Expectations

Keep your expectations reasonable.
- Chinese fortune cookie

100 days until surgery, 11 until opening night and while I expected to make a post today, I didn't expect that I would have to admit that I acted like a real diva, in the negative sense during rehearsal yesterday. It would be convenient to blame it on hormones, because I was in the last day of menstrual cramps with a toothache from an infected tooth. It would be easy, but it wouldn't be right to not own up to my own attitude, which was not respectful of others.

The rejection monster crawled into my psyche again. Friday night, after watching A Girl Like Me--The Gwen Araujo Story, I noticed the director had sent us the corrected lines. I was surprised to see I had 2/3 of the lines instead of about half and continued to practice it as she had written.

By the time Deb had arrived, two new friends I had met on Saturday arrived and the director wound up casting them both into the same piece. She redivided the lines among the four of us. Looking at the lines that were now mine, I was heartbroken, None of the lines that I loved doing were included in my set. With less than two weeks to go until opening night, wanting everything to be perfect, I wasn't happy at all. I felt that since I had done so much work eliciting what I felt were the right emotions to interpret the piece, I should have a different set of lines. I was even told I was overacting when I tried to do those lines, and I felt betrayed--rejected.

I tried bottling in up.When I told Deb I was hurting, she surmised it was the lines. I was about to go to the bathroom to cry it out when my mother called, and of course I spilled it out. Some of the cast members wanted me to perform my monologue for them--except i didn't have anything approaching a monologue anymore. I felt cheapened, lessened, and as a result I was less of a person to those around me. While I was contemplating quitting the show, I was doing it out of purely selfish reasons.

I seemed to imply to others around me that I thought I was the better actress, having to tone down my "acting" to be on the plane of the people who just joined. I had no right to feel that way. Crying in front of other cast members was a definite no-no, and passing on the way my previous director had done things had unbeknownst to me been hurting the current director's feelings. I know not to do that anymore.

In addition, she felt that I had been "back-stage directing" in my efforts to help Deborah with her lines the week before. I'm not sure if I gave any unsolicited advice to anyone, but I am definitely going to foster an awareness from now on.

My attitude in my hurt resulted in one of non-inclusivity, and I may have hurt my chances at anything of equal value in the long run, but I am still going to take her direction to try to behave more as a professional actress, because that is expected of me, and not my pettiness that I displayed.

I had a pulpectomy today. The tooth may have to be extracted. For now, the dentist just installed a temporary filling, gave me some pain killer and antibiotics and scheduled me to come back in a couple of days for the hygienist. My first visit to the dentist as a woman! I had this strange feeling, though, about his smile as he stopped by to give me a rather shy hello in passing while I was sitting in the chair. The registration form didn't have a place for gender and I totally enjoyed how easily she and her came off his lips and those of his assistant. While the anesthetic slowly took effect, I felt like a little girl while staring at the ceiling trim as if it were clouds. On the way home, I picked up some soft food from Panda Express--Walnut Shrimp on Chow Mein--and taking it home, waited until 5:30 when I could eat and the painkiller reduce the pain now arising as the anesthetic began to wear off. Once the magical hour arrived and I had finished my Panda Bowl and taken my antibiotic, I curled up on the couch for a nap, waking at 9 PM. I'm still sleepy, and I will move into the bedroom when the traffic outside settles--the mounting pile of laundry will just have to wait until Wednesday  when I feel fit enough to do the cardio necessary to get it to the laundromat and back. Dance class is tomorrow.

Hugs and God Bless,
Sophie