2002-01-07 - 12:06 p.m.

My sister has gone back to UCF, leaving me my bedroom once again. I no longer have to sleep on that fucking couch. No more horrible pains in my shoulders (and neck), no more using two small couch cushions in lieu of proper pillows, no more having no clothes because all my laundry is buried beneath the tons of belongings my sister saw fit to bring home with her. That includes almost a dozen stuffed animals of various colors, sizes, and stitched demeanors. Katie had better grow up quick, cause I don't want to visit her in 10 years to find a shelf of plushies staring back at me from the hall. Thank GOD the beanie baby thing is over with, or Katie would be $3000 in debt from 'ralph the rabbit's and 'percy the elephants's and whatever. I have a room again.

So, that makes me happy. But then, not all is calm and peaceful today. On the day (saturday) that we drove her back to Orlando (Actionhero, I would have hung out, but there was no time to do so. However, I'll be up sometime soon, and Border's coffee and reading materials will be on me) I mailed off my applications to (acting) grad school. And proceeded to have a fit. Somewhere around Port Saint Lucie every self-doubt, every pre-cognition of failure, every bit of me that has ever tried to keep my feet on the ground, they all spoke up, and I felt a little crazy. I I wanted to call the post office, say 'tear it up, I made a mistake, do you think I have a chance?' I got to talk about it with my dad (Katie wasn't very interested in the conversation, it having nothing to do with anime or plushies)and by talking it out I knew what I was afraid of. I'm not afraid of failing to get in, I'm afraid of being told I never had a chance. I'm afraid that they'll laugh at me, and say, 'Look kid, we have thousands of people to audition today, so thanks for wasting our time. You're not in our league.' I'm shivering even to write that.

Maybe I've got too much faith in DesCartes: mind and body forever separated, no bridge between the mind and the world. I don't know what I look like, how I come off, how I SEEM, and so it always leaves the possibility that I look like an worm, even when I feel like a god. When I was five, I became convinced that the mirror was lying: I saw a perfectly normal face, but maybe my face was really blue! I can't see it, and fun-house mirrors lie all the time. Maybe it had something to do with being teased, trying to understand why, when I saw nothing but a small boy with glasses. I wasn't sad about it, or afraid, but I knew it was a possibility.

In many ways, I see human interaction as a tightrope: you can't mess up, even once, or it's all over. On New Year's, I got a little tipsy, slightly oh so slightly, and tried to pour wine for the table (the waiter should have done it, but I was feeling helpful). When I put the bottle back down (after spilling a little by Rafael's glass, a drop or two, but a mistake nonetheless), it immediately fell over: I had placed it on the part where the two tables had been pushed together, the seam covered by the tablecloth. It broke a plate, and spilled more wine, and I was told to leave the wine-pouring to the waiter. It wasn't important to anyone there but me, and I felt shame for pretty much the rest of the night. Why? I've known these people for years, I'm good friends with about half of them, but I saw them as an audience for 'Padraig'(registered trademark), and I'd screwed up the act. I don't relax very often, I barely relate to people without some form of act, but the acts are so ingrained now, so comfortable, that I don't realize that I'm acting.

Maybe it's good that this happened: it reminded me that I should stop doing it, reinvent myself, trust myself enough to be accepted without living up to arbitrary expectations I've set myself. That's why I'm so worried, because I don't trust myself to be accepted, so I act to cover it up, but if I can't control the act entirely, if I come off differently than I intend, then what hope can I have? How could I get into an acting school like that? I need to seriously look at what I will do if I don't get in: if I have a plan, I won't have to see these auditions as the be all and end all of my life. I'll be able to relax, and be, paradoxically, a better actor. Acting is acting like you're not acting.

God help me.

�

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