Saying "Smell You Later" to my mid twenties

In the these last few weeks where I have been wrapping up my mid twenties, I have

1. Worked. I mean, as an artist. In my field. Kinda sorta.

I mean, I did some voice over work and I have been, once again, teaching theatre to kids age 6 to 17. Specifically, I taught the younger kids dance and I have been teaching movement, voice/diction and Shakespeare to the older ones. Surprisingly, the class I have had the least trouble with so far is Shakespeare. I know, color me shocked. Perhaps it was because it was scheduled before dance and I hadn't yet begun to use my outdoor voice for an hour straight, leaving me with a sore throat and a sour disposition.

Dance was a nightmare. Now, disregarding the fact that I am no dancer by any stretch of the imagination (outside of picking up basic jazz/musical theater moves and being an enthusiastic wedding floor dancer) I figured I could piece together a solid minute and a half of step touches and jazz squares for a group of elementary school kids. How wrong I was.

First of all, every child is the world is apparently suffering from ADHD, not just the poor souls who are actually literally suffering from it and struggling to keep up with the rest of the class. I had to threaten these kids within an inch of their lives to keep them on task for more than 20 seconds at a time. I can't tell you how many times I said

"If you don't all start your Elbow Macaroni Dance at the same time, you'll be behind for the Grapevine. Now get with the program or you're out of the dance! Starting. With. Zombie. Hands... 5,6,7,8...."

It wasn't until I cut half the dance and told them they had no one to blame but themselves, that they finally shut up and gave me some semblance of attention. Of course, by that point I had already made the youngest one cry and turned the oldest kid into He-man Woman-Hater who looked like he wanted to rip off my limbs and shove them down the organ pipes while he played Baby Elephant Walk.

Miraculously though, we made it through alive and by the time they performed their dance for their parents on Friday, they were at least able to trip over each other and look totally lost on beat and in their assigned line. They ultimately had a good time, the parents adored it, everyone was happy. Plus, the one move they got right was directly from the music video of the song we used, Birdhouse In Your Soul (the one that looks like robot arms into a waist bend)- so I was satisfied.



This week, I only had to contend with the older kids, which was far less of a headache, and actually quite enjoyable at times, outside of dealing with some "teenage moments".

I think the problem is, I am an actress. I am a teacher strictly based on my need for money. There are times when I adore working with students and sometimes nothing can be more rewarding than watching someone have a breakthrough after hours, days, weeks of work.

But truly, I just want to act. Which would explain why in addition to doing radio spots and teaching this past month, I have also been going to every regional/professional theatre audition I can drag my poor, mostly unemployed self out to.

This is when I ask myself:  Why can't I have other dreams? It is a curse.

Let me rephrase slightly. It is a curse when you come from a background that cannot financially support you while you pursue acting full time, therefore leading you off into working in fields that are totally unrelated to your line of study/interest just so you can stay afloat and ultimately causing you to lose some of your peak audition years to various soul sucking desk jobs and when you finally cut loose and throw yourself back into the "cattle call" game, you are rusty, older, broke and always on the verge of taking yet another job you hate just so you'll have food and shelter for you and your diabetic cat and also so you can get a break from constantly feeling like a boil on the butt of humanity, because no one understands that while it is certainly hard to get a "regular" job and takes persistence, pursuing a career in acting takes a special kind of masochistic maniac because it is damn near imfuckingpossible to land gigs with a theatre you've never worked with before because it all who you know and  how much experience you have, which at this point is not much because you had no choice but to work aforementioned desk jobs because you didn't have the support from real parents or sugar parents that you needed to travel around from audition to audition, and it all has very little to do with your actual talent, and as a result you just look like a lazy, untalented piss-ant turkey. 

Plus you find yourself going off on bitter and tacky ramble-filled, run on sentence tangents - and no
one wants to put up with that kind of drama.

Hey, wasn't I making a list?

2. I also tried to boil some eggs, but promptly forgot that I had started to do so - which resulted in some cool sounding explosions in my kitchen and a foul after stench of burnt yokes.

I turn 28 on Sunday and after some reflection, I am sure that I am wiser and stronger- but none of that really matters. There is no way to be totally prepared for life - just being flexible is hard enough. Last year I had a "big girl" job, full time, benefits, yadda yadda yadda- and I was totally unhappy.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like a I'm a ball of sunshine with rainbows coming out of my butt right now and I am sure I am disappointing people left and right- but at least I am working on not disappointing myself. And I totally was disappointed with who I had become last year.

Therefore, I proclaim 28 to be the year I kick disappointment straight in the nuts. My first present to myself is to add to the never ending list of personal mantras.

Skinny. Successful. Smart.

Grow. Go. Girl. 

Crisi-tunity!

In the nuts, Disappointment!


I am a believer in the birthday mantra/resolution. You add a new one each year, and retire which ever one (ones) you feel have served their purpose.

So. What was your birthday mantra this year?

Spring Cleaning, or How I Plan To Slowly Drive Myself Insane

First things first.
I love the mess out of this. And then some.


On to business.

For the starving artist

Starving for a little respect, artist buddies? Are you feeling like you're being pigeonholed into a group classified by some as lazy, self absorbed and totally disposable? Yeah, me too. It doesn't help when people are trying to cut out the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities because they are "frivolous".
It truly is a shame when people have no clue how much of their life, their choices, their work, their faith, etc etc etc has been influenced by the art they have been exposed to in their lives.

The post in which I become somewhat shallow and summer-minded

When it rains it pours? Apparently so.There is a long and extremely justified rant that I'm sitting on, but in the interest of avoiding excessive drama, I shall begrudgingly don the muzzle. For now. Enough of that mess- this is where I start distracting myself  by imagining what I want to buy for the upcoming warm seasons!

The post I should remind myself to read at least once every year

Merciful heavens. You know that time when everything you thought was so gets tossed to the wind and you end up questioning yourself, everything and everyone around you? Plus you get a sinus infection? Please!

While I am doped up, my head is extra loopy, so I'm taking measures to bring it back down to earth again.

Measure one:
Delicious food.

note. Picture may or not be my own. Actually, it is not, but it is reminiscent of what I made this evening. 

Measure two: A little reflection never hurts and always grounds floating emotions (confusion, frustration, nervousness, impatience).

A search for knitting patterns landed me on LiveJournal and my old posts. Well, yikes. But there is one post I desperately need to keep in my mental Rolodex of "Things To Keep Me From Flying Off The Handle When I Am Feeling Overwhelmed".
Here we go.(copy/pasted and unedited, for fuck's sake)

I found an old children's book given to me a few years ago by a girl that I didn't really care for. All she did was frustrate me. She grew up in Kenya with her parents who were missionaries, and she was studying to become a pediatrician. I took five minutes to read the entire book, including the inscription from her at the beginning " Dear Jessica, This book made me think of a conversation you, Maggie and I had. I think of this book now whenever I think of you (as well as some other good things)." Of course, its a christian themed fairytale with the message that it is not up to others to evaluate you, because you were created intentionally, without any mistakes...and to always remember that you are special regardless of what others think.
Okay, I'm a douchebag. I mean, this girl was alright. I just thought that maybe she was a demon in disguise because she was slow and overly cheery and made me work twice as hard to make up for the time she wasted looking out of windows and singing instead of doing her job. But all in all, she was a very nice girl. I think we've all known people, where there is really no good reason to dislike them, but you can't help it.
I know now that I allowed my personal frustration determine how I treated this chick half of the time, which was never downright mean - but certainly was not as nice as I should have been.
I do want to be nice to everyone, even the people who get on my last nerve... because it really isn't my place to judge a person's worth. If I expect people to accept me living on my own terms, then I should really be more accepting of others.
It just makes sense.
It also makes sense that I'm not going to let my little cynic make the last judgment on things. Oh for sure, I think you should always acknowledge him and respect his opinion, because a lot of times he keeps you grounded and reminds you to use your common sense, but if I'm going to live without fear of doing the wrong thing, then I need to make sure that he knows his place.
I just want to have balance in my life. Good, bad, stupid, smart, pretty, ugly, wrong, right, light, dark... I want all of that. I don't want to feel like I'm constantly apologizing. I want to feel worthy of all of these things. And I think the way to do that is to realize that everyone is worthy, everyone is deserving.
Its okay to look "ridiculous". What is that anyway? There's no way to play it safe. Not at all. There will always be someone who looks at you and judges.
My thing is...that's okay. My life is what its supposed to be. And it always will be, no matter what decisions I make. Things aren't going to become alright as soon I drop those last ten pounds or pay off my debt or even when I have health insurance through the union. If I'm constantly waiting for that last thing to fall into place before I'm happy with myself, then I will do nothing but beat myself down....
I realize this sound like some crazy cult mantra "love yourself, you are worthy, burn down town hall". No no. I mean it all. I'm trying to keep moving, to not let myself get stuck in a funk, and I think that comes with making peace with the person I am today, not the person I will become.
Now, if a week from now, there is a totally psychotic post, it probably means that I've ran out of the magic E (that's what I've named my effexor. catchy, huh? it sounds totally street). However, I'm working on that. There's nothing I like less than an anxiety attack, or being off the E, simply because you become sick when you miss doses. If that sounds scary, well girl. Let me tell you. It is. I'm not fond of being "dependent" on it, but on the plus side, it really does work quite well most of the time. And guess what?! I accept that part of myself too.
I'm a pretty peaceful girl. My demands aren't that great. I just want art in my life. I just want to act and love my family and friends and to always keep my mind and my heart open. 

Follow up by some quality netflix time and- regardless of whether you get cast or not, whether your bills get paid or not, whether your nose is stuffy and your head is swimming, whether you sass and cut those who deserve it (and some who don't)- you, Lady, you are gonna be all right.

The Inevitable Valentine's Post

About three weeks ago, I watched Swingers. Two weeks ago I watched Blue Valentine. This week I have a strong desire to punch love right in the weenus. These two films left me with some major problems with the whole concept of love, just in time for Valentines Day.
Let's break it down by film.

First we have Swingers, a movie about a guy who spends 95% of the film mooning over the break up with his ladylove,  with whom he had been in a relationship with for the past six years. Then, in the last ten minutes, Chesty LaRue- aka Heather Graham- bats her big blue eyes at our main character and bam! His undying love is gone. His achy breaky heart is healed. And even though his ex calls to tell him she still loves him, it doesn't matter, because Chesty is definitely an upgrade, amiright?? Instead of feeling uplifted by the message that you can get over anyone, I felt rotten. Is the love of your life replaceable? Or is the message that he never really loved her, he just loved the misery of being broken up with? Either way, it doesn't look good for love, that when someone that has that much of a hold on a person is so easily forgotten in the blinding light of Heather Graham's marvelous boobs acting.

We run into a different scenario, but similar problem in Blue Valentine. For those of you who haven't seen it, I don't want to give anything away- I've only read one review of it, but I'm assuming they all give out the basic details- you're witnessing the dissolution of a relationship, intercut with scenes of them "falling in love". But did our tragic leads ever truly love one another? Or is love not that much different than lust- brief, weak and replaceable?

I mean, geez louise. I know it's a crap shoot and there's no way to prove that love is true- but doesn't it seem awful that you never really know for sure, unless someone call it quits? Because even if that person sticks around, it very well may be (and often is) for all the wrong reasons- they're attached to the security, they don't have the balls to tell you the truth, they're trying to prove something to themselves or someone else....

If it weren't for our friends and family, it would be almost impossible to believe love even exists. Because, like it or not, at some point all romantic love is conditional. Granted, not all love between friends and family is unquestionable- but it doesn't compare to the shaky pedestals we set our romantic partners on. We seem to be happy placing all our bets on faith that love between two people can exist. And faith is dangerous. Faith can be damaging. But it is also, in a way, courageous and one of the most beautiful and mysterious parts of our being. And whether we want to be complicated or not, our make up is unfortunately complex and dependent on those crap shoots. (I hope someone inserted a poop joke here while reading that.) 

Of course, it could all just be nature's way of trying to preserve itself by creating a feeling to attach to procreation, but that law obviously doesn't work within every type of relationship.
Holy crap. Idea: Does homosexuality prove the existence of true romantic love?? Just think about it. What a marvelous notion...

Hey, look- I wasn't trying to rain on anyone's parade this Valentine's Day. I actually love this holiday, and I have been single for the majority of Vdays. What a great excuse to eat pink sugary food and drink fizzy alcohol and tell the people who are special to you how many levels of awesomeness they rock. Plus you get to craft with glitter and smell flowers or gather up your friends and celebrate your love of the day and each other by having an "anti"valentines party. My gorgeous and talented friend Nikki sums the beauty of this day on her blog, Grateful Sparrow, far more eloquently than I can.
What a great holiday*. I hope yours' is, without a doubt, the best yet.

*My apologies to anyone who is going through a break up during this holiday. You have my sympathy and understanding, because in that case, Valentine's day blows. This is where you have permission channel your over dramatic, honky bitch and take to the whiskey bottle whilst playing sad old country songs in your apartment- which, in a way, is quite a glorious way to celebrate the day as well. Happy Fuck This Shit Gimme Another Drink Don't Tell Me How I Feel Day to you, you magnificent, under appreciated gods and goddesses.