Mentally meandering, as usual.
Did I mention, in yesterday's entry, that the amount a person would need to spend every day, in order to go through one billion dollars in a seventy year life span? It's $39,108. I think it bears repeating.
Also, yesterday, I made one of my usual snarky comments on Facebook, about my (then) upcoming doctor's appointment, about my pacemaker. To my great surprise, there was what I feel was a spate of supportive comments -- I was completely taken aback by the expressions of caring and warmth. There's apparently some dissonance between my self-image, and how others see me. Not that this is the first time I've encountered this disparity -- I've often thought that, when it comes to absorbing positive input, it's as though I'm missing one half of the velcro system that would allow these things to stick.
Now, for the current obsession -- my upcoming audition for (drum roll, please) 'The Full Monty'!
Yes, a newish theater company here in town is going for broke, I guess, and producing this titillating bit of fluff for a suburban audience, and in spite of the fact that I suspect that, among other counter indicators, I'm too old for even the oldest character, I've scheduled myself for the earliest possible audition slot, on Wednesday evening, next week I think.
So, the audition will consist of cold readings from the script, and then singing a ballad and an upbeat number. (Or maybe the other way around) The cold readings are actually the part I enjoy -- dropping into someone else's life, and in this guise, relating to another character. It's the singing that concerns me, I think. The ballad has a high note that makes me nervous, and I'm afraid that, doing the upbeat number, I'll look ridiculous. Plus I've convinced myself that the director -- with whom I worked on 'The Crucible' last October -- doesn't really like me, and won't cast me, regardless of how well -- or how poorly -- I do. (Does this sound familiar? Is this more of the velcro phenomenon?)
But I do want to be cast, because the role I'd like to play resonates so well with my own life (a man who's recently lost a job he thought he'd have forever), and because it will be a chance to humiliate myself totally, in front of my own community. I mean, if taking off all one's clothing, in public, on stage, under full lighting, isn't the ultimate debasement, I'm not sure what is. Plus all the shaking of parts hither and yon.
Now, to confuse the matter even further, because I've lost a significant amount of weight, and because I've been taking myself to the gym with (considering my struggles with depression) amazing regularity, I think I'm actually in better physical shape than I have been in a long time. And it would really amuse me if (should I be cast in this show, in spite of what I fear is a sagging butt, and the remnants of a fall, that gave me a lump of fat on one thigh), as the oldest character in the group, I were in better shape than the audience will be expecting.
Does this confuse anyone else as much as it does me? How do I manage to mesh vanity and self-devaluation? Why am I working so hard to succeed at something I predict will embarrass me?
(I wonder if this is another case of my giving away too much information, as way to undercut my self esteem...)
Well, of course, there are other things going on -- life should be so simple as an upcoming audition for a raunchy play. There's the driveway drama, with things still lying about where they shouldn't be, and the added stressor of the fact that my next-door neighbor is putting his house on the market, and he's listing it with the same realtor who helped us buy our house -- and in addition to being scared to death of her, I can't abide the thought that my neurotic messiness (however it's connected to making 'art') might have a negative impact on the value or saleability of the house next door. To say nothing of her commission. Of course, I don't really have to remedy everything -- I just have to make our back yard look civilized to people taking a quick little tour around a house they might buy. I've even thought of putting up a faked-out plastic fence, to give myself a way to hide the stuff I can't either move or discard before -- gasp -- Friday?
I'm so tired of myself.
So. Tomorrow, the real examination of my year-old pacemaker. Plus a trip to Home Despot, to pick up some brown tarps, for wrapping the back yard. Maybe for the drive to Jersey City and the doctor's office, I'll bring along my computer, and rehearse my audition pieces, while I weave in and out of traffic on Route 7. And if the drawbridge, over whatever river that is, is up, so much the better.
Well, I may be tired of myself, but I do know that, compared with the rest of the human race currently struggling to survive on the planet, I live like royalty. True, it's royalty without the retinue, but one does so appreciate one's privacy, doesn't one? Or should I say... we?
© 2013 Walter Zimmerman
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