Cher Sings "Frozen"

There are some strange senses of humour out there but this still made me WAIL.

And I Thought Last Week Was Long A**

It already feels like it should be Friday, probably because instead of relaxing and running lines the last two evenings, I've been at the office. Yesterday I was packing up and tonight the Marine is coming with the car so I can take everything home. Thank God for The Marine. That's all I'll say.

Why all this now? Because I have rehearsal tomorrow night and I sure don't plan on being here Friday any later than necessary.

Anyway, I've found the winter weather getting to me a bit. As I was cleaning up drives today, I came across a back up file of Martha's Vineyard pics. Think of June, flowers and the sea. Have to admit that I felt better after looking at them. Hope you do too.

One Week to Go

I don't think I'd ever been so glad to get to the end of a week as I was last night. I have to admit that after two more days of orientation, any doubt about my new job left me.

As it stands now, I'm just trying to not keep my frustration in check and get things ready for my departure. For the first time in my career, I won't be heading into an environment where I have to build things from the ground up and leave detailed instructions for my successor. Instead, I'm picking up where somebody else left off. What a concept. It's a feeling of complete and utter relief.

Slowly but surely, I am restructuring and breaking bad patterns in my life.

Although I have to say, it will be interesting having my tech week for the show the same week I start my new job. We've made great progress though and I'm pretty much fully off book now, due in no small measure to the Marine running lines with me. It has, however, caused us no small amount of hilarity having him do all the different voices and accents. I live with Richard Burton. Who knew?

Wide Awake and Wondering

I woke up early this morning, as I tend to do all the time now, caught in that weird space between edginess and vague terror. Can't seem to shut my brain off these days, there's too much going on.

The play is coming along well and I am almost [almost!] off book, which considering I'm in almost every scene is no small achievement. The major obstacle now at rehearsals is for every one to know it cold, and none of us does yet which means we stumble and lose momentum, but we keep going and it gets better. I suppose what I love and hate about this play is that being involved in it has forced me to not really care about my feelings and just go for it. I don't really have time to get all caught up in my own crap. "Do I look fat in this?" goes out the window when you're in a scene and that other person is relying on you.

That being said, I seem to be showing some cracks. Yesterday, one of the older actresses said to me "Is this the first part this big you've had?" and I said that truly, yes it was but that it wasn't so much rehearsals that were killing me but the combination of that with work right now. She said that's it's a demanding part, and she thought that I was doing a great job and contending with things incredibly well.

To be honest, I had never thought about it that way: "demanding". I suppose I had always broken it down in my head in terms of tasks; x many rehearsals this week, x amount of lines to get under my belt before next rehearsal; try not to keel over! LOL.

But demanding is not something I had really acknowledged I guess, because I was just so happy to get the role. It's almost like I can't allow myself any negative feelings about it, can't jinx things by passing judgement on a wonderful opportunity I've received after the drought I had experienced.

But I would be a liar if I said that there have never been occasions, where I wanted nothing more than a Sunday or evening of unscheduled time. I've just had to put that aside and enjoy being in the moment of things.

"The moment" didn't seem so grand yesterday when we had our costume parade - although there was one moment of extreme hilarity when I donned my blue coat and twenties era hat and walked out into the theatre declaring my name was Paddington and I was lost. A good laugh was had by all as the saying goes.

But being the fat girl is never fun and I've got to get back into working out. I'm trying to cut myself some slack and not beat myself up. I was doing well, then went back to work where everyone was coughing and spluttering. Then I was rehearsing in the winter in unheated space. Then we had three rehearsals in a row. That damn near killed me, and this is the first week since mid-January I feel pretty much 100% again, tired from all the activity I have going on, but still 100%.

So I have to do something I hate doing; think in the short term. I'm a planner by nature. I hate not knowing what's going on, not having all the facts, not knowing the objective and the steps that need to be taken to get there. [Jesus. H. Roosevelt. No wonder my present job has made me mental!] I hate having to be reactionary, because God only knows that will happen anyway, never mind your own disengagement or franticness creating it for you. I have to get to the next visit to the club, the next walk on the tread mill. It's as simple as that. If I focus on how out of shape I am, I just get discouraged. I have to stop getting mad about it too. Some of the reasons behind my weight are my fault; some of them aren't. At the end of the day, the only certainty is that I'm the only one who can solve it. And I know if I focus on the length of the journey ahead, I'll lose my commitment.

And there's my new job. Orientation has been going well, but it's a very different world than what I'm used to. On the upswing, there's a lot of things about my present job that I just won't have to contend with in my new one. Still, I did wonder as I lay wide eyed in the darkness this morning if I had done the right thing or if my discomfort was not a genuine bad gut feel, but more the uncertainty of the unknown.

Sometimes I feel like I would gladly put aside all my ambitions for a year off. There I said it. Really, that's what I want right now. It's what I've wanted for years, just some time to recharge the batteries and not be worried about bills. That's why despite everything I feel incredible freedom with this new gig. The extra money I'm making will let me save.

I'm tired. A year from now my job is over and I'm taking a few months off when it's done before I get back into the swing of things. That's all I know right now. That's what I want.

Spring Will Soon Be Sprung

And may I just say Oh.mah.guh.



This is the latest addition to Claire Murray's Line - the Antique Bird Collection. I don't know what it is about these hook rugs, but I adore them. I nearly lost it in Martha's Vineyard when I discovered there was a Claire Murray store in Edgartown where we were staying.

In other "it will soon be Spring news" the Gardening Issue of Martha Stewart Living arrived this week. I've actually cancelled my subscription, not because I dislike the magazine, [quite the opposite] but because I can never seem to devote the time to reading them and it seemed a waste. But I always consider this particular issue a bellweather of sorts. Once it arrives on my doorstep, winter can't survive much longer.

At any rate, I have a day off today in what has been a tough week of work, training for my new gig and rehearsals. Projects continue unabated, orientation is always just that, and rehearsals are ramping up because we're now off book. Friday night we went to a pub afterwards for notes. I haven't laughed so hard in ages. I've really enjoyed being in this play. I don't think I could have planned a better experience myself. As much as I'm looking forward to getting my weekends back, I will miss it very much. Can't say I'll miss the snow that went with it though. LOL!

GOOD. LORD.

If I ever doubt my commitment to the theatre. I'll take inspiration from this woman:



Then again, after yet ANOTHER 20 cm of snow, maybe this woman on the beach is a better option. Lady Be Kool indeed. I wish everything about me was stylishly long. Except my boobs that is.

Is It Spring Yet?

This week I am decidedly unbitten by the acting bug.

Never thought it would happen, but this weekend I encountered the unbridled bliss of a weekend without obligation, without half a Sunday filled by a rehearsal and I have to admit, I kinda liked it.

Between work and the winter weather we’ve endured of late, I’m with Indigo. I just want to crawl under my duvet and not come out until late March. LOL!

Too Little, Too Late

Today was one of those days where any doubt about taking on my new job was utterly erased. Thank God I begged off rehearsal tonight. The fever started around 11 am. The my chest started hurting in the early afternoon. I've been feeling crappy for over two weeks. Not sick, not well, but the last couple of days I had really been feeling a lot better.

But because it is so reactive [when it shouldn't be], my current job has a way of running me into the ground. Lately, it's been running me into the second strata, which is why I found a new one.

But first, some background...

In late December a mat leave position came up at work. It's a Producer role for two preeminent women's websites at my company. Given that my job history has essentially been on the execution side, it seemed utterly crazy to me to pass up an opportunity to shore up my brand management and content strategy skills, even if I had no guarantee that the job would go permanent.

I've decided that despite my literary and thespian aspirations, I can't afford to make the mistake I did in my 20's, which was letting my day job progression atrophy. My philosophy was that it didn't matter because I'd get to do what I really wanted to do eventually.

Except that that I didn't, and after "life" happened, I found myself years later still in the same quagmire of getting paid a pittance for the privilege of having my intelligence insulted day in and day out. I was finally able to break out of that two and a half years ago when I obtained my current role.

I remember how wonderful my job was at first, how grateful I was to be released from the toxicity of my previous environment. But it quickly became obvious that I wasn't going to be able to fully utilize my skills, that to a degree, I'd been hired as a glorified fulfillment agent. But no matter. I had a good job, an opportunity to learn a lot and had fantastic people to work with.

But the beat unfortunately went on. And on. And on. I raised concerns with the right people in late 2006. Nothing changed. That wasn't necessarily anyone's fault, but nothing changed. And by the end of 2007, I was quickly coming to the conclusion that once again, I was experiencing the uniquely corporate phenomenon of being punished for being quietly effective and decided I had to once and for all get out of "get it done" occupations.

The sad thing is that I feel like I worked at 30% of what I'm capable of doing for two and a half years. If I'd actually had support and a proper mandate and oh I dunno, perhaps as a project manager had some autonomy to you know, actually manage I could have really made a difference instead of just continually saving the division from itself. Hell, I think if given half a chance, I could have had our production area whipped into shape in two weeks. The big unwieldy projects we had to contend with and our day-to-day could have actually been a sane experience for everyone involved.

But it hasn't been that way. Most times the production team and I are the last to know and frankly, being consistently treated with low grade disrespect wears you the f*ck out. There. I said it.

What's been really gratifying about this move is how congratulatory everyone has been, how genuinely happy they have been for me.

What's been really weird is how surprised some people are that I'm leaving. I'm surprised they're surprised. It's amazing how people pigeon hole you, as if being the person who gets everybody's else's ideas accomplished is all you could be and do forever and ever. Amen.

Frankly speaking, I only stuck around as long as I did because I've worked in worse places. But today, when yet again, I wasn't in the loop on a vital bit of information, I realized this had been going on for too long and just wasn't healthy. I no longer have any threshold to wait things out and hope they get better.

Despite how much I'll miss everyone, the time has simply come to move on.

Snow Storms, Auditions and Debussy

Good news: I think I've finally beaten this sinus thing that has been riding my ass for over two weeks.

Bad news: Had to turn down the audition for that second play. Things started getting worse yesterday sinus wise and I realized that if I went to the audition and didn't get rest last night, I risked getting really ill. So I emailed and apologizing profusely let them know I couldn't consider participating. Just wouldn't have been fair to everyone involved, including myself.

Anyway, it's still pretty hectic at work as I gear up for my amazing new job at the beginning of March. More on that one later. Rehearsals continue to go well and we're now in the theatre. Despite a serious snow storm that's dumping 25 cm on us before it's done, we had rehearsal tonight. I was rewarded with the soundtrack of Debussy's Nocturnes for the ride home. Sometimes something as simple as driving in a snow storm to classical music is pure magic.

Heh!

Well it just occurred to me that I haven't been here in about a week.

How did that happen? Apologies.

In the meantime, here's the following. Definitely one to listen to with headphones!