The Show

Actually, before I get to the show, something I've always wanted to catalog:

I am always amazed at how much my face changes in stage makeup. Lizzie, if she's not expecting it, always makes some exclamation of surprise and I expect, horror, when I turn the corner show-ready.

Exhibit A: observe in my natural habitat...



















Exhibit B: with the addition of 10 lbs of makeup, fake eyelashes, and acrylic hair...



















The webcam doesn't do it justice. From up close, it's quite scary.

Now that I'm done documenting myself, the show was wonderful. For once, the audience was expecting what we do and so didn't sit like groups of woodland creatures in the proverbial headlight. The old men smiled looking very debonair, and the ladies danced in their chairs looking proud of their cleavage. The younger versions made noises and commentary which is always amusing when they think we can't hear them. Clearly, we could, as the stage is in the middle of the tables, which removed the pretense and made everything feel so very honest.

I'd post pics of this laudable venue but they're really tight about outside photographs leaking. Jennings and Xiaohong from Circus Center did an incredible doubles hand balancing act. Mel. You would have died and gone to muscular heaven. Danielle did a single-point trapeze that made me all weepy. And I had to tear up a picture of Bush to the song "Mr. Bush." I felt sorry for the guy but did it anyway. It makes me wonder where that line is for me, between doing what the director wants and doing what I want. So far, I haven't reached it. I even sold out my no pasties law the other week because not doing so would have resulted in not having a gig. Which is the opposite of what I want.

I got a couple surprise emails from my sailor when I got home last night. It's only been about a week and a half since I haven't heard from him but it's like a shot of intravenous calm. With that note of glory, happy Sunday.

Red Velvet Curtains

Red velvet curtains are, to me, a symbol of the sublime. They are what I am always reaching for, and the steps I take are going towards that image. The smooth hardwood floor of a stage beaten splinterless by the sweep of endless feet and the trains of costumes. And then there they are, framing the apex of the building, glowing ruby curtains that pile up on the floor. Excess of passion and purpose perfectly combined in a single image. Tonight the Nekyia is opening for Teatro Zinzanni's Cabaret Lunatique, and it's the closest I've ever come to that image. Walking into that tented-in venue is like coming home to Mecca, if Mecca were expertly tailored to my every taste. Even empty and upside down waiting for the night's audience, the glasses have the look of being filled with stars. Everything is so beautiful and so perfectly suited to its purpose that I feel stupidly cliche in my adoration of it, but don't stop anyway.

Teatro Zinzanni is a dinner/circus theater venue, and manages to be intimate and grand at the same time. Dinner theater sounds amazing to me right now. Hook me up with some weekly dinner theater. I'll perform to the smells of the night's menu and be thrilled about it. Of course this may change in time, hopefully after I've done it for a while. Once upon a time I thought performing in nightclubs was a great idea. I'm thinking dinner theater residency is the next brilliant step towards the red velvet curtains. When you lay your eyes on something you've wanted secretly, openly, shamefully for years, you know it. Everything in you seizes on it. You are immediately filled with the desire to tear anything to pieces that comes between you and the thing, and twinges of doubt in whether or not you're ready/deserving of it, which normally fall uselessly to the floor. I have felt this way only a few times; like seeing someone from a distance in an Alexandria airport, or the first time I saw a clip of Cirque du Soleil tissu.

This feeling has been a foundation of the human experience for me. If it doesn't appear in the right circumstances, it will appear in the wrong ones. A real desire (not whim or fancy) doesn't go away if you ignore it. And if you swallow it and do nothing, eventually you will see someone else doing it, and it rises up and this time it tastes exactly like bile. Bitter, and shameful, and you hope no one can smell it on you and you especially hope you can forget it ever happened. Personally, I think that desire (real desire) is our evolutionary built-in tracking device for satisfaction. Chase the dragon til you fall and cut yourself on a diamond, ignore it at your own peril.

Jus painting a picture.

Arno, Firenze. October 2006

Sonday

Why has no one responded to my plea for Asheville pics? I know at least three of you's live there, and I know at least one of you's is camera happy! Gimme some dead leaves!

Friday I went out. I went to the jazz bistro I like and ordered a French wine in honor of John, even though it ended up sucking. Should have gotten specifics. Ended up having dinner with an older French gentleman which did not suck. I was not expecting to be bought dinner when I left my house. It was a perfect moment between strangers.

We went to a piano bar afterwards which is where, I'm convinced, Billy Joel got the inspiration for Piano Man. The pianist screamed out "where are ya'll from?" and I got so shy I hid behind the French dude. What the fuck? Being called out in class is still one of my least favorite memories of life. But we saw a tiny, ancient woman bust a move and four Spanish guys chat up the 50-something cougars to Viva Espana.

Saturday I went looking for the Violin God on Embarcadero. No luck yet. Then off to the Castro to help my wonderful uncle prepare a badass resume. Followed promptly by coming home and fucking off to DVD's for six hours.

Maybe if I make more time to be by myself, I wouldn't feel the need to do it all at once one day a week. Still, it was fun. Just realized I should probably clear up the fact that "fucking off" is not synonymous with masturbation. Even I can't take six hours of hitachi.

Today I helped the lovely Kristina paint her living room purple. I like painting! Especially when the color gets on the walls after all that preparation, and you realize it's going to be the kind of room you always like walking into. And it really is.

I try to make our house that way, but it doesn't always work. We both (Luna and me) have the most beautiful of intentions, but this place has hardly seen a week's worth of always liking to walk into it. Don't get me wrong I'm always happy to be home, it's just a lot harder to get it the way I want it than I thought it would be. And of course I want it my way, because my way has a proven track record of being good. Yes, I'm being obnoxious on purpose.

So much more to tell but as usual I'm tired and still have miles to go before...
you get the idea.

The Strength of the Imperative

Last night I dreamed of pearls, so...

There was a man who had been my friend but I knew he had been corrupted. He was walking away from me for the last time. I stopped him and said, "Give me back my pearls." He reached in his pocket and produced a pair of white pearl studs and handed them to me. He started to walk away again.

"All of them."

I held out my hands and he heaped strand upon strand of white pearls in my hands, followed by an enormous amount of black pearls. So many I couldn't hold them all, some fell to the ground and sprouted into plants. I woke up happy and knew I wanted to wear this today.

It is, fittingly, a gift from my sailor; he is on patrol as of a day or two ago. Now it's unreliable emails and the rare letter for the next while. No I can't say how long. But it's a long time- although not nearly as long as Bethany has to endure. Not even close. No, I'm not upset. I'll miss him til my bones ache but I know what's worth waiting for.

Raoul says,

I hope that YOU have a BEAUTIFUL day.

Home again, home again,

jiggedy jig.

I fly back in the dark of not-even-morning to another universe. One in which I am the goal and the drive solely, where work equals happiness and I sleep alone. The one I leave behind I don't dwell on here; the one wherein the smell of his sweat is a fog drug that inhibits me of all but three motives: ensure his survival. ensure my survival. ensure that all things that remove him from my immediacy are obliterated. You can see why dwelling on that from this distance would be maddening.

There's was woods and rain, altogether that makes three luxuries that exist in my blood but are not often had, the combination of which felt like homecoming on a grand scale. We did get mildly lost in the woods, after sunset when all the light was leaking away rapidly. We got out before the Blair Witch references got too bad in my head. I am not allergic to Washington.

Not much time now before Nekyia rehearsal in Berkeley- the extended version. Somehow the will to think and act and move with great intention will surface (I know it will) and endure for the length of the day. Afterwards, I predict massive roadkill stage back home in my chair, which means Friends (probably) and sleep (eventually) and more internet (definitely). Mornin.

Greed and Bitterness and Circus

From a couple posts ago:

"I ask Luna if she wants half and even though she might she says no cause she knows I want it all. That is one true example of love."

We just had a conversation about this, did we not? I think in my example I used cake, and the person being offered the last piece accepted while pretending not to know that the offer-er didn't really want to share.

Hmmm... My example reeks of greed and could lead to bitterness. I think it's been infected by the capitalisms.

I want to take this one step farther. There is one piece of cake left, and I really want it. I ask Luna if she wants half. She says no and I eat it. I said that was love, but it's mostly a transaction. Since I offer it to her out of love rather than a sense of politeness/duty, I ask without regret. If she had said yes, I want half, I would have given it to her gladly, because I meant it when I asked even though I wanted it all. The example of love here isn't that I offer to share my cake with her or that she let me have it, but that she gave me an honest answer, even if that answer were to be "hell yes bitch, I want that cake."

Yesterday was wet here, it was mostly fog but the fog here is strange, like the Nothing from The Neverending Story. It acts like rain. It was wonderful. I worked until 5 then went to the Circus Center to train. The way I feel about training changes every day. Yesterday I didn't want to go to the Circus Center, just because I get tired of going to one location every day. Some days I hate the Circus Center just because I can find it in the same place each time I go. But I go. I'm learning to stand back and watch the parade of my volatile emotions clamor on without getting swept away in them, because what matters is the training. So I trained. The threatening tide of hatred, exhaustion, resentment all cleared; and the blood woke up and my muscles cooperated.

Kristina and I were talking about training and seem to be dealing with the same issue, which is that we just want it so goddamned much. K's a contortionist, it's imperative that she relax in a posture to avoid injury and let her body memorize itself. When you want something so much, and so much depends upon it, it is hard to relax especially when you're sitting on your own head or dangling 35' by a piece of fabric. I suppose my biggest obstacle is also my biggest asset, which is how fucking much I need to do this.

Yesterday I was attempting a trick on the tissu. I did it four times unsuccessfully. The unsuccessful part came when it was time to let go with my hands and NOT swing all the way around but to end upside down. I swung around every time. Hey, I've cried in the gym before, but I didn't fucking want to stop my class to go cry. So we did backbends until it was time to scurry home and watch the VP debates.

The saxophone player I like was out by Union Square. He only knows three songs (Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Auld Lang Syne, and The Beatles' And I Love Her) but he plays them so passionately it never gets old. He only knows the basic, simple notes of each song but throws everything he's got into it. He performs like he's at Carnegie Hall. Always with his jacket not removed, but thrown off his shoulders, and an ill-concieved little floppy hat that looks as though it should not be floppy at all. And white trousers.

I'm leaving for Seattle tomorrow to see the King of the Scorpios. Purr.