Addictions, Addictions: Does the Cycle HAVE to Continue?

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about addictions. Both of our mothers are alcoholics, and my father had had a heroin habit apparently; I have only met him a few times and the times I did chat with him he had a faraway look in his eyes that was only made more annoying by the way he chain-smoked his cigarettes down to the filter until they were almost as brown as his teeth. Last I spoke to him, he ran a dive bar near Venice Beach; but I heard that he's moved out to Colorado. Mom knows, I think; she usually has a glass of wine near her when she talks about him.

I have several friends, actually, who have various addictions. Another friend I spoke to the other day - who should be writing on here - has somehow gotten hooked on pills, despite her insistence for 15 years that she would never do so, due to her family's history of pill addiction and alcoholism. Another friend started smoking cigarettes at the age of 33; but that was out of a need to curb an out-of-control eating disorder that made her balloon up past 300 pounds...so that really doesn't sit in the "our parents were messed up, so we are too" category.

I have a memory of my mother shouting, throwing pots and pans around in the kitchen. I was about ten or eleven. I remember it like it was yesterday: she was on her hands and knees, under the counter, in the cupboard where she kept all the cookware. She was muttering "C'mon you bastard, c'mon..."

I asked her what she was doing. She said "Go to your room, honey - Mommy is looking for something and she is just upset that she might have to go to the store instead."

So, I went. I had the door open a crack. After a few minutes, I heard her make a happy sound, like a child who gets a toy it wants. A little later, I crept down the hall, my feet silent on our carpet...and she was in the dining room, with a drink in her hand. At the time, I didn't make the connection, really; I was just happy she was okay. Now I realized that she really probably wasn't after all.

Where does that bring me to now? I have always smoked pot, drank, ate pills, dropped acid, smoked opium, blown some flake, had lots and lots of sex, and although I stayed away from heroin (mustn't be like Daddy, now) ended up doing that too, although I didn't shoot it up. Most of that I did in my 20's, so I always chuck it off to college rites of passage, or "finding oneself in their 20's" or whatever...easy as pie to do, it is, blaming the seeds of addictive behavior in the ravages of youth. It's much more difficult to explain to yourself (or others) what business you have doing most of those things and too much of a few when you're approaching 50.

I insist that my love for wine and pot and the occasional lude or tranq when I can get it are well-deserved at my age. I work hard...I do yoga...I eat well. So why not? Well, there isn't really any reason why not, except for when I go out occasionally and come home looking every damn year that I am, alone, reeking of cigarettes (not mine, my friends') and sometimes the scent of sex - and have to really look at myself in the mirror. Am I really all that enlightened?

Or am I just the nearly middle-aged grown-up daughter of two addicts, who never realized that although she didn't rummage through the house looking for a bottle of alcohol or put needles into her veins, she still has the echoes of addiction running through her...and needs to be watchful of this fact? That she maybe does have a problem?

There's a part of me that just wants to say no. And then there's another part that whispers yes...yes yes - and it's about time I finally grew the hell up.

Collaboration in Arts is a Fucking Joke.

I used to think that it really was possible to enjoy the beauty of the collaborative process in the creative arts - especially the performing arts. It's not so much an issue in other art processes; many of those come to life with the stroke of a pen or brush, or the shutter click of a camera - and they are more expressive and work better when solitary more often than not.

But in the performing arts, whereupon you have actors, directors, dancers, musicians; and you work with playwrights, designers, choreographers to make a dream come to life - one creates, if you will, an EVENT on stage.

Heh. Bullshit.

I am in the throes of surviving something akin to a nuclear holocaust after my most recent forray into the world of "collaborative arts". What a crock of steaming shit.

Working on a film that we already had our doubts about: a remake of a classic set in the world of the contemporary, whose director had the vision of Mr. Magoo; a cast of mostly half-baked actors with the talent of an acorn, surrounded by a indestructible wall of masturbatory and (un-deserving) self-righteousness fanning the flames of their egos that would make even the most indignant divas seem like meek toddlers from a Feed the Children commercial; an assistant director who was so focused on the term "assistant" that he chose to rise above it and thereby be an insulting prick to each and every one of us; a producer who couldn't find her own ass with two hands and a road map, and spent the entire budget on setting the location shoot overseas because of the "gorgeous landscape", and leaving the cast with basically a fig leaf to cover their privates and enough money to simply buy booze to try to forget this nightmare.

I have to ask - really, I have to - what is the fucking point? Why call it a collaboration when it is nothing more than an opportunity for people to spin in their own little orbits and maybe bump into each other in an attempt to get to the desired end?

Art is not supposed to suck this badly, I'm sorry. People are not supposed to be so ruthless and stupid at the same time. Film is supposed to take life to a new level, a heightened reality and a vision, and mold it into cinema and move an audience - be it to tears, anger, laughter - anything.

I just find, as I sit here in my honeywagon (can I really call it that? it doesn't even have a toilet), chewing on a celery stick from a really tired Craft Service station, that perhaps I need to rethink my expectations. I have been around this industry since I was a child, and I'm still shocked at how much it sucks. How the people with no clue are the ones in charge. How a young man, a fellow actor (if I can call someone who acts to himself and acts on his lines an actor), who has the audacity to tell me how to say my lines so that he will look better (and continuously upstages me until the director says something) can not know that he is a fucking tool?

I am convinced that everyone is sleeping with everyone on this set. That's why it's all going to hell in a hand-basket; nobody is calling anyone else out because they're schtupping each other.

The irony is that I'm the only one not getting laid, yet I'm actually the only one really getting fucked.

MIA - In a Big Way...

First of all, I'd like to thank some of the regular readers of this blog who have been checking in to see if I'm still alive. I appreciate it...there were a few months that I wasn't too sure, actually...lol

I went from having Mono (earlier post) to having to have surgery done on my uterus (ick - same old shit I have had to have done three times before) to getting swept up in a new theatre company (yay!) whereupon I was hired to be the Stage Manager and Assistant Director for a production of Macbeth...a very challenging job, to say the least. This is on top of my regular job - the one I get paid for, that is, my Clark Kent gig if you will. So, I would work 10-6 or therabouts and then head over to rehearsal from 7-11 and then into production...for the past two or two 1/2 months. Needless to say, the Mono never really went away, my cramps got really bad with the surgery, and I've been tired as hell.

On the BRIGHT side, I am now involved with a new theatre company, since my father decided to shut down our school - the one I was so happy about? Daddy realized after 6 months (or, not even that long, really) that he was too tired to teach after all, and David decided to move to California (long story) so I was left without a school to teach at (NYFA only seems to hire me during the summers) and no theatre company any more - since my group had withered and died like the potted plant in my apartment that I just noticed is looking really tired...



Oh, wait - the bright side, right, sorry...so ANYWAY...I'm involved in this new theatre company, the Oberon Theatre Ensemble...and I have a great new boyfriend. We just celebrated our six-month anniversary...which is a really cool thing, considering that I was starting to wonder if I had it in me to even have a "relationship" anymore.

What happened, though, is that my blogs suffered tremendously. I would come home after working all day and then rehearsing (and now, for three weeks in production) totally whacked out and unable to even log on to blogger, much less think of something to write. I've had so much to say...so many things I've wanted to share, but I've been battling WEIRD health issues with trying to conquer this new position.

I've been an actor and director of theatre; I've floor-directed, directed, produced, hosted, etc LIVE television; I've even assistant stage-managed theatre here in NYC once. I thought this would be difficult but not that big a deal.

I was SO wrong. This has been one of the most difficult things I've had to do in my life. Then again, I've said that same thing many times...so perhaps simply growing as an individual is the hard part?

Oh, and what else: this month within a week of my show closing (March 8th) I start a new job in my company on the 12th - pretty damn cool, happy about it, since I'll be doing something different and making more money...and in a position to rock-climb that damn corporate ladder; AND I'll be getting a roommate - which is weird because I only have a one-bedroom...but he's my friend and I'm going to live in my living room.

So...there is an update - sorry I've been MIA - again. I'm going to try to get back on track, because I was really starting to get a lot of readers, both on here and Ornery Woman - and then I just got sick and had WAY too much on my plate.

But you have been in my thoughts...often. Thank for reading.

xo
Billychic

Boredom Makes the Crotch Grow Fonder

I'm in trouble.

I have been in a relationship for about four months now, and I'm very fond of this person. In fact, there are times when I feel that I love him, and that we could have a really great long-term relationship...and who knows what else after that? He's been, for the most part, great in bed - at least in the sense that he always wants to make sure that I'm satisfied. Considering that so many men seem to NOT be interested in that (sorry to any men reading this, but I can't begin to tell you how many guys are like "hey lady, you're on your own") and the fact that I'm very interested in making him happy, we both always end our lovemaking sessions with smiles on our faces.

He's caring, kind, considerate (most of the time), and an interesting person with a fierce intelligence. He isn't sycophantic in any way, nor is he a cold bastard (well, at least not a lot), and he seems to be a very loyal person who tries his best to keep his word on things. In short, he treats me like I try to treat him - most of the time.

That said, the flames of passion are already waning. For some reason, he never seems to want to have sex with me any more. I know that he is really busy right now with work on a project (we both work in advertising, but he's at a more successful and horrifically busy firm) that could really put him into not only a new tax bracket but in the midst of a whole new clientele; and I myself have been über busy with my job and a job search (on the sly) that is making me re-consider my career choice thus far. I was originally an English major and intended to go into writing and journalism - and found myself suddenly very far from that, surrounded by uptight Soho cliques.

_____ doesn't seem to be interested in me physically any more. He'll joke to his friends after a few beers that "his girlfriend is gorgeous and has a great ass" or he'll tell me how beautiful I am and that it's so wonderful to have me over...but he seems to rather go to sleep than have sex. If I start things, eventually it works it's way into us doing something - but I'm starting to have to do all the work.

And, as a result, no matter how many times he might say that he's attracted to me, I have to wonder if he still is. Is his interest waning? Is he already tired of my body? Is he taking me for granted? I don't think he's seeing someone else, but those thoughts flutter through my head as well, and I can't help but feel the stirrings of indignation inside of me.

And then...unfortunately, because of my wiring, the moment I feel that the person I'm with isn't into me anymore...I begin to look around. Not look as in sampling the merchandise, but simply window shopping. We'll be out and I'll blatantly flirt with one of our mutual friends, picking a piece of lint off of his shirt while I talk to him, ignoring _______ until he taps my shoulder and smiles, "Can I get in on this conversation?"

I want to say, "Only if you let ______ join in with us in bed." Instead, I smile and say "Of course!"

Several of my friends have told me that I'm Poly, and I try to refute this statement to the very end. I know that when I'm in a relationship I am very faithful and I get jealous at the idea of my partner with someone else. However, I also know that I have a very high sex drive and very low self-esteem; two factors that are a recipe for disaster if my partner is treating me like a pal instead of a lover. The fact that the sex that we do have is so vanilla that he hasn't gone down on me since the first month we were together is starting to make me miss the more adventurous aspects of any relationship I've had, sexually.

I am starting to miss the attention of people who flirt with me, who find me attractive. My thoughts are more and more traveling to recent exes, some of whom I talk with on the phone, for we are friends, and I fantasize about encounters. I know that it's harmless, and that I wouldn't (for these exes are exes for serious reasons), but part of me wonders at how harmless this all is; and if I'm not at the edge of a precipice, waiting to fall at the slightest shove. If not into their arms, then the arms of some others whose bodies my eyes have wandered over as of late.

One friend, with whom I have not slept for over a year, always talks about us hooking up every time we talk, even though he knows I'm attached to someone. It's more of a regular joke now, and I tell him he's so silly and then change the subject, but I know that if I was to say yes, he'd be ready in a heartbeat. He recently, during a lament I was making about the state of affairs of my sex life, suggested we go away for a weekend when the weather gets warmer. I almost said yes.

The thing is, I really, really care about the guy I'm dating. I really think he cares about me, as well. I know if I bring this up now, right now, he's going to just blow it off because he's so busy - and my mentioning this will be a big deal...he's going to tell me that I'm being ridiculous and that I couldn't pick a worse time to talk about this. That if I can just hold out a few more weeks, then he and I will have more time to enjoy ourselves together.

But what if he doesn't say that? What if he tells me what I fear: that he's tired of me, of us; that I bore him as much as he has begun to bore me in bed; that the glamor and shine of a new experience has worn off, leaving a lackluster smudge in it's wake?

I guess I don't want to know that either. Not sure...except that instead of being able to have sex with my boyfriend, I'm fantasizing alone in bed at my apartment about being with old flames and current mutual friends. Not a good sign.