J.T.: Limbo

I mentioned it in my first post, and I think Jordan/Missy has written about the question of where our shapes go after we get changed by the Inn a bit - she may be trying to make movies now, but in some ways she's still kind of a computers and tech person at heart (at least, I don't know a lot of filmmakers that think like her), trying to figure out mechanisms and storage space - but it's not really the first thing on our minds most of the time.  We're so "oh my God, I've got to pretend to be this other person!", at least until most of us have to deal with someone else who has to pretend to be them, that is kind of a relief to not think of the other side.  The brain can only handle so much, right?

But when you're the last person who stays in a room for a summer season,  there's no other person who takes on your identity, no you out there in the world.  And I don't think it's too arrogant for me to say that I left a bigger hole than some; being famous (or once famous enough that you still have some fans) means that the discussion of your absence online isn't entirely localized to your family and friends.  Heck, it got mentioned on TMZ, although not in a way that really came across as concerned.

I talked with Elaine about that a few times in person, although she wasn't terribly sympathetic, saying that she figured that explaining the fact that you weren't around ultimately had to be easier than explaining why you did something, because it's ultimately something nobody can either prove or disprove - "you" just aren't there to leave a trail.  She's going to have a mess to put into some sort of coherent narrative later, to say nothing about figuring out how things are going to work with Daryl.

(That was a hard part of the letter to "the next Elaine" to write...  "I know you may be a guy, or older, or a teenager - and if you're a kid, just ignore this - but please keep things going with this guy you've never met, but don't fall in love because you've got to hand him off to someone else who hasn't met him but wants to!"  I feel weirdly possessive of him even though the sexual attraction is fading fast, and he'll definitely be in my mind the next time I'm playing a gay man.)

I'm back in New York, back as myself,  and it's surprisingly easy in some ways - my agent has dropped me, my reputation for being reliable has taken a big hit, and there's dust all over everything in my condo, but both the city and the business I'm in handle prolonged absences all right.

And yet, I'm kind of nervous about getting back out there.  Me and the rest of the band are getting together later this week to see what we want to do; we've got a lot of new perspectives we want to work with, and my band-mates are a couple now even though they weren't before.  It will be good, I think, helping to put my time as Elaine in the past, rather than something that lingers.

I probably won't rite or check here again.  I'll be close to Elaine forever, I hope, but thinking about all of this when I don't have to has had me paralyzed over the last week and a half, and I've got to focus on being me rather than my time as Elaine (or that of anyone else).

-J.T.