Phoeblog: Thoughts on City Living

In Search of an Urban Identity, or, Reasons Why I'm Not Cool

2009-06-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

I am not cool enough to be here. This thought runs through my head on repeat as I walk through the East Village to meet my new friend Ben for open mic night at Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A. I am not East Village cool. Some days I fake it better than others. Today not so much. I haven't done laundry in over a month so my wardrobe options are extremely limited. I'm wearing a grey v-neck t-shirt I found in the back of my closet this morning that seemed to be less dirty than anything on the floor of my room, a very old pair of jeans from the bottom of the drawer that are worn and ripping in between my thighs, my trusty old Converse All-Stars and a black cardigan that I wear every single day, and for some reason seems to avoid ever getting too dirty for me to not wear. And no underwear. I ran out five days ago and have been going commando ever since. It's actually kind of liberating... although going without underwear in my Morimoto uniform this morning was undoubtedly disconcerting. I don't know why it should be... my friend Kelly proclaims never to wear underwear with her uniform, and her skirt is much shorter than mine is. The point is, I'm painfully aware of how lacking my outfit is in the coolness I imagine to be requisite in the East Village music/variety scene.

Ever since I moved to New York I've been plagued with this stupid idea of what my life should look like. Truthfully, I've always had these ideas, this heightened sense of self-awareness regarding how I fit into my surroundings, and which surroundings I want to fit into. There's a cultural fabric to any urban community, woven by the collective aesthetic and idealstic consciousness of its inhabitants. I've never understood how people come to be part of a "scene". Maybe it's because of my nomadic upbringing that I've managed to accutely hone my ability to adapt to different environments; as an identity-seeking young adult, I am eager to find a scene to belong to, a communal tapestry to blend into. And so, I move through my urban adventures fluidly, observing with great care the rituals, fashions and attitudes of various communities, hoping to find one that will embrace me easily, as if I was always meant to be there.

It would make sense, one would think, that I should fall in with the Theater Scene. I am, after all, well versed in the audition vernacular, the rituals of post-show gatherings at various bars and diners in Midtown Manhattan, the geography of the Theater District, what with all its many rehearsal studios and theaters both big and small. I can talk Broadway talk. I still read playbill.com occaisionally, and I still check out the auditions listings, and although I rarely participate in the whole circus these days, I always know what's going on. These were supposed to be my people. I've been to enough open calls to know exactly what they're all talking about as they recap the day's audition lineup. I know who all the big agents are, who works for what agency, which casting director casts which Broadway shows, who's starring in what these days, and I know people who know people in every show on Broadway these days. I suppose I am a part of the fabric, though these days I feel a bit like I'm a loose thread dangling off the side, hanging on half-heartedly. My friend Molly includes me in her gang of theater friends occaisionally, and while they're all lovely, friendly people, and I can follow all their hours of shop talk with ease, I never really feel like I'm being integrated into the group. This, I'm sure, is no one's fault but my own. I suppose I could participate more actively in the conversation, though I don't really do the same kind of work that they do. Molly met her many actor friends on tour, in various regional productions around the country, several productions of 42nd Street, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Oklahoma, White Christmas... splashy, flashy spectaculars. This is not the kind of work I was meant to do.

Last week I tagged along with my friend Heather to a rehearsal with this band she has joined with her friends from the tour of Gilligan's Island: The Musical. The atmosphere was undeniably different than any gathering of "theater people" I'd ever encountered; one of the kids instantly poured me a cocktail (Smirnoff and jalepeno peppers) so I'd fit into the vibe and I chilled out in the corner of the small studio as they jammed away on a number of original songs that Ben, who'd been the technical director on the tour, had written. It was fun, cool... a group of people I instantly felt comfortable around. It's pretty awesome to have friends like Heather who will tell everyone that you're super cool, talented, sassy, hilarious and hot, so that when they meet you, they instantly like you because Heather does (and Heather, of course, has all those rockin' qualities as well, so you see, she's quite a reliable source.) My friend Elyse does the same thing... she makes friends for me, before I ever show up, simply because she's so charming and everyone assumes that all of her friends are charming as well (which, well, they are. My college friends rock.)

Anyway, the next thing I know I'm being invited to a dinner party with Heather and her tour friends, at the home of her friend Dani (an awesome girl who's awesome boyfriend happens to be starring in Jersey Boys on Broadway right now) and Ben is inviting me to join his band and bring my "fiddle" along. (I don't have the heart to tell them all that a "fiddle" is really just a violin played by someone who has more guts and less training than I do, but I figure I can make do... it's breaking me way out of my comfort zone, and I'm at a place in my life where I figure that's the best thing I can do for myself.) And I'm thinking to myself, "okay. I like the way this life is starting to look to me. Oh wait, it's my life. That's right. My life is pretty cool after all."

Last week I had an impromptu reunion with my ex-whatever-he-was. I'd been eagerly anticipating such an encounter, despite the nausea-inducing anxiety it caused me, not knowing whether it would be excruciatingly awkward and painful or plain and simply comfortable. Thankfully, it turned out to be the latter... it almost felt as though nothing had changed, like no time had passed (although we both obviously knew it had and were tactfully avoiding discussing it.) I won't get into the details, but later I found myself feeling strangely assured, even though nothing had changed and I knew there was still no way I was going to get what I wanted from him.

On paper, this boy is perfect. Perfect in my estimation, at least. Early thirties but so childlike so there never seemed to be a serious age-divide, creative, goofy, genuine, sweet, with a whole slew of cool Brooklyn-hipster friends. Though he's not a hipster himself... he would be, if he cared at all what other people thought of him. He's one of those people who is inherently liked by everyone who meets him because he completely lacks pretension. He's just himself, his wacky, dorky, cool, fun self. He lives in this gorgeous apartment in one of the most charming parts of Brooklyn, works hard at a creative job which he is very good at, and has fun whenever possible. I must admit, part of the appeal of being with him was the idea of being integrated into his cool Brooklyn life, which to me seemed so ideal. His friends are all interesting, quirky, rad people, and they all adore the hell out of him. For a short time, I got to be the girl on his arm, the pretty girl who must have been pretty cool for earning such a great guy's affection. There was a part of me that loved the idea of being that girl, that felt so special and interesting and worthy of this awesome, charming, affable person's attention. Like I could see myself reflected in his eyes, and lo and behold, I was that cool, gorgeous girl that he was enamoured with. And I could be a part of such a complete life.

A complete life.

This is a great concern of mine. Living a complete life. A life that looks the way I want it to. The way I always imagined it would look. I've been obsessed with that idea since I was a teenager, going to performing arts school and dressing myself in avant-garde styles of my own creation, fashioned from self-tailored thrift-store finds and wacky accesories from costume shops and vintage stores I frequented with my best friend in dowtown Toronto. And then, converting to a SoCal girl in flip flops and jeans and sweatshirts in the winter, driving around the suburbs with my girlfriends on the weekends, making out with my junior prom date in his parent's convertible Mustang, and grabbing taquitos or Taco Bell on the way to rehearsal for the latest community theater show I was doing. And then, transforming into an urban college student, with tights and a leotard under my sweatpants for ballet class, running lines in the 6th floor lounge where all the theater kids congregated between classes, and then heading to the bar with my fake ID after rehearsal for a friend's birthday party.

Since I've lived in New York, I've yet to find my scene. I've dabbled in various places, be it with the hodge podge of creative kids who made up the service staff at Lunetta, the off-off Broadway crowd where artists make strange, overly ambitious art for free because it's the only way for them to work, or even the super-trendy team at Morimoto... where the maitre-d works part time at Gucci and everyone goes out after work to the clubs in the Meatpacking District. There are problems with all of these groups, for me. The kids at Lunetta all drank too much and slept with each other...too much drama in the workplace for my taste. The off-off crowd are mostly older than I am, and as much as I hate to admit it, they all represent a path I hope my career never takes... one of relative failure and settling for what one can get. They can be a jaded bunch. And while I dig all the Morimoto folks, I just can't keep up with that level of trendiness. If I had a ton of money and something to prove maybe I'd be all about the designer fashions and places-to-be-seen, but I just don't care. It all seems so silly to me.

And now? I seem to have lost out on one chance at being a part of the off-beat, low-budget Brooklyn scene, the first scene I could maybe see myself fitting into. Although, I had a moment, sometime after running into the ex-whatever, where I started to think, maybe my life is complete the way it is right now... maybe this is the way it's supposed to look after all. Just because I didn't get one big thing that I really, really wanted, a life that included this boy and his world at least for a little while, at least until it started to feel like my own... doesn't mean that can't still be a part of my life. It's maybe in past-tense now, suspended in the nether world of Things That Could Have Been or Things That Were For A Little While. Or maybe, it's one of those Things That Still Can Be...Just Not The Way You Thought They Would. After all, he and I are supposedly friends. That was the plan, anyway. We're certainly friendly to each other, and not trying to pretend the other doesn't exist. I have no doubt that I'll see him again, and relatively soon. I want him to be a part of my life...I always did. So maybe the feelings will fade from both of us and we'll be left at a place where we really can be friends, without romantic tension. Maybe. I hope so. That's my second choice...since I'm obviously not getting my first choice.

So maybe a life that is made up of many lives can be complete in it's own way. It's almost like I could draw a map, or a family tree of all the circles and scenes I can put my foot into. I have myself at the hub. Then all my glorious college friends around me in the center. They've all started to carve out their own niches in the city and now we share each other's niches when we can. Friends beget friends. Heather's tour friends, Molly's theater friends, Elyse's show friends, all the restaurant friends... maybe someday I'll get to share in Josh's niche as well... when we're really just friends.

My life has always been this strange montage of things. To paraphrase Tennessee Williams, I have always depended on others taking me under their wing. I've encountered a great deal of generosity in my life, a generosity I try to share whenever possible...I only wish I had more to offer others in return. When you're established in a community, you have the strength of that community supporting you. When you're a social vagabond like me, it's much harder to feel safe and supported. I am thankful to have a toe in all these different ponds, but none of them feels like mine.

I just want something of my own.

Ugh. Phoebe, your life is your own. It's all you've got. You can make it whatever you want. It doesn't have to be anything other than it is. What you've got is varied and spicy and full of potential. Can you focus on the potential for a second? Instead of fixating on lost opportunities? There are so many opportunities you can't know about yet! Just be patient!

Ugh. Patience is so not my strong point.

Life, Literature and the Pursuit of Happiness... By Any Means Necessary

2009-05-08T21:54:00.000-07:00

"... those [women] whose partners were most symmetrical enjoyed a significantly higher frequency of orgasms during sexual intercourse than those with less symmetrical mates.

"Handsome men know this firsthand. Studies show that symmetrical men have the shortest courtships before having sexual intercourse with the women they date. They also invest the least time and money on their dates. And these handsome guys cheat on their mates more often than do guys with less well-balanced bodies.

"This is not what we women would like to believe. Instead, we like the bonding hypothesis which says that women with kind, caring mates will have the most orgasms. But the reality is that men may just come in two different categories. There are the ones for hot sex and the ones for safety, comfort and child-rearing. Women are constantly longing for both wrapped into one package, but sadly science shows that this may be wishful thinking."

-From The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine, M.D.

Here we go. I need to publicly come clean about something. I have been sucked into the world of online dating. I'm not proud of this new dabbling of mine... dabbling that, alas, seems to be spinning itself into a full-blown anthropological fascination. I'll add myself to the ranks of frustrated career-minded women who've declared that they never, ever thought their curiosity would get the best of them and drive them to databases in secret, embarrassed hopes of finding some desperately needed intimacy. The irony is astounding... reaching out to complete strangers across divides both technological and geographical, in an effort to connect with another living, breathing human being. Intimacy is what reminds us that we're truly human. I'm seeking validation of my own humanity by sitting in front of a machine for hours, typing. Scanning through thousands of pixels, excavating for some impression of emotional truth. It's totally and completely bizarre. An oxymoronic concept.

And yet, millions of people are meeting this way. A girl I knew a million years ago from doing community theater in Vista, CA recently friended me on Facebook. A quick scan of her profile and I discovered that she was married and living in the midwest, after meeting her husband on eHarmony.com while he was in school and she was teaching English in China. The courted on Skype, and were already emotionally committed to each other by the time they met in person for the first time 6 months after being matched up online.

Freaky, right?

The online revolution never ceases to confuse, titillate and frighten me. My generation was the first to grow up with this kind of technology at our fingertips, and now as new generations evolve, we're all growing more and more distant from each other. It's a conundrum to me: the entire world is literally at our fingertips every single day, and yet we sit isolated in our homes, each glued to our own individual screen, communicating through snippets of text, video and picture, forming entire relationships with people we've never shared the same air with. Are we mover closer together as a species or farther apart?

My own personal journey into the ether of eRomance has come 180 degrees since my first trepidatious logon to OkCupid.com in late November. My friend Dan introduced me to the site on his iPhone one evening over sushi in the West Village. "See, it quantifies your compatibility with another person, so you can find people with similar interests and values. It takes away the random guesswork" he explained. Now, Dan and I are very different types of creative. He is a techno-geek, type-A, aesthetic-obsessed web designer/entrepreneurial hopeful. Symmetry and the ability to quantify commodities are of utmost importance to him. Whereas I'm much more adaptable to chaos theory. "But Dan," I said, " I just don't believe it's possible to predict chemistry, no matter what percentage of your interests and values match up. Chemistry, unlike common interests or intellectual compatibility, is totally random."

"All I'm saying is, it wouldn't hurt you to put yourself out there. You don't want your vagina to get cobwebs, after all."

"Please don't ever say anything like that to me ever again."

The next day, I was called out of work. It was cold and rainy outside, so I decided to stay in bed all day and, well... Dan's offensive words still echoing in my brain, my curiosity got the best of me.

The first two weeks I was hooked. OkCupid is like the Facebook of the dating world. It's free, it's mostly self-determined, there is all kinds of gimmicky, procrastination-inducing shit to play with... plus, the advent of being able to see who's out there is intoxicating. There are so many factors to weigh when sorting through potential candidates: besides the obvious (attractive pictures, appealing height/weight/occupation/location), there is selection/creativity of photos and information, grammar/syntax/spelling, creativity of usernames... I found myself quickly compiling a mental list of pet peeves: guys who use their actual first names as user names (i.e. Adam4562904), guys whose self-summaries start with "I'm an easy-going, laid back guy...", guys who post shirtless pics and/or pics of themselves in muscle tees (ew. Only acceptable on gay men. And maybe not even then.) I'll admit, I can be very judgmental, often judging a book by its cover. Being a girl, OkC gave me an acute appreciation of how much control we ladies have over our dating lives. Turns out, there are a lot of dudes out there who find me, or at least the online possibility of me, worth their time (and money.) Men truly are the chasers and women the choosers. I couldn't be happier with those circumstances, myself.

here was something that seemed very active about online dating. Like I was defying natural odds of meeting someone, and taking matters into my own hands. How many people out there might I be compatible with but never chance to meet? I'm a control freak about my life--it's difficult for me to leave things up to faith and luck.

Then something completely unexpected happened. I met someone. His username was SuperHeroPowers and his entire profile was written in the persona of a superhero, revealing not one real fact about himself. His pictures, like mine, were quirky and obscured, revealing just a glimpse of potential hotness. He was clever, funny, creative and not taking the online thing, or himself, very seriously. We happened to give each other's profiles 4 out of 5 star ratings and then one night we started to chat at 2 am. We chatted for nearly 2 hours, and learned real things about each other. He turned out to be a very genuine guy, out there to see what there was to see. I've never been much of an outward romantic, and I've never been one to seek out boyfriend material, and something about our mutual open-minded aloofness clicked... loudly. A few more chats later, and I was completely intrigued. When he IMed me one morning and spontaneously asked me out, my heart leaped... I was dying to discover whether or not the virtual butterflies I had developed from our online correspondence would materialize into real ones upon meeting him.

We had the most kickass first date. Low key, spur of the moment, no pressure... meeting up at a tiny bar, going to his friend's loft for an art opening, then following his friends to a super lame party... where he kissed me as some drunk hipsters on the balcony above us dumped full cups of sticky boozy beverage square on top of our heads. At 3am we stumbled out to split a cab to our respective Brooklyn neighborhoods, and I discovered that my wallet was gone. We retraced our steps, but it was nowhere to be found. So he gave me some cash for the cab ride, and when I tried to insist I'd repay him when we met up as planned a few days later for our second date, he would hear nothing of it. A day later, we were chatting online and he told me he'd deleted his OkC profile. I was planning on deleting mine, but I held off... just in case. Two amazing dates later, I deleted mine too, admitting, when the site prompted me to reveal the reason for my departure, that I'd met someone on the site.

Four months later. It had been a short, but very meaningful roller coaster ride. Things had been amazing and perfect for the first 2 months. Then, as our individual lives began to challenge us more and more, he began to pull away from me. His infatuation waned, and though we still had a fun together and were extremely comfortable with each other and cared for each other truly, he became aloof, determined to keep our dating status casual, despite the fact that we'd been seeing each other exclusively the entire time. As our wants and needs drifted further and further apart, it became clear to me that it wasn't going to work, so I called it off.

This was the closest I'd ever come to having a real, grown-up relationship. I wondered if I was foolish and naive to think it could develop into something more, or worse, that I was foolish and naive to feel like our time together had been so meaningful to me... so much more than it had been for him, I imagined. Ugh. Before I knew it, the glimmer of intimacy had slipped through my straining fingers, and I found myself back in my stubborn, workaholic, hopelessly independent life. Changed of course, and truly for the better, but... isolated. Again.

And so I went back online.

I know it was totally stupid of me to hope that I'd log on and bam! lightning would strike twice, and I'd find someone who wanted me to care for them, and who wanted to care for me in return, someone to assuage the sting of disappointment and rejection. But I was lonely and my judgement was clouded by my wounded pride.

I signed up for Match.com's 3-day free trial. Within the first hour of my profile being up (with pics, of course), I had received 15 emails and 25 winks. My ego surged and I thought... well, I suppose I could stay on... it's only an extra $25 a month... and as my roommate Richard noted, I could easily earn that back in free dinners.

Match is way more intense than OkC, I imagine because you have to pay for it. Those dudes are looking for commitment with a capital C. The problem became clear very quickly: that I wasn't necessarily looking for commitment myself. I had wanted commitment from Josh, but not just for commitment's sake... I had developed feelings for him. In the real world, outside of my dreamy little faux-relationship, I wasn't necessarily looking to settle down. I have no desire to get married any time in the next decade, I don't want someone to tie me down to any particular location, I desperately need massive amounts of alone time...I'm a very autonomous person by nature. I dig being by myself...I am excellent company. But suddenly, the great importance of intimacy had been revealed to me. I'd had a taste of how much better I could be... how my body physically thrived from regular physical closeness. I have a ton of amazing friends who I can call when the earth seems to be splitting beneath me, but I'd never had someone hold me in the middle of the night when I broke down in tears from the weight of my own existential crises. It was literally like a drug, and without it I was in serious withdrawal. All the strength and confidence I'd developed in four months of playing "girlfriend" seemed to bleed right out through my pores. I'd spontaneously weep out all the good, self-loving energy in the middle of the N train on the ride home from rehearsal. I still don't want to be joined to anyone's hip, but my heart and soul are crying out for intimate connection to another's. They just can't grow by themselves. My heart and soul feel stunted, unable to move forward into any new understanding of myself and the world around me. There is only so much one can learn on one's own.

I've always had this tendency to seek knowledge the safe way. Sometimes I wonder if I should have skipped college altogether and dived right into my acting career, flying by the seat of my pants, falling on my face every single day and picking myself up again. After all, no one needs a degree to be an artist. But college was safe, predictable. Structured. I've always had a terrible fear of failure, and a desperate desire to do things the "right" way. I get totally preoccupied with figuring out what the "right" way is, that I lose sight of what really matters to me, what really inspires me, rather than the path that is going to gain the most approval from others. It recently struck me that I really have no idea what my path is. This whole time, I've been on the path that seemed right in theory. A path that was impressive to my parents and my peers. A path that was logical and well-paved, that seemed to make sense. But how often does art ever make sense? Being an artist is a reckless decision, a foolish choice that determines a life of chaos, longing and painful, painful beauty. Did my silly little self actually believe that my path could be so straightforward?

In the last week of my romantic entanglement, I started reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I usually avoid bestsellers as a rule, but one of my former UArts summer program students recommended it to me and the next day I bought it. I don't know why... all of my best friends have read it and loved it, but a girl I knew for a month two years ago recommends it and I buy it? It seemed... right. I don't know. I quickly became hooked and finished the thing in a week, a few days after I ended things with Josh. It's so predictably like me... to seek answers in a book. (A few weeks later, I buy The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, MD. I read it in five days: finally, some chemical answers to why communicating with men is so completely maddening! And why they find communicating with me to be so maddening! More to come on this subject in the future...) Did I find answers? Well, I found things to meditate on in a healthy way. There really are no answers to help us overcome fear, rejection and disappointment. But there are antidotes: gratitude, faith and love. Gratitude for the lessons I've learned. Faith in that I will continue to learn. And love for the people in my life who have helped me to learn these lessons, and also love for myself, for being brave enough to learn.

I've faced a lot of disappointment in my life. It seems that everyone in my family is constantly disappointing each other. The problem is that we all love each other so fiercely, with such intensity, that we end up with such high expectations of each other. We have some seriously intelligent, idealistic, passionate, attractive, talented genes buzzing around, and we all believe so strongly in each other's capabilities, that any misstep seems earth-shattering... but you have so much potential! How could you not live up to it?? This is the way I was brought up. This is why I'm such an over-achiever, falling into the depths of despair when things don't go the way I imagined them, the way I worked so hard to steer them.

"The Bhagavad Gita... says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection" writes Gilbert.

Some of these mornings I wake up and I know, inherently, that my life will continue to be full of heartbreak. My heart is sensitive... it bruises so easily. I know it will never break into so many pieces that I won't be able to stitch it back together. Because not only does my heart bruise easily, but it fills easily too. I'm working on learning that letting your heart fill does not have to be scary. In the past I've been afraid to let it fill too much, for fear that someone will come along and spill it's contents all over the place, or suck them dry and leave me hollow. But I know that's not true. My heart is self-replenishing. It's in a state of refilling as we speak... it's like my toilet tank lately, when it starts to refill, and stops short, running until I notice it's stalled. Then I reach in, jiggle some stuff around, and it fills again. My heart needs a little tinkering to get it refilling again. So I'm working on it.

In the meantime, I'm off Match and back to OkC for now... I'm sure I'll tire of it shortly, but for now, I'm being selective and keeping an open mind. I like that people on OkC have fewer expectations. They're just there to see what there is to see. A number of the guys I talked to on Match were just too conventional for me. They had stable, steady jobs, made good money, many of them had derailed artistic aspirations... good guys. Kind-hearted, stable guys. A surprising number of good-looking guys. Last week I went on a date with a guy who was just the type of guy you'd want to marry: good looking, funny, smart, kind, kind of dorky... the guy who's still pining over the one that got away. The guy who will most certainly get over her (because she's obviously not the devoted, conventional girl he wishes she was) and meet someone simpler, softer, someone who will appreciate his sweet honesty, without exploiting it, and they'll get married and live happily ever after. I am clearly not the girl for this guy. I'm the girl who, if I decide to give him a chance, will undoubtedly bruise his heart when I fall for someone chaotic, unstable, afraid of commitment, unavailable, but exciting, challenging, and oh-so-sexy. I think that's just where I'm at. I crave a good challenge. I embrace a little drama here and there. I want intimacy and comfort with a guy who can't provide it... a guy who craves it himself, but is desperate to hang onto his own autonomy. If I have to choose between wild, passionate, but fleeting infatuation and safety, comfort and stability, you'd better believe I'm choosing the former.

I believe I am at the threshold of great adventure in my life, so long as I can my mind and my heart open to finding their own unique way.

"This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something."

-from Eat, Pray, Love

Yoga to the People!

2009-04-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

The inevitable has finally happened: after years and years of viewing my life through neurotic, stress-colored glasses, I've become a yoga addict. I love yoga. I love the way it feels to wake up (without an alarm!) and know that yoga will be a part of it. Some days, I fit yoga into my busy schedule. And some days, yoga is the highlight of my schedule. I'm content to sleep until noon, lounge around my apartment cooking and cleaning and snuggling in bed with hours of TV on DVD if I know that at some point during the day, I will leave the house and go to yoga. If I accomplish nothing else, I still feel productive if I go to yoga.

How has this happened? Me, a type-A, ambitious to a fault, self-flagellating control freak content to complete only one activity in an entire day?? I never thought I would be this person...and I LOVE it. I feel like I'm finally tapping into my best, most true self. I'm taking better care of myself than I ever have before...because taking care of myself is my main priority. It's awesome.

The stage for this phase of self-discovery is itself a great part of my motivation. Yoga to the People is a donation-based yoga studio on St. Marks Place, right in the heart of the NYU campus. In a musty old beautiful building with four studios on three floors, the studio is open 7 days a week to anyone with an inclination to show up. There is always a surplus of NYU students, dancers and actors, but there are all kinds of other people too. The teachers are all young, fresh-faced and encouraging. It's like an open yoga forum--anyone can come and everyone is welcome, even those who can't afford to make a donation. I used to take yoga at the 12th Street Gym in Philly, for the few sweet months I could afford to be a member, and though I always loved the classes, it had a much more somber ambiance. Since Yoga to the People is open to any and all who want to participate, the classes are often stuffed to the max...sometimes you'll be sharing the same stale, sweaty air with a hundred other people. It's a little slice of New York City in every class: overcrowded, full of people all striving to be at their best, isolated, and yet a part of a whole at the same time. Each person's practice is individual, personal, and yet we share the practice with each other. It's beautiful The teachers encourage everyone to smile whenever they feel compelled, and not take their practice so seriously. They also consistently remind everyone to thank themselves for doing such a good thing for their bodies by taking the time to come to yoga. I find it so rare in my life to be reminded that the things which are best for us should be enjoyable.

Tonight, I decided to jump off the proverbial cliff and attend my first hot yoga session, at YTTP's midtown hot yoga studio. Being an overachiever, and still a little high from yesterday's awesome afternoon class, I decided to forgo the 60 minute Vinyasa class and go straight for the gold: the 90 minute traditional Bikram class. I was told upon entering that I was required to have a towel, which I assumed I would do without since I don't generally sweat as much as most of the other people in my regular class, and so I rented one along with my mat. The hot yoga class isn't donation based, but a class is only $5. I settled into the steamy studio, thinking to myself how the heat felt like a big bear hug, and waited for class to begin.

Holy crap.

I mean...wow.

First of all, I had no idea my body was physically capable of sweating that much. I felt like I'd sweat out half my body weight in the first half hour. Sweat dripped off every inch of my body and didn't stop for an hour and a half. I hadn't thought to stock up my body's H2O supply before class, so it wasn't long before I started to feel nauseous. I probably spend half the class in corpse pose on the floor. However, the work I was able to do felt amazing. Poses that are often difficult for me to hold (particularly poses that have to do with balance...I have the hardest time stacking my hips solidly so that I can balance) came so easily. I felt more focused that ever, I'm sure because my ego was being sweat right out my pores with all the toxins in my body. An hour into the class, when we got to the floor work, I started to feel a remarkable sensation. The very center of my body, right between my groin and my belly, was opening up and suddenly I realized that was exactly the spot where my intuition lives. Isn't that amazing? When you become in tune with your body, when you become able to listen to it, you can find where your senses and emotions are physically located! Like when you're utterly heartbroken and your whole chest feels crushed, as if a sumo wrestler were putting all his weight on your poor sternum. Your heart, the place where your sense of compassion and love and longing come from, is literally located in your chest. In an instant, I learned where my intuition was located...and how beautiful it could feel when it was fully opened, impossible to be ignored. The breathing exercises at the very end of class became spiritual to me. My head was spinning and my heart was opening and I felt so emotionally and physically free. There was no stress, no worry. Only joy and gratitude for the opportunities that this moment in my life possessed. I knew everything I'd ever need to know. It was amazing.

It took me a full half hour to recover enough to even be able to stand and put my mat away. My body felt so weak and I know I was very dehydrated. But I felt empty and full at the same time and it felt fantastic. I felt yellow...if one can feel a color, that's what I felt. I went to the market below the studio and bought a container of cut-up pineapple and a small bunch of daffodils. As I was walking down 6th Ave to the D train, I almost crossed the street right in front of a taxi who had a green light. I stopped myself in time, and the cab driver honked a brief warning. Out of habit, I heard myself mutter "fuck you" and then stopped in my tracks. How funny! The way we are conditioned in our daily routines to foster stress and anxiety and frustration! It's been so drilled into my nervous system that I don't even realize it! I was so aware of everything, of this silly impulse that had flown out of me despite my state of zen. And I thought, I must go back and try again. Every time I go, it will get easier. And no matter how hard it is, I will never regret going.

On the subway ride home, I wrote the following in my journal:

"...my body feels great. It feels right--it feels like mine. I own this body. It's my only truly meaningful possession. My heart, my soul, my mind, my body. My breath. My experience. My feelings. I feel so wealthy. So fortunate to have this body. So fortunate to have these chances. Everything is a chance! Everything is an opportunity! My god, what a revelation! It seems so simple, but it's so profound. Every breath is an opportunity--to say or do something meaningful. Why would we spend our time wasting these opportunities? This is my revelation. This is my answer. Every moment holds an opportunity to make a choice. What choices will I make? How will I seize these opportunities? Every day I have a chance to be happy and to make others happy. To learn and to teach. To breathe and to grow. You miss so much by closing yourself off to any opportunity. The opportunity to really know another person. To be close to them. To see yourself in them, through their eyes. Every relationship is a chance to grow and should never be viewed as anything different."

I know I have a tendency to wax poetic, and I know I was in a hot yoga-euphoria, but I do believe these to be truths.

I've learned that when I focus exclusively on money, I'm unhappy. When I focus exclusively on my career, I'm unhappy. When I focus exclusively on my relationships with others, I'm unhappy. But when I focus on myself, I can see what each of those other things truly means to me, and how they can work in tandem to create a rich, full life that I'm thankful and proud to live.

What I must work on now is my ability to balance...both literally, and figuratively.

there will be no correct clothes

there will be no proper payment

there will be no right answers

no glorified teachers

no ego no script no pedestals

no you're not good enough or rich enough

this yoga is for everyone

the sweating and breathing and becoming

this knowing glowing feeling

is for the big small weak and strong

able and crazy

brothers sisters grandmothers

the mighty and the meek

bones that creak

those who seek

this power is for everyone

yoga to the people

all bodies rise

-YTTP's Mission Statement

April Showers Bring May Flowers

2009-04-04T13:00:00.001-07:00

A week ago, my father sent me a giant bouquet of red and yellow tulips to congratulate me on closing The Irish... They're wilting now, decaying at an accelerating pace. I know I'll have to throw them away tomorrow. I want to hang on to them as long as possible, cherishing the memory of walking into the dressing room at the theater and seeing them displayed at my seat in all their sunny, optimistic glory.

It's 4pm and I should be getting ready for work. Instead, I'm sitting at the kitchen table, staring at my dying tulips and thinking. I'm thinking my way through what I'm feeling. Forgive me for this second self-indulgent post in a row, but I'm going through some complications right now and I'm trying to work them out.

I don't understand men. I don't understand their behavior. They'll work so hard to win us over, and then the minute they have us they lose interest. Every single romantic entanglement I've had (with two exceptions) have ended by the guy losing interest. Time and again I've consoled myself by realizing that they clearly didn't care enough for me to begin with. It's like I told Alee last night, we all know that when you truly care for someone, it doesn't go away. You don't wake up one day and stop caring. Even if you stop seeing or talking to them, you'll always care. The only boy I've ever truly loved and who has ever truly loved me is still in my life long after we've stepped off the roller coaster. So there.

Is it the thrill of the chase? Is that what happens? When they win us over too easily, do they lose interest? I don't think of myself as being someone who is easily won. I need honesty and kindness and compassion to be won, and these things are scarce in the dating game. Honesty, kindness, and compassion always fuck me up. When someone tries to take care of me, although I resist initially, I'm lost. Compassion makes me trust you. How can you be compassionate at first and then pull away?

I'll never understand how men can tell you that they're feeling things they're not sure they feel. How it takes them so long to figure out what's going on with them. You can see it in their eyes, the wheels turning, trying to figure out what they want, fighting their own vulnerability. Women aren't more vulnerable than men--they're just more honest about their feelings, and less frightened of them.

I know what it's like to be afraid of committment. I used to be terrified of being let down, and even more terrified of letting others down. In the aforementioned two exceptions to a guy losing interest, I was the one pulling away. I've pulled away when things got hard in my own life and I didn't have anything to give the other person in return. I've pulled away when I've been scard of how deeply the other person felt about me, or how deeply I felt about them. I've pulled away when I just didn't want to deal...when there seemed to be too much at stake. I've been selfish. I've hurt people with my selfishness, and I've regretted it deeply. And in one case, I've worked hard to make amends.

It's too easy to look out at the world and all the people in it and feel isolated. Isolation from others makes us so desperate for a real connection that the minute it comes around, we're so quick to jump it and hold on for dear life. Even when a connection is fuzzy, we try to convince ourselves that it's clear because having something faulty seems better than having nothing at all.

I often feel isolated but I never feel alone. I have a strong, loving, expansive family who supports me all the time. I have a rich, full emotional life that I'm not ashamed of. I'm in touch with who I am and what I want. I'm not afraid to be alone. I'm so fortunate to have more love and support than many lonely people have.

I don't need this crap.

I don't need these games, this uncertanity. I don't have time for fear and baggage. I don't need to settle for being anyone's temporary girl, to be used for comfort and security at someone else's convenience then pushed away the moment the flame gets too hot for them to bear. My feelings run rich and deep and I'll share them with anyone in a heartbeat. They're my treasures, and if they frighten you then I'll find someone else to share them with, someone who appreciates them, someone who is open to learning from them. I don't need anything from anyone that I don't already have. I'm proud of who I am and I'm not looking for anyone else to define me. All I want is to have experiences that help me learn and grow as a person. My only expectation is that I be treated with respect at all times. I deserve honesty and trust. And if that is too scary for anyone else to bear, then, alas, it may be time to move on to the next adventure.

Tomorrow I will throw the tulips away. On Monday, I will trek through the Greenmarket and buy myself a new bouquet of something fresh and springy and cheerful to brighten up my little apartment. Maybe daffodils. Or hibiscus.

It's spring, and I'm growing.

How lovely!

There's No Place Like Home...For Now

2009-04-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

And so, at long last, I've returned to the blogosphere! And at a much shorter last, I've returned home to Brooklyn. You see, a great deal has happened in the 3+ months since I've written.

In December, I had some adventures in online dating, got stranded at the Crowne Plaza in San Fransisco on Christmas Eve, and revisited my roots in Vista, California. In January, I took a weekend trip to New Haven and auditioned for Yale's MFA acting program. In February, I returned to Philadelphia to start work on The Irish...Redux at the Kimmel Center, while simultaneously maneuvering through multiple auditions for Columbia's MFA program. In March, The Irish... opened to mixed critical reviews and massive ticket sales, just 3 days after my final callback for Columbia. And now, having received official letters of rejection from both graduate programs, having closed the show with the possibility of yet another revival hanging ominously in the air, and having no intention of returning to my formerly back-breaking New York schedule, I've landed back in my tiny, cozy Brooklyn apartment.

I haven't worked in 5 days, I don't feel an ounce of guilt for the luxurious relaxation I've been revelling in. Instead, I've been reorganizing and prioritizing my life to center around the constant pursuit of my own peace of mind. I've put myself on a low-carb, high-fiber, pescatarian diet and have been taking yoga every other day. I quit caffeine at the beginning of February to promote better vocal health for the show, and have decided to stay off it. I'm going back to work 2-3 shifts a week at Morimoto and filing for partial unemployment to supplement my income. For now, I'm going to avoid getting a second job. I'm starting rehearsals for a new play with my friends at Untitled Theatre Company #61 in a couple of weeks that will keep me semi-occupied throughout the spring. And I've become determined to jump back on the audition horse and ride it very slowly and recreationally for now. I've learned that having creative stimulus is absolutely crucial for me, but also that I desperately need a more even balance between my career, my day job, and my mental and emotional well-being.

Anyway.

Sitting in my cozy kitchen this morning, eating my gluten-free frozen waffles with strawberries and vanilla soymilk, gazing out at the drizzly mess outside, I got to thinking about the impermanent nature of belonging.

When I was a freshman in college, I fell in love with this boy who lived down the hall from me. He was my first real friend in college and from the moment we met we were inseperable. We had most of the same classes together, and after class we would always settle down in my apartment or his to do homework, watch movies, make pasta, do laundry, and snuggle on my cheap KMart futon. He had a girlfriend back home, so we never truly became an item, but for two months we were eachother's rock, a shoulder to cry on at any time of day or night, another lonely, confused teenager trying desperately to come to terms with adulthood and all that it entailed. One night, we took a walk around the city and he kissed me. I was ecstatic--for the first time a boy who I felt truly close to, who I cared about deeply, was going to be mine! To hold and to comfort throughout all the scary pain of learning how to take care of oneself. Now we could take care of each other!

A couple of days later, however, he snubbed me in ballet class and I was pissed. After class, I went over to his room and asked him what was going on, what had changed. He told me he thought he would feel something when we kissed, but he didn't. I was devastated. I cried for a week. Then, I got really, really drunk for the first time at a party and the boy carried me home to the dorms, only to be caught by the campus security guard as I puked my guts out on the sidewalk in front of our building. Security sent me to the hospital to make sure I didn't have alcohol poisoning, and the boy came with me. I don't remember much about the night, except that I was pretty hysterical, and that he stayed with me until 6am when they finally released me.

After that, we hardly talked at all for months and I became totally reclusive. I felt like I'd lost my security blanket, like I had no one else to turn to when I was tossing and turning in the middle of the night. And so, I went on amazon.com and ordered this book by this Indian spiritual guru called On Love and Loneliness. I wish I had it here to quote, but alas, I think it's in storage in Philadelphia. Anyway, the book was all about how human beings are always trying to possess one another and that is why we are always so lonely. Once we realize that we belong to nothing and no one and nothing and no one belongs to us, we can begin to truly understand what love is. Love is selfless and without expectation. Love is transient, taking all forms. Love is something that we never lose, because it does not have an owner, rather it is fluid, moving between us all, connecting us in a much deeper way. You can never truly love someone that you feel you possess. As a 17-year old kid trying to cope with not my first but certainly my greatest disappointment, there was only so much of what the book was saying that I was able to grasp. But for whatever reason, my wiser, more content 23-year old self was remembering this book today and realizing how much sense it now makes to me, now that I've truly come into my own in this nomadic, bohemian life of mine.

I've been living in this apartment in Brooklyn for 7 months now, longer than I've lived anywhere in two years. I've taken on such complete ownership of my space, obsessively working every day on improving it, making it my own safe haven. And yet I'm not even on a lease! I don't own this apartment, I don't even officially live here. And yet, it feels more to me like home than any place I've lived since college (and I've lived in a lot of places.) Returning home on Monday after the show closed was such a huge relief, to a girl who's moved more than 25 times in 23 years, who is constantly grasping at newfangled definitions of "home", trying to find one that fits. And you know, I think for me home is a transient idea that doesn't depend on any particular four walls and a ceiling (although they're certainly appreciated), or any particular address, or even any particular city. Home is wherever and whatever I make of it. Home is a state of knowing where you are in relation to the rest of the world. That address and these four walls help me to orient myself in the world, to know where I'm coming from and where I'm going. When I'm away from them, I feel displaced, though it would be just as easy for me to rearrange myself in a different location.

Recently I was discussing committment in relationships with a boy. He said he thought of relationships like cars (such a stereotypically testosterone-filled analogy, I know): either you're taking it for a test drive, you're renting short-term, or you're leasing. Or, I suppose, you could pay for it all at once if you're loaded. Anyway. And I thought, what a close-ended way of thinking! "Committment" in relationship terms is such a problematic concept to me. How can we know how long someone will be in our lives? Trying to compartmentalize our lives into time frames is so limiting. If we try to know how long something will last, we can so easily end up smothering it.

Today, I am content. I know where I am. I love and am loved. I appreciate the peace and the stillness I currently have at my disposal. Today I am free of obligations. I know that everything is temporary. My apartment is temporary. My unemployment is temporary. Even my peace of mind is temporary. And as director Whit MacLaughlin once said to us in rehearsal, "change, if we consider it a constant, can be a comfort." All I know is that things will change. And so in this moment, I am thankful for the opportunities and the people in my life. Although I know they will flow in and out of my life like the tides, the lessons I learn from them will stay with me permanently. Everything leaves its residue on us. Someday, I'll look back fondly on this time in my life and remember what it was like to not know...how freeing, how exhilirating it can be to be unsure.

I am no longer afraid of not knowing. I am no longer afraid of loss or failure or even rejection. I am living without expectations, without certainty, without trying to possess or be possessed. This life I get to live right now, in my cozy apartment, with my lovely friends around me, with creative work to do, with a snuggly boy on the side, is just one of the many lives I've lived. All I'm certain of is that there will be many more to come.

When the Walls are Too Thick To Break Down, Try Climbing Over Instead

2008-12-21T00:46:00.000-08:00

"You want to experience the anticipation for what's around the next bend, but there's just too much stuff for you to do right now before you can allow yourself to feel the excitement. You have big decisions to make as the Sun moves through your 12th House of Destiny for the next month. Choose carefully, for your current choices will likely have a lasting impact."

-my Google horoscope for Sunday, December 21st

It's almost four o'clock in the morning and I've been torturing myself for hours, days weeks...

I have become completely and totally nocturnal in the past few days. If my insomnia was bad before, it may now have reached irreversible. The problem is, I'm too anxious and too excited about my life to sleep. Sleep seems so irrelevent, so expendable right now...there is just too much to do, to much to think about, to ruminate on... possibilities overflowing all around me. I am sometimes hit by these amazing periods of inspiration, of total openness and awareness of all that I am capable of receiving from the universe, and how much I am capable of giving back in return.

I know I sound totally esoteric and a little insane. I've been sleeping about 4 hours a night for the past couple weeks. And consuming far too much coffee and alcohol.

Tonight I got home and was determined to finish my grad school applications. I've nearly done just that. I've put my documents to bed for the night and will reopen them tomorrow to be printed out. I may edit again tomorrow night, but I've decided: they go out on Monday. No exception. I must lift this weight from my sloping little shoulders. I must cease the self-torment. I could edit until I'm dead. I'm choosing life instead. Que sera sera, as they say. C'est la vie. Soon it will be out of my hands and into the universe. And the hands of Kristin Linklater, head of acting at Columbia, my dream school.

Yes, that's right. She has her own technique. I can't handle my affection for this ivy-league institution. It's reached an obsessive, all-consuming level. I'm completely infatuated.

My friends are amazingly supportive. I feel like I should come with a disclaimer: Difficult, Exhausting, but Unendingly Loyal and Eternally Grateful! Will Challenge and Enhance Your Life With Her Presence!

It never ceases to amaze me how little we change over the years. Yes, we grow and learn and devise ways of coping with our neuroses, but they remain embedded inside our psyches, nonetheless. The childhood baggage, the insecurities...these things are irremoveable parts of who we are. Yes, we can turn down the volume, shut them away in drawers and cabinets, yet they always remain. Our vulnerabilities are part of what makes each of us special, and understanding and embracing them gives us immeasurable strength. However, every so often when they peek out from behind closed doors and cause us momentary lapses in sanity and coherence, we have no choice but to collapse under the weight. For a moment. To release it. My insecurities are like poltergeists: they just need to be acknowledged and released. They have unfinished business, and when it's completed, they retreat. Except they're never fully evicerated. They just lie dormant for a while, until roused the next time.

I may have a tired emotional cycle. But it's much shorter now than it used to be.

And now I think I have a personal statement.

Here goes nothing:

Though it's been a year and a half since I finished my BFA, I never really stopped feeling like a student. All that's changed is that the walls of the classroom have faded away, or rather have receded out of sight so that now I look out at the world and can see no walls, no boundaries. I am a student of experience, not only of the theatre, but of the streets, the subway, the restaurants I work in, the city of New York and beyond.

For more than half of my undergraduate career, I was still a teenager, vigorously working toward discovering and defining who I was as a person. The search for myself was prevalent throughout my technique training, and after four years of work I found that while my fragile adolescent whimsy had transformed into a poised and confident adult perspective, I was still unsure of my place in the theatre industry. Certain of my artistic inspirations and beginning to explore my own creative strengths, I moved to New York hoping to fall into a niche. The professional tools I had were steering me down a specific path that was leading my performance career into the mainstream musical theatre, hopefully capitalizing on my special skill as a violinist along the way. Though I had some success in that area, sparking interest in casting directors and working a little along the way, I quickly discovered how important it was to me to constantly redefine my ideas of art and its relationship with its audience. I longed to continually seek out more effective and meaningful means of collaborative communication. I wanted a chance to experiment, to collaborate more actively on progressive new work, to develop a wider variety of skills, and to deepen and diversify my artistic sensibilities.

As the gradual decline of our economy has coincided with my generation's transition into adulthood, I find myself emerging as an artist in an age of extreme social despair. We have felt the odds of achieving our personal goals rising higher and higher against us; and yet, as artists we continue to believe fundamentally in our responsibility to care for each other and the world we live in. I've always felt compelled to act in the interest of the greater good, and to me, the theatre is the place where that responsibility can blend harmoniously with my own pursuit of self-fulfillment. As I grow and learn from my adult experiences, a certain truth has moved to the forefront of my awareness: as Anne Bogart wrote, "you cannot create results; you can only create conditions in which something can happen." I can no longer sit back and wait patiently for my career to happen. I must pursue my goals more actively, more vigorously, taking control of my circumstances, placing myself at the forefront of the theatre of the new millenium. I believe that I can stand on that precipice at Columbia University, prepared to leap at every opportunity.

The limit was 500 words (approximately.) I clocked in at a miraculous 496.

I hope it's good. I hope it accomplishes what I was intending. I hope you like it, but please don't tell me what you think. What I think and how I feel about it is more important. I can't revise it any longer. I have to stop beating myself up. I always secretly wanted to be a writer, but honestly, I don't think I could handle it. Acting is so much more cathartic. Good acting absolutely depends on being able to silence the voices in your head and be present in the moment. Writing is all about utilizing the voices in your head. I think I have too many angry, scared voices to be harnessed. They resist being translated. They resist being edited. I hate editing myself. And I hate being edited by others. Putting the voices into someone else's head is fantastic.

Okay, so it's a little like therapy. But I swear to you, communication of ideas is of utmost importance to me as an actor, and I prefer to communicate other people's ideas that move me. My own ideas are so confused, so frustrated. But people who have talent for saying things that matter... those people are my heros.

All I can do is cry and scream and sing and laugh through your words onstage.

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says 'I'll try again tomorrow."

- Mary Anne Radmacher

"...a subject for a short story..."

2008-12-14T21:15:00.000-08:00

I never really stopped feeling like a student. All that's really changed is that the walls of the classroom have faded away, or rather they've receded out of sight, so that now I look out at the world and can see no walls, no boundaries. This feeling both exhilirates and terrifies me.

It's intermission at the Walter Kerr Theater. I've just finished watching Act I of The Seagull, a play that has fascinated me since I first discovered it in my high school drama class. A girl in my class once said "Chekhov is about how boring people are." I don't think she was entirely right, nor was she entirely wrong. The curiosity of Chekhov is that he is always examining how seriously people take their lives, because our lives are all we have; and this seriousness is absurd, because all we're left with in the end is death--nothing to show for our lives.

Yes, I'm writing in my journal at intermission of a Broadway play. In front of me, an 18-year old boy is asking his two teenage fag-hags what their favorite musicals are. Beside me, a middle-aged woman is yawning and remarking to her husband how she likes The Cherry Orchard better. And I am sitting alone with tears in my eyes feeling finally that my creative channels have been opened.

My grad school applications are due in 3 weeks. I realized this yesterday and suddenly all my old neuroses, kept at bay for so long, kicked into gear. It isn't a thought of not being worthy of acceptance--I've outgrown that, thank goodness--but the awareness that I'm finally down to the wire. It's a reality now, even though I've completed 75 percent of the applications, recommendations have already been submitted for me, and my transcripts have already been sent. I've always had every single intention of completing this task, yet for some reason, the awareness that it is possible for me to fail to complete it is there. It's so silly: I know it's just a matter of doing the work. There's just one task that's holding me up...the personal statement.

I went through the same battle when I was applying for undergraduate school. My sense of self-awareness is so debilitating and unfortunately does not have an on/off switch but rather a slow and stubborn dimmer. I can dim it...but it takes soooooo long. I know what I must do but I've been putting it off, knowing how much time and effort it requires. In situations like this, I must write and write and write and write and write until finally I realize I've hit the zone, the place where my neuroses are drowned by the soothing buzz of my ideas, flowing like water, directly from the source, straight from my gut and my soul, simple, succinct and essential. But first I must wade through draft after draft of terrible, eager-to-please, validation-obsessed, self-conscious drivel, draining each pathetic, calculating, self-loathing waste of thought and word from my stubborn psyche. As the writer Trigorin says to Nina in The Seagull:

"Oh, when I'm writing it's not bad, and doing the final editing, that's enjoyable. But once it's published I can't stand to read it, I can see how wrong it is, I realize I should never have written it, and I'm depressed and miserable."

Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.

Everyone is so desperately lonely and crying out for someone to appreciate them and thus validate their miserable existence and thus everyone is so wrapped up in their own suffering that they're completely incapable of giving or received real love. And without love, what happiness is there? The artists in The Seagull are searching for truth and beauty, yet their self-obsessions prevent them from ever finding it. And how true to life is that? Perhaps cynical, but heartbreaking nonetheless. Human isolation and loneliness is devastatingly tragic. Like Tennessee Williams wrote in the preface to the published version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof:

"As a character in a play once said, 'We're all of us sentanced to solitary confinement inside our own skins.' Personal lyricism is the outcry of prisoner to prisoner from the cell in solitary where each is confined for the duration of his life."

The drafts of this stupid personal statement I've written so far have all been focused on figuring out the right thing to say, cracking the verbal code for being accepted to an Ivy-league MFA program. As if there was a secret Ivy-league language that only wealthy trust-fund kids were entrusted with. Fuck, they're just people. And artists, no less! We speak the same language! Before the play, I took myself out to dinner at an over-priced French bistro down the block from the theater and as I watched the staff ease their way through the pre-theater rush, I felt like I was part of a secret society. Actually, I feel like I'm part of two secret societies: Restaurants and Theater. There is a language, a rhythm to each world, which I've mastered through years of experience. It's a very satisfying feeling, to feel united to others in this way. I feel most comfortable, most at home when in a theater or a restaurant. And strangely, this realization didn't make me feel small or limited in any way; it made me feel accomplished. There are other little worlds out there that I will grow to understand in time...how exciting! I have the rest of my life to make discoveries!

I don't know what it is about December...maybe it's because the stars are aligned under my sign, Sagittarius, but I always feel most like myself at this time of year. Even when relatively little is happening.

Subway. Headed home.

Chekhov is an actor's Everest. So rich. So much to be mined. So unsteady. So layered. Nina's last speech...I know it by heart: "I know now...that what is important in our work...is not fame, not glory...but the ability to endure. To be able to bear one's cross and have faith. I have faith, and when I think of my vocation, I'm not afraid of life."

Would it be cliche to quote Chekhov in my personal statement? Would it seem trite? It reminds me of that Artaud quote, about how trying to put words to that which moves us most diminishes its meaning, but to use a symbol is to capture its essence in an undefineable and infinitely more accurate way. Only he said it more eloquently.

My creative channels feel open thanks to the stimulation of good theater. Thank goodness! Reality TV and the internet must be killing my artistic soul. Not to mention fashion magazines.

Though I still have no idea what to write.

Motherfucker.

All day I've been determined to return home after the play and write until I had a finished draft, even if it took me until the wee hours of the morning.

Of course, the moment I sat down and turned on my computer, I felt at a loss. Not for words themselves, of course--I'm rarely at a loss for words--but for the right words. The words that would best convey the truth of myself as an artist, my voice and what I want to use it to say, and the order to put them in to give them the most precise, effective meaning.

Konstantin: The more I write, the more I think it's not a matter of old forms and new forms: what's important is to write without thinking about forms at all. Just write and pour out whatever's in your heart.

But what to do when you only have 500 words at your disposal? How to filter the outpour of my heart into it's purest, most concentrated and most potent form?

Jesus Christ. I belong in a fucking Chekhov play. All talk and no action.

I'm never getting to Moscow at this rate.

Finding a Home for the Holidays

2008-11-27T21:26:00.000-08:00

Every year, increasingly as I get older, the holiday season arrives on an emotional roller coaster that doesn't really stop until well after New Year's, with an extension through Valentine's Day. Okay. If I'm truly being honest, I'll probably be moody until the spring thaw. Chalk it up to Seasonal Affective Disorder, family baggage, or just plain hormones, the holiday season never ceases to rev me up to the giddiest highs then without warning plummet me down to the lowest of lows. Is it just me? Am I bipolar? In need of a shrink? Or does everyone else get the same warm, fuzzy heartaches around the holidays?

I hate to sound so curmudgeonly on Thanksgiving. After all, this was one of the best Thanksgivings I've had in years. At least better than last year's, when I was brand new to the city, and spent the whole day working the Thanksgiving banquet at Beacon. In spite of the many trials and tribulations I've been facing in the past year, it suddenly dawned on me yesterday that I have so many things to be thankful for. I generally make a habit of appreciating the many gifts in my life, but you know, sometimes when things are tough it's easy for us to lose sight of how lucky we really are. I may be overworked, underpaid and thoroughly exhasted about ninety-five percent of the time, but the people who matter to me are always there, even when I have so little time to spend with them. And I'm so lucky to find myself in two extremely positive, supportive working environments, where I am embraced and appreciated as an employee. Fight as I may to keep myself emotionally detached from my day jobs, I've found myself in a strange place where my life is composed of nothing but those day jobs...and I'm not entirely miserable. I'm creatively and personally challenged and unfulfilled, yes, but the people I'm working with are largely so generous and accomodating and understanding that I'm finding myself becoming more and more charmed by them and more and more guilty for my own lack of enthusiasm.

On Thanksgiving Eve, I worked my usual Wednesday lunch shift, knowing I would have the night off to cuddle with some tea in bed and watch my usual reality TV shows (currently Top Chef and Stylista.) All week, I'd been hearing about the Tabla tradition of the Thanksgiving family meal, which always occured on the day before Thanksgiving, at 4:15, our usual pm family meal time. Each cook in the restaurant, including the sous chefs, brought in one dish to share with the entire staff, anyone who was working, or who wanted to come in to partake. The managers set the entire upstairs dining room for the staff with festive table decorations and champagne flutes filled with sparkling cider. Ty, the Chef de Cuisine, cooked the turkey to perfection and we all piled into the dining room at 4:15. "It may be the most important meal you have this year" said Eric, one of my favorite bartenders. I was excited because I wasn't sure I'd have another Thanksgiving dinner this year. The food was incredible. There must have been twenty five different dishes, all the classics, and some takes on the classics. Some of my favorites included amazing scalloped sweet potatoes that were sweet and succulent, and sous chef Logan's chile rellano, a Thanksgiving tradition from his family in southern California, which struck a chord in my memory as well. It was over pretty quickly, since we had to clear out in time for the first 5:30 reservations.

As I stumbled out of the restaurant into the early evening darkness, my belly bursting and my heart warmed, I marvelled at how unique this display of community was amongst restaurant people. I mean honestly, and I've worked at all kinds of restaurants, I've never known a restaurant to be so accomodating of its employees. Earlier that week I'd gotten called into the managers' office at the end of my closing dinner shift to sit down with Gretchen and Peter (two of my favorite managers, thank God) and chat about my apparent lack of presence on the floor. "You're pretty brilliant when dealing with your tables. Your guests really respond to you. But you seem to be going through the motions on the floor." I immediately got emotional and had to explain to them that I feel like the exception at a place where almost every single front-of-house employee went to culinary school and plans to have a career in hospitality. Every other place I've ever worked has been a temporary solution for ninety percent of its employees. Even at Morimoto, a restaurant of a similiarly high caliber (maybe higher, if you consider cover count and the exposure of having a celebrity chef) every single server and host has another career, be it modelling, acting, music, makeup artistry, instillation art, teaching yoga, you name it. This doesn't make them bad servers. On the contrary, I think the fact that they have rich lives outside the restaurant contributes to the quality of their service. At Tabla, the service is equally as high, if not higher. It's just a different atmosphere, one where every employee is expected to be better than good; they're expected to be exemplary. I didn't think I had a problem with that expectation. I'll always admit first that I admire the staff's committment to and passion for hospitality. It's totally remarkable, coming from my perspective, which was that everyone who worked in service fucking hated it. I always try to adhere to the highest standards possible in everything that I do...unless I begin to feel that it isn't worth it. When my general manager at Lunetta stopped showing any interest in the well-being of any of my co-workers, I had no desire to try my hardest to do my best. In a dramatic episode that ended my affiliation with Lunetta forever, my GM had a similar conference with me, after which I realized I would never care enough about the restaurant to suck it up and try any harder. There was no point in me staying. I had nothing left to gain, and nothing left to give. But at Tabla, as I sat in the office with tears streaming down my face uncontrollably, I explained to the managers where I was coming from--that I was unhappy in my personal life and trying to save money to help improve my quality of living by funding such things as grad school and an apartment of my own, and also completely creatively unfulfilled, which made everything even harder because I knew that I was supposed to be doing something else with my life something I cared deeply about--and they listened! And they showed great empathy! And I told them sincerely that I wanted to improve my attitude because I respected the way they cared about their jobs and how that translated into how well they did their jobs.

So. I'm thankful for the company I'm in at Tabla. Although my heart still isn't quite in it, and I know it never will be. I'm thankful for the role this job is playing at this juncture in my life.

I waddled to the liquor store last night for a cheap bottle of wine to wash down the amazing family meal when I got home, and as I was on my way, I got a call from my friend Elyse about the details of the Thanksgiving dinner she was hosting the next day. Elated to hear from her, I vowed to be there the next day, flowers and wine in hand, to share the holiday with my estranged college friends and friends from Lunetta (where they all still work.) I went home, DVRd the Macy's parade and fell asleep early in my amazing, snuggly new Victoria's Secret robe that I ordered online while at Morimoto last weekend.

The next day, I awoke at 1:00, and cuddled with a glass of soy egg nog and a Greenmarket blackberry pie for breakfast, and watched the parade commercial-free before dragging my tired lazy ass out of bed and heading to the Upper West Side. It was a divinely perfect morning off.

Our misfit Manhattan Thanksgiving couldn't have been lovelier. As Elyse wrote in her Facebook status, it was a party made up of lesbians, hipsters and gays, with Alee, Elyse and I living somewhere in the middle. When I arrived, Natalya, our manager from Lunetta, and her girlfriend Tammy had slaved all day in the kitchen with masters of the house Adam and Dennis; Elyse, having been banned from her own kitchen, had mostly been drinking all day; our hipster friends Ryan, Thurman and Ulysses, all former Lunetta servers, were lounging around with cheap Mexican beers in hand (the only beer they could get from the very sketchy East Harlem liquor store down the street); Spadoni was her wacky self, emphasized by organic wine from Trader Joe's; and Tammy and Natalya's tiny chihuaua Missy was nervously weaving around everyone's feet. It was so wonderful to see everyone. I spent the remainder of the hor d'oeuvres session catching up, and by the time dinner was properly served (on no-muss no fuss plastic plates), I'd found myself in a yummy wine haze myself. The food was, again incredible. Halfway through, I definitely regretted having eaten so much the day before, as my stomach still seemed to be in recovery, but the more I ate, the more nostalgic I felt: it was a proper, old-fashioned Thanksgiving after all. We all talked about what we were thankful for, as a non-denominational substution for saying grace, and though we're all struggling to find peace of mind, artistic fulfillment, and financial stability, we all found ourselves to be thankful for the struggle and the opportunity to pursure the things that made us happy, supported by each other in the endeavor.

Around 11:00, Spadoni, Ryan, Ulysses and I stumbled onto the 6 train, dying a little from our gluttony, and I started to feel my sleepy contentment give way to melancholy, the same way it always had when I was a kid, on the drive home from whichever relative's home we had visited for Thanksgiving. I remember sitting in the car, my little brothers passed out on either side of me, listening to Christmas music on the radio and feeling sad for no reason, as if having a premonition of my impending adulthood.

I think the reason some of us are prone to holiday depression is because we're mourning our own loss of childhood innocence. The holidays used to be so simple: Thanksgiving meant turkey, Christmas meant presents, and that was that. As adults, there's the terrifying pressure of finding a home for the holidays, when your childhood home no longer exists, or when it's too far away to get to. Home is one of our greatest losses when we grow up, a sense of knowing where you belong, and that there are always people there to take care of you. My childhood was different than many peoples' in that it was jilted, fragmented and constantly chaotic. But the silver lining was always that I had multiple homes, and each one was filled with people who loved me and wanted the best for me. My heart was torn in two, but each piece was always so full. Now, I feel like my heart has been smashed with a hammer, and some of the smaller pieces have been blown away by the wind, never to be found again. They're part of the earth now, and I'll forever be mourning them. The bigger pieces are easier to see and to hang on to--my spread-out, far awar family, my beautiful, caring friends, spread-out as well, New York, Philadelphia, Vista, Toronto...all my various homes that stay with me even as I'm torn from them. It's becoming easy to see how grown-ups put their memories up on pedastals. My memories are starting to feel like pieces of myself that I've lost and can never get back. Even as I make new memories, I can't help mourning the old ones.

I should have felt happy and stuffed and fallen into bed and to sleep instantly upon arriving home. But instead, I entered my empty apartment and felt, for the first time in a long time, lonely. I crave alone time, time to be with my thoughts and try to sort them out, time to decompress from the stimulation of the world outside. My room is my sanctuary, everywhere I go, everywhere I live. I'm usually elated to come home to an empty apartment. But tonight, I wished that Matty wasn't home in Syracuse so we could stay up chatting, or cuddle and watch a movie. I wished my father and stepmother and brother had called me from California to say hi. I wished my friends weren't all working on my birthday next week. I wished I had the strength to put myself out in the world more forcefully, without fear of rejection and ultimate loneliness.

I know these feelings will pass. Ultimately, I've come to realize that the only way I've been able to take any of the risks I've taken in my life, regarding my career and my own personal pursuit of happiness, is through realizing the support of my family and friends. I know I'll always have a place to go for Thanksgiving, now matter where the coming year takes me. I'll wake up tomorrow and I'll realize that and I won't mind working a double at Morimoto. Everything in my life is temporary...except the people who matter.

Damn the holidays. They make me so thankful to be alive, and yet yearn so badly for the things I cannot find.

Pomegrantastic!

2008-11-10T23:20:00.000-08:00

This week I bought my first pomegranate. They were on sale at Whole Foods when I did my grocery shopping and I thought, why not?

I used to think that if I were a fruit, I would be an avocado. It's one of my top three favorite foods, it's a native of southern California, it is an excellent addition to all of my favorite easy meals to make for myself: grilled cheese, fajitas, scrambled eggs, salads...

But really, avocados are far too agreeable for me to truly relate to. Their skin is thin and their flesh is smooth, soft, and mild. They have only one big flaw: the pit in the center. The character of the avocado is simple, palatable, excellent for one's hair and skin.

As I broke into my pomegranate this evening, I couldn't help but feel a sense of metaphoric understanding of the challenging fruit. It takes strategy and preparation to open a pomegranate. You really have to commit to the pomegranate. It is not a fruit to be eaten recreationally...it must be taken very seriously.

I held it over the sink as I carefully made shallow incisions into its skin that would allow me to pull it into quarters without breaking too many of the seeds open inside. Tiny flecks of bright red juice splattered my hands and the kitchen counter. My mouth was already watering at the thought of tasting that first juicy kernel as it burst between my teeth.

I imagine if one did not know how delicious a pomegranate tasted, it may not seem worth the time it takes to peel it open. One might think to themselves "Goddam, I hate this motherfucking pomegranate! It's such a phenomenal pain in the ass!" as the juice squirts all over the kitchen. But after one taste of the luscious nectar inside, there would be no turning back. Both quenching and perpetuating thirst, the pomegranate's simultaneous sweetness and tartness always inspires one to want more.

The pomegranate has a thick skin that's ultimately spongy and vulnerable on the inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to crack it open, but once you do, it's insides burst forth onto display. Each seed inside is like a tiny jewel, embedded safely in it's eggy casing. Once cracked open, the work has just begun. You must then take time and care to pry each tiny little jewel from its sedentary state of rest. The pomegranate is very reluctant to be eaten. It wants to stay self-contained. But unlike a coconut, it succumbs to consumption easily once broken open, suggesting that behind its hard, defensive exterior, the pomegranate is really desperate to be consumed, to inspire the tastebuds of whomever has invested the time in opening it up. Unlike the simple avocado, the pomegranate has hundreds of little seeds, and unlike the avocado's blunt, heavy pit, the pomegranate's delicate little seeds are the assets of the fruit. The casing of the seeds is irrelevant, without use...but the seeds themselves are full of rich, luxurious, anti-oxidant filled value. The flaws of the fruit are its treasures as well.

In Armenia, pomegranates are a popular symbol of fertility, abundance and marriage.

In Greek mythology, pomegranates play a key role in the story of Persephone, which offers an explanation of the changing of the seasons. Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld to be his wife. Her mother Demeter was the goddess of the Harvest and as she mourned the loss of her daughter, all green things ceased to grow. Zeus demanded that Hades return Persephone to the Earth so that the winter would end. Before letting Persephone go, Hades tricked her into eating four pomegranate seeds. The law of the Fates stated that whomever ate food from the underworld would be doomed to stay there for eternity. Because of the four pomegranate seeds she consumed, Persephone was forever doomed to return to the underworld for four months of every year. Each year when her daughter descends into the underworld, Demeter goes into mourning and winter settles over the Earth.

Thriving in tropical climates, robust and curvacious, hard yet delicate, juicy and challenging, complicated, slightly esoteric...

Yes, if I were a fruit, I would definitely be a pomegrante.

If I ever break down entirely and resort to internet dating, that will be the headline of my profile.

Perhaps also the first line of my autobiography.

"I Have a Dream..."

2008-11-04T20:56:00.000-08:00

At eleven forty, I got off the subway at New Utrecht Avenue and briskly walked the 6 blocks to my apartment. Fourteen hours had passed since I walked these same blocks in the opposite direction, on my way to the polls before continuing to work a double. The last couple hours at the restaurant we'd all monitered the election results on the internet in the office, and as I left, Obama had maintained his solid lead. Still, my manager Gretchen was tensely huddled in the corner, willing the night to end as quickly as possible so the waiting with bated breath would be over. "We remember the 2000 election," Gretchen and Sara, one of the bartenders, were saying last night. "We voted in 2000. It's not over 'til it's over."

It was over by the time I got off the subway. My cell phone vibrated as I left the train with a text message from my best friend Mark in California:

Mark Hoke: mccain train derailed!

As I walked, my heart racing and my pace quickening, I logged onto Facebook on my phone and scrolled through my cyberfriends' statuses...victory cry after victory cry. Tears sprung to my eyes. When I finally made it to my front door, I raced straight to the TV, just in time to watch the new president of the United States make his acceptance speech.

I knew he would win. I just knew it. And yet, I wept alone in my apartment from the sheer weight of it all. As hopeful and optimistic as I try to be, that cynical little voice in the back of my head is always there. I've turned the volume way down, so low in fact that I can only hear it in the event that things don't work out for the best in the end. Of course, there is no real end to anything...the best we can hope for is a new beginning. And now, after 8 years of residing under a stolen presidency, this country has finally been given a chance at a new beginning that we, it's lowly, floundering little citizens, can actually invest some faith in.

Not that I've ever been one to take things for granted. In my adult life I've always been aware that even at the worst of times, America is still a far better place to live than, say, Afghanistan or Cambodia or Sudan. Our government has never been run by terrorists, and even while it was being run by a Christian fundamentalist fanatic never terrorized it's citizens at gunpoint in the streets, raping and murdering women and burning our houses down. One wouldn't be wrong in stating that, relatively speaking, we've always had it pretty decent. When I moved to New York a year ago, I started to meet people who were so thankful to be in America, even as us natives were bitching about it. Nowhere in the country is the Melting Pot more evident than in New York City. I'm quite sure there are few cities in the world that rival New York's cultural diversity. Morimoto's staff is comprised of immigrants from Japan, Korea, India, Mexico, Sudan and England (ha ha) and every restaurant I've worked in has been a similar mini-melting pot in and of itself. Some of the stories these people have to tell are just amazing.

My favorite examples of the American Dream come from two different Mexican-Americans who both happen to be named Manny. One was a busboy at Beacon, and the other is the head of the cleaning crew at Morimoto.

Last Thanksgiving, being the new girl, I'd been roped into working an 8 hour shift, 3pm to 11pm. It was a long-ass day that miraculously went pretty smoothly...until the final hour and a half stretch. I was the last hostess standing (in blood-filled pumps) around 9pm when a guest collapsed on the landing outside the ladies' restroom. She'd apparently become short of breath and extremely pale. My manager Joe rushed to the host podium and told me to dial 911. My heart was racing--I'd never dialed 911 before, let alone at work--though by the time the paramedics showed up, the guest seemed to be more or less okay. Seeing the ambulance parked outside, another guest got in my face and demanded that her son-in-law be examined by the paramedics as well, since they were there, because he was hyperventilating outside. Both guests were fine in the end--too much turkey and excitement for one day it seems. But then, not forty-five minutes later, Joe appeared again and with the same request. This time, it was Manny, one of the restaurant's hardest working bussers, who had collapsed from chest pains. Manny, I was told, had a heart condition and had had open-heart surgery about ten years earlier. So I called the ambulence for the second time in my life, and Joe let them in the back so they could take care of Manny without alarming the remaining guests. I barely knew who Manny was at that point.

A few weeks later, Manny returned to work. It seemed he had been back in the hospital for a few weeks and the doctor had instructed him to take some time off. He was fine...though his time away from work had set his family back financially a great deal. In need of some extra cash, the general manager had allowed him to pick up some coat check shifts as well. Of all the immigrant employees to whom English was a second language, Manny's English was one of the best. He showed up one evening when I was hosting alone, looking sharp in a sky blue cable-knit sweater and black slacks. It was a slow night, so he ended up spending most of his time up front chatting with me. A sweet little man with a kind disposition, Manny was barely half an inch taller than me on the rare occasions I was able to get away with wearing flats. He told me about his family: he and his wife had been married for 19 years. "I never cheated on my wife in 19 years" he told me. They had two kids, a daughter who was about to start college in the fall and a younger son. "Karen is so smart. She's going to NYU and then she wants to go to medical school. She wants to take care of her daddy's heart. That's what she said when she was a little girl. I had surgery when she was three and she said she would grown up and be a doctor to take care of Daddy's heart. She never changed her mind!" I swooned quietly over Manny. He was such a good person, a loyal and loving father. He reminded me of my own father in the way he'd do anything for his family. He told me about when he was 18 and first came to America. Looking for a job. "There's no money in Mexico. It's better in America. I've been here 20 years!" As the weeks passed, Manny developed a little crush on me. "Are you coming to the Christmas party? I told my wife I wanted to dance with you at the party!" I thought it was sweet.

Manny from Morimoto is even smaller than the other Manny. He's a little older, a little tougher, and much less sentimental. Since the weather's turned cooler he often shows up to work in the wee hours of the morning sporting swanky poly-blend suits to assert his authority over the much younger Mexican boys on the cleaning crew. I have no idea what time they get there in the morning, but by the time I get there for my reservations shift at 9am (well, you know...9:18 or so) they've already scrubbed most of the dining room clean. When the office door is locked, it means that Manny hasn't gotten around to cleaning it yet and I have to find him to unlock it. It's very low on his list of priorities, as it only takes a few minutes to change the trash can liners and windex the manager's desktops. But Manny often takes his time and talks my ear off about his experiences. "Where you from?" he asked me the first morning I came in by myself. "Portuguese? Oh, I see. You in school? I did not go to school." And yet, he came to America and managed to become a business owner, opening a deli that he still owns but no longer operates himself. He told me how his business was in the newspaper, and how President Clinton shook his hand and congratulated him on his success in America. "My mother is still in Mexico. She doesn't come to visit me. She's too old. It's too expensive to fly to Mexico. But I talk to her on the phone. I send her money." Now, every morning I work, Manny greets me: "Como estas, Senorita? I am happy if the senoritas are happy."

The Mannys are what America is all about, aren't they? The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, no matter what your background or education. American children grow up being brainwashed by "America the beautiful", the land of hope and plenty where anyone who works hard can achieve all their hopes and dreams. A country where the world's less fortunate can take refuge from government and economic oppression...where all men are supposedly equal, as God created them.

I was 14 in 2000 and living in Toronto with my mom. My Canadian friends and I followed the 2000 election closely, and though we all made adolescently flippant comments about what was going to happen to America if George W. Bush was elected, I couldn't help feeling personally affected by the circumstance. I was still an American citizen, after all, even if I was currently living in Canada. In Toronto, I contradicted all the stereotypes about Americans that were posed to me by my little friends. I assured them time and time again that we were not a nation of gun-toting rednecks, that just because I was from Southern California did not mean that I was rich. Then along came this new president who spoke with hideously improper grammar in a dumbed-down Texas drawl, and all the stereotypes became impossible to deflect. I had no idea which country to be loyal to when people I met in each place knew nothing but stereotypes about the other and I came to the decision that the concept of patriotism itself was worthless, like worshipping a false idol created by man to gain power over the masses. American Bible-belt patriotism started to look more and more like a cult and I became nationally indifferent to both of the countries to which I claimed citizenship.

I've felt displaced my whole life, split between two places that I did not choose as my own but were thrust upon me. For many reasons other than national orientation, I've always struggled with defining myself. But one thing I am very thankful for is that my lack of national devotion provided me with a great deal of common sense. I try as often as possible to exercise intellect over emotion, and I think that is what compells me to continually strive to learn more about this complicated world we live in.

I voted for the first time in the 2004 election, an experience that was truly one of the first empowering experiences of my young adult life. I was 18 and so excited at the prospect of change. The people I'd grown up around had all opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, and though I'd heard my father rant and rave about the corruption of an administration who could wage a war for control over a country's energy resources then lie about their motives to the American people, I was really just starting to open my eyes to the gravity of the situation. I'd gone to a school-sponsered screening of Farenheit 9-11 with my friends, and we'd all sat dumbfounded as Michael Moore spent two hours explaining to us that our country didn't respect us, didn't care about our needs as citizens, and didn't care about the lives of our peers who were being sent overseas to die for their phony cause. I started to feel like an adult that fall, and the prospect of voting against Bush felt like taking matters into my own hands. Of course, Kerry was running a campaign to defeat Bush, not a campaign that was ultimately focused around change for the greater good. Defeating Bush wasn't enough... Kerry lacked the necessary strategies to help guide the country out of its gradual recession. Perhaps most importantly, Kerry lacked the passion that was necessary to guide the American populace.

Maybe we really needed to hit rock bottom before we were collectively ready to make some serious changes. Some of us could see it coming years ago...others evidentally needed more persuasion.

Since casting my vote for the losing candidate in 2004, I've definitely felt a collective downward spiral in morale, one that unfortunately has coincided with my generations transition into adulthood. We've come of age in a time of extreme social despair. I've felt my adolescent hopes and dreams slowly corode into jaded cynicism far beyond my years. Those of us who are still in the early stages of post-academic "real life" have felt the odds rising higher and higher against us over the past couple of years. We're all broke, struggling to keep our heads above water, and barely finding the strength to persevere in the name of our artistic ideals. We are artists because we fundamentally believe in the good of humanity and that the world is a beautiful place that we should strive to take care of. These ideals have been so very difficult to maintain in the face of all the pain and suffering that has been surmouting in the world. I've often felt helpless, trapped between pursuing my dreams in the spirit of American opportunity that was supposedly my birthright, and desperate guilt for not working harder to oppose worldwide injustice and intolerance. I've been weighing my options for a long time, and I know I'll be weighing them longer still. But at this point in my life I've arrived at the conclusion that I do not have to sacrifice my duty as human being to contribute to the betterment of society in the interest of pursuing self-fulfillment, or vice versa. I can do both at the same time. That is what I believe the purpose of art to be. For me, in my life, I am an artist because I know that my artistic talents are my God-given means of reaching out to other human beings. This conclusion has led me to the decision to return to school, to pursure my MFA in Acting, in order to deepen my understanding and practice of my artistic craft, as well as to continue to pursue more diverse means of artistic collaboration. It is important to me in my career to be constantly redefining my ideas of art and its relationship with its audience in an effort to seek out more effective and meaningful means of communication and collaborative expression of the human condition. It is also important to me to pursue teaching as one of the facets of my career, for my teachers have always been my greatest role models, inspiring me endlessly with their selflessness. The gifts of support, inspirtation and encouragement that I've been given are such that I feel strongly about giving back to others.

Fuck. I've been trying to start writing an effective, yet concise personal statement for my application essays for weeks. I think I might have just found the heart of this decision of mine.

For that, and for many other things, I have President Barack Obama to thank.

Seriously, dude. A country that can transition from slavery and civil war to electing an African-American president in less than 200 years can't be all bad. Other countries have been waging the same civil wars for thousands of years. This is a great change... of course, tomorrow morning the world will still look exactly the same as it does today. But already I feel a little lighter, a little more hopeful. I only hope we can all see that Obama is a man who is bound to make some mistakes. It will take a lot of time to pull this country out of it's slide into impending social and economic ruin. Likewise, it will take time to repair our foreign affairs with the nations of the world. However, the first step has been taken. All we can really do is continue to put one foot in front of the other and focus on the future as it becomes the present.

I don't think I've ever felt quite so empowered and humbled at the same time.

What a day.

“The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

2008-10-17T07:05:00.000-07:00

I awake to the tinkly sounds of my cell phone alarm and instantly am struck with an impulse to kill myself in order to get out of going to work. I hit the snooze button instead. Eight minutes later the chimes urge me awake once more and I give in. I stumble through the motions of my morning routine, barely aware of what I'm doing as I'm doing it. I look for things through fuzzy, lensless eyes: washcloth, underwear, shoes, uniform, keys, cell phone...all of it goes in a pile on my bed. I wear the same thing to work every day, yet even in the sleepy morning hours I inevitably spend too much time accessorizing in an effort to minimize the frumpiness of my uniform. My hair has managed to work itself into a state that is somehow both greasy and frizzy. I pin it back in a bun and spruce it up with a black sequined headband. Somehow I make it out the door, though, true to form, I'm running 15 minutes late. Somehow...

The next thing I know I'm standing in line at Ruthy's Deli in Chelsea Market, determined to get a bagel with cream cheese and an enormous cup of coffee, no matter how much later it makes me. I'll still get there before the opening manager, and that's all that matters to me right now. I clock in fifteen minutes late...the first bite proves every second was worth it. I take my time doing my opening paperwork and savoring my coffee. I'm sitting in the office with Tiffany, the morning reservationist, when our manager Sara calls to say she's running fifteen minutes late and to ask us if we'd like breakfast. My heart leaps: even though I've already had my breakfast, I'm down to five bucks in my wallet and I'm heading straight from this restaurant to the next with no time to eat in between, so I figure I could stand to stock up while the opportunity has arisen. Plus, my exhausted little immune system has been working overtime and is dying for some refreshing, nutrient-filled oj this morning. I hang up the phone and head upstairs to set up the floor. But first I pop outside and down the block for a fresh copy of this week's Village Voice to have with my coffee.

When Sara arrives, I find I'm too full for my second breakfast (she's chosen for me yet another bagel with cream cheese), so into my bag it goes, destined to be my lunch on the walk between restaurants. Somehow, be it the free food, getting away with being late, or just the caffeine starting to kick in, I've managed to find myself in a good mood by the time we open at noon.

Around 12:30, five people laden with very intense looking camera equipment enter the sliding glass doors and approach the host desk. The one woman amongst them, shorter and bonier than me though saddled with the largest pieces of equipment (my kind of lady) tells me she's here for "the shoot" and asks where they can park their gear. I point them to the north private dining room that's closed off for lunch. Shoot? I ask Sara. Apparently Chef Morimoto is having a sushi lesson with his fellow Iron Chef Bobby Flay this afternoon. We decide it must be a segment for Throwdown With Bobby Flay. Cool. As the camera crew are loading in more and more paraphernalia, I duck into the coat check for a hot second to check my cell phone, as I do obsessively about ten times an hour. Lo and behold, there's a text from Molly:

Molly: Guess what event im workin today? Yer gonna shit yer pants

Molly: Obama concert with Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, John Legend, India Arie and James Taylor...billy and Bruce are doing sound check right now

Me: BAD ASS. Take pictures! Bobby Flay and Morimoto are making sushi together in a couple hours and the Food Network is filming in the restaurant

Me: But you still win

Molly: Shut up! U take pics too! Or get in a shot and wave like an idiot!

Can one become successful by osmosis? I'm pondering this coincidental synchronicity of Molly's and my proximity to fame, when a PA for the Food Network walks in carrying extension cords...he looks extremely familiar. A kid about my age with a puppy dog fave and shaggy brown hair in a green t-shirt and jeans. Then it hits me: I think I slept with that kid about a year ago.

My first and only one-night stand, about a month after I arrived in the city. Quite possibly my last one-night stand: as I remember, it was kind of awful. Not embarrassing or emotionally uncomfortable--I had absolutely no emotional investment in the tryst at all--but simply downright terrible sex. Is it really the same kid? It seems too random to be true. I keep an eye on him peripherally as I go about my business making confirmation calls for tomorrow's reservations and become increasingly convinced that it is, in fact, him. I'm certain because when I met him, he was PAing for MTV when they came into Beacon while I was working to shoot for an episode of Making the Band. The irony of it is enormously hilarious: that my pathetic little excuse for a sexual history would actually come back to haunt me seems so ridiculous. But it's not the first time this has happened.

I lost my virginity to a co-worker at one of my restaurants when I was 19, the summer after my sophomore year of college. After a month-long period of pseudo-dating (I hesitate to call it a relationship), I decided to break it off quickly by neglecting to call him back. I naively thought it would be easy and painless...until he started to call me every day. Luckily, I was in my last week at the restaurant so I only had one uncomfortable run-in with him at work, which ended with me leaving through the back door after my shift and him following me outside, cornering me, and badgering me about blowing him off. Which, granted, wasn't the most mature way to handle it, but I was young and there was a lot going on in my life and I just wanted to detach quickly and cleanly. He called me every day for almost two months and every day I ignored his call. Then one day, he left me a message telling me he was leaving for Europe for several months. I breathed a sigh of relief as I counted down the days until he would be out of the country and I would no longer run the risk of running into him. Then, an entire year later, I was walking out of the Ritz movie theater in Old City with Molly and Matty one Saturday afternoon, when suddenly, there he was, walking towards us. I saw him first and hoped he wouldn't recognize me, but he did, and walked right up to me. I panicked, making forced, frantic small talk and gave him my number again in a daze. Two months later, we met up for coffee one time, and I invited him to see a show I was in at school. After that, I faded him out of my life again. Until this summer, when I swore I passed by him on the street in Old City and added him as a friend on Facebook to see. We emailed about getting together, but my heart wasn't in it.

But the kid I hooked up with one time? New York is the most populated city in America. How could I possibly have run into him? Sure, this kind of thing happens on Sex and the City all the time... but I'm only 22 and I've only slept with four people, and only one in New York. Is the Universe trying to send me some sort of message? I can't possibly imagine what it must be--it certainly can't be to scale back my promiscuity. I couldn't be less promiscuous if I tried. What the hell?

I don't acknowledge that I recognize him. I'm not sure if he recognizes me, or even remembers me, as he makes no indication. I'm relieved. There is nothing to gain for either of is in acknowledging that one tiny event that links us together. It certainly doesn't seem like anything worth revisiting.

I am connected to random people in New York. Although individually they mean very little to me, something about that feels comforting.

The shoot starts around 3:00. I usually work until 5, but at 3:30 Sara lets me go. I leave quickly, relieved that I have an extra hour and a half to myself before I have to work at Tabla. I take the scenic route through Chelsea and walk all the way to Madison Square Park. It's a perfect sunny afternoon, and there's a perfect bench just waiting for me: across from the fountain by the playground, next to a water fountain. I settle onto the bench sitting cross-legged and devour my bagel from Sara as I browse through the Voice. All the parts of my day swirl through my head in a strange kind of way that makes me feel like I'm being guided.

An hour passes, and the sky has clouded over entirely. The threat of rain is in the air but I'm not scared. I'd be happy for it to rain while I'm at work. Everything feels different when it's raining...indoors people become a little stir-crazy and there's electricity in the air that somehow always serves to unite us. A gust of wind above stirs the leaves of the one yellow tree in the park. I noticed this tree earlier in the week while I worked the patio. It's the overachiever of Madison Square Park, eager to be the first to shed it's old leaves and start from scratch. Suddenly the fountain and I and all the people around me are being showered in yellow leaves. They flutter through the sky like birds and as they hit the ground the wind makes them scurry along the sidewalk in great clusters. Tiny children with their nannies squeal with delight. Two leaves land on my newspaper. I tuck them into its pages and save them for later, not for anything in particular...maybe only to remind me of this moment when I get home from work later, exhausted and bitter, and empty the contents of my bag. I'll see the leaves and smile and remember that randomness is itself a pattern worthy of believing in.

Is anything connected? Is everything? I have no idea.

"Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from."

- Eric Hoffer

Turning Over (Not Into) a New Leaf

2008-10-14T23:24:00.000-07:00

Okay. I was just about to start blogging when I happened to look up at the television (which is tuned to TLC so I can watch What Not to Wear in my peripheral vision as I write) and saw a commercial for an upcoming program which has grossed me out so badly that I absolutely have to mention it before moving on. The program was about this man who is half tree, and half man. Half tree! Is this for real? How is such a thing even possible??? Dear God, the pictures of him were so incredibly upsetting I can't even describe them. I'm trying to shake it off.

Anyway.

If you've already noticed, there is something very different about the technical circumstances under which I'm writing today. Have you guessed? Here's a hint: I'm not at work. I'm not blogging by cell phone. That's right, I'm at home on my very own computer! Not a new computer, unfortunately, but my very old, very outdated Gateway laptop. Remember Gateway? I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who still owns one. My version of Windows XP is circa 2001. It's very retro. Still, I'm proud of this computer. My senior year of high school I entered a scholarship competition that I read about in my guidance counselor's office sponsered by Coca-Cola and the San Diego Public Transit Authority. I wrote an essay about the (very limited) history of public transportation in San Diego, and about six weeks later I received a phone call telling me that I was one of fifteen students selected to attend an awards luncheon at Coca-Cola headquarters, at which I was to receive my winnings: a $250 scholarship and a free Gateway laptop, complete with carrying case. Yes, apparently even at 17 I could bullshit in essay format with the best.

It's been about four years since my computer connected to the internet. My first semester of freshman year my roommate Megan's parents offered to pay for our internet connection. I went totally hogwild, downloading music and AIMing like crazy, to the point where I was finally inundated with viruses. Then Megan dropped out over winter break, and I was left again without internet access. After that, I reasoned that I just couldn't afford it and didn't need to, when the computer lab at school stayed open until 2 am every night. Since graduation, I've done what I could, stealing internet access at work and paying for it at Kinko's, then breathing a sigh of relief when I got my Palm Centro cell phone which had complete, miniature internet browsing ability. Then last night, Matty suggested I try connecting my computer directly to the router, since it lived in my subletted room right by my bed. Low and behold, it worked! I'll never be the same again! DVR, cable, and internet? Matty is spoiling the hell out of me. Thank goodness I've finally started to make some money so I'll be able to pay for all these technological goodies.

So, now that I've got all those tangents out of the way, let me tell you about my day. It was an ordinary, unremarkable day, but a perfect, lovely one nonetheless. Having closed at Tabla Monday night, then worked a thirteen hour double yesterday, my body was begging me to stay in bed this morning. Alas, I had to face another lunch shift, so I hoisted my worn-out self out of bed, put myself together as quickly as possible (given my insomnia) and rolled out the door, pausing to grab an apple and a magazine for the subway.

I was just telling Matty last night that I've started to realize the only way I'm going to be able to sustain working full time at both restaurants is to force myself to adapt a healthy new routine. Last summer, I spent one month working three jobs: teaching by day at the UArts summer program, hostessing by night at Jones, and serving on the weekends at Chili's. It was insane--but I didn't get sick once, and I was the happiest I'd been in a long time because I was managing to fulfill all my needs, both personal, professional, and financial. I was grocery shopping every Sunday evening and packing my lunches, eating really healthy, and taking yoga at the gym on my lunch breaks from the summer program. I've done it before, and I know I can do it again. What gives me the strength and the stamina to endure such a saturated schedule is knowing that it is temporary. I've given myself until February to maintain this ridiculous schedule. True, it doesn't leave much room for a social life, but hey--as Carrie Bradshaw once said, "isn't delayed gratification the definition of maturity?" My main priority right now is taking care to put my life seriously on a healthy track, and that starts with building some financial stability, even if it proves to be temporary, which I've accepted that it may very well be.

This was my online horoscope today:

"You may want to have more stability in your everyday routines, such as diet, exercise and sleep. But there can be too many distractions these days, making self-discipline even tougher than usual. You may reach a point where it's healthier to let go of control, instead of frustrating yourself by trying to tighten your grip on reality. Tomorrow is another day."

Well, shit.

Luckily for me, I've spent the last year purposfully working to accept that change is inevitably out of my control. The tide will always ebb and flow, and while I may not be able to change it, learning to roll with it allows for a sense of flexibility and ease in my life that has taken away my fear of failure. Yes, the confusion still remains, but the fog seems to be clearing little by little and it's fabulous.

I took a bite out of my Golden Delicious apple on the D train this morning and was surprised at how easily my teeth sank into the fruit, and what a satisfying crunch it made. My coppery-pink lipstick left a ring around the bite that glistened in the morning sunlight. I usually only buy Granny Smith apples (for some reason red apples or even Macintosh apples gross me out...I prefer the tartness of green ones.) The Granny Smiths are usually much harder to bite into than this Golden Delicious. Suddenly I was hit by the sensation of Autumn, all at once and very intensely. The potential for beauty and change fills the air everywhere I go in New York; I can feel nature vibrating as the leaves are perched on the very tips of their stems, just itching to change color and fall to the ground. The biggest changes in my life have always happened in the fall, from all the years I moved from school to school as I bounced back and forth between my parent's houses, to every new semester of college that held so much possibility, to last fall when I piled into the UHaul van with Alee and moved myself to New York. The big changes happen between September and January, and through the Winter I hibernate, settling into the new and improved version of my life that I've turned over.

The trains have been running very slowly the past few days, and I was about eight minutes late for work (though I called on the way to alleviate my fear of sullying my brand new unblemished reputation at Tabla.) Once I got onto the floor I settled down, and after several cups of coffee I was ready to work. It was a good shift--I've stopped making mistakes and I've started to create a new muscle memory for the restaurant. I feel settled and satisfied, and very relieved that my schedule has stabilized. As I neared the end of the shift, I started to plan out the rest of my evening. I have the night off and was determined to spend it in the most pleasurable, relaxing way possible so I'd be rejuvenated for my back to back doubles over the nest couple days. When I left the restaurant at 3:45, I headed straight for Union Square. The Farmer's Market was in full swing and I was determined to take advantage of it for the first time, since I had a little money to play with and double paychecks coming on Friday.

Tonight is the finale of Project Runway. Matty and I have been looking forward to this for weeks. It's an even bigger event since it's the show's final season on Bravo before it transfers to Lifetime next season. Miraculously, we both happened to have the evening off, so we planned to spend it together for the first time in weeks. He doesn't get off until 7:30 or so, so I'm cooking dinner for us: turkey burgers and sweet potato fries, with some kind of veggie dish on the side. Matt and I constantly bicker about our opposite beliefs regarding grocery shopping. Both of us love grocery shopping, and love crafting our own meals, although our styles and tastes couldn't be different. For one thing, Matty doesn't really buy or eat much fruit, whereas I crave fruit and juice all the time--it makes up for a large percentage of my shopping. He also buys pre-grated cheese (which I'm just so against), Kraft Singles (ditto), and frozen vegetables. He claims that every time he buys fresh produce it goes bad before he has time to eat it. I think it's a matter of buying less, only as much as you know you can eat in a week. Very few things actually spoil in a week if they're stored in the fridge, even if they're organic. He uses garlic powder instead of fresh garlic. The difference is obvious: he's all about convenience and practicality, whereas I'm all about authenticity and richness of taste and quality. You can tell which one of is is the restaurant snob.

At the market, I look for fresh organic garlic, onions and bell peppers--it's the first time I've ever bought produce at a farmer's market. It feels so fantastic for so many reasons. I feel like I'm getting back to the earth, taking a break from Corporate America with all it's overly-processed, pre-packaged, wasteful superstore glitz, and supporting local vendors at the same time. I feel like I'm making a difference--resisting over-economy, putting my money in the pockets of normal citizens instead of corporations. Shopping at the farmer's market feels like an act of rebellion. And, it makes me feel like part of a community.

I spend $2 on two small yellow onions, a clove of garlic and a green bell pepper...already I can smell how fresh and delicious they will taste with our dinner tonight. My next stop as I meander through the masses of green shoppers with their reusable shopping bags (I left mine at home) is at a little flower stand. The woman running the booth has backed her van into the tent, and its doors are open revealing her dwindling stock of fresh-cut flowers (I'm a little late...the market will start to close down in an hour or so.) I pick a small bouquet of fall-colored chrysantemums, and she tells me they're on sale, so I buy two for $10. The smile up at me with friendly red and yellow faces as I continue on through the market. I stop, on a whim, at a baked goods stand (my weakness) where I pick out a homeade pumpkin loaf and a large chocolate chip cookie (all I've eaten today was that apple and I'm dying for a snack) for a total of $4.50. Down the street from Union Square is a Trader Joe's, complete with an absolutely astounding wine store. This is my favorite new discovery in the entire city. Trader Joe's has a decent little wine selection from all over the world, and not one bottle is over $30 or so. I've purchased two bottles for $10 before...and it's still good quality wine. It's so worth going a few blocks out of my way for: I pick out an Il Valore Sangiovese from Puglia for (are you ready?) $4.59.

So, in half an hour, I've spent about $21 and I've purchased flowers, a bottle of wine, fresh organic veggies for dinner, a cookie for a snack, and a pumpkin loaf. All fresh, all organic, all deliciously satisfying.

New York is possible to enjoy on a budget, after all...you just have to know the little secrets. And stop assuming that the best things come with big price tags.

I'm divinely satiated on the N train ride home, even though I'm exhausted and have to stand (I always forget about rush hour.) I get home, arrange the flowers, and open the bottle of wine. I've decided to try drinking more in an effort to trick myself into going to bed earlier. I know, I know... it's a lonely, treacherous road to alcoholism. Luckily, it doesn't run in my family, and my body is so vulnerable to drugs and alcohol that one glass pretty much always does the trick. And besides, a glass of red wine with dinner is supposed to be good for you, isn't it? Wishful thinking?

"Still Life With Groceries"

How wonderful it feels to take comfort in small pleasures. My attitude has improved so much in the past few weeks...I'm sure it's a sign of ever greater developments to come. I have short-term goals in mind that serve only to take me from one phase to the next. I'm keeping my mind open to possibilities that are impossible for me to forsee. Right now I'm focused on my holistic happiness rather than my long term world-changing goals. Those are all still there. But focusing on the short term makes it easier to trust that the long term will fall into place. It's kinda like the way I see without glasses or contact lenses: everything that is within a foot of my face is clear, and everything that is farther away becomes blurrier and blurrier. I can still see it--the colors and the shapes are there, but fuzzy and blended together. The closer I come to an object, the more it comes into focus.

Clearly, I am near-sighted in life.

I've been blogging all summer to cope with a serious crash of my morale. Thank goodnessI'm finally changing with the leaves.

(...though thankfully not changing into the leaves...I just remembered the tree-man again. So gross!!!)

In Search of the Best of All Possible Worlds

2008-10-09T23:08:00.001-07:00

"Life is not good or bad. Life is life."

-Voltaire, from Candide.

I have approximately ten dollars to my name right now. I'm starting to worry a bit because the new job isn't working out so far. They've been cutting me almost every shift I'm scheduled for, so I've only been getting to work one shift a week and I've cut my availability down at Morimoto in order to accomodate the new schedule. Every day I come home from work, make some pasta or scrambled eggs and settle in to watch hours of TV. It's a terrifying slippery slope.

My brother Jake sent me this text message a couple hours ago:

Jake: Hey, I'm like really really really unmotivated about life right now. Any advice?

In the middle of watching last night's episode of Top Design on DVR, I stared at my cell for a moment, trying to think of some pearl of big sisterly wisdom. I was tempted to blow it off with a flippant, breezy comment about how I'm not really one to advise these days, as my outlook hasn't exactly been sunny lately. But I ultimately wasn't ready to admit to spiritual defeat... especially to my little brother. He's about to graduate from UCLA's School of Film and Television in the spring and he's burnt out and discouraged. I know his plight all too well, and it breaks my heart that he feels so jaded. I tossed my cell phone aside in hopes that some kind of insight would come to me if I gave it a few minutes.

Tuesday morning as I sat on the New York-bound Bolt Bus at 7:15 am, returning from Philadelphia after a divine weekend trip, I tried to translate my complicated feelings into blog fodder:

"I don't think I'm supposed to continue living the way I'm currently living for much longer," I wrote.

At the time, I was a little overwhelmed (not to mention totally exhausted, having slept for one hour before leaving at the crack of dawn to return to NYC in time to work at Tabla at 10:30. And still a little drunk from the Barrymores the night before.) I was unable to further sort through the static in my head and the swirling in my heart. But I definitely felt a change...and whatever it was it felt so good.

My weekend in Philly was exactly what I needed, and not a moment too soon. I'd asked for Sunday and Monday off from the restaurants, and was pleasently surprised to get Saturday night off as well. I got off work at 5, rushed around getting my errands done (buying a dress for the awards show, bus tickets, and Vogue for the bus ride) and hopped on an 8pm Chinatown bus. Heather met me at the diner after her show, and we walked down to South Philly, catching eachother up on the past three months. As we walked, a cluster of burly former frat guys stopped us to ask where Finn McCool's was. We expertly pointed them in the right direction--I felt like I was home.

Sunday, I went into Center City early with Heather to shop for Barrymore jewelery and meet up with my old friend Andy for coffee. Having non-college friends makes me feel like such a grown-up. Andy worked at Chili's with me for one summer before he quit and somehow we've managed to stayed in touch over the years. He walked me to the Arden in Old City so I could take in the matinee of Candide that Heather had gotten me a comp ticket for (in exchange for me taking her as my plus-one to the Barrymores.)

I love going to the theater by myself. I especially love going to matinees and sitting amongst the over-sixty crowd. I feel like an insider, like I'm going undercover to watch how the patrons interact with eachother, and how they react to the show. (Plus, old-lady chit chat in the bathroom line at intermission is totally priceless. "I like it, but it's not my favorite. Sondheim is just so wordy...it goes by so fast. This is Stephen Sondheim who wrote this, right?The voices are just wonderful, though.")

As I waited for the lights to dim, I felt so inspired--and nothing had even happened yet! It was then I realized that it's been months since I'd been to see a show. I haven't had any money, so my entertainment options have been limited to the lowbrow. It was an absolute relief to be sitting there. As the overture started, I felt my heart thaw and my mind begin to open, and my whole being began to hungrily soak up every drop of creative juice that began to seep across the stage.

I always forget about the overture to Candide until I hear it. It is one of the most perfect, exhilirating overtures in the American musical canon. When I was in tenth grade, I played first violin in the Symphony Orchestra at the Etobicoke School of the Arts in Toronto, and the overture to Candide was in our repetoire that season. As I recall, it was the piece I had to play to audition for re-entry into the orchestra. As the Arden's ten-piece band played, I did miss the bravado of the seventy-piece orchestra. But the band did a commendable job with what they had, and the lush beauty of the playful, yet moving score remained in tact. I teared up the minute it started, and from then on was totally on the journey.

Heather told me that Terry Nolen, the director of the show, turned to the cast at one point in rehearsal and said "this may be the hardest musical...ever." And while the production may have fallen a tad short of its ambitions, I was still completely engaged from start to finish as I discovered the rich, poignant satire of the story, the lavish beauty of the score, and the bleak but desperatley moving philosophy of Voltaire.

"We have no choice", one of the characters says deep into the second act, as hope continues to dwindle. "The current will take us somewhere. and if it isn't nice--at least it will be new."

It reminds me of Nina in The Seagull : "And now I know, Kostya, I understand, finally, that in our business--acting, writing, it makes no difference--the main thing isn't being famous, it's not the sound of applause, it's not what I dreamed it was. All it is is the strength to keep going, no matter what happens. You have to keep on believing. I believe, and it helps. And when I think about my vocation, I'm not afraid of life."

After the matinee, Heather and I had a super cheap (but totally awesome) dinner at the Continental, where we visited our old managers from Jones, and discussed the show. We then parted ways as Heather got on a bus to go to New York for an audition the next morning, and I went home to hang out with the boys.

I think, of all the places I've lived in the last year, that the boys' house is the most comfortable, the safest, and the most nostalgic. I just feel so overcome by their kindness and acceptance of me, and so at home when I'm sitting up with them in their living room, talking about school and life. They are such lovely people, destined for so much happiness and success. I slept in until 2 pm the next day and when I got up, I realized it was the most satisfying sleep I'd had in weeks...on the boys'dilapidated couch, no less.

I realized: being back in Philly made me feel like myself again. It makes sense. Philly is where I found myself to begin with.

The next day I ran errands, bought Jamie a chocolate cupcake (it happened to be his 21st birthday) and dropped to visit Peggy, my friend Molly's mother. I adore Peggy. We've gotten to be very close over the years. She is an important part of my Philly family. Funny how the family we make for ourselves can become a more active part of our lives than our actual family.

Heather and I glammed up in a hurry and cabbed it to the Wanamaker building to make it in time for "Cocktail Hour." Within the first five minutes, we each ran into five people we knew from our various theatrical endeavors. (Let me take this moment to state: I'm totally jealous that Heather is now legitimately friends with Mary Martello.) And a lovely thing happened: even though I live in New York now, even though I was in one Philly show this season, for the first time I felt like I was a part of Philly Theater, instead of merely wishing I was. I'm so in love with the theater community in Philadelphia, and I've always felt that if it embraced me, I could be really content there. But for the first time, I realized that I can be a part of the community without living there full-time. I caught myself telling a friend that I was thinking about moving back to Philly. Truth is, this is only a thought I have when I'm there. When I'm in New York, I'm committed to it, and I'm certain that the tough times won't last forever. New York and I are starting to warm up to each other. It's been throwing all kinds of shit my way, and I've been consistently dodging bullets. I'm starting to feel like New York is accepting me as it's equal, acknowledging that I have the strength, stamina and determination to take it on my own terms. New York will never drive me away, and if I choose to leave, it will not be out of necessity or scorn, but because I've gotten what I need from the city and am ready to move on.

It's too soon. I need to stay in the thick of it for now. And in the meantime, a piece of my heart will always be in Philadelphia. I can't wait to go back for the revival of The Irish... in the winter and live with the boys again. I can't wait until my next visit. And right now, I'm trying to work. And I'm enduring.

About a half hour later, I text my brother back:

Me: Changing my location helps me change my perspective...find a new environment to spend some time in. It may help you define what's important to you.

Jake: Wow, that was really profound.

Me: Well, I try. Seriously though. Every time I get out of NYC I feel like my head clears and life seems much simpler.

I hope he wasn't being facetious. I'm a little vulnerable right now.

Maybe there is no such thing as the "Best of All Possible Worlds" where everything happens for a reason and all roads lead us to who we want to be and the ideals we most desire. But I refuse to believe in the worst of all possible worlds, where everything is painful and random and anarchy is the only path that makes any sense.

I have amazing friends and a wonderful family. I will take comfort in the love that surrounds me and the love I have for others and I will seek constant inspiration. I will defy the bleak cynicism that has overtaken this tragically messed-up country. I will maintain hope and faith in humanity. And I will strive to make art a larger priority in my life because art is what I do and who I am and it is that which makes me feel alive and connected to the universe and the greater good. Even in the darkest moments.

"Let us work without disputing: it is the only way to render life tolerable."

- Candide

Ode to the Midtown Diner (and Philly Diners in General)

2008-10-04T20:26:00.000-07:00

It's 10:45 pm and I made it to Philly in one piece. I must say, it's been like 3 or 4 years since I took the Chinatown bus, and wow did I forget how ghetto it is. Like, three of the overhead reading lights on the whole bus work, the seats are tiny, the whole thing is dirty as hell, the TVs are covered in graffitti...and dear god, the bathroom shouldn't even be spoken about. All I can say is, thank goodness for the hand sanitizer I keep in my bag at all times.

At least they make good time. I got in at quarter to ten. I'm staying with my friend Heather this weekend who is currently crashing with my beloved South Philly boys while she's performing in Candide at the Arden. The show is like 3 hours long, so I figure I've got a while to kill before she can meet me. (Actually, I suppose I could've gone straight to the boys'--I still have a key to their house, after all. I'm not sure if they realize this, though, so I decide to lay low.)

Unfortunately, if Philly were a person it would be a seventy year-old man with bunions and bad eyesight who sits in the park and yells at people and goes to bed at 7:00. There is a serious shortage of establishments that actually stay open past 9pm...even on a Saturday (bars excluded of course, and they only stay open 'til 2.) So Starbucks is out, as is the bookstore. I can't really afford to go somewhere and be waited on as I always feel guilty ordering less than $20 worth of stuff at a restaurant--a sum that seems so indulgent to me now. I miss the days when I could afford to take myself out to a $50 dinner at a decent restaurant.

Pondering what to do as I walked down 11th st., the answer suddenly presented itself.

Midtown Diner!

So many memories of drunken post-party grilled cheese sandwichs at the midtown run through my head and I feel a warm sense of comfort and familiarity wash over me. One New Year's Day post-sleepover, a large group of us trekked across the drunken chaos of the annual Mummer's Parade on Broad Street to drown our hangovers in coffee and oj and pancakes. Last fall while I was subletting Kati's old apartment on South Street, I locked myself out of the apartment and didn't realize until returning home from work at 1:00am. So I went to Midtown and waited for Kati to return from Delaware so I could crash on her couch and drop by the real estate office in the morning for their extra key. Shivering in the early fall AC (that seems unnecessary to me) and miserably sipping hot chocolate, I felt safe in the fluorescent glow of the Midtown.

The diner hags at Midtown are the best. No one compares to authentic Philly waitresses. With their flat nasal accents, peroxide-fried hair and trademark smoker's coughs, they're the friendliest gals you could ever hope to meet.

"Yous ready to order, Hon?" Love it.

They let me plug my dying phone into the outlet at the service station and brought me decaf and apple pie with ice cream which I ordered in hopes of soothing my cramps with sugar and carbs. I desperately needed to use the restroom and realized as after the fact that I'd left my bags at the table unattended without thinking anything of it. Cell phone on the table. It seemed perfectly safe to me. I was as comfortable as in my own home.

Yeah, yeah I know it's Philly, I should never leave my stuff unwatched. I do know better than that. There's not much there to steal, I figure. My point is, I wasn't even conscious of it. There truly is so much comfort in familiarity.

New York diners just aren't the same. They're cleaner and sleeker and the food is better and the owners are all immigrants. There is something so distinctly American about Philly diners. At Philly diners the food is generally bad, often the service is worse, but there is so much charm in it all. Plus they're always open, the only places in Philly that you can always count on to be open when you need it most.

Mmm. How've you been, Philly? Did you miss me? I hate to admit it, but I've missed you. You know I always do. You're my first love, after all.

"For the person for whom small things do not exist, the great is not great." - Jose Ortega y Gasset

2008-10-04T08:34:00.000-07:00

I have always been afflicted with chronic lateness. It's a very serious issue. I'm very rarely more than fifteen minutes late, and to things that really matter very rarely more than five minutes late. Somehow, I cannot figure out how to reprogram my internal clock to run on time let alone early.

One of the nice things about working the am reservations shift at Morimoto is that I am always the first front-of-house employee to arrive at the restaurant. I cherish my alone time in the office. It's my time to drink my coffee, eat my homeade breakfast sandwich, check my email and read the news online. It's heavenly. Also, and this is both a blessing and a curse, there is no one here to notice when I'm late.

Whenever I manage to make it to work on time, or early, I feel an enormous sense of satisfaction and pride akin to, I imagine, what it must feel like to run a marathon or adopt a small child in Sudan. I realize that it's completely ridiculous to feel such a grandiose sense of accomplishment for being on time to work, but for me, it's a big deal. It truly is the little things in life that count, after all.

I desperately wish I was a morning person. There is something so divinely grown-up about eating breakfast at home, at the table, before going to work. Or having the time to take the long route to work and not having to speed down the sidewalk like a bullet train, instead having the freedom to take in the crispness of the morning air, the quietness of the city, and the twinkle of the morning sun. The energy of New York changes so beautifully from the crisp potential of the morning, to the vibrant buzz of the afternoon, to the smooth coolness of the evening, to the hazy decadence of the night. My absolute favorite days are when I am awake for a long enough stretch to experience all four stages of a New York day...and then am able to sleep through all of them the following day.

Today, I was determined to leave early and enjoy my walk from the subway to the restaurant. I was scheduled to come in at 10am, and to be alone in the office until the manager comes in at 2pm. To clarify, I'm not proud of my chronic lateness. I'm actually extremely ashamed and embarrassed by it. I wish I could brush it off, but I'm still a little too much of a people-pleaser to avoid feeling guilty about being late. And I really love my job and all of my managers, which makes it even worse. Although they won't know I was late this morning if I don't tell them and they never scold me when I do, I still feel like crap about it.

I have two main subway routes that I can take to Morimoto. I can take the D train (which stops a block from my apartment) into Manhattan, transfer to the A,C,E at West 4th, then get off after one stop at 14th street and 8th avenue and walk three blocks. Or, I can take the N train (which stops six blocks from my apartment) straight to Union Square, and then walk seven long blocks to the restaurant. Though the blocks between avenues are very long, I actually prefer to walk from Union Square for a number of scenic reasons. First of all, Union Square is one of my favorite parts of New York. It is such a vibrant cross-section of people, what with the publishing district up the street in Flatiron, the NYU campus starting just down the street, Chelsea just the the west, and Gramercy just to the east. It's all of New York coming together, professionals, artists, students, street kids, bums, and rich people. All in the same square.

Union Square (not my pic)

Fifth Avenue is around the corner, there are tons of amazing restaurants, and just as many tiny diners and cheap pizza places. The Green Market goes on several days a week in the square, with produce and flowers and fresh breads and apple cider from local vendors, and though it's maddening to fight through the crowds if you're late for work, it's lovely to stroll through on a lazy afternoon. And best of all, when I have the time to walk the long walk, I get to walk through Chelsea and dream of the day when I'll be able to afford a beautiful brownstone apartment on a beautiful tree-lined street like the ones along 15th street between 6th and 9th avenue.

15th st. between 8th and 9th

Unfortunately, since I've apparently become nocturnal and can rarely fall asleep before 4am anymore, and had to pack for my weekend in Philly this morning, I left the house 20 minutes late and had to forgo the scenic route. I spent the entire subway ride planning my post-work errand schedule in my head and trying to figure out how I could get a quick breakfast and a cup of much needed coffee for the $2 and change. I haven't been able to find a coffee cart on my route, and I was pretty sure the designer coffee kiosk in Chelsea Market would charge at least as much as Starbucks. Luckily, I wasn't as late as I thought I'd be; I reached the corner of 9th ave and 15th street at 10:08 and decided that a cup of coffee was worth an extra few minutes that no one would ever know about. And even when they told me at Starbucks that the coffee was brewing and would take another 2 minutes, I consented. I've got a long day ahead of me, after all.

"There's perfection in simplicity." Well said, Starbucks.

In the three blocks from the C train to the restaurant, I did get to see a little of the urban scenery. And it's such a clean fall morning, if a little overcast, that I couldn't help appreciating it as I sped down 15th street. I can't help finding ordinary things interesting and beautiful.

An alley on 15th st between 9th and 10th

This city never ceases to inspire me. I just love New York. As difficult as it is to live here, as much as we're all suffering from the economy crash, and as much as I feel the city has toughened me up, every time I find a spare ounce of energy in a spare second to take in the little urban idiosyncracies around me, I am always flooded with emotion, nostalgia and pride in a place I haven't even lived in for an entire year, and the same sense of awe I felt at 16, the first time I visited the city, in a simpler time when Times Square seemed like the most beautiful place in the world. And even though I now absolutely cannot stand walking through midtown, it's not the city's fault. There will always be swarms of tourists and newcomers flocking to New York, no matter how bad things get financially, because New York is still the absolute icon of the American Dream, the place where anything still seems possible, even if it no longer is in actuality. In a time where I feel like I'm systematically being robbed of all the opportunites America is supposed to offer, all the opportunites my parents had at my age to build their lives the way they wanted to without worrying about the economy collapsing beneath them and things like health insurance and social security that should be fundamental rights being abolished, I can't help feeling like New York may be the only place left in America where it might still be possible for me to find my heart's desire. Without New York, I may as well move to Canada where the taxes are higher but nobody bitches about it because the streets are clean, public parks and pools are aplenty, and everyone can go to the doctor when they're sick.

Am I being naive? Perhaps. I prefer to think of it as full of the hope that only youth can sustain.

"This is not the same country as it was when I was growing up," my dad said to me last night. Everywhere I go all I hear is it's not the same city, either. But I'm not ready to give up on New York yet. It took me 23 years to get here. I'm not leaving that fast.

And so, I will continue to look for the beauty and simplicity of the little details in my New York life. And I will cherish my tiny freedoms.

The 9th st Corner of Chelsea Market

A Case of the Mean Reds

2008-09-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

I love Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Yes, I do realize it's completely cliche, but I can't help it.

When I was about fourteen, my mother and I went to see this one-woman play in Toronto. It was called Purple Heart, and while I don't remember the significance of the title, it stands out it my mind from the hundreds of plays I've seen in my little life. It was about this woman who hadn't left her apartment in three months and was obsessed with Breakfast at Tiffany's. It was revealed at the end of the play that the reason she hadn't left her apartment was because her lover had been hit by a car and killed and, well, I don't really remember the rest, sufficed to say she was seriously bummed out and afraid to move on with her life. Taking inspiration from Holly Golightly, this timid protagonist was obsessed with the windows at Tiffany's and throughout the play she read a series of letters that she had written to the "Tiffany Window Lady", whoever that was. The letters all had to do with the window displays that she'd passed by over the years, questions that she had about them, and about the solace she found in the tiny, bejeweled scenarios, like tiny little safe havens where nothing could go wrong and everything was beautiful.

I remember liking the play very much (despite how poorly I'm now describing it, I'm certain it wasn't as Lifetime-Movie-of-the-Week as I'm making it seem) and liking the actress's performance a great deal. My mom and I left feeling connected in womanhood, and had much to discuss on the drive home...particularly how neither of us had ever seen Breakfast at Tiffany's. I can't remember who suggested it, but we ended up renting it on the way home, and watching it that evening with popcorn and wine.

Ever since that night, I've been in love with the movie. It is definitely in my top five favorite movies of all time, up there with It's a Wonderful Life, Amelie, and Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Now, I feel it important to state that I do not necessarily define my favorite movies by the overall quality of the filmmaking or the depth of artistic merit. My favorite movies are movies that I can watch over and over again without tiring of them, and at any given time are proven to make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. This said, I generally shun romantic comedies because of the unrealistically tidy way they depict romantic relationships in modern times. I refuse to see anything with Kate Hudson (save Almost Famous), Reese Witherspoon (save Walk the Line), or Sandra Bullock (honestly, I can't think of a single Sandra Bullock movie that I actually like...by no fault of hers. She's perfectly charming, but she makes the schlockiest movies.) And don't get me started on Cameron Diaz (save Being John Malkovich...why don't these dumb waify blondes challenge themselves more often?)

Breakfast at Tiffany's is definitely an early incarnation of the chick flick, though that doesn't bother me at all. I think it's partially because it's from a different era--so Sixties--and partially because there is something so tragic and poetic about the two main characters. I mean, George Peppard is a failing gigolo writer with absolutely no sense of self worth and Holly Golightly is a confused little orphan who runs away to be a New York party girl and survives presumeably on handouts from rich men that she teases and a mobster who manipulates her into being a prison informant. It's dark stuff, wrapped up by Hollywood in sparkly pink chiffon. I'm ashamed to admit, literary snob as I like to fancy myself, that I still have never read the Truman Capote novella that the film is based on, although I did pick it up at Borders the other day and flipped to the end: low and behold, in the book, Holly doesn't end up with Paul the writer, but rather does fly off the Brazil with wealthy dignitary Jose de Silva Periera. When I read that, I felt disheartened and at the same time strangely satisfied.

See, the end of the movie is one of my favorite endings of all time. Paul picks up Holly after spending the night in prison, and having picked up all her belongings, he proceeds to take her to a hotel where he plans to take care of her through the trial of Sally Tomato, to whom she has been unknowingly smuggling in drug traffic information. But Holly is determined to get on her scheduled flight to Brazil, even after Paul reads her a letter from Jose, breaking off their affair. Paul is determined to force the stubborn, naive Holly to wake up and see that he is the only person in New York who really and truly cares about her, the only person who can save her from herself, and that he needs her just as much in return.

Paul Varjak: I love you.
Holly Golightly: So what.
Paul Varjak: So what? So plenty! I love you, you belong to me!
Holly Golightly: [tearfully] No. People don't belong to people.
Paul Varjak: Of course they do!
Holly Golightly: I'll never let ANYBODY put me in a cage.
Paul Varjak: I don't want to put you in a cage, I want to love you!

Holly is terrified of truly letting herself be loved, and refuses him. To which, Paul replies:

Paul Varjak: You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

By this point in the movie, I'm already dripping with tears, every single time. So then, Paul gets out of the cab, and goes looking for Holly's nameless cat, who she has thrown out of the cab earlier into the pouring rain. After a few moments, Holly, ruined and desperate, gets out of the cab and follows Paul. There's this great moment where he realizes that she's come to her senses, and they look for the cat together. The last moment is of Holly, clutching the soaking wet cat in her trenchcoat, tears in her eyes, and Paul kissing in the pouring rain, as he wraps his arms around her and the cat, a little family united at last.

Oh, it's so good. If I had a VCR I'd be watching it right now (I only own in on VHS).

It's like the urban, independent-but-totally-confused woman's fairytale: finding an equally confused and fucked up man who is strong enough to force us out of our holding pattern of delusional self-destruction, and relieving us of the terror and painful loneliness that comes with going it alone in the world, but being sensitive enough not to stifle our free spirit. I cry every time because, like millions of women before me, I see a little piece of myself in Holly Golightly. Except that I have a job. Two in fact.

A few days ago, I started to write that I was beginning to feel as if the roller coaster of my life was finally on the upswing, climbing to the next great height. Fall is in the air, any minute the leaves are going to burst into color, and any minute my life is going to turn around and I'll be catapulted out of this pit of destitute self-pity and miserable despair I've been living in. A few days ago, I believed that it was my time to climb out of the pit.

Today I had a really shitty day. I was up at 5 am for the Arden audition in Philly, and while my plan for the day timed out perfectly, the audition was not so successful. I won't bore you with the details...sufficed to say, I left feeling like a miserable wreck. And I never bomb auditions anymore. It's been seven months since I had a callback for anything, but I've gotten to this marvellous place where I no longer take it personally and I feel like I'm nailing a good eighty percent of my auditions. I sing my face off, I commit, and I generally get great feedback. The callbacks will come in time. So it was jarring to have an experience that I felt so poorly about, and it wasn't for lack of preparation--it was all about nerves. Which I only let get the best of me when I'm auditioning for people I know personally and respect. I can go into an EPA at Telsey and think nothing of it, but at the Arden, I care about their personal opinions. It's a little twisted.

Thankfully, upon arriving back in New York, I was not needed to come into work at the restaurant tonight, so I was able to curl up in bed, eat grilled cheese and watch the presidential debate. Oh yeah, and wallow in despair. It's not even self-pity, it's...I don't know what it is. Self-defeat, self-deprecation...some form of emotional self-abuse. Some days I wake up feeling so ready to take on the world, to take control of my life back. And some days I wake up and just want to go back to sleep. It's not for lack of knowing what I want, or how to get it, or even believing that I'm capable of acheiving it. I know all of those things deep down. I'm just so hard on myself all the time that I constantly find it difficult to overcome my restlessnes, my impatience, my feeling that I'm not working hard enough or fast enough and thereby not accomplishing all my life's goals fast enough. Of course, the beating myself up over it wastes a lot of time. This is something I've been working on for years, and while I've made immense improvements over the past few years, it continues to be my own personal cross to bear. (I won't get into all the dull psychological reasons for these things--my own self analysis is really only interesting to me, I'm sure.)

Anyway.

Unsure of how to cope with these unwelcome yucky feelings, I was reminded of the words of Holly Golightly:

Holly Golightly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul Varjak: The mean reds, you mean like the blues?
Holly Golightly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?
Paul Varjak: Sure.
Holly Golightly: Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!

Maybe my problem is that I haven't found my Tiffany's.

I think going to Tiffany's itself would actually make me a little bummed out, the way I always feel when walking down Fifth Avenue, amongst the designer shops and sharply-dressed business people...all that extravagent wealth, all those people who feel so disgustingly entitled. But having a place that always cheers me up...a sanctuary from the Mean Reds...a place that represents who I want to be, the type of person I'm working to become, a place that reflects my ideals of beauty, serenity and emotional fulfillment in this crazy life. A place where I can be at peace.

I shall find this place, and the search shall by my way of diffusing the Mean Reds from my life. I must always be searching...the search is truly, to me, the definition of being alive.

After all, you never know what you might find along the way...or what might find you.

Blogging at Work (and Other Extracurricular Activities)

2008-09-25T19:40:00.000-07:00

I often make loud proclaimations at Morimoto about how much I love working reservations (as opposed to hosting on the floor.) This has led my manager Maria to schedule me exclusively for reservations shifts. The truth is, I love reservations because I'm a lazy bitch: hell yeah I'd rather sit in an office all day/night where I can read or play online when the managers are all upstairs than be on my feet on the floor all day/night dealing with pushy people face to face!

Tonight happens to be a particularly slow Thursday night. I'm averaging about four calls per hour and have nothing to do otherwise. I'm also a little anxious because I have to get up at 5:00 am to take a bus to Philadelphia tomorrow for an audition I'm only kind of prepared for. I was called in this week for the Arden Theatre Company's holiday production of James and the Giant Peach. I'm usually a little self-righteous about going to Philly for auditions, but since I happened to have the day off tomorrow until 6:00 pm, I decided it was worth it for a number of reasons:

1. I've worked at the Arden before and I adore every single aspect of working there.

2. The show is being directed by Whit MacLaughlin, who I've worked with and both adore and admire.

3. The timing of the show is perfect: starting rehearsals a week and a half before my sublet ends, and ending a week before The Irish... at the Kimmel Center is slated to begin.

4. They are looking at me for the role of the Grasshopper, who in the script plays the violin.

Of course, as always I have my misgivings about working out of town... I just started two new jobs in the past month and I'm desperately trying to put down roots in New York. But I figure that either circumstance (me getting the show, me not getting the show) works out in my favor. Either way I end up with health insurance--either through working for Danny Meyer at Tabla, or through Actor's Equity if I work for 10 more weeks under a union contract.

Also, I'm very excited about taking the Bolt Bus for the first time tomorrow.

So this evening, while looking for ways to kill time, I've been going over my sides for the audition. My first thought when I got the call was "Halleliuah for sides!" Then I became paralyzed with fear when I printed out the sides I'd been emailed and learned that they want me to prepare 5 different characters.

Crap.

Not to worry, I assured myself. I earned the hell out of that BFA hanging on the wall. I can make 5 distinct, bold choices in just 3 days. I have all kinds of tools. Plus, this is fantasy children's theatre, so the sky's pretty much the limit.

I started with Google Image Search, employing a technique favored by my Musical Theatre Rep teacher, Rick Stoppleworth, as well as my Junior acting teacher, Rosey Hay. Both encourage the use of image work, especially for characters who live in worlds far beyond our own personal experiences. I look up pictures of spiders, ladybugs and grasshoppers, both real and caricatured. I print out my favorites on the office printer at Morimoto. Then, I make a list of the characters and try to come up with specific qualities for each of them. Which leads me to a brilliant idea.

During Grand Hotel tech rehearsals my junior year at UArts, our choreographer Rex taught us all a game to pass the time. My friends and I became obsessed with it and still play sometimes while sitting around in each other's kitchens.

I know, I know. We are so cool.

One person thinks of a subject. We usually play that the subject is a person from the School of Theatre Arts. Then the other people take turns coming up with questions for the person in the middle. The questions are categories, like "If this person were a color, what color would they be?" or "if this person were a kitchen appliance what would they be?" and the person in the middle has to answer. The object is to guess which person the person in the middle is thinking of. Whoever guesses it thinks of the next person.

Trust me, it's a blast.

So, here I am in the reservations office making a chart of the 5 characters I'm working on. It ges something like this:

Color:

Grasshopper--forest green
Ladybird--ruby red
Miss Spider--charcoal
Aunt Sponge--chartreuse
Aunt Spiker--fuschia

Flavor:

Grasshopper--toffee
Ladybird--tomato
Miss Spider--licorice
Aunt Sponge--pickled eggs
Aunt Spiker--prune

Symbol:

Grasshopper--check mark
Ladybird--pear shape
Miss Spider--asterisk
Aunt Sponge--circle
Aunt Spider--vertical line

Shoe:

Grasshopper--oxfords
Ladybird--mary janes
Miss Spider--ballet flats
Aunt Sponge--birkenstocks with socks
Aunt Spiker--too-small grandma pumps

Beverage:

Grasshopper--hot toddy or mint julep
Ladybird--shirley temple
Miss Spider--glass of merlot
Aunt Sponge--moonshine and olive juice
Aunt Spiker--vinegar

Literary Genre/Author:

Grasshopper--literary classics (Faulkner)
Ladybird--romance novels (Danielle Steele)
Miss Spider--fashion magazines (Vogue)
Aunt Sponge--TV (Jerry Springer)
Aunt Spiker--tabloids (National Enquirer)

Who would play them in a movie:

Grasshopper--Katharine Hepburn
Ladybird--Imelda Staunton
Miss Spider--Audrey Hepburn
Aunt Sponge--Kathy Bates
Aunt Spiker--Carol Channing

I can't believe I'm getting paid right now.

Silly as it may seem, I'm finding this exercise totally useful. It's kind of a spin on this worksheet my Viewpoints teacher Bill used to hand out where you filled in all these details about your character like their birthday, zodiac sign, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, etc. only more whimsical...which is appropriate, I feel, given the subject matter. As I play, I start to feel a sense of clarity evolve in my mind of how each of these characters might behave.

I'm still nervous...but now I have tools. Halleliuah for tools!

Tomorrow at 6:00 am I'll hoist that trusty old violin on my back, don my favorite trenchcoat, and head for the bus.

Several hours later, I'll be back in this very office, undoubtedly amusing myself with some new task.

Who knows? Maybe even a new blog.

Climbing Up the Food Chain, One Restaurant at a Time

2008-09-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

Today I started a new job.

Don't fret, I'm still a passionate and enthusiastic Morimoto employee...after all, how could I leave the Iron Chef hanging? I am too huge a Food Network fan to let that job go any time soon. (Note: I have not, as of yet, met or even seen Masaharu Morimoto, although he's been in the restaurant several times in the past week. I was of course downstairs in the dungeon at the time taking reservations...and most likely obsessively updating my blog. Bummer.)

Times being tough, I've spent the last three months looking for secondary employment and this week, at long last, I was offered a serving job. Halleluiah! I'm now a server at Tabla's Bread Bar, owned by Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group. Hooray! Today I went in to fill out paperwork and do a kitchen trail, which meant gearing up in chef's jacket and baggy pants and hanging out behind the line sampling all the yummy food. Total bliss. And it's an Indian restaurant, which made the experience even more exciting, since my knowledge of Indian food is very limited. I enjoyed myself enormously, although the intense, exotic spices have been doing a number on my digestive system for the past few hours.

(By the way, there is totally a section in the employee handbook about blogging. I write this evening with this passage looming over my head: "It has become a common practice in our current society to use blogging as an outlet for our thoughts and experiences. Employees are to exercise caution when blogging about the restaurant and to always disclaim that the opinions expressed in one's blog are personal opinions that are in no way shared or endorsed by the company." To paraphrase. I shit you not. I'm a rebel without a cause!)

At some point in the evening, it dawned on me that the Bread Bar is no less than the eighth restaurant that has employeed me. Eight restaurants! As follows:

1. Cosi in Rittenhouse Sqaure, as a host and then server
2. Chili's Center City, by the convention center, as a host (for six weeks) and then server (for two very long years)
3. City Tavern (host...for three months. That's all I could handle.)
4. Jones (host, for 5 months)
5. Beacon (host...my first New York City restaurant job)
6. Lunetta (server, on and off for 10 months)
7. Morimoto (yay!)
8. Tabla's Bread Bar

Last night at Morimoto, one of the hosts who has been with the restaurant since it opened remarked to me that I've been doing a very good job on the floor. "We've definitely noticed. And the managers notice, too" says Aneesa sweetly. She's one of my favorites, this gorgeous girl who looks exactly like an Indian version of Keira Knightley. She's smart too, and very friendly, unlike some of the whiny divas (both male and female) I share the host podium with. "You remind me of me on the floor!" I laughed gaily and affably, then a moment later wanted to shout out: "Well, of course! I have more restaurant experience than all the hosts put together! Eight restaurants in five years!" Of course, I didn't say a word. Humility is a virtue, after all, and biting one's tounge is a necessary part of maintaining one's star status. I'm not actually bitter. Just overqualified. And I love this job, so I see nothing to gain from being sassy just because I can. Plus, again, I really like Aneesa. She's very genuine.

Anyway.

The restaurant biz is like a parasite in my life. It snuck in stealthily, without causing a commotion. Just a temporary fix to help me pay my college tuition. Then it nestled itself deep inside my stomach and waited for me to feed it. Every time I switched to a new job, or added a job, it fed on my withering soul, eating up all my creative impulses and all my physical energy. It grew bigger as it gorged itself on my life. I spent summers in the dark depths of Chili's serving enormous fatty burgers and Awesome Blossoms (which in and of itself is more calories than one should have in an entire day...2300 calories, people! I feel it's my duty to warn the masses...I cannot in good faith allow anyone I know personally to order such a gluttenous travesty) to fat, tan suburban families, visiting the city on their way to the shore for the weekend. The parasite inside me fed on french fries and the greasy dollar bills I pocketed each evening, eating and eating as I fed it more and more of my time, my energy, my youth, and never being satisfied, never fattening up my bank account, only processing my days in a never-ending black hole of desperate financial necessity. Look, I'm a smart and capable person. I know I could have had many other more fulfilling day jobs. But I chose to continue working in restaurants year after year specifically because I hated it with every fibre of my being. I knew I could never get stuck in a job that always seemed so disposable. I'd never feel guilty having to leave when lightening struck and I booked the big acting gig I'd been slaving away waiting for all those years.

Well, things have changed. And I'm not sure how I feel about it.

It was different when I was carrying enormous bowls of coffee at Cosi for $2.83 an hour and barely making enough in tips to pay my cell phone bill every month and buy new black work clothes when the old ones fell apart on my back. Of course I hated Chili's where even the salads tasted greasy, and people sitting in the lounge blew cigarette smoke in my face when I brought them that third ramekin of ranch dressing, and obese families racked up a $150 bill each ordering their own appetizer, full rack of ribs and their own friggin' Molten Chocolate Cake and then left me $2 in change. Or City Tavern, the three-star restaurant I hosted at one summer, where all the employees dressed up as colonial servants and served the type of fare our founding fathers once ate and the general manager was a coke addict who took shots of tequila out of the host stand throughout the shift and whose met his dealer out back with cash he borrowed from the register. I mean, come on. The people who get stuck working in those places are alcoholic bottom-dwellers, money-hungry lowlifes who got stuck in their adolescence and are too fucking depressed to see a way out, and too lazy to even look. Of course I'd never be one of those people. I think I always prided myself, on some level, on being better than my coworkers. I had passion and determination and spirit that was never going to be killed. I had self-esteem, for crying out loud, not to mention talent and intelligence self-control. I was more responsible at 19 than my mangers were in their forties.

When I started working for Stephen Starr's company in Philadelphia, the Starr Restaurant Organization, my view of the restaurant biz started to change. Here was a company that pretty much ruled the restaurant scene in Philadelphia, with 10 restaurants around the scene, each more beautifully designed and trendier than the last. This was my introduction to concept dining, from the inside. It's a cosmopolitan dream in a most accessible way...Philadelphia is nothing if not an accessible city. Creative cocktails, exquisitely flattering lighting, beautiful and delicious food, and an equally beautiful staff at every restaurant. I'd never worked more tragially hip people. Everyone had an interesting story to tell. And I'd never met people who cared so passionately about hospitality. Now, Jones is an extremely casual atmosphere (it's upscale comfort food, after all...you couldn't ask people to eat fried chicken and waffles in a suit and tie) so the transition from family dining was easy for me. It was nothing compared to the kind of service I'd learn about when I got to New York.

Beacon was the second easiest job I've ever gotten. (Morimoto was the first...I walked in, filled out an application, was hired on the spot and started training that evening.) I found Beacon on craigslist, emailed a resume, got a phone call forty-five minutes later, had an interview the following week, and started the day after the interview. Melissa, the GM, used to work for SRO in New York, and I'm convinced that made her favor me. After all, there were thousands of actresses and models in NYC that were way more beautiful than me who she could have hired--one of their hostesses was a Miss New York 2007 and another was a model who appeared on the first season of Project Runway. But I'm pretty damn smart and charming, so I guess that sealed the deal for me. Once hired, I was expected to look "sexy and chic" every day, always in heels. I was incredibly insecure about my wardrobe for months, especially since I was just starting to transition to the impeccably chic street-style that is the norm in New York. But I learned a lot quickly about fine dining hospitality--most importantly, how to handle rich old ladies from family money who wore chinchilla furs and had the most inflated sense of entitlement I'd ever witnessed. I knew people like that must exist, but I'd never met them in person before. Although $13.00 and hour was far more than I'd ever made hosting before, I was flat broke and in tons of debt (funny how little changes in a year) and so I took on the second restaurant job, at Lunetta.

The Saga of Lunetta is really a story for another day, it's so long and rich with incredibly outrageous stories of all kinds. For now, I'll simply say that for a while it was a God-send of a job (well, an Elyse-send...my most charming friend Elyse Ault hooked me up with the gig by talking me up to the entire staff and telling them the most likeable anecdotes about me she had from college), but when I left for Philly, I wasn't the least bit sad to go. It was time. I knew it in my gut. Three months later, back in New York and more broke than ever, I went back for a short time, until I almost got fired (see "When It's Time to Change, You've Got to Rearrange", August) and quit instead.

I'm certain that it's no coincidence I ended up at Morimoto. As previously mentioned, I'm obsessed with Iron Chef America and I can't really explain why. I don't know much about cooking, I have no culinary aspirations whatsoever. I have, however, always admired the creative nature of cooking. What they do on Iron Chef America is art. Coupled with brilliantly devised entertainment. Kitchen Stadium? Come on, that's golden. Let's combine competitive sports with food! It's that combination that America was built on, after all! No wonder people love the Food Network. My friend Jamison once told me that he has a theory that the Food Network is like porn for the pallate. There are a wide variety of fetishes to choose from: the Girl Next Door (Rachael Ray), the Foreign Sex Goddess (Giada De Laurentiis), the Big Deep-Fried Southern Momma (Paula Dean), the Italian Stallion (Emeril Lagasse... and Mario Batali, for that matter), the Big Man on Campus (Bobby Flay), the Sugar Daddy (Marc Summers) and so on and so forth.

I was watching Food Network Unwrapped the other night, where Marc Summers was going behind the scenes of the Food Network's hottest shows. Watching him behind the scenes on Iron Chef America was the most titillating TV I'd seen all week, and suddenly a strange, foreign thought popped into my head: I think I'd love working for the Food Network. Not even as a personality ('cause God knows, I'm nothing special in the kitchen), but, like, in production or something. I mean, seriously. And the thought didn't seem far-fetched. After all, I currently work in Chelsea Market, in the same building where the Food Network shoots. Iron Chef America shoots upstairs. I could be a PA or something. And it would combine both of my careers: food service, and entertainment.

Wait, what am I thinking??? I'm an artist, not an entertainer! Granted, the two cross paths very frequently, but I've always thought as a performer the minute you lose sight of art you become merely an audience whore, exploiting your talents to pay the bills. I sure as hell want to pay the bills, but I want to move and inspire people as well! I also want to write, direct, teach, paint, sculpt...I want to make a difference in the world, contribute to society in a way that improves everyone's quality of living, help people. I don't have time for a second career! I can't be developing an interest in service!

I think the root of this little thought started last Thursday when I met Joe, my old manager from Beacon for a drink after he got off work. Joe was always my favorite--he's a 24 year old restaurant prodigy, a former captain who got promoted to sommelier and then to manager. He also happens to be absolutely adorable. He's this petite little Italian-Irish New York native with a boyish grin who darts around the restaurant with a seemingly endless amount of energy in these dapper little three-piece suits, charming the pants off of everyone he meets (including me...pants are still on so far, but here's hoping.) We used to open the restaurant on Sunday mornings together, and he's been promising to take me out for a drink since January. When we finally did, we had a fantastic time, and I learned all kinds of interesting things about him, like that he went to culinary school in Paris and is planning on opening his own restaurant...and soon. "I have an interested investor already" he says. I swooned--and started to understand that for some people, hospitality and food are a passion, not so different from my passion for art and theater. Both fields are about bringing people together, celebrating the amazing phenomenon of human existence, the joy of life and family and community. This was an idea I'd never been able to understand before I really started to climb the ladder of the restaurant industry, which in New York is truly one of the most celebrated, high-profile industries one can conquer. No wonder the star-fucker trust-fund baby owner of Lunetta decided to pour his inheritance into a restaurant--opening a new restaurant is the quickest way to get New York to notice and (hopefully) revere you.

Never in my life did I ever think I'd be actually considering a career in the food service industry. But here I am, my imagination wandering...I'm a damn good employee at Morimoto. The managers love me. There's definitely possibility of advancement within the company...I could be promoted to Maitre 'D, Manager, maybe a nice job in the corporate office...it would be so much easier, so much more straightfoward than achieving success as an actor...

Of course I'm not actually suggesting that I might give up my theatrical ambitions. My heart and soul is in the theater, and it always will be. Sometimes I have to consicously stay away from it all because it hurts too much to go see an amazing play and wonder when my chance to be involved in such a feat will come. I feel the same way about watching fantastic film performances now, too. Deep down, I know I'm on the right path to wherever it is I'm supposed to go and that all the opportunities I want and need will come when it's time. In the meantime, I'm starting to find inspiration in my day job, my second unlikely and unwitting career, and that leads me to believe, again, that I didn't stumble into the world of hospitality by accident. There are things for me to learn here, too. Maybe it's the confidence I feel in my ability to charm the guests I greet on the phone or at the door and the higher-ups I work for, my confidence in my ability to climb the ladder...does this not sound like a kind of confidence I could apply to my artistic pursuits? Or maybe it's cultivating a love for the uniting power of food and wine, the way a good meal can bring people together over all kinds of circumstances. Maybe still it's developing a respect for the different passions and ambitions people can have, and understanding that one of the cornerstones of a good relationship is respecting and admiring each other's passions.

Who knows? At the very least, I'm getting lots of free food.

And certainly, there's nothing wrong with that.

I Blog at the Laundromat (After Some Technical Difficulty)

2008-09-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

I love blogging. There, I said it. I'm officially hooked. Furthermore, I love my Palm Centro cell phone extraordinaire. Finally, I love the laundromat. Now blogspot.com has allowed me to combine these great loves of mine in one blissful feat of technology. What could be sweeter?

Yes, I love the laundromat. It's like a sanctuary to me. Going to the laundromat means I've managed to fit three full hours of downtime into my stupid schedule. I love being hypnotized by the spinning machines, being soothed by the soft hum of the dryer and it tosses my clothes in a snuggly warm, Bounty-fresh embrace. I love folding my clothes while listening to Spanish telenovellas on TV. I feel at peace at the laundromat, like I'm finally starting to get my life in order.

Of course, three weeks later, I inevitably find myself once again out of clean underwear, work clothes tossed in a smelly heap on the floor after being worn to the absolute max, and helplessly trying to race home from work in time to get to the laundromat before it closes.

It's the circle of life. We eat, sleep, go to work, pay taxes and do our laundry.

I am transfixed by life's little routines. I want to create a series of theatrical performance installations that explore these routines. One will be set in an actual laundromat, real laundry-goers and audience members mingling, some there for art and some for function. The piece will focus on the different garments and cleansing methods of choice that each "performer" exhibits. One will be set in a grocery store, where "performers" shop alongside non-performers, audience members gathered in the aisles, or following the "performers" as they select items to add to their carts.

What can we tell about someone from their laundry? From their choice of groceries?

Time to go...the dryer's done.

Success and the City: How I Plan to Procrastinate My Way to the Top

2008-09-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

As every twenty-something New Yorker inevitably must at some point, I find myself presently broke and almost entirely free of commitment. Luckily, I have at my disposal a large TV, DVR and an impressive DVD collection belonging to my friend Alex, whose bedroom I'm currently subletting. Amongst the many teenybopper flicks she has shamelessly displayed on her shelf (She's All That? Seriously?), I find gold: Planet Earth, the first two seasons of Grey's Anatomy, and boxed collections of the entire series of Gilmore Girls, Family Guy and Sex and the City.

TV shows on DVD are my absolute greatest weakness, greater than fashion magazines (which I hoard in great stacks), grilled cheese and avocado sandwiches (eaten regularly at 4:00 am), and cheap plastic jewlery from Forever 21 (that breaks easily and quickly thus necessitating frequent purchasing). TV shows on DVD could absolutely lead to my complete demise. For most of my life, I've lived without cable. My mother doesn't believe in cable and thus hasn't ever had it in the 14 years since she and my dad divorced. When I moved away for college, I sure as hell couldn't afford cable--though I did have one blissful albeit academically unproductive semester when a roommate's parents paid for it until she dropped out and moved back home--and having gotten used to not having it as an option, it always seemed like an unnecessary luxury. I'd rather be able to afford to eat at restaurants and go to the theater.

Sufficed to say, I got into most of the my favorite TV shows (as listed on my Facebook profile) via the glory of DVD, then taken to a new level by the advent of Netflix.

Netflix has totally enabled my TV show on DVD addiction. It's like being a coke addict and having a drug dealer boyfriend. Netflix is all, "Come on...I've got the stuff right here. It's so convenient...you know you want it." The next thing I know I haven't left the house in two days because I've been holed up watching the entire first season of Weeds...episode, after episode, after episode.

The year Molly and I were in sophomore acting studio together, taking Meisner technique classes three times a week and crying our eyes out pretty much every day, we watched the entire series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Starting in the fall, watching episodes whenever we had shared free time. The extreme teenage angst coupled with monsters-and-demons intensity was the perfect outlet for all of our raw emotional baggage that was oozing out of our acting studio wounds. It took us about a year-plus to get through the whole series...mostly because neither of us had the seventh and final season, until her mom gave it to me for my birthday.

Molly also owned the entire series of Friends, which we used to pop in the DVD player as a substitute for channel surfing. Yes, these shows on DVD ended my long-term period of television abstinence.

Though it didn't really start in college. When I was in high school, my mom started renting Sex and the City on VHS (remember VHS? My mother was definitely the last person in Canada, if not North America, to get a DVD player) and the two of us quickly became addicted. And this was after the show had already gone off the air!

SATC happens to be my all-time not-so-guilty pleasure. Whereas Buffy is near and dear to my heart but I constantly have to defend its integrity to the many naysayers who criticize my devotion to the show, SATC is more universally accepted and adored by girly girls, aspiring career women, and even some sheepish straight boys (while watching a disc of season two at the boys' house this spring, my temp-roommate Jake came downstairs, sat down on the couch next to me and after a few minutes mumbled "I hate to admit it, but I kind of like this show.")

Although I've seen every episode about 75 times, I've recently decided to start a casual marathon of the entire series. It's right there, at my disposal, after all.

Did I mention I'm broke? Not pathetic. Broke. Just to clarify.

Now, I love SATC, and like many twenty-something New York novices hoping to transition successfully into self-assured, experienced thirty-something New York career women, I frequently reference the show in everyday conversation with my girlfriends and gayfriends. But I must admit, as I grow up, I've developed a few beefs with the show. Not the usual judgments of the show that some people form just for the sake of being opinionated, despite having never seen a full episode: the characters are too promiscuous, Sarah Jessica Parker is obnoxious, Kristin Davis can't act (she gets better and better as the show goes on), etc. Molly bitches that "they're just horrible people. There's nothing redeeming about them" and I want to scream at her, "that's like saying every single one of our friends is a horrible person just because they drink too much and have casual sex occasionally!" Dude! It's the millennium, for crying out loud. And the show is not really about sex anyway. It's about relationships, the important ones that define our lives: your friends, your job, the city, sometimes romantic relationships, but that all of these are secondary to the most important relationship you can have, which is with yourself.

Anyway.

The thing is, I'm a little bitter about the effect the show has had on the women of my generation. See, the show isn't about us. It's about women in their thirties and forties. But my girlfriends and I all watched the show as teenagers and on some level we moved to New York expecting to fall into this glamorous world of fashion and parties and gorgeous men who would want to buy us cocktails. I didn't really expect any of these things to happen--but the possibility that they could was burned into my subconscious. The harsh reality is that the world of Sex and the City doesn't really exist...except for silver spoon-fed trust fund babies and socialites.

I was just reading an article about Candace Bushnell, the author of the novel Sex and the City on which the show is based, in October's issue of Elle magazine. She mentions how young women coming to New York don't realize that Carrie worked very hard in her twenties and early thirties to get where she ends up in her late thirties and early forties. You never get to see the years where she was where we are now: broke, living in shitty apartments and completely clueless as to how to get ahead financially, socially and professionally.

Now, I like to think of myself as being smarter than the average 22-year old. In conversations with my friends I've made the argument that young women don't understand or take into consideration that the iconic characters of SATC have worked very hard to get where they are. That's one of the things that I've always liked most about the show: these are career women. They are self-made and proud of that fact, with the exception of Charlotte who quits her gallery job when she gets married to the wealthy Trey. Not one of them came from money, however, and I respect that about the writing. In short, I get it. They worked hard. But aren't these tougher economic times? Isn't it harder for young women to get ahead these days? Haven't we become more jaded, haven't current socio-economic factors become even more challenging to cope with as a recent college graduate?

Determined to prove this point to myself, thus isolating and validating my own particular struggles, I do the math: if the show debuted in 1998 when Carrie is 32 (based on the fact that at the beginning of season 4 she turns 35), then she would have been 22 in 1988. I was a toddler in 1988 and have no way of remembering what the economy was like back then, so I do some quick Wikipedia research. Here's what I find out:

"On Black Monday of October 1987 a stock collapse of unprecedented size lopped 22.6 percent off the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The collapse, larger than that of 1929, was handled well by the economy and the stock market began to quickly recover. However the lumbering savings and loans were beginning to collapse, putting the savings of millions of Americans in jeopardy."

--Wikipedia, "Early 1990's Recession."

Hmmm.

From the New York Times last Friday:

"This is the worst financial-services crisis of our lifetime,” and Wall Street is its epicenter, said Robert N. Sloan, who heads the financial-services executive recruiting practice at Egon Zehnder International in Manhattan. “You have major firms that have imploded or are at risk of imploding. It is a deconstruction — and a reconstruction to follow — of the financial-services industry as we know it.”

--The New York Times, "As Financial Empires Shake, City Feels No. 2 on it's Heels"

Well, there you have it. The new millennium is just as financially shaky so far as the old one. I guess it's time to stop feeling sorry for myself and accept that success and stability in the real world, and especially in New York, takes time, patience and hard work.

Of course, patience has never been my strong point.

Maybe it would help if I turned off the TV.

My Adventures in Subletting...or, The (Seemingly) Neverending Story

2008-08-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

When I graduated from university last year, I had no idea what I was going to do next.

If you want to be a doctor, there is a clear path you must follow. Undergraduate school. Medical School. Then you do your residency. Poof! Now you're a doctor! Simple!

What the hell do you do if you want to be an actor?

See, you don't have to go to school to be an actor. Anyone can walk into an audition off the street calling themselves an actor. Granted, without a resume showing that you have experience, you'd better be pretty freaking talented if you want to stand a chance of getting the gig. Of course, it is possible for one to be employed as an actor without any academic qualification. People do it all the time, much to the chagrin of those of us who spent $100,000 obtaining an academic pedigree only to find out that 20,000 other kids with identical degrees (if not identical training or talent) arrived in New York City at the same time as us vying for the same infintessemal shot at making a living as an actor.

I could never have been a doctor. I'm terrible at math an science and I am incredibly squeamish. I would probably burst into tears the first time I had to dissect anything. But the idea that you actually have to be qualified to be a doctor, that there is a checklist of things you have to do before you can officially call yourself a doctor, really appeals to me. If only I had known exactly what awaited me after graduation!

Not only did I not have any idea how I was going to pursue my career, but I had no idea where I was going to live. My roommate was moving to New York, which left me alone in the three bedroom South Philly house we'd shared for two years. I loved that house so much. We'd found it literally three days before we had to move out of our summer sublet, the summer before my junior year. It had been so perfect; huge, cheap, and available immediately. We'd lovingly selected a vibrant color scheme for each of the rooms: bright pink for the living room walls with lime green trim, teal for my bedroom with mint green and pale pink accents, and dark purple with pumpkin orange and lavender accents for Molly's room. We spent three days in the blazing August heat painting without air conditioning, taking occasional breaks to eat at the Melrose Diner down the street. It took about six months for us to afford furniture to fill the enormous house, but it was the first lease for both of us and we wanted to do it up right. It became our technicolor sanctuary, our South Philly haven, where we would return from our 14 hour days of classes, rehearsals, and waiting tables at Chili's. In the summertime we would fold down the futon in the living room, the one room which had a tiny, ancient wall unit air conditioner, and the two of us would fall asleep (feet to feet...sorry boys, no girl-on-girl action) watching Friends on DVD.

We moved out of the house two months after I graduated from UArts. Molly was moving to New York and I was....well, I was moving on, too. I just didn't know how or where yet.

Thus began my adventures in subletting.

My first sublet was in Philadelphia, on South Street between 3rd and 4th. I was finishing out the last 3 months of my friend Kati's lease for her, and since I was doing her a favor, she knocked fifty bucks a month off the price for me. I was also paying rent to her parents which, thankfully, allowed me a great deal of leeway in terms of paying on time. See, I was a total fool and decided that I was tired of working two or three jobs, so I just worked one: hosting at Jones, a trendy, kitschy 60's comfort-food concept restaurant.

I was making $10.50 an hour. Working 30 hours a week. Living by myself in a one-bedroom apartment that cost $600 a month. You do the math. Complete fool. Phoebe, what were you thinking getting yourself into this mess? Not to mention the ominous shadow of $30,000 of student loan debt looming over me. Jeez.

The apartment itself was fabulous. I learned that I absolutely adore living alone. I am fantastic company. I love sleeping on the couch. I love walking around naked. I love cooking for myself. I love not leaving the apartment at all on my days off without judgement. I love laying low. I love being able to invite people over at 3am (nothing scandalous, unfortunately.) I love talking to the television. For those three months, I holed up in that apartment. It was bright and sunny and the perfect amount of space for one person. It was in the rear of the third floor, so the South Street din of wasted hipsters stumbling out of the former TLA after a concert was 99% imperceptible. It was my peaceful haven. I bought groceries from the gourmet grocery store down the street and Netflixed all three seasons of The Office, becoming completely obsessed. I paid for everything with my credit card. I had a financially irresponsible blast.

I knew it was temporary the whole time. I had already made plans to move to New York at the end of October. Molly was going on tour, so I was taking over her Astoria sublet. I think the temporary nature of the sublet gave me a sense of peace. Every decision I was making seemed temporary, so I no longer felt the pressure I'd felt all through college of making the most practical decision. Like I said, I did nothing scandalous. Doing nothing felt like the biggest deviation of all. I was totally unproductive and loving it...and knowing that even being unproductive was temporary made it seem okay.

The time came for me to leave Philadelphia as I'd been planning. Having sold or given away all of my furniture and most of my household appliances, I enlisted my friend Matty to help me drive my meager belongings (books and clothes, that's all I've got left) in a UHaul van from Philly to New York in exchange for future theatre tickets, but at the last minute, he booked a show in New York and was unable to help me. He called to tell me this while I was having brunch with my friend Alee. Faced with the prospect of moving to a new state alone, without help, I promptly burst into tears in the middle of the Marathon Grill. (Fool!) Alee came to my rescue like a busty, pint-sized knight in shining armor. She devised a plan which consisted of her and I getting up at 5am on Wednesday morning, loading up the van, driving to New York, and her returning to Philly on a 2:00pm bus to get to her Acting on Camera class at UArts by 4:00. It was an insane plan. But by golly, it worked... until the MapQuest directions I'd printed out got us lost three times (once on the freeway, once in Manhattan, and once in Queens...which is the most ridiculously laid out freaking city I've ever seen. It's like Dr. Seuss was the urban planner assigned to the job.) So Alee drove and I cried and worried about her being late to class and when we finally got to Astoria, I had to send her on the subway with twenty bucks and a bus ticket and was left to unload the truck myself. She was only twenty minutes late in the end, and the teacher didn't bat an eye.

The thing is, I have a driver's license, but I'm terrified of driving. You'd never know I used to be a SoCal girl. I haven't driven a car in almost five years, and I was certain that me driving a UHaul van through three states equalled impending death.

The Astoria sublet was supposed to be 7-plus months and I was thrilled. After moving twice in five months, the idea of staying put for a while was immensely appealing. Plus, I fell quickly in love with Astoria. Everything I needed was within five blocks: the laundromat, nail salon, Commerce Bank, Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts, cheap pizza and Thai food I could have delivered to my door in fifteen minutes. Astoria park was a ten minute walk away. The N train was four blocks away. I quickly fell in love with the N train as well. If the N train was a person, it would be my boyfriend. It's so efficient and clean and reliable. It's always quick and it runs frequently. Plus that red lit-up "N" on the front never fails to emerge from the dark depths of the tunnel like a beacon of hope on those late nights after work when all you want to do is go home, eat pizza in bed and fall asleep watching TV.

For five months, things were great. I hardly ever saw the roommates and when I did we got along well. It was this lovely little melting pot of cultural diversity, very New York: Chia-Ying was from Korea, Sade was from Nigeria, and Emi was Japanese--but from Southern California. Supported by a sense of accomplishment (I made it to New York, after all!) and comfort in my new temporary home, I quickly became immersed in the city and kept myself busy for five months working at two restaurants, interning and taking classes at the Actor's Movement Studio and doing an off-off-Broadway show. Of course, the minute I begin to think I'm finally settling down, The Universe steps and to show me who's boss...and delivers me opportunities I could never have expected.

So I booked The Irish...and How They Got That Way at the Walnut Street Theatre. Which took me back to South Philly. Life is funny that way.

I hadn't intended to leave the Astoria apartment. To save the hassle of moving, I planned on subletting my sublet so that I'd have a place to return to after the show closed. But there had been some conflict with my roommates around the time I was packing to leave for Philly, and three days after I started rehearsals, I got a Facebook message (not a phone call, not even a proper email) telling me that they had had a roommate meeting and decided it was time for me to move out. There's a much longer version of the story, but sufficed to say I ended up in New York on my day off from rehearsal, renting yet another UHaul truck with Molly and moving my stuff out of the Astoria apartment while the roommates were out. I left a passive-aggressive note and some miscellaneous stuff behind, stored my stuff in Molly's enormous walk-in closet, and quietly but angrily moved on with my life.

I changed my address once again and settled into the boys' South Philly house. The boys, Jake, Jamison and Brad, are three friends of mine from UArts, who are all currently seniors. Since their parents were still paying their rent and they had room to spare, they'd offered for me to stay with them rent-free, as long as I paid their utilities and baked cookies once in a while. It was an absolute dream. Their house is just beautiful: big, bright and recently remodelled by their landlords next door, who happen to be our married teachers from school. The living room is furnished with dilapadated but comfy dorm-room boy furniture and frequently adorned with empty cereal bowls and spoons, piles of old Sports Illustrated, Time magazine, Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stones, and empty pizza boxes. I quickly took it upon myself to find ways of making their home nicer, though they never once asked me. I figured since I was freeloading I'd better make my presence constructive. I purchased a wastebasket for their bathroom, did the dishes, put up shelves in Jamie's room that had been sitting in a pile in the corner of his room for an entire year.

I adored living with the boys. They were so easy-going, so pleasant, being in that beautiful place where school is still exciting and stimulating yet still safe from the harsh realities of the real world. I envied them--and dreaded thinking about the time when the show would close and I'd have to leave. Not that I had to leave. They would have let me stay as long as I needed to get my feet back on the ground. But as the closing date drew nearer, it began to dawn on me that I had absolutely no money, and no intention of getting a job in Philly. I'd have to make a decision: stay in Philly and work towards getting an apartment, or move back to New York right away, subletting until something else made more sense. The thought of staying terrified me--after a several months of auditioning locally I hadn't gotten as much as a callback, and there was no way I was going back to waiting tables at Chili's. Staying seemed like taking a million steps back. Philly had replaced my parents' house in the sense that my heart was there, it felt like home...a home that I inevitably would have to leave in order seek out the next challenge. Thankful for the detour, I realized there was no turning back now. I'd have to go back to New York.

Which brought me to that horrible Sunset Park sublet. I know I've blogged about it before, but I must emphasize how truly awful it was. Thankfully only a block and a half from my beloved N train, the neighborhood was the first one I'd ever lived in that scared me. I would frequently be woken up at 3 am by the ear-splitting sound of fireworks being set off right below my open window. Every single time I thought it was a gunshot, but the absence of police sirens and screaming assured me that it wasn't. Dirt covered every surface of the apartment, no matter how many times I wet-Swiffered the floor of my bedroom, my feet were still black with grim on the walk from my room to the bathroom. The apartment itself was huge and full of potential to be nice, but the boys who lived there were college boys, living there out of financial necessity. I liked them very much--I think the years of living with my little brothers has made me much more suited to living with boys--but couldn't believe they had actually lived in this filth for an extended period of time. I would kill myself if I had to live in a place like that for more than two months.

On August 31st, I moved for the fifth time since my college graduation.

The move was no picnic (it never is) but luckily I was able to leave the UHaul truck out of the equation this time. Molly was moving the same day, so together we moved my things out of her old apartment, and drove most of them to my new sublet with the help of our friends Tamara and MK and their car. I told Molly I feel destined to write our moving experiences into a screenplay for a girly buddy-flick.

Now I'm subletting from my friend Alex while she's in Philly for three months doing a show. I'm living with my good friend Matty, who is the best temporary gay husband a girl could ask for. He loves to cook and clean, and we stay up girl talking for hours every night after we get home from our respective jobs. The apartment is small and cozy, very clean and close to the subway, crocery store and laundromate. It's in Bay Ridge, in the very depths of Brooklyn, so it takes friggin' forever to get anywhere in Manhattan (I took the subway into Astoria to have breakfast with Molly, MK and Tamara last week and it took me an hour and forty minutes, no exaggeration), but it's so cheap I can't complain. Though a couple of boxes of mine remain in Molly's apartment, Matty and I were able to move the rest of my stuff from Sunset Park by D train. This of course resulted in a farcical turn of events. Picture Matty and I saddled with duffle bags, shopping bags, and overpacked cardboard boxes in arm, making a mad dash for the door the minute the train stopped at our station. My knees buckled at the moment of truth and the box fell out of my arms. We tried to push it onto the platform before the doors closed, shrieking in alarm, and the box split open, spilling books and pictures all over the concrete. Once safely off the train, we collapsed in laughter. It was like a scene from a movie.

Having changed addresses on all my credit cards and bank accounts once again, I'm feeling happy and settled--for now. That's the thing; I always feel comfortable in the places I sublet, at least on a superficial level. Deep down, however, I'm constantly plagued by a sense of uncertainty, never knowing where I'll end up the next time.

My friends think I'm insane. Truly, at this point, I feel insane. I'm dying for a lease of my own, to recreate the sense of safety and comfort I had at the multi-colored South Philly house of my college years.

When I was a kid, I went to 10 different schools in 13 years. I was always the new kid, always starting over every 9 months. I never had any control over my destination, or course. When you're a kid, you go where mom and dad tell you to go. I lived in Philadelphia for 4 years--longer than I had lived anywhere for a consecutive period of time since before I was 8 years old. This nomadic way of life is the only thing I've ever known. I often wonder if that's one of the reasons I was drawn to this craze career path to begin with. Having the possibility of travelling, of living and working all over the world, is certainly something I find appealing about being an actor. I'm a textbook Sagittarius, after all--I get restless easily. I have to feel stimulated and inspired all the time or I go insane...but with a life that is currently at the most unstable it's ever been financially, I feel like I'm getting more than enough stimulation by just trying to survive. I've been supporting myself since I was 17, but I've never had to work so hard just to stay where I am in life, let alone get ahead. I'm 22 and I'm exhausted. In this crazy, beautiful journey I've chosen to take, I need just one thing to be constant. Just one. Something to make me feel like I have a point of reference, an anchor to keep me from losing my mind. A sanctuary. On the other hand, I know the Universe has kept me in this tumultuous pattern of chaos for this long for many unforseeable reasons. I have to believe that where I am is right, for right now. And so I'm enjoying the present, cuddling with Matty while watching Project Runway together, sprawling out in Alex's big comfy bed, and trusting that when it comes time to move out, the Universe will help me find my way to wherever and whatever is right.

In the meantime, I'm thinking about downsizing my belongings...yet again.

When It's Time To Change, You've Got To Rearrange

2008-08-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

It's 7:15 am. I'm awake. My alarm is set for 8:00 am, but I decide I may as well get up now. There's no chance I'll be able to get back to sleep. My whole body is covered in huge, swollen bites and that fat fucking mosquito is perched on the wall behind the head of my bed, challenging me to catch him. It is the biggest mosquito I've ever seen and I know he's so tremendous because he's been gorging on my blood all fucking night long. I have to work at 10:00. I would be totally miserable, except this has been going on for three weeks and last night wasn't even the worst night. Sometimes there is more than one, circling my bed like teeny little vultures. It's amazing that something so small can cause me so much discomfort and annoyance.

I live in a huge, horrible apartment in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. It's awful. Seriously. It's so awful I actually got made fun of by a stand-up comidienne last weekend ("Brooklyn is tough", she says. "Does anyone live in Brooklyn?" I raise my hand, she asks me what part and when I tell her Sunset Park she bursts into laughter. Apparently she didn't even need to come up with a joke about Sunset Park...the fact that I lived there was funny enough itself.) I've never been the butt of a stand-up joke before. It didn't even embarrass me; I totally agreed with her.

Anyway, the place doesn't have air conditioning. Nor do its windows have screens. So if I want ventilation I have to suffer the mosquitos and other various flying insects. Good thing it's August.

So here I am. At 4:00 am I woke up to bites on my forearm, wrist, and shoulder. At 5:30 am it was a bite on my knuckle and the side of my palm. I have been bitten on my cuticle. And this morning on the sole of my right foot. What kind of sadistic mosquito is this???

At this point, I feel like it's a battle of wits. I mean, this thing must have strategy. It's not just going for the fleshiest parts of my body, it's going for the parts where the nerves are the most sensitive. One night I woke up to bites on my face, shoulders and hands and saw the greedy little thing on the wall above my head. Determined to beat it, I leapt up and went to the bathroom to search for some kind of aerosol/spray/something or other to zap it. The only thing I could find was a can of Oust air freshener. Unfortunately, the can was running rather low and mostly air puffed out when I tried to spray the little fucker. It dropped out of sight behind my bed, and though I couldn't tell if it had been defeated, I decided to try to sleep. An hour later, I woke up with bites on my ankles, calves and knees. And low and behold, it was perched on the wall by my feet.

Don't tell me that's not strategy. At least in some primitive bug form.

Now, I don't believe in organized religion (at least not for myself, I don't judge others), but I consider myself to be a pretty spiritually aware person, and I totally believe that there is a higher power guiding me. I usually refer to it as The Universe.

The mosquito bite on the sole of my foot must be a sign from The Universe. It is one of many signs I've received alerting me that I am in the wrong place in my life at the wrong time.

The last night I lived in my sublet in Astoria before going to start rehearsals for The Irish... in Philly, I was awakened at 6:00 am by a cockroach. Crawling. On. My. Face. Three days later, my roommates called me in Philly to tell me they were looking for a new roommate and they wanted me out as soon as possible. I shouldn't have been surprised and I ultimately didn't mind. the cockroach was a sign.

Last Monday I woke up one morning and went to use the bathroom and wash my face. When I flushed the toilet, it clogged up and started to overflow. I'll spare you the gruesome details, but let's just say I was plunging some truly repulsive substances for nearly an hour. Later that day (after extensive showering) I was nearly fired from my restaurant job which I'd been long wanting to quit anyway. Upset (I've never been fired before), I met up with my friends and while talking through what my next move should be with them, I realized, again, that it was truly The Universe's way of kicking my ass into gear. I needed to get out of that restaurant, it was making me miserable. I hated the general manager and was terrible at concealing it. I felt like I'd been standing still for so long, not accomplishing any of my goals, and I needed to feel like I was moving forward. Well, The Universe came through once again. I walked into Morimoto the next day and was hired on the spot. I finished training last week and today I'm blogging from the Reservation Desk computer on my first shift.

Clearly starting off on the right foot.

Ha ha.

Also, I'm moving this weekend. I always knew it was temporary, but I never thought I'd be this relieved to get out of there. It was a good temporary solution, a way for me to quickly move back to New York. Happily, I can finally say I'm here, I'm back on track and I'm not going anywhere... until The Universe tells me it's time to move on yet again.

Transcendentalism and Grocery Shopping: An Exercise in Self-Discipline

2008-07-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

Having returned to New York with barely enough money to pay my first month's rent and half of my bills, I realized today that for the first time in several years I am unemployed, broke, and hungry. Not since my sophomore year of college when I was an RA with free housing but no time to get a job have I had to live off tap water and peanut butter, washing my underwear in the bathtub with dishwashing soap.

Totally badass, right?

Okay, I'm pretty sure it won't come to that this time. I have an interview tomorrow for a job as a cocktail waitress and a stimulus check from the government coming this week. I know I'm going to be fine. Still, it's been a while since I had to live off $50 a week or less, and that makes me a little nervous.

My friend Sarah from The Irish... lent me a book about a month ago, a lovely Irish memoir called Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan. At 16, Behan was a badass little punk whose connection with the IRA in the 1930's landed him in an English prison for three years. I'm only about halfway through (don't judge - I'm a fast reader but I get easily distracted, especially in times of chaos) but what I'm digging most so far is Behan's youthful waivering between self-pity and noble defiance inspired by deep patriotism. He lives on bread and potatoes and grumbles from time to time, but ultimately he decides that his loyalty to Ireland is worth a few years in prison: it's a small price to pay for the love of one's country.

Balancing my meager budget today, Brendan Behan popped into my head. If he can live on bread and water and little else for three years, surely I can do the same for a few measly weeks! And isn't my plight also in pursuit of an ideal? I choose a sparse, unstable life in the name of the creative human spirit! For the freedom to follow my artistic impulses, always endeavoring to reach out to the humanity in all my fellow men! To live a full, feeling life, experiencing the full range of emotion and experience, not just the fat happiness of the wealthy and privileged!

Riding high on these delusions of grandeur, I began to create a budget. I figured I could afford to spend about $30 on groceries to get me through the week until I received my little bit of money. Then subsequently, I'd have enough to live on about $60 a week for two or three weeks while I'm unemployed (though hopefully I won't be unemployed for that long.) I rationalized that if I purchased 7 items at $4 per item, I'd ring in at $28...perfect!

But could I do it? Me, of the chronic indulgences of every little craving and impulse? Sometimes I spend $20 on stuff to make guacamole! Sometimes I spend $16 on fancy natural shampoo and conditioner...just because I FEEL like it!

Gathering my wits, and doing my best to embody the spirit of Brendan Behan, I hopped on the subway and went to the Whole Foods in Union Square.

The minute I walked through the doors, I fell head over heels in love.

First of all, I've long since learned that everything is bigger and better in New York than anywhere else in America. (I've only been here 8 months and already I'm an elitist asshole.) It stands to reason that the Whole Foods would follow suite...but wow. I was blown away.

Three stories. The produce is in the basement like some kind of organic wonderland. There are 10 different checkout lines which are color-coded and television screens dictating when it's your turn to proceed to which of the 30 different registers. The lines are out the door. And I was there at 9:00pm...apparently all cosmopolitan Manhattanites do their trendy grocery shopping after their post-office workout at the New York Sports Club down the street.

I had come prepared with a cute little list of the seven items I was going to purchase: apples, peanut butter, bread, oatmeal, carrots, hummus and cheese. I selected each item carefully, saving a few dollars here and there on items that were on sale, so I splurged and threw in a cucumber and some vanilla soymilk for good measure. And I did give into buying the fresh Irish Cheddar...as a tribute to Behan and my fake Irish heritage.

Standing in line, I felt fantastically self-empowered. I could do it! I could be a trendy New Yorker and still survive on merely a few dollars! Why didn't I realized this sooner? It's so much easier to go grocery shopping than I ever imagined! And I had exercised such fantastic will power, which I tell you, is definitely not my strong point.

The total at the checkout line? $19.75

I am amazing! I am a goddess of budgeting and nutrition! I won't starve! I can live for my art and squeak by at the same time! How did I ever let myself descend into such insipid materialism when I was living here before???

I'm the modern female equivalent of Henry David Thoreau! Whole Foods is my Walden!

I am a fool.

Tomorrow I will get a job.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

2008-06-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

I had grand ambitions of getting up at nine this morning and running many productive errands before the matinee. Instead I stayed in bed until eleven creating this blog, then showered, polished off the rest of last night's pint of low-fat Ben and Jerry's Half Baked, and put in a disc of Sex and the City while doing my makeup. I do have to work later... I have two performances of "The Irish...and How They Got That Way".

Does my life sound fabulous or what?

Truthfully, four months ago this was my daydream. To get paid to perform, and have nothing to do all day but read books, watch movies, bask in the early summer sun and have lunch dates with friends. After three months, however, it's become kind of routine (hence the need to switch to low-fat.) I am so thankful for having had this experience, however I couldn't be more excited to move back to New York after the show closes tomorrow.

And I couldn't be in a better state, personally: I've got a good base tan, my skin is clearing up, I'm well-rested and my voice is in fantastic shape from belting eight show a week for nine weeks. And I owe it all to Philadelphia, the Walnut Street Theatre, and the three dear boys who have kindly lent me the roof over their heads.

I feel calm, cool, collected... I couldn't be more ready to take a second run at the Big Apple.

I have very different relationships with Philadelphia and New York. They are truly the two big relationships in my life. And like competing romantic relationships, each gives me things the other can't.

Philadelphia is like home, the home I created for myself and then outgrew. It's reliable, safe, predictable...it's everything a good, healthy boyfriend ought to be. We had some great times over the past five years. I grew up in Philadelphia. I had my first apartment, I learned how to take care of myself, I lost my virginity in Philadelphia. I earned my BFA. I became my own person. And I planned on staying as long as it felt right.

Philadelphia didn't do anything wrong. Our relationship grew stale. It just couldn't give me what I needed anymore. We want different things in life. Philadelphia wants to settle down, get married, start a cool, urban hipster family. And I definitely entertained the possibility for a moment...what if I married Philadelphia? It seemed like he was this close to popping the question...

But ultimately, the minute you begin to question whether or not a relationship is right, isn't that a sign that it isn't?

Which brings me to New York City. Land of sex and opportunity. New York is fuckin' hot. New York is that guy you know is too good for you...or rather you know he thinks he's too good for you. He's sexy. He's wealthy and successful and has great hair. He knows he can get any woman he wants. What would he see in me, this little girl from suburban So-Cal, who desperately wants to become a worldy, sophisticated urban woman? Would he prey on my naivete, devour me and then spit out my remains? Would he even give me a second look?

After moving to New York the first time I learned a lot about the nature of the city very quickly. Anything truly is possible in New York. You never know who is going to start talking to you on the subway, who you'll wait on at your restaurant and what opportunities might land in front of you as you walk down the crowded street. It's totally overwhelming. But the thing is, if you can keep up, the city embraces you, without you even knowing it. You become a part of the crowd, integral and yet insignificant at the same time. Just as anything can happen to you, you can happen to anything as well. Living in New York automatically makes you more desirable to others who are outside the city, and makes you an equal of those who are inside. The minute you start to settle into New York, Philly wants you back.

And Philly made a good effort to win me back. It offered me security, my Equity card, a fabulous creative opportunity with fabulously fun people, and the possibility of career advancement...in Philadelphia. I bit...for a while. But after three months, I've started to itch for New York again.

New York challenges me in a way that Philly can't. It fights with me, batters me around, argues with me violently...and I can't get enough of it. It's kind of an S&M relationship. I love how hard it is on me, and I know that the payoff when I make it through will be so much more rewarding. I have to chase after New York, even as it jerks me around, because I know that no other city will ever challenge me in this way. Success is everywhere in New York, it permeates your consciousness every minute, it makes you salivate with longing. New York rouses my ever-dormant sense of competition, it forces me to run faster and faster to keep up, while always staying just out of my reach.

We all go through this phase in our personal lives. Sure you can stay home and marry your high school sweetheart. He sure does love you a lot. But will you ever know who you could have ended up with? Who you could have ended up being?

I want status. I want success. I want New York.

No hard feelings, Philly. I'll always care deeply for you. I may even run back for a quickie now and then, when my ego is bruised and in need of a little R&R. I'm sorry if I jerk you around in the future... I may be the type of girl who manipulates all her relationships into being dysfunctional.

Maybe this is why I'm still single.