just breathe

This year has been such an emotional rollercoaster so far that almost feel numb now. But I'm on top of the school work and despite having the script to worry about/work on, the issue with my stolen goods, a lot more homework, upcoming auditions for the location shoots on thursday as well as the monologue competition on friday, I still feel like I'm keeping on top of things, I don't feel like I'm drowning at all, yet, which is good I suppose. In fact I was walking home after the monologue competition coaching with Jim Bates last night at around half past nine, and I could physically sense all these things that are looming over me, threaten to cave in, but I just focused on my breathing and it kept them at bay, and then I noticed how beautiful the clouds were against the night sky.

We just had singing class and sang one of the group songs for the first time, and although I thought the song seemed extremely boring when I read through it, it was actually quite fun. It's called "An Old-fashioned Wedding" and in the third chorus the guys and the girls sing their respective choruses at the same time, completely overlapping each other, and it was really cool. Even though there were only the three of us (Gillian was none present today for some reason) and way too many of them. I still think we managed to get our point across. My favourite line: "Love and honor, yes, but not obey..."

I also had some revelation in singing class today, well I had two, and that was that my body instinctively shuts down when I partner with just one person whereas I feel completely free and in my body when I'm engaging with the entire group now, and today I tapped into that and discovered that I was afraid. And it struck me that I feel that I have to give that person my all, more than I have to give, and I, not only lose myself completely, but I also feel extremely pressured. And then I realized that I'm like that in my private life too, and that's why my social life is quite fucked, and why I feel like I don't have any friends but lots of people have me as their friend, that's why. And I told Alisa, not about my social life, but about the singing, and she gave me some good support and advice and basically told me that no-one else is my responsibility, I can only be responsible for myself, and that makes complete sense, and I know that, but at this point I'm obviously acting on instince, not intellectually. But now that I am aware of this, I can work with it. Not against it, but with it.

The other things is that the connection between the resonators in your body and the support in your lowest resonator (your gut) all made sense to me. My voice teacher in theatre school nor Mikal Grant managed to get that through my thick head, apparantly, because when Alisa explained it to me today the pieces all just fell into place...

tequila rose and other unfortunates

my first meeting with nathaniel geary, the director, went fantastic. we met up in this cozy coffee shop and had an immediate connection. when we were discussing my script i could tell we were on the same page. i am so looking forward to working with him now. we start filming in a month and i have a lot of work to do on my script. plus i'm auditioning for tequila rose.

last night was a surreal nightmare. i went for dinner at earl's after school with cesar and sarah and when we got up to pay the bill and leave, my backpack had completely disappeared from its spot on the floor next to my chair. we hadn't seen anyone even walking by that side of the table and we never left it, we sat there the entire time and we didn't see anything. that backpack contained my laptop, my wallet with my visa card, all my homework and papers from school, basically my entire life. the waitresses were really nice and said it was probably some misunderstanding, they took down my information and said they'd give me a call if it showed up at the end of the night.

me and cesar went home. i logged onto my bank's website to cancel my credit card, just in case. and as i checked my account i discovered that huge amounts money were being withdrawn from it at that very minute. within an hour of losing my bag, i'd lost next to $3000 from my savings account. i phoned the police and reported it stolen, they were very unhelpful, then me and cesar tried to call the bank in sweden to cancel my card, but his phone wouldn't allow international calls, so we ran down lonsdale from gas station to gas station trying to find a international calling card. we finally did and i called the bank from a pay phone and cancelled my card.

i emailed nathaniel and asked him to email me back my script, which he just did, so that i can work on the script which needs to be rewritten by monday. tony said he'd help me contact dell on monday, because according to him they have tracking devices on their computers... i'm trying to stay positive despite my glass being as always half empty...

collecting myself

Back home. The light filtered through the clouds outside and the plastic blinds covering the windows is a mixture of brass and amber. Cesar is watching the first season of "Will and Grace" on DVD and I am collecting myself. Nearly done. For a moment I thought I was going insane and I was set on getting an appointment with a psychiatrist the minute I got back to Vancouver, but another ride through Hell (the flight over here) and a night in "my own bed" (read: Cesar's bed) I feel a bit better. I rang that director guy, Nathaniel Geary, this afternoon and he said he was going to email me with a time and place for us to meet tomorrow. I'm kind of nervous. But it's good to be back in business at least, I think that's the only way I can keep depression and insanity off my door step, work work work; keep that inspiration and creativty flowing.

2008, stained with red wine and anxiety and excitement, as always,

So, this is 2008. Looks rather the same to me.

We finally got some snow over here, and by some I mean the tiniest layer you could possibly imagine before it classifies as frost, just in time for the new year. I went into town and celebrated the event with a few friends of mine, and by friends i mean my one best friend and friends of his plus my darling girlfriend, and by girlfriend I unfortunately mean a friend who happens to be of the female persuasion. Every "living" soul in town, with exception for me and Fredde, felt the need to gather at the town square to listen to some wanker sing and then recite the new year speech. (I use the term "living" very loosely here, because the sight of this mass of people streaming toward the square from all directions, at a steady pace as though in a trans, hypnotized by the music, it really reminded us of a zombie movie.) They all then stare up into the sky at the fireworks financed by the very same gathering's tax money. Me and Fredde accompanied our friends to the square but decided to remain on the other side of the small river running through the town and, lounging against a streetlamp, chain smoked and mocked before-mentioned gathering like there was no tomorrow. The gathering proceeded to bombard us with fireworks by paying their taxes a year or so in advance, but our sarcasm and the fact that there was almost no tomorrow spurred us on and we prevailed.

When our, and by our I mean mostly Fredde's, friends decided to throw tradition to the wind and leave the square and go and get properly smashed in one of our local pubs, our spirits rose considerably. I stuck to red wine all night and stayed romantically tipsy and it went no further than that.

I don't know what part of me is the biggest right now and if the future year or the future in general frightens or excites me, possibly both at the same time with me being quite self-destructive in nature and a bit of a closet adrenaline junkie, but I suppose it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, because the future keeps looming over me either way and I can either try and hide from it, follow its flow, or try and create it as I go along.