Hiatus

Hey there,
I just wanted to let you know that I'm about to go off into the wilderness (where I'll be until August) with very spotty internet service. So I probably won't have any new posts until then, but I just wanted to mention it so you know that I didn't forget about this blog–I'm just away for a while.

Stay strong,
Heart(less)

Jury Duty

Today's the day.

First, a word about my life etc: my last final was the Friday before last and I moved back into my parents' house that same day. (Done with my first year of college, woo.) So I've been home now for a little over a week, and yesterday conflict had already started to ignite. Probably more on that later. Suffice it to say, being here at the courthouse is preferable to being home with my mom right now.

Okay, so I was summoned for jury duty at the very end of my winter break (when I was only 18–I didn't expect to get a summons so soon), and I deferred it until I got back from school. I didn't quite know what to expect. It's about 10 right now, and I've been here since 7:40. I'm sitting in a room with about a hundred people, most of whom are either on their laptops like myself or watching some sports thing on TV. It's pretty quiet right now, but earlier a judge came in to talk to us and we had to watch this video that was actually pretty informative. In an attempt to give a "fair and balanced" summary of jury duty, I'll list the pros and cons for you:

Pro:
–The chairs here are wicked comfy. I mean seriously, they're these huge padded black leather-ish chairs with a little bit of bounce to them. The only way this could be better is if they spun, but I would probably have made myself sick to my stomach already if I'd been in a spinny-chair this whole morning. I know for a fact that these chairs are new, and they used to have these shitty blue plastic chairs here instead. Okay I'm rambling now. Sorry.
–Pretty good wi-fi here. I haven't tried watching Netflix or anything yet (and I've been here more than two hours, so that's some kind of record for me), but it seems to be pretty fast.
–I've actually been really productive. I thought I would just watch Doctor Who or something, but I've actually written several pages of a play I just started working on, sent out several emails trying to get babysitting work for the next few weeks, and have organized some of my files and documents better. Part of me worries that if I try to start watching something, I'll just fall asleep. Which would be really awkward.

Con:
–I got up at 6:25 this morning. I honestly can't remember getting up that early since I was in high school. (Just one of the reasons I love college–I haven't had a class before 10 a.m. all year.) Which is kind of funny, because the courthouse I am currently sitting in is literally like four blocks from my high school. I had a hard time getting to sleep last night (not unusual), so I'm running on about five hours of sleep and some granola right now. And lunch isn't for another two hours...
–I'm probably going to be here until five p.m., and I only get paid $10 for the day. Which is better that I'd make otherwise (I work at a summer camp that doesn't start for weeks, so I'm not currently working)
–The fact that I have to go to my job in a few weeks means that I can't get put on an interesting case (like a murder), because those trials can last for weeks. If I get put on a case at all, it'll probably be some boring traffic thing–which I'll still take it seriously, because this is someone's life.

Bitch

Today's been kind of a shitty day, and not just because I woke up at 8:30, still drunk, and started vomming into my trash can.* I got in a fight with my best friend last night–by far the worst one we've had (in the year that we've been friends). She called me a bitch, and that stung more than I expected it to. Here's the thing: in my first year of college, I have come to regard myself as a bitch. I call myself that all the time; I've resigned myself to that identity. But I think that people can mean 'bitch' in a lot of different ways. Most people who meet me probably think that I'm a really nice person, and wouldn't think of using the word 'bitch' to describe me. When I say that I'm a bitch what I really mean is that I'm a realist, I don't put up with people's bullshit, and I don't always put other people's happiness ahead of my own. Is that such a bad thing? For example, I don't want to hear about how you got super drunk last night and kissed your on ex-boyfriend for the thousandth time and ohmygod, what do I say to him now and I can't believe I did that and why didn't you take away my phone, you know I'm a drunk texter! If you ask me for advice (slash come whining to me) about that situation, I'm not the kind of person who's going to tell you that it's all going to be fine and dontyouworry. That's not helping anyone. I will probably tell you something like: 'Hey, it might be awkward the next time you see him but just act casual, and maybe stop making out with your ex all the time and we can avoid all this in the future." Which seems perfectly reasonable to me, but some people just want to be coddled and are less interested in being lectured about how silly they're being. Which makes sense, but I personally feel that people are never going to improve and grow if they aren't occasionally being challenged.

I guess what made my friend's comments so painful was the idea that I am not just disinterested but insensitive. Yes, hearing about people's petty drama and problems-that-aren't-really-problems bores me, and I hate being caught in the middle of things like that. But even though I don't want to hear about you making the same drunken mistakes over and over, if it's coming from I friend I clearly still like them as a person. When I talk about being a bitch, I guess I usually mean that that's how I act toward people other than my friends. If I don't see reason to be friends with someone, I probably don't have much interest in trying to be nice to them. Politeness and common courtesy are one thing, but niceness seems like you are trying to befriend everyone and make them like you. I think that is ultimately fruitless; if someone likes you for who you are, you shouldn't have to try to win their affection. I guess that sometimes I just feel constrained by social norms to be "nice" all the time–but if I was nice all the time, I wouldn't be myself. But hey, maybe I'm just being a bitch.



*Just to be clear, I'm usually pretty responsible when it comes to drinking–until today I have never thrown up from drinking. I honestly wasn't even that drunk last night. Strange.

Solitude/Out of Place

This week has made me painfully aware of how much time I spend on my own. It can't be healthy. I mean, I like having time to myself (being surrounded by people all the time can make you crazy), but you can only have so much "peace and quiet" before the pangs of loneliness start.

Take this weekend, for example. Friday night I went to a fun party, rolled out of bed at noon the next day because I was kind of hungover, grabbed some food at the cafeteria (by myself), ate it (by myself), went back to my room and alternately slept and watched Netflix for the next several hours (all by myself). That night I went to a performance with a friend and then strike/load-in for my show.* This usually takes all night, but I got to leave at midnight because I thought I was getting sick and needed to sleep. Except a bunch of drunk assholes were running around my building and kept me up for two more hours. Not that I've never been that drunk asshole, but the walls in my building are super thin and I try really hard not to interfere with other people's sleep. Sunday was cue-to-cue, so from 8:30 in the morning (!!!!) until like four p.m. I was all alone up in the booth (with the exception of lunch). And that's how it's been basically this whole week.

So clearly the show part of the problem; it not only isolates me within the theatre community, but it takes time away from me socializing with my friends. But I love it (I'm majoring in theatre, as well as Spanish) and it is only a temporary thing--plus the payoff is totally worth it. But here's the other part of the problem: I don't have a roommate anymore. I moved into a single (in a different dorm building) a few weeks into this semester. This probably sounds like a great situation and not at all problematic, but sometimes I wish that I didn't have to come home to an empty room every single day. I realize that not all roommate situations are good ones (I had a bad one myself, which is why I'm in a single now), but I just had kind of a crisis tonight. As I was leaving the theatre (ha) I was thinking about returning to my always-empty room (just to clarify: I have friends who sometimes come over, just not all the time). And I was thinking that even though it's preferable to living with my old roommate, I feel more out of place here. I didn't know anyone in the building (still don't really, except my RA who lives next door to me) and I still don't quite feel like I belong here.

This is my room (I keep some of my shit on the unused bed; my friends use it as a couch when they're over):


The other reason I feel kind of out of place I guess is that after I left for college in August, my mother turned my bedroom into an "art studio" and made the computer room into "my room." But however much I love my mother, she just does not seem to understand that I do not have the same taste as her. When I came home for Thanksgiving (my least-favorite holiday; the whole turkey-corpse-thing grosses me out like no other) and saw my new room for the first time, I was not. Pleased. Everything was this pale green color and flowery and shiny and way too damn girly for my taste. So it hurt that after 19 years, my mother still didn't seem to know (or didn't care) what I like and don't like, and it hurts even more to realize that I don't have a room that is truly my own anywhere. I feel homesick but I don't have a place I can go back to that will cure that feeling.


*Load-in: when we break down the set from the last show (right after it ends, so like 9:30/10 p.m.), paint the stage, build the set for the next show, and set the lights and whatnot.

A Monkey Could Do My Job

My current estimate is that, with the proper training, a monkey could do about 85% of what I do. Although I should point out that what I do is not actually a "job" per se, in the sense that I don't actually get paid for it and it's not really much work. When I say "job," I'm referring to the tech work I'm doing for a theatre production at my university.


I'm a board op. (That's short for operator, for the uninitiated. I'm trying to helpful, not condescending!) I run sound. And while the sound board I'm currently sitting in front of has all sorts of fun dials and switches on it, all I actually do during the show is run this computer program called QLab. I don't even pick the music/sound effects; the sound designers do that. I literally just press the space bar when my Stage Manager tells me to. And occasionally adjust levels/cue lengths. But most of it is just pushing a damn button.

The reason I'm bored right now (even though this play is actually really fantastic) is that this is our first day of tech week, and I am ALL ALONE up in the booth because the SMa and light board op are programming lights on the stage--and will probably still be doing that tomorrow, and maybe Wednesday too. Dress rehearsals are usually fun because all the techies and the SM are on headset together and we make fun of the actors or talk about how awesome the smoke looks onstage or whatever, but since most of them are onstage right now they can't really talk without being distracting to the actors. So I'm all alone up here, which is actually kind of a good thing because it lets me write a blog post without getting dirty looks from my SM.

But anyway. It's a really fucking awesome show, and I don't actually know why I'm not just watching the dress rehearsal right now. Except maybe because a) I'll be able to/have to watch dress rehearsals for the next four days and then three performances after that, b) because I am unreasonably tired today and worry about falling asleep, and c) because this show is really emotionally intense and makes me feel kind of depressed.

Ahhhh I just faded out a song and then like 30 seconds later the sound CAME BACK UP. DURING THE SCENE. IT WAS REALLY AWKWARD. And I didn't even register it for a few seconds because that has never ever happened to me with this program before. And they're all going to think it was my fault. Ahhhhggg. People were laughing onstage because it happened at a really tense moment (which is actually, like, the ENTIRE show). Jesus. Fuck I have to pee. But I can't leave until intermission...



*******
Update: Peed. Also, after the awkward music-spontaneously-playing-fiasco, this music that was supposed to fade out just kept playing and I had to stop it really abruptly. Aaand I accidentally played the intermission music too early (but I only claim about 80% responsibility for because it really did sound like the SM told me to go). But still. Rage.