In my continuing re-read of my old journal, I happened upon an entry from early 2004 in which I lamented but defensively resigned myself to my lack of cooking ability. That all changed for me a few years ago, when I got my first job after finishing undergrad. It was personally important to me, I had decided, that I would live what I determined to be a wholesome life for myself, and that included not living off of take-out or pre-packaged food, for reasons financial and nutritional and, for lack of a better word, spiritual. If I was to pursue this new career and, thus, new lifestyle -- theatre, stage management -- then I would also have to accomplish that.
Accomplish it I did. And only ended up with one wok full of unplanned flames in the process. (Please don't tell my mother about that.)
Living my life how I damn well please -- sometimes something that I have to do in spite of myself -- is something that I gradually decided was important to me. I think that the notion has always lived within me, though it went dormant for a number of years. As much as I was the strange and fortunate child who actually enjoyed both junior high and high school, I still went into a sort of chrysalis mode during that time and don't feel that I really started hatching until a few years ago. And since then, I have developed an interest in consciously shaping my life.
Over this past holidays, I was attending a Boxing Day games night gathering at a friend's house, and it was mentioned how good it was thought that we could be at reviving a Wildean existence, encouraged by Facebook. After all, it seemed to consist largely of waiting about idly, being an asshole, saying clever things and ruining young men, all of which seem to be activities encouraged by the internet and its current social networking platforms. I've been rather tickled by the notion ever since -- it's true, isn't it? Can you imagine Oscar Wilde being unleashed upon the internet?
I must admit to feeling a great connection to the Wilde quote: "I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train." Re-reading my old journals, paper or digital, has long been a favorite pastime of mine. Granted, I am rather easily entertained, but I do like to think that there are perhaps some genuine flashes of wit or sharp observations or interesting turns of phrase to be found. It's also interesting to me to just track the changes through my life, and the changes of the world as seen through my life.
Neil Gaiman noted his New Year's wish from some year's back: "May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself." And as much as I call myself out on my own prominent self-centeredness, I do sincerely think that there is something to be valued in the art of living life. There are many targets on which I could more squarely focus my writing efforts, but quite frankly, there are a lot of people on the internet. And many, many, many of them take better pictures than I do and write about food better than I do and review comics better than I do and do many number of things better than I do. And I just don't care enough about any one of these particular topics to strive to get better at them.
What I can do, however, that no one will ever be able to do better than I, is live my life. And no one will ever be able to write about my life in the same way that I am able to. Think of it as me as an intrepid reporter, heading undercover to bring you back tales from where the action really is. "The action" being "me."
You're welcome.
I can't deny that there is something romantic to me about the notion of being a writer. I have always loved writing, and I find that whenever I leave stage management for any period of time, such as for a holiday or unemployment, that I have this overwhelming urge to run away from everything and just become a writer. Flee the endless press of people, mingle in blessed solitude, whether in the middle of the woods or the anonymity of a crowd that doesn't look to me to do anything for them,
And then, of course, I return to stage management anyways and reswear my undying love and I never meant to leave you, baby, I promise, it didn't mean anything, I won't do it again, I don't know how I ever could have imagined anything different.
It's not so unlike an abusive relationship of sorts.
Speaking of which, it is now less than a week until tech. Today was technically my day off, which means that I had two meetings and spent about another hour in the office, but all of it was very productive, and anyways, I'd gotten home from work on Saturday before midnight, so it wasn't a bad weekend at all. Besides, everything was made bright by that recent amusement that has sprung up: Stage Manager Ryan Gosling.
I'd been aware of Feminist Ryan Gosling but hadn't known that Mr. Gosling had become a thing until I happened to glance upon a link to Stage Manager Ryan Gosling (along with Theatre Administrator Ryan Gosling) on my Facebook news feed. (Which I have resumed checking a couple times per week, as part of my New Year's resolution to find a balance between maintaining social networking while still keeping a firm control on internet timesucks.) Some of them are better than others, but there are enough that truly get at the heart of stage management that my own heart is warmed.
Even better, they have now begun decorating the office. And no, I was not the one that did it, miracle of miracles, despite being the resident department internet troll. We also started just making our own Stage Manager Ryan Gosling macros, with people throwing out text and someone putting it onto pictures and printing them out so that we can create an ever-growing collage on the office door. The college now joins our other in-progress office wall decorations, which also include a "Fallback Jobs (If Stage Management Doesn't Work Out)" poster and a "Explore, Discuss and Discover: The Verbs of Stage Management" poster (as one sometimes needs a bit of inspiration for describing rehearsal activities in rehearsal reports without growing repetitive), both to which people are encouraged to make contributions.
The office seems to have taken on a particularly convivial air this year. I'm still not quite sure that I didn't just imagine the wonderful and somewhat surreal party that spontaneously happened on Friday night. It was around midnight, when everyone had finished rehearsal and most were back in the office to type up reports or take care of other business. Suddenly, a bottle was being passed around, all lights (except for the Christmas lights that are still decorating the office) were turned off, music was turned on and, in the greatest triumph, one of us set up a camping hammock in the middle of the fucking office.
(You see, we ask for various things at departmental meetings, things that we feel will help us educationally and professionally. We did get the coffeemaker this year, but the mimosas, skylight and hammocks have yet to materialize, despite being requested for two years running now.)
And the night continued in much the same spirit. One of our number traditionally gifts each of us with a horrible romance novel for Christmas, and many still had theirs at their desks, so we went around, trying to track down the sex scenes as quickly as possible so that we could read them aloud. Indeed, "Romance novel audiobook recorder" has been added to the "Fallback Jobs" poster.
It wasn't the first time that something like this has happened this academic year. It's never planned, just something that precipitates out of the air of us all being too busy, too tired, too responsible -- but just happening to be together in that moment. As eager as I sometimes am to be done with school, this is something that I will truly miss.
