Every Day, a Little Gratitude

I am working. Not only that, but I am working at one of the top theatres in the country, making LORT B (second only to LORT A when it comes to regional theatre) pay, and playing two leading roles. It’s a three month contract which means I will get another six months of health insurance. I am housed. I have a car I share with two other actors. This is the DREAM.

Which means I want to remember this feeling when I go back to NYC. I’m already dreading it… that discomfort of not working, that pain of not auditioning, that hurt of wanting so hard you think you might break.

But right now?

This.

My job.

TECH BEGINS

A $5 po’boy that really hit the spot.

My every-morning arbor.

$8 for 12 oysters. UNREAL.

May every day off be this magical

My other home away from home.

A theatre… day one of rehearsal.

Sporty evenings.

Rehearsal from the sidelines.

I get to wear these. I GET TO WEAR THESE AND THEY WERE MADE FOR ME.

Ten minute break view.

Foggy mornings.

My home away from home.

My day off.

I have friends.

Rehearsal from another sideline.

There is art here… you just have to find it.

Nighttime in the Deep South.

Rehearsal, from “offstage”

Activities on a tornado-warning night.

Folks? This is the dream.

Winter vacation. One day in Salem, MA, one day in Portsmouth, NH. One day in somewhere, Maine. One day in Old Sturbridge, MA. Tucked into our bed and breakfast in York Harbor.

He’s reading a used book. Today we met a cat named Peter in in the oldest American homestead of all time. I petted him. Tonight we drove out to the Nubble Lighthouse and stood on the rocks looking at the stars in 15 degree weather. Tomorrow we’ll go past the land where I spent the first six years of my life– where my first dog and first cat are still buried or sprinkled, where we had bonfires, where my parents used to wake me up to look at fireflies. We might ice skate. We have dinner reservations.

The only thing I wish we had was the cat.

Otherwise… This is it.

My Year in Numbers

1     friend I lost

1     job I lost

2     jobs I got

3    plays I did

6    friends of mine who got engaged

10     places I visited

Idaho, Connecticut, Philadelphia, Waynesboro, PA, London, Scotland, Amsterdam, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine

25    days it took to find an apartment in NYC

26    plays I saw (in NYC and London only)

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Mothers and Sons, Richard III, Big Fish, Murder for Two, The Oldest Boy, Our Lady of Kibeho, A Delicate Balance, Lips Together Teeth Apart, Sex with Strangers, The Village Bike, Hand to God, Your Mother’s Copy of the Kama Sutra, The Happiest Song Plays Last, Under My Skin, Sweeney Todd (NY Philharmonic), Fast Company, The Substance of Fire, The Killer, Cinderella, Mala Hierba, American Hero, Hotel, Bring up the Bodies, Showboat (NY Philharmonic), You Got Older

34    blogs I posted

Better than I thought, actually.

73    books I read

My favorites: The Invisible Front, The Circle, NOS4A2, A Tale for the Time Being, Into the Darkest Corner, Dept of Speculation, Tenth of December

365   days I got up in the morning and went to bed and night and existed on this earth.

Update (feeling the feels)

So, apparently the main administrator for the Theatre & Visual Arts Depts, plus the main administrator for all adjuncts in the entire undergraduate school, have both been FIRED. Like yesterday.

All of a sudden, my job has tripled, at least. And of course I’m not making any more money.

Also I’m in a fight with A.

I had a good holiday, but sorta feel shitty.

Oh and I’ve started mentoring with mentorconnect, so I may be here less.

I don’t know.

Just feeling the feels.

Where I’ve Been!

This is really cool. Make yours at: http://www.defocus.net/visitedstates/generate.html

GREEN: lived here
BLUE: spent significant time here
YELLOW: spent some time here (at least one night)
RED: never been

I have an idea.

I have an idea.

Let’s get a credit card. Doesn’t really matter what since someone else is gonna pay it off.

Let’s board a plane and fly somewhere beautiful.

Like the British Virgin Islands, perhaps.

Here:

We’d be sure to pick up enough food to keep us going for a week. Fresh island foods. Fish to grill.

We’d wake up in the morning to the sun rising over the bay. Breakfast on the veranda– coffee, and fruit, and eggs.

We’d while away the mornings reading by the pool. When the sun is too hot, we’d drop ourselves into the pool and lap about, splashing.

Lunch is eaten half wrapped in towels. We probably have hot, damp sex that smells like tanned skin.

In the afternoon we walk the beach. We stop to admire the way the sand sparkles in the sun. Our feet skim the shallows.

Hunger, and the taste of crisp white wine, drives our wander home. The sun is setting over the bay as the smoke from the grill drifts into the air.

The bed waits.

We don’t close any doors.

We never worry about how to pay.

Never feel guilty for what we’re “missing” in our lives “back home.”

Sound good?

My Universes

I am a participant in so many tiny universes.

Today is A’s 28th birthday. Over the Labor Day weekend, we were at his parents’ house in PA. We drove to Annapolis to see his brother compete in a drum corps competition, we golfed nine holes at the local course, ate a lot of shitty food, played board games, and dipped in the little pool. This has been a world I never could have expected to be a part of– one that is in countless ways different from the others. It’s a humbling place to be.

On Monday night, I went to see L’s play. This is the girl who, almost two years ago, was diagnosed with Aggressive T-Cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma. I was there for her diagnosis, I was there when she checked into the hospital, I was there on her 23rd birthday when she was so frail and thin that she looked like a ghost, tubes coming out of her arms and chest, food pumped directly into her stomach. I was there when she wrote a short scene, very Ruhl, very Fornes, about a year ago. And now, that scene is a play, and that play was accepted into a festival, and I saw the closing performance, with L in the lead. I cried the whole way through, not meaning to, but unable to stop. It wasn’t sadness, either… more like pride. Admiration. I’m not sure I would have the strength and momentum to throw myself into life after the terror of the last two years. But L did it, and it was magnificent. I feel privileged to live close to her heart.

My parents are coming up for Thanksgiving. My dad hasn’t been to the city since I graduated over two years ago. I’m looking forward to it. I do miss them, but I also want them to feel like a part of my life. Whether or not I’m calling every other day or telling my secrets, I am a part of their universe as they are a part of mine.

I have a universe at work, where the students know me (some as an administrator, some as an actor, some as a peer), and the faculty know me (partly as an administrator, partly as a student, partly as a colleague). I waft through the halls in perfect comfort here, sometimes remembering as I pass ID services the night that I sat with a boy as he played his uke for me, drunken nights in the studios, crying with frustration in acting class in the black box. I have been many things in these places, but they are now mine.

My high school friends, my roommates and peers, sometimes close and sometimes just seen from a distance, live on in social media posts. They also live on television, onstage, in the news. Beyonce’s sax player lived on my hall. One of Buzzfeed’s hottest twins played my brother in a Shakespeare play. One of the princesses in Shakespeare in the Park this summer ate cheerios from the box with me in bed one night. Even people I wasn’t with in school inhabit the same small universe.

Looking at A’s Facebook page today, loaded with those lovely “Happy Birthday!”s that pop up through the day, I noticed my universes converging. That’s how life goes, I guess, and love is the catalyst for it. Actors I worked with last summer post greetings after friends from college share their blessings. A knows these people and they know him because I exist. I love A, so I bring him places. I love my friends, so I make a point to go to those places.

I know I’m not the only one with these many orbiting galaxies, meshing and meeting, with only me, my strange and special life, at the center. How did I become someone whose world has so much variance? It makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I exist.

Vacation? What’s that?

VACATION!

What’s that, you may ask? "Vacation" is the English word for a time in which you leave work at work and spend leisure time with people you love in some place that isn’t your janky New York apartment.

Trust me, I wasn’t super familiar with the term either.

Here is what A and I did for our glorious few days "off the grid."

WEDNESDAY

Closing of my Fringe show (thank goodness!) The show was at 5:15pm. A had just come home from Army on Tuesday, so we did some crazy last minute planning and packing, and picked up our rental car around 2:30pm on the Upper East Side and headed downtown to the Lower East Side for my show. It was a strong finale to an okay production, but I was glad A got to see it and, you know, acting is always fun. We immediately took off from the parking garage on Essex for our little home in Fairfield, CT!

When we arrived, my lovely host’s son had left the key under the doormat. A scraggly, long-haired black cat mewed ferociously at the door, but we hadn’t heard anything about a cat, and it looked like a stray, so we had to use some leftover nacho cheese from dinner to try and lure it away from the door. Turns out, the cat sort of belongs there, but there was no way we could have been expected to know it, and as kitty lovers, it was a somewhat disturbing experience. We stumbled right into bed after doing a bit of exploring.

(the story of this house is that I’d posted on Facebook a few months ago that I was looking for an inexpensive place to vacation in CT on the coast. An aquaintance who I met last summer on the show in NJ, a teacher at Yale and a NYC script supervisor, messaged me that we were welcome to stay in her home. It was INSANELY generous).

THURSDAY

We woke early and A found somewhere we could grab breakfast. He found the most adorable little place called Home on the Range. We were the only people in there when we walked in, and glanced over the paper menu a friendly, white-haired, bespectacled woman hadned to us. I ordered an egg sandwich on whole wheat and coffee, and A got multigrain pancakes with turkey bacon and OJ. We sat in the corner in the window, and shortly were delivered clearly homemade, fresh, and prepared to order by the adorable woman who took our order. The food was exceptional– A’s pancakes melted in your mouth, and my sandwich was perfectly cooked. We came back again on Saturday.

From there, we took the short drive to the beach. We didn’t have a pass for our car to park (all beaches are private in CT) but we figured that we could find some nearby nook for the car. After trolling two beaches, we found a parking spot in front of a little shop, only about a five minute walk from Penfield Beach. We parked and headed to the water. It wasn’t particularly warm, and the sky was very threatening– rain was coming. Regardless, we stripped down to our suits and jumped in. The water was not particularly cold, probably only about ten degrees cooler than the air. We got out as the tide started in and the clouds began their approach. I made a little sandcastle, and just as the rain started, we boogied back to the car.

We rounded out our first day by seeing The Butler (perfect rain activity!) and then driving out to New Haven to have delicious pizza and wine at Pepe’s and wandering around the Yale campus before heading home. We talked a lot about just about everything, especially the favorite slightly wine-y (ha! and whiney! See what I did there?) topic of our careers. They’re just not off the ground yet. And, as Yale tends to do, I was wistful about the life I could have had if I hadn’t known beyond the shadow of a doubt that I wanted to be an actor and move to NYC. We make our choices, people. And I’m glad for mine.

FRIDAY

Another bright and early morning. We hopped in the car and headed up to the Haddam area to see Gillette Castle. It’s a strange old mansion built by turn-of-the-century actor William Gillette that has been turned into a state park and museum. There are over 45 engineered wooden doors in the castle, all of which Gillette designed. He also had a series of mirrors and secret passageways so he could make theatrical entrances and exits and avoid guests he didn’t want to see. I like that part of it. We spent the morning in the castle, then lunched on bread, cheese, apples, and trail mix while deciding what to do next.

We hopped in the car and headed towards West Hartford. On the way, we passed East Haddam, and figured we should stop over and see the Goodspeed Opera House, just ’cause we’d never been. We pulled up and walked to the box office. Turns out, there was an 8pm performance of Hello, Dolly! that very night, and there were two $29 seats available in the 2nd row mezz. We looked at each other, and the decision was made. We bought the tickets and, grinning, headed back to our car.

After a detour to Panera for iced tea, a cookie, and an outlet to charge my dying phone, we arrived at the Mark Twain House and the Harriet Beecher Stowe House (they’re next door to each other!). We bought our tickets for the double tour– Stowe and then Twain– and wandered in the gift shop till our meeting time at 3pm. The tours were AMAZING. A and I are big nerds (and literature lovers!), and we love to learn peoples’ stories and see what they saw. It is no small thing to stand in the room where Twain wrote Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, and more. Very cool.

Afterwards, we navigated to dinner at a Mexican place nearby. We were going to meet up with my dear friend J, who is in rehearsal at Hartford Stage, but he had a company picnic he couldn’t miss. It was okay– we were in a time crunch anyway. We drove back to East Haddam with just enough time to get huge ice cream sundaes, which we devoured on a bench outside the theatre while we watched the "blue hairs" (what we, in the theatre, call "older" audience members) file in. We eventually took our seats to experience a classic American musical– just as cheesy and silly and delicious as expected. It was a glorious evening.

SATURDAY

We took it very easy, sleeping in a little long, suiting up, and heading back to breakfast at Home on the Range. From there, we pulled back into our little parking spot and walked to the beach, two chairs, an umbrella for my sweet white boy, towels, and another lunch of bread, cheese, bell pepper slices, veggie chips, and fizzy lemonade from Whole Foods.

We spent the whole day baking our bods, swimming in the sea, munching on snacks, reading, and collecting shells. It was exactly what vacation is supposed to be.

Once we’d had our fill of the beach, we hopped back into the car and headed to the house. We showered and hung out for a bit, and then headed out once more for a 4:10pm showing of Elysium. It was a bit disappointing, considering how much we’d both liked District 9, but hey, who cares.

From there, I found a nearby place where I could get a lobster roll and A could get a burger. We found a perfect little shack, and I devoured my roll and the delicious house-made coleslaw. I grew up a lobster lover (my dad’s first book was a collection of stories, essays, and research about lobsters– he’s pretty cool), so anytime I get a chance to have a real lobster, I do it.

We finished the evening in downtown Fairfield at 16 Handles for froyo. We considered going to another movie, but none of times were great, so we just walked around. We spent about an hour wandering in the bookstore for Fairfield University. We got home around 9:30pm so we could tuck in early.

SUNDAY

We attempted to get up on time so we could get an early start, but failed. We managed to rouse ourselves by 9 and stumbled into the shower. We left in the car shortly afterwards, along 95 up the coast towards Mystic, CT!

I haven’t been to Mystic since I was very, very young. My cousin (on my Mom’s side) lived there for a short time, as I recall, but she no longer does, and either way, very soon after she moved, we stopped talking to that side of the family (drugs and addiction will do that). On a much happier note, Mystic was basically all new and SO STUPID FUN.

Again, we’re nerds. Mystic Seaport is basically a transformed little area that is an outdoor/indoor museum. You can wander at your leisure into old buildings transformed into artifacts museums, old ships restored to their former glory with information guides and plaques, recreated shops and stores with volunteers who did the typesetting and cobbling and steel-working while they chatted with you. In other words, it was HEAVEN. Around 3pm, we realized we should skedaddle if we wanted to make the Aquarium too (we bought a "MysticPass" which allowed us, for $50 each, to visit the Seaport, Aquarium (plus a free soda), and the Planetarium). We scarfed some lunch in the car, then drove down the street.

The aquarium was crazy busy, but we managed to get our drinks and some ice cream and sat down to come up with a plan. We started in the Titanic exhibit, felt up some manta rays (I LOVE THAT), watched the belugas, then headed back inside to do the pretty cool live chat with the Nautilus ship in the Caribbean. From there we did the main aquarium, seeing penguins, sea lions, frogs, turtles, the most adorable recovering gray seal, then the whole inside portion, with fish, sharks, rays, turtles, lobsters, and many many more. We concluded with the sea lion show. All in all, we spent a glorious two hours and hopped back into the car right around closing time.

We spent some time wandering around the little nook of shops called Olde Mistick Village before heading to a local restaurant for our final vacation dinner (I got a little pissy about trying to choose somewhere, which A was very patient about, but eventually I just chose). I got two yummy fig cocktails, scallops, and we shared fried green beans and chocolate mousse. We got back on the road in time to stop in Westbrook to see Jobs, which kind of sucked, unfortunately. By the time we got home, we fell into bed, totally exhausted.

MONDAY

We started the day by putting in all our laundry, including all the sheets and towels we used. We wanted to grab breakfast at Home on the Range again while the laundry dried, but it was closed. Boo. Trusty Siri led us to a diner where we got an equivalent breakfast in type, but far inferior in atmosphere and quality. C’est la vie. 🙂 When we got back, I folded and cleaned and gave A 20 bucks to grab a bottle of wine to leave as a gift. We were finally out of the house just before 11 to head back for day two in Mystic! We’d extended our car rental to the last moment (the Alamo closed at 6:30pm) so we could fit in a bit more delightful time.

Once back in Mystic, we headed straight to the area we’d missed, particularly the LA Burton, a early 20th century fishing ship. We got on board and wandered around, disembarking just in time to watch the full hourlong demonstration of the anchor drop, the dory boat demonstration, and then finally, the anchor raise. At 2pm, we saw the planetarium show, which was super low tech and full of screaming children, but otherwise, lovely. We saw a few more exhibits, but quickly realized that we had to head home in order to make it to NYC by 6:30pm.With traffic and a stop for food in Milford, we pulled up in front of our door in Washington Heights just a touch after 6. I headed upstairs with the luggage while A dropped the car off.

I have been working on this entry for days! So I’m just gonna post it! More later. 🙂

xoxo

Tomorrow.

And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.

This is my tomorrow.

11:30am

Head down to the box office for THE TESTAMENT OF MARY to pick up the ticket that I can’t use. (awesome).

12:30pm

Drop off my refills for Spiro and Wellbutrin (gone up on both).

1pm

Go to work. Make the magic happen.

4pm

Hop on the train down to near Madison Square Park for my first-ever national commercial– eeek! It’s for Chase, which would be amazing, since they are my bank anyway. Send me tons of juju around 5:10pm EST.

6pm

Head to the Rattlestick to usher the show there.

8:30pm

Meet with A downtown. Probably grab a bite. Otherwise get excited for the weekend.

9:30pm

See L in a singer’s showcase at the Duplex downtown.

10:30pm

Head home and go to bed for our EPIC MORNING…

Bonus: Thursday!

7:55am

Flight out of JFK, through Denver, to IDAHOME! for the Easter weekend. We’re home on Monday.

Unfinished

I feel like I’m dying.

That phrase keeps repeating, on loop, in my head. I’ve felt so much worse than I do now, but when I’m narrating the feeling of this moment, what I feel when feeling overwhelms…

I feel like I’m dying.

I’m drowning in myself. My skin and muscles and fat are bloated and I– the little “me” that is myself– is buried deep inside and suffocating. I can’t read. My eyes won’t focus. I can’t eat right (too much or too little). Crowds hem me in and terrify me.

Food. I fucking hate it. I lost five pounds from vomiting and not eating for five days. Go me. Fuck you. Suddenly I remembered that empty feeling, that skinny feeling, that feeling that felt so manic and good. But I eat now, remember? So I couldn’t eat small portions or only on occasion. And when i tried, I ate too much. And eating too much is the purest form of self-harm I know. Food turns me into a monster. My body feels flush and bloated. I feel dehydrated and my lips are chapped.

My sister is here this week (Sunday thru Saturday). And she wants to “do” things. Which I’m fine with to some extent. But I’m, frankly, depressed. And I repeat:

I feel like I’m dying.

Tuesday was rainy and wet. We walked up to the Cloisters in the rain and wind. We got there, at last, soaked, and wandered through the museum. I love it up there. But I did feel distant, separate, slightly off. When we were done, I knew that I was hungry and ready to go home and curl up. Which we did. My sister fell asleep, and when I woke her because it was time to head to midtown to try and get Book of Mormon tix, she said, “Jazz club?” Which is the last place I want to go when I feel like shit. I said, fine, A and I will go down and do the lottery, and if we get tix, you can come down and meet us. She said okay.

I was in no mood. I sobbed over A’s subway sandwich before heading back, planning how to tell her I couldn’t possibly go out again. But I get there, and she’s curling her hair. I try to come up with a soft way of saying “I just can’t,” and finally just say, “I just can’t.” She’s disappointed, subtly, and I feel like I’ve done something wrong. Same thing happens

 

FUCK I LOST IT ALL. I finished this fucking blog entry after two fucking days and fucking wordpress lost it.

FUCK.

 

I won’t bother. Here’s this. The only thing worth sharing, anyway. See this musical. It makes things slightly better.