Tilting at Windmills, Continued (Patreon)

<<Hello dear Ess

I am not in charge of the acts anymore as I am retired from the Moulin.

Our acts are booked for many years.

I personally think that your act (loved the short trailer) is not for the Moulin.

You need an intimate place.

Maybe Paradis Latin (very Parisian show).

Anyway, I will show the trailer to some friends in showbiz. They may give me other options. Let's keep in touch.

Regards,   Thierry.>>

* * * * * 

I lay on my stomach in bed, huddled over a pillow, staring at Thierry's response.  I guess ... that's that.

I felt even worse than I thought I would feel. I'd been there. I'd performed on that stage. I'd felt the crowd. I thought I had it figured out. I thought they'd want it.

My negative internal monologue began picking up speed like a runaway train. Such hubris.  You're not that good, see?  What did you think you were doing? Why did you think they'd ever want *just* you?   I knew it wasn't good enough.

I sighed heavily and flipped over onto my back, throwing my phone aside and staring up at the ceiling. I'd had a dream in my mind of what life would feel like on a longer Paris contract, built on the bones of memories from that short string of performances Troy and I did there at the end of 2019:

Artists working at the Moulin Rouge stay IN the building. There are beautiful apartments, just for the artists. You open your window and the famous rotating red windmill is right there.  I imagined going down the little cobblestone street next to the cabaret in Montmartre, grabbing late-night eats with the other artists from the deli or the crepe stand on the corner that has currencies from all over the world taped to its walls like wallpaper. I thought about walking up to the top of that road and buying flowers in the morning. Of sipping coffees in the evening at the bar across the street where all the dancers go after the show.

I thought about how it would take no time at all before I was speaking in French again without constructing the sentences laboriously in my mind a first, of thinking in French, of dreaming in French.

That's not going to happen now.

The thought dripped down the insides of my head like rain on a window, over and over.  Ughhhhhh! I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut. It's too god damn early in the day to be this negative, Ess, I told myself. Try thinking of it another way. Read the stupid thing again. Be practical. What useful information is there to glean from this?

Okay. Suck it up. If Thierry says that he doesn't think it's right for the Moulin, then it's not. He would know. He only worked there for FOUR DECADES. So be it.

He said he liked the trailer.

That's good.

He said he's going to share it.

That's nice too.

And – remember? – Dorothee had said in that earlier audio message that she thought that the Paradis Latin cabaret would be a good fit. You trust Thierry's artistic opinion. Take this as reassurance that you can keep trusting Dorothee. She must still be trying.

I dug around in the rumpled sheets of my bed to find my discarded phone.   An email had landed in my inbox while I'd lain in bed agonizing:   It was from my film & TV agent, Frank. The UBISOFT video game folks were getting more insistent, asking for more availability from me later in September and early October for the voiceover project I was doing with them. The initial time frame that UBISOFT had given us was "just a couple weeks in September"; Frank had been holding them off this whole time with a hard cut-off of September 23rd for them, so that if/when Zurich came through I'd be able to travel and start rehearsals with them on time. But apparently videogames don't work the same way as film and TV. Their timeline was sprawling out far beyond the initial dates they quoted. They wanted answers from us – now.

But I still hadn't heard back from Dorothee about whether or not Gregory wanted the act in his Zurich cabaret.

Shit.

I needed to message Dorothee again.  

* * * * * * * [ to be continued]