3:31 pm - Sun 1/29/06
The ArcLight Snackbar Blues

Sun 1/29/06 (1:34 p.m.)

Sometime, doing concessions just robs me of the very will to live.

Just how unhappy was I last night at work?

Here�s some stuff I wrote in my �pocket journal� during some down time (When you close concessions, as I did last night, you typically have a fair amount of down time between getting your closing stuff done, and the last movie letting out):

Some proposed titles for my next d-land entry:

�Trapped�

�My 5-Year Suicide Plan.�

�This Doesn�t End Well�

____________________

Imagine you somehow never managed to move beyond the after-school job you had in high school. Now it�s 26 years down the road, and you�re trying to live a full-fledged adult life on a teenager�s income.

How do you think you�d feel about work?

How do you think you�d feel about yourself?

Welcome to my world...
____________________

I don�t think I could hold up if my life got any worse than this. And that�s the terror that grips me�As poor as I am, as tired as I am, as lonely as I am, as bored as I am, as unfulfilled as I am, I�m deeply afraid the bottom is going to drop out any second, and things are going to get so bad that I�ll long for �the golden years�, when I had a roof over my head, and ate on a regular basis. When I actually had a dream that had a vague chance of coming true.
____________________
Feeling again that I came out here 20 years too late. I don�t have the juice to do what I need to do. I just don�t.
____________________
Sometimes I fucking hate myself. I just want to smash my face in.

____________________
I read somewhere that people with traumatic childhoods often imagine having some great destiny. It�s a way to make sense of the pain they feel, as if to say �All this pain has to mean something, has to be preparing me for something...�.

When actually, it really doesn�t.

All my life, I�ve wanted to overcome the �adversity� of my bad beginning.

Now I realize that�s not gonna happen.

____________________

Yeah, yeah, I know�Whiny, self-pitying bullshit. Boo-hoo, oh poor, pitiful me. A lot of people have it worse than I do, I have to keep my sunny side up, things could change at any moment, etc.

But these are �the bad thoughts� I sometimes wrestle with. And I�ve been editing myself way too much in here lately

But lest you think that I�ve given over completely to �the dark side��Even in the midst of a fairly �dark and stormy night�, I was able to think of a number of good things that have happened recently.

1. The major cause of this downward spiral�after a small, all-too-brief, �upward spiral��was doing my bills recently, and realizing that I�m back in �Am I going to be able to make my rent this month?� territory (Which is right next door to �Nope, I�m definitely not going to be able to make my rent this month� territory).

Okay, that�s not �the good thing�. The good thing is that the next day, after thinking, �This would be a really good time for the Universe to hand me some extra money�, I got some mail from Borders: Now that I no longer work there, the stock options I was given when I started (Something Borders no longer offers to new employees) are about to expire. So if I want to �cash them in�, the letter said, this would be the time.

I don�t know how much money that�s going to be�I�m thinking not as much as I�d like �but I have to say, that�s a pretty quick response from �the Universe� (And I�m thinking, not for the first time, that I really need to get better at being specific about what I need. It�s not the fault of �the Universe� if I�m too vague in what I�m asking for).

2. I�ve felt very good about how the casting workshops went this month (The last one was disappointing�I was given a scene I thought was the lamest of the bunch. My scene partner said the same thing, without any prompting on my part�but even then, I felt I did the best that could be done with it).

(The continuing frustration I feel about these things is that without the �breakdowns�, I don�t feel like I can really make hay out of these contacts the way I should be doing. But this is supposed to be the positive part of this journal entry, so I�ll save crying about that for another time.)

3. Someone in my building left a bakers-dozen worth of Buffy The Vampire Slayer videotapes in the �giveaway area� of the lobby. Yay!

4. Jane recently sent me a dvd of a high school production of Jekyll and Hyde, with my former � Artful Dodger�, Dale Powell, along with a video of the Riverwalk Theater�s �black box� production of All In The Timing II, starring Jane and a cast of Lansing theater notables (I�ve only watched the beginning of each one�I�m not currently feeling good enough about myself to watch other people acting when I�m not�but from what I�ve seen, I�m already very impressed with both projects).

5. This past Wednesday, I got a voicemail on my cellphone. It was from a woman whose name I couldn�t catch, no matter how many times I listened to the message (It sounded like �Merlin�), who knew me in Lansing, had thought of me over the years, and was acting on the impulse to give me a call (She now lives in the Dominican Republic with _______, whose name I also couldn�t catch, re-designing golf courses).

Honestly, I have not the foggiest idea who this person is. As I said, I couldn�t catch her name, and she gave me no other hints as to how we knew each other (I lived in Lansing on-and-off for over 20 years, so that�s a lot of history to sift through).

But be that as it may, it was nice to know that I live on in someone�s memory, and for once, in a good way.

Well, I guess that�s enough for now.

previous - next