3.06
professional:
i'm gearing up towards graduation, which is an exciting, terrifying, and mystifying process. the idea is that you train for four years to be a classical actor and then you graduate and poof. which i know, sounds a lot like graduating from anywhere else. it does. and it is. but there's something particularly ephemeral about the acting lifestyle – you don't get an interesting job and hang out for a few years in it until you figure something else out. if you get an interesting job it lasts for about eight weeks, generally, and it doesn't pay much. it's like life everywhere is this misty congregation of vapors, but the acting world just… doesn't bother to pretend anything otherwise. i remember hearing the line in death of a salesman – really hearing it – for the first time: "and for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to life… he's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. and when people start not smiling bak – that's an earthquake." i got chills.
i've got the whole country in front of me. it's daunting. it's like the biggest, stupidest adventure i've ever gotten myself into.
to that end (that is, graduation) i am in a showcase presentation consisting of a new play and four scenes. the new play is fascinating, and i play a semi-spineless accommodating husband who is castrated. repeatedly. metaphorically, don't worry – but repeatedly. there's a scene: drinks with shonda and doug (my wife and i, respectively) with their friend bing, and it repeats nine times. or so. and each time it repeats, it is slightly different, sometimes much much longer, and it becomes more and more horrible as it goes. you get insights into the twisted character of these three people's lives, via flashbacks and encounters outside the home, and they are eventually invaded by three outsiders who have various things to say about buttercream chocolates, pregnancy, ovaltine canisters, and saying hello to the world. it's fascinating.
the scenes are from a variety of classic stuff. one of my characters is a junkie husband trying to make good. another is a college kid whose only lines in the whole play have to do with whether or not someone got a blowjob. another is robin goodfellow.
and i've got several auditions on the table and so on. it's exciting to see my classmates getting work, and it's kind of discouraging not to be getting any myself. i'm not particularly affected by it now, but i can see how that could get pretty awful: not getting hired. i see many occupational hazards to mental health on the horizon.
personal:
i took the train to chicago over spring break. there's something serene about a train, something humanizing, and something so american. for those of you new to the subject, i am like – obsessed with trains these days. as the title at the top of the blog may have elucidated. (and i know, ariel, it's incorrect grammar. i know. it tears me up inside, buti wish i were a freight train lacks… drive.) i wrote a play recently in which freight trains (and the hopping of them) figure as a sort of metaphor for love. i've enjoyed writing again. maybe i'll keep it up.
my dad was up for consideration as the bishop of the diocese of san francisco recently. he took himself off the ballot. if he hadn't my feeling is hat he'd have been a shoe-in for the position. it's an important decision in the life of our family, and it shook us up a lot. it would have meant moving the family center away from albuquerque. i was all set to get a zia tattoo if they were to make the move. there's something about new mexico in my blood – it haunts me. and, to me, is haunted. the ghosts of all the things i've done wrong and all the things i haven't done right still hang on streetcorners. spirits of joys in days gone by still perch on pinon bushes. i had an interesting conversation with an ex(-something) of mine about new mexico and how it tends to take up an inordinate amount of space in the heads and hearts of expatriates. i had a strikingly similar conversation with the girl i was staying with in chicago – a friend of a friend who went to st john's in santa fe. i may still get the tattoo. but i've moved out of the state.
i've been reading the book crashing the gate, by mydd and dailykos founders jerome armstrong and markos. it's good. it's the first account i've read that corresponds more or less to the history of my own politicization in the wake of 9.11 and in the runup to the 2004 presidential election and its aftermath. of course graduation presents the opportunity to do much else besides act. i'm thinking of joining up with patsy madrid's race against heather wilson in NM-1. i've asked to be added to her list of bloggers for madrid.
i've made a kickass mix. god, i love the art of mix tape creation. i intend on sending this one to ilana, grace, and sadie. it was promised long ago, like back in january, and i never finished it till now.
and that's how i'm leaving it.
