You know what I love?? I love it when the Egyptian guy in the halal truck asks me if I'm Miss. America, tells me that he will give me anything, including his truck, that I don't need to drink diet soda, and that I don't need hot sauce because I'm already hot enough. Oh and I also love it when he includes the diet soda for free. All done in a decidedly friendly and non-creepy manner.
I was grinning like an idiot all the way back to my building.
You know what else I love?? I love it when I decide to try a gyro on rice for the first time even though I don't know how it's pronounced and it embarrasses me to order and when I finally get it back to my desk and start eating it, it turns out to be one of the most delicious things I've put in my mouth in months. And yes, I meant for that to sound dirty. Because eating that thing was a very special experience. The sort of food experience where you just wish with every part of your heart that you wouldn't get full so that you could just keep eating. It was tender and perfectly seasoned and oh so fatty and the white sauce was so cool and the lettuce and pickle tasted so fresh and light in comparison. I was so very happy to have some alone time with it at my desk.
I feel like I could sing the praises of that gyro from the rooftops of every building on wall street right now. But that would probably get me shot down by some security patrol in about 7.9 seconds. I guess I will just have to settle for writing about it here.
3.12.2008
3.11.2008
Forward charge!
Alright, scratch that last, self-pitying, I-can't-get-anything-done, boo-hoo post.
Today I managed to 1)think my way through the whole show, (there are lots of transitions and dance, so it was really helpful) 2)call the doctor's office 3)cancel my horribly high interest rate credit card that I managed to pay off and 4)call the asshole restaurant that never paid me but then sent me a tax return which means I'll be receiving a check for $200 that I had pretty much given up on. Suh-weet!
Go me-e! Go me-e! Go, go, go me-e!!
And now I'm off to do the dishes. Wooooo! Ah, the excitement of everyday life!
Today I managed to 1)think my way through the whole show, (there are lots of transitions and dance, so it was really helpful) 2)call the doctor's office 3)cancel my horribly high interest rate credit card that I managed to pay off and 4)call the asshole restaurant that never paid me but then sent me a tax return which means I'll be receiving a check for $200 that I had pretty much given up on. Suh-weet!
Go me-e! Go me-e! Go, go, go me-e!!
And now I'm off to do the dishes. Wooooo! Ah, the excitement of everyday life!
People say I have ADD, but they don't understand- oh, look! A chicken!
Well, I have fallen down on the job slightly, not having posted in 4 or 5 days. Tisk tisk.
I suppose I have the fairly reasonable excuse of being in a show at the moment which is sucking up a large portion of my time. 13 hours of rehearsal (not to mention outside character work) since my last posting...yeah, that's pretty reasonable excuse.
But I've also just been feeling uninspired, rather 'blah'. I think it's mainly a combination of being tired from rehearsals, being disoriented from my unpredictable schedule and a low level anxiety about the show (we're opening in a little over a week - eep!)
Related to all of this is my increasing awareness how much of an impact my ADD has on my everyday life. And goddamn is it frustrating. To give you the background, I was diagnosed with ADD fairly late in life - when I was a sophomore in high school. By that point, it had worked domino-like on my life and created an indestinguishable tangle of related problems. I will resist the temptation to go down the cliche path of the high school sob story, and simply say that shit was fucked up.
Back to the present. The real world has been tough. College was great - it had it's rough points, but I pulled through and even graduated with high honors. And really, it was the perfect setting for me, given the ADD. I was in a place where life was structured, but varied and engaging, where there were lots of people and a limited number of distractions (I was in Ohio, for christsakes.) And every day responsibilities were minimal - I was cooked for, the space I was responsible for was small and easy to keep clean and I didn't have to deal with bills and the like.
Anyway, to really get back to the present - I have begun to realized just how much time I spend jumping from one thing to another, almost never thinking exclusively about one thing. And it sucks. Part of my problems in the last year and a half have certainly been your run of the mill post-graduation identity crisis (do I really want to be an actor??) but a lot of it has also been that I feel almost incapable of juggling all of the things that I need to.
I know that I should find a doctor post-haste and get back on medication, especially since I'm lucky enough to be insured on my father's plan. I've had a year and half to do this and am going to lose the insurance in 3 months. I've made essentially no real progress on this. Which is the horrible thing about ADD - getting your shit together enough to get help can be so incredibly hard. Especially since doing all of this has become such a dreaded thing for me that I've gone into code red Avoidance Mode.
To my credit, I work every day to be aware of when I'm distracted and I try my best to work with it. I write lists, I try to be aware of situations that easily lead to wasting massive amounts of time...(like reading blogs)...I've asked C to help me (which she's been amazing about.) But I am still often left with such a sense of frustration and shame at my inability to accomplish the things that, given my abilities and intelligence, should be easy.
Of course, feeling down on oneself never helps to boost productivity or improve focus, so I try like hell to stay positive and praise myself for everything I do get done. But I just haven't been as good at it the past few days. My inner cheerleader is pooped and cranky. And thus, the blah.
I suppose I have the fairly reasonable excuse of being in a show at the moment which is sucking up a large portion of my time. 13 hours of rehearsal (not to mention outside character work) since my last posting...yeah, that's pretty reasonable excuse.
But I've also just been feeling uninspired, rather 'blah'. I think it's mainly a combination of being tired from rehearsals, being disoriented from my unpredictable schedule and a low level anxiety about the show (we're opening in a little over a week - eep!)
Related to all of this is my increasing awareness how much of an impact my ADD has on my everyday life. And goddamn is it frustrating. To give you the background, I was diagnosed with ADD fairly late in life - when I was a sophomore in high school. By that point, it had worked domino-like on my life and created an indestinguishable tangle of related problems. I will resist the temptation to go down the cliche path of the high school sob story, and simply say that shit was fucked up.
Back to the present. The real world has been tough. College was great - it had it's rough points, but I pulled through and even graduated with high honors. And really, it was the perfect setting for me, given the ADD. I was in a place where life was structured, but varied and engaging, where there were lots of people and a limited number of distractions (I was in Ohio, for christsakes.) And every day responsibilities were minimal - I was cooked for, the space I was responsible for was small and easy to keep clean and I didn't have to deal with bills and the like.
Anyway, to really get back to the present - I have begun to realized just how much time I spend jumping from one thing to another, almost never thinking exclusively about one thing. And it sucks. Part of my problems in the last year and a half have certainly been your run of the mill post-graduation identity crisis (do I really want to be an actor??) but a lot of it has also been that I feel almost incapable of juggling all of the things that I need to.
I know that I should find a doctor post-haste and get back on medication, especially since I'm lucky enough to be insured on my father's plan. I've had a year and half to do this and am going to lose the insurance in 3 months. I've made essentially no real progress on this. Which is the horrible thing about ADD - getting your shit together enough to get help can be so incredibly hard. Especially since doing all of this has become such a dreaded thing for me that I've gone into code red Avoidance Mode.
To my credit, I work every day to be aware of when I'm distracted and I try my best to work with it. I write lists, I try to be aware of situations that easily lead to wasting massive amounts of time...(like reading blogs)...I've asked C to help me (which she's been amazing about.) But I am still often left with such a sense of frustration and shame at my inability to accomplish the things that, given my abilities and intelligence, should be easy.
Of course, feeling down on oneself never helps to boost productivity or improve focus, so I try like hell to stay positive and praise myself for everything I do get done. But I just haven't been as good at it the past few days. My inner cheerleader is pooped and cranky. And thus, the blah.
3.06.2008
Parallel Evolution
So, for those of you who've read it (if anyone is reading this thing) my first entry was called 'poptarded' - alluding in a not very pc fashion to the fact that I'm an idiot about pop culture. I thought it was catchy, cute, I was proud of coming up with it.
But NO - I googled it in a moment of desperate boredom, to discover that it is a full on entry in a slang dictionary and that someone has an entire blog of the self-same name! I don't know what to think of this?? Does this simply prove my point, that I'm totally clueless?? Or does it possibly improve my street-cred, given that I spontaneously invented a word already in use with those cool enough to need an entire slang dictionary?? My head spins with the possibilities...
But NO - I googled it in a moment of desperate boredom, to discover that it is a full on entry in a slang dictionary and that someone has an entire blog of the self-same name! I don't know what to think of this?? Does this simply prove my point, that I'm totally clueless?? Or does it possibly improve my street-cred, given that I spontaneously invented a word already in use with those cool enough to need an entire slang dictionary?? My head spins with the possibilities...
Today's forecast calls for trite with a smattering of awkward
The guy who directed the oh-so-prophetic production of Stop Kiss I was in my senior year (more on this later) once made the off-hand comment that invariably, everyone talks about the weather. "That's not true," I protested "I never talk to people about the weather - that's so lame!"
Of course, once my attention was brought to it, I realized that, I did, in fact talk about the weather. Kind of a lot. And the more I thought about it, the more often I did it. Because now that it was in my head, whenever I reached an awkward pause in a conversation, my brain would naturally go into panic mode, lose the ability to form any original thoughts and I'd have to revert to the weather. It was a self-perpetuating habit.
Fast forward to today. The office I've been temping at for the last week does not have a system where guests' names can be put on a list at the front desk, so I have to go down 26 flights and get them. Which I don't mind, except that in the elevator on the way up, you have to think of what to talk about with this perfect stranger, with whom you are only going to have about a 60 second interaction. What do I bring up? Three guesses and the first two don't count...You got it! The weather. In fact, I am fairly certain that I have talked about the weather a grand total of 5 times in as many hours today. Maybe even more.
I don't know what I think about this. Part of me wishes that I had the balls to just be totally friendly and try to get to know them in the space of an elevator ride - "Where'd you grow up?" "Do you have children?" "What do you think about primary?" But that, I realize would both make people really uncomfortable and have everyone in the office thinking that I was a kook. Which I am, but in a different way...anyway. My other potential option would be to just go for comfortable silence. Which I sort of do do at times. Except that it's not really "comfortable" - more the kind of silence where you are suddenly extremely aware of where you're looking and what you're doing with your hands. You know, standard elevator behavior.
My third option, which I just came up with thanks to writing this post is to simply take it as it comes and then (wait for it, wait for it)...just let it go. Whaaat? Don't analyze it to death?? Don't worry about being awkward because thinking about it simply makes it more awkward? What a thought! I pick choice number three, please.
Now this is a realization I have come to possibly a half a million times in my life and yet, I keep having to remind myself. Which is funny, because when I do manage to let go of things and just take life as it comes, I'm invariably happier. So you'd think it would be an easy habit to keep up. But no, Mr. Self-Consciousness is not leaving without a fight. A long, drawn-out battle of attrition. Dammit.
Of course, once my attention was brought to it, I realized that, I did, in fact talk about the weather. Kind of a lot. And the more I thought about it, the more often I did it. Because now that it was in my head, whenever I reached an awkward pause in a conversation, my brain would naturally go into panic mode, lose the ability to form any original thoughts and I'd have to revert to the weather. It was a self-perpetuating habit.
Fast forward to today. The office I've been temping at for the last week does not have a system where guests' names can be put on a list at the front desk, so I have to go down 26 flights and get them. Which I don't mind, except that in the elevator on the way up, you have to think of what to talk about with this perfect stranger, with whom you are only going to have about a 60 second interaction. What do I bring up? Three guesses and the first two don't count...You got it! The weather. In fact, I am fairly certain that I have talked about the weather a grand total of 5 times in as many hours today. Maybe even more.
I don't know what I think about this. Part of me wishes that I had the balls to just be totally friendly and try to get to know them in the space of an elevator ride - "Where'd you grow up?" "Do you have children?" "What do you think about primary?" But that, I realize would both make people really uncomfortable and have everyone in the office thinking that I was a kook. Which I am, but in a different way...anyway. My other potential option would be to just go for comfortable silence. Which I sort of do do at times. Except that it's not really "comfortable" - more the kind of silence where you are suddenly extremely aware of where you're looking and what you're doing with your hands. You know, standard elevator behavior.
My third option, which I just came up with thanks to writing this post is to simply take it as it comes and then (wait for it, wait for it)...just let it go. Whaaat? Don't analyze it to death?? Don't worry about being awkward because thinking about it simply makes it more awkward? What a thought! I pick choice number three, please.
Now this is a realization I have come to possibly a half a million times in my life and yet, I keep having to remind myself. Which is funny, because when I do manage to let go of things and just take life as it comes, I'm invariably happier. So you'd think it would be an easy habit to keep up. But no, Mr. Self-Consciousness is not leaving without a fight. A long, drawn-out battle of attrition. Dammit.
3.05.2008
Pretty Time!
otter pelt thick, kinda wavy/kinda curly hair + one month overdue on a haircut + bangs + humidity + 10 minutes of blow drying + light mist + high winds = pretty
hopefully something of more substance later, I just had to get that out of my system.
hopefully something of more substance later, I just had to get that out of my system.
3.04.2008
Polar Bear Homicide
I was dutifully sorting the mail at my temp job, when a catalogue fell open to reveal this* little item. My first reaction, naturally, was to think: "Holy Hell! Some bored little kid from the mountains of Virginia fed his pet goat a whole ream of paper and made an art project out of the byproduct!"
And then I paused, took a deep breath and considered the implications beyond the visual heresy being perpetrated. How many of these things will end up in landfills? How much gasoline was consumed to make it? To ship it? How many polar bears will drown so that people can experience the "warm spice scent" on a "cold winter night" or "romantic evening"?!
Sorry for the self-righteous and oh-so-Oberlin rant, but there is zip, zero, zilch reason for this thing to exist. And no, I don't claim to really know anything about the environment, but a 5 year old growing up in this day in age could tell you that this thing will only make matters worse.
*I would have just include the picture, but when I tried to save it, the website informed me that, for god only knows what reason, it has been trademarked, or whatever. Meaning that they actually care about this thing.
And then I paused, took a deep breath and considered the implications beyond the visual heresy being perpetrated. How many of these things will end up in landfills? How much gasoline was consumed to make it? To ship it? How many polar bears will drown so that people can experience the "warm spice scent" on a "cold winter night" or "romantic evening"?!
Sorry for the self-righteous and oh-so-Oberlin rant, but there is zip, zero, zilch reason for this thing to exist. And no, I don't claim to really know anything about the environment, but a 5 year old growing up in this day in age could tell you that this thing will only make matters worse.
*I would have just include the picture, but when I tried to save it, the website informed me that, for god only knows what reason, it has been trademarked, or whatever. Meaning that they actually care about this thing.
3.03.2008
Busy like a little bee
Saw Bluemouth Inc.'s Death by Water on Friday night with C. I don't even know where to begin with it, so I'll just boil it down to highlights and hope that you'll have the great good fortune to go see one of the few remaining performances.
highlights:
1) Following a cowboy who's pulling a rickshaw down a sidewalk of Fort Greene, accompanied by a ?Chinese? song as a soundtrack. (Cue lots of confused pedestrians.)
2) Sitting in a plexi-glass shed, wearing headphones, watching a projected video and two dancers/actors careen around an eerily lit corner of the park.
3) Listening to the dancers/actors who are miced and whose breathing, sniffling and intermittent dialogue is superimposed over the music playing over the headphones.
It was awesome. The only thing that could have possibly made it more awesome is if I hadn't been carrying the aforementioned devil spawn.
The rest of the weekend was also pretty great, including two first times - walking across the Brooklyn Bridge (beautiful!) and going to a bar by myself.
highlights:
1) Following a cowboy who's pulling a rickshaw down a sidewalk of Fort Greene, accompanied by a ?Chinese? song as a soundtrack. (Cue lots of confused pedestrians.)
2) Sitting in a plexi-glass shed, wearing headphones, watching a projected video and two dancers/actors careen around an eerily lit corner of the park.
3) Listening to the dancers/actors who are miced and whose breathing, sniffling and intermittent dialogue is superimposed over the music playing over the headphones.
It was awesome. The only thing that could have possibly made it more awesome is if I hadn't been carrying the aforementioned devil spawn.
The rest of the weekend was also pretty great, including two first times - walking across the Brooklyn Bridge (beautiful!) and going to a bar by myself.
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