Sleepytime

For a while now, instead of coffee I’ve been drinking a mix of store brand black tea and “Sleepytime Tea” (by Celestial Seasonings).

I used to drink “Tension Tamer”. I really liked the flavor, but I can’t find that at my grocery store anymore.

Recently, I saw “Sleepytime Extra” at the grocery. It was in a noticeably bigger box, slightly different design, and twice as many tea bags at a slightly lower price per tea bag. So, I bought it. I didn’t think much about it and just assumed the “extra” referred to the bigger box it was in.

Also recently, I’ve been feeling really sleepy at various times during the day, like when I go to the theatre to do my job playing in the pit for a show. At first I thought I’m just tired lately. But the past day or two I’ve been wondering if there’s something wrong with me. (Maybe I should say, something ELSE wrong with me, along with the other stuff that I already know about.)

This morning, maybe half an hour ago, as I was making tea, it struck me that I’m drinking “Sleepytime Tea” several times during the day, and I’m feeling sleepy when I’m sitting in a room with dimmed lights (i.e., the theatre). I started wondering if the tea had something to do with it. Is there something in it that actually makes people sleepy, instead of it just being a cute name? So, for the first time, I actually read what was on the box. Well, it turns out that the “extra” in “Sleepytime Extra” is valerian root, which is a traditional sleep aid.

Perhaps I need to look more diligently for “Tension Tamer” as my normal daily tea (to mix with the cheap black tea) and save the “Sleepytime” for actual sleepy time.

#Chrismus

Last night during rehearsal for a show I’m doing which opens soon, I mentioned to a cast member that one of our 2-show days is my birthday. She asked what my favorite candy is, and I told her, no, no, don’t do that. Then she said she was going to get me a card, and I said I didn’t want that either. I wrote this down and gave it to her at the end of rehearsal:

I don’t need presents from people on my birthday.
I need presence of people...in my life...all year.
That’s the real meaning of Chris-mus.

On facebook I’ve made several #Chrismus posts. And like those posts, my note to that cast member was kind of jokey. But it’s also true. The whole point of my Chrismus (a.k.a. Chris-giving or Chris-vember? – you know, my birth month) posts is to maybe get some people to spend a little time with me. It’s an unusual bit of optimism on my part.

(If you regularly read all facebook my posts or maybe some of these blogs, you’ll know this already.) I don’t have people in my life – people that I spend time with, or even people who I regularly talk with. I realized a few days ago that I don’t even speak out loud very much. I talk a little in rehearsal, more if I’m the music director and it’s a music rehearsal. I might talk a little bit with the teacher in dance classes, two days a week. But otherwise, the most speaking I do is when I talk out loud to myself sometimes, at home or in my car. There’s literally no other person(s) around that I can talk to, or listen to, or just be in the same place.

(By the way, if you actually know me, and you’re ever around me at a rehearsal, etc., and I seem to overshare about whatever is going on in my life, that’s why – I literally have no one to talk to about stuff.)

So this #Chrismus thing is an admittedly likely-to-fail attempt to raise awareness of me in the minds of people who sort of know me.

Maybe you don’t want to know me better. I realize that I probably come off as a weird and miserable person sometimes. But you can help me with that. On my actual birthday, I don’t love getting a lot of “happy birthday” wishes. I’ve posted about it before. The jist is that hearing from a bunch of people who I never really talk to, or spend time with, or barely even know, makes me feel bad, not good. So, instead of birthday wishes, if you want me to feel less depressed, less miserable, less alone, initiate an actual conversation with me, about...I don’t know, anything? Or better yet, meet me for coffee. Or lunch. Or come over to my place and hang out for a little while. Or invite me to yours. Or for a walk in a park. Or schedule a photo shoot (no, it doesn’t have to be nude). But not just ON my birthday – any time. Maybe we’ll along well, and become actual friends, not just acquaintances who only see each other when we do a show together.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “Hey, Chris, why don’t you make an effort to get to know people, instead of expecting them to do it?” Well, this is an attempt to do that. My past attempts have largely failed. Many people seem uninterested in actual friendship which requires interaction, or, more likely, people are just so busy, busy, busy.

What I desperately need in my life, and have greatly failed at, is people who not only want to be friends with me, but who are also willing to make the effort it takes be friends with me.

not getting up

I'm still in bed. I'm considering not getting up.

I was just thinking how often, on days like this, I don't want to get up. At first I thought it was something to do with the weather, but then I realized it's just me. I feel tired and very blah, sort of emotionally empty, and my body doesn't feel so good. I just want to stay in bed. Actually, that's every day, I think. Yeah, I feel like that every day. I never want to get up. Maybe I should just never get up. 

Of course, that sounds like death. Death is not getting up. Ever. Some people find you there, not getting up, and they move you around to a couple of places - maybe a hospital, a morgue, a funeral home. They poke and prod you a bit, to be sure that you're not going to get up. Finally, they put you into this weird, expensive, stylized bed, which is probably very uncomfortable. But you don't really care, cause you're just not getting up. 

Your friends and family all show up for a really bad party. Then they either move you (and that weird little bed) to someplace else, someplace very out of the way, or they just let your soul continue sleeping while they get rid of your body, or at least minimize it. So long as you take up as little space as possible. 

Yep, that's it, that's what happens when you die. There's a bad party, then people get you out of the way because they need the space. Various people get your stuff, and eventually somebody else moves into your place - literally and figuratively. And meanwhile, you're just off out of the way, not getting up.

. . .

. . .

Well. . . I guess I should get up now. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi: my review

I just finished watching Obi-Wan Kenobi.

SPOILER ALERT

I didn't hate it.

I really liked the bits between Obi-Wan and Vader. Those were easily the best bits. I liked how damaged and weak Obi-Wan was at the beginning, sort of torturing himself because he thought he had killed Anakin. He could still fight, but he was 10 years out of practice, and it showed. It was maybe a little bit too easy that he suddenly came back to full power after Vader took responsibility for having killed Anakin.

I liked how Vader was just a man-child who wanted to hurt people, especially Obi-Wan, because he'd been hurt. I never really liked Anakin in any of the prequel films, but I like that he was consistent with whinny prequel-Anakin who always blames other people for his problems. Then it was interesting to see him (maybe) seem to shut off all of his feelings at the end.

I would've liked to have seen more of Vader. And, as far as I'm concerned, they could've left out the new flashback scenes with Anakin. He was clearly much older than Anakin when he because Vader and got all burned up. It was impossible from me to suspend my disbelief. Also, they maybe could've used fewer flashbacks in general - from the prequels and in Obi-Wan's mind, hearing lines from earlier in the series.

The Third Sister story - once we found out who/what she was, it felt a bit obvious where it was going. And then it went exactly there.

Anytime people were supposed to be running, they seemed way too casual about it. Mainly this had to do with Leia. Running from the kidnappers, she just didn't seem like getting away was that important.

The Empire was just extraordinarily inept and ought to have easily captured or killed or overrun anyone they were fighting against. It was just pathetic. Rescuing Leia should not have worked, either time.

Whoever choreographed/directed the group fight scenes could've done much better. However, the light saber fights were good.

So, it's a mixed review from me. Overall, I guess, it was okay. 

What do I really want to do?

What do I really want to do? 

I don’t know. I’ve never really known. If you had asked me, when I was a little kid, what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would not have had an answer for you. I suppose if you had really pressed me on it, I may’ve said something like a policeman, a fireman, or astronaut. Not that I actually wanted to be any of those things, but those were the answers I had heard to that question. I can’t really remember anyone asking me that as a kid. They must have, right? That’s what adults ask kids.  Anyway... 

Later, as a teen, I didn’t have any strong feeling about a career. At some point, I thought maybe I could be a therapist. That may have been when I was in therapy. But, again, it wasn’t like a burning desire within me. I was writing music by that point, and I guess I liked it, so I started college as a music composition major. But even then, I don’t think I saw that as what I really wanted to be. It was just something that I did. I ended up switching to psychology, as I thought it was something I could maybe stand to do, but I continued studying composition as well. 

I never had a plan. Literally no one ever asked me what was my career plan. I never even heard terms like “5-year plan” or “10-year plan” until later when I was working at some schools. It really seems like someone, a teacher or an advisor sometime during high school or college, should have asked me that. Should have asked me what I wanted to do with my life. But I don’t remember that ever happening. And I’m pretty sure my parents never asked. Maybe I seemed like one of those students who did well, so everyone just assumed I had my act together in terms of a career path. But obviously I didn’t. 

There was some point, I think maybe my fourth year in college, when I was aware that I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I thought I might actually quit school for a bit and try to figure things out. But the few people that I talked to about that told me it was a bad idea and that I should finish a degree in something, anything, whatever I was the closest to finishing at that point. So, I stuck around another year (+) and got a degree in psychology, with a gigantic minor in music. I had more music hours than psych hours, but undergrad psychology is a pretty easy degree, and undergrad music is not. (Sometimes, when people find out I have a psychology degree, they’ll ask if I ever use it. And I’ll say, “Sure! I work with crazy people all the time - singers, dancers, actors.”) 

I ended up playing music for a living. It wasn’t really a choice I made because that was what I wanted to be. It’s just something that started when I was in college. My composition teacher told me, “Go play in jazz band, it’ll be good for you. Go play for dance classes, it’ll be good for you. Go accompany the opera, it’ll be good for you.” He meant those things would be good for me as a composer, and they definitely were. But I also discovered I could play music and people would pay me money for it. And that was nice, so that’s what I did. It just sort of happened. And accompanying led to doing musical theater, and that led to being an assistant music director and then music director. Once again, I don’t think it that was something I decided I wanted to be, it just sort of happened. 

So, I’m a freelance musician, and it’s hard to make a decent living at that. Especially if you don't feel a really strong drive to keep working at it because it’s really what you love doing. I still write music – sometimes classical stuff, sometimes theatre. I’ve never seen a way to really make money at that unless I were writing pop music for famous pop stars or big budget film scores, and I’m not actually interested in writing either of those kinds of things. About 10 or 12 years ago I started taking pictures. I like doing that, and I wish I could do it more. But even though every now and then people have paid me for photos, I don't see a way to regularly make money at it, at least not with the sort of pictures that I take and want to take. Anyway, I don’t know if that’s what I “want to be.” 

Now, I’m approaching old age. I turned 50 a few years ago and I have no money, no savings, not much of anything. I’m really just scraping by. It’s not like I spend money unwisely. It’s that I don’t really have money to spend in the first place. I’m not starving, or unable to pay the bills. But I don’t have a safety net nor a retirement plan. Several times in the past 15 or so years I have thought about maybe trying to find a “normal” job – a non-music job. But I’m not even sure what jobs there are out in the world. And, while there are some skills I have developed as a musician and music director, I’m not sure how they would translate to the normal job market. I’ve never been any good at convincing people to do things for me, so how do I convince someone to hire me with no background in a normal work environment? 

If you were to ask me now, what is it that I really want to do? 

Nothing? I don’t know. I’ve never really known. 

Well, what are you waiting for!?

I regularly check my junk mail, because in the past I’ve missed important messages and even work opportunities that went to junk mail. This morning, there are junk emails about “Christian Matches” and “Sex Dating”. Definitely junk. I’m not looking for either of those things. I mean, it would be great to meet some non-religious person who I liked and who liked me, spend some time together, get to know each other, and, eventually, have sex as part of a healthy relationship. But I can’t imagine finding that through either of those junk emails.

I’m not really interested in pursuing online dating. 

Quite a few years ago, I had dates with two women I met on OK Cupid. They were...okay. (Pun intended.) They both seemed nice, and we got on well enough. I might have become friends with either or both of them, if we’d spent more time together. But there was no “spark,” no significant chemistry. And neither went beyond that first date. In one case, I left town (NYC) for work that came up suddenly, and I didn’t return. The other woman met someone else (on OK Cupid) with whom she did “click” romantically, and we amicably parted ways.

Ten years ago – no wait, more like 12 or 13 (Wow!) – I met someone who was a friend of a friend on facebook. We got on great... at first. We dated for several weeks. I don’t remember how long, exactly, but probably not quite a month. She lived in the next town over, so we weren’t hanging out every day, but we went out once or twice a week, and we talked a lot, online and on the phone. It didn’t work out. There were some very basic problems, which I won’t get into here. But that “relationship” was the closet I’ve ever been to someone setting me up with a woman they thought I would like, and I had requested that person introduce us. I’ve never been on a blind date, nor been invited to some gathering specifically to meet someone's cousin or a friend of a friend.

I guess what I’m getting at is this:

I’m tired of being alone. I don’t seem to meet anyone who I like, AND who is available, AND who is even reasonably age-appropriate for me. (Seriously, most women I meet I am probably their parents’ age. Or older.)  I haven’t been on a date in many years (not to mention how long it's been since I’ve had sex... you know, with another person). So. If you consider us to be friends, and you know someone who lives at least sort of near me, who you think might be a good match, then . . .

. . .

. . .

Well, what are you waiting for!? Set us up! I mean, maybe first, ask each of us what we’re looking for, and (maybe more important) NOT looking for, in a potential mate. But get on with it, we’re not getting any younger. Don't you want us to be happy? Like you are? (Well, maybe like you were when you first met your mate.) 

I'm awkward

 

My lack of social interaction is a problem that feeds itself, it reinforces itself. 

I don’t interact much with people. When I do, I tend to feel awkward, and the awkwardness makes me not want to interact with people. It often succeeds in making me not interact with people. So that when I do interact, I’m “out of practice” at it. And that probably makes me feel even more awkward than I already would have felt.

Similarly, I don’t know people very well. I don’t talk to people much, so I don’t get to know them, and I don’t know much about them. Then when I see people in a social situation, I don’t have anything to say to them, so I don’t talk to them. Often, in the moment, I don’t even think about going over to people to even say hello. It just doesn’t occur to me until, possibly, sometime later.

It’s not that I don’t want to be friends with people. I do (well, maybe not all people). But I don’t feel like I’m good enough friends with people to really just go over and to talk to them. Mainly because I just don’t have much to say. I guess I’m just really boring.

Occasionally, when I’ve talked about this with people, they’ve told me that I don’t seem that awkward. I guess I’ve fooled some people. Yay? But I definitely feel it. So much so that I can’t imagine anyone thinking of me as socially competent. At best, I assume people think I’m just not very friendly.

Sometimes I DO talk to people and (at least at first) don’t feel super awkward. But it seems like (when I think back on it later) I just say a lot about whatever is going on in my life, even when it has nothing to do with that person and the nature of our relationship or the situation we’re in at that moment. In those instances, I probably seem desperate to talk, or maybe seem like I just overshare. (And, of course, that makes me feel awkward in hindsight.)

Have you experienced either of these things with me? How do I seem to you when we’ve interacted in some social setting?