Always a Paula, Never a Rebecca
The Week in Selfies: 5/3/21 - 5/9/21
And I’m frightened.
I am continuing on with the subscription donation project. Since I didn’t spend much time in April promoting the newsletter due to *~reasons~* (insert millennial LOL here), the April organization is going to stretch into May as well. Also, May is Lupus Awareness Month so it seems extra fitting. SO, the organization for April/May is Lupus LA. This is a great organization suggested by my wonderful friend Kelsey. Kelsey is also great and I highly suggest you check out her TikTok. If you are new here (welcome!) or need a refresher, you can always find more details of the project on my About page. And if you want to be a matching donor, let me know.
This newsletter means a lot to me. If you are connecting with the work at all, please consider clicking the heart button and/or leaving a comment and/or sharing it. And honestly, I need a little extra love in the form of more subscriptions (and real life too, whatever) so I’d appreciate it very much.
I am what you might call a “theatre person.” A playwright, mostly. Which, obviously, means that I was once an actor. (And maybe again. You really don’t know what life is going to fucking throw at you, do you?) And, if you spend enough time around theatre people, you will begin to notice that we are never not casting ourselves in literally anything we watch.
There are probably lots of reasons why this is. It could be that we’re obnoxious. Being an artist is, at times, a very self-centered thing to be. You have to be able to imagine yourself in roles or getting jobs. You have to be able to pull the confidence to keep going from somewhere. Sometimes that confidence comes from saying, “I could do that” whether you believe it or not.
It could also be training. Actors, in particular, are trained (often in harmful or traumatic ways but that’s a newsletter for a different day) to be able to put themselves into any situation. You can imagine being that person experiencing that situation because you were trained to use the very depths of your soul to be able to put yourself in that role. It feels a little like in Google maps, when you grab that little guy by the t-shirt and pop him into the middle of the street so you can get a better view.
Then there is holding on to any threads of the dream. No matter when you first started saying that you wanted to be an actor or an artist of some kind and no matter how long you pursued that dream and no matter if and when you say you’ve “moved on” from that dream, it’s a tiny loose thread at the end of your sleeve. You don’t cut it or pull it. You don’t want to unravel it completely. A fraying thread shows you worked. And a fraying thread means there’s still a little glint in your eyes.
For a long time, I’ve said I have goals and not dreams. Goals feel more actionable to me; it feels like there is a pathway to a goal. A dream feels so nebulous and can be hard to define. Some dreams appear when you are a kid, when you don’t know what having that dream actually means, let alone how to get it. In reality, no one can really explain what the path to achieving something looks like. There are a million ways to one thing. And if someone tries to convince you there is only one way to get something, they are lying. Dreams can be goals, of course. But even if you have the same dream and/or goals as millions of other people on this planet, it doesn’t mean you’ll know what the journey is going to be like. Or what it will look like when you get there.
The thread of the dream is it for me, I think. Probably as young at 10 or 11, I said I wanted to be an actor. When I was a freshman in high school and we had to write essays about what we wanted to be when we grew up, I said I would be a waiter because that’s what you do on your way to living a life on stage. (My mother has not let me live this down. Not even at all. Also I would be a terrible waiter.) By the time I was 15, I was talking about moving to New York. I made plans with a lot of people to live in tiny apartments and support each other on the way up. Hell, the first play I ever wrote was about actors who were friends and the issues that arose as one of them became seemingly more successful than the others. (Classic.)
Getting here, to New York, was a winding road. It was high school and of course, I was going to do it. And then I went to college and got my ass handed to me and this specific dream shredded. Then I moved to Seattle. Then I knew Seattle wasn’t right for me so I applied to grad school. (For those in the know, *drink.*) And that is, ultimately, how I made it here. So, parts of the dream came true. I’m living in New York, that’s true. I live alone in a tiny apartment that is all mine, also true. And somewhere in all my stuff is still that little thread. It’s probably the reason why I get teary at the opening chords of literally any overture when I sit in a Broadway theatre. It’s also probably why, on the days when I am not sure what I am doing or how I got here or what is going on with my “writing career” I still have a little comfort. I guess, the thread is youthful optimism? Yuck.
But all that head in the cloud existentialism is not why we’re here. Well, it wasn’t what was going to happen when I sat down to write this week. Here’s what was going to happen —
As a young person, being not a small person, being kind of a goofy sidekick, I was always cast as the Mom, the best friend, the old grandma swinging a sword around, or…the goofy sidekick. I was made to be middle aged before I was middle aged. (I guarantee so many of your high school or college friends with a similar build or outlook or personality have the same story.) But now I’m nearing middle age (what.) and there are some things you never really stop wanting.
Velma Kelly. Moira Rose. Mrs. Peacock. Paula Procter. Sister Michael. Maya Rudolph in everything. Bobbi. Mrs. Lovett. Donna Sheridan. Violet Weston. Either character in Bull in a China Shop. Also Margo Martindale in everything. And. And. And.
We’re closer to 40 than we’re not and we’re ready for the middle aged lady spotlight, baby!
Monday, May 3, 2021
The most attractive pose I could think of.
Tuesday, May 4, 2021
Okay, this is the most attractive pose I could think of.
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Lifex3
Thursday, May 6, 2021
Look, Ma, I put on pants!
Friday, May 7, 2021
La la la, a little bit Alexis.
Saturday, May 8, 2021
I mean, I could pull off Alexis, right? (Absolutely not. I’m a Moira.)
Sunday, May 9, 2021
This face, all day every day.
This week, paying subscribers may or may not have noticed that I didn’t send out a newsletter. That was for more *~reasons~* (insert another millennial LOL). Should be back this week…probably. If you want to find out what this special party is all about, consider becoming a paid subscriber.