"I discovered that my castles stand Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand..."

It was a good weekend, but I only got most of Friday free of the consequences of having been involved with DA. He wasn't even fucking there and our relationship bit me in the ass. In a nutshell, I feel powerless and vulnerable. I am tired of doing everything I have been told and being asked to do more.

I don't know the whole story and that's part of the problem. No one is talking to me directly. I only know what I was told and it was by a biased source. I can't complain about the situation, I am bitching about how I feel about what I know.

According to a source, the bad penny has turned up again. (I am going to just say bad penny, because the less detail I give, the better.) The Powers That Be (PTB) called my director in and told them that they have been in touch with the Bad Penny and that they want us to work with them to resolve the ongoing conflicts.

By the realms of heaven and earth, what the fucking fuck?

I sat down with the mediator that the Powers That Be provided. I said I was amenable to whatever resolution process was appropriate. I gave up my time to work on resolution.  I have been careful to keep complaints and concerns to a select group of friends (that would be y'all) and even here, I haven't mentioned the name of the event in over a year. I have tried to honor the requests made by the PTB and respect what they are trying to accomplish with their new approach. I am still blogging, but I am trying to be very vague and I know exactly how many people are looking at a given entry. Not only that, but in order to see an entry, you have to be logged in. Yes, someone could be taking screenshots and passing them along, but I believe that I can trust the few people that have access to this blog.

I feel that Bad Penny's response was very disrespectful. They shit all over certain participants of the event, they dismissed the efforts made by the PTB and didn't feel the work just about everyone else who has tried to accommodate them was sufficient. Worse than that, they posted about the lack of action on Facebook.  I would like to note that they have 1000+ friends on FB and they named the venue. The screenshots of what they wrote were circulating within a couple of hours.

I know that it comes down to what I think happened versus what they think happened There is fault on all sides. What I can't understand is why the PTBs are willing to talk to them after they violated the request to not air the dirty laundry by naming the venue and revealing other identifying details.

Bad Penny was given a chance. They very publicly declared that it wasn't enough. At that point, I feel it is Game Over, go home. Bad Penny can ask again next year. But no, more time, more bandwidth, and more wasted effort will be required. Or I can leave; at which point Bad Penny will likely come back.

I am trying to remember that my anger and frustration are valid. I am trying to be understanding. I still believe that Bad Penny is hoping that by hurting me and airing our grievances, they will get DA's attention, even if it is negative. It's not logical or rational, but I think that the core of the problem is not me, but DA walking around the venue, seemingly untouchable. I remind myself that DA hurt one of Bad Penny's very dear friends after repeatedly promising not to. I don't think Bad Penny can make a case against DA, as much as they would like to, so who else can they lash out at? Yep, me.

This doesn't excuse Bad Penny's behavior, it just helps me deal with the repercussions and remind myself that I have tried to be open to resolution and not be a child about it.

I wish I could stamp my feet and say that this is all DA's fault and he should have to deal with it. I wish I could believe that DA taking a step up and involving himself in this situation would have any sort of salutary effect. I know better. 

I don't believe that DA can help with the current situation and even if he could, I doubt he would. I strongly feel that if we could have formed a working relationship last year, Bad Penny would have had a less receptive audience for his complaints. DA's behavior toward me and the way he has treated me this year and last gave Bad Penny's claims a lot more credence to the PTB and their minions. As I told him last year, DA didn't have to be my friend, but his inconsistent treatment and his mixed messages about me have only sullied the matter and left me more vulnerable (again, in my opinion).

This is what I want:

• I want the PTB to quit yanking everyone around. Either Bad Penny sits down with the mediator, as they were invited to do, or the management tells them to fuck off and go away. 

• I want DA tell his director and anyone else who will listen how this all started. Ideally, DA should also talk to the mediator. While it was years ago when this all started, DA played a significant part. If he were not participating in the venue, it wouldn't matter, but again, he has chosen to do so and then not taken responsibility for the waves he has made. 

• I want DA to sit down with me, apologize for all of these fucking consequences (at which point kosher pigs will fly out of my ass).

• I want DA treat me like the person who brought him into this venue and recognize the effort and investment that I put in to it. 
•  I know that my friends disagree with me, but I am firmly of the opinion that if you break up with the person who brought you into a hobby/venue, you either figure out how to coexist with them peacefully or you go the fuck away and give them some goddamned space. You don't get to play the victim and pretend like you didn't do anything wrong. (This is why Bad Penny's allegations have merit in the eyes of the PTB, again in my opinion.) 
• I am tired of being treated like a mistake that he is trying to forget.

However these desires are apparently too much to ask, so once again I am back to deciding if this is all worth the mental effort. I did have a good weekend, but I had a really bad panic attack on Saturday night. The mental effort to keep this all together and put on a show is emotionally wearing. 

I love the venue and I love performing. I am tired of having to fight an uphill battle to do so. I feel that if our gender expressions were different, Bad Penny and DA would have been told to shove off last year and I wouldn't have heard word one about it. It's not all DA's fault. It isn't all Bad Penny's fault. However, how much of this and how long before I am allowed to say, enough?

I feel that I have done everything I have been asked. I pulled my blog from public consumption. I don't communicate with Bad Penny or DA. I haven't made a public scene, text bombed, or done any of the shit people do to hurt their ex friends or lovers. Even so, more emotional labor is expected of me?

Before DA came into my life, the venue was a place of safety and expression. I was finally getting comfortable with my character, my performance and finding my place. Now I am constantly worried that I'll have my pass taken and I will be kicked out because I dated the wrong person and ended up taking the blame for his actions. I worry when I pass people who are familiar with the situations, wondering what horrible things they think of me. Women are a dime a dozen in theater. easily replaced. It seems men can molest very young women and cross boundaries for years and nothing happens to them. Why would anyone hold DA or Bad Penny accountable for making things difficult for one older lady?

What hurts the most is that I asked, no, I begged DA to help me with this issue last year. He promised he would. Instead of asking me what would help me, he decided that he knew best. As far as I know, what he decided was to say few nice things about my teaching to one of the PTBs. DA couldn't have damned me with fainter praise, because the last thing a theater group needs is a good teacher. I think he gave Bad Penny ammunition for this year, since they mentioned my teaching relationship with the venue and how that made me a representative of the entire group and that my actions are therefore harassment of them and their social group by the venue, not just me.

I don't think Bad Penny will be happy until I'm banned. The fact that the PTB are still willing to talk to them after everything Bad Penny has done makes me feel like they may just ask me to leave so that the whole mess goes away. I have seen them do it before when a valued performer threw a snit.

I hope that I am simply walking in the land of anxiety and worst case scenarios. I feel so angry and powerless. I just want to kick at anything and everything. I want to send DA a screed of my own, but it's not like he gives a damn or would even read the bloody thing. I suppose I could just send him a copy of this entry, but same thing, what's the point? I want to rip Bad Penny to shreds and say things I know will hurt them.

At my angriest and pettiest, I want to send DA the tattered remains of the letter he sent me thanking me for being so supportive during his first year in the venue. I want him to receive it onstage so he can get a taste of what the past couple of years have been like for me. I can't think of something vindictive enough for Bad Penny, but if I could, I'd want to do that, too.

But that is against my ethics, so instead I stew and feel helpless.

I chose the song because it reflects a lot of how I feel, even though it seems very grandiose.

Today's Song is Viva la Vida by Coldplay