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bluecastleTell us a little about yourself. You are you? What are your hobbies?
Well bollocks. I hate those kinds of questions -- the kind that either have to be answered in one sentence or a Ph.D. thesis.
But. Today I choose: thesis. Who am I? What ARE my hobbies?
Frankly... I think my hobby is ... well, hobbies. "I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly" (apologies Richard and Oscar -- you know I love you)... a little bit of this, a little bit of that. What day is today? And who the hell knows what I'll be into tomorrow.
Hobbledehoy. Peripatetic. That's me.
Well bollocks. I hate those kinds of questions -- the kind that either have to be answered in one sentence or a Ph.D. thesis.
But. Today I choose: thesis. Who am I? What ARE my hobbies?
Frankly... I think my hobby is ... well, hobbies. "I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly" (apologies Richard and Oscar -- you know I love you)... a little bit of this, a little bit of that. What day is today? And who the hell knows what I'll be into tomorrow.
Hobbledehoy. Peripatetic. That's me.
I read. I have always read. A lot. Especially when I was small. Probably saved my life. Gave me a place to go inside my head when the outside world was just too terrible (which was often).
Batik classes. Ballet. Gymnastics. (Mother said I was awkward and gawky) Church Choir. Arts Festivals. Sucking the juice of oranges through peppermint sticks jammed through the rind. Playing with dolls. Playing Make-believe. Tea parties. Bike riding. Tree climbing. Awkward clay pots.
Creating whole worlds for small plastics animals to live. Paper-mache tree stumps. Brownie Girl Scouts. Scout Camp. Catching crawfish in the stream. Hiking up and down in the streams. Merit badges and tin foil.
Creative Dramatics.
Community theater. Green school auditoriums. Basement theaters. Cheese in a can for hors d'oevres. Butler Daddies. Cast parties. Coats on beds. Swedish meatballs.
Music lessons. County Band. Stage Band.
High School Marching Band. Terror. Heat. Sweat. Wool. Cotton candy. Concert band. Jazz Band. Sheet Music Librarian. Markers. Smelly ones. Practice Rooms. Darkened Buses. Earth, Wind, and Fire.
French club. Stagecraft. Drama Club. Stage crew. Wet paint. Bruises. Auditions. Cast lists. Acting. My FIRST part. Looking from the wings and knowing more than most. Blood. Sweat. And oh so many tears. Costume closets. History reports. "Why is that boy wearing makeup?"
I was so innocent then.
Community theater. "We don't have a part for you, but how would you like to help us out with props."
Knowing. Eager. "How would you feel about STAGE MANAGING?"
Stage Manager. Headsets. Antique light boards. A world of no curtain calls.
Yet another community theater. Two. Three. Please just let me come out and play.
YOU want me to stage manage? Excellent. It's the big time!!
Only it wasn't. The director was insane. The cast was pissed. We rehearsed in a bunker and one week before we open my best friend dies. Monday, Hospital. Thursday, Dead. Monday next, Buried. But the show must go on. Until the lead collapses from heat stroke. Opening night with no dress rehearsal. Stupid purple lights. Damn Equity refugees. Fucking theater.
A friend told me once that the theater is a great mistress. Well I threw myself into one hell of an affair. From first dates and small flirtations to moving in together.
Non-stop theater/sex. Not actual sex mind you. Just pretend. It's all smoke and mirrors anyway the theater.
Foreplay. Orgasm. Afterglow and a cigarette.
Rehearsal. Opening night. The run of the show and a cast party (and a cigarette).
Exhausting. Numbing. No need to think about how screwed up my life was. No time to think.
Crappy part-time library job. Crappy full-time library job. The day job always sucks... but at least there's the night time full of theater.
Until there isn't. The fights. The breakups. The makeups. The divorce. Loud and public and final.
The soul sucking day job is still there... but what else is there?
Just act? Who'll have you? But I AM right for that part, why can't you see that you blind bastard?!
Short sighted directors become the bane of my existence and I chuck it all.
Never doing that again. NO way. No how. When you play nice others are supposed to play nicely with you. And what's left when they don't? Crying non-stop for three days.
Nothingness. Empty evenings. Reality TV. Adopt a cat. Get a house.
Then one day the word COLLAGE drifts up from your subconscious. All unbidden like. Bad memories of a failed fourth grade assignment that wasn't good enough. But still. There's an interest. A hope. You have the web at work. You surf. You collect supplies. HAH. Magazines and a glue stick and an ancient sketch book never used. You're not an artist. Of course not. it's not art, it's glueing.
Reading. Researching. Those mad library skills pay off. You read every web site known to man or woman or child on collaging. It's fun. It's freeing. But it's still not enough.
The twenty-year-old passive aggressive affair with a journal decides to join the party. Diaries. Journals.
A breakthrough. Two words. VISUAL JOURNAL. Two years of steady writing COMBINED with the ripped paper and the glue.
ART JOURNALING. ATC's. On-line art trading groups. Round robins. ALTERED BOOKS. Paper arts. Greeting cards from bits of fabric. Paper AND fabric combined. What alternative universe is this? My back room is now a studio.
Sketchbooks. Pens. Inks. A few "good" drawings. Maybe one or two. A lot of frustration.
An acting role here and there. More stage managing. Directing once or twice. Readings. Writing. Thank God no arithmetic! A play is born. Rehearsed. Performed. Put on a shelf and never looked at since. Is it any good? I doubt it, but I'm too scared to read it and find out.
The soul-sucking day job is joined by a soul-sucking night job at the big store from hell. Eight months in a blue vest. Nuff said. Quitting has never been so easy.
Write Santa a letter asking for peace. I get another night job in my Christmas stocking (stalking?). It's at a theater. It'll be fun.
Ooh... and now there's scrapbooking. An errant link on a blog. A new kind of Scrapper. A place to put all those memories with pretty paper and ribbons and cool fabric to wrap myself in. And it's all fun.
It is, for a while. A minute. A year. Standing in the back of a darkened theater is being loved. A happy place. Halloween. The world's most adorable Little Red Riding Hood costume. A workplace flirtation. Until the happy place is filled night after night with loud noise pretending to be music. By drunken harpies. By coke and ketamine and violence and the police and EMTs. By half-empty beer cans and sticky fingered children. Pizza parties in the box office and lazy Sundays selling popcorn just aren't worth it any more.
The back of the theater ain't heaven no more. It's hell. Or hopefully Purgatory.
Ah Purgatory. The link to my other torrid affair. Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I loved it. I lusted after it. I consumed it in any way possible. I glutted myself on it. It made me happy. It still makes me happy... but the honeymoon IS over. Sad.
A brief affair with ER. One with House. I still see him from time to time. A casual date. I'm also seeing an ex who stopped by my house one day when I was home sick ... another Doctor. Doctor Who? you may ask. I smile and nod and smile some more. The Doctor brings along his boyfriend and its a bit of a threesome on my couch. I think Torchwood would like that. Those lads and lasses are my current crush. And I'm crushing hard. TV is a hobby. A habit. It is. Another world to inhabit to protect myself. But it's a world that gives back. It does. Time travelers on my TV. Art in my studio. A feedback loop of sorts.
I sat down the other and made a bad collage. Made two actually. And started on another good one. Like real art, man. The juices were flowing. Can you tell? I just wrote all this!! It just came out of my fingers. This writing too is a hobby.
And guess what... I have a date with the theater next week.
So hang on for this ride. I don't know where I'm going...
Donna Quixote on her hobby horse... onwards to glory? Who knows.
Stay tuned.
Batik classes. Ballet. Gymnastics. (Mother said I was awkward and gawky) Church Choir. Arts Festivals. Sucking the juice of oranges through peppermint sticks jammed through the rind. Playing with dolls. Playing Make-believe. Tea parties. Bike riding. Tree climbing. Awkward clay pots.
Creating whole worlds for small plastics animals to live. Paper-mache tree stumps. Brownie Girl Scouts. Scout Camp. Catching crawfish in the stream. Hiking up and down in the streams. Merit badges and tin foil.
Creative Dramatics.
Community theater. Green school auditoriums. Basement theaters. Cheese in a can for hors d'oevres. Butler Daddies. Cast parties. Coats on beds. Swedish meatballs.
Music lessons. County Band. Stage Band.
High School Marching Band. Terror. Heat. Sweat. Wool. Cotton candy. Concert band. Jazz Band. Sheet Music Librarian. Markers. Smelly ones. Practice Rooms. Darkened Buses. Earth, Wind, and Fire.
French club. Stagecraft. Drama Club. Stage crew. Wet paint. Bruises. Auditions. Cast lists. Acting. My FIRST part. Looking from the wings and knowing more than most. Blood. Sweat. And oh so many tears. Costume closets. History reports. "Why is that boy wearing makeup?"
I was so innocent then.
Community theater. "We don't have a part for you, but how would you like to help us out with props."
Knowing. Eager. "How would you feel about STAGE MANAGING?"
Stage Manager. Headsets. Antique light boards. A world of no curtain calls.
Yet another community theater. Two. Three. Please just let me come out and play.
YOU want me to stage manage? Excellent. It's the big time!!
Only it wasn't. The director was insane. The cast was pissed. We rehearsed in a bunker and one week before we open my best friend dies. Monday, Hospital. Thursday, Dead. Monday next, Buried. But the show must go on. Until the lead collapses from heat stroke. Opening night with no dress rehearsal. Stupid purple lights. Damn Equity refugees. Fucking theater.
A friend told me once that the theater is a great mistress. Well I threw myself into one hell of an affair. From first dates and small flirtations to moving in together.
Non-stop theater/sex. Not actual sex mind you. Just pretend. It's all smoke and mirrors anyway the theater.
Foreplay. Orgasm. Afterglow and a cigarette.
Rehearsal. Opening night. The run of the show and a cast party (and a cigarette).
Exhausting. Numbing. No need to think about how screwed up my life was. No time to think.
Crappy part-time library job. Crappy full-time library job. The day job always sucks... but at least there's the night time full of theater.
Until there isn't. The fights. The breakups. The makeups. The divorce. Loud and public and final.
The soul sucking day job is still there... but what else is there?
Just act? Who'll have you? But I AM right for that part, why can't you see that you blind bastard?!
Short sighted directors become the bane of my existence and I chuck it all.
Never doing that again. NO way. No how. When you play nice others are supposed to play nicely with you. And what's left when they don't? Crying non-stop for three days.
Nothingness. Empty evenings. Reality TV. Adopt a cat. Get a house.
Then one day the word COLLAGE drifts up from your subconscious. All unbidden like. Bad memories of a failed fourth grade assignment that wasn't good enough. But still. There's an interest. A hope. You have the web at work. You surf. You collect supplies. HAH. Magazines and a glue stick and an ancient sketch book never used. You're not an artist. Of course not. it's not art, it's glueing.
Reading. Researching. Those mad library skills pay off. You read every web site known to man or woman or child on collaging. It's fun. It's freeing. But it's still not enough.
The twenty-year-old passive aggressive affair with a journal decides to join the party. Diaries. Journals.
A breakthrough. Two words. VISUAL JOURNAL. Two years of steady writing COMBINED with the ripped paper and the glue.
ART JOURNALING. ATC's. On-line art trading groups. Round robins. ALTERED BOOKS. Paper arts. Greeting cards from bits of fabric. Paper AND fabric combined. What alternative universe is this? My back room is now a studio.
Sketchbooks. Pens. Inks. A few "good" drawings. Maybe one or two. A lot of frustration.
An acting role here and there. More stage managing. Directing once or twice. Readings. Writing. Thank God no arithmetic! A play is born. Rehearsed. Performed. Put on a shelf and never looked at since. Is it any good? I doubt it, but I'm too scared to read it and find out.
The soul-sucking day job is joined by a soul-sucking night job at the big store from hell. Eight months in a blue vest. Nuff said. Quitting has never been so easy.
Write Santa a letter asking for peace. I get another night job in my Christmas stocking (stalking?). It's at a theater. It'll be fun.
Ooh... and now there's scrapbooking. An errant link on a blog. A new kind of Scrapper. A place to put all those memories with pretty paper and ribbons and cool fabric to wrap myself in. And it's all fun.
It is, for a while. A minute. A year. Standing in the back of a darkened theater is being loved. A happy place. Halloween. The world's most adorable Little Red Riding Hood costume. A workplace flirtation. Until the happy place is filled night after night with loud noise pretending to be music. By drunken harpies. By coke and ketamine and violence and the police and EMTs. By half-empty beer cans and sticky fingered children. Pizza parties in the box office and lazy Sundays selling popcorn just aren't worth it any more.
The back of the theater ain't heaven no more. It's hell. Or hopefully Purgatory.
Ah Purgatory. The link to my other torrid affair. Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I loved it. I lusted after it. I consumed it in any way possible. I glutted myself on it. It made me happy. It still makes me happy... but the honeymoon IS over. Sad.
A brief affair with ER. One with House. I still see him from time to time. A casual date. I'm also seeing an ex who stopped by my house one day when I was home sick ... another Doctor. Doctor Who? you may ask. I smile and nod and smile some more. The Doctor brings along his boyfriend and its a bit of a threesome on my couch. I think Torchwood would like that. Those lads and lasses are my current crush. And I'm crushing hard. TV is a hobby. A habit. It is. Another world to inhabit to protect myself. But it's a world that gives back. It does. Time travelers on my TV. Art in my studio. A feedback loop of sorts.
I sat down the other and made a bad collage. Made two actually. And started on another good one. Like real art, man. The juices were flowing. Can you tell? I just wrote all this!! It just came out of my fingers. This writing too is a hobby.
And guess what... I have a date with the theater next week.
So hang on for this ride. I don't know where I'm going...
Donna Quixote on her hobby horse... onwards to glory? Who knows.
Stay tuned.
