Alenda Lux

“It’s nothing personal, but .. . ”

“Well, that’s not about YOU, I meant . . .”

Yeah, we have all said those things and we all meant them, more or less, when we said them, but the problem is, it is personal. Hell, I think I said one of those two things or something like them in the last two DAYS. And followed it up with something uncharitable, becuase “it’s nothing personal” is a close, personal friend of “bless her heart, but . . ” here in the South.

God knows we’re all guilty, and I don’t even believe in God, so that tells you how guilty we all are.

So you can see my glass house up there, right? Before I get started.

There is a saying with which we are all well-acquainted that says you shouldn’t discuss religion or politics, because it’s just not nice. In many ways, I’ve never had to deal with this particular issue becuase I’ve either had friends who were enthusiastic to argue and make points and participate in actual debate, or my friends are just generally people who agree with me politically and don’t care about my lack of religion. Simple.

Naturally it doesn’t stay simple. You pretty much have to observe this rule at work because it’s just good sense, and then of course, inevitably you end up with friends through other friends with whom you do not agree, or people who don’t have the good sense to avoid this stuff. Or, people like my dad, for example, who just LOVE TO STIR SHIT UP. My dad does it for amusement, other people do it because they think they’re being persuasive.

Here’s a PSA, for all the good it will do: You are not being persuasive. You are being an asshole. Even if you are a dyed in the wool Ghandian pacifist, if you go on with people in person or on the internet about how their beliefs are SO ENTIRELY WRONG AND ALSO YOU ARE A BABYKILLER OR AN ASSHOLE OR BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT X THEN YOU ARE CLEARLY Y, then you are being an asshole. And I don’t care if you’re an asshole to people you don’t know, but when you’re an asshole to your friends, there are some consequences.

• Eventually people will stop putting up with your ridiculous behavior because it stops being eccentric and starts being offensive.
• You embarass a friend or someone you love by being unable to shut your mouth.
• You embarass yourself by being unable to shut your mouth.

The fact of the matter is that no one wants to listen to someone who calls them names and comes to the discussion assuming bad faith. And honestly, being a good liberal, I assume that most Republicans are coming in bad faith, because right now they are throwing bricks through windows and calling people horrible names and generally, as my mom would say, showing their collective ass. But if you are my friend? I expect you are coming to the table with some idea that I am operating in good faith. In order for you to BE my friend, I have to think you’re operating in good faith. And when you act like a fool in public – meatspace or cyberspace – you are spitting on that good faith.

So fucking cut it out. Behaving like that is just like calling me a fat bitch or pitching a brick through my window.

There’s all kinds of entitlement, and a lot of it worse than what I’m about to go off on, but this is just a pet peeve of mine that’s been activated in the last 24 hours or so.

Casting a play is a big deal and it’s hard, and you have to make decisions that are not easy in any way at all. Particularly once you’ve been at this for a while, people come back to you, and you like that person, you really do – and you really want to find a place for him or her because that’s a fun person to work with, or they’re really talented. But then other people show up, people you don’t know, and they’re really talented, too. And then you have all these people you know and love along with all these other people who are new but really very good, and then you have to look at what parts each said he or she would take and look at their calendars and figure out how best to make a cast from this big pile o’people.

And it doesn’t stop there! What is everyone’s availability? Did they say they would take any part? Did they mean it? Can you physically cast those two people together without it being really, really stupid looking? Will that OMG Really Talented Person totally overpower the only person who is in the running for the role opposite that role? What is going to be best for the cast as a whole? Do we take on someone here who needs more individual attention and then therefore cast some other people who are going to need less attention? How much of that can you do before the cast gets unbalanced?

There’s a lot going on here. So yes, your audition is important, but so is everyone else’s. And so are a lot of other things, namely “Can you be around often enough to take that role?”

I will go on record and say that we have NOT given people who are the closest of friends their dream parts. We have actually also quite literally lost friends because we chose to cast someone we didn’t know over someone we did know, on the merits of that person’s audition and chemistry with other actors. We’ve not cast people we love very, very much because they were over-scheduled and because there was no where in the cast for them (singly and as a stand-alone reason).

So, it was with more than a little dismay that I recently heard that we were being passed off as a clique by someone who tried out and didn’t get a role. I realize I shouldn’t and can’t take this personally, but it really, really irks me. We try so very hard to have integrity in our casting. We try to cast the person who will not only benefit as an actor from a role, but someone who wants to DO the role and someone who will make the ensemble better by being in it. But here’s a newsflash for you, gentle reader: Someone’s status as a rock star at some other house, or the fact that someone’s been cast in lead roles at other places does NOT mean that he or she will be cast in lead roles in our theater, and it’s not because we feel like you need to be taken down a notch or two or because we’re busy casting our friends.

• It might be because that actor’s performance will totally overpower everyone else in the show.
• It might be because that actor’s schedule is just not going to work given the roles s/he has indicated s/he will take.
• It might be because, in spite of someone’s evident talent, there just is not a role in this particular show that suits that person.

It is never because we want to cast our friends.
It is never because we are a clique.

So step off our integrity. You have no idea what goes on behind the scenes or how hard-fought and fraught many of these decisions are. And you have no idea all the considerations and argument that went in to casting our last show, or this show, or any other show we’ve ever done. If you have a question about why you weren’t cast, ask us. Don’t run around thinking that since you’re so awesome we must obviously be casting our friends before other people — and if you must think such a thing, at least be classy enough not to gossip about it.

So my week’s gone like this:

• Monday: Jury Duty. Didn’t feel awesome, really tired, and my nagging cough that I’d put down to being in a new place that was really, really old was just getting worse. Assumed I’d been doing too much, as we all know that “Overcommitted” is my middle name.
• Tuesday: Mini-Snowpocalypse. Didn’t feel AWESOME, but got to stay home because my boss(es) are not interested in making me drive when it’s snowing/icing/slushy. Attempted to take it easy while working from home.
• Wednesday: Felt better, as in less tired, but the cough was by this time completely disgusting. Thomas politely harangued me until I went to the doctor’s walk-in hour, where in I got a chest x-ray, and was told “You don’t have pneumonia!” Turns out I do have bronchitis. I feel remarkably good for all that, so I get my meds and go into work, where I get a call from my mom – here sister, my aunt, has died. I stick it out til 4pm at work, by which time it’s clear I should have worked from home.
• Today I’m working from home, and I’m dealing with my mom over my aunt’s death.

One hopes Friday brings some respiratory improvement, because the funeral is on Saturday, and I need to be well enough to go. Ugh. You may recall this entry; of course the fall out from that weird situation is totally in swing, and it’s going to be a while before my mom is comfortable regretting she didn’t have a better relationship with her sister versus feeling responsible for it.

But seriously, universe? Bronchitis and a funeral in the same week? Really?

I keep thinking I’m going to shut down this blog, but then I don’t. Not sure why. Maybe I will try to blog more? Let’s try it.

So, it being a new year, and my friends Amber and Julie both getting married between September of this year and April of the next, and me being tired of being wobbly all over, I’m going to get back on the Lose Weight Exercise wagon. Over the last year, I’ve lost ~25 pounds on Weight Watchers (I’m assuming I’ve gained back 5 over the holidays, but I’ve not weighed myself lately) and none of that with Lose Weight Exercise.

I did Bootcamp a couple summers ago, and it was okay, other than me sort of blowing my knee out . . . which basically grounded my Lose Weight Exercise long enough that I fell out of the habit. Then, a while back, my friend Emily took up running and did Couch to 5K, and I thought, well, damn. So I got my goods together, because I like statistics:

• 1 iPod Nano
• 1 Nike+ kit
• 1 LaceLid to hold my Nike+ sensor, since I can’t wear their shoes
• Podcasts to tell me how to do this, because I’m not a fitness guru.

I did Week 1, Day 1 today, and honestly, it was fine. I’m going to push myself more day after tomorrow, since you’re only supposed to do the workout every other day. I’m sort of unexpectedly jazzed that it wasn’t as godawful as I thought.

I also had an awesome shopping day today. Since I’m going to start a new job on 1/25, I sort of get to reinvent myself, and I don’t know, I’m going to blame Alyssa, but I went a little crazy at Ann Taylor and LOFT. I ended up with three dresses, a skirt, a pair of pants, and two or three shirts. But, since my work wardrobe previously consisted of Threadless shirts and jeans, I figure it’s time.

Over the last ten years I’ve . . .

1. Earned the right to drink alcohol legally by turning 21.
2. Spent 10 days in France being a nerd during my study abroad being a nerd in Cambridge.
3. Graduated from Davidson College.
4. Met the man I’d eventually marry.
5. Bought a house.
6. Adopted two cats.
7. Got Married.
8. Went back to the UK for our honeymoon (a year later).
9. Founded NFDC with Thomas and Alyssa.
10. Made and kept many new friends.

Here’s to 10 more years.

Titania is the still point of a turning circle

Originally uploaded by northfultondramaclub

Today is a day that I was pretty sure was coming, I just didn’t really want to think about it.

If you saw our Midsummer, then you undoubtedly remember our Titania. Tall, anime-white hair, stately. When we were casting that show, before I ever saw her, I told Thomas and Alyssa that I wanted someone who embodied a French Art Nouveau light post. And then, like everyone who comes to us, she came to us out of nowhere. Our Fairy Queen.

Sara was from the beginning both beautiful and stubborn, a gorgeous, willful person among a 24 others that were just the same to varying degrees. This is, after all, theater.

Sara was honest with the three of us from the beginning – she told us she’d had breast cancer, and that she was still undergoing some treatment. She was coughing. She might not always feel great. But she wanted to do the role, if we wanted to give it to her. And, good gravy, did we want to give the role to her.

Between the three of us, Thomas, Alyssa, and I resolved that the only thing to do was to treat Sara as she wished to be treated – as an actor – and to allow her to tell the cast when she wished about her condition, on her own terms. In the end I really have no idea how many people knew about the cancer.

Sara walked the stage with us for six nights and one matinee of Midsummer, and every night was gorgeous magic. We loved that cast.

We have known for some time that Sara was unwell – more than unwell – but have just learned in the last couple days that her illness has progressed to terminal. I mostly do not know what to do with that information – it seems alien and weird. I’ve always been aware that her illness was aggressive and on some level I am not surprised. That doesn’t stop it from being a punch in the gut.

Stay strong, beautiful spirit, our Fairy Queen.

So, inspired by Sara, advice to myself 10 years ago.

In 1999, I was either finishing my freshman year of college or starting my sophomore year.

That guy you broke up with? That’s a great idea. I had this long-term boyfriend that I spent a LOT of time with freshman year of college. I’m not going to say that time was wasted, I was also way more upset about breaking up with him than I should have been. Girl, you are not even yet 20.

In spite of my previous advice, just go ahead and accept that you feel everything on 11. It’s one of the things that I’ve really grasped about myself in the last year, but I am as stubborn as my dad and I FEEL EVERYTHING, well, like I’m permanently set at 11. I don’t think of it as being sensitive, per se, but I have very, very strong feelings and reactions. If I’d realized really what the hell was going on in my head ten years ago, I might just managed myself better, and felt better about it.

When you graduate in 2002, shit will be rough. It will be okay though. Just try to relax more.

You are going to date a string of very strange guys. This is going to be good in a few ways, one of them being, you are going to have a lot of fun. Another of them will be that when you meet the guy you end up with in the end, you will have equipped yourself with enough radar to know you’re making a good decision. Some of these guys will be stinkers and people will judge you not only for nearly always dating someone, but also for having friends with benefits. You already think this, but just to reiterate: Fuck those people. At least one of those FWB guys is going to help you through some rough spots by putting the emphasis on the friend part and understanding that “benefits” in this context don’t always mean sex.

Finally, go dancing more. Make better friends with Ross earlier and just dance.

Today for Father’s Day, Thomas and I went up to Dawsonville to see my parents, and while my relationship with my dad is complicated, this isn’t about my dad. Warning, this is long, and I have no idea why I’m writing about this.

My mom has one sister. I think that A., as I’m going to call her, is four or six years older than my mom, and their relationship has always been tough. Jokingly my mom would tell me how she and her sister used to fight so much, they broke a lot of my grandmother’s antiques from Scotland; how A. hit her in the head with a glass baby bottle; how her pet bird was let loose outside. All pretty standard sister stuff. When I was younger and we lived in Lawrenceville and my aunt’s family lived in Snellville (if you are unfamiliar with Gwinnett County geography, it’s not terribly far), my mom and my aunt used to go shopping, or at least out, every weekend at Gwinnett Place Mall, and we traded holidays – we would do Christmas at our place and Thanksgiving at theirs and vice versa every year. Maybe this is normal, but instead of the tension falling off between them as they got older and had families, it seems to me that things largely stayed the same. I remember my aunt, even when I was 8 or 9, used to do weird shit like show up early and then freak out that my mom and I weren’t ready to go yet. She used to make my mom cry over all kinds of weird stuff, things I don’t even really know the gist of, but given what I *do* know, I assume it was all chock full ‘o nuts, if you will. When we moved away, for example, my aunt accused my mom of moving to “get away from her,” which was pretty absurd – generally speaking, no one moves their entire family 50 miles north just to escape one person. After that we made some effort at the every-other-holiday thing, and mostly stuck with it until my cousin got married, which threw a whole other wrench into the works and is probably another story all on its own, and after that, we just trailed off with it.

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After ye olde mortgage office job, I moved on to temping in another office, which was the home office for a small chain of convenience stores. I want to say I was working for the marketing department, but that doesn’t really make any sense to me since we were dealing with the actual inventory lots of the stores were holding. This job entailed learning yet another DOS-based system that kept track of what each store had been shipped. I remember going through endless reports with item numbers, matching and adding and . . . God, I don’t even remember why I was doing it. Anyway, the people there were very nice, but I remember being really weirded out on September 11, because they had this memorial event where they all went outside and prayed or whatever. To that point, I’d been working at nationally held companies and group prayer service was not really part of the agenda. As a temp, of course, I was not invited to go pray around the flag pole, which was fine in one way, because, well, wtf, and so clearly exclusionary and you-aren’t-really-a-person-here that it was completely offensive in another.

The one thing I remember really clearly was that we had to call around to all the stores about these novelty items that they had put in the stores. I don’t remember what they were, but just imagine the cash register at any local convenience store – breathalyzer tests and whatever – stuff like that. So, they weren’t tracking in the database or something, and I had to call all the stores that were supposed to have them. Some of these stores are so far back in the back woods that the stores probably had running water installed sometime in the last 50 years, so calling these places was by and large a hoot. I called this one store, and the guy said, “Those things! Good lord girl, I’m gonna have to have all the customers in here take off their shoes to have enough fingers and toes to count those things up!”

It was a good place to work. I can’t remember if my temp contract ended there before I got my next job or not, but the lady I worked for wanted to keep me on, I remember that, and she said she would ask for me again if they hired any more temps. As a temp, having someone say that about you is nice.