Publicity!

There's a great pic of me in this week's Time Out New York. See if you can spot me!

I love publicity. ;)

Better....

Thanks for all the comments and support after my last post. I was feeling pretty bummed out. But the last few days have actually been pretty good with IBF. Not as good as in the beginning, but we seem to be on the mend. We've been forced to communicate better, and he let me know that a lot of this seems to be him freaking out. He says he'd been single for so long, and all of a sudden it was "Us us us!" and he just had trouble dealing. But now he's the one who's talking me out of breaking up--I've certainly been questioning quite a bit in the last few days.

Last night I stayed over, and we had a great night. Laughed, talked, were generally silly with each other, and when my mom called with a crisis, he actually was wonderful, listening, helping me deal with it, and finding a solution. He seems to be returning to his former self (I hope?). I'm hoping for the best, but not expecting much--just going with the flow right now.

Not Going Well...

So, the day after my last relationship post, IBF and I had a talk. I went over to his house to get my stuff (I didn't want all my crap there if we were going to break up) and so, we talked things through. He insisted on breaking up with me for about an hour, while I protested that that wasn't quite fair, given what was going on in my life. But everytime I tried to leave (when he told me that me not valuing his health [actually sleep] over my theatre company... see previous entry... was a dealbreaker, when he said that there's no point in trying to work things out, we're just incompatible, etc...) he wouldn't let me go, saying "I don't want things to end like this."

In the end, he had a sudden change of heart, gave me back the keys to his place, said we weren't breaking up.

And I've been on pins and needles ever since.

I'm super sensitized to him now. I feel like everytime I say not-quite the right thing, have any issue at all, he'll use the opportunity to break up with me. I feel like maybe I talked him into not breaking up... and who wants that, really?

So, I dunno. I think I've been subconsciously talking myself out of being in a relationship with him, a bit, in order to protect myself. "He's not motivated enough. He's not attentive enough." Every slightly-negative (and very human) thing he does bothers me, is examined and offered up as evidence as to why we shouldn't be together. My heart is just trying to protect me, I know, but it's causing major problems. We can't seem to get through an evening without an unpleasant ending.

Wednesday I headed over after my show, we talked and were having a good time until he started initiating sex. Of course he just kinda jumped me, which before would have been more than fine, but in my fragile, vulnerable state, it wasn't enough to do the job. I wasn't turned on enough, I wasn't into it. And he realized this and stopped, as I apologized, telling him that it's hard to be vulnerable with him.

Tonight started out well, till he started on some random lecture about co-dependency, telling me that he has a tendency to be co-dependent. I think this is absurd, as a co-dependent, in my book, would fawn all over their significant other, something he doesn't do at all. He says "I just don't realize that he does" and the argument begins. Yikes. But somehow we start laughing, let it go, and have an awesome evening. Until we're in the cab home, and drunk, and I tell him how I'm feeling guilty about something that happened this week, and he starts up on all the reasons why I should feel that way. No, it didn't go exactly like that, but that's the jist of it. So I get upset, and he gets defensive, and all of a sudden he realizes he's left his bag at the pizza place we were at, so I get out of the cab, and he turns around to go get it. Of course everything valuable has been taken, and he's upset and is going home--he's not able to deal with us right now (understandably).

We can't seem to go more than a few hours without fighting. Not a good sign.

Canaries in the Goldmine?

So despite my recent bad relationship news, I'm still an artist. And when I got the following email this morning, it really got me thinking.

Now, there's nothing new here that I don't already know, or think, but to have things put so eloquently is good to see. Any New Yorker who wants New York to remain a cultural city needs to read this email.

Yuck

The last two weeks have been pretty intense for me. I've had two shows open, more rehearsal than humanly possible, and have been trying to squeeze in friend time, work time, and a bid on a house. Not to mention spending time with IBF. Things with him have been a bit rocky, but I've been chalking it up to these intense last weeks. Things came to a head today, though, and it seems we have a quite uncertain future...

Friday was his friend's birthday. He's close friends with this girl who's totally gorgeous, who of course tends to make me feel insecure. The fact that he used to have a giant crush on her doesn't help either. Anyway, before we head over to her party, we meet at Union Square. And twice(!!) he totally drifts off while I'm mid-sentence, and just stops listening to me, watching the breakdancers. So I let it go, but finally can't handle it, and call him on it. And he says that he can still hear, even if he's not looking at me, that he's not going to "yes dear" me, and ends up getting mad at me for being mad at him. WTF?? He doesn't get over it, either, not through dinner, and not seemingly for the rest of the night. I have to head over to rehearsal at 10pm (we pulled an all-nighter... not fun) and he sweetly brings my forgotten script over at around 1ish (which I desperately needed) and heads back home.

The next morning I wake up and he's gone (he had the finals for his pool league and had to wake up at 5:30. Yikes). So I hang around his house for a few hours, he calls and says he lost. Bummer. That he's on his way back. I ask if he wants to come to the opener of my show, at 7pm, or another show afterwards (there was a possibility he'd still be shooting pool at that point). He replies that he'll probably be sleeping through my show, but the other show sounds good. I then have to jump through some hoops to get tickets (the other show is sold out) and get my friends at the theatre to arrange for comp tickets for IBF. Nice, right? But when he gets home he tells me he's too tired to go, and won't be attending either show. When I get upset (I had to pull a few strings to get the comps and now I'm gonna look like an idiot) he starts telling me that I'm so selfish that his health is less important to me than how I look to the theatre company. Since he's only tired, not sick, I say "um, yeah" and leave (I have to go open a show--and now we've had our 2nd fight in two days. Not the greatest place to be.)

So last night I decide not to crash at his place, even though I was planning to. I do send him a text message, though: "Sorry I got so mad. Sleep well. See you.... Mon?"

This morning he's online, but not talking to me. Finally he IMs me and we start having this huge argument online, which I finally insist on taking to the phone (an IM fight? How wrong is that). Basically he's feeling smothered the last few weeks because he can never be spontaneous with me--he has to plan seeing me in advance, and since I don't have that much free time, he ends up hanging out with me whenever I'm free and doesn't see his other friends. And he's the type of guy that doesn't like to make plans, so he can't make plans with his other friends, he just usu. calls them up that morning to see what they're up to. But he can't do that with me.

So now, we're talking breakup. As I see it, we only have a few options:
1. Continue how things are going
2. Try not planning anything and see how that goes (when I suggested this, he jumped on me, saying "why are you thinking THAT all of a sudden")
3. Break up
4. Take a break

He said he's taking option 5, time to think. So I'm heading over there to get a bunch of stuff I left over there that I'll need. He says he don't know how much time he'll need to think, so I'm planning worst case scenario.

Honestly I'm not really feeling very optimistic right now--I'm feeling like every time I'm upset, he turns it around to him, and I'm totally unable to see why scheduling time together is such an awful thing.

Yikes.

Apology

Dear Readers,

Please let me apologize for my recent disappearance. My first show opened Saturday, and fellow bloggers Pookalu, Betty, Damn It Anyway, Dolly D, and Typewritten Teacup joined me for opening night. Everyone really seemed to enjoy it, including the reviewer that came -- we got a rave review!

The evening was capped off by finding a big picture of myself in Backstage, the actor's newspaper, and Downtown Chic's fun (but cold) rooftop birthday party.

However, there is no rest for the weary, as I found myself in rehearsals for my next show on Monday. I'm a bit masochistic, I think, tacking two big shows at once. But we're getting through everything. This other show is very political, a collection of American propaganda woven together into one great crazy piece. I'm not as featured in this one, but the director is brilliant, and if your politics lean to the left, you'll probably really enjoy it. We open Saturday! Yikes!

More updates to come, I promise.

Forgive me?

Sincerely,

Polly

Getting Ready for Opening...

Last night we had our tech for my new show. Yikes. As with any show, our tech was long and filled with problems. We don't have all our props, our lead doesn't know all her lines yet (not her fault, she has a million and they're all the same--I'm confident she'll learn them by opening), and we're rusty on a lot of the choreography.

Yet I had a total burst of excitement. Dressed to kill, sitting in a darkened, empty theatre, this is what I've been waiting for for the last 6 weeks. And soon we'll have audiences! Yippee!

The festival has been doing super well--it started last weekend, and two shows were completely sold out. Hopefully our show will be as well recieved--we've put posters up all over the neighborhood, so we may get some walk-ins. I'm really proud of this. I have a bit more accent work to do (I totally had my character's speech patterns down, but lost it after a week of not practicing) but I think we'll be ready to go by Saturday. Fingers crossed!