Tag Archives: theater

The Trolley Chronicles

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12-18-10     12:18am

Wow. The trolley chronicles raw data is shocking tonight… And refreshing. :)

I sang with Sacha tonight. I didn’t want to. It was so wonderful. Like a drug I have missed so much. People loved it. I was trembling, but I loved it too. I felt like me. I miss feeling like me.

She asked why I don’t go back to theater or singing now, to be on Broadway. (sigh) It’s such a tough question. There are the logistics, but I think it’s more about faith. I don’t always believe. I’ve seen the castle crash down so many times that I don’t believe. Stuck in a dream between what I could and can do, held back by the fear of what I can’t and won’t.

I open my mouth to breathe so my face doesn’t explode. The last show I did was at the La Jolla Stage Company. I was not cast. I was an addition, choreographer needed help. I couldn’t think, was fresh out of Cog, had a job. I had gained weight and I wasn’t me. And the show was a nightmare. I walked away knowing I was done. I felt shame.

In the past 9 years I have been hospitalized 8 times, spent 24 weeks in Cog, 8 weeks in DBT, 9 months at Scripps. Now that my mind is mostly under control, my body and brain are failing me. I don’t have the energy to dance very much. I don’t remember things. Some days I can’t move. And the days in between are quite a ride. How does one do a show without dancing a lot, memorizing lines and being healthy enough to show up – not to mention able to get to rehearsal? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
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1:19am

S-,
I’m sorry for leaving for awhile. Thank you for singing my song. It’s very special to me. I sang it to my dad at his nursing home in the 4th grade. People rarely sing it and it always makes me cry. And I don’t like crying in public so I retreated to the bathroom for awhile. I wrote through a series of flashbacks. I thought I was okay but cried some more in the lobby. I’m scared. And I need a dad.
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The trolley ride was amazing tonight. I spent most of it listening to and bantering with a guy who just got out of jail. He had tattoos everywhere. One side of his head said, “Don’t fuck with my head and I won’t think with my dick.” His right temple said “Ass-Hole.” I asked why and he said because he can be one.

It was a lot of talk about jail and ghetto drama and life. Some of it was pretty ridiculous, but he shocked me at the end. He was telling me about how he had built his life up from nothing after 6 years in jail for something he didn’t do and now that he’s lost everything again he’s not scared because he knows he can do it again. All he wants is to see his twins born. I admire this man. He is a lesson in adversity. (shift)

I feel very tired and sound is bothering me. I’m hungry for tater tots. I should go to sleep. I need –

I’m sorry I let go. I really had to pee.

© Michelle Routhieaux 2010

Jazz Hands vs Spirit Fingers

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7-5-10                  3:05am

Okay, so it’s 3am and I’ve been thinking about jazz hands for awhile. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. But there is a great ignorance in the world about Jazz Hands that I feel the need to clear up.

Jazz Hands are NOT Spirit Fingers. They are not interchangeable. Please don’t mix them up. And please don’t mix them in a crowd. It gets ugly.

Spirit Fingers are the equivalent of playing air trumpet with fingers that don’t bend. Your thumb never moves. Jazz Hands are what would happen if you glued your palm to a tambourine and then played it one-handed. Your pointer finger stays pretty much motionless while the rest of your hand makes music, rotating back and forth around it.

Spirit Fingers are found on a football field on cheerleaders and people screaming things. Jazz Hands are found in a theater on people dancing and attempting to entertain you. Please don’t mix them up. You now don’t have an excuse.

I do Spirit Fingers when I mock someone. Yes, I once was a cheerleader, but the Jazz Hands crowd always wins out. Ya just can’t beat that air tambourine. ;) If you don’t know what a tambourine is, God help you.

© Michelle Routhieaux 2010

Swinging – On the Other Side

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5-9-10                   2:27am

When I read posts from M- I feel such compassion. I don’t know just what draws me to him. I’ve never met him. I only know him through FB. I think it’s the fact that he’s genuine. (My stomach hurts.) And the volume of genuine posts. If you make me think or occupy enough of my think-time, you become a close friend, whether I know you or not.

I noticed tonight he seems to swing a lot. Mood swings that is. Extreme highs and lows. Joy and strife. I was riding with my mom thinking about this. I felt concerned and wondered if he’d ever sought help. I realized it’s not really my place to ask but also that it’s not my place to kill the dream.

I realized – I’m on the other side. If I could go back to my days of creative highs and performance and laughter and joy and strife and craziness, would I? I have given up so much in the pursuit of not happiness but stability. And what do I really have? Not stability, less happiness, I guess less strife. Less psychosis. But there is little traveling, almost no dancing, no theater. My grand ideas are mostly limited to mental health and don’t usually happen. I have no degree. I have talent but I’m not doing what I love. I’d like to go to Fresno in a few weeks for a convention but I can’t afford it, have a choir performance and Survivors of Suicide Loss Day. I’d much rather do midnight workshops and dance all day.

I didn’t know what I was signing up for when I started taking medication. I just needed to get the Hell away from what was happening. I think if I’d been accurately diagnosed things might have been different. Maybe not. I remember the first night I heard voices. It was the scariest night of my life. I’ve been through a lot of scary things, but that tops it. My psychiatrist told me it was “normal” for people with depression to hear voices and not to worry, did nothing. (deep breath…) I would not go back to my days of skinniness and days of dancing and top of the world highs if it meant taking back the voices and the visions and the feelings and everything that went with them. But I yearn for those days. If you haven’t experienced them, you can never understand. It’s why we go off our meds. To feel them. Sometimes almost anything is worth getting that back. It’s like trying to convince yourself every minute that eating only peanut butter and jelly for the rest of your life will be as full-filling as eating as much of the best food you’ve ever tasted for a month and then starving.

This bitter perspective is not quite something someone new to mental health should hear or can handle. Would you jump at that? Maybe if you are desperate or REALLY like peanut butter. But it’s something they NEED to hear. But nobody says it. Nobody says to the artist, “This pill may save your life but you won’t paint the same.” No one says to the actor, “The stage might not be your friend.” No one bothers to tell the dancer, “By the way, in six months you’ll either be too fat to dance or you’ll be fat enough that you hate yourself enough not to.” No one says that. They should. But they don’t.

So I find myself on the other side. I’ve been through creativity and performance and crazy wonderful and terrible highs. And I’ve been through years of treatment and its ups and downs and effects. And now I’m here, on the other side. I think I’ve learned all I can from programs. Therapy keeps me going because it gives me someone non-judgmental to talk to. But I usually have the answer or it’s me that has to figure it out. I’ve been on tons of meds. I’m not on many anymore. And I watch people. I watch them feel and interact. I know when something’s wrong and sometimes what. Not much surprises me. Not much other people say scares me. And I want to help. What I have been through helps, but it doesn’t not hurt. It takes from you. It’s not free. Life in entertainment may be crazy but it’s a choice. Everything is a choice. (sigh)

I wish there was a way to get “better” without losing the creativity. Without losing what makes us us. On the other side now. I can’t cross back. Not for long…

© Michelle Routhieaux 2010