Ferritin, Poetry and One's Art

"If you never let it show
They're never gonna know.
Keep looking." - Sade

Yesterday, I must admit, started off less than auspiciously.

I woke up tired and grumpy and had to go to my doctor’s office to get my latest blood results.

I eventually got in to see my doctor and although my Vitamin D is now normal [YAY!], my iron stores were up a measly four points.

Here is something about dealing with doctors. AD-VO-CATE y’all. I brought up with my doctor the fact that I've been at supplementation for nearly a year and that I'm getting frustrated. I pointed out that my energy is actually starting to get quite good, but right after my you-know-what, I'm exhausted for a good 10-14 days, something that psychologically speaking is starting to wear me down, not to mention the fact that it makes a good, but demanding job hard to cope with.

She was a little dismissive of this at first, pointing out that there are people with much lower iron stores who function fine and my hemoglobin is fine. But she thought I was taking Floradix. I said, no I'm taking Genestra Iron Proteinate, which are 40 mg capsules and I'm taking 3 a day. That's what it's taking to even get a minimal increase of 4 points.

That got her attention, and she agreed to write me a r/x for infufer which is essentially iron dextran. It's injected. My naturopath recommended it and I’m feeling hopeful.

After this appointment I needed to stop at a nearby Starbucks and get a coffee and some food. The coffee was one of the best I’ve had in quite some time. I sat in an armchair as soft as duvet and watched the sky roll by. Such was its beauty that I was compelled to compose a poem on the spot, which brings me to a feature we’ve not had much of lately

FRIEND, ROMANS IS PROUD TO PRESENT ANOTHER INSTALLMENT OF ITS CONTINUING SERIES: POETIC INTERLUDES

I sit and watch a rolling sky
As puffy white and blue eye tinged as a Cottonelle kitten
The clouds go by
If I had a laser I could shoot them all
PEW! PEW! PEW! PEW!!

After my coffee I turned down a side street to call the Marine to let him know my results, which was not a good idea in that my timing was terrible. A CAA truck had just doored his car so he was, needless to say, a little “distracted”.

Ahem.

Then some a**hole was honking me cause I wasn’t turning right soon enough, which just made me want to cry, because when I did try to turn, my car stalled. And I was tired. And I was fed up. Stupid to get upset I know, but I couldn’t help it. There’s just a level of emotional idiocy and me-me-me-ness out there that is at times, unbearable.

And so I got to work [taking the longest scenic route possible I might add] and contemplated my audition that night, an audition that had been hanging over my head like a sword of Damocles for a couple of weeks. I was really nervous about it, because I was thinking that maybe my previous good experience had maybe been a bit of a fluke. And I’m just feeling really sensitive about my weight right now and just not looking or feeling my best. Plus the director of this show has worked at Stratford, so I wasn’t exactly going to be showing my stuff to a lightweight.

Auditioning is the price you pay for getting to act and I find the vulnerability of it unnerving.

And I’m sure I was just a ranking beeyatch for the Marine to live with the last little while, being the stressball that I am.

But reading this yesterday really helped. So I decided to just chill out. I went home, got a hot bath and a nice meal that the Marine made me and then off I went, practicing my monologue again and again as I drove. I got settled in and waited, and the weird thing was that the longer I waited, the calmer I got. I felt genuinely relaxed, something I’ve never really felt before in those circumstances. I remember seeing an interview with Julianna Moore and she talked about relaxation really be the key to good acting, because then you can just be a conduit for the emotions that will naturally surface. Last night I got a glimmer of what she was talking about.

So I finally got called in, met folks [there were about eight people there as they were auditioning for two plays at once] and talked to the director a bit. He asked about my experience and my training and then I got to do my monologue. It was really quiet and I thought oh boy, I think I’m really effing up here. And then I finished and there was this pause and then the director said and I quote: “Wow. That was just excellent.”

[insert HUGE sigh of internal relief here.]

So I said thanks and then they asked me to stay and read from the play. I did that with another actress, who ironically enough was reading the part I wanted, but no matter. After we finished, the director of the other play asked if I was sure I didn’t want to read for that one too, but I just told him that with my workload, the timing would be terrible with the rehearsal schedule. It would be inevitable that there would be some conflict and I wouldn’t want to let the show down.

So I hear by Thursday if I got a call back for Sunday. It’s in the laps of the Gods at this point. I may not get a call back once they see who could work together physically, etc. The point was, I had a good audition and as I fired up the car and started heading home, I actually rolled down the window and yelled to no one in particular “I AM NOT A FLUUUUUUKE!”

PEW! PEW! PEW! PEW!