The Seventh Blog
The further into this blog I get, the harder and harder it gets to find stuff to write about. It’s easy to misinterpret that as a lack inspiration, but to be honest - I think everything over here has really just become pretty normal, and therefore becomes less notable… It would maybe be better if I walked around with a body cam on, live streaming everything to this website and it would be like a live TV show. Then - even when I get apathetic to strange and interesting happenings, you’ll maintain your interest. Although maybe an abundance of information like that would end up with you becoming indifferent too. The curse of serial TV, I guess. An example - I was having a conversation the other day with people at a diner (NOW! That’s What I call American 2021) about how I had started to subconsciously filter out the people that just scream at you in the streets. It’s a strange idiosyncrasy of LA that this happens almost daily*. This generally happens in one of three ways:
Someone targets you from across the way, and they directly shout something at you. This is perhaps the most jarring, for so many reasons.
Someone is busy shouting into the ether, and then you walk past and become a target until out of eyesight. Whilst intimidating, the content is often pretty funny.
Sometimes it isn’t even shouting. Sometimes, people just walk past you and just say shit at you. Sometimes they’re pretty nasty, but generally it’s pure nonsense so, again, easily filtered out.
I’ve had reports of people being spat at in the street but I haven’t seen any of that so I can’t say anything about that. I can tell you that it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. So, as you see with these weird examples, I am now a local. Sort of. That section lost its direction somewhat towards the end, but if you don’t pay too much attention then you’ll probably get the gist.
It’s been a good week, nothing special to report, nothing terrible to report either. It’s still very fun and I’m loving it. It’s still tough, and we have a midterm performance coming up on Friday. I feel good about that - we have a couple of rehearsals between now and then so I we have time to tighten it up after some good rehearsals on Friday. I feel really grateful we have one of the only light-hearted scenes (certainly in my class) sometimes there is a slight danger of it feeling like desperate sadness is all that sells. Obviously I guess that unlocking the super sad things that have gone on in life are the most guarded memories, so accessing them demonstrates a greater sense of openness or control or something. I don’t know, it’s only my sixth week. I’m feeling slightly jaded by the fact that my wheelchair for Jerome didn’t arrive when it said it would, and I had to improvise when I went up for my character interview, and I found some crutches to use. Did you know that the U.S. of America still use the under armpit crutches, and not the nifty-hand-ones-with-a-cuff that we use in the UK. I hope that you know what I’m talking about. But I honestly thought the under arm ones went extinct in the War. Which brings me to my second point - Jerome has zero use of his legs, and so I had to perfectly balance on the crutches, with all the weight going through my armpits and now I’m really sore. I only just became aware of how whiny that sounds and yup, I hear it; boo-hoo posh boy, stop moaning. Advice received and adhered to. Thanks Team.
Other interesting things that have happened this week:
I attended a Diwali party and had lots of fun.
I discovered Dominoes Handmade pizza range and I recommend it.
I watched Wes Anderson’s new film The French Dispatch and I loved it.
I got rejected from the self-tape audition I sent in and I celebrated. (Because we don’t let rejection get us down.)
I decided to go cold turkey on electric scooters and I failed.
I moved a piano and to be honest I was fairly ambivalent in that scenario.
I will round off with some self-promotion: if you haven’t yet ventured to my Upcoming section and seen the trailer for The Anarchist’s Dream then go do so, it looks great!
*I feel slightly weird about opening this blog with stories of shouting and spitting in the streets. I’d like to point out as a slight disclaimer on the behalf of the United States Visa Office that that doesn’t fully reflect the city of Los Angeles, and day to day life here is nothing but a joy. Hail America.