Two Thousand Years

I shouldn’t be allowed to travel to the other boroughs of New York.

Maybe Billy was trying to tell me something after my trip to Staten Island, but I didn't get the memo.

You see, the outer boroughs trick me and make me feel comfortable. I’ll go regularly to parties in Brooklyn or take Hughie up to the Bronx Zoo and suddenly I feel like I got this city covered. I start to think, “Maybe someday you’ll move to Brooklyn or queens and save money on rent!” That’s when they get me.

Hughie, his older Sophie, and I had made it safely to the Hall of Science, deep in the heart of Queens, and I needed another place to take them this Tuesday. I chose Coney Island.

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May I begin by saying I always assumed all of the talk of Coney Island being trashy was just talk? If you’re one of my readers from Baltimore I’ll use this analogy: I thought Coney Island was to New York what Hamden is to Baltimore. Sure, some of it would be legit trashy and cheap, but the other part, the part tourists frequented, was just pretending to be that way for tradition’s sake. There’s also a certain charm that comes with being cheap (Don’t believe me? Look at the amazing Dolly Parton).

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Nope, Coney Island is plain gross.

I love it though. I love looking around and thinking that everything was made with as little money as possible and will probably fall apart if you look at it the wrong way.

This trip should have been amazing, but then there were those pesky kids...and New York’s public transportation system.

The problems started, just like my fateful trip to Staten Island, on the trip there. An F train came right away. I was prepared for the hour long trip with kids and was ready with coloring/activities books and crayons in my bag. We rode along quite nicely until about a half hour into Brooklyn, that’s when the train started going slowly and stopping for a few minutes on every stop. The announcements over the speakers were completely incomprehensible.

Hughie was enjoying his Mickey Mouse book and that we were on an elevated train. He was just happy to see the cars beneath, but his sister, not accustomed to long train trips, was growing impatient. Every time the train would stop or slow down Sophie would take the chance to ask me “How much longer?” or “Why are the trains going the other way going faster?”

It was 9 am. I was not up for this.

Finally we’re about five stops away when the train conductor comes to a car and tells us “everybody out, this train is going back to Manhattan.” We get out and wait in the hot sun. Another F train comes. We all get inside, but before we can even get seated we’re told to get out, because that train was also going to Manhattan. The same thing happens with the third train we get into.

By the fifth train there was a whole mob of people standing out in the hot blaring sun waiting for a train, and Sophie is asking when we can go back to the city. The trains that are going back to our homeland aren’t taking passengers there so that isn’t even an option. We just stand there.

The normal 1 hour long trip tuned into 2 thousand years (reality: 1 hour and 45 minutes) when we got to Coney Island

Once there the kids were excited and much more upbeat. They were hungry so we stopped by the Nathan’s on the Boardwalk. Nathan’s, the only place with decent food, didn't have electricity so we had to go to the next place. Instead of just ordering a hot dog like I told the kids to, they demanded pizza.

It was the nastiest pizza I’ve ever tasted.

On to the rides…

The kids loved the rides at the kiddie park. They were ridiculously priced, and they wouldn’t even go on the mini roller coasters. Instead they only went on the train that goes around in a circle, the cars that go around in a circle, and the fire engines that go around in a circle.

They loved it even though it was total lame sauce.

In fact, they were loving it so much I abandoned the backpack holding all of the money on a bench for three minutes while I took pictures on my phone of them.

After we they got out of the ride Hughie was holding himself so I quickly took them to the bathroom. By the time I remembered the back pack and raced with kids in tow back to the bench a man had opened up the back pack and was holding all of the money.

I stood in front of the man and stared at him, “That’s my backpack.”

He looked at me, “oh.”

My babysitting skills took over. I grabbed the back pack, held out my hand and gave him my best disapproving glare. He stared at it for a second, but when he looked in my eyes he knew what he had to do.

All the money was recovered.

After that it was all smiles and delights. We went to the aquarium, saw some animals, discussed sea horses, and pretended we were walruses. The kids basically ate popcorn and ice cream for lunch.

They hardly realized how long the train trip back to the Lower East Side was.

Perhaps I am ready for the outer boroughs.

Through the Long Night

I can’t believe I’m finding the time to type this right now.

This is the first time where I’ve sat in my apartment and didn’t think “Oh shit, now I’ve got to…” in nearly two weeks (it feels like ten years).

My show went really well. I had a great time with my cast and it was fun to put together.

My friend from Chicago visited me for two days last weekend and it was especially baller (sorry all other friends who’ve visited me and didn’t get a shout out, this visit is just fresh in my mind).

Because that friend was visiting and my other commitments, I had to write a paper for my class in zero time. I was keeping my mom up until 2 am Tuesday, helping me decide which version of the same paper was better and acting like a crazy delusional bitch.

My writing class went really well.

I’m practically full time with Hughie and his older sister now.

Hughie, Sophie and I took two trips to the outer burrows this week (Coney Island and Hall of Science), and went to the Bronx zoo and Natural History last week. I went to sleep at 10 after all four nights.

Despite this I’ve also taken on another family to babysit for that I help pretty regularly, because I’m insane and I love the feel of money in my hands.

I still somehow have friends

I also am starting another acting class this Friday.

My improve group that I meet with on Wednesdays is planning on performing near the end of the month.

Phew.

Anyway I need to recover, so I’m going back to Baltimore for a long 4^th of July weekend after class on Friday. I’m coming for you Charm City. Watch out.

P.S. Will probably write another entry and try to post before midnight in my attempt to average four blog entries per month. It will be poorly edited, so don't judge.

Summer Highland Falls

Recently New York has started to feel a lot more like summer. In all of Billy’s songs that are related to, or inspired by New York, Joel never once explains how this change of seasons brings out the bizarre. Of course, it could just be that I’m walking around more and therefore I see the more oddities…

I digress. Here are the following strangest things that I’ve seen these past two weeks:

1. I was sitting next to an orthodox Jewish woman, who was only a couple of years older than me, while waiting for the subway. She dressed in a skirt down to her ankles, a black blouse that didn’t show her wrists or neck, and a scarf completely covering her hair even though it was 85 degrees outside. She also had a really big bag from a nearby clothing store. This in itself was not strange. What was strange was what I saw when she was digging through her bag and looking at her purchases. She pulled out and examined a few pairs of lacy black thongs that belonged in a Victoria Secret catalog.

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The train came before I go the chance to tell her that this shiske approved of her selection.

2. Next I saw a white hipster, who looked to be college aged and could easily appear on this website, in a taxi cab near Union Square. This is normal, except for the fact that he was the one driving. It got better: his passengers were an older Chinese couple. I kid you not; I saw this on the corner of 14^th street and 3^rd avenue. I had to rub my eyes and blink twice to make sure I was seeing it all correctly.

The only thing better would have been if the hipster cabby was driving around a Middle Eastern couple.

I just added that to the list of things I want to see before I die. It’s somewhere on the list behind Billy’s and my wedding day but before seeing an actual mutant turtle in a New York City sewer.

3. I was sitting in a Chipotle after rehearsal one day, minding my own business, when I witnessed the last behavior. I was biting into my burrito and generally loving life when I saw a couple who were holding hands walk into the store. They went straight to the bathroom, without buying any food. Did I mention that they went into the same woman’s bathroom? How about the fact that one of the members of the couple was certainly a man and it was a single occupant restroom? I looked around the packed shop to see if anybody else saw what I saw.

Sure enough, I locked eyes with a three other costumers who were all experiencing different levels of shock. After a few minutes of staring in bafflement, I went back to my 800 calories of goodness. The couple came out about five minutes later. They didn’t appear to be affected in anyway possible. They showed no sign of embarrassment or guilt and they both looked as composed as when they entered.

The woman sitting next to me turned to me and asked, “Did you see that?!”

“Yep”

“New York!”

New York indeed.

I go to Extremes

Life is going exceptionally well for me.

My show opens next weekend (come see me!), and I’m starting to get pretty excited about it. No matter what happens, it’s been a really fun experience and I’m glad to be finally acting again. It seems to be pulling together really nicely. Overall, I think Billy would be proud.

I’m working more hours with Hughie, and, with the nice weather, more people are having date nights, so lately I’ve had more cash on me than a stripper. This won’t last long though, since I have to pay to get my hair done and I’m caving in and buying color copies of my head shot.

I have to say that having to babysit while all these parents have date nights has made me want to have a date night soon myself. Hopefully Joel will throw me a bone and that summer fling the psychic warned me about will kick in soon…

My writing class, though, is really the best part of my life right now. It’s made me really excited to write. It’s a class for writing creative non-fiction, and I find myself writing down ideas for future essays a few times a day. I thought this class would inspire me to write in the blog more, but instead I’m too busy writing out 700 to 2000 word essays as they come to me. I stay up until all hours of the morning writing one once I’m on a roll.

I’m not sure what this means for me. I still love acting and I can’t really imagine doing anything else, but right now my passion seems to lie in writing. It’s amazing to feel this strongly about anything. I remember feeling this way when I would first get a monologue or when I would get cast in a show. I would completely immerse myself into the part.

Maybe that spark will come back, but I feel as though I’ve been forcing it for the past couple of months. I’m still going to go on auditions and I’m hoping to take an acting class at HB studios next month. Perhaps my love for acting is like any relationship, at the beginning it was passionate and consuming, but you settle into it and it loses its luster. I'm still in love, but now it’s a slow burning love. I know now that I can occasionally put that love on the back burner while I tend to my new love that is boiling over inside of me. I don’t like to think of it as cheating, but instead of a polyamorous relationship.

I'm open minded like that.