hello, my name is brittany and today i will be presenting two contrasting [inner] monologues, both from "The Inner Workings of My Head When I Should Be Concentrating on Other Things." ahem.

~~~~~

savor this one, it's rare i feel this way.

it's a fact. old people love church.
for obvious reasons.

so, naturally, as an activities director at a nursing home, i go to a lot of church services. as of late, however, i've noticed a disturbing trend in the attendence of many of the churches.. they generally stroll in late or not at all, and put on quiet, distracted, disheartened performances for the few residents still sitting there after waiting an hour and a half watching me pace back and forth, looking for at least remotely religious-sounding music to pass the time and desperately avoiding actually improv-ing a sermon like one of the other activities people apparently did once.

so yes. lately i've been fairly jaded as far as organized religion goes, or at least the organized religions represented at the nursing home.

...and if a church is going to blow off people purely because it doesn't think they can hear, see, or understand it enough to give them whatever verbal credit it believes it deserves, i'm done with it. this is me building an ice wall of jaded disappointment between myself and an increasing number of so-called christian organizations.

but today someone came in with all the sweet revitalizing power of a steaming cup of french vanilla hot chocolate at the edge of a bad morning.

it was just a pastor (minister/preacher) and his wife. no entourage. no fancy stereo equipment or programs or vacant expressions. only the words to the songs they were going to sing in simple booklets, which they passed out to everyone who wanted one.

they arrived on time.
they spoke out and loud.
they helped bring residents in, helped take them back, knew most of them by name.
they shook hands with everyone, including those residents with disgustingly disfigured knuckles and fingernails and the yawning activities director slumped at the edge of the crowd over a near-illegibly scribbled list of names.
they treated the residents like they were human beings. he didn't stand behind mr. [uber-strict privacy act], who can't speak due to a stroke, with one hand on his shoulder and the other in the air as he recited random memorized televangelical prayer for healing, but instead looked him straight in the eye and joked that mr. [stricter policy by the day] had better pay attention and practice, as he'd be performing a solo on the next song. that elicited a smile and refocused eyes, as opposed to the vague, spacy discomfort usually associated with the whispering televangelist act.

it's people like this husband and wife team of pure good that gives my faith in people a toe-hold on this eroding precipice overlooking total shutdown that is my soul. and they always come right at the point where i'm actively looking for the roof.

so i'm glad for them.

~~~~~

::pauses, closes eyes, breathes. barrels on::

~~~~~

i'm doing a scene with brando for states.. "hopscotch" by isreal horovitz... ::melts at mere mention of name::

my character, elsa, is the rudest, most angry, defensive character i have ever come across. she has a mouth like a sailor, talks like a prostitute, is practically raped at one point in the scene by her counterpart, and turns around and likes it.

i read the script and freaked.

but when we read it out loud, oh when we read it out loud...

we were in the middle of the lobby with lunch happening all around us and brando is definitely not as physically intimidating as he should be as his character and we were reading directly from scripts and the list eater and cronie were hovering centimeters from the hair standing up on the back of my neck, mimicking us because apparently it's funny BUT...

oh god it was so good.

the writing, the words, the raw, unadulterated, unschooled emotion...
i fell into character and stayed there, screaming curses and spewing filth from my mouth like a cornered viper, striking at everything i could to inflict some kind of harm somewhere, anywhere.

i was elsa, and he was will, and i hated him with so much passion that i wanted him even more, fueling the hatred and insults and frustration that much more.

i am head over heels in love with this scene

isreal horovitz is a writing diety.

~~~~~

::stops, breathes. refocuses. smiles, curtsies, backs out::

p.s. it's really 1:00 in the a.m. don't let the time up thar fool you.

ink :: graphite