I'm an optimist, but I'm an optimist who takes her raincoat.

For most of high school, I was little miss sunny outlook and positivity. Problem? Bring it to Siobhan. Besides the listening and the sympathy, she would generally be able to provide you with the way to rationalize, come down from the ledge, and find you the light at the end of the tunnel. Even when bogged down in my own shit, I was generally pretty good at doing my best to provide this service for others - and more often than not, doing it for myself.

As you might have garnered from this anecdote/the title of this blog entry, I am less than stellar at doing that these days. When I have a problem I latch onto it and fixate. I don't wallow - it's not really my style - but a problem sits with me until I am good and ready to let it go. Generally this requires blowing it out of proportion, getting spectacularly mad, and then coming down from the ledge a step at a time.

This process takes a lot of time and emotional energy, and annoys both me and most everyone who has to deal with me while this is happening. And while I've protested on frequent occasions that current me would not be friends with high school me (owing to the aforementioned sunny disposition and relentless positivity), high school me was probably onto something. And okay, yes, the "stay positive at all costs" mentality was generally her way of just pretending everything was fine rather than ACTUALLY coping with anything that went wrong. But about half the time she was pretty good at pinpointing when something was actually not a big deal and subsequently taking immediate action towards fixing it.

So okay, high school me. You're in there somewhere. Let's do this.

Step one: identify the problem. Today, I am pissed off because I overslept, meaning I missed auditions. Additionally, woke up having overslept from dream about both roommates talking to me about their successes, whereas I still moooostly feel like a failure.

Step two: analyze why problem is bothersome: I feel guilty about skipping auditions. I feel lazy because I only have 1 audition lined up this week. I feel pathetic/jealous because my roommate has 4. I feel doubly pathetic/jealous because my roommate has a callback tonight.

Step three: perspective: Ugh this one is the hard part. Okay so the dream means I'm actually NOT confronting the problem all the way - I'm still scared and I still feel like I'm not working hard enough and I'm jealous that the work I AM doing is still going unnoticed while I feel that's not happening for my peers. But I've had some really positive responses to auditions lately. I got called in for a pre-Broadway show, even though I'm non-union. I've been getting callbacks. And I'm IN a show, for Christ's sake, with a good part, going to Europe in three weeks. All this is good. I'll get back on track with six auditions next week, and it's only Wednesday so more things could easily turn up for this week. And I shouldn't feel jealous of my roommate's callback for something I didn't even audition for.

Step four: other good things happening in my life: Well... see, this is where I always fail in this part of the exercise these days. Perspective trips me up and then I get here and I'm like WELL SHIT. But. 1) It's ACTUALLY SPRING. 2) I have time this morning now for grocery shopping/laundry. 3) I've lost 7 pounds (hey, gotta throw it in somewhere). 4) Did I mention it's spring? 5) My throat hurts like a mofo, which means my singing would have been less than stellar today anyway. 6) Again. Spring. (See my last post about LA or this post about winter for reasons that's so prominent).

Okay okay I know how obnoxious that was, but all of I think 5 people read this blog so I don't really feel THAT badly about that.

...The thing about this method - which no, I don't itemize in steps in my head but do run through all of that when I'm actually trying (tune in next week for the litany of reasons Siobhan is CRAZY) - is that it doesn't always work. In spite of myself the big problems are still there. But I have, as it happens, talked myself all the way off the ledge.

we've been on the run driving in the sun looking out for number one

I have an extremely difficult confession to make: I really liked LA. “Well, sure, Siobhan, what’s not to like? The palm trees? The sun? The beaches? The general aura of relaxed fabulousness? Or if none of those work, how about the fact that you were on vacation? OBVIOUSLY you liked LA.”

The thing is, the experience was wholly unexpected. I grew up (to simplify… see previous discussions on my lack of hometown) in Northern California, and promptly moved to New York City where Los Angeles is viewed as maybe the most evil place in the country except perhaps Texas. Therefore in spite of any hard evidence, I knew in the emotional/spiritual way that I didn’t like LA.

Sure, in the back of my mind I remembered enjoying multiple trips to Disneyland, a couple of middle school and high school state championship FPS trips (that’s Future Problem Solving, for those not in the know, which is a super cool academic competition thing that I was very involved with for 4-5 years maybe?), and a thoroughly enjoyable college visit expedition in the eleventh grade. But really, when it came down to it, I live in New York which is (arguably) the center of the universe, and had spent many an evening sophomore year getting into less than sober lighthearted but nonetheless intensive quarrels with my LA native roommate and her friends about whether the Bay or LA was better. Psh, like that’s a real question.

So well known was my “hatred” of LA that when I told friends I was going, their response – besides those who dwell in LA, who were very graciously excited or at least pretended to be – was “really? Why?” Actor friends asked if I was going to figure out if I liked it enough to move there, to which I promptly responded that I already knew the answer to that one and it was no. The simple explanation of “to go on vacation?” sufficed to shockingly few. Surely there must have been an ulterior motive for such a trip.

You can imagine my surprise then that everything that probably should have triggered my instant and instinctive hatred did no such thing. Rather I curiously liked Los Angeles pretty much from the moment I touched down at LAX. [I will pause here to comment that I’m mostly joking – clearly if I really expected to hate LA I obviously wouldn’t’ve spent money going on vacation there, but for the purposes of my story we’ll keep pretending.]

I spent five days in the company of dear friends both old and new, on beaches, outdoors, in numerous bars and more numerous restaurants, generally eating drinking and being merry on vacation. One easily understands how these things engendered a generally positive feeling about the city I was in pretty damn quickly.

This is the thing though. I have visited other friends at their colleges, and though it’s always fun and interesting, I hadn’t yet visited friends at any school I’d actually even considered, let alone applied to, let alone been accepted to in the case of USC (oops). Driving around one day, it occurred to me that it was sort of a phantom version of what my life might have looked like, minus of course the attendant responsibilities – but then I never considered those in early trips to New York either. And I found myself quickly coming to the conclusion that I could easily have been happy out here. Would I have been crushed at first that I wasn’t going to New York? Of course. But I could have made a life out here and enjoyed it and been happy and maybe not have ended up moving to New York until my middle twenties, if at all.

But – and here’s the part that if you are my parents I would like very much for you to stop reading, and/or please read without jumping to the immediate conclusion that I am giving up and moving back out here/there (I’m currently writing this somewhere over Kansas, so either pronoun is actually incorrect) – something else occurred to me. I could easily be, present tense, happy in LA. I can absolutely see what my life would look like. And some really, really appealing things about how my life would be easier – lower cost of living, slightly less competitive theatre scene, idyllic weather, and most importantly proximity to such a high number of friends and family – jump out almost immediately. I have a hard time shaking those. I know it has something to do with the idea of leaving 1) warm weather and 2) the end of my effectively two week vacation (including Memphis), but I found myself distinctly not excited to go back today.

Also, there were, as it happens, ulterior motives to booking this trip so many months ago. New York is an astonishingly easy place to feel lost and alone, and in January when I planned the trip and February when I booked it, I was feeling this in a biiiiiig way. I wanted to be somewhere that felt like home, somewhere where it felt like people still loved me and I was still important to them. Somewhere I could feel a little more like me, aka not so stressed and angry and unhappy.

Obviously all of these problems are things that were to do with me, and not New York. Also they definitely owe in part to the fact that as it turns out, I hate winter. That having been said, they don’t call NYC the concrete jungle for no reason. So the idea of getting out for a while, particularly to a place with warm weather and palm trees, seemed incredibly appealing

I have said on a variety of occasions, when asked, that I’m not opposed to moving back to California, I would just have to already have a job to do it. I still feel this way, and in some way this was good to prove that I could do it easily and not unhappily. I was, though, taken aback with how quickly I came to that conclusion. It threw me, I think, to realize that I had no real desire to get back yet – I can’t think of a time I’ve ever been on vacation that by the end of it I wasn’t at least a little ready to go back to my real life.

I’m going to chalk it up to duration, I think. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but I believe it’s possible brevity is also the soul of overly fond generalizations. I’m pretty sure that eventually, the lack of public transit and cabs and things open 24 hours and walking and tall business and urbanity would eat away at my sanity. But sometimes I feel the same way about the days at a time without sunshine and the lack of palm trees and (dare I even say it) nature.

It’s funny, too, because as I’ve also touched upon before I never considered myself a Californian until moving to New York. And I still feel a kind of spiritual homelessness, which I honestly mean in the most un-self-pitying way you can think of; I am one who is at heart always defined by being from somewhere else. I have been for my entire life. But I joked routinely throughout the week about being from New York – and though to others it’s just semantics, it’s an important distinction to me that I say from New York rather than live in New York. Which feels true in many ways at this point; New York is no longer where I live because I go to college there, it’s just where I’m making my life. It is where I am becoming from.

[Second disclaimer: I started this blog by wallowing and listening to songs about/that remind me of California and at some point decided it was wise to switch to songs about New York… apparently I’m very suggestable.]

Obviously, the solution is easy – become wildly wealthy and successful beyond all imagination, and go bi-coastal. That shouldn’t be too difficult, right?

In defense of Valentine's Day... Hatred.

I have been hearing as of late - this year more than in previous years - that single women who hate Valentine's Day are a cliché. And as one such single woman, it is a thought that has been bandying about in my head more than a little throughout the last two weeks as we lead up to this holiest of holy Hallmark days hallowing happy coupledom. Woo, alliteration. (See? Single people have time to figure out how to do clever things with grammar.)

I have several thoughts on this notion of the "cliché" of single women who hate Valentine's Day.

• To begin - if we're being technical here, the whole notion of the day is a cliche, so REALLY, my disinterest in participating in it fits into the tradition. While you couples are busy celebrating whilst reminding us all that Hallmark created the holiday anyway and you should show your love all the time, just think of me and my kind as the Grinch to your Whos. The story just doesn't work without it!
• Secondly - listen. No woman who is single on Valentine's Day isn't acutely aware of how well she's fitting the stereotype; pointing it out is, ahem, unhelpful. To put it mildly.
• Thirdly, it is my staunch belief that EVERYONE who levies this accusation is a) clearly IN a happy relationship but more importantly b) has absolutely no recollection of the time when they too were not poised to receive roses or candy hearts or adorable missives [from someone to whom they weren't related] or had to watch couples in their happy couple-dom complain about how us single people are ruining it for them. Dear couples: say it with me. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Love, Siobhan.

It's probably time to stop and point out that this is light natured riffing on the holiday, rather than serious, pent-up vitriol. Just thought I should get that out of the way before we go any further. Also no, I have never had some traumatic Valentine's Day related moment - my one and only Valentine's related breakup was my doing, and to this day I think the story is hilarious (also, possibly proof that I may be missing a part of my soul). If by chance you're reading this, HSB2, and remember that that happened - sorry, my b.

But seriously, as someone who has never managed to have a boyfriend when this holiday actually falls, I know from whence I speak on "Single's Appreciation Day"/"Chinese New Year (give or take some days)"/"...that holiday in February"/"Overindulge in Chocolate Day."

There are things I enjoy about the holiday - the proliferation of good chocolate in all the stores & the always AT LEAST 50% discount on said chocolate the day after Valentine's day, cute red dresses and shoes cropping up in stores, and the excuse to go out with your girlfriends and drink excessively while "celebrating" your single life.

And I really don't hate the idea of Valentine's Day, so we're clear. I am no enemy of love, and though I agree with those who say that if you love someone you should express it all the time, I like the idea of a day that reminds you just how much you SHOULD say that.

But listen. This is my open call to all people in happy couples. Once upon a time, you were me. You did not have a boyfriend. You did NOT have happy fun couply Valentine's Day plans. You understood the point when you were told to lighten up, it's just a holiday. And you had to buy your own chocolate/flowers/candy.

So we get it - we, the single people. We're a cliche. Some day, we may rotate and play for the happy person team, but for now, we will be at the bar with our other single friends and we will buy our chocolate on sale the next day and continue to complain about Valentine's Day. Judge accordingly.

but if by chance you are here for the night, then all i need is an hour or two to tell the tale of a dreamer like you

I was, of course, genetically predisposed towards musical theatre. My grandpa Don, who I unfortunately knew only as a very young child, did community theatre and musical revues for most of his adult life. I have heard on several occasions a hilarious story about him getting a speeding ticket without his license on him, having to be picked up by his teenage son, wearing makeup. In 1960something. I would be told often in my high school career that various family members wished he had seen me in shows; I wish I'd known him well enough to be able to say the same.

As is so often the case, musical theatre was not love at first sight. My mother showed me her favorite musical as a child, My Fair Lady, sometime in my youth - I remember finding it boring and falling asleep sometime shortly after Eliza leaves Higgins. I remember sitting through Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, waiting and waiting for them to stop freakin singing and TALK. I wanted it to be more like the first musical I saw, Beauty and the Beast, with pretty costumes and a plot I could follow.

...But that lasted until the end of act 1. I can honestly say that the song "Go, Go, Joseph," arguably one of the WORST songs in musical theatre, may have changed my life. I LOVED the number. Loooooved it. And it was hook line and sinker for me for act two. By the time we were leaving the theatre I was begging for the cast recording. Original Canadian cast featuring ex-hearthrob Donny Osmond, natch. I owned it on both CD and tape.

I saw the show at least once more during its sit-down run in Toronto. My best friend in Canada and I would spend HOURS playing the tape and taking turns being the Narrator. Memorizing the colors of the coat. I think I knew every lyric by age 7 or 8.

But though musical theatre had crawled into my veins, the gene (disease?) laid dormant for a while, beneath my first love, figure skating (though as I type this I'm remembering wanting to do a short program to "Any Dream Will Do" so... there you have it, the damage was done).

Sometime thereafter, of course, I moved to California and I've already detailed the end of my career as a figure skater. Indirectly because of - you guessed it - musical theatre. Middle school was my first foray into the world of show choir, and thereby the first staged musical I ever did. Which, ironically, I hated a lot of. I still have unpleasant memories of that production of Cinderella. But it was definitely game over - gone were the summers of horseback riding camp, or art camp, or CTY, or whatever else I was doing any given summer, replaced by theatre camp everywhere. I was by age 14 already an encyclopedia of theatre summer programs in the Bay Area, and a snobby one at that.

Sophomore year I became one of "those" theatre kids. You know. The girl that everyone reeeeeeally, really hates because she sees nothing wrong with goofing around with friends at lunch and proposing we all start singing "La Vie Boheme" on the tables... had I been as generally apathetic towards authority then as I am now I shudder to think how much further THAT misadventure would have progressed. Suffice it to say that if you wanted to know anything about just any musical ever, I was your girl.

That was the year Rent entered my life. It found me at an important time, actually. Not that I was particularly in the demographic to be relating to it, but it was one of the first shows I saw that sat with me for DAYS after the production. It was the first piece of live theatre I cried during. And I wasn't, at the time, easily moved by movies/theatre/anything not my life. Rent showed me that this thing I enjoyed so much could also be important. Could also really have something to say. Could really tell me something about humanity the same way plays could. It was the first time I began to understand the musical theatre dictum that music spoke where words simply weren't enough. It would later that year be the first Broadway show I ever saw, and several years later, the first Broadway ticket I purchased out of pocket. To date the only thing on Broadway specifically I have seen more than twice.

By junior year, I was sitting in my annual certificate consultation when my teacher asked if I had considered theatre as something I seriously wanted to do - I hadn't, really, but it was clear to me by that point there was nothing else I was even halfway as happy doing and I sure as hell had no idea what else I wanted to do. It was in that split second moment that, with no prior consideration, I said yes, it was. And knew that I was right.

I have complained BITTERLY about musical theatre. I have seen some musicals that were horrifying and that would have done better to be plays. I began learning senior year of high school but came to college and really realized that I find plays as magical and as endlessly fascinating. But in my daydreams, I win my Tony award for Best Actress in a Musical, so there you have it.

What makes me think of all this is that In the Heights closes tomorrow. Which is a show I've told myself I was going to see again dozens of times, but now won't get the chance for. In the category of shows that found me at the right time, this one may almost win. It's a tossup for "shows seen freshman year" whether I cried harder watching "What I Did for Love" and realizing that it was my life, or watching 19 year old Nina grapple with the same questions that 18 year old Siobhan was at EXACTLY that time - who am I now and where the fuck do I go from here and what do I tell all these people who expected me to be an instant star and all I am is scared and lost? (Hey wait... that sounds an awful lot like a recurrent theme in this blog for 21 year old Siobhan, doesn't it?) The show was beautiful, it was a little painful, it was splashy and musical, and it was universal. And it, again, had something to say. It reminded me, after a year away from musical theatre and coming to feel that commercialism and art had to necessarily be separate, that a commercial musical - as in, something not written by Odets or Tennessee Williams or Chekhov - could have something important to teach us about ourselves.

I wish that I could get down to the Richard Rogers tomorrow, but winter is NOT the ideal time to be playing lotto, especially not closing day. I feel similarly dissatisfied as I did seeing Rent in its closing week, but not its closing performance.

I said, and I still say, that not getting into CAP at NYU was the best thing that ever happened to me. I am a miles better actress - and probably singer - now than I would have been had my training actually been in musical theatre. I learned to look at a song as an actress first and, as every teacher I've had since says, a fuckton more people can sing and be chorus girls than can act and be leading ladies. Okay, they don't say that and the word fuckton is usually missing, but that's the idea. And I do now ALSO cherish a dear aspiration towards winning a Tony for Best Actress in a Play, so you know, there's that too. But. I miss musical theatre - I haven't been in a musical since December of 2009, and it's been even longer since I was in an actual published musical. I've long since grown out of being the girl with exclusively musicals on her ipod, but I do miss it. The putting it all together. Remembering how much better music can tell the story sometimes. So come on, musical theatre gods, throw me a bone here - I may have strayed, but I think I'm coming back to the fold.

...Too much exposition?

And just for a time, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

Thanks, Kurt Vonnegut, for the inspiration on the title from a book I've admittedly not read.

I'm back in the concrete jungle, again living my life in this strange and weird place I call home.

I'm in the adjustment period, that period where I say I've arrived "home" from "home." It's like wearing one of those shirts that fits really well the second wearing, but when you put it on the first time you pull at it and look at it funny in the mirror all day and feel like everybody notices that it's not so flattering.

In the grand scheme of things it might not have been the most idyllic trip home - I don't feel like I spent enough time with my family, I'm not sure that I went everywhere I wanted or saw everyone I should've. In spite of my inherent hatred for it, I'm a little bummed I missed my last alumni reception at Harker.

But then I think about that and all I hear and all I see is really, really blue skies - the kind you don't see in New York in the winter - on the freeway singing along to the same questionable music I've had in the car since 11th grade. I think about eating a pizookie for approximately the eight-thousandth time. I laugh at the stupid shit we do for entertainment because actually, the Bay Area is kind of boring. I think about Christmas shining out of my house or driving or seeing movies in the afternoon or home cooked food or vintage shopping or watching Sex and the City or drinking too much coffee at too many psuedo-hipster coffee shops or laughing until I can't breathe with people who I've known for longer than I can actually remember at this point.

I hear the voices and I see the faces of my friends and my family and for every time I've wanted to say "but you don't get it" when they tell me I'm going to be fine, I can't help but be filled with gratitude that they are the people who are against all the odds, still around and still cheering for me. Even when I can't.

It's California that I miss, but I know walking around downtown San Jose that while it would be easy to be there, I don't belong. New York has taken me for it's own and I don't fit in there anymore. But these people, them I miss. Them I feel the absence of everyday, all the more when I've most recently left. If a place is it's people that may perhaps be why I was finally able to learn how to call California home.

I don't mean to say that I don't have friends here, that I don't have a support network here. That I don't have friends I love so, so very much who I know are just as there for me. I know this, I believe this, I feel this in my soul.

It helps, of course, that going home is now a vacation - no work, no stresses, no auditions, just a lot of time to eat and drink and be merry and run around with my friends. But for fifteen days, what a difference it makes to feel lighter. And, you know, warmer.

I have, however, come back recharged and ready and excited to fall in love with New York all over again.

But it was a time. It was certainly a time, moreso this time than the last. I haven't yet figured out how or what made it that way, but a time where for just a few days, everything was beautiful.

I'm feeling something inside, and yet I still can't decide if I should hide or make a wide-open grin

Obligatory reflecting on the end of another year. I like to do it in survey form because it helps to organize my thoughts - ask the right questions, target my thinking, see where everything is going. The truth is I think I needed it this year more than most.

A lot of people have had some bad things to say about 2010. And there certainly are many, many reasons in our world to say 2010 was a less-than-stellar year. There are many reasons in my own life to agree, but the truth is, after my 09, I had nowhere to go but up, really.

2010 was the craziest, hardest, best, worst, happiest, most confusing, FASTEST year of my life. No, seriously. I accept that today is December 31, 2010, but someone hit warp speed in September and I haven't caught up since that time. It's not the first time this year I remember feeling that way - more like the fourth. I learned so much. I gained SO much. I lost so much. I was both lazier and busier than I've ever been ever.

2010 saw the end of some of the best things to ever happen to me. 2010 saw my last day at Strasberg and my last day as a Clefto. The end of my time as a student (of academia, but certainly not of the world). 2010 asked the hard questions about money and life and what am I going to do now and where do I go from here (grad school?) and how on EARTH do I make this acting thing work?

2010 also saw the beginning of a new and weird phase in my life where I had to ANSWER those questions and I had to remind myself each day, every day, that I am happy and lucky to wake up in New York City and to be as much as I know how, not settling to do something that's NOT what I love. To keep trying to remember that I was brave enough to pursue something this hard, and to be proud of that.

2011 is the first time in my life that I can safely say I know nothing of what's coming for me. I don't know what to be excited about. I don't know what to be afraid of. (I do know that I ended both of those sentences in prepositions and here, in my adult life, is what I have learned - sometimes it sounds better that way, dammit.) But I do know there will be changes. I do know that I'm not ready for them. I do know that I'm really, really, really excited for them.

So here it is, my 2010 synthesized into a couple of nice internet generated questions, because I will never have enough words to say everything I need to want to have to LOVE to say about this crazy mixed up year.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Not be a student. I'm sure there's something else but that feels like everything.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I made a lot, I kept exactly two. I'm a glutton for punishment though, so I'll be making more. HAHA wait. Actually, I made one very important non-resolution, but that's the one I kept.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No.

4. Did anyone close to you die? No.

5. What countries did you visit? Ugh. Still none. I HAVE to use my passport in 2011.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? Real world acting successes. A boyfriend? Haha.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? May 11/12 - NYU Commencement 2010. Because, graduation. Haha April 23rd, the most difficult work/tech/concert day of ever/my last Cleftos show. I don't remember the date, but the last day I left Strasberg as a student.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Graduating from college.

9. What was your biggest failure? Hm. I worked really hard to arrange something for my summer but didn't get anything. I... I'm not sure. Which is nice, actually.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Actually, I got sick a lot more in 2010 than usual - always just colds and stuff but I remember being sick at least 6 times in 2010 which for me is a lot.

11. What was the best thing you bought? My new mattress. Oh my god. Also maybe my cowboy boots. Haha.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? With each passing year I remember how lucky I am to know the people I know and how lucky I am to need them as much as I do and have it be okay.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Once again, appalled is better than depressed. A certain director, a certain former peer, some friends. Some national political figures.

14. Where did most of your money go? Rent. Rent. Rent some more. Food. Going out.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 5 Women, final Clefto show, graduation, summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010? "Don't Stop Me Now" - Queen, "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" - Elton John, "Rock and Roll" - Eric Hutchinson, "Empire State of Mind" - Jay-Z/Alicia Keys, "Love the Way You Lie" - Eminem/Rihanna. It's thoroughly unsurprising how many of these things are from Cleftos, once again.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

* happier or sadder? The sadder but wiser girl am I.

* thinner or fatter? Fatter. It's fine though, I have a plan for 2011, haha.

* richer or poorer? Poorer.

Ah, my oh-so-successful adult life.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Exercising & saving money. Traveling.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Feeling sorry for myself, Facebook.

20. How will you be spending New Year’s? At Maya's with friends.

21. What was your favorite TV program? Rediscovering Grey's Anatomy. No real changes otherwise.

22. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? I... well. Yes.

23. What was the best book you read? Hmm. I loved The Princess Bride, I loved Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I very much enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible. Hmm. What other new books did I read in 2010? I rediscovered leisure reading late in 2010 and it was great. So I read a lot of new things but those ones stand out most.

24. What was your greatest musical discovery? Eric Hutchinson's "Sounds Like This" album. The song "Carryout" haha. Um... I'm not sure. This was more of a rediscovering old albums that I loved year than a finding new albums I loved year.

25. What did you want and get? To graduate early. To move out of Harlem (sort of). A keyboard. A good part in the practicum show. A relaxing summer break. A new job.

26. What did you want and not get? Listen, I can't help it - a boyfriend. To get cast in things sooner post college. To go abroad ANYWHERE.

27. What was your favorite film of this year? I recently saw The King's Speech and it was beyond excellent. I, predictably as everyone, looooved Inception. Oh! Pirate Radio! Did I see that in 2009 or 2010? Because if it was 2010, definitely that.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? TWENTYONE! It was the hottest day in New York City in 25 years or something absurd, but at midnight the night of we went out for a bit, came home. Shopped in the morning, watched Sex and the City and tried not to die of heat stroke, went to work, dinner with the roomies & bar hopping. Great fun.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Managing my money better.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010? I don't know? More adventurous than 2009, I guess. New things were more likely to make it into my wardrobe if they didn't look like anything I already owned.

31. What kept you sane? Taking it one day at a time and mastering actually talking about it when something was bothering me for potentially the first time in my life.

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? A holdover from last year - I'm still totally in love with Matt Morrison.

33. What political issue stirred you the most? Prop 8 overturned, DADT repealed, why we didn't clean up the Gulf Coast for fucking EVER. I have to guiltily confess that I knew next to nothing about midterm elections.

34. Who did you miss? My California friends. My family. The usual.

35. Who was the best new person you met? Uh... I know that I literally have met new people in 2010 but I'm not sure?

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010: I re-learned in 2010 that it's not worth it to try to be perfect, you will only kill yourself trying.

37. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: "This Broadway's got - it's got a lot of songs to sing; if I knew the tunes I might join in. I'll go my way alone, I'll grow my own - my own seeds shall be sown in New York City."

38. Make some new years resolutions:

1. Eat. Better. No more excuses.

2. Make and stick to a regular involved exercise plan: dance 1x a week, pole 1x a week, gym 1x a week. Minimum.

3. Take more photos.

4. Really seriously pay better attention to my money, and put more in savings.

5. Travel more.

6. Work harder. Each day, everyday.

THE YEAR 2010

1. Will you be looking for a new job? Probably. Probably not a new job, just a second job.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship? Yes.

3. New house? Hopefully not, actually.

4. What will you do different in '11? Audition more, dance more, work harder.

5. New Years resolution? Made several. Think these are all actually achievable.

6. What will you not be doing in '11? School! Like at all.

7. Any trips planned? None yet but really, REALLY need to get some in the cards.

8. Wedding plans? Uh. No.

9. What's on your calendar? Work, auditions. Auditions, more work.

10. What can't you wait for? To see what happens.

11. What would you like to see happen different? A lot? I don't know.

12. What about yourself will you be changing? I'm becoming a grown-up. Weird!

13. What happened in 2010 that you didn't think would ever happen? Hahaha a lot, actually. I guess graduation, in that I of course always knew it WOULD happen but it was so so surreal.

14. Will you tell the one you love how you feel? I tell all the ones I love I love them all the time.

15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 2010? Not terribly much, no.

16. Will you start or quit drinking? Hah. Neither.

18. Will you do charity work? To be honest, I doubt it.

19. Will you go to bars? Yes.

20. Will you be nice to people you don't know? I live in New York, that kind of behavior is considered a liability.

21. Do you expect 11 to be a good year for you? To be honest, 2011 is about to be the most uncharted, unscheduled, unstructured year of my life. I can't expect anything, I don't think, but I hope so.

22. How much did you change from this time last year till now? After 08-09 I had a tough time picturing a more transformative year. Turns out, I was wrong, and it was 09-10.

23. Do you plan on having a child? Absolutely not.

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now? I really hope so.

25. Major lifestyle changes? Who knows?

26. Will you be moving? Hopefully not, actually.

27. What will you make sure doesn't happen in 11 that happened in 10? There're some things.

28. What are your New Years Eve plans? Dinner with my family & party with some of my favorites.

29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight? Haha I have no idea.

30. Wish for 2011? To make my theatrical career happen. To travel. To live and love more.

Winter Wonderland?

For the foremost part of my childhood/adolescence/teenage years in California I reminisced fondly about real winter. I remember the bitter disappointment of my first snowless Christmas, I remember the joy and novelty I felt seeing snow whenever we went to Chicago for New Years', and I remember the excitement I felt when the weather first started to dip in fall of 2007 when I had finally moved back to the East Coast.

Here's the thing. I WAS SO WRONG! I may have been born with cold weather - hell, my birth certificate says Chicago for God's sake, and not for nothing did I spend 6 years in CANADA of all places - but I was certainly, I must now concede, not bred with cold weather. Winter, as I was brutally reminded 3 years ago during my first east coast winter in ELEVEN YEARS, is a very different animal when you a) are 8 and dressed by your mother, and therefore are b) driven everywhere and c) don't care that you look like a bright pink marshmallow.

After a surprisingly cold October yielded to a shockingly mild November faded to an initially freakishly warm December (61 degrees in New York City on December 1st), it is now COLD. I have officially forgotten what it feels like to feel warm. And though seeing your breath is festive, and it snowed a little on Monday which I loved, and yes, cold air really does smell more Christmasy, as it turns out, my rosy recollection was pretty much entirely wrong. I, in fact, hate cold weather.

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways:

- Losing feeling in my extremities within minutes of stepping outdoors. I have reasonably poor circulation in my hands and feet. Winter, as you might imagine, does not fix this.

- That my stupid smart phone is a stupid touch screen and thus from December-March, I face the choice of use my phone or retain mobility in my frozen fingers.

- Static. Static everywhere. Static everywhere all the time.

- Scary-tangled hair.

- The charming sensation of starting to sweat before you actually warm up when you sit your tightly bundled ass on a very heated subway car.

- That poor people, like yours truly, live in old apartments with poorly sealed windows and air conditioning units that let in abouuuut as much cold air as there is outside.

- How dry and itchy my face is all the time. Related, that my skin is so dry it STUNG to put perfume on today.

- Really, let's be honest: My Uggs are warm and comfortable but if someone's designed an uglier shoe besides Crocs, I've yet to see it. Catch is, NOTHING ELSE KEEPS MY FEET WARM.

- Having to breathe through my mouth because it stings my nose too much to breathe through it.

- The knowledge that there's no guarantee this will let up before April.

How'd you like to spend Christmas on Christmas Island indeed. Leon Redbone, I'm about ready to take you up on that now.