Imitation of Life

One thing an actor learns in Chicago is that it’s harder to get fired from 5 small gigs than one full time job. In this regard, our schedules are completely fucked from one day to the next. You might be required to start your day at 6am on Tuesday, 10:30pm on Friday, you don’t work Wednesday, but someone called you to fill in for six hours on Thursday which may or may not happen but they’ll let you know by 11 tomorrow morning. Waking up at the same hour on two consecutive days is rare.

This week I have the unprecedented situation of working the same gig – at the same location – 5 days in a row. It’s an earlier day and a longer commute than most things I do, but it’ll be a solid paycheck in a week or two. And the work is rewarding; that of a standardized patient, an acting-adjacent job which helps medical students practice their communication skills with the sick and injured. We portray the patient, memorizing a list of facts and doling them out when the right questions are asked.

The down side is that it’s a very repetitive job. Getting asked the same questions and giving out the same answers every few minutes reminds me of every cashier job I ever had. It can get a little monotonous, but keeping it fresh is vital to their education; a reminder which helps us to push through.

Each day we get interviewed by up to 10 students, 15 minutes at a time, portraying the same symptoms over and over. After a while we might take on some of the characteristics of the patient ourselves, so something like a persistent cough starts getting harder to control. The mind and body starts getting convinced it really is getting sick, and starts acting like it.

This week is harder than most. I’m portraying a patient who suffers from random attacks of his racing heart and rapid breath, each time afraid it’s going to kill him. Turns out to be panic disorder, though it doesn’t occur to him. If the students dig deep enough they make an connection to a major event one year ago in the patient’s life, the anniversary of which is the likely culprit for why I’m sitting in an emergency room now.

This case hits awfully close to home.

It was a year ago now that my depression started to peak in a way it hadn’t in years. It had been building, but it finally hit a point that I knew I needed professional help. Rarely have I been to a therapist and never had I been medicated before, but this time I started both. It took months to unfuck myself back to functionality.

But here I am again. Same time of year. Same sort of life situation. And now up to ten times a day I spend fifteen minutes describing a panic attack and facing my mortality, neither of which are unfamiliar to me. I really hope they’re getting something out of this, because this case needs more than a paycheck to put me back in order.

Just a few more days to get through.

Play Hurt

I have almost always been connected to music; not as an artist, but as a listener. “What a shit statement," you might say. "Everyone listens to music." And yeah, sure, of course that’s true. Where I draw the distinction is the place where needing music around me at all times becomes a compulsion. Without music, something feels off. Something’s wrong. Silence is a slight odor of smoke in my apartment when nothing should be burning. A humming sound from my car’s engine which only presents when I’m driving fast enough to know that a sudden issue would be catastrophic.

Silence is uncomfortable. Turn down the volume, and take away my security blanket.

A neurologist named Oliver Sacks researched a condition and called it Musicophilia. Usually it happens to people who have suffered some kind of brain injury, but I don’t remember one. Well – there was that one time a television landed on my forehead, but I think my compulsion started before then. Maybe? Whatever.

What I do remember is one of the first presents I got from my parents: headphones. There was a stereo in the dining room, and I would use it constantly because it had the best speakers in the house. From my earliest memories until I was through college the most common phrase I heard was “turn it down.” Yeah, it doesn’t just have to be on. It usually has to be loud. The headphones weren’t so much for me as they were to protect the rest of the family.

That’s a trend which continues to this day. Everywhere I go the music is playing, and it’s only gotten more convenient and more constant. My phone connects to a Bluetooth speaker when I’m getting ready to leave the house, to my headphones as I walk to the car, and to the car stereo as soon as I crank the engine. The song never breaks, and the playlist never ceases.

Music keeps me on track. Without it I stop moving, can’t complete a task. I operate at my best when I connect a particular album to a particular chore. American Idiot gets me through the grocery store. Turn the Radio Off folds laundry with me. The discography of Stone Temple Pilots up to 2008 cleans my apartment, and the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack holds my hand while I write something. Pavlov wasn’t wrong.

When I mention this, someone will point out that some people just can’t handle silence. This is usually accompanied by a superior tone fueled by a self-perceived strength of character. Their ability to sit quietly with nothing but their own thoughts must be some kind of superpower. Well you know what fucko, some people don’t have legs; no reason to get haughty just because your brain isn’t tied in knots and you have toenails to trim.

Okay sure, so I’m bitter about the fact that some people don’t need it. In addition to being easily distracted, I’m also regularly anxious or depressed. A quiet environment is a still one. The more still my body is, the faster my mind moves in useless swirls. Repeated fragments of half-developed sentences, ancient arguments with people I never talk to anymore, my obelisk of a to-do list, they’re all warring for my attention at the same time and all of them are winning.

Putting on music is like putting out the bumpers on a bowling alley. My thoughts can’t stray too far because music keeps them bordered, and my focus on a particular task remains until the task is complete. If I’m doing something simple like walking or driving, music fills in the dark places where uncomfortable thoughts would otherwise breed.

Somewhere in there is a lesson about my overall mental health. I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as I have a way to keep it under control.

Trained Movement Professional

Working twelve hour days for weeks on end is enough to stretch anyone’s limit. At this year’s National Stage Combat Workshop, there was plenty of opportunity to find my own. For safety’s sake one’s mind need be operating at peak efficiency at all times – if you tune out, you miss a bit of choreography and a sword gets thrust at the wrong bits. The physical demands are unique unless your day job requires slinging steel at your coworkers (if it does, please let me know if you’re hiring). As the brain fries and the muscles waver, it becomes more and more critical to put effort into making certain the choreography is solid, and you’d damn well better not grow too confident.

Test Day was the last day of the workshop. It involved four tests: Smallsword, Knife, Broadsword & Shield, and Quarterstaff. Each test is conducted by two partners performing a scene of no more than three minutes, containing a number of required moves on behalf of both students. A Basic Pass means having met the minimum standard of technical skill, and a Recommended Pass means having exceeded that standard in the eyes of the adjudicator.

In the eight years since I started learning stage combat I’ve never failed a Skills Proficiency Test or Renewal, nor have I seen it happen.

Safe to say I was most excited by the Sword & Shield test, as this was the only one of that day’s four weapons for which I have never been tested. Sometimes I really enjoy playing into my type. Also my partner and I picked the arena scene from Thor Ragnarok, so I got to be a big guy playing the Big Guy while doing Big Guy Things. Plus my Sword and Shield partner was a woman who’s actual name is Thor, named for the Marvel character, so the only way we could get nerdier is if we rolled a D20 before each strike.

The Sword & Shield test was the first one after lunch. I was battling the results of insomnia and overcoming the emotional aftermath of the Smallsword and Knife tests in the morning. Indigestion, coffee, and a nervous stomach had me bent over in the men’s room for a few minutes for the second time that day, and ibuprofen was keeping my injuries quiet for the moment.

Though the room was the same stage upon which we’d been practicing for weeks and the audience supportive and friendly, test day casts a layer of tension and formality which alters the tone. We may have spent 30 contact hours with this weapon, refining and perfecting our technique, but the only thing that matters is what happens within the next 3 minutes or less. It’s the kind of setup that seems fine when it works in your favor, but totally unfair should something go wrong for the first time during the test.

Working in my favor, Thor is an excellent combat partner. Chuck and Adam are phenomenal instructors. I’ve been at this discipline for years, been through the testing process several times, and had been working vigorously for months to prepare for this moment. In the end, something still went wrong.

Four moves into the fight, Thor punched me with her shield because that’s the choreography. I blocked with my own shield . . . ish. My arm was too close to my body and at the incorrect angle, so the edge of my own shield smacked me less than a finger’s width over my left eye. A two-inch gash started bleeding immediately, pumping harder from my adrenaline, freer for being thinned by caffeine and painkillers, but masked somewhat by the bandanna holding my hair out of the way.

I felt pain, and then numbed. My vision never blurred, I never blacked out or felt dizzy, so I didn’t stop the fight. Thor pressed the attack as designed, and I defended properly. I figured she would eventually call hold. Or maybe it would come from one of the Fight Masters judging the scene, or the instructors standing in the wings, or in the audience. No one did. We kept fighting.

I saw drops of crimson fall past my eye, the smell sharp and unfamiliar. I tried to let them fall onto my dark shirt so no one would notice. “If we don’t finish this now,” I thought, “we might not get another chance. Keep going until they force you to stop.” No one forced us to stop.

Less than a minute later the fight was over. By the time we took our bows and left the stage, the left side of my face was obviously marred. The staff EMT sat me down, cleaned me off, and patched me up with just enough time to pick up a quarterstaff and meet my partner, Michael, for our next test. We did a scene from Shrek (I was Shrek, and Michael was Donkey. Test day is awesome).

Then I got a ride to the emergency room, and was very excited to see an episode of Judge Judy while I waited for the nurse.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I got home and learned the test results online. Basic Pass for Smallsword and Knife. Recommended Pass for Quarterstaff. No mention of Sword & Shield, which I supposed to mean I had failed. It would be another day before it was updated with “Incomplete or Not Passed”.

Some of the proudest moments in my life have come from my work in this field. The praise is sweet, and the victories fulfilling. I always expected that failure, should it ever come, would devastate me. This one didn’t. Maybe because I saw it coming. Maybe because I have a long track record of successes to balance the scale. Maybe because it’s not like they kicked me out and stamped my ass with “DO NOT RETURN”.

In the end, I’m privileged to be able to live in a city so accessible to classes which will let me try again soon. This isn’t over for me, and my dream of rising through the ranks of the organization is still alive and well supported. Now, when I look in the mirror, I’ll always be able to see the scar to remind me that success is never a foregone conclusion.

A tattoo on my back reads, “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.” I guess I’m just living my truth.

In Spite Of

Week Two of Sword Fight Summer Camp has ended.

The lessons are insightful, the instructors are an excellent blend of patient and inspirational, and my fellow students meet every challenge with playful dedication. But it hurts.

My struggle with my weight has been a perpetual part of my story, and will probably continue for the rest of my days. My days spent in the Chicago burlesque scene have helped me to accept my body’s appearance; unlike public school, no one is making fun of me for being fat. Not to my face, anyway. Not that I can tell. I still don’t like the way I look in the mirror, but these days that’s all about me. I don’t carry that over into what other people probably think of me.

But it’s still having a negative effect. My legs can’t handle this kind of sustained strain and impact. My knees are giving out and my heels can’t handle flexing past ninety degrees. Stairs give me anxiety, and oddly, it’s worse going down than up. I have all the skills and knowledge for success, but I just cannot make my body go through some of these motions without crumpling in pain, like being jabbed by a one-inch diameter needle.

These are problems I developed many years and fifty pounds ago, and that’s all without even getting into my lower and upper back reuniting for a crippling reunion tour. The other night it took six hours to fall asleep because every time I rolled over I felt my shoulder blades clamp onto my spine like a vicious dog trying to snap a femur in half.

I’m not constantly despondent, but something always hurts. I’m tired of it. This isn’t pain born from fatigue and sore muscles, and it’s nothing to be solved with some Epsom salts and a bit of stretching. It’s just . . . part of who I am now. Like a scar.

The most fucked up part is that I don’t understand how I’m exercising 8 out of 12 hours and still getting fatter.

I am having fun in spite of the issues. I’m getting advice and personal connections to start aiming the trajectory of my career so that I can make this a permanent part of my life. Heh. Yeah, even with all of this complaining, it’s still worth going through it all so that I can keep pretending to slash, stab, whack and punch people.

At least it makes the pained reactions come from a place of truth.

Sword Fight Summer Camp

I was heavily into martial arts when I was a kid. Akin to so many American children, Karate was my first foray, but it didn’t last long. I couldn’t transfer the use of skills from thought to instinct, and thus I never earned my instructor’s permission to spar with the other students. Absent his blessing I couldn’t develop any confidence of my own. I finally quit out of embarrassment. I was seven.

I tried again as an adult, starting with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and moving on to Tae Kwon Do. Physically challenging and mentally engaging, it required focus and control over one’s limbs unlike- well, unlike anything video games had offered. For someone who’s body image issues include a fear of being clumsy, it felt like a genuine path toward being treated like a normal person instead of an oaf.

By my late 20s I recognized it was impractical. I wasn’t getting into fights all the time. All throughout school I had been bullied enough to become a pacifist, and cultivated an intimidating appearance to keep the punks from punching me (easy enough for a person my size). As I was approaching my 30s, spending money on defense classes was more expensive than I could manage, and ultimately too much to justify. I still missed it, though.

In my second year of grad school I found the perfect replacement with stage combat. It required the same level of physical challenge, the same quality of mental discipline, the same character of dexterity and control over my body. More importantly, it was directly related to my career; when the stage directions read “They fight,” the scene is more effective when the actors aren’t falling over themselves.

I joined the Society of American Fight Directors with the goal of learning every skill that could be taught and rising through their ranks. Every time I reached a new level I’d stretch for the next one. Once I’d earned the rank of Advanced Actor Combatant, I asked my instructor the same question I had so many times before: “What’s next?” This time the answer kicked me in the teeth and grounded my advancement.

“First, you have to be a dues-paying member for five years,” he said. That meant I had four years to go. “In the meantime,” he told me, “find classes to assist and get some choreography jobs.” Didn’t work for me. I knew I hadn’t the experience to choreograph, and once I graduated I couldn’t afford to continue training. The Winter Wonderland workshop in Chicago was the only one I could attend without traveling, and even that tuition was beyond my reasonable reach. I could neither develop my skills further nor network my way into an assistantship. I was deadlocked, agonizing the loss of What Could Have Been.

For neither the first nor the last time, a few years later my Lady Love opened the door for me. She knew how much I missed it, and told me it wasn’t fair that she should pursue her craft through travel and workshops and I wasn’t. She told me, straight out, “You’re going to Winter Wonderland this year.”

So I did.

I emerged from that week with a renewed vigor and enthusiasm. My appetite for the craft was sharpened like never before, my great heart grown fonder for the absence. What’s more – I was still good at it, which was a relief. I knew this was something I would never again be able to live without, so long as I have the choice.

I write this now sitting in the dining hall of Louisiana Tech University, attending for the first time the National Stage Combat Workshop; a 3 week intensive which puts a weapon in my hand almost 9 out of every 12 hours, six days a week. The demands on my body and mind have rarely been so steep, and collapse from exhaustion is a guarantee.

But so is the satisfaction.

Week One is over, and only one day of rest separates what we’ve learned from what lies ahead. I refuse to back off ever, ever again.

Eulogy

Part Six.

I was afraid of him.

Not because I thought he would beat me up. Because he had the artistic talent I aspired to and the intellect I wanted and the boldness I never felt I deserved.

I never understood why he liked my friendship, so I was constantly afraid of losing it. I knew I could make him laugh, but that only ever made me feel like a joke. I respected him so deeply that hanging around him was a constant, self-imposed challenge to be worthy of his company. To earn the right to hear his opinions, to deserve to debate the merits of science against the merits of art. He would respect your opposing point of view the way one respects a charging bull; powerful, but stupid, and could not be suffered to run around unchecked.

Once he started college he became an electrical engineer, and for years I was heartbroken. His drawings outclassed the sketches in any of the RPG books we would pore over. His writings held me captivated more than any published fiction I could purchase. I was afraid that he wasn’t living the life that would have led him to his best satisfaction, and I was saddened because my favorite artist had stopped producing art.

I finally challenged him about this life decision a handful of years ago. As he always did, he listened to everything I had to say, and considered deeply before responding. In the end I learned I was wrong. He had done right by himself. He wasn’t always successful and he wasn’t always happy, but he had walked the path that was right by him, secure in the knowledge that he would have made the same major decisions over again if he’d been given the option.

For many years I referred to Kevin as my oldest friend. More recently I would say, “On the day I got married there were eight people in the room. Kevin was one of them.” The first time I planned to get married I knew I wanted him as my Best Man. The second time, too. When I wed my Lady Love, my Charm, he was there as I’d always hoped he would be. Later I would realize that year had also seen the twentieth anniversary of the day I met him.

Whenever I’m trying to craft a project, eventually I hear his voice: “Sometimes you have to shoot the engineer and build the fucking thing.” The wisdom of da Vinci filtered through blunt, southern American charm.

He could cook, too.

Sometimes we wouldn’t speak for years, but he would cross my mind every day of my life. Jokes we shared, games we played, arguments we had, music we liked, movies we quoted, pranks we pulled on each other, all the mutual experiences ricochet and reverberate and make sympathetic imprints onto every corner of my life, from my kitchen counter to my bookshelf; from my computer chair to my driver’s seat.

The only people I’ve known longer, I’m related to.

In my mind, Kevin will always live in the present tense. His legacy and our relationship will shape the rest of my life, much the way it has since my earliest memories of him. I’ll lie down every night assured that if I am the best version of myself, it was because he inspired me to do so.

I miss him.

Acceptance

Part 5, In Which It Goes Just Like the Movies

I had made flight arrangements to return to Chicago on Friday, the day after the viewing. The day after I booked the flight I saw in his obituary that the burial would be on Saturday. My first reaction was to feel crushed; I had wanted to be there until the very end. I was embarrassed that I subconsciously figured the viewing would be the last thing. I wish I had asked someone before I started making flight plans, but the only person I knew how to contact was his fiancée; I didn’t want to trouble her any more than absolutely necessary.

I immediately started asking myself why this last bit was so important to me. Finally I decided that maybe it’s because that’s what happens in all the movies. It’s cold and rainy, the headstones are all grand and ornate and beautiful, and one person stands all by himself and says something fancy. Ultimately I let the notion go. Kevin wouldn’t give me shit one way or another.

All week long I kept getting the same question: Are you going to be there Saturday? It was easy to say no at first. I had already made travel arrangements. I had to go back to work. I couldn’t bear the cost of the penalty for changing the flight. But every time I was asked my excuse felt thinner. Weaker. Less worthy. I had been given the resources and the permission. I could have made it happen if I wanted to.

Eventually I came to realize the question had been more than casual. Slowly I gleaned that I wasn’t simply being asked. I was being invited. Requested directly by his siblings and his parents. “Will you?” turned into “I hope you can,” and I started figuring out logistics. When I heard, “Let me know if we can help you,” I fell headlong into an inevitable force akin to gravity, and started contacting everyone who needed to know that I’d be gone for two more days.

I awoke Saturday morning to grey light pouring in through the windows of my guest bedroom. Someone knocked and told me we’d be trying to leave half an hour earlier than planned, which meant I had to haul ass to make it happen. I did, and made it to the car in a respectable amount of time.

Cave Hill cemetery in Louisville is goddamn gorgeous. Every grave is a unique monument bearing ornate and detailed sculptures. During the drive late season snow had turned to sleet before finally succumbing to a mild, yet persistent rain. A small tent had been erected over the site, under which perhaps half of us were able to crowd for the final ritual.

Only two people stood to speak, the second of which was his Kevin’s father. He read from a small, leather bound notebook in which he had handwritten his words. What he said is not for me to share, but I can say this: he looked up once during the reading and his eyes met mine. Given the sentence he had just ended, I knew that there was no more appropriate nor necessary place for me to have been standing than right where I was at that time.

I got to say my own piece later – but that’s for later.