The Dauphin Will Rage At Your Heels

I went running to warm my body up for tonight's long, emotional engagement. I ran about 2 miles at a very leisurely pace.

Perhaps it's the runners high, the protein intake for the day but my muscles and mind are telling me I'm psyched for opening night. It may be my last main stage performance at Truman State University. I could be really upset about it but I'm just going to fucking enjoy it. Hell, I may chew some scenery. Half the cast does anyway, why can't I?

Happy End of Day Light Savings Time

I woke up at 6:30 this morning to get ready to go to work at 7:30. I'm currently babysitting in the auditorium, listening to pandora, drinking from my thermos of coffee. Arthur came and brought me an egg mcmuffin but I did have a bowl of cereal earlier.

I suppose the miracle of today is that I got out of bed. I woke up. This past week battered me into nigh oblivion from sleep deprivation to the point that stress was destroying my body. Ghosts and other things came to the fore front and while I'm more equipped to deal with them now (mainly, I have an ego to help me defend myself now), it still left me with scratches, bruises, and an exhausted frame.

Ego is a very funny thing. I didn't really notice mine until I came back Liverpool and I really began living a very "me" centered life. Or rather I've begun to notice that my life has been "me" centered for quite awhile. To one extent, that is the curse and beauty of college: it is about the development of self. The entirety of college is inherently a selfish pursuit. Most training to develop skills or an acumen I think are somewhat selfish in practice because you are forced to focus on YOUR skills, YOUR abilities, and YOU to develop something you can do for someone else. Perhaps I'm not thinking this through enough. It's just very interesting to me at the moment.

As I laid in bed last night, not sleeping, I had my first moment of "Holy Shit King John Opens This Week" panic. It was not fun. I'm not prone to histrionics. I try to keep my drama on the stage but I had a small freak out as I lay awake dreaming. I pondered life beyond KJ, how it might shape up or how life was going to unfold after graduation and fear settled in again. It's not even the fear of living with my parents or staying in Kirksville, it's almost a fear of just not existing.

For the majority of my life, my existence has been consumed by the endeavor we call scholarship. It's hardly the most interesting thing I do but if you were to calculate the hours of my life spent being a student they are an innumerable sum. I've had a taste of life as a traveling artist-educator. I've enjoyed the life of a bon vivant American in Europe however so briefly. It's genuinely scary to think what's going to happen to my life very soon. Am I prepared? Am I good enough? Am I worthy? Those are silly questions to ask because I think in many instances your attitude is the deciding outcome of those answers. Ashton Kutcher is an awful actor but he has an excellent work ethic and positive morale; and he's very successful. Thomas Edison and all that.

Self determination is a very funny thing. I've done it a lot of my life. I've actually pretty decent at it. I go where I want to go in my life and I move depending on the will and graces of life/higher beings/etc. Not always without yielding. Yet I think it is the anxiety of waiting to begin this new chapter of self determined awesome that's goading at me. Just the waiting. I'm a very impatient person, sadly.

Cheers.

"My friend Serge, who's one of my oldest friends, has bought a painting ... It represents a man who moves across a space and disappears."

Day 28-Photo From A Year Ago, Photo From This Year and How You've Changed

Photo from August 2009, Driving Home from St.Louis with my lady of nearly a year

In Chicago with my friend Tara (hadn't seen her in a year), September 2010

And How Things Have Changed Between The Two:

There are simple aesthetic things that no one may notice but me; my hair is different. From 2009 to 2010 I went from short hair with a bit on top to real short hair to spike to having no hair to having short hair to now having shaggy hair for the first time since sophomore year. Pretty dumb shit that's changed there.

I've gained about 5 lbs, mostly muscle. *flex GRR!!!*

The real stuff though.

For someone who considers themselves very grown up, I grew up a tremendous amount from 2009 to present. I was in a very wonderful relationship and got to experience it crash and burn for a variety of reasons I shan't go into. The point being, we both felt some form of hindenberg devistation. My depression and anxiety really began to come to the fore front in the wake of this and a feeling of utility that returning to Truman after my stint in Kentucky gave me. I had experienced life and now I was peddling water, dazed and confused in the Truman Theatre Dept. I could count my close friends at school with 1 hand, I was feeling unsatisfied artistically, I was desperate for something/anything: a lover, a cigarette, another beer, another beer, another endorphin rush from working out.

This all sort of came to a head in Liverpool when my life sort of turned upside down. I went into my 3 week study abroad tour a very different person then I came out. The dynamic of my relationships have changed since I came back. I hit a rock bottom in Liverpool when I drunkly pummeled myself so hard I bruised my head because I was so upset. And then over a weekend in Belgium I let it go.

I let go of a lot of the pain in my heart. A lot of pain. Or more so I took the pain out of my heart, made it something physical I could affect and change and gave it a huge hug. I accepted the tragedies of my life (broken home, broken relationships, feeling lost) and just embraced them and suddenly I found that the hole I was climbing out of had light at the end of it.

My future is even less certain then before. I've developed powerfully as both an academic (I conducted original research and will be published soon, granted it's a Universal Press) and as an artist. I've never felt more confident, skilled and sharp as an actor as I do right now that I'm doing fight and text work for King John.

I still have a slew of self esteem issues. These manifest usually in a desire to feel warm, love, feel pleasure and usually stems from a bit too much alcohol or a poor late night choice and perhaps a bit of unsteady promiscuity but I feel like I'm in a place in my life to take a few risks. I'm pushing away the cautiousness I've lived most of my life with, though it's still firmly rooted in me.

So generally, I'm a much happier person then I was year a go. Do I miss being in love: absolutely. But for the first time since ever, I've accepted and love who I am. Or I'm getting very close to it. Not in an egotistical kind of way but in the manner that when Lizbeth looked at me right in the eye as we were in my room in Liverpool and told me I'm good, worthy, and talented, I could finally understand that there is good inside of me. That I'm not so monster that ruins everything. That I am a human being with a dark side but an equally powerful side for good.

I think I have less answers to life then I did last year but I'm hell as more confident about whatever direction God is taking me.

Day 27 - Why I'm Doing this Challenge

Because my friend Lizbeth started it and I wanted to be cool like her. It seems like all my friends with the name "Liz" just put me to shame with how awesome they are.

Day 26-What Do You Think Of Your Friends

I think my friends are truly, in many ways, my family. When shit hit the fan with my parents in my late adolescent/early teens and through high school to today, my friends of the moment have been the support network that has helped me navigate the mine fields of life.

I have a variety of friends, and even levels of friends. I have lots of acquaintances whom I'm close with but I'm not friends with. There is a subtle difference and it's not meant to be mean.

I've felt lost without my friends in the past but over the past year I've come to realize who my friends are (for now) that will stick around and those who we are going to hold on to each for as long as possible and understand when life rips us apart because of our careers (theatre, teaching, art, music, etc).

All in all I'm not much without my friends. Maybe I'm still something but I'm better with people.

Day 25- My bag

We'll go with my book bag.

On the shoulder strap pocket: my ipod with gunmetal gray ipod sock and headphones.

Biggest Pocket: The multicolored folders and notebooks for my classes: Russian Literature, Senior Seminar in Theatre, American Constitutional Government (class is now done), Public Speaking, and being the pedagogue of Acting II.

Two binders: one filled with My King John Script, The Character/Scene/Battle Break Down.

One Paperblanks Notebook modled after a journal William Shakespare may or may have not used. I keep notes about my acting 2 class in it.

1 large moleskine notebook. It has notes on fight scenes from King John and general acting notes regarding the show.

2nd pocket:

The baseball gloves I wear when I utilize broad swords (so not to leave handprints on the blade)

A copy of A.R Gurney's "Overtime"

3rd pocket:

Ray Ban Wayfarers and case

Weekly Planner

Cliff Bar

4th Pocket:

Pencils

Pens

Highlights

Drink Pocket:

Travel Coffee Mug OR Waterbottle.