Several years ago, when I was still pursuing acting with an earnest vengeance, I did a great scene in class. Did I say "great scene"? Sorry. What I meant was Super Fabulous Tear-the-Roof-Off-the-Sucker, Tear-the-Roof-Off-the-Motherfucker, p-funk All-Star scene.
People who had shunned me suddenly wanted to touch me. People who had been my friends basked in reflected glory, sagely nodding and accepting mad props for having seen It in me all along.
Well, okay, not really. But my scene partner and I seriously kicked ass. It was about as perfect a rendering of that particular scene, the rollicking first meeting between Kate and Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew, as you could imagine. Made Dick and Liz look like a couple of pikers, we did. And felt great about doing it.
Until we had to do it again. Because that's what you do in acting class, like that's what you do in the theater: you do it again. Have a great night on stage? Ring that bell? Ladies tossing their panties at you? Men sprouting wood at your superfabulousness? Okay.
Try that again, hotshot!
You get the idea.
This comes to mind partly because Friday's experience, my little time on stage for Subject Line Here, was so much fun, and unexpectedly so. I thank Shane Nickerson, my fellow blogger-performers and a wonderful crowd for that, mostly. Still, my habit of creating diminished expectations was surely a factor.
But it's more pressing here and now after the bizarre triumph that was the 21-gun salute called Cheering the Hell Up™. Not that I reap great, personal rewards from a three-week period of enforced positive thinking, but the indirect and, frankly, far more potent benefit was the mad outpouring of love I received from friends and strangers. And believe me, as a big, fat, commie-pinko liberal, it is magically delicious, if a little odd, having a bunch of balls-out Republicans flock to your site. (Thank you, Pajamas Media...I think).
There's a zen saying that sums this up perfectly. It goes something like "Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water." Or, to put it another, more modern way, the day after you win your Academy Award®, you still have to get up and take a crap. That's just the way things work.
So consider this the blog version of taking a crap. Just me being me, here, getting back to the regular-usual, albeit with experience of a couple of highs under my belt. Just trying to try again.
So...how ya like me now?
xxx c
Photo by Johnsyweb via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.