guy that you have hung out with for years. "I'm a smoker" could become a sudden chucking of your cigarettes into the garbage. Maybe for those of you who are really brave the "I'm straight" or "I'm gay" could mean an evening of sexual experimentation with the gender that you are so certain doesn't turn you on at all?

Think of it as Life Bungee Jumping....

Just without the cord.

To Love Is To Be Happy With

Awakened today am I to all the simple things that make life so lovely.

The feel of my car speeding me along the highway to Victoria, window down, tunes blasting. Lindy hopping to live jazz all night long, my feet moving to unchoreographed beats, their only purpose to swing. Standing in a hot shower, letting the water wipe away the last week of turmoil and then falling asleep under soft duvets while listening the the waves of the Pacific Ocean crash outside of my window.

Drinking tea in the sun on the back porch, overlooking the water. Picking a book from a wall of titles and upon reading the first few words, knowing that they were exactly the words I had been needing to hear. Having the time to curl up on a comfy couch witht that book, a basket of fresh berries at my side to snack on, and then allowing myself put my book and my to-do list aside and instead fall asleep into a most luxurious catnap.

Oh, to go for an after-nap walk along the water and let the whip of the ocean wind wake me up. To sing softly to myself reminders of how lucky I am to be alive and the fullness and vibrancy of my future. To fill my day with only that which brings me pleasure and allow tomorrow to take care of itself.

I am so blessed.

And oh! do I know it.

Turning The Other Cheek

Sometimes you gotta take the hits. Sometimes you gotta cease the fire of defensive comebacks and just allow people to judge you as they will. Sometimes you gotta take your director's notes, even if you think he or she is out to lunch, and simply say thank you. It ain't the easiest choice and it can feel like you are allowing yourself to be beaten up, but sometimes it is allowing the hits that causes you to grow the most.

The trick is to never believe what other's say about you - be it good or bad. Someone notable once said that you can't let praise or criticism get to you - it's a weakness to get caught up in either one. The trick is keep loving yourself through it all - to always stay on your own side, even if everyone else turns against you. Easier said than done, I know. I seem to be living in a cess pool of criticism these days. But I am not a victim and on some level I have invited it -- to learn what, I am not yet sure. Possibly to keep strengthening my belief in myself. Possibly to keep building up the backbone that I so recently misplaced.

I am not proud of some of the choices I have made. But I have done the best I knew how to do. Where I have made strong choices, I strive to acknowledge my growth and where I have failed, I strive to use my failings to gain compassion for those I once judged for the same failings. I also know that I have been judging some people around here lately pretty harshly, so I am not surprised to find myself creating a backflow of judgement upon myself.

Ah, we live, we learn. I suppose I could crawl into a ball and hide from the world (and don't get me wrong, I REALLY kinda like that idea). Or I could just say I'm sorry to those I hurt, thank you to those who feel it necessary to point out where I've come up short... and then shosholoza. My other option seems to be summed up nicely in Hubbard's words...

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

And really, I'm too young to be dead.

Wild Rose Detox

So, I am undergoing a twelve day intensive cleanse. There were a million and a half symptoms I was exhibiting that spurred me into this...I like to sum it up generally as an'unbalanced flow'...more going in than was coming out. I am on my second day and am already feeling like my body has been shoved into some twilight zone. Although I am told that by day five I will start to feel like a million bucks, right now I am achey and weak and feeling very empty.

That must be the thing with emotional eating. I eat to fill up an empty feeling that lurks in my conscious OR unconscious. It makes sense then that as I empty my body of all the blocked up food and my belly flattens, I suddenly feel the emotional emptiness that eating Doritios was helping me to avoid. The emptiness I feel today is both physical and emotional. On stage, I feel raw and slow. And sitting here right now, backstage, typing this, I feel an intense urge to cry.

Lots has been happening in regards to --- god, what have I been calling him? --- the mystery guy? Let's end the stupid secrecy around him and call him by his real name - Leon. Leon Willey, my room mate and leading guy in Anything Goes has been the drama in my life pretty much since the first day I moved in. Of course, then, I had a boyfrined and because of that, and the fact that I saw right away that Leon was a hard core smoker and drinker, I didn't really consider him to be anything but good friend material. This isn't to say that I wasn't attracted to him from the very beginning. I was. Very much. And this isn't to say that Leon didn't persue me from the very beginning, despite the obvious reasons we could not be a couple, because he did. But it wasn't until I had come to my personal conclusions about Jax that Leon kissed me. He kissed me and stole the breath right out of my body. He kissed me and in that kiss I was understood in ways no one has understood me in ages. I told myself that maybe I could ignore the smoking and the drinking. I told myself that something that felt that right couldn't have anything but positive effects.

Unfortunately, that wasn't true. Our emergence into the cast as 'more than friends' caused a great stir. Our room mate and friend, Sylvie, suddenly felt isolated and left out. I would look away and attempt to busy myself whenever L would speed outside at break to smoke. Nights at the pub as I watched him down one then two then three then four beers, all the while chain smoking, I died a little bit inside. Then, last Sunday happened. L and I were taken aside by our director and told that our sudden 'coupling' as seen by our hugging and laughing and touching and swooning was totally unprofessional, completely unacceptable and at the heart of why we were failing badly at our roles as Hope and Billy. (Failing?! we thought, we had hardly started rehearsals!) He let us know that other people in the cast had been complaining about how distracting our antics had been in the past week and chucked in a couple addtional comments to me, specifically, about ways that I could straighten up my attitude. It was totally flabbergasting. Shaming. Insulting. Demotivating. And it left both of us in a silent rage.

That was when I decided that I had to put some breaks on this Leon thing. It felt like everywhere I looked, our getting together was creating stress. I was hurt and I was angry and it was terribly upsetting to watch him deal with it by stewing outside, smoking. I knew that I had no big picture potential with a smoker and a drinker. And I decided it would easier at rehearsal to not have to worry about how much happiness was too much happiness. Leon did not agree that being apart was the answer. He didn't understand how smoking and drinking needed to get in the way of our passion. But I was overwhelmed and I retreated.

That was about four days ago. Thankfully, becuase he is such a kind man, he has not given me the silent treatment or punished me in any way. In fact, he has hasn't retreated at all. He is hurt and we both miss each other, but I can see that he is fueled with a faith that this will pass. That we are meant to be together. The most signifigant change is one that I only became aware of yesterday. Although he has tried to keep it from me, yesterday I found out that he has not smoked a cigarette since Wednesday. And he has drank very little. When I found out, I just LOOKED at him...because it was not something I asked him to do. He answered that look with these EYES and said - 'some things are worth fighting for' - and that was that.

Another additional piece of information has been about the 'cast members' that were unhappy about our canoodling. It turns out that really, it was ONE particular cast member that made a complaint. And I am becoming aware that that complaint may have had more to do with jealousy and frustration about not being the source of L's attention than a legitimate concern about artistic boundaries. Ah, politics. It is a cobweb of egos and fears and lust and exhaustion and love and insecurities and addictions and dreams.

And I am right smack dab in the middle of it all.

So, I cleanse. I cleanse and take in all this new information and wonder. I 'cope' with AG rehearsals and try not to resist all the feelings that I am having about - well - everything. Leon suggested that maybe the reason that I am feeling so empty is because I keep pushing everything and everyone away.

Perhaps he is right?

Oh, I dunno.

All I know is that I am freaking hungry.

Plan B

This Facebook thing is a phenomenon. Really. It far out weighs the effect myspace ever had on my life. I am literally bumping into people on this site that I haven't seen in over 15 years - people I truly never thought I would see again. Everybody is on this thing...old friends from Moose Jaw, summer camp friends from my pre-pubescent years, college mates with whom I had lost touch, exs, elementary school friends, lindyhoppers that passed quickly through my life and even family members! I love this site! How could this be anything but positive?!

As for my love life...well, that truly is anything but positive. The obstacles that have presented themselves ten fold have successfully discourged me from being involved with the afore mentioned mystery man. If Jax and I were lacking the 'fit' in terms of ability to communicate and really 'get' each other in a mental, spiritual way then this other guy and I are lacking the 'fit' in lifestyle choices. He and I have the passion down pat and couldn't be more on the same wave length in terms of personality, but the way he leads his life doesn't jive with mine. In fact, many of his life choices are distinctly opposite of all that I believe in. And even though I thought I could over look all that, I am now pretty darn sure that I can not. Must I choose one or the other, or will I meet someone someday that clicks in all areas? Perhaps that is too optimistic, but I am willing to take the risk and find out.

Thing is, I see this guy every day. And my lust factor for him is as huge as our connection. So, now I must try to stay strong in my resolve. Which could be easier said than done. My plan is to enjoy all that is wonderful about being single. Work on my art, read more books, talk solitary island walks like I did last summer, flirt with whoever I want, stop stressing about birth control, spend time with friends, write, work, be blissful. Well, that's the plan anyway.

And if all else fails, I will live vicariously through facebook.

We'll call that Plan B.

Casting Call

Ya gotta answer my new Konkin Question...

If you had to cast someone to play you in the story of your life, who would you cast? And let's say that whoever you pick would agree to do no matter what...

I have thought about this and here are some the people I have come up with...

Amanda Schull who is a relative no name, but did the lead in the movie Center Stage and does look a lot like me. Plus, she can dance and in the event that she can sing might be a pretty good choice. 'Cause I gotta choose someone that can also sing and dance, right?

See? Fun! Go do it. Answer now!

Other people that I have either been told would play me well for whatever reason are Julia Stiles (although I am not personally a big fan) and Kate Hudson (but again she isn't really a singer or a dancer, sooooooo...) Perhaps I should cast someone that I know personally and knows me so that they can bring all their real life knowledge to the role...

Click here and it'll link you right to the page...

As for my ever increasing drama - I will fill ya in on all that later.

No drama on my one day off.