All About Me

This is Megan.
She's a koala.
She's eating eucalyptus leaves.




(We had just been exercising in the Sheep's Meadow under a hot summer sun. I'm sweaty, red-faced, and blotchy the way you're supposed to be. She looks like she just stepped out of the shower. Maybe she's glowing. A bit. God, I hate that bitch.)


This is Jeff.
He's a clown.
He's wearing a rubber nose.
Also a hat.




(It's all right, he's a good clown, he won't hurt you. Seriously, he's really funny. Okay, okay, breathe...No no, the T shirt is a name, not an instruction...yes, I understand but- uh huh... look, he's also a great actor, and he doesn't wear the nose then. Usually. Does that help? ...All right, if you would just come over --look, will you calm down-no... no... Seriously dude, would you CHILL? Jesus Christ on a Bicycle!)




Jeff and Megan have known each other since high school in Northern Virgina (NoVA, to the cool kids, and believe me, these kids are cool), were sweethearts for a while, and managed to maintain a friendship throughout college and the years after. Well, last Tuesday the Koala and the Clown decided that their duo was too good, too right, and should be made a permanent thing. I couldn't agree more.


I've been trying all weekend to explain why this makes me so deleriously happy. The funny thing about trying to explain why you love people is it so hard to do without sounding like a Hallmark card, or just listing their fine qualities. On top of that, the entry about their engagement kept becoming all about me, and why I wanted this to happen. I don't seem to be getting anywhere though, and what the hell, it IS my blog, so here are just a few of the things that make me happy about all this.


I met Jeff doing the original play Significant Circus back in spring of 2001, and he was but one of many precious gifts I took away from that experience. I tend to treat straight men like timid woodland creatures when I first meet them, moving slowly and deliberately so as not to startle them, in the hopes that maybe eventually they'll feel safe enough to eat from my hand. Initially Jeff seemed like a prime candidate for this policy, but I soon found I was selling him short. You have to understand, in this play, while Jeff was playing a human being, I was playing a dog. A talking dog. Nor was this my first time (see, all about me...). We only had a couple of scenes together, and our characters didn't really interact much, we were usually just there as parts of crowd scenes. At one point we had stopped while the director attended to some other problem, me crouched at Jeff's feet, both of us lost in our own thoughts. It took me a few moments to notice that Jeff was petting me absent-mindedly, scritching me behind the ears... Just petting the dog. I doubt he was even conscious of it; like I said, it had been going on for some moments before I was. If that hadn't been enough, I knew we were going to be friends when he, I, and two other (hot!) actors decided to run our extremely physical, acrobatic, full-body-contact fight call in our underwear. Just 'cause. It was that kind of play.


He is one of the most disciplined, hard-working people I know, and at times I feel like he's driven, and too self-flagellating (like life in New York Theatre doesn't beat you enough). I'll tell him to lighten up periodically, yet I'm also awed by how much he gets done. Generally he's juggling roughly 493 projects at once, in three states and two countries (I'm not kidding), but even then, if you ask him to help you move, he's there. I swear, if I suddenly needed to move while he was working in Italy, he would find a way to be there that day, and still miss less than an hour's rehearsal. And you have to understand, we're talking about moving IN NEW YORK CITY. No place to park, five floor walk-ups with no elevators, doors and staircases that are too small for TV sets, let alone actual furniture... nope, he's there, and usually taking charge.


I met Megan a few years later, when she moved to New York as their relationship rekindled. As with Jeff, I initially thought she was sweet, lovely, a bit shy and reserved, a southern gal I might easily scandalize accidentally. I was just as wrong with her. While she and I haven't wrestled in our underwear (yet), I quickly learned she was actually a hot dancer, a rocker-chick with a serious Guns N' Roses fetish and several tattoos. At first I thought it odd someone like this was studying library science, but it just turned out I hadn't met enough librarians. She can drink me under the table, which granted isn't that hard these days, but she IS a lot smaller than me. Of the two of them, she's far more likely to be the one causing trouble in public, and she gets away with it because she can turn on the Bambi eyes, and just look like a sweet young thing. I adore this about her. I also adore the fact that when she's writing papers, she wears bunny ears because "they help me think." When she has her glasses on she looks like she's the librarian at the Playboy Mansion. She and I bonded when we learned each of us has a Muppet Dance (Jeff likes to make us sit on the same side of the booth in restaurants, so he can watch us do them simultaneously). Her sense of humor is often wicked, and I adore this about her too.




Then there are all the things I love about them that they have in common: their writing skill, their empathy, their ability to switch from serious to silly on a dime (and not belittle either one), their love of books, art, dance, theatre, music, good food, red wine -all the things that make for wonderful friendships and amazing conversations, but perhaps not particularly good stories. They've challenged me, supported me, and maybe best of all, helped me make my work better. I feel blessed by my time with them, hearing, being heard, loving, and being loved.



They're also both smokin' hot, and not afraid to give me smooches when I need 'em. (Which, for the record, is CONSTANTLY. Probably half the reason I went into theatre. All about me.)



The road to this point has been a long one, and what with them being human beings and all, not always easy. They were split up for a time, a few years ago. I've had good couple friends break up before (who hasn't) and knew I would have no trouble maintaining a friendship with each of them. So why was I so upset by the break-up? Sure I was sad that they were both hurting, that made sense, but this seemed like something more. Gradually I began to realize that I felt strongly that they were SUPPOSED to be together. Unlike in previous cases, I had an opinion, dare I say, an AGENDA even, in this.



I was good. I behaved. I did not breathe a word of this to either of them, because what the hell did I know, it wasn't my decision, I wasn't involved, I didn't know all the things that had come between them, and besides I know better than to advise people on much of anything but especially romance, yeah, let's look at my track record, and no one wants advice when they're in this much pain anyway, and they DEFINITELY don't need me pursuing my own AGENDA for god's sake, what kind of moron would risk alienating both his friends by meddling in their affairs like this because HE wants them to reconcile...?



(All about me.)



Nope I didn't say a thing (right, guys? I didn't, did I? I was good, right?). And I worked at picturing them with other people, starting new relationships, building different lives. They were mine, I wasn't going to lose them, and since it's all about me, that's what mattered.



BUT... I was thrilled when they reconciled, saw that if anything the bond was stronger and healthier now, maybe in some way the split had been necessary. It was good. So glad you two finally saw sense and did what I wanted, ya pinheads. (Me. All. About.) I'm sure I'm only one of many people saying this to you. Together and separately you have inspired, delighted and supported me. I hope you'll let me return the favor, whenever I can.

A Room of One's Own

Whenever my mom leads writing workshops, she often has the participants do an exercise called A Room of One's Own.  (The title is from Virginia Woolf, though she has no other influence on the exercise as far as I know.)  The guidelines are simple; describe a room that would be yours alone, and perfectly suited to whatever need you wanted addressed.  If you're lucky enough to already have this room, describe it.  If not, describe the ideal in as much detail as you want.  Then to finish up, tell who would be the first person you invited in to the room.  (I don't know if Mom created this, or borrowed it from someone else, but I'm sure she gives credit where credit is due.)  Thinking about this question has actually been helping me clarify some other, deeper issues, funnily enough.  So, here is my thoughts on the subject as they stand today.  


My room is a free-standing structure actually, possibly a renovated barn or boat-house, and lies a short yet beautiful walk away from the cozy cottage I share with my hypothetical partner, family, dog, cat, and possibly horse.  Maybe also chickens.  But we're not talking about that, we're talking my room. One fantasy at a time, 'kay?  This is my work room, which is to say it's where I go to play, but I mean play in a very serious, artistic, concentrated way, plumbing emotional depths...oh, screw that.  I have a whole different room for "but this is TOO work" which doubles as my "you're wasting your life" room, so I don't need to do that here.  This is my play room.  


The mental preparation starts with the walk that takes me through a forest, alongside a small
creek,  noticing whatever has changed since the day before, because something always has. I enter through the door in the northwest corner. The single room is large, with very high ceilings (in case I want to hang a trapeze) and a nicely sprung floor made from some renewable source, like bamboo wood. Stored against the north wall are several matts for tumbling and more acrobatic work, but most of the time the floor is left free for dance.  There is a CD player, with small storage for music.  I can't tell you yet what the building is made of, though chances are it's also wood.  I like wood.  I also loved the cottages in the west of Ireland, which are usually cement block covered in stucco,  and they're quite cozy, so that would be all right, as long as the floor is nice to move on.


Close to the door, on the east wall, is a window that looks out onto the forest.  Next to it is a
full length mirror for mask-work, but when it's not in use, it's covered by a cloth.  I get distracted if there's somebody else is constantly moving out of the corner of my eye.  The south wall is all glass sliding doors, with a bank of windows above, tilted back at a slight angle.  The doors open out to a grassy open glen that in May is carpeted with violets.  Some deciduous trees stand close enough to the building to shade it in the summer, but when their leaves are gone, the light pours into the space.  Leafless, they also reveal the lake and the mountains on the other side.  There are a scattering of houses along the opposite shore, but no one's presence intrudes here.  


Three quarters of the room is left empty to allow for movement, but the final quarter, along the west wall there is a work table and chair for making masks, a built-in bookcase for supplies, and two comfy easy chairs on a soft rug, one chair for when I am writing or reading, the other for guests.  There is also a small sink, and a counter with the supplies to make tea or coffee. The window in this wall has a deep window seat,  and it shows the forest, a glimpse of the lake and mountains, and a small chuckling brook whose sound fills the space whenever it's not frozen.  In the winter, I see amazing sunsets through this window as well, and that's how I know it's time to go home for dinner.   The east window probably gets great sunrises too, but I'm rarely there to see it, since I'm enjoying it in the bedroom with the hypothetical boyfriend, or as we sit in our breakfast nook in the kitchen, drinking our coffee.


Right, other fantasy.  


I can't decide what color the walls are.  At first I thought they were just a warmish cream, to keep the space neutral, airy, and unimposing.  I've been living for nine years in a apartment with all white walls, however (quite common in NYC, for light issues), and I think I'd like some color in this room.  So the walls are possibly washed with a warm Tuscan yellow, or perhaps a shade of  amber or apricot.  With all the serenity and quiet beauty I have surrounding the space, I probably could handle a little bit of energy inside.  I think one of those colors would energize me.  


Describing this room shows me some things of interest.  First, it's obviously in a rural setting of great beauty, possibly Maine, the Pacific Northwest, Ireland, Scotland, or Cape Breton.  I would love to live in the country.  News Flash.  But there are other things to notice.  I seem to want to keep my options open for the kinds of work, which isn't always a virtue, I think.  Sometimes I wonder if my interests are too scattered, rather than varied.  I also note there are no books, or computer in the room.  I have trouble picturing a room without books, so that might change, but I would keep the computer elsewhere.  It's a necessity for the business side of the job more and more, and is obviously a great research tool, but those things require a different energy from me, so I'd like the computer to be in a different space.  One energy is not better or more creative than the other, they just have different vibrations.  Even after more than seven years of fairly regular keyboard use, I still find that when I write, I have to do it longhand in a notebook if I need to go deep or move quickly.  I've gotten slightly better at composing on the keyboard, but still not as well as when  I write by hand.  Editing and re-writing I can do on a keyboard, but that is also a different energy.  So, no computer in this room.  


The biggest thing I notice from this exercise is, I've created a room for generating my own work. Sure an actor would enjoy this space, and be able to use it well, but the focus really is on creating new work, especially physical theatre, mask pieces, and other non-naturalistic performances.  That is what I've done for the last fifteen years or so.  Recently though, I've wanted to shift my focus back to more mainstream forms; plays that are time-tested or at least promising, film and TV projects with decent budgets behind them, that sort of thing.  I had a whole host of reasons for making that decision, and I think it's still the direction I'm heading for now.  I'd like not to be the main or only force behind a project for a while, and I'd like to make more money, pure and simple.  But I've also realized something else with all this.  Somewhere along the line I equated self-generated work with solo work.  


There are understandable reasons for this.  I started doing it as a way to give myself work when nothing else was happening, and to have more autonomy and control over my career.  It also made it easy to rehearse ('hey, I've got a free hour'), change things, or even improvise in performance if necessary.  I'd been doing lots of experimental dance/circus/theatre shows created by someone else, and way too often I found myself working for months with assholes or flakes, for little or no money, and the work ended up being crap.  Or it turned out well, but everyone was so bitter and angry it didn't matter.  Or it turned out well and no one came to see it.  So having a little more say in my work was nice, and even if the work turned out badly, at least I'd spent the time working on something I cared about.


I've been missing the joy of working with ensembles though.  That is one of the main reason I became an actor, and I haven't done it since 2005, really.  It's simply easier to work with others if someone else, preferably a well-established arts organization, is producing and supporting you. One drawback to solo work is -stick with me here- you're by yourself a lot.  You're the one pushing to make it happen, you're the only one at rehearsal (unless you've talked a willing friend into directing you, or at least watching it once), you're the one seeking out venues, you're the only one who notices or cares if nothing happens.  It can be lonely, and New York is lonely enough as it is.  (There's also that sneaky little voice that says "you're working on your own to side-step the fact that no one wants to work with you because you SUCK."  I keep that voice locked in the "You're Wasting Your Life" room most of the time.)  


So, I'm mulling this over.  These aren't really new thoughts, most of them, but they've fallen
into a new pattern, and that's useful.  I keep reminding myself too that since this is a fantasy, I don't have to justify my using it.  Funny how my inner Puritan starts running the show any chance he gets.  


Oh, who would be the first person I invited into the space? Barring the hypothetical boyfriend, I guess I'd show it to my sister first.  She and I are psychic twins.  She would only be the first in a long line of friends and loved ones who would appreciate this space though, and some of them might end up collaborating with me on a something.  I'd resist the temptation to use this as a social or party space, but that would be easy with the cozy cottage up the road.  That is such a good space for a party, and the boyfriend puts on a mean spread.    


One fantasy at time, Patrick.   

So, I'm not turning this into a meme or an obligation, but if anyone is inspired by this exercise to describe his or her own room, I'd love to read it.  Will over at Designer Blog is way ahead of the game due to the fact that he designed an entire house which is nearing completion.  If you don't have a blog of your own, we can figure out a way to have you guest blog here, if you want.  I'd love to see what people come up with, I bet I'd learn a lot about you.  Annie laMott does a variation on this exercise, where instead of a room, you have an acre of land.  It's yours, you can do whatever you want with it.  If that is more inspiring, then do that one.  

Worlds Collide

Friend Jeff's most recent entry (go read it now, it's fun) reminded me of an experience I had last weekend. No, I didn't kick anyone in the head (though, OH the times I've considered it recently), but I had a moment where I realized my impulses have been shaped just a tad by doing circus-like stuff.

I was working at an all night art event (no really), where from 7pm Friday to 7am Saturday people came to draw from live models. Ten dollars gets you admission, all the pizza you can eat, and access to various rooms where two or three models pose for varying lengths of time, anywhere from one minute to six hours. The final hour of the event, everyone gathers in one room, all the models get on one stand, and we just... move. The idea is to give the artists the challenge of drawing movement, or catching things quickly, or whatever they want to make of it. For the models, it's a little surreal, I have to say. It's not unheard of for us to be asked to move continually for a class, but it's pretty rare, and what's REALLY rare is to be doing it with twenty other people. Most of us have at least met one another before, but it's pretty unusual to work together, generally a class only wants one model at a time. I know the faculty, even some of the students at this school better than I know the models, and most of the time I'm okay with that because art models are often crazy. More on that in another post, but now you know why I'm not naming this event, or the school where it happened, since both are fairly well-known. Google has gotten me in trouble once already. (Hi Uncle Steven! I'm sorry I called you a groovy California guy fond of twenty minute hugs! In my own defense, that entry made me look worse than you, right? And what's wrong with twenty minute hugs, right? Right?)

Okay, so are you with me on the visuals so far? Twenty-plus naked people of various ages, races, genders and body types all writhing around on a platform that is meant to hold maybe three people comfortably, all of this at 6 in the blessed a.m. when we've been up all night and are just a little bit punchy, possibly in a trance-state due to the African drumming that has been playing since midnight... got it? So, in the middle of this, a guy asks if I want to sit on his shoulders.

This is where the circus impulses come in. I spend a fair amount of time in a world where this question comes up quite a bit, along with others like it. "Will you balance me on your feet? Can I balance you on mine? Would you hold my legs while I do a handstand? If I do a back-flip off this spring-board, would you catch me in mid-air?" Then you answer according to your abilities. Actually I'm making these occasions sound a lot more Noel Coward than they are; most of the time we don't ask, we just say, "I'm gonna do this, ya ready?" So this tall stranger says "wanna climb onto my shoulders" and I say "sure", because that's usually my response to this question, frankly sitting on a person's shoulders is small potatoes, hell, I'm used to STANDING on people's shoulders these days and even that is beginning to feel like small potatoes, even for someone like me who is a rank beginner in the circus world, anyway, sure, let's go, upsy-daisy.

It's not until I'm actually sitting on his shoulders (rising from the center of the writhing mass to a satisfying gasp from the room) that I think, "hmm. Hadn't really thought this through." It's not that I'm generally wearing a huge amount of clothing when I do tumbling or acro-balance, but somehow that small bit of cloth between his neck and my crotch is feeling noteworthy in its absence right now. No, nothing awkward or humiliating happened for anyone involved, it was just weird. At first I thought, "I've never sat naked on another person's shoulders before" then I remembered that time in the swimming pool on Fire Island when we were playing chicken (J. and I TOTALLY RULED), so I amended it to "I've never sat naked on a stranger's shoulders in front of clothed observers before." And funny thing, you'd think that once you've crossed that line, arranging yourself so you're not crushing your testicles wouldn't seem any more outrageous, but somehow at the time it just did. So I didn't. If you follow.

I stayed up there for a while, appreciated the view that I bet no one else has ever had of this room, or this event, then when we'd both had enough, I got down without mishap. No harm, no foul. The rest of the hour we all continued to writhe and periodically touch each other in safe, socially acceptable albeit occasionally suggestive ways. It's amazing what becomes suggestive when you're naked.

There's no real point to this story, other than to echo Jeff's recognition that I too have an impulse to climb or jump on people, and I might want to watch it a bit more carefully. Especially when nudity is involved.