In Absentia

This is an apology to all my pstyles loves who I didn't get to canoodle with on Thursday.

I'm battling a bout of insomnia this week, mostly because I'm waiting on some answers that I'm really anxious to get. I apologize for my vagueries but this is one's too personal and I'm not ready to share.

Long story short, I'm not at my best. But that shouldn't matter, and is precisely the situation meant to be handled by discipline. If you can keep a routine going through the tough times that's when it is truly routine. There are tough times all the time. I feel that I can be a very un-disciplined person, and lose all control over my good habits when life interrupts. So I really wish I had come to class on Thursday. Je regret. It might have helped me feel better, as it certainly did on Tuesday.

I feel like a zombie. I'm messing up stuff at work, spilling/dropping things constantly, forgetting my own phone number...hopefully tonight I'll be able to sleep. Maybe my brain is exhausted enough to shut down for a night. I'm going home for the weekend, which is a relief. I get to see my five-year-old nephew, the best medecine.

This was a dramatic post, and I feel guilty even writing it. I feel insecure, that people will think: "uh-huh, just like Hilary, having some dramatic problem again!" Is this even close to the mark? I don't know. I know I have a very distorted sense of how people see me a lot of the time - I've been told I'm very hard on myself. But I do feel like I'm always getting sick during tech week, having a family emergency, a personal crisis, yada yada yada. Perhaps I don't manage my stress well. I like to think of myself as reliable, that I can be depended on. A few weeks ago someone told me that I "seem to get sick a lot," with a sort of smirky look. That crushes me. In high school I stayed home a lot when I got overwhelmed...played way too much hookey. In college I've been super sensitive to people thinking of me that way, because high school memories were not such good ones (and I have a lingering sense of guilt about how I handled myself)- but at Lehigh I've gotten very, very sick multiple times, from the flu to unexplained sudden stomach pain to shingles. SHINGLES! OLD people get shingles. Or people under abnormal stress. I had to fill a prescription for Valtrex, because shingles is a type of herpes virus. Do you have any idea how humbling an experience it is to fill a prescription for herpes medication?

Since my mom was hit by a car Freshman year, to my grandmother being hospitalized last spring, to my "grandfather" (grandmother's "companion") having a stroke this fall, falling on my face in the parking garage, having a lump removed from my breast, my dad getting married and selling the house we lived in together - just the two of us, for many years - Drama, in more senses than one, has certainly shaped my experiences of "the college years." As it must for almost everyone. Isn't this usually the time when people fall apart, come of age, wonder what the fuck they're doing with their lives? The quarter-life crisis, people! Am I alone in feeling like a hot mess most of the time? Everyone else always seems so...cool. Not as in an "awesome dude" sense, but in a laid-back, "I don't feel guilty for taking time for myself right now", in control sort of way. That probably sounds absurd to everyone else who struggles just as much as I do. Maybe I'm just less talented at hiding it, or at least not letting things overwhelm me. I don't want to be a person to whom things happen. And I really, really don't want to be the person other people see as weak.

There you go. All raw and exposed. So much for playing it close to the chest.

Seriously...I'll have to take a message because my functioning mind is not in today.

Mixed Bag...or rather, Cornucopia

Several of your blogs had a lot of good stuff to reflect on for yesterday's class. I have to admit...
I'm jealous.

I've been in a weird place the last few days...I'm struggling with some personal uncertainties, and I knew I wasn't really focused on the work. The relaxation exercise didn't relax me. I usually feel very grounded and centered by guided meditation. I'm familiar with the tension/release technique. But Tuesday I couldn't keep my head empty, and I struggled with the isolated tensions - my whole body would stiffen up and I couldn't get really satisfying tension in the parts I wanted to. I felt myself going through the motions and waiting for the exercise to be over.

I also feel like I struggle with spontaneous style centered on culture. I hesitate to veer into stereotypical thoughts about eras and places because I feel the facade of it, the snap-judgment and assumption. I know that improv is all about assuming, but I feel like our goal is not to make an audience laugh in this case. It's to find the truth. Perhaps our personal truth is to expose our perceptions about these eras in time - the cliches our minds recognize. And yet I feel an inherent dishonesty when I start doing drugs and "groovin" in the 70s or become a caricature of a flapper for the 20s. I'm torn between having something performative to do and really visualizing myself in the environment - a real person, not a cartoon of one.

I did enjoy the exercise where Bess and I came in as immigrants to the culture. I wanted to do it again and be a part of the group - I felt left out of a great moment of spontaneity and a functioning group mind. But the experience was fun - I loved when everyone was screaming and Bess and I were screaming and it turned out later that they were trying to blow us up.

Nacuma.....Sahara.....Cornucooooopiaaaaaaa......

Over Exposure....(not really)

Thursday's class. Remember remember...



Life is speeding up - I can feel the jet engines spinning into action and soon everything is going to turn into a blur outside my window, my centered emotional life fading into tiny dots way below me, ants in a landscape of mileage to cover. Ah, well, or I could more melodramatic.



But seriously I am starting to feel that head-nausea where you realize you're just cramming too much in there at one time. I don't feel particularly stressed, and everything I have going on is exciting and really satisfying. It's just a matter of sheer volume. And I've never been a super organized person...only in certain ways. I'm addicted to my day planner mostly because it is my saving grace against total forgetfulness.

H.I.L.S.A.:
Hilary's Indispensable
Life-Saving
Accompaniment
--------------->

But back to Thursday. My personal style as viewed by my friends: Comfortable. Casual. Practical. ....Yep. And wow - all the M&C gear. I did not expect. But that's cool, I do enjoy wearing it. I'm proud of having designed the t-shirts, and I like feeling like I'm representing the drama society. It's like a jersey. I play for the theatre team, and we're state champs!

I felt challenged by the self-assessment questions. I couldn't answer some of them with any feeling of accuracy. I couldn't remember radically altering my style and things like that. Little things, like acting more tough or sarcastic to impress my boyfriend's friends. And I wasn't sure how personal to get with other questions, although ultimately I decided to share about my mom. At first I felt like the atmosphere was generally sort of flippant and breezy, and it seemed more about layering humor into all of our stories than the truth of the stories themselves. But real things did get shared, and I want the probability of this sharing to increase. I found myself being selective about my memories. I could have said I evaluated my appearance for signs of looking "heavy," every morning, but I chose instead to talk about brushing my teeth, which is also true. Michelle was brave to talk about trying on different outfits and to share about wanting to wear jeans more. I struggle with the same things...is our goal to get at the more sensitive issues, unspoken insecurities, in order to move forward? It is a very vulnerable position, and while there is a lot of trust among the friends in our class, I still feel somewhat held back from being totally exposed.

Change, Changes, Changing

I feel...joy. Passion. Like I want to laugh really loud and whoop and holler and sing spirituals. I feel humbled, and thankful. I feel hopeful, but also sobered by tasks ahead and the scary things on our horizon...climate change, energy crisis, the economy, social security, on and on...I am daunted by the prospect of my generation solving these problems. The buck must stop with us. I know this is a day for celebration, but I know that it is also a day in which we must realize that even when we are led by supported leader with the gift to inspire us, someone with a vision and purpose, we still have many obstacles to surmount and dilemmas for which there are no easy answers. Hope will sustain us, but only effort will bring change.

It was great to be surrounded by people watching history unfold today. I tried to notice the details and lock them away in my brain. This is the first presidential election I've been able to vote for. We are a generation marked by such staggering events - since I was thirteen it has seemed as though we are a nation of youth perched on the cusp of great change, poised to inherit a new world. Perhaps it is typical to feel this way in the bright blossum of life, to be twenty-something and dangling over the precipice of adulthood. I think about my grandmother, a high-school dropout who married at seventeen, just a few months before her young husband went off to war, a tail-gunner shot down in the pacific who never came home. THAT's a world I can't comprehend. Talk about feeling like everything is about to change - her life is wrapped up in our country's history like threads in a scarf with no end.

The changes extend to our own little home here at Lehigh. Monday I took part in the first of six workshops with the playwriting candidates. Jorge was very approachable and most of what he said was straitforward and sensible. I felt as though I didn't get enough interaction with him, however - it was a great example of how he works, and I appreciated the idea of a physical warm-up and mind-centering exercise before sitting down to write, it put me in a good space to create. But was that the best use of his time? I don't know. It must be a very difficult task to relate to us in such a short time. I'm looking forward to the other five candidates and how they'll approach this difficult assignment we've given them.

Sunday Night Slump

I had a good weekend but Sunday nights are always hard for me. Ever since I was little I've had a difficult time forcing myself to go to sleep, especially on Sunday nights. I hate giving up on the day, and the weekend. I also don't like being alone, the feeling of an impending seven or eight hours of darkness by myself...I slept in my parents' bed for an embarrassingly long time. I missed my family when I was at school and wanted to stay home a lot. I was kind of isolated at school (not profoundly, I did have friends) but I always felt set apart, the "smart kid." At home I belonged. Wow, this post got really reflective fast. I guess that on those nights when I'm alone, when my boyfriend is not staying over and I'm left to my thoughts, I sometimes recall that little girl feeling of "I'm alone and I'm scared. Daddy?!" The tv or a book usually keeps me company until I cannot keep my eyes open another second (I've fallen asleep over Tom Stoppard countless times over the past few months).

No matter how aware I am of the pattern, I often fall into a bad mood on Sunday around 6 or 7pm. I'm more likely to get into a fight with Tom, to overeat, to stay up too late, or to generally indulge in escapist fantasies of running away to the Pacific Northwest. I lament "not getting enough done." Nevertheless, I did "get stuff done" this weekend and had some fun too. On Friday I worked front-of-house for the James Hunter/Ryan Shaw show (I met them both, quite lovely...Ryan's band asked me where the parties are...) and finally left Zoellner at the stroke of 11:45pm. Tom and I slept in on Saturday (glorious!) and had a late breakfast at the Bistro, ran errands, and vegged around the apartment. I finally got my dishes done! We had a birthday dinner for Katie and Shannon at the Asian Bistro (which I'd never been to and loved, except for the extremely long wait time) and then Allie and her boyfriend Matt came over and watched Blazing Saddles. It was a really great night - I felt so close to my friends and so thankful to have them. I haven't done a whole lot with people at Lehigh over the years, but this year I've tried to be more engaged and I have really enjoyed getting to know the girls better and being included. On Sunday Tom and I went home to his house to watch the Eagles game...disappointing, but the third quarter redeemed the terrible first half...and then back up to DeSales and Lehigh, respectively.

I'm looking forward to class on Tuesday. Practice those "1,2s"!

A Fresh New Feeling

Yesterday was such a good day. As I've read in many of your blogs, everyone is feeling a similar rush of energy and positivity on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. And everyone seems to feel trust and support of their classmates. I'm really expectant of great things to happen among us. I too feel extremely comfortable and loved in that black box. I want to push myself and help push others. I see revelations and breakthroughs in our future.



I really felt that our group is geared up to be engaged and successful. When we all gathered in the black box, I was yearning to get started. I was so happy when we practiced the "1,2s" and Kashi's crazy "zoom-woah-shah-" exercise. Let's do that more! When Kashi got there I was tuned in and ready for anything. I love the joyful energy this class is starting in, and I really want it to continue...no mid-semester slack-off, no phoning it in. Let's help each other push through those tough times and always find the fun.



My body felt great after the warm-ups and vacuum-breathing. I want to do some right now, but I'm in the ticket office. Katherine's on the phone with a patron. Maybe when she's done I'll ask her to vacuum breathe with me...Kashi will walk by and we'll both be hanging over like ragdolls in our chairs.



All the work we're doing to recognize style is so grounded in all the improvisation I've done over the years. So many improv games are based on style - when we told the three little pigs in different styles - that's a game we do all the time, Film, TV, Theatre Styles. Recognizing the rituals of life as "templates" for scenes is also really important to establishing the known world in an improvisation. These templates allow to you layer in the "game of the scene," or the way that template gets consistently manipulated and becomes comic. We found the game when we did the Life exercise - "Adam's" awkward relationship to the world which involved a lack of eye contact. Without guidance to do so, our improv-savvy group imposed this comic element onto the frame of life's milestones. I love you guys.

One thing that struck me when we were doing both the "walking as if" and "playing catch as if" exercises was that I waver between whether I should find the most accurate personal truth or more expressive actions/attitudes. A lot of the suggestions produce very similar walks or throws. Apparently the way I play catch with someone I work for and someone I want to love me are very similar. Do I desire love everywhere? Well - yeah, I do! But I guess what is revealing about this is that I have a pretty consistent idea of the persona that I believe attracts people to me - be they bosses or lovers. Is that weird?

Look at the Wonk on That Guy

So the year begins and not one but two unrelated blogs are being asked of me. I'm glad to have an excuse to self-indulgently vomit my feelings into the computer. The other blog I will be writing weekly for ArtsLehigh about my experiences directing R&G. So I'll generally be doing a lot of reflecting this semester.

Today's class was a lovely reminder how much fun it is to play. I'm looking forward to engaging myself in warm ups and exercises and I'm very excited to work on Electra since I've never done any Greeks. I've read As You Like It and The Misanthrope but have never done scenes from them, so those will also be fun.

I love the feeling of being totally engaged in the present moment. I felt it today as I often feel it in improv. The feeling is especially thrilling when you recognize that you're a part of a group that is achieving something together. Singing together today in order to get Alex to put the shoes on his hands felt very right - the surging positive reinforcement, the group mind focused on a shared desire - it's intoxicating.

It's a total bummer, but I have to go wash gross dishes now. I might just barf-around all over my kitchen.

-Babe out