bethb's Diaryland Diary

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me serving the superficial

So....ok. Twice within the last two weeks someone has questioned the fact that my job is a full-time job. As in, they were surprised that what I do could in fact offer up 40 hours of work a week. When in fact, it could offer up about 55.
What really gets me is when they say to me "oh, well, i just do it in my kitchen. and out of the goodness of my heart".
which i guess is nice, but here's the thing? My heart has no goodness left in it. Seriously. This job has turned my soul black. Every time I have recieved a note like "Joan Van A needs more masculine writing on this letter" a little bit of my soul has died. Every time I have had to break plans because a director has decided the beautiful pewter goblets he's had in rehearsal for the last three weeks aren't right so I have to find new ones, a little bit of my patience dies.
I have nothing left in me at this point.
I've had to remake 80 some letters because an actor decided he needed a "." after a sentence in a letter. A sentence that Shakespeare wrote. In the 500 some years that that sentence has existed, a period was never put there. but now there has to be one on this stupid piece of paper you need to read on stage (which, by the way? whatever happenend to learning your lines?).
So I had to remake 80 letters. I don't know why it's always the paper props that get me the angriest. i guess it's because it seems like it's always percieved that what i do doesn't take time. but when there are changes, it tends to affect me in multiples. Since i do all the rehearsal props, and the show hand props, and all the bought furniture finding.
so, actor x, when you decide you can't do you scene without knocking over 2 chairs a table and a lamp, i have to find exact multiples. No matter how incredibly wasteful i think it is to need to throw a chair across a stage (which, by the way, if only one chair gets thrown, i'll need a minimum of 8 avg. one chair a week. depending if we can fix it, i might be able to get away with 4-6, but one week is usually about the life of one abused chair)
and the back-ups have to be exact. like down to the 1/8 of an inch. any variation in book size, chair weight, paper texture, plate color will "throw an actor off".

and my soul dies a little bit more

9:56 a.m. - 2007-02-08

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