Picture of myself

That picture of me-
Was that taken four years ago?
Or was it last week?
Or last month?
Such cyclical behavior it is hard to separate one memory from the other
With such stunted growth that seemed so profound from my limb, now high above the ground
Has nothing changed but what’s around me?
Did I trade forest floors for canopies of greener hue, but nothing new?
Nothing changes.
No one changes.
I tried to find the best of me and bring him to the surface
I excavated with pen and paper to develop what I should develop and leave what should be left behind
Plagued by self doubt I urge myself to evolve, to grow, to champion, to rise
And four years later I’m still the same
Which is odd since I’m so different.

I met my past self in the mirror today
We didn’t recognize each other
We posed our questions in polite conversation and went our separate ways.
I didn’t care for him much
I wonder if he cared for me.

Where Do the Dreamers Go?

The creeping sun rises, inching sleep by sleep to bully and awaken a restful world.

Her golden beams like hands pulling back the weighted sheets that cover lover’s eyes.

“It is a new world,” she says.

“Arise and make it what you will.”

The businessman rises and washes sleep from his eyes, like world’s before.

Same suit. Same Tie. Same binding loafers doomed to pound on pavement faces that wait at the end of his life sentence; a road of commute, he travels content-driving himself to the gallows.

“Stop this madness!”

on he drives.

“Look what gift I give you:

This world has never been before, so now how will you make it?”

To his willing prison he enters in and locks his cell, facing cold stone walls of grey and gray to forget the world outside.

From the window a perfect view of other windows, not one face.

Nothing exists beyond the walls, the cells, the bars, the wires, the bricks that make this blockhouse of empathy.

Does he ever leave?

Perhaps, but one day more conditioned not to recognize the faces that were on the streets he traveled home.

Someday he’ll enter an empty house, though other souls still live there.

The teacher rises with the sun, and greets the coming world.

He/She flusters with the the woes of world’s before.

Papers.

Papers.

Drowned in papers, dry and empty; meaningless.

But words and words and words and words

Their gift, their challenge, their art, their hist’ry

They fill worlds and worlds and worlds and worlds

Worlds before.

Worlds tomorrow.

“What world do you see today?”

Another paper, just as blank as those that came before.

“Can’t you see what gift I’ve given? How can you ignore it?”

But he/she will make time for it another day, another world, when it can be appreciated.

not today.

not this day.

He/She needs another world.

The farmer rose before the sun and greeted her with open arms

With hands within the earth the farmer calls, “What sun, come join. The world has started. Come and light my world.”

The coo’s and caw’s of trees reply and on the farmer hoes.

New life. New Green. New Brown.  New Blue.

New light.

What the farmer sees and what the farmer knows is a mystery to the sun.

She smiles at her happy worker, pleased with the work.

They dance together, laugh together, talk to one another as they walk across mother’s face.

The farmer tires and soon falls out of the sight of the sun.

“Tomorrow,” she whispers.

“I promise you tomorrow.”

Where, I wonder, do the dreamers go when they end their sleep?

Perhaps the sun forgets them

or leaves them in their bliss.

How terrifying that must be

when nightmare’s claim their sleep.

Great Grey Spirit

Nothing.
I’m full of nothing.
I don’t need to find words to say
I haven’t even got the words to say
Words.
Lonely words.

Great grey spirit on the water
Tide has come
Can we stand for now together
Staring at the waves that you came from?

The sky’s a little duller
the moon has lost it’s color
And I’ve lost the words to speak my beating, pounding drum.

Lonely ship upon another
sea of glass.
Can will fill her sail together?
Sing the songs we wrote on leaves of grass.

Where are my songs?
Where are my words?
A poet with no words to speak
no thoughts no feelings left to call my own.
All my words are stolen
and I’m staring at an empty sky alone.

Why speak words now?
you’ll leave anyway.
What can my words do with
nothing left to say?

With a touch you silence me you
melt away my words
Just a touch can silence me yet
fill my heart with words.

How you fill my words with meaning.
Fill my songs.

Captain, my captain
The night is coming.
Captain, O my captain
A violet heaven claims the sky
let’s go walking you an I
A trail of footprints echo with our humming.

Captain, my captain
We haven’t long.
Captain, O my captain
I hear you sing, I hear your song
I feel it ring I’ll hum along.

S. Grant

To the gods I turn and face, and heaven lies before me.

A thousand earths hang on gossamer thread, and now traverse the sky;

A day, a night, a week a year float across the tale-time blue

Passing day, I’ll let you pass and wait with want for that precious gift: a day that doesn’t pass

A day where time doesn’t clock

A day that hangs in silence

A day broken with sound, with song

With laughter, music, poems and wine.

Facing to the skyward heavens I can see the celestial gods as they watch me wait

And wonder what they think of waiting.

I know a man who drank life to the lees

Who never waited

Who knew the profit of self indulgent melodies

Of songs, of poems, of tales, of times

Of rich and and complex characters

Of sour grapes and ripened berries;

Mulled and aged with bitter flavors, savory notes that sing in fermented keys.

Who shirked the banal call of day and yearned for cries of night.

For tears of rain; harsh and unpredictable

For breaths of wind; soft, alluring, sensual

For laughing grass to dance and tickle at round, pink nubs

Sure he wondered, sure he wandered

But he never waited.

To the lees he drank until he came upon the dregs

And no longer knew the taste of it.

Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Two years ago, two young men decided they were going to finally move into their first apartment together.  After a stressful month of apartment hunting and all the anxiety that comes with it the day of their move came at last.  Up in heaven God thought to himself “Now lets see how much these guys can take.”

What ensued was what was the worse day in both of their lives.  They cried, they swore, they yelled at each other, it was almost a non ending day that still tastes of bitterness in both of their memories.

Two years later, they decided they were going to move into their first apartment just the two of them, and God thought “Well I guess I have to up the ante.”

The last few days have been some of the worst in my life.  So the bf and I are trying to move into this beautiful apartment, not too far from our current.  1 bedroom very spacious, lovely kitchen with a DISHWASHER on a beautiful corner overlooking a treelined street on one side and a park on the other.

Going in we knew this apartment would be a lot of work.  The application required us to deal with a broker and requested more references and sources than I have ever been required (contracts, letters of recommendation, tax returns bank statements, reference of employment etc.)

All that was turned in well over 2 weeks ago, and then we played the waiting game.  See we need to be approved by the person who owns the apartment and renting it out, the management company that owns the building, and the co op overseeing the building.  As time passed and we weren’t hearing anything we kept getting more and more antsy but heard nothing from our broker.

It was almost moving day still no sign off, he says they are rushing it, they are trying to get someone to approve us, they are working no one knows what the problem is.  All the while we are saying “we have to move out the 31, we HAVE to move the 31, what do we need to do to be approved by the 31.”  We were told not to cancel anything (moving truck, friends helping, packing old apartment, painting old apartment) so the 31 we went and got our truck.

Since we still had no word by that morning we moved out our room mate first, after that we called the broker who told us our application had been lost in management and no one had even looked at it yet.  Aka you’re not moving today.

Well that was stressful, but we handled it with stride, we called our current landlord and we were allowed to stay a few days at a pro rated cost.

The next day we found out, IF we get approved for this new place it won’t be till mid September.  We freak out again, so we call our landlord and are then told we have to fax in a request for a September 30 move out date.  We couldn’t move out on the 15, they needed us to commit for the whole month.  Our new place was ok with us pushing the lease start to October 1, so we dodged another bullet.

Today we faxed in our request and got a call about 20 minutes later, that that was not indeed an option, if we didn’t move out in the next day our lease would automatically renew, and while we are bound to this new apartment we would have 2 leases for a year.  Panic, fear, anxiety, stress.

These two boys have so many wonderful friends in the city who all offered us a place to stay, for the whole month if need be.  That was so great to know, it really eased our minds.  The problem is we have an apartment full of furniture and our lives and had no place to put that, nor any way to get it anywhere.

I had about 3 hours where I just paced my apartment never sitting down waiting to hear from several people about what our options were.  I cried in that time, I started screaming, I’ve been in a bad place these last few days.

In the end we are signing a few contracts with various parties that pretty much sets us up for the month of september and allows us to move into our new place at the end of the month (so long as we get this apartment, if we’re not approved that’s a whole different story)

I haven’t been sleeping well, I’ve just been stressed, and today was icing on the cake.  I finally decided I would take myself to a dance class, it’s very zen for me, helps me step out of my body and calm down for a while.

I stepped off the subway and within a few steps I got shit on by a bird.  I walked to a bench and literally broke down.  I’ve been shit on a lot the last few days, now even by birds.  about 20 minutes passed and I just started crying harder, in the middle of central park kind of delirious.

Enter the bf, who calls to calm me down.  I snap at him that I don’t want to talk and he spends the next 15 minutes calming me down, centering me, making me realize there are positive and exciting things coming up and the great place we have gotten to, and how proud we should be of ourselves.

This whole experience has been just as hard if not harder on him.  I was still doing a show in Boston until monday and he’d been dealing with almost everything, and here I am breaking down and he is there being the most incredible guy, just trying to make me realize how good of a position we are finally in.  That guy is just the most amazing guy in the world, I have said this a million times in the last few days, I could not have gotten through the last week without him.  Bottom line.

So I went to the columbus circle bathroom and washed myself off, walked up to dance, still not sure I would actually take one, decided I should and I’ll be honest I kinda rocked tonight.  Yeah that’s not even remotely modest, I don’t really give a flying f.  I felt great and grounded and present and for about 2 hours didn’t even think about the things stressing me out in life.

3 months and this positive little anecdote is what I finally return to my blog with.  There was a lot of positive stuff that happened in between.  Once I find where my camera adapter is I’ll upload some photos and try and share on that.  Who knows, maybe I’ll even have a definitive place to live by them (dream big)

An echo of the past

I’m just gonna say this real quick because I could focus and do an in depth post on it, but I’d rather wait until later and write about some of the great things that have recently happened.

This should sound an exact echo of about 2 years ago, but I HATE job searching.  Nothing makes me feel like I lack any useful skills like having to find a survival job.  I think I’m a bad B.S.er because I know that I see incompetence every where, and I constantly think to myself “How did this person get this job?”  And yet I look at places that are hiring, positions that are open, and I can’t help but think “What is my BFA useful for!?”

Don’t get me wrong, over the last 2 years I have gotten way better at going into a room and leaving with an acting gig.  I feel border line competent at that now.  These survival jobs never get easier.

I’m just having minor panic attacks, because as more and more time passes, and my savings go down and down, my anxiety rises, and I start feeling desperate.  I’m not in the danger zone by a long shot yet, but I don’t want to get there either!

Bottom line, I want a job.  I want the money, and frankly I would like to have something to do other than wait around for auditions to start back up.

In the mean while, I’m glad the weather has turned around.  I love summer weather and sun, and that grey stuff we were getting wasn’t doing anything to help my mood.

So pray for me folks.  Thanks.

PS, I’ll try and write more tonight on happier subject matter.

A Few Thoughts on Confidence

My mind has been all over the place this last week.  Not to beat a dead horse but I feel a little strange when I come home after having been gone for any extended period of time.  Life does, after all, go on without me while I’m gone and I have to play catch up to this fast paced city and I’m not always good about hitting the ground running when I get back.

Having said that, the first week has passed, I’m feeling more at home and happy to be back in my routine.

So beyond that, I am currently in my sophomore year of life (I attend the school of hard knock).  It has been a pretty good year so far-definitely better than last year.  I’m not terrified daily and flying blindly through my life on a wing and a prayer-which is nice.  Last year I didn’t know what I was doing or what was going on around me to the point that I was optimistic just out of ignorance.

Where I am today seems a clear echo of where I was 4 years ago, the last time I was a sophomore.  That year stands out in my mind as one of the hardest in my life.  I was emotionally rocky a lot of the time and lived with a lot of sadness that I didn’t know how to deal with.  Now I wasn’t depressed or anything, but the year felt very dark and very heavy to me.

I took things very seriously that year and that was reflected in every aspect of my life.  My relationships, my work you name it.  Nothing was just about a moment in the present, there was a lesson to be learned or something that had to be examined.  I could be better if I just had the self awareness that I saw in the people around me.  I was a quintessential sophomore-stupid yet wise.  I didn’t know anything but thought I knew everything.  I know for a fact that I didn’t know anything, because I still don’t.

I was so into self discovery and analyzation.  Wanting to know more about myself, what I think-feel-believe-want-hate-like-etc.  However that internal examination became very isolating over time, and I was to realize that to worry about myself in that kind of isolation is not only frankly a narcissistic exercise, it’s pointless.

It’s amazing how much time we put thought into wondering what other people are thinking about us, when in reality they are probably just wondering what we think about them.

When I am happiest is when I take the pressure off of myself of having to be liked, or accepted or anything that comes from  another person.  Because that acceptance just never comes.  But I am human and it seems a part of my condition that that need will never really go away.

That’s one of the reasons I enjoy being around one particular guy the amount that I do, because going through life doesn’t feel like it’s split up as “the world’s acceptance” vs. “my self confidence.”  He is a witness to my life and I to his.  He makes me feel that I can be right even when he’s telling me I’m wrong, because this black and white battlefield of right and wrong no longer applies to us.

We are such different human beings in the way we see the world and choose to live in it, but I can’t help but think that we at least are living in the same world.

I love him so much and just don’t function as well anymore when I’m not around him.

But going back in time, it’s always scary to get back from a job not knowing when/if I’ll ever work again.  I obviously hope and believe that I will or I wouldn’t be doing what I do.  But in the business I have chosen my self confidence takes a daily beating-even on the days where I am “succeeding.”  I wish I had a stronger backbone for it.  At least I’m working on building one right now.

I really wanted to finish this post with a picture that perfectly captures the tone I wanted this post to be read with in mind:

Silence is Golden, BS

I was in a writing mood yesterday, so I wrote this one and saved it to post today, that’s why there are a few references to time that might not make sense:

This post might be a little bit weird, because I’m not sure anyone else in the world feels the way I do about it.  Sometimes I just want to feel like I am connected to the world.

Its not unusual to feel lonely, even the largest city in the country is sometimes considered the loneliest.  Life is in many ways a constant attempt to fight loneliness.  We come into the world alone, we leave it the same way; we just want to have some company in the mean time.

I am now a product of my generation, and my generation suffers from overexposure.  I am used to being in touch with everything/one 24/7.  I carry around a link to the world wide web in the palm of my hand (iphone) and with one touch can check and see where everyone I know is, what they are doing, etc.

On Christmas I was on the bus back to New York, and I told my bf how I felt really out of touch with the world, because for that 4 hour journey I was stuck on a movie vehicle and incapable of getting anywhere else should the need have arisen.

It’s a mental thing.  A loss of control over where I was going, even though I was going where I needed to go.  (This is already starting to sound really abstract to me)

Today I woke up, unpacked, cleaned a bit, and then I sat down to unwind.  I REALLY wanted there to be a Christmas special on for me to watch, but as I wrote in my earlier post the thing I hate most about the day after Christmas is that all the holiday specials/commercials/movies end immediately.

Now I have the option of putting in a movie and watching that, but doing that feels like I would lose contact with the world.  At least on TV there is a shared feeling in someone else is watching with me somewhere in the world.

That might be a really weird, or lame thing to think, but I do feel a little lonely today.  I just had 4 days of family overload, and having grown up in a house that was almost always full of noise nothing comforts me more than a constant stream of chatter.  And just like Christmas, all that noise ended very suddenly for me today.

I have work tonight, and I know that it won’t be quiet there.  It’s just not as friendly of chatter as it is when you’re with your family.

When you type “loneliness, holidays” into Google, this is what pops up

I didn’t write yesterday for a reason

I was going to update yesterday, but I had one of those days where my entry would have been this over-the-top, melodramatic reflection of my life.  I decided to breathe and set aside some time today to update instead.

I’m not sure what triggered me yesterday; it might have been my horrible night of sleep (it was SO hot) or being woken up by a person at my door.  Regardless the reason, by about 10 am it was decided that I was not going to have a good day.

I am really frustrated with how much work I am doing with nothing to show for it.  Yesterday Time Warner came and worked on our internet for over an hour and couldn’t figure out what was wrong.  Then I got to call one of their specialists who worked with me over the phone for another hour.  By the end I figured out what I THOUGHT the problem was, but was no closer to solving said problem.

After that I spent a total of 2 hours on the phone with our gas company, Energy Services, and our leasing agent trying to figure out where we were on the gas thing.  2 hours later I have a vague idea with what’s going on, and I am no closer to solving said problem.

After that I went out for about 3 hours job hunting.  I think I handed out between 12 and 20 resumes.  Not a single place was hiring.  What’s frustrating is these places aren’t even looking at my resume before they tell me they’re not hiring.  I got a manager at almost every place I went, they were all nice, and they all said the same thing, “We aren’t hiring right now but if you want to leave a resume I’ll definitely keep you on file.”

Three hours of exhausting rejection and pavement pounding later and I am no closer to finding a job.

Spending that much time in one day trying to fix everything, investing as much energy and time as I did only to have nothing to show for it is very frustrating.  Even karma wasn’t on my side yesterday.

At Grand Central after my job hunt I was waiting for the 7.  When it came there was a homeless man trying to get off but was having trouble getting his cart he was pushing over the gap between the train and the platform, so I helped him by picking up one end and pulling it over.  Then when I went to walk onto the train the doors literally SLAMMED in my face.  There were several people I saw on the train shrieking with outrage at the situation.  It feels good to do something good.

So that was the day.  However, at the end of the day, in one last ditch effort, the boyfriend (who very lovingly surprised me with a home made-ish dinner and desert!) tried connecting our internet to a different, older router we had on hand…and it worked!!!!  We have wireless folks!

Earlier in the day I had talked to my mom, discussing how frustrating things are for me right now, how much I hate busting my butt trying to find a job I don’t even want, and how things are still just not coming together how I would like them to.  She calmly helped me realize that we always knew the “struggling actor” phase of my life was not going to be fun, and that I was going to have to work pretty hard to make things come together for awhile.  But she said if I work hard and I’m lucky something will come together for me each day, even if it’s only one thing.  And then it did!  That wireless was my saving grace.

Today I have kind of been job searching.  I scoped out the next area I’m going to hit.  Basically I am shamelessly trying to find a gay employer, so finally women won’t be favored over me (food service in this city EXTREMELY favors women).  I walked around and handed out a few resumes, but it’s Friday and most places didn’t have a manager on hand, or the time to talk.  So…I’m on hold till next week.

I have a few more auditions coming in the coming week that I’m pretty excited about.  There have not been many auditions for me to go to that I have felt particularly qualified for.  I’ve gone just so people are seeing me, but most have been shows that aren’t my forte, for characters that I’m not perfectly suited for.  But the coming weeks have some regional theatres auditioning so that should be fun.

Today has been a gorgeous day too.  The last 2 days were muggy and overcast, and the humidity made it feel like 100 degrees in our apartment.  But today feels like a brisk fall day, and the sun is finally out!  I’m currently in a Starbucks in Gremarcy Park and looking out the window fills my soul with optimism.  That’s a good feeling.

Well I’m gonna head out now.  I kind of feel like trying to start writing a new song.  My roommate and I had an idea, she’s going to write a song about all the crazy things she over hears at auditions (“I would totally get this role if I could levitate”) and I’m going to write one about all the things New Yorkers do that I hate (like sitting in the middle of 2 seats on the subway).  Then we’ll record them both and put them on youtube and become famous.

So I must go create.

Frustrated Face!!!

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  That someone was me.

I don’t know why but today I have been in a dangerous state of anger.  I can’t pinpoint the instigating factor, I’ve been trying to all day.  This weekend is moving weekend so that OBVIOUSLY has a lot to do with it.  This moving experience is not being made any easier by anyone we are working with.

Being recent college grads we needed guarantors to secure our apartment, and getting all the information in for that has proven significantly more difficult than can possibly be justified.  There were some papers that needed be overnighted that were sent regular mail, which means the leasing agent doesn’t entirely know where they are.  So they were sent again, but not all of the papers made it into the envelope…it just keeps going and going.

We HAVE to move in on tuesday.  We have a roommate and a whole bunch of stuff that needs a home, least we become homeless and SOL until we can move in.

Beyond that, I have recently given up biting my finger nails.  It has lasted a little over a week at this point (for the record, longest I have ever lasted).  I do think that this is not the best moment in my life to give up my nervous habit and coping mechanism for stress…but my boyfriend offered to take me for a manicure (no wise cracks or judgements please) when my nails are long enough that the woman doing it wouldn’t hit/scold me.

I wish this could have been a happier post.  Especially since this is the one month anniversary of the creation of this blog…I had such lofty dreams for what this day would be.

But then today ended up being a crappy, angry, angsty, difficult, mad, infuriating day.

GRRRRRRRRRRRR!