So here it is again, midnight on a Sunday night. What a long stressful week it's been. There's a happy ending and a good lesson at the end of this--I'll try and keep to the salient points.
Remember how I said I had a loaner last week, well, $1100 later I got my car back on Monday and on my way to work the next morning it died again. The week before it had died on an off ramp between the highway and a very busy state route (95 and Route 9 for anyone in New England). Fortunately I was within sight of my office park and my friends/bosses/coworkers came out and pushed me to a slightly safer location and one of them used his Triple A to tow me to my mechanic and we all agreed how lucky I was I hadn't taken the Mass. Pike to work, coulda been worse, yadayada. So this past Tuesday with my newly "fixed" car I'm driving on the Pike and the car dies. This is rather like dying on the Autobahn for anyone who doesn't know the Pike. There is no shoulder and people routinely drive about 75 to 80 miles an hour and weave in and out. I was able to glide into the right lane but that was it. A cop came and pushed me a quarter mile to a part with a shoulder but the car still shook when other cars went by. So I get towed back to my mechanic and my husband and I have to face the fact that we probably have to buy a new car sooner rather than later. Blech. I have delayed reactions so that night I'm sitting in the bathtub and just start crying. It seemed so unfair--just when he's starting a new job and we thought we might get out of debt at last and "begin to live."
The next day I read about this 12 year old in Afghanistan who was married at 3. Fortunately not consummated, but nevertheless made to be a slave for her husband's family and beaten by her father-in-law and scalded leaving bald patches on her head and I felt like a dumb, rich American for feeling sorry for myself. The rest of the week was just so hard--shopping for the show I'm designing, trying to rememorize lines and get some rehearsal times together, work, stress about the car, keep my husband calm, etc. By Friday night I felt like crying when the guy in Kinko's made me repeat my order 4 times and then finally couldn't do it because it uses a copyrighted image, even though it's for College Theater or even when I couldn't park the stupid loaner correctly. It was just that kind of week.
Friday night I had a really good rehearsal for the Eugene O'Neill piece--lines weren't perfect, but I really felt like I was truly ACTING--that fine balance between "feeling" it and "presenting" it well. Sometimes I feel but you can't see it--sometimes people tell me I'm showing it well but I don't believe them because I'm not feeling anything so this was exciting so despite my exhaustion I felt a little better.
Today we had tech for the piece I designed and the cast is just so sweet and friendly and the lighting designer, sound designer and stage manager are actually really good at their jobs which doesn't always happen and I love the director who is so good to me and asked me to be IN a piece she's directing in a few weeks which is just really nice since most directors I design for don't want to think of me for acting, afraid I won't design for them anymore. And even though it didn't end until 10:30 there were minor notes and we all just felt really good. I was driving home and thinking about life.
The two blogs I'm actually trying to read consistently (listed to the left) both had sad pieces lately. One, my dear friend, lost her husband at the end of 2004 quite suddenly and she was writing about when does the sadness stop and you stop missing all the things you took for granted in a relationship and the other, a woman I found through our mutual admiration love and lust for Hyde but have written to since and found other interests in common wrote of the worst times in her life, like when her husband cheated and she lay on the floor and howled with pain (which having gone through it for similar reasons I can understand but you can't believe until you've lived it) when music got her through and I thought as I drove home and looked at the skyline of Boston from a couple of different directions--gee, I'm happy, right now. I don't hate this city, I'm working with people who make me feel really good and really good about myself, the shows are going well and even though I'm nervous and tired, I feel things are under control, I'm driving the car I love, albeit it's probably for a short time and it's cost me $4000 in the last four months, at least we both have reasonably paying jobs right now so buying a new car is a possibility which it wouldn't have been a month ago, I'm doing things I enjoy, my relationship with my husband is good and even the fact that Hyde has a new album coming out in a few weeks time and a friend just got "Grand Cross Conclusion" and we're going to watch it when my shows are done. This is my life as it is right now and it's really quite good and I am appreciating it as it happens. It's so seldom that I realize I'm happy as it's happening and stop to enjoy it. So thank you God, for this gift of happiness and appreciation. Thank you for the fact I have a car and a computer and a husband and a dog and a cat. That I am reasonably good at what I do and am able to do things that I enjoy with people I like. That I and the people I love all have reasonably good health. That money is coming in and we can afford some pleasures. Thank you. That's all.
Remember how I said I had a loaner last week, well, $1100 later I got my car back on Monday and on my way to work the next morning it died again. The week before it had died on an off ramp between the highway and a very busy state route (95 and Route 9 for anyone in New England). Fortunately I was within sight of my office park and my friends/bosses/coworkers came out and pushed me to a slightly safer location and one of them used his Triple A to tow me to my mechanic and we all agreed how lucky I was I hadn't taken the Mass. Pike to work, coulda been worse, yadayada. So this past Tuesday with my newly "fixed" car I'm driving on the Pike and the car dies. This is rather like dying on the Autobahn for anyone who doesn't know the Pike. There is no shoulder and people routinely drive about 75 to 80 miles an hour and weave in and out. I was able to glide into the right lane but that was it. A cop came and pushed me a quarter mile to a part with a shoulder but the car still shook when other cars went by. So I get towed back to my mechanic and my husband and I have to face the fact that we probably have to buy a new car sooner rather than later. Blech. I have delayed reactions so that night I'm sitting in the bathtub and just start crying. It seemed so unfair--just when he's starting a new job and we thought we might get out of debt at last and "begin to live."
The next day I read about this 12 year old in Afghanistan who was married at 3. Fortunately not consummated, but nevertheless made to be a slave for her husband's family and beaten by her father-in-law and scalded leaving bald patches on her head and I felt like a dumb, rich American for feeling sorry for myself. The rest of the week was just so hard--shopping for the show I'm designing, trying to rememorize lines and get some rehearsal times together, work, stress about the car, keep my husband calm, etc. By Friday night I felt like crying when the guy in Kinko's made me repeat my order 4 times and then finally couldn't do it because it uses a copyrighted image, even though it's for College Theater or even when I couldn't park the stupid loaner correctly. It was just that kind of week.
Friday night I had a really good rehearsal for the Eugene O'Neill piece--lines weren't perfect, but I really felt like I was truly ACTING--that fine balance between "feeling" it and "presenting" it well. Sometimes I feel but you can't see it--sometimes people tell me I'm showing it well but I don't believe them because I'm not feeling anything so this was exciting so despite my exhaustion I felt a little better.
Today we had tech for the piece I designed and the cast is just so sweet and friendly and the lighting designer, sound designer and stage manager are actually really good at their jobs which doesn't always happen and I love the director who is so good to me and asked me to be IN a piece she's directing in a few weeks which is just really nice since most directors I design for don't want to think of me for acting, afraid I won't design for them anymore. And even though it didn't end until 10:30 there were minor notes and we all just felt really good. I was driving home and thinking about life.
The two blogs I'm actually trying to read consistently (listed to the left) both had sad pieces lately. One, my dear friend, lost her husband at the end of 2004 quite suddenly and she was writing about when does the sadness stop and you stop missing all the things you took for granted in a relationship and the other, a woman I found through our mutual admiration love and lust for Hyde but have written to since and found other interests in common wrote of the worst times in her life, like when her husband cheated and she lay on the floor and howled with pain (which having gone through it for similar reasons I can understand but you can't believe until you've lived it) when music got her through and I thought as I drove home and looked at the skyline of Boston from a couple of different directions--gee, I'm happy, right now. I don't hate this city, I'm working with people who make me feel really good and really good about myself, the shows are going well and even though I'm nervous and tired, I feel things are under control, I'm driving the car I love, albeit it's probably for a short time and it's cost me $4000 in the last four months, at least we both have reasonably paying jobs right now so buying a new car is a possibility which it wouldn't have been a month ago, I'm doing things I enjoy, my relationship with my husband is good and even the fact that Hyde has a new album coming out in a few weeks time and a friend just got "Grand Cross Conclusion" and we're going to watch it when my shows are done. This is my life as it is right now and it's really quite good and I am appreciating it as it happens. It's so seldom that I realize I'm happy as it's happening and stop to enjoy it. So thank you God, for this gift of happiness and appreciation. Thank you for the fact I have a car and a computer and a husband and a dog and a cat. That I am reasonably good at what I do and am able to do things that I enjoy with people I like. That I and the people I love all have reasonably good health. That money is coming in and we can afford some pleasures. Thank you. That's all.
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