Shades of Grey

I spent 59 hours babysitting last week. I wont tell you how much money that made me, but do keep in mind I make my hourly rate, get cab fare after 9 pm, and I’m frequently being tipped for just being me.

Before I can detail the feel of the mountains of gold coins in my water-tower-safe which I dove into, and proceeded to then back stroke though, on Monday (note: this does count as my daily exercise), I have to admit the experience did not come without its problems.

Problem 1: New York Times successfully gives me nightmares.

On Thursday I agreed to watch a one-month old baby for several hours. This is a daunting task, but I was up for the challenge.

Then Friday came and I read an article in the New York Times Magazine about shaken-baby syndrome that made me almost pee my pants.

It’s an interesting article, but its long, so here’s the gist of it: there are cases of caregivers and parents being put in prison for years because of faulty medical evidence that they shook a baby, when, in fact, the evidence might have been pointing to a previous medical condition or the abuse or accident could have taken place hours before the child showed evidence of the damage.

Oh Billy who art in Long Island, please don’t let a little baby stop breathing due to brain damage (or at all, for that matter) while under my care….

Problem 2: Some of the Children I babysat were very harsh critics of both my character and skill sets.

Scene 1: Wednesday night in Battery Park.

The characters: Me and a four year old girl.

Girl: Talia-

Me: It’s actually Tolly, sweetie

Girl: Talia, what is your job?

Me: I’m a babysitter

Girl: Hmm, you’re a pretty good babysitter, but you’re a really really REALLY great at being a monster. A scary and mean monster!

Me: Thanks.

Scene 2: Friday morning in Chelsea.

The characters: Me and a 22 month Italian baby.

Me: (opens door to apartment) Hello!

Baby: CIAO! (uses his whole body weight against door to slam it in my face.)

Scene 3: Friday Night in Union Square

The Chracters: Me, a 5 year old girl (sister 1) and a 7 year old girl (sister 2)

Me: (spills a few Chinese noodles on table next to sister 2’s plate while serving food. Nobody

notices. I don’t bring their attention to it.)

Sister 1: OoooOH! Sister 1, you spilled noodles!

Sister 2: That was Tolly!

Sister 1: NUH-Uh!

Sister 2: (indignantly) Just because Tolly is old does NOT mean that she’s elegant.

Oh Billy, please teach me to be more elegant in the eyes of sever year olds, less monster-ish, and use your other-worldly powers (the USPS) to bequeath onto me an Italian-to-English dictionary so that I can learn the meaning of “Ciao.”

Problem 3: Hughie may be planning to terminate my position as his long term part-time nanny faster that I was expecting.

Hughie, his friend Jesse, and I were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art looking at the marble statue of Perseus holding the head of Medusa. I told the two children the entirety of the myth. I explained how Perseus was a hero who was sent to slay the evil serpent-haired sorceress. I told the bit about how, with just a glance at the wicked witch, a person would turn to stone, and also about the mirror-shield from Athena, the invisible cap from Hades, and the badass winged sandals from Hermes. I was on a roll telling the myth and, when I led to the epic conclusion where Perseus is able to sever Medusa’s head by only seeing her through the reflection in his shield and then brings the head of Medusa triumphantly back to the gods, I looked over to Hughie and saw that he was impressed.

Hughie stared at the detached head with a calm seriousness only ever seen in humans many years older than he. He nodded slowly, staring in Medusa’s horrifying large eyes, as if he had come to some deep understanding of the beast. He didn’t stop his gaze, or his slight frown, for even a moment when he said quietly, “I’d chop off your head Tolly”

I was baffled, but before I could muster up a response or question him on his murderous intent, he lost interest in the statue, turned to Jesse and proceeded to engage his friend in a role-play where they were heroes who were going to chop off bad guy heads.

Was their weapon of choice for the decapitation a sword forged by Hermes? Nope. Lightsabers.

Oh Joel, please do not allow modern science to advance in such a way that lightsabers are real.

But, if you can make a real one, make sure I get one before Hughie.

Also, make sure it's a blue one.

Amen.

The Downeaster Alexa

Ah, Craiglist, my old friend and enemy. I know you all to well.

Yep, that’s right it’s the time of year again where I talk about what apartment I’m going to move into next.

Oh and by “year,” I mean season. This will be my fourth apartment in the 16 months that I’ve lived here.

Oh Billy, why don’t you just face the facts? There are only two feasible outcomes to our relationship. The first being you get that restraining order, but the second, and I like to think more realistic choice, is that I become your fourth wife and we life happily ever after. So why don’t you just ask me to move in with you already? I’m not above living in sin if it’s with you! Please give me a house and I’ll be your cabin, your castle, and your… your instant pleasure dome?

“Instant pleasure dome” was the best choice of lyrics you could come up with for an otherwise perfectly sentimental love song?

Regardless, I’m willing to go there!

Well, until Billy takes me up on my proposal I suppose I should give an update on the craiglist roommate search. The place I’m currently in I’ve been subletting from a friend while she was in Europe. I didn’t have to worry about hitting the craigslist trifecta of a decent place, decent area, and decent people. Instead, I was guaranteed a decent place, great area, and amazing people. That being said, it’s been quite the shock to the system to be thrown back into the apartment search vis-à-vis the sketchiest/jankiest website in America.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of normal people advertising their places, but the bad ones always stick out in your mind. So here goes my advice for what to look out for when you’re looking for an apartment.

1. Sometimes at the beginning of the ad the person will state they are looking for a female roommate and sometimes at the end of this ad you will see the phrase “The only catch is…” Now this statement could be followed by a lot of things: I’m a vegetarian and you can’t cook any meat in this household, you absolutely cannot go a day without showering, the shower is in the kitchen, you cannot cry in my presence because I despise little bitches, ect., all of which are reasonable “catches” as far as craigslist goes. In fact I have answered ads before with each of those factors (except the little bitch one). However, if the person says “The only thing I ask is that you occasionally don’t wear clothes around the apartment, no sex,” you should probably not answer. This ad will be posted quite frequently in different locations and for different prices. Still, don’t answer.

2. If the person writing the ad writes “small bedroom, kitchen, bathroom,” that’s exactly what they meant. They were not accidentally leaving out “living room”. So when you go to see this over priced, badly located east village rat hole, do not be surprised when it’s a kitchenette that can’t even fit one person, a 9 by 9 bedroom without a closet and it has no couch, no common space, and no table to eat at. Oh and your expected to share this space with your roommate who lives on the other side of the hallway that serves as a kitchen.

3. Occasionally you will come across an ad that goes like this “$850 for an East Village apartment on (a street that is an amazing location). A big bedroom, living room, a kitchen…the thing is I’ve been using the bedroom as a studio for my photography and I would still like access to the room. Absolutely nothing sexual will go on there and I will not touch your stuff and will give you plenty of notice if I need to use the room.” A red flag went up for me when this man said “nothing sexual,” as I hope it did you, but still I was intrigued. Big bedroom! Two bedroom apartment in (AMAZING location) for an almost decent (by Manhattan standards) price! Well, I went ahead and emailed him using my junk email address. The reply I received went something like this:

Hi Tolly! Thanks for your interest, blah blah blah, 28 year old male, blah blah blah, I work as a fetish photographer and filmmaker. I’ve been using that room as my studio. Blah blah blah

Ah yes, nothing says doing “nothing sexual” like make fetish porno -- or rather -- films.

Billy, any time you want me to move my stuff in, I’m available.

Only the Good Die Young

Billy, I try to be good. You know that.

I also try to teach Hughie how to be good. I work on him with his pleases and thank yous, his sharing, his playing with others, and generally try to teach him to be considerate and sensitive to the world around him.

However, I have occasionally failed.

When the seasons changed and it became cool in New York, Hughie and I started to wear our light jackets around the city. I’m not sure how it developed, but we developed a recurring joke. The joke would start when Hughie would cover his hand with his sleeve, while I mirrored him, and then one of us would ask to hold the other’s hand.

The same events always happened after this settup: “Hey, Hughie let me hold you ha-AAAAAH!!!!!!!! Where is your hand?! Oh, no! Where’s MY hand?! AAH!” We would then flail are arms about until our hands, inevitably, came out of our sleeves. Our choreography that followed the rediscovery of our hands took synchronized precisions: we would look down at our hands for two beats, look up at each other for one, and then say, “Oh…Oops.”

Hughie found this little scene to be hysterical every time we did it. If ever he was starting to get cranky all I would have to do was put my hand up my sleeve, turn to Hughie I’d see the little smile growing on his face, and I’d know we were golden. Goodbye grumps!

Well, one day we were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We were sitting in the statue garden and trying to reenact all of the expressions and poses we were seeing. The museum was fairly empty that day so we had some room to do this. I was intently staring at one of the statues when Hughie suddenly grabbed the bottom of my shirt and started tugging. “LOOK TOLLY! We should ask him to hold our hand!”

I turned around, not understanding at all what Hughie could possibly be talking about.

Sure enough, Hughie was jumping up and down in excitement while pointing to a real amputee.

Joel, I was so horrified that I decided that I would need to pray extra hard to you that night. To repent for my sins I even actually listened to some of your classical music.

You know how much that must have pained me.

I knew I was Running on Ice and, you would think, one such horrible mistake would teach me the error of my ways forever. Unfortunately Billy, I am not an Innocent Man...

Last week Hughie and I ate at a new café in the East Village. When we were leaving the café to go to his friend’s apartment for a play date, Hughie noticed a couch the establishment had placed under its awning on the sidewalk. I could have explained to Hughie that this was probably an ironic hipster observation of white trash culture, but that’s a lot of concepts for a four year old to get his head around. Instead I said, “Oh man, isn’t that silly!”

He snickered at the silliness. “Yeah,” he exclaimed, “they must sit OUTSIDE on their couch.”

Something about the way he said this struck me as funny. “Do you think they sit on that couch and watch their TV outside?”

“YEAH!”

“Do you think they also have their washing machine and dishwasher outside?”

“YEAH!”

At this point Hughie was practically doubled over laughing at the thought of it all.

“Do you think they keep their bed outside?”

“YES!”

Hughie then decided to get involved with the game and he one-upped me, “AND their trundle bed!”

“Yes, yes, of course their trundle bed. I bet they also keep their desk out there too!”

The game was stopped suddenly when I looked ahead of us down the street. There I spotted the mattress lying on the sidewalk of Avenue B that would stop our good natured fun dead in its tracks.

“Look! He’s sleeping on the trundle bed!” Hughie said while he jumped up and down and pointed at the homeless man. This sight earned 10x the enthusiasm from Hughie as the man with a missing hand.

Billy, normally I would take this time to blame you for these two instances. There is, after all, a noticeable lack of good child-rearing advice available through your music. Or, for that matter, good advice for young listeners to take to heart in general (I mean really Billy, do all the Catholic girls start much too late? Really? You drove a motorcycle in the rain when the girl asked you not to, crashed said girl’s party, and you’re a lunatic but she should still get with you?).

That being said, I realize that it is me, and only me, that is at fault for young Hughie’s actions.

It’s just common sense to stop the joke about outside furniture with a dishwasher.

Famous Last words

I sneezed glitter at work the other day.

Excuse me, did I say glitter? I meant snowflakes. I sneezed glistening snowflakes. Well, I shouldn’t say that I sneezed snowflakes; it was more like I sneezed and glitter, excuse me, snowflakes, came out of my nose and onto my tissue. But you understand.

“God bless you!” A little voice said. The child was standing right next to me in the maze.

I squatted down low to this little girl, a complete stranger, and said, “Why thank you! I knew Santa put you on the nice list for a reason this year! He can’t wait to see you!” I gave the child a high-five.

“Thanks, how many Santa’s you got working today?” The child’s mother asked with a thick Jersey accent.

There are four to six Santa Clauses working at any given time in Macy’s Santaland.

“Oh! There’s only one Santa Clause of course!” I replied in a loud voice, hoping others in the line would get it.

“Ok, but really?”

This mother was a persistent. Er, mother? I meant big kid. There are no moms, dads, or grandparents; only kids and big kids in Santaland.

“Haven’t you ever seen Miracle on 34^th Street?! Santa Clause is here and he’s the real deal!” I said, correcting the big kid. I then channeled Vanna White and made a big sweeping arm gesture with a smile on my face in an effort to kindly tell them to keep the line moving.

Two and a half hours later I was still standing in the same spot in the maze. I was positioned at Santa’s sleigh, right before entering Santa’s Village. My main job was to stop children from grabbing hold of the toys and to keep the line moving. Occasionally I’d tell children about how it was my job to load Santa’s sleigh, or I would point to the huge snow globe directly behind me, where a video of Santa waving was playing, and tell the children that Santa could see them through the globe and was waving at them specifically because he was so excited they were coming.

“Step right up! Every step is a step closer to Santaaaa!” I yelled. I was using my hands as a megaphone. My words startled the family that was using the scenery as if it was there for their personal photo shoot into moving. I had seen the mom position her three children into at least five different poses and each time the youngest child would look away at the last possible moment.

The family moved along, but I soon realized it was part of a mega group: a big extended family of nearly twenty people. The end of the line was mostly made up of 20-somethings, meaning that I didn’t have to come up with the same creative bullshit (“I know the tooth fairy”, or “Mrs. Clause designed our costumes!”) like I usually do.

“Merry Christmas!” I exclaimed.

“Merry Christmas,” a cute 20-something male replied back. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Silverbelle!”

“Well, how are you today Silverbelle?”

I could have explained that I had been standing in the same spot for three and half hours. I could have told him about how I had woken up at seven a.m. in order to get to Macy’s in time for the beginning of my shift. I could have related to him that I either was suddenly feeling hung over from the two glasses of wine I had had the night before or was possibly being let down by the caffeine high I had experienced after my large cup of coffee I drank earlier. But I didn’t do any of these things. Instead I answered, “Great! How about yourself?”

This time the man didn’t answer, instead his girlfriend chimed in. The woman said, “Well, we stood in line for an hour and a half, and now we’re being rushed through Santaland. This whole thing blows, Silverbelle.”

When Santaland reaches its peak hours, roughly one-thousand people see Santa. That means that if this family was standing in line for an hour and a half, there were roughly fifteen hundred people standing in line before them. During a trip to see Santa in peak hours you spend only about twenty minutes in actual Santaland. The other hour-and-some-odd-minutes you spend in a line that snakes through several open spaces, hallways, and all around every hallway of Macy’s Harold Square’s Human Resources department. If everybody took their grand old time in the maze around Santaland this line would be at least an hour longer. Macy’s, the largest department store in the world, cannot accommodate this.

I was trying to come up with a cheerful happy-go-lucky response, but I was saved by Nutmeg coming to take my post. I traveled the rest of the way through the maze and into the hidden doorway going toward my manager for my next marching orders. Outside the manager’s door there was a line of four or five other elves.

“It’s hell out there, isn’t it?!” one of the elves says to me.

I’m not sure which elf; she could have been named snowflake, gumdrop, or hazelnut for all I know. Whichever it was, I thought about her words, and I thought about my saga in the North Pole. It was tiresome, and the frozen smile on my face hurt all of the muscles in my cheek. My throat was dry and my voice husky from all the lies I had told about me and my relationship with Santa and the other elves. It was annoying to think about all the people who took the experience for granite.

But before I could say any of this, a funny thing happened: I remembered all the children who gave me huge grins, shy smiles, or looks of wonderment every time I told them something about Santa.

I took out a tissue from my apron and I answered her, “eh, it’s not so bad.”

And really, it isn’t so bad.

I hardly noticed the glitter in my booger as I threw away the tissue.

Really.

The Longest Time

Today I was in the Natural History Museum and a butterfly landed on my hand.

The butterfly was extraordinary. She had a body that was bright pink and had wings that were dark brown, almost a shade of black. She stayed perfectly still on my hand as I gently lowered her so that Hughie could see her. “Hughie, look at this!” I stage whispered to my ward, my eyes welling up at the sight of such a rare creature choosing to sit on my hand.

Hughie was unimpressed.

One of the volunteers working in the Butterfly Conservatory squealed with delight and told me that I had to make a wish. She told me that a Native American tradition, “because butterflies can’t speak, they take your wishes up to heaven with them.”

My impulses lead me to make the exact same wish I’ve been making for the past eleven years. The words are so etched into the back of my mind that I don’t even realize that I think them. In the past decade I must have wished compulsively the same wish upon ten-thousand pennies, new moons, shooting stars, 11:11s, birthday candles, prayers, and eyelashes.

Yet, this was the first butterfly, and will probably be the only butterfly, to ever land on my hand and stay there.

Somehow I couldn’t help but to think I might have wasted a wish. I looked at the butterfly and tried to think if there was something better I could ask for. I stared at her and wondered what else I could possibly want more than my regular old wish. Hell, not even what I would want more, but what I would want instead.

Hughie shook me out of my thoughts. “Tol, can we please go now,” he whined. I mentally said goodbye to my butterfly; if she could hear my wishes, why couldn’t she hear my thoughts? I gently blew and my butterfly opened her wings and flew off.

I’m sorry it’s been the Longest Time since I’ve posted. I’ve had possibly 24 different entries that I’ve thought about writing, but haven’t. I could tell you about officially living in New York for one year (!), about maintaining this blog (poorly) for just as long, about Hughie’s and my first anniversary, turning 21, my new job as “Silverbelle” the Macy’s Christmas elf, my new apartment search, my acting career (ha!), my weekend in the Hamptons, my first Thanksgiving in New York, my battle against a mouse in the house, or about my college search. But how will I ever find the time to write about all of them?

Well here’s the deal. For the month of December, leading up to Christmas, I will attempt to post an entry every two to three days about each subject. Maybe this won’t last very long, I’ve been a fool, and it will take the greatest miracle of all to pull it off, but after Billy Joel blessing me with that butterfly, I am hoping (too) hard that since I’ve come this far, it can be all that I hoped for.

Storm Front

(Discovered dead in a pair of my shorts yesterday morning. God Billy Joel, in that River of Dreams somewhere upstate, please hear my prayer and bless this apartment with screens)

As I mentioned in my last post, I have officially moved to a new apartment. This is the third time I’ve moved since coming to New York late last September, and I’m planning on moving again in January or February.

Yep, I’m subletting again.

In my experiences as a 21^st century urban nomad, I’ve grown accustomed to only moving bedroom furniture, and never accumulating any things. Normally this is for the best. It is not, however, the best when your moving into an apartment that is brand new a month before the permanent residence move in.

Right now I am pioneering an apartment with another subletter.

It’s a new experience, that I’m not sure I’m always fond of. And, if you chose to forget the fact that I suffered so much in my life without internet that I ran away to the beach for a week, I think that I’ve met the challenge head on.

Without further ado, I bring you: TOLLY VS. THE COCHROACHES AND OTHER PESTS

While I was enjoying a completely air conditioned condo in Rehoboth Beach, this picture was sent to me by my fellow pioneer:

The Caption: “the kitchen floor *shudder*”

I had a moment where I convulsed on the couch and said “EWW! Eww! Eww! Eww!” But once I got over my adverse reaction I got the details. The roach was found dead, and, so far, it was a lone warrior.

I might have continued to freak out, but I remembered my first apartment in New York. The one where I found a dead mouse next to my mattress on the floor, yet there were no more mice sightings after that day. I was hopeful for this new place.

It was false hope. Baby cockroaches were coming out of the cracks in our shower after dark to terrorize my roommate’s feet.

(Okay, from the picture you can't really see them, but they're quite menacing)

I took matters into my own hand:

With my trusty Raid gun (and believe me, it is a gun) I waited until night fall and attacked the baby roaches on their own territory. As I shot at them, both the ones brave enough to venture out of the crack and the ones who cowardly took refuge in their home, I found satisfaction in watching them drown in the chemicals and their bodies slow down. Is this how psychopaths feel with their guns?

Honestly, I don’t care.

Next came the mosquitoes. When “OFF Deep Woods spray’ wasn’t enough to combat the fact that the apartment windows doesn’t have screens , I got down to business:

While this dinky little fan is adorable and less offensive to my nose than the conventional spray, it is only effective when you don’t move. This meant I had to stay perfectly still for hours on time on the cot in our kitchen (we don’t have a couch, we’re pioneers, remember?) which is the only place in the apartment where we have internet access. So, two K-Marts, a Duane Reade, and one amazing Walgreens later, I came back with these babies:

I made it through the storm front and I declare myself the champion.

Movin' Out: Part Two

I’m moving out. I’ve loved this apartment and everything that it’s had, but I’m off to move 6 blocks further west into the great land we call SoHo. Anyway here’s the run down of all the things I’ll miss about this last place:

1. Bubba the English bull dog.

Sure he’s fat, he’ll eat your feet, he barks when your watching television, and he’ll pee on the floor while your cooking, but he’s also the funniest dog I’ve ever had the pleasure of living with.

2. The big HD television.

This thing got 1000 channels, had a blue ray player, and got HBO on demand. I’m not sure what I ‘m going to do with out it.

3. The built in shelving units.

Sure everybody could always see my clothes and other crap but it was pretty sweet having all that floor space to use up with other junk.

4. No longer living on Mulberry St.

Billy Joel never sang a song titled “Big Man on Thompson St.”

5. The toilet in the closet.

Not great for when you drank too much, but a party all the same.

6. On that same vain: the infamous tub in the kitchen.

I couldn’t take a bath in you because you were too shallow. I couldn’t shower in you because of the kitchen cabinets over top of you. But I could sit in you and use a hose to bathe while my roommate’s cooked, and for that I will always miss you my dead second apartment in New York.

7. Most of all though, I’ll miss my roommates that I’ve had here.

They were really fun, great people and I wish them the best of luck on their move to San Diego.

The Ballad of Hughie the Kid

I have a New York dating service set up, and it’s called Hughie the Kid.

Hughie turned 4 yesterday. However, he was telling everybody that it was actually his 23^rd birthday.

Why 23? Because a month ago it occurred to him that if he was older than me he could boss me around. He went around telling his parents, his teacher, and strangers on the street that he was 21. I told him I had dated people older than me and they weren’t the boss of me, so he changed his mind and became 22. When his birthday rolled around he had to gain another year. Now I babysit a guy 3 years older than me (but isn’t that always the case ladies?).

Monday we were in Central park. We stopped to get ice cream from a nice booth near the pond with the little sail boats.

Once there Hughie informed the young icecream guy that he was turning 23 the next day. When I got my $5 change from the 20-something, I asked for it in ones. I wanted the ones for the children’s zoo where kids could buy animal food to feed the goats. The guy replied, “Oh sure, you need ones to take the birthday boy out to Flash Dancers?”

“Haha not today,” I replied.

“I like dancing!” Sophie, Hughie’s sister, chimed in.

“Will you go too?” Hughie asked the man.

Hughie is always acting cute around men who work at places like this. I’m pretty sure it’s so I’ll start dating one of them so he can get all the free icecream he wants all the time. In fact he used to make me take him to this bagel shop around the corner from his school because he realized the cashier had a crush on me.

Ok. Maybe he didn’t “realize” it per say; he was 3 years old for Billy’s sake, but he did understand something was going on. Every time I would pay for our bagels the cashier would flirt and give me a chocolate muffin. Hughie lived for those free chocolate muffins…

Don’t get me wrong I appreciate that the toddler is trying to get me laid. Really, I do. I just wish I could control who he’s going to try to set me up with.

Sometimes he even accidentally makes good choices. Once he was pouting and being a real sour face when we entered into the Strand.

He acted like the biggest grump I’ve ever seen until I started reading a book and he started laughing. Of course an incredibly beautiful man who was buying a book saw the whole thing happening and when he overheard me talking about a book I couldn’t find, he not only found that book, but also found a bunch of other related books…I nearly died I was so happy.

Book guy bought the book and left while I was too busy reading Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. I missed my chance.

Of course, like other dating services Hughie can only aid in introducing me to the man; he can’t make everything else happen.

It’s just too bad Hughie hasn’t found the opportunity to introduce me to a certain "Billy the Kid"...

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.

(source)

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).

(source)

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.

(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.