Picking up the pieces wherever they fall

First things first, remember that audition where I said that it seemed like maybe I was starting to get it? I got that show! I am very proud to announce that I will be joining Multicultural Sonic Evolution in Welcome to New Yawk! A Five-Borough Musical Tour. I play Shana in the Manhattan piece "Stay Away from the Cave Man," and Woman in "Staten Island Fairy" (which is about Queens, obviously...).

Our flyer!

It feels REALLY good to be in rehearsal again, and the pieces are super fun and silly. It's gonna be a good time.

To celebrate (not really, but the news coincided!) I went to DC last weekend to drink heavily to visit one of my dearest friends from highschool/recipient of frequent asinine texts about the absurdity that is my life.

Casually chilling with the president. Sup Obama! Happy 2nd term to you sir.

Julia and I are best and most accurately represented by St. Patrick's Day... or one of the really awkward photos of us from high school show choir. Not sharing those.

 I went to DC in April this year to do all the sightseeing and touristing, so it seemed appropriate that this time I would focus on what's really important... visiting all of our nation's capitals bars. Okay, maybe not all of them, but quite a few. And unlimited mimosas, natch.

In other news... I've been slacking. Last Monday I had an audition for Double Falsehood at The Secret Theatre, which I was bummed to learn I did not book as 1) I loooove me some only recently canon-ized Shakespeare and 2) I just felt really good about the audition and it's been a long ass time since I've done Shakespeare. Tuesday I dragged myself out of bed for open calls for ArtsPower and with the intention of going to Theatre Under the Stars' Man of La Mancha call... 

My roommate and I divided and conquered to put up a pretty respectable numbers 15 and 16 on the list at ArtsPower... and 93 and 94 at TUtS. Eh. Could be worse. Being so much lower on the list made us trek from Ripley back up to Nola to do ArtsPower first, and both of us put up pretty lackluster performances. After a quick conference, we realized that it probably just wasn't worth it to go back to Man of La Mancha, and we called it a day to go home and take naps. 

Audition calendar is looking a little thin this week, though I do have an appointment for a new play and a workshop with a Shakespeare company on Tuesday that should be fun.

In the meantime, I have realized that my race is only a month away and I'm starting to realize I'm woefully unprepared. By which I mean I have still only run like 2.5 miles at a time... and I'm doing it sloooooow. And I only went running once this week. And didn't go to the gym at all. Basically it was a fat week, is the point of all of this. Might need to make myself a workout schedule for this week... which has Thanksgiving sandwiched in the middle. Totally gonna happen. Yep. Let's just keep telling myself that.

That's my "I really love exercise and I can totally handle making a workout schedule for myself" face. It's gonna be awesome. 3.1 miles let's do this.

In all honesty, however, I think my lack of physical activity goes a long way towards accounting towards the sort of... off color attitude I've had all week. Nothing is "wrong" in my life, per say, but I've noticed myself getting snippy and short with people who don't deserve it and generally starting to backslide into a negative headspace I've been consciously working really hard to get out of.

I had a small but very real slap in the face of "oh right, your life is kind of charmed" this morning afternoon when, after complaining via text message about wanting brunch, friends who had already eaten agreed to sit with me so I could indulge my brunch craving. Silly? Absolutely. But it was the kind of thing that reminded me that I'm very lucky to have the people I have in my life and I would be wise to focus on that, rather than sweating the small stuff.

This was particularly fortunate as my roommate - one of the aforementioned friends - did this for me anyway after witnessing a very real (if drunken) deluge of my insanity last night and chose to (pretend to) not judge me after I made a somewhat foolish/dignity forfeiting decision somewhere in the wee small hours of this morning.

The truth of it is that while nothing is "wrong," I'm spending a wee bit too much time dwelling in Last November right now - today is the one year anniversary of moving to this apartment and while I'm happy to have HIT a year in one place with no immediate moving plans, as I've discussed a few times, this time last year was not a walk in the park for me. A friend and I discussed it at lunch, and apparently we're deciding that October/November is annually when I do shows about New York and work myself into complicated situations with boys (more on that most likely never some other time). Yikes.

Okay and yes. I actually know how to fix my current complicated boy situation, I'm just... well... not doing it. Learn from your mistakes much, Stevenson? No? Okay great. Carry on. Proceed blindly off the cliff.

Realizing that I'm heading down this road is about as much as I can hope for right now - if I can recognize that I'm about to go off the psycho bitch deep end, I can reasonably hope to put in a little more swimming effort to stay in the shallow end of the crazy pool. That was a really poorly constructed metaphor, but it's what I've got.

So I'm going to take it one day at a time, I'm going to get my ass on the treadmill/pounding the pavement because shockingly, the whole physical activity thing really does help, and keep picking up the pieces wherever they fall.

Hurricane Sandy, gratitude, weekend morning running... And a side of everything else.

Hey there, blogosphere.

As some of you living in America (and Kitty Kat) may or may not know, we here in New York just weathered a hurricane. My neighborhood was UNBELIEVABLY fortunate - Hell's Kitchen suffered now power outages, no flooding, no downed trees, no damage of any kind.

I have to be honest - in the wake of what I remain referring to as Fauxrricane Irene, I didn't prepare for Sandy AT ALL. I battoned down the hatches, taped the windows, filled the tupperware, stocked the dry goods, watched the news and waited through Irene, which in New York city turned out to be a glorified heavy rainstorm that passed by 10 am the following day.

Sandy, on the other hand, turned out to be decidedly NOT that kind of hurricane.

What in the wee hours of the morning would become the most iconic Manhattan image of Hurricane Sandy.

This photo was taken at Avenue C and 8th Street, in lower Manhattan, on Monday night. Shown this photo before last week, I would have assumed it was taken circa several years ago somewhere in Louisiana or Florida. I could share countless more, but you, like me, have the internet and can find the images just as easily as I can. I'd show you a picture of my neighborhood but if you look at this last post
you'll find a picture of Hell's Kitchen and it looks EXACTLY like that post-Sandy.

My hurricane consisted of a very ordinary Monday at work - actually, a very BUSY Monday at work for people looking for an open spot to drink, concocting a DIY Hurricane Cocktail, and partying through the storm with friends. Looking back, this was irresponsible at best and downright dangerous and disrespectful at worst.

I still find this image HILARIOUS, but in the wake of what turned out to not be bullshit the way Irene was, it's also a little embarrassing how much and how closely I identified with this as I did literally all of those things except the cigarettes.

Throughout the week I've heard more and more stories of the devastation of this hurricane of a scale I frankly couldn't have ever expected here in the Northeast. Many of my friends were without power for the last 6 days, most could not work nor get into Manhattan, and I talked to DOZENS of people at the bar whose lives were COMPLETELY changed by Sandy, including an older couple who lives in the building I pictured above. Even friends lucky enough to live in neighborhoods untouched were stuck without being able to go to work and earn paychecks this week because their offices or restaurants were at best powerless, at worst flooded and beyond repair. I watched the news this week with a blank horror I rarely feel, and a powerlessness I have never really known in the face of nature.

Previously, the term "hurricane" hit closer to home for me than many other natural disasters as I had relatives live through Hurricane Andrew in Florida and Katrina in Louisiana. Those relatives checked in early and often, both last year for Irene and this year for Sandy, and their concern made me feel guilty for my own lack of preparation. And made me realize how naive I was to be so cavalier about something like this. It's NOTHING but lucky that I live in midtown instead of the East Village or Battery Park City and that I work in a neighborhood that also never lost power. I didn't deserve to get this lucky and my earlier cavalier attitude is coming back to bite me in the ass with a sense of proverbial Catholic guilt I never knew I possessed.

I grew up in reasonably idyllic California in the 2000s and didn't live in New York for 9/11 or any of its ensuing crises. At the risk of sounding cliché, this was my first real wake-up that things like this REALLY DO happen where I live, to people I know, to people I care about, and maybe probably someday, to me. There are dozens of ways to help and I will be finding them - this is too big a lesson to not act on.

The reason I say this is because yesterday morning and today, I went for runs that took me down the Hudson River to the west village, and it was AMAZING the difference between yesterday morning and Wednesday (my last outdoor run, when the power was still out). And the spirit of New Yorkers hell bent and determined to return to their routine was awe inspiring. This is a RESILIENT fucking city. That's something I hadn't exactly hoped to experience first hand, but it's been pretty amazing to see.

This morning in particular, I ran with what must have been dozens of folks here for the marathon, which was cancelled in the wake of widespread controversy about going on with it in spite of the hurricane. Though the marathon's cancellation is something with which I agreed wholeheartedly, the amount of people out and about to make the best of it was pretty great. I've heard many ran the distance today in Central Park anyway, a lot of whom did so to fundraise for relief efforts. OBVIOUSLY I'm not a marathoner (hi the two miles I did Wednesday, yesterday, and today were killer enough for me so 26.2 is not in the cards for this girl anytime soon) but it's still something I can respect.

I have spent the week telling people that my hurricane was "uneventful" and reiterating how lucky I have been, but it's only recently been sinking in how much worse it could have - and by rights maybe should have - been. I live two blocks from a river and ON AN ISLAND, for fuck's sake. It doesn't get much luckier than having no damage in that situation. To be frank, I've never felt more blessed.

In other news, life goes on, both in New York on the whole and in my life. Pre-Sandy, my beloved San Francisco Giants WON THE WORLD SERIES!

Just after striking out the alleged best player in baseball for the final out for the win. Storming the field. Picture me in a bar screaming and jumping up and down and maaaaaybe crying a little.

Me and one of my best friends JUST after the win and we both called to gush with our moms. This shit-eating grin stayed plastered to my face alllllll night and I'm pretty positive I woke up with it in the morning.

The hurricane hit the following day, and if you want my recap there scroll up or read the goddamn news.

In audition-land, everything was (unsurprisingly) cancelled owing to the hurricane and rescheduled for this week. Tomorrow I have Hong Kong Disney on tap before work, with In the Heights and an appointment for a new musical appropriately about New York Thursday. Back to Backstage, back to Actors Access, back to Playbill... back to life, back to reality.

I also have a real idea for a creative project... it involves Shakespeare, the High Line, site-specific theatre, and me actually really doing some work for the good of my own career. I'm excited and kind of terrified and we'll see what happens. More details to come when I have them. If I can pull this off it's going to be awesome... and if I can't, I will at the very least know I tried.

In fitness land, as I said, I went on three outdoor runs today. I have no idea if my gym was even open, because I was determined to be outdoors... and also because it's time to stop fucking around and getting my body used to how much harder that is than the treadmill (and because it's gotten really cold, and I signed up for a December race like an idiot). In my C25K training, I ran my first 20 minutes without stopping this week! It's not that much, I know... but my cardiovascular fitness has always been more dance oriented. And for someone who still remembers being made fun of for not being able to run one mile without stopping in middle school, it feels pretty damn good to look back at the fact that this week alone I have run six. I WILL get a series card at BDC this week and I WILL be dancing.

I also have to be honest - this post almost didn't happen because I woke up feeling shitty and cranky and angry today after going to bed feeling shitty and cranky and angry last night. Not all of it is resolved, but a lot was a much simpler fix than I thought... and it feels good, at the very least, to know that. Some of it probably stems from bigger issues, but I'm working on it. It also feels really good to know that whatever my (many) flaws, I've come a long way from where I was even this July where I would have bottled this up and lashed out inappropriately rather than accept how I felt and motivate myself to feel better and deal with it. Baby steps towards maturity, baby steps towards gratitude, baby steps towards a better me.

Where I've been running. New York's pretty fucking gorgeous sometimes, right? Here's to rebuilding, and here's to inspiration.

zen and the art of being single in manhattan, or why i can never go above 96th street again

This is usually the place where I'd put a disclaimer about how I suck at having a blog, and that's true, but I frankly can't say I'll ever get better.

The truth is I've had lots of blog-worthy thoughts since November. There are notes on my cell phone, little ideas that come to half-fruition in my head but never see the light of day in print, so to speak, because I get lazy or I (so I claim) don't spend a whole lot of time in front of my computer during the day.

But the simple truth is for longer than I care to admit, I haven't returned to this blog because I re-read that last post and realize I haven't gotten anywhere. Sure, I've accomplished a reasonable amount in the new year since that time - I've left a job I hated, I've joined a theatre company with whom I've done two shows, I've gone on vacation, I've auditioned, I've job hunted, I've done a reading and gotten cast in a second, and I've gotten (shockingly) back into a workout routine and even become one of those people that enjoys exercise. It's not a bad tally for barely four months. And yet... I come to my blog and I see what I wrote last and it's still too true.

Some of you are probably rolling your eyes at me, calling me pathetic and wondering why in god's name I'm not over this yet. You wouldn't say it to my face, of course, and I appreciate that. Because the fact is I levy the same judgement at myself. That's part of the "zen and the art of being single in Manhattan" bit. You're supposed to hate it this much but accept it with a sort of world-weary complacence. Because of Sex and the City it is somehow more glamorous to be single here than in, say, San Jose California (just as a for instance) so therefore it can't really be as bad as all that, right? And therefore I judge myself for my own... well... misery. Besides, I think, I am the kind of career minded single girl who in truth doesn't really have time for a boyfriend, particularly not to still be somewhat hung up on someone who in all likelihood never really cared too much in the first place.

That's the catch, you see, though. The zen is disturbed by what seems so much more common here than anywhere else - that tantalizing almost. That place you get to where you believe you may not be in it by yourself for that much longer. That terrifying but terrific place where you ACTUALLY get to hope for once. The place you get to look back on four months later with a gaping sense of emptiness and your own patheticness when you realize it's very possible it was all in your head. And so you find yourself, in spite of maintaining your own firm "I'm so over it," doing things like, say... hating the 2 train. Refusing to go to Morningside Heights when not ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY and bitching about it when it is. Holding a grudge against a certain university in that Manhattan locality. Instinctively hating the Orlando Magic. Realizing you somehow find a breed of dog you never liked adorable and then punishing yourself for that thought.

Realizing, in the end, that all these small things remind you of someone who was for all intents and purposes never there. Was never worthy of this level of your concern and yet... there was that hope. There was that blind, irrational, STUPID fucking hope - which is a word I also hate right now, by the way - which is the hardest thing of all to let go of.

This isn't the first time this has happened to me, of course. But at that time those things that I couldn't stand, those things that made me want to simultaneously cry and scream and puke - and frankly, in a far worse way - were also things I absolutely couldn't avoid. Call it immersion therapy but mere exposure made it get easier faster.

So yes. I should be over it. I'm sorry that I'm not, because I thought I was doing okay. But mostly because I've learned that the "zen" in being single in Manhattan is not really zen at all, it's just re-training yourself not to care over and over and over and over and over and over and over again and finding each time it works just a little bit more, but not quite enough.

It's too much, and not enough.

why it still really sucks to get pseudo-dumped by someone you were "sort of seeing"

(Giving credit where credit is due: I've been reading a lot of Thought Catalogue lately, so this post is largely inspired by them, though not as well written.)

Take this formula: girl meets boy in bar, thinks nothing of it. Ends up casually seeing this boy for several weeks. Refuses to decide if she think it's anything more than casual, even though it seems like he'd like it to be more than casual. Grows unwittingly (or wittingly but without admission) more attached while maintaining to herself the relationship's casual nature. Continues "casually" seeing this boy for several more weeks, verging into the multiple months territory. Suddenly becomes wittingly more attached/admittedly attached at the precise moment when the boy starts to ignore her. Decides to, as best as she (in a somewhat emotionally stunted about relationships way) can, put it out there that she'd like to make this less casual. Learn he did make it less casual. With someone else.

The argument could be put forth that, since while it seemed he was looking for something casual she was looking for something less casual, she sort of had it coming. On the other hand, the argument could be put forth that she misread the signs and had no real reason to be surprised when this abruptly blew up in her face. The argument could be put forth that at least she tried, and isn't that something? And all these arguments have their merit.

The thing about these arguments is they don't account for the part where the girl can't help but just not get it. What changed, and when. They don't account for the part where the girl always assumed that if and when this DID blow up in her face, it would be because he was bored or busy or not looking for anything serious. They don't account for the part where he was looking for something - just not with her. They don't account for the part where she can't stop asking why not her. They don't account for the part where it's about him, but it's more about the deflation of that scary but great feeling where she thought this could really be something.

But these are all feelings contingent upon a real relationship, she'll think. These are all feelings she doesn't necessarily deserve to have, so she'll stuff them down as best she can when talking to friends and pretending that she knows she's making it a bigger deal than it really is. These are all feelings she shouldn't have when being blown off by someone who very likely didn't care very much in the first place, or very likely wouldn't have mattered much in the long run.

The trouble is, the girl is me. The story is, the girl is me. And the trouble is it's not a story at all. So for the next few days, I won't send the passive aggressive text and I will continue pretending it's not a big deal. But it turns out? This still kind of blows.