I have been working on the Opera, it's been a pretty easy one. As it happens, I have nothing to do. NOTHING. I feel vulnerable and humiliated being so unnecessary. Any task I could be doing has been given to someone else, so if anything I'm "babysitting" - babysitting the equipment backstage, babysitting the staff, following along behind them to make sure they do what little they're supposed to. Of course they are doing their jobs and don't need me. When someone wants an electrician to do something, they talk directly to the crew, not to me. I have always come in an hour before the show, which is another $15, but on this show, Justin is asking the crew to alternate coming in the hour early, and I'm not to do it. Sunday, I asked when I would be needed because I had to strike Beauty & the Beast, and Justin just gave me the whole day off. Since they had a rehearsal, this just illustrates how unnecessary I am, and I worry someone will realize they could get along fine without me and tell me not to come in for any of the shows, and I'll lose out on that money. Justin said he'd try to keep it on the "down-low" that I wasn't there, but when I walked in for Monday night's rehearsal, Margie just bursts right up to me and starts loudly interrogating me - "I didn't see you yesterday, where were you, if you weren't here yesterday then why are you here now?" SHUT UP, MARGIE, PLEASE SHUT UP. So I clammed up and ran from her and evaded her questions. I guess she may think that I was being just generally disrespectful to her, when the truth is it had everything to do with how much acknowledging her might have really fucked me up.

Sunday I went to strike Beauty & the Beast. I saw the boy who played Cogsworth again. I saw him see me from on stage at curtain call and immediately change and look down at the ground. Later, during strike, about 3 times we locked eyes, his expression completely soft and revealing nothing. If I started to give him a smile, he would look down. Sometimes he would walk very close to me, which makes me think he was not horrified about me at all, which is nice because maybe it means nice things. Once he walked so very close to me that I stepped a little out of the way and said in someone else's sweet sexy feminine voice, "Oh excuse me." Before long, though, I watched him leave out the front and eventually figured that he had left to unload the truck wherever they were unloading. It was unreasonably hard to leave without seeing him one last time, but I made myself do it, realizing, "This is at an end, whether I stay or not, there is no satisfactory ending for this absurdity."

But it didn't feel like absurdity. I know it wouldn't stand up under public scrutiny. I realized that he and Henry and Wade all sort of remind me of each other. For one thing, they're all skinny athletic-type guys.. For another thing, there's a ... quality. A quality I haven't been able to name or place yet. Something in the "way," in the mind, a thoughtfulness, which is to say "full of thoughts," in their simple but graceful movements.

The other thing that I thought, and this is the first time I've thought along this "new age" way since I left adolescence after having read Illusions, but it seemed so sudden, intense and natural, and real, while being based on nothing, that I entertain the possibility that maybe there is something eternal in each other that recognizes the other one, like as if if I believed in reincarnation, which I never have, that he and I might have known each other very strongly in a previous life, or in an alternate life, in an alternate reality.

But he's gone, and he's not meant to be a part of this life.

It also makes me doubt the truth of my fondness for other people, the strength of its foundation.

This morning I arrived to work with Evan and Henry. I saw Henry far away down a long long escalator and thought he had seen me and was ignoring me and sitting down to wait. I called Evan to ask where he was, where to go, and he suggested I go open the loading door. Which was in the opposite direction from the long long distance to Henry. So I stood on the upper level looking out over the lobby and called Henry. I saw him answer his phone. But he didn't say anything. HE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING, just answered his phone. So I said, "Hello? Henry? Can you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Can you see me?"

He didn't answer. HE DIDN'T ANSWER!! I began to realize that he knew exactly where I was, he had seen me, and he didn't want to see me yet. Is he just terrified of being alone with me?

"You interrupted my game," he eventually said.

"OOOOOOOOHHHH, I'm sorry!" I said laughingly, not interested in pushing the issue and content to let him warm up to me as he so often has to do (though it takes less time than it used to).

Well, rather than go down to him (and since he seemed insisted upon maintaining physical distance anyway), I told him I was going to go to the loading door like Evan had said so I could make sure it was open for us to load in our equpiment.

While saying this, he walked along the lobby, to past the escalators and under me, and as he did, he glanced right up at me. Oops.

Well, he never said he didn't know exactly where I was. He just avoided answering altogether.

Anyway, when we did finally come near each other, when loading the van, he greeted me and proceeded to cheer up, my moody boy (I read some astrological descriptions and decided he must be a Cancer - moody, thick-shelled, needs his emotions coddled, and very loyal to family). However, we worked not really together and I was a little emotionally distant for the first part of today, though not avoidant, not withdrawn.

He left for a couple hours in the middle of the day because he has to take care of his Mom who is functionally one-armed after her surgery and will be so handicapped for about another 6 weeks give or take. He had to go make her lunch and do things for her, take care of her.

When he came back, he was dressed in professional-looking blacks, and he began to take over the show, doing some ladder work and stuff.

We seemed unable or unwilling to get or stay close to each other for much of the day. Both of us. Timidly bouncing around each other. He was all into his work as Evan started pushing for me to leave. I had to look for my shirt, but then I went to go try to say some kind of bye to Henry, and he was on top of a ladder. I said, "You're not working the Opera strike are you?" and he said probably not, but maybe, if he could, but I'm sure it's no. I had to go, he was on top of the ladder. I had the feeling that if he were standing right in front of me I'd touch or hug him goodbye for once, since we do seem to be breaking through a certain level, but he was on top of a ladder, so I just said, "Well, I guess I'll see you around, then."

Then he seemed to make an awkward attempt, as Evan and I were walking out the door, to come wish us goodbye, but when I looked back, I couldn't see him because he had come around behind some people - Evan saw him and waved goodbye back to him. I was envious of Evan for that.

But it is like, we are awkward together, but we like being together, even though we don't know how, and we don't like leaving each other, and every time we see each other again, we start off cool and odd as though we've lost faith and trust in the other to be what we want each other to be.

Beginning to lose coherence. Thought I'd catch you up. Have to go to "work" now, get some reading done behind the set where the Opera singers sing.

I think this may be the last Opera I showcall. The next one they can't use me, and the one after that I'm going to turn down so I can do the Choral Concert with Henry, rather than be a useless crud peon watching Clyde be a big-time Opera Director having cast one of his lovers in a leading role and deciding which of the chorus girls he wants to fuck while they think he's a big shot. I'm perfectly happy for him, but I have better things to do. So I have just to make it through the weekend without getting dropped from the showcall, and then I'm probably just about done with the Opera. Fingers crossed that something better comes along for me for next year. No one at the Opera will miss me anyway - I don't think anyone there really likes me.

previous - next

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Last Five

- - Thursday, May. 24, 2007
- - Sunday, Feb. 27, 2005
the first hug - hell, it only took 2 years to get a hug - Saturday, Feb. 12, 2005
connections - Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2005
worm turned - Sunday, Jan. 16, 2005