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.

(source)

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.

Sleeping with the Television on

Billy Joel’s greatest hits (Volumes I through III and the Essential Billy) haven’t been providing the lessons or the inspiration lately for me to maintain this blog at the rate I pledged to do on my To Do list. It pains me to stray from the relationship, especially with a lesser, though not less attractive, lover, but that is what I have done for this week’s update:

I have always had a special connection with Television. I have occasionally downplayed by love for The Entertainer (oh Joel! Please forgive me!), but I have always readily admitted to my love for all things small screen. Since I was four years old, and I was quietly reimaging Full House so that I was the fourth Tanner sister or figuring out how I could replace April on future seasons of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I have frequently seen this world as both how it should be playing out if it were a TV show and how TV shows would be better with me in them.

As I think about the great 90’s shows that took place in the Big Apple, I can’t help but to think about how much I have in common with the classics and where my life could be tweaked:

Seinfeld

What we have in common: There’s a lot going on in my life currently. In fact, so much stuff that I’m pretty sure if a show were to be based on my life it would end up being a show about nothing.

What I could use from the show: Enemies. It would really spice up my life if I had a Soup Nazi to argue with or a Newman to hate so desperately that I would help him work so that he’d get a transfer to Hawaii. I could also use a Kramer, while I’m at it.

The Nanny

What we have in common: I’m a nanny.

What I could use from the show: A romance with a rich English man (or to a close friend of Billy’s). I also wouldn’t mind, for the sake of my memoirs, nannying more children named Brighton.

Friends

What we have in common: I’m a twenty something living in New York City that has friends.

What I could use from the Show: A Central Perk. My life would be so much more convenient, and more entertaining, if I knew that at any given point, if I just showed up at some coffee shop and ordered a drink, anywhere from 1 to 5 (in most cases all 5) of my nearest and dearest friends would be bound to come along within moments. Seriously, how did these people have jobs or lives?

Best Central Perk Clip Here

Caroline in the City

What we have in common: My real name is Caroline and I like in New York City. We’re both creative

What I could use from the show: Caroline’s huge success, or just her Manhattan loft. Which ever.

(image from here)

Felicity:

What we have in common: Felicity and I both packed up and moved to New York as teenagers, even though we both graduated from high school planning on being in different cities for college.

What I could use from the Show: A good love triangle. And my life to be written by J. J. Abrams.

What I don’t want from the Show: The dreaded Felicity hair cut.

I included in this list a couple of shows I admit I never watched (cough The Nanny, Caroline in the City) and, in turn, I’ve left off MANY of my favorites (Sex in the City, Will and Grace, Spider Man, just to name a few), but I don’t want to go asking Billy for too much in my prayers. There’s only so much you can ask for from the infallible Big Shot before he just thinks your getting greedy.

(Note to self: add sassy promiscuous 30 something friends, a gay roommate and Spidey-senses to the prayer list tonight)

Sometimes a Fantasy

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being a real person, it’s that organization is the key. While Billy never sang songs about the upmost importance of planners and lists, I don’t hold it against him. After all, he’s such a “Big Shot” that he has plenty of assistants to take care of that. But until I become rich, famous, or, more likely, marry the Piano God, I have to make due with more archaic methods of keeping track of my schedule.

I realized about two weeks after moving to New York that I would have to start making daily lists outside of my planner on, not only what I had to do commitment wise, but also what needed to be done in order to maintain my life. When I don’t make a list for the day, I end up watching Netflix, reading a Nero Wolfe mystery, and only a text from a friend or an insane craving for Pinkberry will get me outside. When I do have a list I barely have any down time and actually get done all of the little thoughts that pass through my mind that start with “you know, you should really….”

That’s why I decided last week to make a list for myself of everything that I want to accomplish this summer. I saw in Facebook all the posts of my friends who were finishing up college these last couple of weeks and I realized that I’ve been out of college for an entire school year. To say this got my ass in gear would be an understatement.

Without further Ado here’s the list:

1. Get a Call Back

2. Actually update blog on a weekly basis

3. Go to Yoga classes (I’m hoping copying this onto this blog will embarrass me into actually going)

4. Enroll in a summer course at the New School

5. Get rid of that pimple on my back (obviously this list is not in order of importance or else this would be number 1)

6. Take an acting class

7. Get a part in a show

8. Average AT LEAST one audition per week

I’m happy to say, that only a week later, I’ve already accomplished three of the goals. Before you get too excited, no, that pimple is still taunting me.

I got a call back and now I will be performing in an Off Off Broadway theater very soon. It’s a short comedic show with a pretty big cast and I’ll only be performing a few times, and it’s no pay but it’s still really exciting. It’s a fun cast and a fun show with a rehearsal schedule that fits in perfectly with my nannying jobs that pay the bills.

If you’re interested in knowing which show and when and where you can see me, contact me privately. I don’t need a song from Billy to know that I don’t want to supply that information for all the stalkers and sex offenders to see. I have too much love for television to have missed those after school specials…

The other item crossed off the list: I enrolled in a summer writing course at the New School. I never thought I would be looking forward to writing papers again, but I’m thrilled to be going back to school, even if it’s only in a minor capacity.

Anyway, I’m only one week into my “summer” and I’m already nearly half way through the list. I’ll ask Billy for guidance for accomplishing my other goals (I can only assume Joel knows some good cheap Yoga studios).

In the meantime, if you can think of any other things I should add to my list leave a comment so I can get it done. Is there something you have already/want to accomplish and you think it would be good for me too? Do you hear me bitching about wanting to do something and not following through? Let me know so I can make this my most productive summer yet.

Temptation

It’s been 67 hours since the last time I ate anything other than brown rice, water, vegetables and fruits. That’s right: I’m on a Brown Rice Detox Diet.

My roommates and I started the diet Sunday and I won’t be able to eat normally until Friday. While I should be excited about being half way through, all I can personally thing about is cheese, salt, and soda pop. When not thinking of those I’m fantasizing about meat, chocolate, bread, noodles, cereal and milk.

I woke up this morning from a dirty dream about crepes.

After opening a yogurt for a toddler I was babysitting yesterday I licked the lid on reflex. I didn’t realize what I had done until tears sprung to my eyes in delight of the sweet creamy dairy taste. It was a very emotional moment.

Hughie took two bites out of his pizza today and said he had enough and wanted some fruit snacks. I nearly strangled him for being so ungrateful of the slice of the greatest and greasiest cheese slice in the entire East Village.

If I'm going to make in through the next few days I'll need a little help from Joel:

Our Billy who art in the River of Dreams,

the Piano Man be your title;

The Just the Way You Are,

Keeping your Faith

As it is in All About Soul,

I Didn’t Start the Fire,

but I Go To Extremes for you;

So lead me not into Temptation

but deliver me from dairy, meat and sweets,

for the next few days. And So it Goes.

Blond over Blue

This is a story of a bargain that made me happy and a rip-off that made me ecstatic.

The Bargain

On Friday morning, while appreciating the amazing whether outside, I walked to a small out door market place here in Soho. There I spotted a necklace that I fell in love with. It had gold and amber beads and a price tag that said $25. I made sure to use my acting skills to make it look like I was uncertain of the necklace and burrowed my eyebrows.

“Oh, so, eh, dat one is a twenty fieve”

At this point I looked up so he could feel the full force of my hesitate face. I even puckered my lips to the side so that I would appear extra trouble by my decision.

“For a pretty face a like yours, twenty”

At this point I sighed, gave the man a quick smile and put the necklace down, “It’s a great necklace but I only want to spend $15.”

Sold!

The Rip Off

Later that day it occurred to me that I needed a lamp for my desk. I went to the K-mart on the Astor Place stop. There were two aisles dedicated to lamps in said store.

To say that the options were dismal would be an understatement.

The entire selection of lamps was made up of fake antique, ugly, or completely devoid of any taste lamps.

I chose a lamp that was all three.

From a distance it appears to be a perfectly fine lamp:

Up close however:

Allow me explain my attraction. The television masterpiece “Wonder Falls” (may it rest in peace) was about a girl who talked to toy animals. This included a very wise monkey that helped her to get the man of both her dreams and mine. The way I see it, Rafiki is going to start talking to me any day now in kyptic messages that will somehow lead me to meeting Billy and our marriage ensuing.

If he can’t get me Billy at least he could get me the guy from Wonder Falls.

On another note, the lamp also cost be $15 (including the shade!). This was probably $10 more than it is actually worth, so after spending $30 in the day, I’m pretty sure I came out even. The lady in the check out was trying to get me to buy a $3 one year warranty, but the thing is so clunky and sturdy I think that its 10x more likely to fall and break my floor than the other way around…