2006 was, hands down, the most challenging year of the septumvirate. I always consider myself to be less an instigator than an alleviator in a relationship, but this year I felt encouraged to become more vocal. I have plans and goals, and instead of always pushing mine aside to make way for others, as is my wont, I decided to stand steadfast. My plans are just as valid as yours, and I plan to go ahead with them regardless. Not only does it take a lot of teeth-grinding and hand-wringing to have me stand my ground, it takes much more to endure the frowns and harsh tones of others when I defy them. But, that's under normal circumstances. This year the teeth-grinding and hand-wringing were replaced with a clear mind and a stomach full of molten lead. God, it about murdered me.
This year was, perhaps, the most realistic in terms of my acting career. True pounding the pavement, true juggling of artistic dreams and keeping my bread-and-butter. In other words, my track record went down the tubes. Chicago is a great market for a beginning actor because there are so many projects going on at any time which don't require unions or agents to hook up with. I started marketing myself hardcore, talking to old friends who were well-established in the Chicago theater scene, sending out PR packets to anyone and everyone, Finally landed a legitimate agent, but I was already scheduling about three auditions a week for myself at that point anyway. Striking out, striking out, striking out: I realize an actor has to learn to love the audition process, but rejection never ends being a tough pill to swallow. Did score some paying gigs, but it was just too amazing how every time I collected a paycheck my car suffered some malady which cost EXACTLY the same amount of money. A lot of my energy was spent working on an original script with three other friends, our own foray into life in a coffee house. A script of this still exists somewhere. My greatest failure was a drop-of-a-hat cattle call for Blue Man Group which got me a callback just based on my week-old self-taught drumming skills. My experience with those last two projects made me rethink my whole dedication to this acting thing. I know I'm good, people tell me I'm good, so why do I run myself ragged grasping at straws for a small role in someone else's monkey show? I got my own monkey show which is better than theirs, and I deserve to put my energy towards myself. So, after months and months and dozens of failed attempts, I decided to cease all that crap and focus more on my own talents and strengths. I wanted to be creative for my own sake, never someone else's.
Tchotchke and I become more honest with each other this year. With her help and encouragement, I was the cleanest and most sober than I can ever remember being. A couple seasons of no cigarettes, no weed, no alcohol, I even stopped drinking coffee for a few weeks. Boy, did I get argumentative. We took multiple breaks from each other, no contact, a few days here, a week or so there. Things got really hit-or-miss. She knew how talented I was but she didn't approve of the artistic collaboration with friends, seeing it as a waste of time, and eventually she became a wedge which help split apart everything. Her career was taking off and flourishing, and grad school brought on more promise, so when was I gonna buckle down and find a more secure place with my profession? I may be a great guy, but where was my future going? I could never give an answer which held much weight. Why? Because, with what I wanted to do, even I didn't know. At this point, the little things took over. Every little thing that irked me, that got under my skin and became unbearable, that I looked the other way from because I knew she was so much better than that, it all added up. After two years of this, I knew that nothing I could do would change her, and I didn't want to regret the whole relationship. I motioned to break things off in late September. We still saw each other for previously-made commitments and some social things. Our last time together was December 26. Boxing Day, Dana's going-away party at CJ's. She was radiant, straigtened hair, sharp grey skirt, black heels. She was the most classically beautiful girl I ever dated, and one of the best friends I ever had the pleasure of knowing. She had many reasons to question my loyalty and fidelity, but I never once cheated on her, and that's one thing I can take from all of this with a clear conscience. I loved her, but I didn't love her as much as she loved me, and there's no justice in a relationship based upon that.
Dear God, even necessary breakups suck.
I was two years into living in my apartment downtown, a three-bedroom flat in the Ukranian Village. This was my old neighborhood: The first house I grew up in was literally around the corner, my mom used to work overnights at nearby St. Mary's of Nazareth Hospital, and the building I lived in was owned by my grandparents. My aunt and uncle used to be up in that third-floor flat, and I remember being a kid playing in those same rooms with my cousins, the rooms I now occupied with my girlfriend and roommates. The living room was nice and spacious, a darkwood hutch built into the wall made for a classy touch, and the room was left relatively vacant, a perfect space for rehearsal and working out monologues. The sunporch was my favorite room, outfitted with a scrapped clawfoot bathtub left over from renovation. Perfect for those Jim Morrison moments. I fixed up the whole room with colored running lights, lava lamps, and posters for a groovy hang-out space, the first thing you see as you come up the main staircase. It reeked of my childhood and bolstered my future, but something happened that Fall. Tim's girlfriend was living with both my brothers in my parents' condo close to the family house. She had a hard time that October with the memory of her late brother's passing, and she did something desperate. Luckily, it failed, but that incident mixed with stories of hostile altercations in the past warranted my parents to restructure the household, with her sent to a care facility and him moving back in with my parents. Brian was living by himself, and it was a wild card as to who would occupy the other rooms. My parents invited me to move into the condo, to be a support for Brian and to block off any unexpected move-ins. I left a good deal in Chicago to come back into the fold. The condo is not without any modern charms, but it's not me. I figured I was doing them a favor, my parents and my uncle/landlord, whose relationship with I felt I was endangering every time we met at family functions by throwing business into the mix. Part of the hard line I drew for myself two years prior was that I would never move back into my parents' house again, and this was as close a jump back as I was willing to make.
At this point in my meditation I had a pretty strong blueprint of my ritual. I had procured a VHS copy of Lama Surya Das, an American-born Buddhist monk, performing and explaining aspects of Dzogchen Buddhist Meditation, and I adorned it with little personal interests of my own. One major aspect of Dzogchen meditation is to keep eyes and ears, all senses open while breathing through the motions, a challenging feat for anyone to try. The Lama, in all his enlightened enthusiasm and Wisconsin-bred flatlandery, still solidified a strong foundation in me, a routine I memorized back to front: Incense, chimes, calling the spirits, grounding one's self, chanting "aa", grounding, "Sky-gazing", grounding, chanting "om mani padme hung", closing the circle, bowing to the Buddha inside yourself. Sometimes I would skip sky-gazing and insert a techinque I learned called "rebreathing", which incorporated sacred geometry in the body, exterior chakras, creating a MerKaBa, and twenty short breaths. Sound way out there? Yeah, still is to me, but it helped. At the end of each session I would chant out "Om Namaha Shivaya", which translates out to "Salutations to that which I am capable of being." and during that, I would envision where I wanted to be, a solitary figure on a stage, floodlit face, stool, single microphone, and a full house in front of me. Moving back to the suburbs brought me back to my most favored of Sunday walk retreats, the River Trails woods. I've explored every inch of the inside of those woods on my own: The bramble patches, the clearings where people bunked for however long in secrecy, the protected prairie reserves. Picked up all the rubbish I could find, including spend alcohol bottles, used condoms, and appliances exploded with firecrackers. And this year the blue element was made by making knots out of blue hemp and tying them as beads. That, and I found some lapis lazuli looking beads to make a compliment mala for the year.
Other exciting stuff happened this year. I was the official mascot for Irish Fest in Milwaukee for a two-hour shift. Me and Tchotchke trolloped all around the fairgrounds entertaining drunks and children, and I even got goosed by some unknown. Translated two rock concerts for Deaf attendees: Styx and Foreigner at Northerly Island in Chicago, and Def Leppard and Journey at the Marcus Amphitheatre in Milwaukee. Lost my car during the process, but how awesome to command a crowd of that level, even taking attention away from the bands. After Tchotchke and I separated in September, I waited three months until I tried to play rebound. Her name was Christine. She was a customer. We had a night of drinks and billiards in Andersonville and then back to my place. The next morning she sat around drinking coffee while I packed up the Chicago apartment and listened to NPR. That was December 22. That was the last time I was with a woman, last time I was with anyone. I didn't come.
The fifth chakra is blue, bubbly, and located at the throat, the larynx. It controls communication, personal expression, experimentation, and is the first major step in the direct relationship between the Being and Every Other Being. After the Being recognizes that it and Every Other Being share the same journey to get to their present situation, it will compare and contrast all the ways the two are alike. Feeling a need to explain itself, the Being has to relay information to Every Other Being. About itself, its wants and needs, its desires and opinions, how the Being sees the world. And Every Other Being will accept and reciprocate. Or not. How it reciprocates and the to-and-fro between the Beings begins with infinite possibilities but quickly whittles down to a finite set of parameters, much like a game of go.
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