Early rising, before the sun, or with the sun. I went to bed early last night, watching my rehearsal footage from yesterday — just trying to stamp out the future conceptually from my mind. I did a monologue about the goddamn future — I lost it.
These gurus told me that the FUTURE writes the past. The Hollywood screenwriter’s brother gave me channeler tapes. Suggested reaching out to my future audience, and that really was not a good idea. All this downloading information from the future. It was an obsessive relationship to some future point.
And it seriously affect my life. I can’t think about doing anything, like performing again, or even writing, literally, without “future audience members” encouraging me to keep speaking… it’s just, it’s a delusional navigational tool. It doesn’t really exist, they don’t really exist. NOT in reality. In the here and now. Be real.
It’s as if these people thought I was going to be a giant “wow, oh, look,” she saw it all before it happened. I keep picturing one of these TV panels I’ve been going to, where the actors give me a respectful space to speak about… the reality of being psychic.
This wasn’t necessary. This step wasn’t necessary. So I still struggle with this logic I absorbed, even the psychic shit, so for the moment, I’m just speaking and working with where I’m at. I can’t stand it anymore. I cannot stand the future. Like, I’m performing, just standing in a rehearsal room, and I get triggered or I start to feel people channeling through me… so to speak… like I didn’t need this “shit.”
I’m cursing, rejecting it, stamping it out. Trying to get back to presence. Where I am alone. There is no future. There is no audience. There is only me. And of course, gazing out windows, there is something addictive about it, though I’m observing this strange addiction, because it’s my mind… it’s triggered. I’m stopping the mechanism.
Vogue Italia believes I am revealing the psyche and its mechanisms. So I’m grieving the road it took to get here, grieving this… I didn’t want to let go, because I believed so wholeheartedly, you understand, I believed in YOU, I believed in YOU, that was a gift, where I believed, you see. I don’t know if anyone has ever confronted a real, “this doesn’t work,” where you tried so hard. What a strange example of it, but I… was a fucking mess because of these gurus. And they don’t even have followers.
So, the future, I’m repeating THE FUTURE into a goddamn mirror — just getting it. the FUCK out. I can’t PLAY characters, I can’t ACT, I can’t WRITE, I can’t THINK! And will this be the key to unlocking my greatness? Hand in the air. The ultimate GOAL to the goddamn GURU. Wow, wow, “brilliant,” John Malkovich was there. The sign of true greatness: John Malkovich was in attendance to her show… she was in her curly hair bonnet, he might have even SEEN the ghost of Barbara Harris around me. “She’s doing the best she can.”
I have to laugh, I really do. Because, evidently, I want to find whatever it is that’s going to allow me to shine, find real success, I just, I wasn’t this fantastical a person. I was born in a fantasy flick (?) and all I wanted was — out. On magical chariots, turning to look behind me, as the darkness gets closer. “THE FUTURE.”
So I’m being very present with what I’m truly dealing with — I don’t know any of these people! I just want to be in a room with myself, grieving what I lost because of this direction, struggling with… how I have not one friend, not real friend. My friend Jo texted me, how are you, and I said, not that great today, because I outlined my story, but I’m letting it go and going to a film event. No response. Of course. Later, she said, how was the film thing. I just don’t know what to do with that, as I’m not like my friends, at all. I’m going, “how is that going? Do you need someone to talk to, even about these scenes?” I don’t care if someone cries, or if they are going through an emotional moment. It’s just, getting to a notecard, as I brought that into my monologue…you see, step one, notecard one is: she told me your father was raping you when you were four. Here’s the notecard. THE FUTURE! Picture Gandalf throwing his wizard wand in all the cinematic magic — that’s the guru.
I didn’t need movie soundtracks accompanying a pursuit like this, and look, I can’t imagine that actors are IN THE MOVIE of MAKING IT, looking UP at auditions dramatically, as if they can do this, it was too much. And I’m a writer. I doubt Joyce Carol Oates, who is IN my show, is acting like that. Just picturing her “downloading” information from the future… TO BE SMART. Crafty. She’s getting to the most resonant book BEFORE she begins. She’s sending lines of connection to her audience members. I think this sci-fi is hilarious. This action-flick even. I become a superhero of some inutile kind, totally masterbatory.
So use it? I am in that phase right now, where I fucking hate the FUTURE. I’m projecting my voice in this rehearsal room at the National Opera Center. Jesus Christ! And then, just like anything else, you make it better. I’ll get to a structured piece, but that’s where I am at right now, just still evacuating any kind of channeling, no no no. ANY kind of channeling. What do you do? You admit you have a problem, you face it, you let go of your attachment to it… and you admit you went down some dark road. And now, I’m just putting up notecard one, trying to structure out this story ahead of time. “She told me he was raping you at four.”
All that. All that. And last notecard, after going through the whole thing, “was it true?” A terrible thought. Putting together this story was a nightmare. But this structure is holding together, how terrifying. Maybe for the book I’ll bring back my older structure, meaning, I don’t know how to structure anything yet, and I didn’t need the FUTURE. I tried, I tried so hard, to follow this man’s belief… and why? Why couldn’t I get ahead? Why did I have to meet this person? You know?
I became a superhero… that’s where I went to next, as if I should wear a costume, a superhero costume, while putting up these notecards. I became PSYCHIC, able to ACCESS ANY AND ALL FUTURES—Joyce Carol Oates and I in a spaceship, hitting turbulence, as we make our way across the universe. Bumpy. She’s not concerned. She’s already in the future where it’s smooth sailing. “Good point.” I hate this guru, I never felt hate, before. I hate this guy. So I keep finding material that I like, that I can develop, which makes me feel better, but I still channel the future, whatever that means, which is — deeply annoying. I keep STAMPING it out!
I don’t need SUPPORT in speaking, writing, anything. It drove me nuts, it drives me NUTS, the channeling. Do not GIVE someone channeler tapes. So right now, right now in my life? What I’m dealing with? Sometimes, with Will Hunting, because I feel like my problems and story merit the return of Will Hunting, the psychologist, as he finds himself in that profession, which I think is a solid move, and it makes me laugh, at least. “THE FUTURE.” And this would be progress, you understand, because I haven’t been able to even articulate this. “Why am I getting CHANNELER TAPES?” It gets better, but the future is too triggering… the sci-fi fantasy flick too stimulating, so. I’m just trying to get back to presence.
What a mess. I’m telling you.
That’s my current battle. Just getting into a rehearsal room, and just trying to get, throwing punches, back to the PRESENT. Where NO one is watching. No attachment to outcome, even, and I can just work with me. I did not need this. And the worst part, is like, I feel so alone right now, because I’m looking at these notecards. I can’t find a friend to save my life. No comment, no response, and to me, it’s over, it’s so over with these people, but there’s nothing I can do right now. I don’t know how to respond to my friend…who can’t even ask a question as to how it is I’m doing… you see. Am I supposed to let it all go? My whole life go? Like, I really really don’t want to speak to you. Or am I to understand them? I would not act like any of them.
And this stupid guru, you see, with Maze Runner in my mind, that soundtrack, he believes I could — cinematic peaks being reached in sound — MAKE IT, a writer, floating and turning in a holy light. He believed my birth was divine. Amazing. I’m just at notecard two: she drives to my house. I’m FLYING with Joyce Carol Oates down low, to pick up notecard three, and fly back up: I alert her.
So, writing about this really ruined my life, trying to do any kind of profession with possible fame attached, not like you can’t be a famous academic, lawyer, doctor, it just doesn’t come, I don’t think, with the same CRAP. It’s a lot of CRAP. It’s really true, and I am not even famous, I just came from a sex scandal. Extraordinary, to Goggins, I believe. He would find it extraordinary. So much crap. I did not need it. I guess this screenwriter was a dork, a nerd, someone like this, who had a VERY colorful internal experience…?
I’m going to be forty this year, and I don’t want to see ANYONE. I don’t even want to go to my friend’s birthday party, just because, I was just ignored. And I can’t get intimate with new friends, so I can’t go there. I don’t know what to say, I’m in a place of total unknown, and luckily, I stamped out the guru almost completely, this Pillsbury Dough Boy. No offense. Because, looking back on him, what was he doing?
Might as well write a monologue, put on a performance of STAMPING out the goddamn future. Is John Malkovich coming to the performance? I DON’T GIVE A SHIT. NO, there is NO performance YET. But this is the type of thinking that the guru would have condoned. “Yes, very good.” NO! OUT JOHN MALKOVICH. You’re not WELCOMED here yet. But he sits firmly in his seat. I have to laugh. I have to make jokes. So I’m just trying to get to mental stillness. No pictures. No visualization. I don’t want to have a problem with simply putting on a show, like I’m trying to MOVE to BROADWAY or whatever…before I can even get through a monologue. I don’t know what to say but I wouldn’t just give someone channeler tapes. Even the shaman, the shaman I worked with, if you call it that, he would totally not advise giving ME, specifically, channeler tapes. That’s not the move.
And now, I’m dealing with space itself. I don’t see a connection outside of myself. I don’t want to be in a loop. I get there is STUFF outside of me, but to SOME, losing it, that’s an ILLUSION even? I cannot STAND THE PSYCHICS! Because what do you believe in?! Fuck you, and that’s from the ghost of Barbara Harris, (laughing), because, in the end, everytime I open up YouTube, without fail, and I’m not changing it, it’s Barbara Harris looking haunted in the First Affair. Without fail, youtube goes straight to that video, and it’s frozen on the same expression. A woman who could make you believe…that she’s really haunting/helping me.
So am I channeling THE FUTURE — somewhere OUT there? I do not even understand this SPATIALLY. Or does the FUTURE live inside of me? So why am I reaching???? Where am I reaching??? I hate this system of LOGIC. Right? Where everything is connected. I cannot stand it. So now, I’m just trying to relinquish the future, in a room, and I put that in the mix, it works. I can get a superhero costume. I can dance to movie soundtracks. Notecard five… a mastermind. OH MY GOD? was it true. Fist. Did my father rape me? And here they come… the voices… my whole life. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. Everyone I knew.
Before I even began. I had to cut off with almost everyone I knew. I couldn’t hear myself think. The guru will be Ubu Roi in the corner playing video games: the Hollywood screenwriter, the GURU, that’s how he held himself, for real with me. I didn’t need to be HELD UP. I’m telling you, this story only caused me problems. It brought me nothing. But I hope to find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I really do, just because I have no idea what to do right now. “And I do not need ADVICE,” picturing the White Lotus cast… not giving me advice… but this GURU, people, I mean, Jesus Christ. “Give the woman some room…”
So I’m trying to get to a reel, you know, and trying to think WHERE I would fit in the screen landscape, and I thought, well, White Lotus, maybe, with my psychedelic background, I could play someone who just got out of a cult. And it’s all about TONE. I was LISTENING, as they said, acting is LISTENING, so I was LISTENING, and going, TONE. That’s what Sam Rockwell said. So is she…broken? I mean, sure, but there are different WAYS to be broken. I’m fucking PISSED, because I have to WORK OUT real mental health issues now. I’m FINE, you see, but my MIND, yes, the computer with WIRES connecting to my whole body, that’s NOT FINE. It’s a goddamn mess. I’m drinking coffee, coming to terms with the REALITY of the human body. I have another hour booked today for rehearsal.
I’m just going, “yes, that’s good” for now, leaving it be, moving onto something else. There were silvers of a character emerging, especially around this guru, which was the Joker’s Daughter, that’s my personal goal. But I suppose it’s all the same, it’s coming from the same place. I need to get past the channeling audience, whatever the fuck this is, so I can work on character. I need to be alone. So that’s my work right now. Just wrestling with my mind, literally speaking, bringing it down. Stop.
So thanks GURU. Thanks assholes for telling me I was psychic. Even the psychic, supposedly, the woman who was psychic, she never told me I was psychic, exactly. I’ve got arrows drawn on the psycho spiritual plane, forget the imagination, and Joyce Carol Oates popped up right there — we’re with the ALIENS, making our way across the universe, AIMING to publish a book. Lightning speed—ahead. Warping, bending time, heading for an agent. Backflip. Onto their desk.
Boom. The draft of drafts.
Booker Prize. 2027.
And I’m like, Kill Bill, one toe. Just trying to move my one toe. And look, I don’t understand this man at all, because didn’t he write it line by line? What a strange man, what a strange preoccupation.
Anyway, I saw that EPIC published something on their social media channels, that they got this weird draft that was delightful and then, he’s now a staff writer with them, and his story got made into a documentary. That’s where I wanted to head…So, I’ll keep working on this, not knowing what to do about income, as I didn’t have to WRITE, like I was writing. And this guru, I do not understand who he was on the other side of the telephone line. It scares me, it really does. I find him terrifying. So I have to keep figuring out this piece, income, as I don’t need to work at night, in a restaurant. I’m making my own stuff, so I can rehearse at night, I crave a normal schedule. I just don’t know WHAT to do.
Who I was, I guess she’s still inside of me, but she’s a different iteration, she died. I mean, artists reinvent themselves, but I didn’t change like that. Looking at the guru, I have no idea if he even liked me. I mean, my personality. I didn’t like him, actually, not at all. I just didn’t know that. I didn’t find him a pleasant experience. How could I? WHO would want to be me in that relationship? He wouldn’t want to be me. A GURU, hands behind his back? Some dude who made a couple of movies? No offense. It’s not to cut anyone down, but WHY he was a GURU I don’t know. What life experience did he even have? Right? I didn’t understand his pompous attitude, and you see, the more I peer, the more I see some rich boy — are you… I really didn’t understand his family’s desire to help? They all have a thing, it seems. It’s weird, they should stop. Like, their sister simply invites my friend to come hang out for a week, she buys her clothes, shows her a nice time, which sounds NICE. That’s what SHE got, and I got — this guy. I didn’t need that shit.
And now, I got the FUTURE to work out in front of an audience… of some kind. I’m going to keep watching my rehearsal, so I can pick out what’s working, what’s not, and I have to STOP— Maria, no one gives a shit, not right now. No one is reading this. No one is following you, you see. No one gives a shit. Do I, meaning, me, only me, do I want to do this? I have to separate from some external point desiring that I DO this. Terrible. It’s really terrible. Just stillness.
Look, assholes, if it turns out that I am PSYCHIC, you can shove it up your ass. Straight up, you know. Especially because these DUDES acted as if they were PSYCHIC, like what the fuck is everyone’s obsession with having superpowers? The guru —I see you, I see you. That’s a condition, isn’t it? A narcissist? I don’t know WHAT that is, but the conflated ego thing — that’s not okay. And I gotta reject, these slimy feelings, like you’re NOT my father, yuck. You’re not a mentor. I was a GIRL in a cafe, okay, writing a book about a heavy story. And that’s what you did.
I just shiver, yuck, when it comes to this guy. Look, um his partner recently died, and he acts as though nothing affects him, who cares? The line between death and life is arbitrary, according to him, and I’m not going, “time to back up…” smile, and leave. “Sure, next week, feeling faint, must have been the salmon, byeeee.” I guess he had time on his hands? I really really really didn’t need to be INTERESTING to some shadow of a man regarding me as if he were a superior being… I get he was older, but that was — hm, a step beyond that. Several.
So, I hope, I woke up this morning like, what do I do? I really don’t want to work at a restaurant. I gotta keep applying for jobs. It’s more like, I get frustrated, because I couldn’t meet a normal person? I didn’t need help, if you would, but I met HELPERS who were not helpers. Now, I identified a direction. EPIC. Film and TV. Story writing. Everything I’m working on could be funneled through them. The Year I was Invaded by the Russians. Even Barbara Harris.
I just have to get there. And right now, this structure holds together. I’m sure it will adjust, but it holds together, and I spend some time yesterday just throwing the sections into a new doc, and now, I’ll read through that, and I’ll work on it step by step. I can’t do the whole story. It’s too big. It merits a book. But I can just tell the story of what happened. And maybe this will be section one of the book, or something, as, really, there’s nothing bad about my writing, it’s just structure that has been a battle. And I don’t think it’s a matter of reaching into the future for the ME there — in the future — who KNOWS HOW to structure a book. Ah, clever. Imagine John Malkovich playing this person, the guru.
“OH MY GOD—AMAZING!!!” People are flocking, John Cusack included to the theater, who is a fan of Barbara Harris. “Yes,” the guru is saying, “yes, the ENERGY of Barbara Harris is assisting you.” I can’t, I’m moving to the Knight Rider soundtrack, through these strange ties. Trying to GET to the undercover investigation — notecard FIVE. Slam dunk. And in the end, I will be a hero? Hilarious. Walking out, a Victoria Secret model in lingerie… to the theme of Knight Rider. Applause. Wow. I’m ONLY with models. You see? I ONLY hang out with models. That’s it. Kill anyone who approaches me.
Do not hesitate—legs: go.
I’m in the car — making a getaway. Knight Rider. I’m asking a model, “has anyone sent you their dick on Instagram messenger?”
“Yes.”
“WHY?”
“Not the question. Just delete.”
It’s a strange world.
But I went out last night — with a psychic arrow directed at another LAYER to all this — and I happened to see a bar I never noticed before, and it seemed to be a jazz venue. So I stepped in, I got confused, so I left, I stepped out and regarded the signs out front. (I just got out of a cult, so skiddish.) Okay, deep breath, I walked in. I took a seat at the bar, and the booths were red, it had an inviting vibe. And it’s a jazz bar, and they have a real venue, and you can sit at the bar and listen to the music without paying for a ticket, you just can’t sit in the venue. I spent the last couple of hours singing… which always makes me happy…and yes, I have to work out the future, yes. Where my mind will project some image. It’s truly harrowing.
But anyway. I worked on singing. I ended up in this bar. I was speaking to a woman who lives in the neighborhood, so I made a new friend. She goes out a lot as an older woman. In her fifties. She knows everyone. So I thought, okay, maybe I’ll be able to find a gig in my neighborhood. I don’t know if I have an AGENDA about it, but I thought, shrug, I’ll do this video… I’ll work on a jazz one, I guess, and I’ll go to this bar, hang out, get to know them, and see what happens? That was fun. And I got a bunch of suggestions as to where to go in my neighborhood. There you go.
I left, I put on some makeup, I was in sweats, I’m still a little afraid, because I don’t know to say about what I attract, but I’m not young, that’s the other thing that made me so angry. Ridiculous. Something felt as if it opened up, but it’s just — if you can follow my logic and how annoying it is — I DIDN’T HAVE THIS PROBLEM of “things needing to open up,” I just can’t STAND the guru. But I suppose, because it’s as if I can’t even appreciate that I had a serendiptious evening. Simply. I find that expectations like that, I mean, I don’t know who this woman is, I don’t know anything, but I found a cool spot to hang out at, around me, and I’m going to explore my neighborhood as I like it, it’s very old school NY. It feels like NY. I like the area. Cue: St. Elmo’s Fire. As I always put the sex scandal to that soundtrack…
If it’s about a family who really finds themselves in this situation — the mother is the SAX, sexy, Brazilian, as I always made fun of her, which she didn’t mind, she knew she was hot, you see, dancing across her carpet — but this family of sports stars, you see, these Brazilian Jews, they take home a four year old, and they get child molesters, insane people, and they are going to GET HER through this. A total nightmare. That’s one direction to take it. And in that case, you see, we really went through this, picture the Breakfast Club, but JOSE Leibowitz is the one lounging here. Not Molly Ringwald. We’re a family of 8… with grandkids… who became nine. And this is their story. I picture the whole family in red sweaters, the parents in the downframe, holding this edition. She’s looking into the camera like… she doesn’t know what to say… this is how we became a family…
I loved that, I was thinking a variety of things, it’s just, the ending, the real ending, it’s not exactly an ending. No one is going, “yeah aw…” when she sends me home with them. It’s like, “wait what?” I mean, holy shit, I mean, the SCENE, it’s all about THE SCENE: that she invites him over to her house (picturing the father’s face, close up) and tells him that she lied, you see, about him… which is why they put on those spectacles for him? He goes, “she can stay here while I figure this out…” And truly, in thinking about this convo, I went, “wow.” Um? Picturing a real dad? “I’m sorry?” It could be such a great moment. “She can stay here while he figures this out?”
Just picturing a father on a couch, blinking, receiving this. That she invited him over? For one? That she said, what? I’m sorry? She lied? Wait? What? Just the reception… the build, that would be his build. It would start small.
Or you treat that scene differently. It depends on what the story is, if he’s guilty, innocent, I mean, I don’t know what to say, but at least, it’s a good scene. And I’m going to be looking at actors, okay? Applause, gold clap. Good job. Right? It’s a good scene. Except, no one got that, that you have to find something to love. It’s a good scene. I need to reach a place of distance. It happened a long time ago.
But — this father, no no no. “Stay here until he figures this out?” Looking at Jose. I don’t know what to say about how this story would unfold, but the character of her husband, because WHERE was this guy? Became — central. The Jew, the father was a Jew, finds himself in this situation. And we’re dancing regardless. The lambada.
I saw nothing but potential in it, at least.
So I gotta get there. I gotta get off my blog, still, it’s part of the same problem. I can write, but I write a lot, right now, as letting go of all that stuff has proved to be rather difficult… because there’s SOMEONE reading this? I find this to be hard, because I could have spent these hours working on my EPIC piece, just needing to let go.
So I will.