Work in progress

Hello friends.

I am in the thick of it. Opening our new work in progress show on Friday, which is always a peculiar mix of terror and thrill and humiliation and pride -- clearly a mix of emotions I'm drawn to though every time we hit this part of the process I question my devotion to the art form, and question my judgment and mental health and clarity in general. You've got to be a bit of a masochist to embrace showing your work when it is purposefully -- nay, DEFIANTLY -- undone. I guess this fits in with my theme of late, thwarting perfectionism, but damn is it hard. And not for everyone.

Yesterday was actually not too bad -- we were all so tired we hit the slap happy zone which was a blessing. That's the only way to handle the extreme stress of a room full people all trying to weave their separate threads into a beautiful crazy quilt at light speed in 36 hours.

If only I could enter that slap happy zone every time I reached the exhaustion point! You just never know when your sleep deprivation will lead you down a path of giggling silly dancing stupor and when it will send you crashing into furniture or crying over a burrito that is not to your liking or snapping I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING in response to someone's concern over your mishandling of an electric drill.

All imaginary examples.

Anyway: we're always writing and rewriting the show constantly up to the last minute which means we never run it fully until 3-4 days before we open (which is pretty stressful for the actors and the director but REALLY stressful for all the designers and tech crew we work with). I've experienced this vertigo countless times in the last ten years, so at least when I feel that panic I can call it what it is instead of associating it with the show itself and with doom and failure and self-doubt.

I know that the day before we run the show in full (and sometimes the day after) I always ALWAYS have a crisis of faith (double meaning acknowledged) and think that this time we're going to crash and burn. And every single time it pulls together in the days after that, and the show may vary and we may want to change 75% of it, but it will be a show. And I can remember the worst case scenarios, and recognize that this scenario is a much better one and rationally know that it's going to be fine.

Still, every time that peculiar, gaping fear hits me: that we will stumble blindly about the stage in un-unified chaos until we shuffle and mumble off the stage leaving the audience in stunned, horrified silence. And every time I console myself by saying this has never come to pass. (Unless we wanted it to).

It's never come to pass... YET.

Because that is the thing: for all my confidence based on past experiences, every time the terror is fresh, because every time could be the first time it's ever happened. Maybe THIS is the one we can't pull off!

Anyway. I could go on all day about it. But we've pulled above the clouds now, we've reached cruising speed. I think this sucker can fly. I once was blind but now I see. I believe the children are the future. You gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em. Etc.

Battling Perfectionism

I think of myself as a recovering perfectionist. The clearest insight I had about this came when I was seeing a therapist two years ago (back when I could afford the luxury of mental health) and told her that I struggled with perfectionism, but not really, because actually I wasn’t doing anything well enough to qualify as a perfectionist.

Wait, she said. So what you’re telling me is you would be a perfectionist if you could just do things a little more perfectly?

Well… yes.

Yeah, that still counts as perfectionism.

Because I was going through my actions as if there were a level of perfection that it was possible to achieve. Because I was comparing myself to mythical people (or the real people around me who I was remaking in my head as more perfect beings) and finding myself lacking. Because I was beating myself up all the time for not doing things the right way, the better way, the more thorough way, the more organized way. The perfect way.

So that Perfectionism -- damn, is she a tricky beast. She invades your thinking without you even realizing it. One day you’re taking notes at a company meeting, the next day you’re hunched at your computer taking an extra thirty minutes to get the font right so people can read it, the next day you’re taking an extra hour to organize everyone’s action items at the top of the notes even though nobody reads them (of course there’s a nice dose of Martyr / Victim Complex that always seems to crop up alongside Perfectionism. They’re sort of like that mean girl in elementary school and her super sweet best friend).

(Wait, except Peppermint Patty isn’t really a perfectionist, is she? Well, you get the idea.)

Anyway, in my epic struggles to not let Perfectionism boss me around, I have found a few techniques helpful:

• Leaping into things before I’m fully prepared -- leaping past that urge to be “prepared enough” (which is impossible) by jumping in when I know that I am in fact not fully prepared. A sort of “fuck you” to perfectionism.

• Laughing at the things I have done perfectly and not taking their supposed perfection seriously. As in: look at these amazing gleaming golden NOTES I took at the company meeting. Aren’t they perfect? Aren’t they an incredible shining example of what notes should be?

• Admitting right away when I don’t know how to do something or think I may have done it wrong. In effect, thwarting that perfectionist desire to know everything and hide all failure by being openly, publicly honest about my mistakes and what I don’t know.

• Remembering that a completed imperfect task matters more than a task that comes in late because I needed to know more, prepare more, edit more, etc.

Caveat: one undesired outcome of these techniques is that I sometimes overcompensate and use this as an excuse to NOT PREPARE. Which is not the same thing at all, and only gives the Inner Perfectionist fodder for telling me what an incompetent, lazy, unbaked fool I am. No: the trick is to prepare -- to take things seriously -- but to also leap in no matter what when leaping is called for.

I must admit, though, there is one aspect of Perfectionism I haven’t yet figured out how to handle, and that is other perfectionists.

Again I turn to Peanuts for inspiration. Of course Peppermint Patty isn't the Perfectionist, it's freaking LUCY! Watch, she's basically my Inner Perfectionist in cartoon form, and Charlie Brown is her poor misguided Martyr / Victim aka my SENSITIVE SOUL:

In the same way that recovering alcoholics find the company of practicing alcoholics to be the most challenging, and in the same way that recovering alcoholics can’t expect other people to change their drinking habits -- I have to figure out how to interact with people who display perfectionist tendencies, without giving in to perfectionism myself and without expecting them to change.

Because maybe they don’t have a problem with perfectionism. Maybe it works for them. I imagine that some people take great comfort and pride in their drive for perfection. In fact a lot of things in this world would not exist were it not for perfectionists. So I’m not knocking it. But for me it’s toxic.

So what I need to figure out is how to tolerate other people’s desire for attaining perfection, without letting it trigger my own toxic desires. It’s pretty tricky. Maybe I need to find the equivalent of AA for Perfectionists.

Hello. My name is Faith Helma, and I am a perfectionist. It’s been three days since I gave in to a desire to be perfect. (Ok, fine: three hours) (Ok you got me, I am actually obsessively editing this post RIGHT NOW. Fine, I’ll just post it.)

There you go.

Inspirations

I know I talked recently about being inspired by bad art, but that doesn’t mean I’m not inspired by good art too.

I want to mention some awesome things that have been inspiring me. BLOGGY STYLE.

Jenny the Bloggess and her funny ass descriptions of social panic and confidence wigs. Oh my god, I love her so much I want to show you her picture:


And speaking of social panic, I love this post over at Mommy Melee about freaking out at BlogHer. I love it when people are honest about their struggles with high pressure social situations. It’s always a surprise when you hear it from someone else.

You’re like, “what? But you have your shit together and you’re so articulate!” And they’re like, “what are you talking about, I’m having a panic attack right now!” And you’re like, “wow, that’s the classiest panic attack I’ve ever seen!”

I think that’s a beautiful thing for us neurotic introverts to aspire to: classy panic attacks. It worked for Greta Garbo.


Other inspiring things:

Shiva Nata, this crazy kind of yoga I heard about through Havi Brooks over at Fluent Self. I’ve been practicing it most mornings for the last five months (give or take a few weeks where I got frustrated and dropped it altogether) and though it is many times bewildering and seemingly pointless, I totally credit it with getting my mind out of a dark place post-NYC in August, and changing some of my habits without me even thinking about it. Of course I still have a lot of bad habits I’d like to get rid of, so that I can be a gleaming golden ice bodied icon of perfection. But my brain probably realizes that would actually be horrible. And honestly: the number one habit that trips me up lately is Perfectionism. Oh perfectionism, you cold-eyed, diabolical taskmistress. That is a topic for another day.

But let’s move on and talk about a lovely taskmistress: Dooce! This was the first blog I ever got hooked on. Whenever I check in on Dooce, I feel like I’m catching up with my cousin or something. And more often than not there is something that makes me laugh out loud, and then my husband looks over and I say, “Dooce poured bacon fat into a plastic bowl and melted it!” and he gets that concerned/horrified look on his face that means he thinks I’m spending too much time on the internet (he does not believe in using the internet for anything except finding artist residencies in Berlin. I think he thinks Dooce is my imaginary friend. Which... wouldn’t be all that far off, I guess, since we certainly aren’t real life friends). Anyway, I just love Dooce.

Jeff Hylton Simmons’ internet radio station. I just met this dude a few months ago and of course because this is Portland it turns out he knows every third person I know. He’s got broadcasts from people all over the world. Big dreams, big ideas. It's awesome.

And one more thing before I say goodnight, dear internet: the ultimate inspiration. I can remember my brother sitting rapt, 4 years old, in front of the TV watching this performance of Michael Jackson on the Grammys in 1988. I DON'T CARE, I CAN'T GET CYNICAL ABOUT MICHAEL JACKSON! I just can't.

Manifesto update!

I was thinking it would be a good idea to check in on my manifest declarations and see if they still hold. Because I’ve noticed that often when I passionately declare my opinions, I’m talking out of my ass.

For instance – my last manifesto was all about doing it yourself and not fetishizing teachers into gurus and just getting on with it and learning stuff. DARE TO BE A PIECE OF CRAP, I believe I said.

And the example I used was how I was going to learn how to play piano on the old keyboard I found in my basement.

Yeah. Well here’s the thing: as it turns out it’s really HARD to learn piano that way. And I’ve been plunking away every morning for 5-10 minutes and then I go do something else. Which is fine. But it’s become clear to me that I’m never really going to learn piano that way.

So daring to be a piece of crap isn’t the best mantra for me to use if I want to dare to learn piano. Maybe DARE TO GET YOUR ASS IN MOTION AND FIND A TEACHER would be a better one.

Anyway. As for the items in my first manifesto:

- Still don’t want to work for anyone, but my unemployment runs out in a month or so and with it my noble intentions. I’m hoping I can hold out for a boss who isn’t insane.

- Still think we shouldn’t make excuses for Roman Polanski just because he’s a great artist. Though I have to admit I’ve moved a little into Michael Jackson territory with Roman: I’m not making excuses for his appalling behavior, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him. I don’t know if this makes me a good empathetic humanist or a bad feminist. Or both?

- Still love beets with every fiber of my being. In fact: I have developed a variation on my beloved Beet Blast: so you’re boiling the beets along with some carrots, celery and onion in a big pot of water, right? Well after 45 minutes you can remove the beets, chop them up and eat them with the broth! Or by themselves! I always thought they were too mushy after that much boiling but I suddenly realized – hey wait a minute, beets take a long time to cook. So 45 minutes of simmering and you’ve got a beautiful bright red broth, AND beautiful tender beets!

Also speaking of beets (I should have a weekly post devoted solely to beets), I just remembered this opening passage from Jitterbug Perfume which I have always loved, even before I had tasted a beet:

The beet is the most intense of vegetables.

The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.

- Back to the manifesti: still a cryer. That is never going to change. In fact I’ve been thinking more and more about how useful & cathartic crying can be. Case in point: back in October we were rehearsing Everyone Who Looks Like You two weeks before opening, which is to say we were madly swooping and careening and wheeling in circles. I was trying to write a song based on screaming (oh, I see I’ve mentioned this before) and I’d gone through at least three distinct versions and every time people didn’t quite like it and I was getting more and more frustrated and in the middle of rehearsal I just burst into tears, cried out I’M SORRY THAT’S THE BEST I CAN DO and ran into the bathroom. It was so embarrassing. I stayed in the bathroom for a while, not sure what to do, and then walked back out expecting horrified silence. But instead everyone came up to me one by one and gave me a hug and apologized! And they hadn’t even done anything! Somehow by letting people see I was overwhelmed, we were able to let go of the tension that had built up around that stupid song, and I was able to see that in fact the pressure wasn’t coming from anyone except me (and after that we figured out how to fix the song, so it was a win win all around).

Of course, if I cried every rehearsal, that would be a problem. But once in a while, it’s a good idea to let your feelings roll over you, come what may.

So that’s where I stand. Looks like half of my convictions still hold water, and the rest have run out of steam (to mix my metaphors). Stay tuned for NEW random passionate declarations, coming soon.

Staying Up Too Late

I have this pattern that has played out at least since high school: when left to my own devices, I will stay up as late as possible.

If I need to get up at 5am the next morning, I will stay up until midnight – later than that is bound to mess with my mind. Of course it would be better in that case to go to bed at ten. But I never do that.

And now, being technically unemployed with no morning commitments, what I would LIKE to do is go to bed at one and hop out of bed promptly at nine, bright eyed and bushy tailed. But that is not what I do. I stay up until 2 or 3 and sleep in until 11 (or 12:40, which I am ashamed to say was my waking time this morning).

There’s nothing wrong with this, really. As soon as I have a morning commitment I will adjust accordingly. But it bothers me that I fall into this pattern and can’t seem to change it. Especially since I’m often staying up late for no reason. I mean, right now I’m staying up to write this post, but before that I was watching back to back episodes of LOST (I got caught in a hopeless addiction two months ago and have made it to midway through season 4 in record time), listlessly surfing the net and checking facebook. Why do I feel the need to do that until the wee hours and then sleep away the morning?

I could blame my mom, she has this trait too. Buuut… I’m 32, and theoretically capable of making my own way in life. And too old to be blaming my own behavior on my mom.

I could say there is this quality of absolute quiet that I like about night time, that is different from the morning. I guess that’s part of the reason. But there’s also a very nice quality about early morning that I miss. And the day passes so quickly when you don’t rise until noon.

Hm. Well, that’s it, folks. Nothing more than that. I guess I can't even pass it off as a side effect of being a Very Sensitive Person. It's just something I do.

Embracing the Diva (or learning how to be a better sensitive person)

I wrote about my lovely experience performing Undine in Seattle over on the Hand2Mouth blog. But I wanted to write more about one aspect of it here that relates to being a Very Sensitive Person.

I know I have hinted and talked around this topic a lot here, but to address it directly: the last six months I have basically not been sure I wanted to continue with Undine at all. After doing it in New York in August, I just felt burned out and used up and unable to get excited about it anymore. I thought I might be done.

As I mentioned in my last post, being in New York last month restored some of my hope & energy – and at the very least made me realize that the issue was not the city of New York.

This weekend made me realize that the issue is also not performing Undine.

I think what has been going on is this: I needed time to figure out how to handle the rigors of performing alone, and the particular stress it puts on my body and mind. It’s much more difficult than performing or rehearsing a H2M show, where there are built in support networks and ego checks. With Undine, though I have incredible collaborators, it’s still a lot more pressure falling on me directly, and it feels more personal. I needed some time to get my strength back up to the point where I could face those pressures.

One thing I’ve realized in this time of reflection is that I have to pay very, very close attention to my body and mind-space after the show, and I can’t expect too much from myself. I get into trouble when I want to be the life of the party, or for some reason think other people want me to be. I usually don’t have the energy for this, and nobody actually expects it of me anyway, but for some reason it’s been hard for me to demand the right to not talk about myself or the show or field questions from strangers. Or try and impress important people. Dear god.

One way to do this has been to embrace my Inner Diva.

A lot of people think being a Diva is all about gigantic ego. But I think it’s more about needing to shield yourself from attention and demands. And the more you put yourself out there on stage, the more you open yourself up to attention and demands offstage, and to (some) people wanting a piece of you, or wanting you to be who you are onstage.

That is, for me, the most difficult part: handling what people read into my personal life & character based on the show. I’m not blaming them for doing this – I purposely blur the lines between reality and performance, so it’s a fair assumption – but sometimes this makes talking after the show, or just being around people after the show, weird. So I’ve learned I have to be super protective of myself and what I need.

Maybe Diva needs to drink a hot toddy in the corner booth flanked by friends who protect her from the hordes. Or maybe Diva would like to speak to her public. Or maybe she would rather go out dancing.

Diva doesn’t need to be consistent. And Diva doesn’t need to apologize.

Anyway, this weekend was an amazing way to get back on the Undine train because the audiences were warm and receptive and actively supportive. I remembered that it’s FUN to do this show, that for all the energy I pour into it, I get a lot back. And I ended up having a great time talking to people after the show. It was not difficult at all – but a lot of that was because I’ve learned to not be mad at myself for having limits and reaching them. I was ready to leave whenever I felt like it, and I had people I loved & trusted around me to read my signals and support whatever I needed.

Maybe these insights seem obvious... but man, not for me. It's taken me a long time to figure all this out. Not to suggest that "all this" has been by any means figured out.

NYC, Take Two

So you know what’s really weird?

Last time I traveled to New York City, I felt totally overwhelmed and freaked out. I just wanted to get away from the noise and the people and find some green space.

This time I had the opposite experience. I didn’t find the mass of people overwhelming at all. In fact it felt like less people were there somehow – even though that can’t be true. And it felt quieter! Maybe because it was winter? I have no idea but I was not bothered ONCE by the noisiness of New York.

I went in prepared for the worst – I even brought my I Ching for emergency consultation, and wrote a list of “things that make me feel good and less freaked out,” a list I did not have to consult once. I’m just blown away by how easy it was this time. I didn’t have to try to have a good time – I got up every morning excited and walked out into the street and gained energy and momentum with each step. And this despite going to bed every night at 4 a.m!

And the weirdest part is: somewhere during this trip I got my desire back for working on Undine. A desire I kind of lost after performing in August (which is weird in and of itself, because the performances went well and I loved working with the people at the Ontological and sharing space with Helsinki Syndrome – so I’m not sure why it was so hard exactly). Anyway, I woke up yesterday morning, my first day back in Portland, and immediately dived into work on Undine and didn’t even have to make myself do this – I wanted to.

I am honestly baffled by all this. And thankful. I am chalking up my different experience this time around to:

+ Being there with the whole H2M crew. It was so much easier to be able to share the pressure and burden of performing with my fellow artists. And it’s just more fun to be on tour with H2M. It’s like going out dancing with your best friends versus going dancing by yourself. Even sharing a small living space (and one bathroom) with 7 people wasn’t too bad. There were lots of chances to talk over what was happening, to process and vent and give support and make each other laugh.

+ Wintertime. I think I just like NYC better in the winter. It’s sunny and bracing, the kind of weather that makes you want to go to museums and drink coffee and educate yourself. Even when it was super cold I enjoyed it. Maybe because I got to wear sweaters and scarves and cowboy boots, which served as armor to insulate me from the noise. And in general, boots make me feel more capable. You can’t kick someone’s ass in flip flops (though I’m not sure if I could kick someone’s ass regardless, but I’d be more likely to if I was wearing boots).

+ Knowing the city better – and going in ready to be proactive about figuring out which subway lines to use. I still got lost, but I wasn’t as anxious when I did because I could ask people how to get where I wanted to go, and understand the directions they gave me. This sounds so blithe and breezy but it is a new thing for me.

Other things that struck me as awesome on this trip:

+ Goddamn it, the food! Korean, Polish, Japanese. The soup options alone are dazzling. And you know how I feel about soup. And so many things you can eat late at night. And bagels. And things to eat with bagels like pickled tomatoes. Offered up by the two sweetest men on earth, Larry Krone and Jim Andralis. Larry's bathroom was an inspiration, filled with books by such luminaries as Rue McClanahan, and I’m pretty sure a Dolly Parton action figure.

+ Halfway through I took a day to just putter around the apartment and make borscht (I mean BEET BLAST) and read my lowbrow books. You know what I’m really coming to realize? This is not a searing insight but lowbrow books are fun to read. Especially on the subway or when you’re trying to fall asleep at 3:30 a.m. after a night of shouting about theater over bar noise. I love smart, fierce, complicated books – of course – but when you’re trying to relax, nothing beats The Shelters of Stone.

+ Oh man – I got to see a lot of shows, from companies I admire, like Banana Bag & Bodice, Wax Factory, 31 Down, The Debate Society and Vivarium Studio. Highlights for me included BBB’s Beowulf (they had me at the trombone section and backup singers) and the little booklets that Vivarium Studios were handing out – gems of subtle, gentle absurdity that expressed the nature of the company’s work as much as their show, L’Effet de Serge, did.

+ Oh yeah, and our show. We had a great time performing it. We got pretty solid crowds and good feedback from everyone who came, and we will likely be back next year having learned a lot more about how to prepare for a run in NYC. Unfortunately, no reviews (we were, after all, competing against every other theater performance in the entire known world). But I did get an email today from someone who came and saw the show, who said:

I just wanted to tell you that I thought your show was beautiful. Really so beautiful. I rarely feel as touched or delighted by theater, and I rarely laugh that hard out loud. So I just wanted to say thank you, because watching the wonderful work of theater you created makes me want try to create wonderful things as well.

And really, that’s all you can ask for.

So thank you, New York! And I’m sorry I blamed you for my nervous breakdown back in August.

The Dangers of Oversharing

Don't worry, this isn't going to be like Emily Gould's 12-page oversharing analysis of her history of oversharing in the New York Times (though if you're reading this, NY Times... I am available). But I do want to talk a little bit today about oversharing. Which is sort of like writing about writing or singing about singing (i.e. usually pointless). But here I go.

So. What is oversharing? Being too honest, being too vulnerable. Opening yourself up for criticism. Spilling the details of your life to any old stranger you meet. Telling your mom too much about your sex life. Risking that people won't like you, will feel uncomfortable, will avert their eyes.

Like high school gym class – when being uncoordinated and self-conscious was not charming or funny. When you walked into the gym for the 80th straight day of kickball and tried to play it cool and pretend that kickball was beneath you, that you didn’t care, but you could hear people muttering and sighing. Well... I guess that's not really an example of oversharing so much as it is an awkward memory. But whatever, it feels the same.

Like wearing the wrong thing to a formal event. Or wearing something too fancy – equally embarrassing.

Like the guy at a party who gets out his guitar and won’t stop playing and doesn’t seem to realize that he sucks. He just sings song after banal song, clueless that he has brought the party to a grinding halt. Like if I opened my journal and started reading it out loud and didn’t stop even when the giggling faded and the room got dead silent.

That is the danger of writing a blog. These are the images that flash through my mind as I decide to make my blog public. Not that someone I know will find it and be offended – but that they will be quietly embarrassed for me and look at me differently when I see them in person. Since it’s in this weird amoral aphysical space/nonspace called the internet, the BLOGOSPHERE – there is no way to read in someone’s eyes if I’ve said too much. So I just have to plow through and hope my instincts about what to say and what not to say are on target.

I guess you could say I’m a professional oversharer. I’m a prude in my private life but onstage I stripped naked to Proud to be an American. I dread the idea of crying in public but in my solo show I crafted a huge, awkward, embarrassing meltdown in front of the audience. So clearly there’s something about oversharing that appeals to me.

But with performing, there is a clear line between onstage and offstage – even when you’re making weird performances where you are playing “yourself” – and the lines are different with blogging. And I don’t know where they are yet.

So I guess what I’m saying is: hello, world. This is my blog. Please don’t hate me because I suck at kickball.

Oh yeah: and happy new year!

Holiday Stress, and other cliches

So. I am experiencing holiday anxiety. Also known as a BEING A LIVING BREATHING ORGANISM. You can tell I'm anxious because I'm expressing most of my emotions in ALL CAPS and use the word FREAKING a lot. Though if that's my criteria than I guess I'm anxious all the time.

Point being, I have not bought a plane ticket yet and my family is cheerfully expecting me to be in Dallas in five days.

Dallas is where my sister, my aunt and her family live. My parents are driving down from Michigan to convene upon it.

And Jonathan’s family, down in Corpus Christi, are expecting us on Christmas Eve.

Every time we visit Texas I forget how FREAKING HUGE it is, so once again I blithely thought we could fly into Dallas, swing down to Corpus, hit Austin on the way, drive back up to Dallas – everyone would be happy. Awesome, road trip! But I forgot that Corpus Christi is a six hour drive from Dallas.

So the reality is: we will fly into Dallas, spend two days there, on Christmas Eve drive six hours down to Corpus, spend two days there, then drive back up to Dallas, stopping in Austin to see some old friends, then fly out early in the morning so we can be back in Portland for a rehearsal. (oh yeah, we’re flying to New York on January 4th). Are we even going to have time to stop at a BBQ joint? Side note, I love writing BBQ. I wish more long words had 3-letter abbreviations. Like, instead of full-blown panic attack I could just say I’m in the middle of a FBPA. Wait, that’s just an acronym. How about HYPVN8 intead of hyperventilate? It’s not the same. BBQ is in a class of its own.

Anyway, the real reality is, (see opening sentence – I’m on a continuous loop) I haven’t bought the tickets yet, and they’re insanely expensive, and I am engaging in what is the most extreme case of denial yet in a long and storied career of practicing denial.

I know, I’m sounding whiny. And this is the most boring post ever. But right now tickets to Dallas are around $700 and it’s way cheaper to fly into Austin. But if we fly into Austin… oh dear lord. That adds a three hour trip that looks something like this:

Austin --> 3 HOURS --> Dallas --> 6 HOURS --> Corpus Christi --> 6 HOURS@#%&$%!!! --> Dallas --> 3 HOURS --> Austin (in time for a 6am flight).

THAT IS MADNESS. But if I tell my parents this is too expensive and complicated for me to handle this year, they’ll alternately shout and sob hysterically about how the family has fallen apart and life will never be the same and what’s $1400 compared to SAVING THE FAMILY?

When will the day come where people come to me for the holidays? I know, I know. When I have a baby. Which sounds less complicated right now than trying to figure out all these travel details.

UPDATE: ok, I just talked to my parents and we came up with an alternate plan where they meet me in Austin on the 26th. And they did not shout or sob hysterically. So I was just being a big old stressball for no reason.

UPDATE #2: Did I mention that I have not bought (or lovingly handmade) any presents yet?

UPDATE #3: I bought the tickets. The thing is, I don't know if in 7 days I will be (a) rolling on the floor laughing with my sister saying THANK GOD I BOUGHT THOSE TICKETS or (b) on the road exhausted and too broke to buy a taco saying WHY IN THE NAME OF SWEET JESUS DID YOU LET ME BUY THOSE TICKETS. To my poor long suffering partner who is asleep on the couch right now. He was so happy an hour ago when he thought I'd decided, screw it, not worth it, this time we're staying home for the holidays.

Anyway, I'll let you know in a week whether it goes direction a or b. Unless it swerves madly in an abab bcbc cdcd ee pattern in which case I will express my feelings in the form of a sonnet.

Criticism & Negative Reviews

This topic is always on my mind, since (a) I have a hard time being criticized, and (b) I am a performer, and part of being grown up and professional and classy means being able to take it in the chin. [correction: ON the chin. Not sure what taking it IN the chin entails but it doesn't sound very classy to me.]

In August when I went to New York with my one-woman show I knew it was going to be a struggle. We would be lucky to get any reviews at all, so I had to be ready for negative reviews, and I had to be ready for them to get personal.

HOW DID YOU DEAL WITH IT, FAITH?

Well, let me tell you. I handled it the one foolproof way I know: by not reading them. Which was good, because I got five reviews in all – two were mostly positive, two were mostly negative, and one was vaguely snarky. I know this because I did have to read them eventually.

There’s a weird thrill that comes from reading a bad review about your work. Maybe it’s the thrill of someone finally punching you in the face after long-simmering tension. There’s catharsis in that: finally, someone told me the truth, that I suck. The danger is that you will take it too much to heart. “Sophomoric and angsty” = IT’S TRUE, I AM SOPHOMORIC AND ANGSTY, what is wrong with me, why am I so immature, why do I suck so much, I should just give this up and be a schoolteacher except I probably suck at that too, etc. etc. etc.

I think it is possible to reach a point where you take the punch but it doesn’t stop you. Where you say, ok, maybe my work is sophomoric and angsty. WHAT ELSE YOU GOT? Or better yet, you take that criticism and use it as promotion. COME SEE FAITH HELMA “DOG PADDLING IN CABARET.” (That is advanced level badassery though, and a topic we will tackle another day: how to reclaim negative criticism and use it for self-promotion).

And you know what, praise is actually trickier to deal with, because if someone says “she is doing the best work of her life,” what do you do? Sit back and say, yes, I am doing the best work of my life? In that case the only thing I’ve figured out (though no one has said I’m doing the best work of my life – so I haven’t had to work too hard) is to allow the praise its brief moment to happy dance with my ego, then tell it to pack up its things and play with someone else.

Maybe that’s something you could do with the negative too: let it flourish and drip inky doubt into your psyche, then push it out the door and say, it’s time to go home now.

So, that’s my method for dealing with reviews. But what about the rest of life, when your criticism doesn’t come in the form of published articles that you can easily avoid or hold at arm's length? AHHHH. Yes. That is much more difficult.

WHAT DO I DO ABOUT BAD REVIEWS OF MY LIFE?

I don't have a clue. But Sarah over at Make Great Stuff talks about taking in feedback as a visual artist, which is fascinating to me – I spend a lot of time thinking about how hard it is to be a performer and how easy it must be to be a visual artist – but of course we’re all putting our hearts and beliefs and risks out there for everyone to see, and that is haaaaaard hard hard.

And over at Fluent Self, Havi talks about the concept of sovereignty a lot – not letting someone else’s shoe-throwing (aka, criticism that comes out of nowhere) throw you off balance, learning how to step back and say, that is your deal, this is my deal, I am going to listen to what you’re saying but not fall into a weeping puddle of self doubt and recrimination.

Well – I have to say I’m not quite that sovereign yet – I am still liable to get tearful if someone calls me out directly. Or if I manage to not show it on the outside, I’m feeling it in the form of a raging hole inside. But it is a helpful image and word to keep in mind. Sovereignty.

And I always love Penelope Trunk. She lays the events of her life out with spare, unrelenting honesty, and if someone tries to tear her down, she ups the ante. An example: family members of the man she was dating were doing searches to find her most salacious posts, and forwarding them to other family members. She mentions this, and then says,

“Wait. You are wondering, right? What they’re finding? Here. Here’s a list of some links.”

And links to the three most salacious things she’s written. Which means she is in control of her story, and not letting other people get hold of it. She’s not hiding – she’s putting it out there even more. I admire this. I think it’s smart, and fucking hard to do.

IT ALL COMES BACK TO BARACK

This may be a weird comparison, but I am reminded of Barack Obama. When a scandal comes out, instead of denying and denying and running and hiding, he uses that opportunity to lay his cards down and speak directly and honestly. When the Reverend Wright scandal first broke, he responded with a beautiful, difficult speech about race. This week, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize (a perfect example of positive praise sometimes being worse than negative praise*), he directly addressed the awkwardness of accepting a peace prize just as he’s going deeper into war:

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries -- including Norway -- in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

Still, we are at war, and I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

(Read the entire speech here).

Most politicians these days (maybe always) avoid being honest about difficult topics. But you know what they risk by not talking about the difficult things? They risk the story getting away from them, and I think Barack Obama is incredibly smart to take hold of the story at the beginning, to put his cards on the table and articulate the issue in his own words. To do otherwise is to let secrets take hold, to let the gossip whispered behind backs gain power. You need to be in control of your story, warts and all.

So, that is what I am mulling over today and trying to learn. How to talk about my life and my art and all the mistakes and confusions and slings and arrows, without shame or fear.

* wait, I just realized I may have coined a term: negative praise. Is that when someone praises you for what you're not, like, "oh she'll be fine, she's no dummy" or "he's never been late a day in his life"?

Random Manifesto #1

So this is ironic. I had this whole ongoing list of items for my manifesto, and I was waiting until the perfect time to post it. Then through a series of complicated actions still unbeknownst (doesn't that seem like a fake word?) to me, I just now accidentally erased the entire thing.

So I think that’s a sign. It means – life is too short to effing POLISH your manifesto. Manifestos are not masterpieces. You dash them off and move on to ACTION.

Now that I am forced to start with a clean slate – what do I care about, right now? What will I stand for and what will I not stand for? What items from that list can I even remember? Here goes:

1. No more crazy bosses. No bosses at all. I don’t know how I’m going to make this work but I don’t want another crazy boss.

2. No making excuses for artistic geniuses. Like Roman Polanski. You know what, I’m not even convinced he’s a genius. The Piano was okay. Wait, his movie was The Pianist, right? Not The Piano. Which was in my opinion a terrible film. I would support packing Jane Campion off to prison even if she didn’t rape a child, just to stop her from making more overwrought movies about pianos and people’s fingers getting chopped off and Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel getting it on. Wasn’t her last movie about Meg Ryan and boxing and weird sex? That sounds like a good premise but I bet it wasn’t.

But we were talking about Roman Polanski. The Pianist was ok but not as great as everyone said it was. And the reason this is on the manifesto is: I don’t care how effing great his films are, doesn’t excuse his actions. His wife was horribly murdered and that is sad, but also not a good excuse for nice-raping* a twelve year old. Sorry.

* nice rape: a term I just made up, to describe a scenario where it’s definitely rape but the guy was super sweet and drove you home afterwards, and maybe had a bitchin’ hot tub and bought your mom a car. In case my sarcasm isn’t reading: this is not a serious term and please do not start using it. God. Now I sound like I’m minimizing rape. Sorry about that.

3. NOT sorry! Goddamn it. No more apologies. You don’t APOLOGIZE in your manifesto.

4. I guess this means I can’t make excuses for Michael Jackson, either. True, they did not prove he was a pedophile, but it doesn’t look good. Especially now that the one kid’s father killed himself. Hm. Well, I’m not making excuses for him personally, but the fact that he may have been a pedophile doesn’t mean I don’t love his music.

5. Beets are a magical food and I don’t know why they have such a blah reputation in the U.S. Boil them in water with onions, carrots, celery and then squeeze in lemon juice and you have a magical, delicious elixir that wards off colds and sore throats.

6. You know what, I’m a cryer. I believe in letting it all out sometimes. Sometimes everything is not okay and the only way to feel better is sit down and feel bad about it and have a good old fashioned cry. All together now: it’s all right to cry. Crying takes the sad out of you. It’s all right to cry – you just might feel better!



So, to sum up my life philosophy as manifested here, right now I stand for crying, Michael Jackson and beets, and I do not stand for Roman Polanski, Jane Campion, apologizing and crazy bosses. Huh.

Moving out to Oregon, wide open

On September 9, 1999 (just over ten years ago!) my best friend, Aryn, and I got into my blue Honda accord in the driveway of my parents’ house in Lansing, Michigan and set off on a journey. It’s strange to look back on that moment. I was doing something adventurous and foolhardy – I knew it – and I was thrilled. We had just graduated from college that May, and we both had gone to school close to home. For me, it was a gut shot of lightning – if I didn't leave now, I never would. And if I stayed – I couldn’t see what I would do if I stayed.

I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know if I would come back. I didn’t know what I wanted to do other than write and find people like me. I wanted to find my generation’s equivalent of Greenwich Village in the 30s. I wanted to find where things were going on, which was most certainly not in Lansing, Michigan. So my best friend and I set off on a road trip. Classic. We had maps and sleeping bags and a tent and a car, and we’d saved up enough money to be on the road for at least two months before we’d need to find a place to live and a job. It seemed like a good plan. My parents and sister waved goodbye from the driveway, and Aryn and I set off on our vision quest.

It was, not surprisingly, hard. Not romantic roll up your sleeves hard, but chilly, self-doubting, running out of money and what the fuck am I doing hard. We were lonely and lost (we had maps but our inner compasses were spinning) and we quickly ran out of things to talk about. We had adventures, yes – but not the kind of adventures that lead to immediate self-knowledge. Or any knowledge at all, other than ‘driving through the Rocky Mountains during a whiteout is fucking terrifying,’ or ‘the entire state of New Mexico is haunted.’ I thought I would have dreams, grand dreams that would reveal my mission to me – but instead I kept dreaming about high school friends I’d lost touch with (dreams, by the way, that were trying to tell me something, just not what I was looking for – but that is a topic for another day).

We got to Portland after 2½ months, and stayed with my aunt and uncle in Yamhill for three weeks while we looked for jobs and an apartment (and thank god for them, because I don’t know what I would have done without their kindness & love). I got hired as a temp and spent the last of my money on work clothes (hiking boots and dirty jeans were not going to cut it) and an apartment in southeast Portland. Then we had to wait two months before we had enough money to buy lamps and furniture. It was December, dark and rainy. We didn’t know anyone in Portland and we couldn’t afford to go out and do anything so we would sit in our plain, carpeted apartment decorated with one Chinese medicine poster we’d bought at Saturday Market, drinking tea and listening to the radio. In the dark. Because we couldn't afford a lamp. During the day sometimes we’d go to a coffee shop and sit and listen to people and try to figure out how to meet them (because on top of everything else we were both introverts and very sensitive people).

For the first time in my life, I was totally on my own. And though I would do it over again, I don’t recommend it. It was terrible. I spent at least six months lonely and poor and cut off from the world and terrified. I flew home for Christmas and cried my eyes out. Then flew back to Portland and cried more.

Of course things did eventually get better. I met people. I got involved in some activities, slowly. I saved up money and figured out where I liked to hang out. After a year I had a wild instinct to move to Missoula, Montana and then a sober voice said – hm, and start this whole process over again? You’re just getting to like Portland. So I stayed. And now I’ve been here ten years.

When I meet other people who have just moved here, I am jealous of the ones who hit the ground running, who come with a game plan and some resources. And when I meet the ones like me I think, oh honey, why are you making it harder on yourself. But how could you know until you’ve done it? I wouldn’t listen to any advice when I was 22 anyway. And I’m not so different now – I still like to learn things the hard way, I still quietly and stubbornly believe in following my gut instinct even when everyone around me thinks it’s stupid. I guess you always look back and wish you could do things over with the knowledge you now have. As the great Rod Stewart says: I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger.

Did you know that song is called Ooh La La? I didn’t. Here, maybe it will cheer you up:

New York City!

Am I the only person who still, when I see or hear the phrase NEW YORK CITY, thinks of the Pace salsa commercial where two cowboys incredulously read aloud the birthplace of an inferior brand of salsa? Sad, but true. I guess that was a successful ad.

Anyway, onto the topic at hand: my tumultuous relationship with New York City. I know I am not alone in this. But here is my perception, in Portland anyway: you are supposed to say, oh man I just LOVE New York, I go there as much as I can. You are allowed to shake your head ruefully or express your frustration or burned out-ness in relation to a recent trip to New York, or if you are from there originally you can say how much you prefer the leafy environs of Portland. But you are not supposed to say that you are freaked out and overwhelmed by New York. That is bad form. That is for rubes from the midwest – oh my stars, all the people, and the noise, and the CRIME! It’s possible that this is all a projection of my paranoid girl-from-the-midwest-trying-to-prove-herself mind… but my sense is that when I am honest about my last trip to New York people kind of look away and change the subject. Like… “huh, that’s weird. Hm. Well did you eat some good food though?”

And luckily I did eat some incredible food. But the fact remains, my last trip to New York (about a month ago) was difficult. Like, for the first five days I hid in the apartment where I was crashing and trembled with fear at the thought of setting foot anywhere by myself.

I think it came down to several key factors that converged to overwhelm me:

1. Fear of navigating the subway, of getting irrevokably lost.
2. Fear of strangers. It’s embarrassing to admit this.
3. Performance anxiety. I was performing my show. This is a topic for another day.
4. Noise and lack of quiet space.
5. Money. New York is fucking expensive.

So, all together, these factors = TOTALLY FREAKED OUT IN NEW YORK CITY.

I did eventually figure out how to handle these various stressors, and next time when I go, I think I’ll be better prepared. Here are some things that helped me get over my freaked-out-ness:

1. After studying a map, in a low stress (ie, not about to get on the subway) situation, and setting a simple journey for myself that I could successfully complete, it no longer felt like the entire city was waiting to gobble me up.

2. It’s a New York cliché, but after two weeks I found myself shutting people out, not making eye contact with everyone. It helped me focus on the people I wanted to focus on, and not take it personally when other people did this to me.

3. I still haven’t figured out what to do about the performance anxiety thing – I’ll let you know when I do.

4. I realized that parks and little oases are there for a good reason: to keep you sane. Also: Brighton Beach! Walking along the beach felt like magic.

5. I tried to buy groceries and not eat out every meal. I didn’t really succeed in this but maybe next time I will.

So, yeah. New York. Tough town, great salsa.

My "mission statement"

Actually I have this thing where as soon as I write a "mission statement" I divebomb it. It just feels so self help-y and/or corporate and/or self aggrandizing. But I feel like I should communicate with clarity and focus, and so a "mission statement" (I can't even write it without quotes!) it is.

+ I am and always have been a Very Sensitive Person. There are good and bad things that come with being a Very Sensitive Person. Good things: I can get on other people's wavelength easily, I can tell pretty quickly when someone is bad news, I live in a wondrous fairyland of imagination and possibility. Bad things: I cry every other day, and if someone criticizes my hairstyle I take it to heart, wondering if there is something wrong with my sense of style and my character and my humanity. So. I'll be talking a lot about holding onto balance and perspective as a SENSITIVE PERSON IN A COLD HARD WORLD. And I'll try to do this without being too earnest and annoying and self-obsessed.

+ I am interested in contradictions. I want to dig them up, spread them out on a blanket and see what they’re made of. And then maybe place them gently back into the earth to see what grows. And hope that what grows is not a 600-pound turnip/gorilla cause maaaaan I do not want to mess with a turnip/gorilla, I learned that the hard way.

+ I am a performance artist which provides a particular challenge for the sensitive person -- I clearly crave connection with others in the heightened world of live performance, and yet this world provides heightened blows and knockdowns. So I'll be exploring that as well.

+ I'll also throw out random manifestoes, rants and inspirations as I see fit.