I’m one of those humans who needs to have a purpose…an end point, a goal…because if not, I turn into a lard-person-jelly-lump. Both physically and mentally.
…I don’t do well just free-floating whichever way the breeze (if any) happens to be blowing this day/week/month/year.
So, I go for goals.
…I like to plan and prep the next three things I wanna audition for…which informs what color and length of hair I’ll be sporting for the next six to nine months…how fat I’m allowed to let myself get, or how much I need to lose…what kind of movies and books I’ll be watching and reading for study aids…which actors will be my obsession teachers this go-round…and (eventually, based on casting)…what I will be doing with my night’s and weekends, and “where.”
…Which is why booking a show for me, is not just a big deal as “an actor,” but even just “as a person.”
Twenty years doing a thing, builds some serious habits.
It reflects the kind of year I’ll have emotionally, physically, psychologically. It reflects the people I will be socializing with…which friends I’ll be seeing more regularly, and the kinds of places I go on the down-times…based on which city and county those “down-times” occur in.
…So, when I DON’T have anything to plan, at all…not even on the what-to-audition-for-next pipeline…I literally don’t know what to do with myself. I’m not a person who can just “be” to “be.” I can’t not think and study and plan. It’s against the religion of me. Even my Psych Doc couldn’t break me of it.
…Hence, for the last month, post-last-show, I have turned into a blob with total lack of enthusiasm.
Family tragedies certainly don’t help that.
…All you can do is just sit there, being “the blob,” turning into MORE of a blob, and thinking you are prob’ly doomed to get even blobbier before anything changes for the better. If ever again, at all.
So you do.
…Till an actual goal pops up.
…And you see it float there above your head, juuuuust outta reach, so you have to actually shift your weight, and stand up in order to touch it.
…And you do.
…And the fucker wiggles free n’ flies away, right in front of you…
…And you think, “Goddamn it, if I were FIT I’d have just jumped higher, and gotten a better hold of the thing to begin with!”
…Only sometimes, I guess the goal doesn’t totally float away for good.
…Sometimes, for reasons even YOU don’t understand, it gets caught up in the corner over there. But since you told yourself to forget about it, you don’t even know it’s there. How could it be? You totally lost it. You were there!
…Only looks like, maybe you didn’t.
…And two days later, you get a call on the phone. And it goes a little something like this:
AD: Hi. This is (Artistic Director you know.) I’m calling about the show.
Me: Oh. Yeah. That. Listen, I’m really sorry about lousing up that callback…
AD: I’m calling…
Me: –The “thanks, but no thanks call,” no, yeah. I get it.
AD: Not really. What? No. He wants to offer you a role.
Me: (Beat.) What?
AD: In the show.
Me: Who?
AD: The Director.
Me: Oh.
AD: Yeah.
Me: Why?
AD: Why??
Me: Yeah.
AD: Um. Because he liked you?
Me: (Beat.) No. But really. Why?
AD: That’s really why.
Me: But, I sucked.
AD:…Or: not.
Me: Really.
AD: Yep.
Me: Huh.
AD: So…
Me: Yeah?
AD: You like…wanna do the show?
Me: Oh! Sorry. YES.
AD: Okay then.
Me: Yeah.
AD: Good.
Me: I really needed this. I mean: comedy and purpose and stuff.
AD: Well, good.
(Long silence.)
Me:…But, seriously?
AD: Seriously.
…And so now, all of a sudden…the blob regains purpose.
…Which is a very good thing.
Very good.
I feel like I can breathe again.
Eventually, it’ll even sink in.
Huzzah and stuff — !
~D
