Okay, the only reason for the title is that I just turned on the radio and "Laid" by that group James was playing, which I LOVE to death...
I've GOT to write... I have so much running through my head right now... The only thing that could get me in a sleeping mood right now is a good pounding all-night thunderstorm, which I'm sure as hell not going to get in Santa Fe. So I'm going to sit here typing my brains out until my eyes start oozing shut...
It's been a really shitty week... you knew that if you've been reading through this journal... Everything's been going wrong... Yesterday, Peter and I talked on then phone for a couple minutes, and he said, "gahd, Helena, it's really been a shitty year for you, hasn't it? Why are you even still here?" I made some mumbling comment, and he assured me he was completely kidding. But yes - yes it has been a shitty year, and it has been a shitty week, and I've been very unhappy lately... Well, you knew that. But I have my good times, too. I know that the depressed times never last. They come, and they beat me to a bloody pulp, and then I go watch Jerry Springer and go to bed. And then I have a nice dream about some warm delicious boy in my bed, and wake up refreshed and ready for another day of whatever is dished out to me. Or sometimes, something will just... happen - something that grabs me by the ankles, whoops me upside the head and says, "Girl! Shut the fuck up and let's go do something cool!" And then I get hyper and silly and the happiness just doesn't stop...
I sound mentally ill, don't I?
Oh well...
I have been waiting for this night all week. The College of Santa Fe comedy troop had a show tonight, and I've been anticipating it since the fliers first went up. At their last show, I left laughing so hard I was crying and had to make a mad dash for the bathroom so I wouldn't wet myself... I mean, every skit was just so damn funny! I was already in physical pain from laughing so hard when the lights came up on a new skit... Three girls were lying on the floor in sleeping bags, and suddenly, the background music came on: Angelo Badalamenti's "Laura's Theme," from "Twin Peaks." I don't know what the skit was about, I had so many tears in my eyes...
I used up all my laughter before the show, I think... In Geology class, two friends of mine, Jane and Claire, (I DO have more than two friends here, I realized...) began a giggle fest... While mapping earthquake waves on some stupid lab sheet, we were laughing so hard about nothing that I couldn't breathe and the other two were turning red and laying their heads on the table helplessly. It all began when I tried to find Dallas, TX on a map of New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada, which, in retrospect, isn't that funny, but at the time, I was hysterical.
"Helena, you need to hang out with us more," Claire told me.
PLEASE don't get all serious on me now... "Yeah," I replied non-commitally.
"You're going up to Mike's room after class, aren't you?" Jane accused me.
"Yeah..."
"I hate to say this, but... MIKE? Come on, Helena, he's... he's just..." (Go ahead and say it, Claire...) "He's just kinda..." She poked at her head and made a "gee-you're-dumb" face.
"I know, but..."
But what? What's wrong with Mike? Other than the fact that he's completely socially inept, his entire life revolves around video games, and he's just plain boring as hell once in awhile? He IS a nice guy. He is a wonderful guy. He treats me well. When I need to cry, he's there, and when I need to vent, he's there. I care about him. A lot. But he doesn't understand half of what I say, and considers it his obligation to cheer me up by telling me that I can redeem myself and that he doesn't consider my immoral acts irreparable... Hah. Nevermind. There's plenty wrong with Mike, no matter how much I care about him.
"Yeah, I know, he's kind of a putz..."
"Uh... YEAH!" said Claire, never one to keep her opinions to herself.
"You need to find a new group to hang with," advised Jane. "Hell, you need to find a group to hang with. Well, you can hang with us!"
Do I just OOZE loserism? I felt them taking pity on me. I felt them seeing how pathetic my life has become, and I was embarrassed. I felt them knowing how much I despise depending solely on Mike for companionship. I felt them seeing me alone, wondering about me, wondering what the hell I'm thinking, where I'm going, how I'm surviving without a single solitary friend other than Mike. They know. They all know. Everyone who sees me knows where I fit in here. Which is nowhere. You can't fake coolness when no one ever sees you around. Everyone on this campus knows everyone else, and you know who hangs together and who's a loner. I'm horrible embarrassed. But I'm also touched. Claire's an East Coast Bitch like me - and an East Coast Bitch never does anything solely out of sympathy. Jane, a Northwesterner, might do things out of sympathy, but it sure as hell wouldn't last very long. (Once, we had a discussion about her dumping the guy she was seeing: "So I'm just gonna tell him, look, I'm a bitch, I'm using you, I don't want to hurt you, but I'm a bitch and I'm using you, and it's over.")
They left me standing there in the hall, still high from our laughter in geology class. Jane went to work out, and Claire went to check email. I surveyed my kingdom. And suddenly, it seemed like absolutely nothing. Where did I have to go? Mike's room? As always? My own room? To do what? To talk to whom? To do WHAT of any significance? So me and my pathetic life hauled ourselves up the stairs to Mike's room, knocked forlornly, secretly rejoiced when no one was in his room, and skipped off to my own dorm room.
I hope Claire and Jane and I become friends. I mean, real friends. Claire is a sleaze, sort of, and Jane is a tiny bit shy, and will give you funny looks if you tell her an extremely dirty joke or ask when she got her first period or something, but I know them both pretty well -- I've just been too scared of rejection to make any advanced toward friendship with them.
The comedy show wasn't as good as last time. I mean, how can you beat "Laura's Theme"?
One thing I noticed about the skits this time was the huge masculine influence in the dialogue. Oh, I know - I was supposed to just go and laugh and have a good time, but happiness is like sex... Once you've had your, er, moment of ecstasy, it's damn hard to keep the enthusiasm - it is possible, but sometimes it's a little too much all at once, you know? I couldn't just give myself over to any more happiness - it was still there, but it wasn't flowing as easily and naturally as it had in geology class. I sat there and analyzed the skits...
As I was saying... Masculine influence. Yes. all of the skits were written by males. It was painfully obvious. Of the performers, the males had EVERY funny line, and the skits that included the females were male-oriented: guy-trying-to-get-girl sorta things... It was kind of disillusioning when I realized what was going on. At least the performers did well.
It's hard being a writer and being female. Virginia Woolf promised it would be. And then she killed herself. And how many women playwrights can you think of? How many? Name ONE woman playwright! One GOOD woman playwright! Think of the last five years' worth of Tony awards! How many of those shows have been written by women? See, I told you. It's scary, really. I KNOW who wrote those skits tonight - the boys in my creative writing class, with their sci-fi novels and their cute little girlfriends and their Stanley Kubrick films... with their pretentious attitudes and their ugly seventies clothing and their swing dances and their lives paved before them. What about me? Why wasn't I one of the writers? Because I'm unpopular? Because Erich destroyed my chances of getting along with any of the people who go to his parties, by telling everyone what I'm, ahem, "really like"? Because I'm a perfectionist, rejection-fearing, depressed person? Because I'm too shy to be funny around anyone but Jayden, Tommy, Jeff, and Peter? Because I'm a girl? Somewhat. I didn't join the comedy troop's writing team because I was afraid I wouldn't meet the standards, that I'd try to be funny, but that I'd end up having one of my depressed days every time the group met. I work alone. I work alone because no one ever has to approve if you hide everything in some secret folder or disc...
There was another thing I realized during the comedy show, though. I miss theater. I miss it more than I knew.
The theater, which is just a little studio, is painted entirely black - you know, like all studios, as far as I know... As light shone on the actors, I watched their shadows darken the walls around them. Those shadows got to me -- it sounds dumb, but they did. Those were the kinds of shadows Tino and Nick (names not changed due to years and years since I've seen either of them...) used to make on the walls of the church where we all rehearsed dance steps for "Wizard of Oz." You had the people, the bright-eyed, shining, ACTOR people, with all their flair and their flamboyance... And then you had the bare walls, minimalist to the max. And the people had to fill up the emptiness of the walls with more than just their shadows... They had to light up a room. And I remember never being able to do that, but being violently jealous of everyone else who could...
Sometimes I think if I weren't such an empty person, I'd be the star of the show... But it isn't that. I'm not an empty person -- look at all this stuff I'm spilling out into my journal! I don't know why it's never been me in front of a standing ovation... Some mental block, probably.
Seeing those shadows on the wall made me feel very alone. You're never supposed to notice the shadows, only the humor and the passion and the words. Seiing the shadows is like seeing through the magic, and you're never supposed to know there's anything behind those tragic, smiling, fearless exteriors...
I miss theater. I miss it a lot. I know it's where I belong - somehow. Not just to say, "I've seen fifteen Broadway shows this year..." but to BE the magic, to capture people, to dig my claws in and suffocate my audience with whatever emotion I think people need to see. I'm not the star of the show - in that respect, I'll only ever be a shadow on the wall... But I want to finish my play. I think tomorrow, I'll bring a notebook over to the theater and just see what comes out... It won't be a shadow..
I have to go - Jane and Claire just appeared at my door with silly string wanting to go out and play...
Love,
Helena*
"The curtain rises on the scene, with someone shouting to be free. The play unfolds before my eyes. There stands the actor who is me..." --The Moody Blues, "The Actor."