Me: What should I blog about today? I don't have any ideas.
Katr: Why don't you blog about not having any ideas?
Something I love about Katr is how generous she is with ideas. "Ideas are infinite," she likes to say as I steal hers, "ideas are for sharing!"
I, on the other hand, am very miserly with my ideas, because I fear that for me and my tiny brain, they are a finite resource. Which is why, for example, when I hear about a show description that sounds in any way similar to something I've done, I get all panicky like the douchecanoe I am, instead of knowing that it's probably fucking fine.
When I finished The Good Bride last year, I didn't have any ideas for what I was going to write next except that OMG, I'M SO BORED OF STORIES ABOUT STRAIGHT PEOPLE, NO OFFENCE, STRAIGHTS, so I figured that whatever I worked on next would be "something gay". And I read lots of books and watched lots of movies and listened to a lot of music and was a homosexual and a year later, I have zero ideas.
I'm collaborating sporadically on a few different things with a few of my favourite people, so it's not like I'm not excited about stuff or that my brain isn't working. I just don't have any NEW ideas.
This wanky navel-gazing came up because Playwrights Theatre Centre here in Vancouver has this program called "The Associates" where you apply with a "big idea" for a play and you get to work on it with them for THREE YEARS OMG SO FUN YES PLEASE.
I applied the first year, in 2010, and wasn't selected. Then I applied in 2013 and got to the "please send more support materials" stage and then didn't get selected.
So this year, I was hoping to at least make it to the interview part of the process before they realized that I'm just not that smart but that I do occasionally stumble into good ideas, the way a bear stumbles into your campsite and gets her head stuck in your peanut butter jar. (That's a thing, right? I don't know, I don't really enjoy camping.)
I was pretty sure that I would have an idea before the deadline. I REALLY wanted to apply for this thing and I've been waiting for THREE YEARS to apply again. But as the deadline got closer and closer, my lack of ideas loomed larger and larger. Like, let's be clear - it's not like I had a bunch of bad ideas and rejected them. I literally could not come up with a single thing.
I wrote my letter of intent. I updated my resume and gathered my support materials. All I needed was an idea.
And then the application was due in just 24 hours. And I still had NOTHING.
A little crestfallen at my impending failure, I took a moment to reread the submission criteria in the wild hope that it would spark something, ANYTHING OMG COME ON. And that's when I saw that this year, they had changed some of the wording in the application materials. This year, the project in question should "somehow reimagine theatre."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OH OKAY THEN.
I'm sad to say this, but I'm not personally interested in reimagining theatre. I think it's great that other people want to reimagine theatre. You go, Glen Coco. I will buy tickets and marvel at your genius and hope that some of it rubs off on me as I wander barefoot through the bushes, dressed like a possum, watching scenes from your parents marriage performed in the hollowed out trunks of redwoods while the rain licks my face and tells me secrets. But Jesus H. Christ, I'm just a simple lesbian. I just want to tell cool stories and hear/see cool stories. And if I have to come up with a great idea that ALSO somehow reimagines theatre? Yeah, I'm not going to get that application in on time.
The application was due on Tuesday and I still feel a little pang when I remember that I couldn't get it together. I REALLY wanted in on this. But clearly my mind field needs to lie fallow a little longer. That or I'll never have another idea again. Either way, life is still pretty great and I, as my wonderful friend Glst likes to say, am a very lucky fish.
This corgi knows what I mean.
we've almost made it to the weekend, you've earned this: here's a happy lil doggo playing with balloons pic.twitter.com/F6MfVn0EXu
— megan brown (@thatgirlondeck) November 17, 2016
