10:10 am - Tue 4/23/02
common hours

What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

-George Eliot-

I have learned this at least by my experiments, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.

-Thoreau-

I'm going to call in today.

In spite of the fact that work has not been bad, in spite of the fact that I haven't known what to do with the free time I've had lately, something has been nagging at me, saying, "Jim, you need a little more time just for you...". And I feel guilty, but it's not as if I do this all the time, and I almost never get sick sick, so how else am I going to take advantage of one of the few "perks" I have with this job?

ANYWAY...

At work yesterday, I checked my voicemail, and Chad had called (Chad is one of my fellow Crossing The Line cast members. He's also the only other white guy in the cast).

He wanted to let me know that Mark wants to have a rehearsal tonite (My response to that? At this point, nothing could interest me less; I feel like if we don't have this show down by now, we should just cancel the rest of the run and go home. I don't think the problems with the show have anything to do with needing more rehearsal. More rehearsal isn't going to make the script any better, and it isn't going to make my fellow cast members take the show more seriously if they don't want to).

He also was "checking in" about Sunday afternoon.

I've really been of two minds about Sunday's debacle; there's a part of me that does want to talk about it, because I think it's a pretty important thing, but another part of me wants to just say, "Listen, it's over, so why don't we just move on?".

But I called him, while I was at work, and we did end up talking about it.

He said Mark told him he could throw some improvised lines in if he wanted to, and said maybe that had gotten "out of hand" (If Mark really said that--and I believe he probably did, I think that was a terrible mistake; These actors obviously aren't disciplined enough to do that sort of thing, stay in character, and get their lines out all at the same time). And he suggested, while it hadn't been discussed, that that's what the other people in the cast had been doing too.

I wasn't buying it. If it was improvisational business to "juice things up" or whatever, it was pretty bad.

Whatever extra "business" you want to do during the run of a show, you still have to get your lines out; I had to, more than once, wait for someone to give me a line, then figure out how to move on when nothing came (And I'm the one with the lion's-share of the lines. To my thinking, if you have a dozen lines in a show and you can't remember them when the time comes, after a month-and-a-half of rehearsal, you're either not focusing on the task at hand, or else you're just really stupid).

I wasn't mad as I was talking to him, and he didn't seem upset either, but somehow, I still felt bad after we got off the phone.

Being angry almost never seems to "work" for me. No matter how I respond to those feelings--whether I fly off the handle, act like I'm not bothered and try to calm myself down later, or try to find some middle ground--I almost never end up feeling good about it. I find it very hard to give those feelings their due, without either having it make a bad situation worse, or else feeling like I'm letting people walk all over me.

There was a message from Mark when I got home from work. I called him back--got his machine--and he ended up calling me around 11 pm (He returns calls pretty late at night. Even though I'm typically up at that time, I kind of think you shouldn't call someone that late unless it's an emergency).

We talked about Sunday, and I made a point of couching everything I said in "qualifiers" ("I felt", "It seemed to me...", etc and so forth). Like I said before, I didn't really believe Sunday was about anything but blowing off the show, but felt like I should at least intellectually acknowledge the possibility that my point of view was just my point of view, if you know what I mean).

I guess it was a conversation worth having, but I'm not really sure. All I really want at this point is to do the last couple shows best I can, then put this one to bed. I don't want to beat Sunday afternoon to death, because there is no "rewind" button here; Sunday afternoon's embarrassment has come and gone, and we don't get a "do-over". Anyway...

We talked about JR for a time--I didn't bring him up. Mark did--and he actually suggested that he might want to bounce JR from the rest of the run and have me do all the shows instead.

I thought I wouldn't be able to do that on such short notice, but I actually could; I have Friday & Sunday off this week, so I could do JR's Friday night show and his Sunday matinee with no problem. I'm not particularly hot to do more shows at this point, but I would do it if Mark wanted me to.

(Speaking of the show, it's looking like they're not going to do a third weekend after all; I guess, due to the size of the two casts, they expected more of a turnout than they're getting.)

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Talking to John O. yesterday, I found myself thinking I should perhaps lower my expectations regarding this computer that's coming my way.

He wasn't sure when he bought it, but he thought it was "three or four years" ago.

But just so I don't look like I'm looking this particular gift horse in the mouth, it's still likely to be an improvement on what I have. And he said the monitor and sound are really nice.

So anyway, we still haven't worked out getting it from "here" to "there", but it's at least on his mind, so that's a good thing).

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Saw an '87 Toyota Camry on the street with a "For Sale" sign. They want $1550 for it.

I saw it day before yesterday, but still haven't called, which I think is interesting.

This is going to sound stupid, but I think one "issue" I'm having is that, whenever I've tried to call a number for a car being sold in this neighborhood, I've had a "language problem".

It's been tough to get answers to basic questions, let alone anything needing a more involved response (Like, "Would you have a problem if I take this to a mechanic to have him check it out?").

But the real issue is that I'm afraid. I'm afraid of laying out money I don't really have right now. I'm afraid of going back to the stress of having a car again, from parking to repair bills to--Yes, I admit it--having to figure out how to get from here to there, and having one less excuse for not doing what I've come here to do.

I don't have any money, so I'd have to do a cash advance on a credit card, or if the person would take it, give them one of those "credit card checks" (Which is, basically, a "cash advance" in a different form).

Well, by virtue of what I just wrote, I feel too guilty to continue in here before I give that number a call (I think if this impromptu day-off leads to me getting this car thing together, then it would have been worth it!).

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