Of Challenging Individualism and Film Auditions

Good evening, all! I am no longer down about My Prince, or, indeed, anything at all! Nothing at all! Except for maybe the fact that I just got an email from the actor's guild saying that there were auditions for a film that was being filmed locally. Well, where I used to live, but it's only forty-five minutes away. I feel like I'm passing up a big opportunity not going, but my mom's getting married the day after auditions, so I'll probably be really busy! Plus, I think they really want professional actors, and I've only done a few plays and some acting lessons. I don't want to make a fool of myself. Sigh. I wish I knew what kind of people they were talking about. You probably don't need much acting experience to be an extra, but... I don't know. I guess I could ask N what she thinks I should do, beacause... she's coming back from Connecticut tomorrow! I think she's going to stay here with me, too! I am so excited I can hardly wait!! Apart from that, I've been doing a bit of writing (not entirely unusual), and I think I've come up with a good bit for Raspberry Beret. It's kind of farther along in the story than I actually am, but I really like it. The scene is a conversation between Rosie and Claire that challenges Claire's punk vibe. Actually, I don't know if I put the bit where Claire meets Rosie on my blog or not. Well, if I didn't, Rosie is one of the people who live in the Purple House. Claire meets all of them, and spends most of her time there. She is going steady with Sebastian (one of the other people who lives in the Purple House) at this point. Here's the scene:

"Why do you do that?" I finally asked Rosie, as we sat on the front stoop that evening, watching the sun creep excruciatingly sluggishly down the sky, turning the blue expanse ever-so-gradually ino a twisted collage of gold, pink, and orange. The dark representations of the houses in front of us lengthened surreally.
"Do what?" Rosie asked, her voice punctuating the chilly, brisk evening air that hung around us.
"Dress like that," I answered, listening the sound of my own, softer, voice cutting almost as sharply through the almost silence. I tried desperately to lower it and still be heard. "Listen to music like that. Just like everybody else does. Don't you want to be different?"
Rosie raised her eyebrows at me. She looked almost angry. "I am different. I just don't have to wear it or blast it out of my car speakers to be it. I'm not insecure."
"I know, but I dress different and blast it out of my car speakers because I want people to know it."
"Can't people just get to know you to understand your individuality?" Rosie challenged. "Isn't that what getting to know people is all about, anyway? You don't ahve to shove your personality into their faces. You wouldn't just go up to someone and say, 'Hey, my favorite color is yellow,' would you? Sometimes surprises are good, Claire. They make life interesting."
"Yellow is a very sick color," I informed her. "Sunshine, sunflowers. Everything begins with 'sun.' Yellow is the cult of patriarchy."
"Beside the point, Claire!" Rosie said in exasperation.
I didn't even respond to that, just stared at her. Usually my "I-don't-give-a-crap" stare combined with my "Get-out-of-my-way-you-rat-worshiping-tramp" stare was pretty powerful. But I didn't hold a candle to Rosie. I suppose all her years as queen bee in high school had taught her well, and she was a master at staring people down. Now she was combining it with disbeleif and anger. It was prevailing. Ruthless.
"Fine. So what if I shove my personality in other people's faces. At least I'm nonconformist. At least I'm still an individual."
"No. Being nonconformist doesn't make you an individual. What if I want to conform just because the conformist thing to do is the thing I want to do? Would I do what I don't want just to fit into my own boundaries? Just to be 'nonconformist'? That's crap. That's what's not being an individual."
"But being nonconformist is hardcore," I argued. "I'm hardcore. You're... sorry if this offends you or anything... not."
"I don't want to be hardcore. I just want to be me. And there are so many of you. You're not all individuals, you kids who call yourselves 'hardcore,' because, frankly, you're all the same. You all have too much angst, so you have to hide behind your baggy clothes and all-consuming headphones, listening to music that just makes you angrier and trying to express yourself through art that only depresses everyone around you so that they can end up just like you. In fact, you're almost like a cult, just sucking in everyone else in with you." I couldn't think of anything to say. I was just stunned and, I'm sorry to say, a little impressed by this display of raw opinions. At that moment, Rosie could have been a poet. I didn't have to think of a worthy response, though, because she plowed on. "But you're not even like them. You aren't full of angst, are you? You're just like this to piss off your parents. Doing things just to be rebellious. It's the most ridiculous crap I've ever heard," and she propped her chin up on her hand, turned, and watched the much-farther-progressed sunset. Rosie never walked away, even when she was supposed to, even when it was so anticlimactic not to that it almost made me cringe. She just turned her head and expected that you wouldn''t talk to her.
I got up and did the walking away for Rosie. I walked back into the house, and through the living room. When I got to my favorite door, the most daunting door, I knocked a few times, and stepped back to wait, hardly noticing the Broadway musical posters that I usually surveyed with cynical interest. Before two minutes were up, Sebastian opened the door. When he saw me, he smiled, and all the darkness flew out of the world on a high speed jet belonging to Arnorld Schwarzenegger. It's phenomenal that some people can twitch their face muscles and make the world right again. I collapsed into Sebstian's arms without a word, falling over sraight-backed and straight-legged, like a gymnast, into his waiting embrace.
"Wo-oah," Sebastian said, as he caught me. I took some of my weight off him, but couldn't bring myself to pull away from his warm, comfortable chest, swathed in a soft gray cotton t-shirt. Sebastian wrapped his arms around me and said, "Hey Claire. What's shakin'?"
"Rosie and I just had another argument."
"About the ketchup again?" I could hear Sebastian smiling, even though I didn't take my face out of his shirtfront to see.
"No. This time it was about being... individualist, I guess." I told him.
"What? How did that come along?" Sebastian steered me toward his bed, and we sat down together.
"Well, we were sitting there watching the sunset, and I stupidly asked her why she dresses like she does and likes what she likes, because it's all just like everybody else. And we got into this big debate..." I told him all of it, about how Rosie thought it wasn't cool to be hardcore, and about how I had accused her of being unoriginal, and about how she was just so right.
When I said that last part, Sebastian scooted away from me on the bed and turned so that he could look into my face without ravaging his neck muscles. "Claire, Rosie's not right. I mean, she has a point, but she's not right. You and Rosie are very different people, and you both have your own kind of different. Rosie's is more subtle. It's mostly just the little quirks that you can only see when you get to know her. Your different is loud and overstated. You wear it and talk it and breathe it, really, and you want to make sure everyone knows it. Do you want to know the reason, Claire?"
He actually stopped and waited for me to answer. Most people would just go on and tell you the answer, even if you really didn't want to hear it. But this time, I did. "Yeah, tell me."
"Its because you don't care as much. You don't care what people think. In fact, you want them to think you're a freak, because you want to make a statement. Am I right?"
He was exactly right. I don't know how he always managed to put my jumbled, screaming feelings and thoughts into civilized words, but he did. I couldn't think of anything to say, or how to thank him, so I just let my head fall into his lap and folded my arms across my chest, hugging myself. He rocked me gently back and forth. "Sebastian, can I ask you something?" I said, after a while.
"Anything," he answered gently, leaning down and kissing me on the forehead.
"Do you ever argue with Rosie?"
"Not anymore," Sebastian said pensively. "We used to fight nonstop. I remember one particularly bad argument about some turnips. Rosie insisted that they were okay, but I thought all the purple was a bad spot. We screamed and yelled and stormed off, even."
"You sure don't know much about turnips," was all I could think of to say.
"Nope. Never did, never will. Not really my thing, you know?"
Suddenly, I was tired of joking around. I usually loved it, as any sane person would, but right then I wanted answers. "Why don't you ever fight with Rosie anymore?" I asked, and Sebastian must have heard the tone of seriousness in my voice, because he stopped chuckling.
"I'm not sure. There wasn't ever a clear reason, or even a clear time that we stopped. We just matured, I guess."
"But Rosie and I are older than you were then," I insisted, sitting up.
"Well, yeah, agewise, but you haven't known each other for very long. You haven't matured together." Sebastian clarified. It was amazing how wise he could be sometimes. I found it difficult not to imagine him with a long silver beard and a monocle. "Claire, don't mind what other people say." He put an arm around my shoulders and gave me a little squeeze.
"I know." I replied, a little snippily.
"I know you know," Sebastian said mildly, ever-tolerant.

Now don't get me wrong; I am most definately not against nonconfmity and punk-ness. I just thought it would be interesting to challenge it. Anyway, my future plans for this story are to have a scene where Sebastian and Rosie do get into an argument. Claire overhears, and bites her lip because she thinks it's her fault. It turns out to be about something kind of serious (I'm not sure what yet, but I think it will have a lot to do with the plot of the story.), and Sebastian goes to Claire for help. I don't want Sebastian to be all wise-man-of-the-forest and Claire to be a damsel in distress, so I don't want Sebastian always helping Claire. That's not how it should work. Well, toodle-oo!

Ever-So-Happily,
Rosie L.