I suppose it doesn't help that they can probably hear me coughing and sneezing half a building away.
But I'm here, damnit. I'm getting work done. I'm sitting dutifully in my chair dutifully researching my dutiful heart out. "I won't spend the whole day wishing I had stayed home", she repeats to herself.
Last night I worked on taxes for pretty much all of my spare time, and they are almost done. All that remains is to add up all my heating bills for the Michigan Home Heating tax credit (for which I'm not sure I'm eligible) and pay the $20 by credit card for Intuit to send it to the IRS. That's not so much money, considering what I used to pay H&R Block to do my taxes. I like that it has an error checker in it, so I can't really screw anything major up.
Looks like I'll be getting a pretty big return, which is good, because I have it all more than spent already. I have an entire porch to replace.
All of this has made me wish that I had a better internet connection at home. Our phone lines are terrible, but DSL and cable modems aren't offered in my neighborhood yet. Yes, I know, I live in the sticks. I'm also incredibly spoiled by my nice T1 at work. I'm used to the internet clipping along, as fast as it looks in the ads on TV. That's the net as I now know it.
Of course I remember the 300 baud BBS days, but like the true consumer of a capitalist society that I am, I always want bigger, better, and faster. Bill works for Ameritech, and they installed an ISDN line into his house, just so he could work at home. I'm insanely jealous of that. Of course I'll never be able to convince my company to do it. The director of the department that funds my grant only just got a connection in his house this year, and as far as I know, he's about the only one out of all those hundreds of people I work with who is hooked up. It would be bad politics for me to even ask. What really sucks is that the director in question probably hardly even uses a computer. His job is mostly being in meetings. That's what directors do.
Speaking of directors, still no word from Taming of the Shrew. I'm starting to get a little nuts about it, but am keeping myself cool since I don't want to drive Forest to drink. He already thinks I'm crazy for checking the voice mail so often. He is in the enviable position of not really caring whether he's cast or not. If he gets a neat role that interests him, he will be intrigued and entertained by the notion. If he doesn't get cast at all, he'll shrug, and be thankful that his life won't be so disrupted.
As for me, I need theatre. I don't know why, but it's a part of my life that I just don't get along well without. I've missed it intensely for all these months. It's been since last August! Up until now the longest I have gone in the past 5 years without being in a show was 2 months. I miss the creativity, and I miss the interaction with all those other human beings. The discipline, the memorization; I miss using words and phrases that aren't my own. I'm not a great writer, I don't often come up with great lines. That's what playwrights are for.
Then there's the fairy tale part of it, that makes me feel like a little girl inside. I love being magically transformed into someone else. It's like playing dress-up, except that you also get someone's mannerisms, and the license to behave as they would, even if it's inappropriate! It's the only time I really let myself loose and play. (Well, except with Forest, but that's different.)
So of course it's important to me that I get cast, especially this time. I don't know if I will be able to do anything next year, either, it depends on Kirstin's school performance. Summer might be all I get. It makes me shudder to think about it.
Of course I've also acted in enough things to develop a taste in characters. I don't want to be cast as just anything. I like a challenge, something with complicated transitions is best. I also like to play some of the more extreme emotions, which aren't given to female characters terribly often, like anger, and fear. Those are good ones. I like a character with some flaws written in, and some strengths; one that's fleshed out enough to sink one's teeth into.
I also enjoy having enough of a line load to get all those things across.
Another subtle aspect that I yearn for is balanced writing. I like dialogue which involves the characters on a giving and receiving level. Some scripts tend to have one character lead the dialogue, and the other ones basically just respond to what that character says. Some of them are so bad that the weaker characters end up with nothing but "Yes," "No," and answering the questions of the stronger one. That's no fun.
I also prefer roles with subtle undertones to play with. Not everything should be said out loud, there should be some room for interpretation. I'm also heavily into characters that interact closely with other characters. I like building those on-stage relationships, and moving emotion between actors, having some interchange of energy with them.
So I guess I'm a picky actress. I've always been willing to settle, though. If I'm offered a role I'm not really that interested in, I'll usually take it anyway, just for the learning experience of it, or to keep myself in practice. I've occasionally taken roles and backstage positions with the intention to "pay my dues" to new directors, too. Quite the little suck-up, aren't I?
Don't worry, though. Even if I take those parts that I'd rather not, I still work hard on them, and try to give the director what he/she wants.
Oooh, as an added bonus, I just realized that if I get Kate, I'll have some new monologues to play with. My audition pieces are getting stale, so that would be a big plus. I always find that monologues I've actually done in shows make better auditions than ones I've just worked on in class, competition, or for audition purposes. I'm better able to put myself into the scene that way, I guess. I'm also just plain better at rehearsal with some direction. My own ideas will only take me so far, and I don't hear myself with an objective ear. As a matter of fact, sometimes I can perform a whole monologue and be so focused on it that I can only tell you what was in my head, not know what I looked like or sounded like doing it.
Forest is different. When he's on stage he can actually watch himself somehow, so he knows how he's doing and coming across. I think I'd find that very distracting, but it works for him.
Everyone in my office is running around preparing for my secretary's baby shower next week. I'm going to be baking a cake and doing the decorations for it. (Hopefully I can afford that before then.) It's odd to me how fast the lives of my co-workers go by. I feel like I only hired Rachel a month or two ago, but in fact it was well over a year ago now. We only see each other in the office, a small part of 40 hours per week, and people's personal lives move along at a much faster pace than that. So it's strange when work and personal life meet, even for a day. It also means another day of admiring cute booties.
Tick, tick, tick.
Thank the stars, Forest finally got a good night's sleep last night. We were both incredibly snuggly, and he actually sang songs in his sleep. (Isn't that adorable?) I don't know if it was pleasure at finally ditching that awful MSU job, or the prospect of getting to sleep in in the morning and have more spare time, but I don't care. I'm just glad he's finally resting.
