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.