Complicated

Not a rumination on that dreadful but nonetheless era-defining Avril Lavigne song, this is rather in reference to the concept, as articulated by Facebook, of the "Complicated Relationship."

Seriously, I log on to Facestalk this afternoon and the first item on my Stalkerfeed (I hope that by appearing cognisant of the bizarre power this technology affords everyone even vaguely in my life to know my every movement and me to know theirs, I become less of a sucker for using it) is that Old High School Aquaintance That I Never Really Liked In High School Anyway And Only Accepted On Facebook To Make Sure She Wasn't Doing Better Than Me In Life (let's just call her Ohsatinrlihsaaoaftmsswdbtmil, or Ohsa for super convenience) is apparently in a Complicated Relationship.

This begs several questions.

The Facebook option of being in a Complicated Relationship (or, as it is indicated in your relationship status, "It's Complicated [with XYZ if you so choose]") is obviously an acknowledgement of the situation that many of us have found ourselves in over time whereby you are seeing someone on a semi-regular basis, you're doing the kissing and maybe even the sexing, but they or you are, for one reason or another, emotionally incapacitated to the extent whereby they still refuse to call this a relationship. Now, you're not single - because you're having the sex, as it was so eloquently put by Paolo in Friends - but you're not in a relationship, because labels ruin things, and being a girlfriend/boyfriend is subjugation and entrapment, and you don't see why it's anyone else's business, which seems to be a favourite line. So It's Complicated. Seems logical enough. Except if that the whole reason It's Complicated is because you Don't Want People To Know ... doesn't putting it up on Facebook - that is, the most public arena the world currently offers us - doesn't that COMPLETELY DEFEAT THE BLOODY CONCEPT AND IS REALLY JUST YOU PUBLICLY DECLARING TO ALL AND BLOODY SUNDRY THAT YOU'RE HAVING SEX WITHOUT HOLDING HANDS OR HOLDING HANDS WITHOUT HAVING SEX?

The second question, more just a matter of me being semantically finicky, arises from the sentence itself: "Ohsa is now in a complicated relationship." Well, excuse me, but what the hell what Ohsa doing before with everyone else in her life? Clearly delineating them into easy categories where each person serves a single, simple purpose which they performed every time they meet without fail? That's the relationship you have with baristas and bus drivers maybe, but not, you know, people who actually have an influence on you. (Not that baristas and bus drivers don't influence you. They influence me greatly. Just in uncomplicated ways.) I have complicated relationships with lots of people but that doesn't mean that we're engaged in intense negotiations over sexual politics. Now I know this isn't really Facebook's fault (or even Ohsa's - but she's pretty annoying so I like to snigger at her nonetheless) but still. I thought it interesting, because I'm into things like that.

Interesting unplanned third point: between writing my last paragraph, I logged onto Facebook once more, only to be informed that Girl I Have Met Once or Twice At University and Yet Again Do Not Particularly Like (henceforth known as Gihmootauayadnpl, or rather Gihmoot) is "no longer in a complicated relationship." This, like the information in Ohsa's update, is displayed with an accompanying little love heart - not the broken one you see when people break up, but the nice whole one you see when people get together.

How do these two seemingly contradictory events work together? By Facebook's logic, being in a Complicated Relationship is worthy of a heart, therefore it must be a good thing for the people involved. But getting OUT of a Complicated Relationship - and, Facebook presumes, In A Relationship - is also worthy of a heart, and therefore must also be a good thing.

Well, what if being in a Complicated Relationship isn't good? What if being in a Complicated Relationship is leaving Ohsa with unanswered questions and doubts about her self-worth and the worthiness of her emotional investment? What if being in a Complicated Relationship makes Ohsa feel like she is giving everything to a person who can never commit meaningfully and is simply stringing her along for her sexual and/or emotional benefits without taking on any of the responsibility that comes with being In A Relationship - the responsibility to prioritise the needs of that person, the responsibility not to be infidelitous (assuming that they are not In An Open Relationship, another of the myriad of relationship options Facebook affords us, politically correct souls that they are), the responsibility to openly and happily acknowledge the relationship? What if Ohsa is going through that thing that happens when long term couples break up and then still sleep together and hang out together and have keys to each others houses but aren't actually together because for whatever reason, a simple question of naming leads to a total change in behaviour? What if Ohsa's status as Being In A Complicated Relationship is simply her way of trying to reassure herself that she's in a Relationship at all? And, as I think I pointed out earlier, doesn't that just defeat the purpose of this particular kind of Complicated Relationship?

Similarly, who makes the decision that for Gihmoot, not being In A Complicated Relationship is suddenly a move up in the world? I stalked her down just to make sure I wasn't going to misrepresent her here in an arena she will never encounter. Her relationship status no longer exists - you know, that tricky thing people do when they take it away completely because they're so utterly confused or depressed by whatever their Actual Status is that they can't bear the thought of other people looking at it every day. So Gihmoot is no longer In A Complicated Relationship - but according to her profile, she's also not in a Relationship at all. Maybe she has completely ceased all interaction with other human beings around her, I don't know. This does not necessarily warrant a perfectly formed pink heart in my mind. Why does Facebook - who said Being In A Complicated Relationship was a good thing now say that getting out of one is equally good? What if Gihmoot's Complicated Relationship was nonetheless mutually satisfying and rewarding for both parties? What if neither of them wanted, for whatever reasons, to subscribe to approved-of avenues or definitions for their interactions with each other? What if they cared deeply for one another but lived in different cities or states or countries and for that reason could not commit to being In A Relationship as it is commonly conceived of in our limited vision of said? What if Gihmoot is crying into her pillow tonight over the loss of her Complicated Relationship? What if Ohsa is crying into her pillow tonight over the existence of hers?

What, then, of all our other relationships? If only Facebook would allow me to define the relationship I had with each of my 237 "Friends"(please note very deliberate use of inverted commas there.) Why is this one relationship, instantly understood to be romantic in nature, priveleged above all the rest? I restate: I am in a lot of relationships in my life, many of them complicated, or in the very least complex, and some of them are with people for whom I have, or have had, or may one day have, romantic feelings but generally they are not. Can I set my Relationship Status to Multifaceted?

Finally, what are we to make of the mere fact that I can know any of this at all? What are we to make of the fact that last week, when a friend of mine who knows almost none of my other friends (he can be Fomwkanomof...OK, Fom) broke up with his girlfriend, I was confronted by three of our vaguely mutual friends (that is, mutual friends on Facebook), not on as close terms to him as myself, who had heard of this development within hours of its eventuation because the couple in question, you guessed it, changed their status on Facebook? What are we to make of the fact that if I were to change my currently Single status to It's Complicated or In A Relationship or even if I were simply to remove it at all, at least 237 people (in fact far more, seeing as I am too much of an internet whore to ever set my profile to private) would have access to that information. 150 of them might notice it. 100 of them would mentally notice it and discuss it amongst our mutual friends the next time they met. 50 of that 100 might even go so far as to send me a message about it, and there would be at least ten people inconsiderate enough to post on my wall about it, and the fact is that in that 237 people there are maybe only 20 anyway who I think would have any selfless interest in my love life as something other than fodder for gossip, and I probably would have told them in person anyway.

This is not: a rail against Facebook, or against the concept of Complicated Relationships, or against the concept for Relationships. Mainly I was just perturbed that Ohsa was obviously getting some, and she's a total pain in the ass.

Some Things On My Mind At The Moment

1. Looming exams and lack of preparation for said
2. Increasing expansion of waistline and lack of activity to counteract said.
3. Exploding wardrobe
4. Disappearing bank balance due to exploding wardrobe
5. What to do during the summer holidays
6. Moving out - yay or nay?
7. The fact that the ability to predict the future would greatly resolve much of this anxiety
8. The fact that predicting the future is impossinle, thusly leaving me to my own devices --> increased change of fucking up and making Wrong Choices.

During high school I think I struggled with decisions less. Maybe I knew what I wanted more. Actually I think I was just less aware of my options. These days I see options spread around me in every aspect of my life, from what to wear in the morning to what cleanser to use to what to do on my holidays to what to do with my life. It might seem like a quantum leap from fashion to life-path but I think it's the same attitude both equally stressful. It's a lack of ability to distinguish combined with a plethora of choice. It's the inability to prioritise combined with the impatience of youth. It's the desire to experience combined with the desire to get it right the first time round.

I seem to labour under the delusion that I have limited time. I mean, I do. We all do. We are mortal. But what I mean is, my life, my choices, my chances, my options, my development physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, professionally, sartorially - it doesn't stop at 23 or 25 or 30. But then I don't want to get to those ages and feel I've missed out on doing something important.

I think this choice anxiety is couple with the knowledge - or perhaps the misguided belief, who can say - that to make it as an actor - as a female actor - you have to get in there young. And I don't want to me that person who sits around for how many years talking about a dream without actually going out to do something about it.

I guess the scariest part is that it's usually not until you've made it that you can see that the choice was the wrong one. I think I am congenitally afraid of failure. But not doing something because you might fail is but a short step away from not doing anything at all. I believe the Chinese say we must not be afraid of growing slowly, only of standing still. I agree with that in sentiment but I think in practicality I probably often choose to stand still for fear of getting chopped down altogether. It's that old attitude that I used to have such disdain for - that trying nothing and therefore going nowhere feels less damaging than trying to move and moving slowly; because at least if you're not trying you can futilely cling to the belief that you could be going somewhere, you're just choosing not to - thereby allowing yourself to believe you're still in control.

This attitude really only holds up until everyone else around you gets their act together enough to start moving, leaving little old you feeling drastically and embarassingly left behind.

Books

I love books. I always have done. I am not cool enough to love lots of obscure bands and have them on vinyl - for this I blame my classical violinist father - but the sheer ecstasy of shelf full of brandspankingnew books, oldleatherbound books, mediumbatteredpaperback books - now that's something I can get worked up over (and for that, I suppose I should blame my writer mother.) So I have always done lots of reading. When I was younger I could start a book after a Saturday afternoon trip to Dymocks and have it finished in time to talk about it at school on Monday (not that anyone wanted to hear.) But - and I'm sure I'm not alone here - I found this a harder feat to accomplish as I got older. For one thing, the books I wanted to read stopped being The Babysitter's Club (don't ever let anyone say I am a literary snob) and started being more along the lines of Dickens or Tom Wolfe - hardly a quick read over Sunday lunch. Also - and this is the more annoying part - life just kind of took over. Jobs and assessments and rehearsals suddenly meant I could no longer lie in bed all day on Sunday to get lost in my little printed world - especially if it wasn't on a reading list for a course. I think it was around the middle of year 12 that I woke up one day and realised I hadn't read a book of my choosing in about two years. That was tragic. I have to say one of the best things about taking the gap year was choosing my own reading material. Then I started uni and was forced to consume Australian literature in quantities I would never do of my own volition...and it's back to wracking my brains for the last book I read that was actually a matter of choice.
But now holidays loom - actually need better word than loom; loom implies, by onomatapaeic association, doom - and I am determined not to waste them staring idly into space for the entire time. Somewhere between rehearsals and theatre outings and shopping, oh god, so much shopping - I'd like to read lots of books. So I'm making a list. I won't get through the list this holidays, or next, but I'm going to carry this list with me forever and every time for the rest of my life I get bored I will look at the list and think, now there's a book I still haven't read, boredom be gone!
So if you know a book I haven't read and you think I should, leave me a comment and let me know. As I always say, suggestions welcome, if not necessarily taken.

Old Flames Never Die, They Just...

...get to that stage like where you've blown out the candle but the wick still has that little glowing bit on it that you have to lick your fingers and pinch to get it to go away. It's totally useless, it produces no heat, it can't even spontaneously reignite or anything, but they're always there, and I, poor sucker that I am, haven't quite figured out how to pinch these babies out of my life.

Some Plays I Am Doing

Well, really just the one, in this blog.

So since like the begining of March, Ellen and I have been directing a show called Gone Missing with the year 12s at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts. This has been a ridiculously nostalgia filled venture, us being year 12s at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts only two years ago ourselves.

So we found this script randomly while browsing the fairly limited drama section at Kinokuiya and I personally really like it. It's a verbatim piece constructed from interviews the actors did with random people in the street about stuff they had lost. For someone who has managed to lose her script, her diary, her keys and probably at least ten pens in the last four days, this seemed fitting and very moving. Also it was just nice to be kind of back in the saddle again and taking creative control of something after a year of sitting around on my fat behind doing sweet fuck all.

I like to think we have made some kind of dint in the creative development of these kids, that we've taught them something they didn't know before, that we gave them an opportunity the teachers might not have, that they'll look back on this experience and think, wow, I totally expanded as an actor during that process. I'm not sure it's worked out like that. There have been...blockages. And unexpected obstacles. And moments where I have been so on the brink of going completely beserk and throwing drama blocks across the room because people don't seem capable of following the simple directive TO BE QUIET.

Having said that though, I would probably do it again in a snap. I'm a sucker for punishment. I mean don't get me wrong, I will be Having Words to Appropriate Authorities about the Issues We Have Experienced. But there's something about being behind the steering wheel of actually creating a piece of theatre that makes you appreciate the final product so much more. Also I am probably a control freak by nature so any outlet for me to get to tell people what to do is always going to go down well.

Seriously though, I think that even without doing any acting for this show I have made myself a better actor.

Explaining this pithily in writing isn't going very well. I think I am better at rambling obsessively over miniscule and meaningless moments (check out that alliteration) than I am at expressing the things in life that are more important to me. Well, I suppose that's to be expected in the public arena, isn't it?

This has moved quite far away from its intended subject matter.

OK so basically, the show is on tomorrow and Wednesday night. It does seem like an awful lot of effort for just two nights but I guess I'm a believer in the product being the process. Hopefully what they will walk away with is a lasting memory of the effort it takes to put together a decent show. Which it will be. No, this blog is not at all a way of releasing my nervous energy pertaining to the fact that in 24 hours time we will be 11 minutes into the show and in our final run today I had to stop them three times because they couldn't seem to stand on their spike marks. Shut up.

Some Plays I Have Seen (And Possibly A Movie)

Right, so a conversation last night totally reminded me that this even existed and that one of its primary functions was to serve as a recorder for the multiplicity of theatrical entertainment I was meant to be engaging with this year. Haven't really been keeping up with that. Whoops. Now I am afraid I have forgotten everything.

I saw The Year of Magical Thinking with Robin Nevin, directed by Cate Blanchett (salivate) at the STC. This was beautiful. I think my favourite thing about it was its simplicity. The sheer beauty of just having a single actor on stage engaging with a very powerful and moving story is nothing to be sniffed at and I thought Nevin's performance was top notch. I sort of want to be her, in fifty years time. My least favourite thing about this performance was all the stupid people coughing the entire way through. For God's sake, get a menthol and shut the fuck up.

I saw The Hitchcock Blonde at the Star of the Sea Theatre in Manly, starring the one and only very fantastic Eleni Schumacher. This is a totally biased review because I have known Leni since she was like, 15. But with that disclaimer I would like to say I was totally blown away by the depth and maturity of her performance and thought she was head and shoulders above the other actress, whose name I don't remember and am also afraid of putting up should she be the sort of person who googles herself, which, let's face it, most actors are. Eleni's performance was infused with the sort of truth and strength that most actors spend their entire lives waiting to attain and if she doesn't go further in this field it will be an abomination.

I saw The Black Balloon which restored a little bit of my faith in the concept of an Australian film industry. Here finally was an excellent story, well written, deftly executed, perfectly paced and beautifully acted, and without an excessive amount of time spent dwelling on questions of "Australian identity." Hallelujah. Kudos to Rhys Wakefield for making the leap from Summer Bay babe to actual actor, and to Toni Collette for continuing to be a ray of light in every film-goer's life. And double thumbs up to the entire movie for making me cry, which never happens.

I'll just take this opportunity to point out that I have a little first hand experience of having a sibling with autism, albeit nowhere near as severe a case as the one depicted in the film. Nonetheless, the experiences of the film rang almost painfully true for me as I sat there watching it. I'd just like everyone to think about that before they think about criticising the film. That it was able to depict such a story in a way that was not preachy, or schmaltzy, or excessively flippant, or patronising, is no common thing and I think should be deeply admired.

All for now. Time to read SEVENTY PAGE SCRIPT just emailed to me. (Thanks Oli, have no ink left now.)

Speaking in tongues

Today's theme is codes. And speaking.
You know when people are talking to you, and they're talking about something, and you're talking about something back, but you know that what they're saying is really about something else and they know you know that, and they know that everything you're saying is not really about the first thing but about the second, hidden thing, and you're basically just having this entire conversation which is apparently about one thing but really you both know it's about this other thing, but because you can't acknowledge that, you'll never actually be able to talk about that second, probably much more important thing?
Yeah.
Story of my fucking life.