I Say It's Love

I’ve always found the definition of love a tricky thing. And by this I’m referring to the romantic sort of love. Familial, platonic or (gods forbid) religious love are so not my forte at all. If the kind of love found in bearing and raising a child or inspired by a man on a cross or making a pilgrimage to a holy land is in need of classification, I’m not qualified to give it. Of course, I’m not really much more qualified to offer anything authoritative in the vein of love between people who cannot explain why they feel how they feel for whomever they feel it for. Of course, maybe that’s the point. Like how some words (for example the disused ‘unrepentant’, or the overused ‘natural’) lose their power the more they’re used, maybe love loses its allure the more data you collect on it.

Each new paramour brought me a new way of feeling love that I hadn’t previously thought of. And despite my many former lovers stroke unrequited crushes, I still have absolutely no idea what exactly love means or is even supposed to mean. For all I know, I may have never yet been in love.

But something makes me doubt that rather cynical view of myself. Now, I know I’m a romantic (whatever that means), always have been. When I was younger, I wanted to be a rescued princess. Now I accept that (depending who I fall for), I may have to do the heroics myself and I’m prepared for that. I'm also prepared for there to be no heroics necessary. I was never too passive in the pursuit of what (or who) I wanted. I had a pretty spotless record in telling someone when I had feelings for them (generally at the very last moment in some grand setting up for him or her to run off with me into the sunset. What? I’ve always had a flair for histrionics). I even had a girlfriend for a few months in my sophomore year of high school.

Yeah, one girlfriend in all my twenty-three years and yes, here I am waxing poetic about love. But we were in love: that all-consuming, making plans for the future, completely uncynical “we are going to be together forever” type of love. Whether that love is even real (or in its innocence, the most real) is a question I’ve not yet answered.

There was a boy I knew, still know technically. This boy is beautiful (seriously, that's the best adjective to describe him) and talented as they come. He's funny and caring. He can also be petty and manipulative and a host of other things that prove to me perfect is not an adjective I want to describe him. I've been in love with him since I was nineteen years old. Since a September night when I was nineteen years old, I can pinpoint it no further than that. I had minutes of being unable to pull a full breath or calm my racing heart. I'd known this boy for a few years by this point, we're friends and yeah, I have a crush, have since before we were actually introduced. In this moment, however, I realize those friendly and affectionate feelings have somehow chosen this moment to change him from a friend I'd totally date if he asked me out to the most amazing, flawed person I have ever met in the whole of my life. I've been carrying this around in me for a while. It's just there. It's a fact about me. I admit a selfishness in keeping my feelings secret; if I tell him and am let down, I will have to cauterize those feelings away in the interest of continuing on as his friend (a position I'd like to hold until my last breath, thank you). I want to know that I always have this love inside me, the depth of feeling for this boy. It gets me through the times I feel numb.

I think we, as living beings, have an inherent need for love. Lock a man in a solitary room and he will make friends with the dust bunnies. And, I think, we all desire the same basic things from a partner. Here’s mine anyway:

Someone who makes me laugh and lets me cry. Whoever came before or will come after will never be comparable, like comparing apples and ostriches. There will be a list up on the bedroom door. In it, we’ll have our solemn promises: nothing like “I will have sex with no one but you” or “I will always take out the garbage”. No, that’s all shit. Nobody can ever (or should ever) make such broad, forever vows like that. Things like “I will not pester you about your music if you don’t pester me about mine first” and “If we go to bed angry, the one who got the last word in has to sacrifice the covers to the other for that night.”

Unrepentant

(This was originally something I wrote to supplement my word count for 2008's NaNo. It's interesting looking back on something three and a half years old and finding I still believe every line. It is here in its entirety)


Unrepentant: a powerful adjective that doesn’t get used nearly often enough. Have to suppose that’s what makes it so powerful, though.

She sings too loud when a song she likes comes on the radio. She composes letters to Juliet Capulet when she’s feeling lovelorn. She paints each nail a different colour of the rainbow and paints her toenails green or sometimes purple. Even if she hasn’t any magical powers herself, she follows the subtle rules for witches as set down by Terry Pratchett. She thinks she’s a much better dancer than she is. She spells her words the British way, despite having never left America. She may be an angel most of the time, but when she takes off her wings for a bit, she isn’t half-hearted about it. She grew up amongst faeries and may even be a little fey herself. She wears a leather wristband when she wants to feel especially butch. She never lets anyone but her closest friends see her cry. She is unapologetic about her beliefs or lack thereof. She lists all her favourite words: those she likes just because of they way they sound on her tongue. She is a science fiction geek, whose fondest wish is be beamed onto the Enterprise with Wesley Crusher; or to be picked up by the Doctor and his TARDIS or delivered by the Rift into the Torchwood Hub in Cardiff. She loves what she loves, whether her friend, her books, or her TV shows, whole-heartedly, loyally and apologetically.

I Got Me a '67 Chevy, She's Low and Sleek and Black

I am not what anyone would label a 'car person'. I don't drive and don't understand how cars work and really could care less about what kind of car someone has. I don't know what a carburetor does (nor as I type it out, do I know how to properly spell it apparently), how to fix a flat tire (though I have a vague idea from TV and film) or what exactly Jiffy Lube does (though it makes me giggle like a twelve year old boy).

But there's one thing that, in the unlikely event I start driving, any car of mine will have and that is...that car will be a Chevrolet. All my life, my mom drove Chevy's. My Grandma has a Chevy. Actually they both have Impalas, which is my favourite kind of Chevy, because I know them so well. I have known Impalas to be reliable, with enough room for my long legs and a sense of safety.

Of course, that all changed when I met Baby, also known as Metallicar, the '67 Chevy Impala driven by the Winchester Brothers in the TV show Supernatural. Oh my Collins, is that a sexy car! Even without its pretty humans standing near it, it's just an attractive looking car, all fluid lines.



It's been said, you know it's love when the songs make sense. When I saw this car that old Steve Earle song made sense, "A '67 Chevy, she's low and sleek and black, someday I'll put her on the interstate and never look back." I would learn to drive if I could drive this pretty Baby.

So though I do not drive and have no real knowledge of cars, I do know that I am and always will be a Chevy girl.

Move Me or Make Me Move

I don't play the guitar. Or the bass. Or piano. Or anything. Can't even read music worth a darn. I faked my way through the group recorder performance in fifth grade (I moved my fingers and pretended to blow). I am also a lousy singer.

Which is a great injustice because I love music more than anything in the world. Hell, I got into acting because it's music adjacent (music videos). I'm a good actor because I can shuffle my emotions by shuffling my playlist. Music affects me like nothing else can. Even when the song has nothing to do with me, when it deals with situations and emotions I've never had to deal with, I still find something inside myself responding to it.

I can feel music with every piece of me, but I can't make it. There's a story of my life somewhere in there.

Opposing Politics Does NOT Equal Dead Cat, People

Maybe I've been hardened from a childhood of finding roadkill of Florida streets or it doesn't get to me because I've never had a pet cat, but I did not find the picture of the cat killed with 'Liberal' written into its side visually graphic. Horrible and heart-breaking, oh yes, but not graphic. What made me nauseous (this is not hyperbole, I was physically nauseous) was the violence. Not the photo of it (though it was extreme), but the idea of it. That someone would not only kill, but mark an animal incapable of political leanings as a message to the cat's owner makes me so ill and so angry I could scream. This someone is the lowest of the low. Hasn't there been enough goddamn violence in politics already, like Gabby Gifford's shooting for instance?

While I would like to think about all the horrible physical pain I want this criminal to go through, I would prefer his (if the criminal turns out to be a woman, I will come back and edit this) punishment to be psychological (because he is a psychopath clearly). Don't get me wrong, I want his ass hunted down and put behind bars for the next forever or so ASAFuckingP. But what I really want is his face shown on every major news show from here to the BBC (who will get it everywhere because they are cool like that). I want his visage to become so well-known that his picture shows up on bar dartboards and in every animal rights brochure, prompting people to give a ton of cash to shelters and animal rights organizations.

But most of all? I want this to be the wake-up call. I want this act of heinous violence against an innocent creature to make politicians see that their rhetoric of hate and anger is doing far more to fuck with people's heads than anything they vilify. Isn't there enough violence in the world and our country over money, religion, bigotry, etc. without politics coming into the ring? I hope to every god there is or isn't that this will be the turning point and political rhetoric will tone it the fuck down before this violence escalates any farther than it has.

Please.

In a Storm, in My Best Dress: Fearless

Wil Wheaton, on his blog and in his book Just A Geek, talks about one of the voices in his head whom he deems Prove to Everyone. I have a voice too (as separate from my People), I call her 'Don't Look Like An Idiot'. I spent a good portion of my childhood being mocked for my appearance and this has left a mark on my psyche. Not for sympathy do I say this, but for exposition. She is the voice in my head who wants me to always be composed, whenever around other people. She demands dignity and grace. She has her place. At fancy restaurants, in most work situations, she is welcome. Not so at auditions or while acting AT ALL.

My friend Katherine and I used to joke that we got into acting to 'be paid to look stupid'. But I've heard time and time again from directors that I need to go further, to let myself go. And I try, I honestly do. But Don't Look Like An Idiot holds me back. "If you make a stupid face, they won't think you're pretty enough to hire', 'don't look dumb, then everyone will laugh at you, 'better not let yourself completely go, remember to keep in control at all times'.

I suppose that's what this leads back to. Control. I'm scared to be out of control, so I don't drink (one of many reasons anyway) and I don't tell ANYONE the whole truth and I hide parts of me because they're messy and gross and stupid. But acting is about using ALL of me to make a character, the messy bits too.

So I have a theme for this year, not a resolution. My theme is 'Fearless'. That's what I need to be. Fearless to look stupid or make silly sounds or make ugly faces at an audition if that's what's called for or fucking go dancing in the rain in the middle of the street on my own. When did I stop doing that? That was super fun. Hey look, it's raining now... *smiles*

Zero is Not a Size

I am terrified of Hollywood.

Wait, that's probably not true. I am terrified by the concept of Hollywood. Namely, their obsession with thinness as beauty. I am relatively thin (compared to my relatives) and can fit into size 8 or 10. Considering I spent most of my teenage years being a size 14/16/18, I see myself as quite trimmed down and a good deal healthier (I can eat carrots without ranch dressing and celery without cheese whiz!)

But I am not and will never be a size 2. And as the title (taken from One Tree Hill) states, zero is not even a size as far as I'm concerned. It's impossible for me; and I don't mean that in a 'I will never' sense, I mean that in a I physically could never' sense. Big-boned isn't just an excuse, my skeletal frame would not fit into size 2 clothing.

Where Hollywood scares me is this: it's not all about talent. I'm talented (am I Meryl Strep? Hell no, but I can carry my own on a stage or a screen), but that may not matter. And coming from a background of theatre, that terrifies me. In theatre, if you can sing that high note no one else can, you get the part. If you have the right energy and can retain lines, grab a script! But this Wood of Holly that I'm desperate to work in focuses on 'The Look'. I'm an average-sized brunette with hazel eyes. This makes me just like about ten thousand other girls who want to work onscreen.

Now it's a numbers game. How many of those girls are going out for this part? How many can remember the lines and not screw up the audition? (here's hoping I'm in that category as well) How many will say yes if the part is offered to them? And on and on, ad nauseaum.

If you'll excuse me, I think I have to listen to "A Chorus Line" now. Ad nauseaum.