Loud skin

Apparently I'm on drugs. This came as a bit of a surprise to me. Though perhaps it shouldn't have. It kind of exploded then crept up on me, now it's creeping all over me.

The story.

I had headaches in October, they grew and got worse, so in December the doctor gave me some pills to take before bed to help me relax. Those pills were also anti-depressants, apparently. They also made me sick. Slightly vertiginous and nauseous. For two full weeks, then lessening. Other than that, they seemed to work. Now I've been weaning myself off them the last couple weeks. Skipping a few nights, etc. Then the other night I noticed that something else has been creeping into my life. My skin. Or at least my over-awareness of it. I itch. All over. Now all the time. It just kind of happened. More than that, my body feels wrong, like everything is in slightly the wrong location. My hands annoy me the most. When I hold one hand straight where my fingers touch all the way along their length, it annoys me greatly. Just the feeling of it feels wrong. Even my hands typing, my fingers, all the edges that touch things give me the sensory equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.

This is a wondrously new and fantastically irritating experience. My skin does not cause me pain, but in the same way, it feels as though someone is pulling it from the rest of me. Not pulling my skin off, there's no pain like that, but like they are separating the layers, and each layer has its own unique version of annoyance. I am too too aware of my skin. I'm not wishing it would melt, but it is everywhere, and feeling everything. I try to read a book, but my hands scream at me a silent protest to the prolonged touch of the paper. As does my skin for being on my body. This is not a happy feeling. I felt it in small ways the last few days, but tonight it exploded into something fierce, with a head and teethe, ready to eat me whole.

I just took off my shirt, but I'm still itchy everywhere it used to be. This I do not want. Now I can feel what it's like to come off drugs. I'm glad mine were just prescription, but this single experience has been, and is be a great big one. I will avoid drugs like this as long as I can. I do not want my body needing something so bad it cannot function like a body should without it. Why do doctors prescribe tiny pills that have such a huge impact both in their beginning and end of treatment? I do wonder if the headaches were better. As it stands I've not had them, but I will risk revisiting them as long as I can fully estrange myself from the varied sensations this medication has brought me.

I'm conjuring a solution with an over the counter antihistamine as a temporary source of relief. I can't imagine being so desperate as to choose this for a lifestyle. I can say no, some people are addicted to things the cannot say no to by themselves. Now there's a place I would rather not find myself. In that perspective, I'm all right, because I know my skin will eventually shut up.

Extreme moderation

Improv is a lot more instant than wine. I make wine and I take improv classes. Some of my wine takes two or more years to really start to be enjoyable. Improv however, is fairly instant. Saw the level above me perform last night, and I'm amazed at how differently I watched it than other people, even other people in my class. It's the perspective, I think. A general audience watches it and sees a show, whereas I am in the category of people who watch it for the structure; how all the stories interconnect, how much the players are listening to each other and how important they make gifts they receive.

One of my things, is that my mind fairly instantly goes to an extreme, or at least to the absurd. I saw more than a few scenes go in this direction last night, which nailed down the note I got to make things more real. Basically, to keep the character and the scene grounded. When I first got this note I saw it as being grounded, but now I see it's not a restriction to what I can do, instead it's a note to help keep the audience involved and interested in the show. I can still be in space, but I still have to be grounded in space. Absurdity is still allowable, but only in extreme moderation.

Acting at first sight

Yesterday I was involved in the very first audition for Portland's biggest casting agency in their new location. This was great for me, because I wanted to christen in the new digs. I was even the first actor to show up. I helped read for the first auditioners (groups of four), and realized some things I did right by seeing what the other people were doing. For example, staying on script. They also didn't really connect with each other, which is sad. Acting is connecting with people, whether they are there or not. Having just done a film mostly in front of green screen to other actors who were not actually there, it kind of hurt a little to see these people standing right next to each other and not connecting. Though I know I've had these exact moments before, so I can't really complain and not be hypocritical.

Then it was my turn to audition with my group. I knew one of them from a play we had done a year earlier, so that was a good start. The real (mini)stress was wondering who was going to audition as my wife. I feel that it is very important when you play a couple, even in audition, you have to, you know, touch each other. At least pretend that holding hands is small potatoes compared to what you've done with each other in private settings. Luckily, she was great. We had our arms around each other and gently put our hands on each others legs and made those small actions of saying: Hey, there's love here; dig it.

This led me down a whole different meandering mental path after the audition. How strange it really is to walk into a room, meet a stranger, act as if you've lived full lives together, then part ways, maybe only to see each other at another audition months later. Is it strange? I'm not sure I have the proper perspective for this one. I'm an actor, so making things real is what I do, whether they are or not. Acting is not pretending, acting is knowing and exploring what could be and conjuring it into reality. For those five minutes, we were a couple. Then the walking to my car thinking about...you know...the stuff people think about when relationships end.

Life is just strange no matter who you are.