Uncertainty

What was that expression; “When money goes out the door, love flies out the window?” My grandmother had a million of them…expressions, that is. But this one, these days, is striking close to home.

So many of my friends are literally falling apart in these difficult days, watching what they have built evaporate, seeing our jobs and prospects disappear. We’re actually in better shape than some of them because we’ve been living like that for years with intermittent spells of doing okay. Actors: we’re a hearty if somewhat insane bunch.  But we too are struggling. Those eleventh hour jobs that always seemed to crop up when we needed them have evaporated. Attempts to get into the workforce on either a full or part time basis have proven futile. Nobody wants people our age when they can get younger, healthier people who are just as desperate, and that is IF they are hiring to begin with. As the days pass with increasing uncertainty about our ability to survive them, the dynamic gets testier. Small tasks seem insurmountable. The crumbling driveway needs resurfacing. The autumn leaves, heavy with Saturday’s day-long downpour, resist the leaf blower and just lay there… like us, too burdened to get up.

Medication helps. The highs are not as high but the lows are not nearly as low, and since the lows are much more frequent companions, I forbid myself to miss the rush of adrenalin that would accompany the occasional boon.  Those nearest to me who are NOT on medication are bouncing up and down like the ball on Mitch Miller. The more level I stay the higher and lower these surrounding balls seem to bounce. It seems the only thing I can do to stop them is to scream, thus clearing the room and giving me uncomfortable, undesired silence.  Love may conquer all, but it can use a little help in the battle.

All Around the Mulberry Bush

How badly did we want the rights to do a reading of Albee's "A Delicate Balance"?

First I call the William Morris Agency as per the instructions in the script.

Jonathan Lomma at WMA tells me "This request goes to DPS. Craig Pospisil can help you."

Craig Pospisil at DPS tells me Samuel French publishes and licenses A DELICATE BALANCE.

Jonathan Donahue at Samuel French tells me to send to Jonathan Lomma at William Morris:
 1.      Headshot and resume of each actor (including age)
 2.      Director CV
 3.      Rehearsal schedule (Minimum 4-week rehearsal period and 4-day tech period, separate and IN ADDITION TO the 4-week rehearsal period)
 4.      Performance schedule (Including not shorter than 1 week of previews)
 5.      Costume Design Sketches
 6.      Set Design Sketches

I tell Jonathan Donahue "I JUST WANT TO DO A READING! Besides, I have already contacted Jonathan Lomma and he said to contact you."

Jonathan Donahue replies: "Thank you for this additional information.  You may still be required to provide some materials to Jonathan Lomma at William Morris." And to… "Please also include his assistant on any correspondence…"

So I write again to Jonathan Lomma and he asks me, "Have you submitted any materials?"

I explain. "Catch 22?"

Jonathan Lomma writes: Ok. Everybody hold and let’s appreciate how hilarious this is getting. Kate, let me make a phone call…

In short order, I hear from Alicia Grey at Samuel French and the arrangements are made. I am given a price for the rights to do two readings plus a "convenience fee" if I pay online.

"Convenience?" I send a check.

What does a nervous breakdown feel like? Does it involve a sudden desire to sell your house and everything in it? Does it involve a sudden desire to move back to New York or worse, into your mother’s house in Florida? Does it involve a sincere desire to sleep and an unwillingness to get into anything but gym clothes all day when you do manage to get up? It is 10 a.m. and I am clinging to the last few edges of the bed with a computer on my lap and my son’s dog sprawled in the center like she owns it. She presses all of her 50 pounds against me to get as close as possible leaving me crammed into the corner hanging on for dear life so I don’t tumble to the floor. That’s what my life is like these days: hanging on for dear life. In a world where actors willingly work for free, I can’t find someone willing to work for money. Okay, it’s not a lot of money, but still… I watched a documentary on journeyman actors- those guys whose faces you know but whose names you probably don’t. They talked about the difficulties of their careers. Yet I would gladly accept any one of their careers. Interestingly, there were no women in the documentary, as if women never achieve even journeyman status. When I did “Nurse Jackie” a while back, I optimistically thought it would open the door to other NY TV series. It didn’t. My part-time catering job, the one I liked because I could leave it without a thought, got stressful last week and made me think about it! Trying to build this theatre company is like pulling teeth. Is it time to leave that as well? I sent my business resume to a headhunter that was recommended to me and got a computerized response, not even a phone call in response to my question! So when does one give up? I am so close.

Humming

Help me, I’ve started humming and I just can’t stop. I started at least a year ago. Tunes will pop into my head and get stuck and before I know it I am humming them uncontrollably. Sometimes, when there is no tune, I hum random melodies; almost like a vocal chord experiment rather than anything my brain has something to do with. I looked up “Humming Uncontrollably” on the Internet and found that I am not alone. There were no answers on the WebMD site that popped up but a long list of messages from other people who have similar problems: humming inappropriately at work; humming when you don’t even realize you’re doing it; husbands and wives getting irritated because of the constant humming; humming, humming, humming. I seem to hum when I don’t have something specific to focus on. I don’t seem to hum when I’m on the computer. I hum when I’m driving or walking, or washing. I hum old songs that I haven’t thought of in years and refrains from new songs that I don’t know how I know. I hum refrains and then I wrack my brain to remember where that refrain comes from or how the rest of the song goes. I hum to drown out the thoughts of fear and panic that might come creeping in if I let my brain idle for too long. I hum rather than yell, although yelling seems to be something I want to do even though I know it will be unproductive and, worse, it will make the people I want to yell at defensive and start yelling back. Many of the messages I read seem to show some link between the humming and antidepressants. Okay. However, if that is the source, folks around me will have to deal with the humming because I am not giving up my antidepressant until my life changes for the better. Hm hm hmmmm…

Dream

What a dream. My parents had written and were performing, for one night only, a series of scenes from their life together. Six professional singers would sing romantic classics between scenes so they could change costumes that looked like Edith Head had designed them. As the first scene unfolded, I suddenly realized I had neglected to videotape it! I beat myself up about that as I watched the scene; all the ramifications of not being able to revisit this night at will; of not having preserved it for my parents’ sake; especially for my mother who would cherish it long after my father was gone. The theatre was packed with friends and family, although at one point, all the seats were facing in the wrong direction and people, those who chose to, had to swivel around uncomfortably to see the action. Some people chose not to and just listened. The show was wonderful; flawed, but wonderful. "Who wrote this?" My mother and father played themselves and somehow had shed pounds and years for the occasion. They spoke with no amplification, clear and strong, and I was amazed at their ability to do so. Where had those voices come from? Mom’s gowns were straight out of the movies: full-length swirls of chiffon that crisscrossed her breasts, accented her tiny waist and swished when she walked like Loretta Young. One dress, more Bacall or Grable, was head-to-toe fur for the scene in which she gets the credit card bill and is mortified that she spent so much, but he is fine with it because he wants her to have whatever she wants until he actually sees the bill and has to gulp and yell before remembering his former position. He was playing a grand piano in this scene, although I never knew him to play anything but the violin and not very well. My father had also shed years and pounds and had firmness to his body he never had in life. He had the thinnest head of brown hair; something else I had never known him to have. Oh yes; and he was alive; a feat in itself. There were some latecomers, and some usher was making a fuss in the far aisle about the fact that they hadn’t paid for their children and couldn’t stay. A scene was in progress and the disturbance upset me so I went to intervene, meeting the now ejected people in front of the theatre. I asked what the problem was and, teary-eyed, two young women explained about the kids. I asked if they knew anyone in the company, for this was sort of a private affair. They said they were friends of Keith’s. (Keith is my son.) I escorted them back inside for which they were very grateful and found them seats. They asked if I knew Keith’s sister. I said “I AM Keith’s sister.” As I started up the aisle, someone was snoring. (It was probably my husband next to me and I was incorporating it into the dream.) In the back of the audience, I started shaking people awake to find the snorer; a little boy, a young girl, an older man, a white haired lady… the last two were actually wrapped in soft white blankets. Having left my seat, I now couldn’t find my purse. The play ended, the audience filed out and I scanned the seats for my purse. I met my cousin Mona who told me my brother had it and that he had left with my other cousin, Karen, to go back to the house. I met my parents in front of the theatre and waited patiently as their well-wishers congratulated them and said goodnight. I was ecstatic about the quality of what I had seen. “Who wrote this?” “Who directed this?” “Why wasn’t it me?” Mom now wanted me to look at the script and fix it up for publishing. I was mollified. We went to a bar next door for a drink and mom wondered why there wasn’t a party. “Someone has to make a party, I said. They don’t just give them away. “ I was certain the whole family was waiting back at their apartment anyway. We talked about what great shape they were in and Mom confided it was easier to do with a full-time trainer to tell you when to stop eating. Dad was with us the whole time but never said a word other than those on stage. Then the dream devolved into how I was going to get my car out of the parking lot where it had been blocked in a corner and I woke up. I think I’ve been reading too much Christopher Durang.

Aaargh

Over an hour to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge, Are they kidding?

Just as I made the final approach to the Tappan Zee after an eleven hour work day/night, I saw the tail lights. It was too late: too late to get off; too late to go the other way and take the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge instead; too late to do anything but sit as the frigging traffic report finally got around to mentioning the construction and the “possibility” that ALL LANES WOULD BE SHUT DOWN!

Are they kidding? All lanes? Oh, yeah… ALL. We sat for an hour while they did God-knows-what on that God-damned bridge. I wanted to scream. I wanted to honk my horn. I wanted the thousands of people in cars and trucks to protest with me but they just sat there, accepting this utterly disrespectful intrusion on their lives. Two cars passed me on the left, rushing to get ten feet ahead before they got stuck like the rest of us. Two cars immediately behind me collided as they vied for the same space at the same time, neither willing to let the other one get ahead in the merge. And I just KNEW it was unnecessary. I knew it in my bones, aching and silently screaming in frustration. Sure enough, after an hour, they merged us from the two lanes we had already merged into, down from four, to one lane, and we crept over the bridge. Why this one lane wasn’t available during the previous hour I still don’t know, but for more than three quarters of the span, there was NOTHING going on. It appeared to be one man’s job to stand still with his arms folded on his chest. Another sat in a truck. A few were drilling up the pavement in the far left lane. Nothing was happening in the other two. Finally, toward the end of the bridge, I saw the real construction site and they indeed were working across three lanes. That still doesn’t explain why the fourth lane was rendered impassable, but at least these guys were working. I’ve never actually seen construction workers on a highway REALLY working before. I’ve seen them standing around CONTEMPLATING working. I’ve seen them drinking coffee. I saw that again tonight as I crossed Danbury: lot’s of lights indicating a construction project; lots of cones, heavy equipment and men standing around talking, but no actual work being done.

Where is our rage? I know where mine was. It was eating its way out of my chest like an alien baby in a sci-fi movie. I lay my hands on the horn on that approach to the Tappan Zee Bridge and wondered why every other motorist wasn’t doing the same. Why weren’t we all protesting? Let’s make some noise! I turned off the motor. I turned it back on and blasted some Dave Edmonds "Crawling From the Wreckage" to vent my increasing internal combustion. Why do we passively accept the thoughtless injustices heaped upon us by governments and corporations simply because they can?

After 23 years of working for a corporation, my husband and others like him are about to have their jobs phased out because management doesn’t like them. They want them to reapply and go to the bottom of the seniority list. Never mind that they have been doing the same job for years. Never mind that they are members of a union. Never mind that they have rights. They simply will not have their jobs. The union is either powerless or unwilling to stop this callous disregard for the people it represents and screaming won’t help. They’ll lay everyone off and, after a year of suffering I am told by those who have experienced such acts before, they will offer folks their jobs back, avoiding a lawsuit but not compensating anyone for the lost wages.

I am so frustrated. How did this happen? How did I get to this point? Everything that I thought would be there at this point in my life is just not there. No jobs. No security. No ease. No relaxation. No retirement in a sunny villa with the assurance that Medicare will provide for me. It won’t. Pension? Pshaw. Inheritance? It’ll all go to debts and taxes. I take the turn off the highway and wonder how fast I need to go to make sure the getaway is clean; that I won’t be left crippled but still alive because, with the evaporation of the job, so goes the medical insurance.

I am screaming inside but not a sound escapes my body. It is late. People are sleeping, I am typing. Life goes on… relentlessly.

Publisher's Clearing House

If August 31st passes without the appearance of a van with camera-wielding, flower-toting, check-bearing, Publisher’s Clearing House emblazoned people, I will be supremely disappointed. Seriously.

I have dutifully responded to every Publisher’s Clearing House email, even fishing some of them out of my junk mailbox where MacMail, with all good intentions, keeps sending them. I have “Transferred” meaningless, virtual “Labels”, “Confirmed” and “Submitted” countless entries. I have scrolled through pages and pages and pages of ads for strange inventions to clean things; organize things; grow things; and more ads for just THINGS. I even purchased one of those “magic” screens for my front door, with magnets that make it shut again after you walk through it (most of the time; occasionally needs guidance, gentle detachment from my metal front door - I didn't know it was metal -, or searching for and reattaching the three-piece magnet-plus-housing unit that tries to escape from its responsibilities), keeping my home freer from summer bugs than it has ever been.

I have been diligent, increasing my odds with every minute spent reading these LONG missives. I deserve this. If someone who submitted a single entry wins the $5000 a week for life, I will be upset.

I have a wedding to go to on Friday night so, PCH Team, please come early. I promise, I will give you a clip worth airing. I will be shocked, disbelieving, skeptical even, but ultimately thrilled beyond measure. I will CRY. No bland Midwesterner I. I will give you a full range of emotion that will please your editor and delight your commercial viewing audience. I am an excellent actress with full access to my feelings. I won’t even take my Lexapro until after your visit so I make sure to experience the highs (and lows) of the emotional spectrum. Be warned, however, that I will be keenly experiencing those lows so, if you DON’T come, and I get a little more than average depressed, I may sue you.

See you on August 31st.