New Year's Resolutions

Post everyday.
Get that website up and running!
Work on my portfolio.
Email Hunter.
Finish Thesis!!!! (This should be first). No wait, it IS first!
Career on track.
Exercise everyday.
Take my vitamins.
Drink more H20.
Breathing.
Decide about Law School.
Connect with old friends :)
Stop biting nails, even during football games.
Make turning thirty a joyous occasion full of success, hope and promise!

A new life

I've been back in Newport for four months now and well, a lot has happened. For awhile I seemed to lose track of what was important, focusing instead on what has been important and trying to change things that up until now seemed to be fixable. But instead I have discovered that my priorities have become skewed and I have lost sight of myself. It's a weird and particularly sobering feeling to discover the person you thought you were has changed, and the person you thought you were becoming, indeed the person you were on your way to and incredibly hopeful of becoming is no where near what has actually happened. I have become dependent on another person's drama. Fixing their life, and the hope of fixing mine through that process, has become central. Or at least had. But a few weeks ago I realized I reached a breaking point. A real breaking point, a moment where I felt beaten, broken and lost. I have been living in a repetitive cycle akin to a hamster's wheel, constantly revolving and running, feeling exhausted as if I had just completed an impressive marathon but looking up to realize that what I saw behind me was only the starting line and what was in front of me was 26 miles of mountainous terrain filled with daunting crevasses and boulders. So I had two choices, to keep running as is, maintaining the status quo and ignoring the the fact that the definition of insanity is to expect different results while performing the same actions. Or to stop. Just take a breath. I don't know what exactly was different this time, but I made the difficult albeit correct decision. Afterwards, well, it was weird, but as I drove to work I actually felt a physical reaction where my body relaxed and it was if I took my first deep breath in many months.

Speaking of work. I never thought I would say this, but thank god I got fired. And actually, I didn't actually get fired, I was transferred to another location against my will, but it ended up being one of those fortuitous events that totally suck, but end up being the best thing for me. It's like that line from "You've Got Mail?"..."Everyone is always saying change is a good thing, but what they're really saying is something you really didn't want to happen at all has now happened." But maybe, just maybe, at least for me this time, while the things I've been avoiding happening have now happened, and there is definitely a lot of pain, the results and benefits out way the cons. At least it's already starting to feel that way. I'm scared, exhilarated, and finally, for the first time in a long time, focusing on me and getting more accomplished than ever...including my time in NY. The only person who can make my life different or better or anything at all is me. That focus is my current plan, and I have to say...it feels awesome.

Past posts, because I am working on it.

So here it goes everyone...Obviously I did not write "more tomorrow," nor did I keep to my everyday promise to myself and the world at large. But here at least are two entries from the past that were scratched out on notepads and airlines. Although not directly on the airplane, because I think United would have objected and qualified my musings as graffiti. Or not, post-modern art maybe? Either way, again, trying to do better. After all, my favorite quote of all time is from Samuel Beckett...

No matter, try again.
Fail again. Fail Better.

Post written from my west coast bound cross country United flight on January 19, 2010. Or at least one of the three legs:

I am currently on a flight from Chicago to San Francisco. Being in the time of my life where I can afford a plane ticket, but yet can’t (at least not consistently) afford the six extra inches of leg room the seat directly in front of me possesses I find at least a little comfort in the fact the online movie is something that not only have I not seen before, but is something I was actually hoping to eventually see. Granted, the screen it’s playing on seems to be the size of a cd case and is approximately six rows in front of me, but I guess I’ll take what I can get.

Heading back to the West Coast. It’s strange to look at my clock and see the time as 7:12pm. Especially when my body is definitely telling me it’s 10:12pm. Not that I would normally be going to sleep now, on the contrary, I don’t think I’ve gone to bed earlier than midnight in several years, obviously excluding naps. I love sleeping, but I suppose I should probably join that new facebook group “I don’t get enough sleep because I stay up late for no reason.” Because seriously, how much Poker After Dark does one actually need?

My biggest fear heading back to the West Coast is falling back into old habits. I’m not heading directly back to Newport, taking a quick fam-damily stop over in the valley to sort through some stuff with my mother. Mostly, she’s quite rightly insisting I call the student loan people and correct the mishap which has left them automatically withdrawing my monthly payment from her account instead of mine and me constantly having to go to the bank to then transfer that money back into her account from mine. Why I haven’t done this yet, when really it’s just creating a headache for all involved is beyond me. Sometimes I procrastinate on the stupidest things. But I want to really really really turn over a new leaf. Getting up early, being productive, exercising, finding work, writing, finishing the masters. Taking the LSAT? That’s maybe on the list. You know, I think I’m going to study and take it either way. Because then it’s done, and I don’t have to stress about it if and when I do decided to go to law school. So there’s all that. But that’s going to take up a good deal of time. Which is good, I tend to function much better when I’m really busy. But what about the rest of it? Life that is. Well, surfing and sailing are seasonally soon, and definitely priorities. So I’ll make time.  But I feel like, especially with my 29th birthday looming on the horizon, this is my time. I actually want to focus on my career, become a workaholic and create something awesome. And that’s what I plan on doing. Totally.

Post written on a note pad while sitting in a restaurant in Newport, Or on February 11, 2010:

And I’m back in the game! Crossing the country tends to do this to me, create a sense of re-imagining, or better put, of re-adjusting. Finding my bearing in an all to recognizable yet strangely unfamiliar landscape takes a couple of turns. I’m always ripe with distractions. But is writing everyday too daunting of a task?

Maybe. (side note from February 21, probably as I’m just now getting around to typing this up. I’m working on it people!) But I suspect my unwillingness or incapability to keep a promise to myself lies more in my fears about not what I might find (although there are some inner demons I’ve definitely been ignoring), but rather the idiotic and unspoken, almost unacknowledged but never un-thought, idea that not becoming a bigger and better version of myself allows me to fail myself first. Isn’t that always easier?

Maybe not smarter or even logical in the least…but easier it always is. The old adage of being your own worst critic has always held true for me. Nelson Mandela’s coinage of (and I am ad-libbing here), “Who are we not to be [great]?” holds true and even stirs something within me to critique myself further. Self-sabotage becomes a trusted friend, a confidant who is steady, steadfast and unchanging. Something to hold onto and something to count on has me clinging to its familiarity. I cherish my fuck ups because they give me something to better. I push away people I need and love to keep my own greatness at bay. This sucks. But maybe the acknowledgment is the first step. Anyways, here’s hoping…

for the moment

Been traveling, but writing on the plane.  Updates tomorrow.

My Storage Unit

I'm almost out of my New York storage unit.  Not that I'm living in it, even if it feels like it from time to time.  Especially lately.  I  have the amazing ability to find storage units that are miles away from any reasonable place I would actually need them to be.  Case in point, while six months ago I may have gone, "yes!  the storage unit right next to the u-haul place!"  I should have instead considered a place that might be more convenient once I got back.  My storage unit is on the west side highway.  I am living in Queens.  For those of you to whom this means nothing, it takes me forever to get there.  And I have to walk the last 4 avenues.  Which isn't a problem except when I'm trying to actually move stuff.  I have determined this can mean one of two things.  Either I should stop living in a situation where I need to keep stuff in a storage unit.  Or that wherever I live it is inevitable I will have a difficult time getting all my stuff in one place (i.e. a home) and should just resign myself to the fact.

Today's trip was from the storage unit to school, where my brilliant plan was to increase my generous quotient by donating used books to the theatre library.  And not just any books, no!  Books that will actually be useful to future graduate students!  But there is a twofold issue with my brilliant plan.  First, I learned the importance of not trying to carry 30 books in a large plastic shoe bag.  As it ripped farther and farther open I struggled through the packed subway...I wonder if I looked more like a genius for having so many scholarly books or like an idiot intern who was probably finding prop books for a theatre production and didn't think to bring a proper bag to the goodwill.  Well I was walking near the theatre district.  Hmm...

The second problem with my ingenious generosity was the realization that if everyone is as nice as me then when and if I do get around to writing a publishable scholarly text, no one will have to buy it because they can just get used copies from the department library.  Which I guess is a problem for published professors.  The whole used-textbook thing.  While I have often enjoyed the benefits of buying books second hand, I have also heard you would have to be mad to write a textbook.  Not that I fancy myself a textbook writer, but up until now I've never ruled it out.  But that's what I'm trying to do, narrow things down and focus!  So there you have it, I do not have a desire or dream to write a textbook.  (Notice I did not say book, as I still want to write a book, listen up universe).  Daily mission accomplished! I have named both something I do and something I do not want to do with my life.  Although positive reinforcement would counter that I shouldn't focus on the what I do not want, only on what I do want.  But finding what I do want has never been my problem.  I want to do everything!  It's finding the one thing, or one path with a couple things, that has been the issue.  So I'm countering that advice and thinking that narrowing things down could be helpful at this stage of the game.

I'll finish for today with my weird new part of my self-exploration, I'm walking around New York listening to cheesy uplifting music, you know that "yes I can do it I'm empowered" genre that incites public repulsion and private moments of dancing subtley (I hope) on the subway.  I know, roll your eyes if you must, but I'm finding it a helpful aide to my current attempts at positive change even if listening to musical theatre while walking through Times Square is a total cliche.  (In my defense, I was already there to see a show, so it's not like I went there just to listen to certain songs).  Oh, and hip hop.  I've been listening to a lot of hip hop lately.

The First Fake Boyfriend

So...I was going to start off with another self-criticism.  Damn!  But no, I'm trying to cut myself a little slack.  Even though I've missed now, well let's just ignore that one and go with several days.  Man, I've really screwed up this first week.  In fact I probably wouldn't even be writing this now except that it's on notepad and I'll be transferring it later.  So I need to buy a notebook.  Check mark for tomorrow. 

It's not that I'm not hot for my computer.  I am.  It's just that the last three days have had me in the grips of fear as I prepare to go back to the West Coast.  I am always leaving all situations with the sneaking suspicion I could have done more with my time, experienced more, saw more, done more...written more.  Got more done on my thesis.  But I can't change the past right?  I can only look ahead.  Ok.  Breathing now.  Breathing.

So...I guess it's back to the what do I want out of life bit...and the who am I bit.  Those bits.  Which really feel more like mountains than bits.  Bits sounds a bit like a tiny cracker I grabbed as a snack while utilizing it as a poorly thought out substitute for a nutritious meal.  Ok, that bit I just typed fresh.

Last weekend at the show I sat through the most uncomfortable "team" meeting.  Even though it was in a foreign language (did I mention the theatre I work for is Greek?) I could still feel the tension.  People were standing, yelling, interrupting, slapping the chairs in front of themselves for emphasis and to take out frustration.  Actually, come to think of it...I guess this team meeting wasn't really all that out of character.  Just more uncomfortable.

I think there should be more openness in the world.  Now of course I say this with a grain of salt and total hypocrisy.  I don't like hurting people or starting fights or putting people down.  I'm all for positivity and support and the good of mankind and all that jazz.  I think it's on the individual levels where I get a little fucked up.  I wish I was a better person.  I think we probably all do (or I hope we all do and it's not just me and my neurosis, although we do make a cute couple),  But what about those fibs that are to protect people?  It may not be my proudest admission, but I am a really good liar.  (This is where the obligitory "especially to myself bit" goes).  For example:

In the past two months I've had two fake boyfriends.  The first was to get rid of a boy (not my boy, a friend's roommate) and the other was to get rid of a girl (again, not mine).  Let me just preface this by saying that neither of these situations was my idea, just trying to help out a couple of friends.  But along with that, the sneaking suspicion that my two friends wouldn't have propositioned me with the ideas in the first place if they hadn't sensed a certain amount of moral flexability is palbable.  Or daunting.  Or both.

The first (fake) relationship came from a place of necessity.  A few days (or hours, depending on who's version of the story you believe, I say days, he says hours) after I arrived in New York City, I was informed by the guys I'm staying with that over the holidays there will be additional visitors.  Now of course, it's their house, so that's fine.  I just feel like maybe this information would have been helpful before I flew myself all the way across the country to share a one bathroom apartment that would soon have six people in it.  The apartment itself is technically a one-bedroom, with the rightful livingroom used as the second bedroom and the porch transformed into a living room.  Ahh, nyc living!  So two people equals workable, the three of us is cozy, and six is just the most rediculous thing I've ever heard of.  Being the resourceful gal I am I called a friend who had previously offered me a place to crash and got this response in an email, "Your timing may be most ideal. I'll explain in more detail later."  Cryptic right?  But it turns out he had a friend staying who wasn't the most ideal houseguest, and was trying to get him out.  In order to do this he had previously told the guest he was starting to see someone and they would probably be staying over soon, maybe even moving in.  And into the picutre I come!  Awesome.  Actually it was fun to stay there.  Not the weird other guest thing, but this guy is one of my favorite people to dork around with.  Apparently we were really convincing.  We stayed up giggling the first night and it sounded suspiciously like "sex noises" and the guy was gone by the next day, and I moved to the futon.

trying to move

Well, I missed yesterday.  I'm going to give myself a break just this time, you know, a new project, developing habits and all that.  I'm finally starting to wrap up my little old life here in New York.  Yesterday I met a guy at my storage unit and he relieved me of the desk that I've been keeping for an unknown reason.  Why did I hold onto it?  I guess there was a part of me, or there is a part of me, that's holding onto things here.  But not really for the reasons of love of the city.  Don't get me wrong, I do love the city, but I've never really developed the kind of roots and identity here I'm looking for.  I think grad school has helped me develop my skills at writing and reading, but there is still the motivational factor effecting my ability to write my thesis.  I don't know, perhaps it's my fear that once I finish I'm going to be in the same situation I was when I started, finished, and not sure what to do next.  At least right now I'm ostensibly working towards something tangible.  And if that tangibility goes away, I'm afraid I'll be lost and drifting without a purpose.  On a basic level I know this is rediculous, only I can keep myself motivated and growing and successful.  But I often find myself tragically paralyzed by fear of failure.  The irony is this fear of failure and its results are the real problems keeping me from moving forward.  So why doesn't knowing this help?  I'm trying to let it.  I'm trying to change.  One day at a time.  Today.  One day.

Writer's Block

I just started making a list of all the things I'm grateful for.  It went something like my parents, my sister, being able to travel, etc.  Basically all the things you'd expect.  And I realized that my attempt to overcome the writers block I'm currently experiencing does not really feel like it makes the cut.  Not that I'm not grateful for all of those things, because I am, but listing them doesn't feel like a particularly eloquent way of expressing whatever it is I'm trying to express. 

Great.  I've made it to day three, haven't really learned anything, and I'm stuck.  But I found out today I still have health insurance, so there's that.

Day 2, Post 3

I've made it this far.  I know that doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment (yeah!  I stuck with something for 24 hours!)  But this is probably the gazillionth time I've started a self-exploration project.  I just went through and organized all of my suitcases.  Perhaps the reason I've been feeling a little lost is that all of my stuff is in either suitcases or storage units.  I may just be onto something here.

When I was younger I always thought a bohemian kind of life style would suit me.  Traveling, writing, living from day to day.  And all in all it sort of does.  But it is extremely difficult to start down any sort of a career path when the longest one is in any given city is around one year.  And I do mean the LONGEST.  For the past two years I've been going to graduate school in NYC.  I guess that is an accopmlishment in and of itself.  I always said someday I would live in New York.  But somehow school is sort of the easy way out for me.  I love it, I understand the world of it, and I'm generally pretty good at it.  There are rules and guidelines and projects with purposes set by other people.  I think I seem self directed, but really when left to my own devices I tend to watch too much television.  Or read books that have nothing to do with what I should be reading.  That's the best, because then I find a sense of purpose in finishing the novel and can let myself excuse the not doing the homework.

I'm off to the library.  Got to do some reading and some returning.  I'll answer some self-exploration questions later.  Maybe on the bus?  Or while getting tea?  Or if I get bored at the birthday party I'm supposed to attend tonight?  That would be awesome, sitting in a bar with mainly strangers while I ignore them and fill out self-help questionnaires.  Nothing says "cool chick" like that.

Living in the Moment

Is it weird to start a getting to know yourself blog with an about me section?  After all, I've always been amazed by the succinct wrapping up these little tidbits of personal information seem to provide.  Who am I?  Who are we?  Who are you?  Especially when I already feel I have to defend my love of John Denver with a five minute regaling of why my father loved John Denver, I don't feel that listing my artistic preferences really seems to sum it all up.  I suppose for this one it's all just going to have to come out organically.

I've already gotten so excited by the prospect of trying to answer some of the big questions in life I'm finding myself looking up self-help questionnaires, trying to ponder and think through the answers.  The irony is that most of the web-sites and texts then immediately tell me to not think too much about my answers and to just express whatever comes first.  Crap.  Well, I've already screwed that one up.  Somehow, with all the hoping for some form of spiritual awakening I'm thinking there may be a few stumbling blocks along the way.

I'm thinking of going to church this weekend.  I don't really associate myself with a particular religion, and have at various times in my life dabbled in various forms and read most of what I think are considered the major religious texts (thank you honors college).  But nothing really seemed to stick.  I'm much more likely on a Sunday morning to be found doing a variety of other activities.  I like sleeping in,but I vacillate to a bi-polar extent between feelings of guilt and joy at my sloth.  So sometimes I'll be reading or catching up on my online TV, or surfing or running if the weather permits and I happen to be in the middle of one of my "lets be an outdoorsy kind of person" phases.

And I'm off again, looking into the miraculous self-transformation that's coming and planing and just knowing I'm going to pull off some amazing stuff.  Which is pretty impressive, (the knowledge, not the stuff), because I've now written a total of two blogs.  Again, crap.  I think there might be more involved than I originally contemplated ten hours ago when I decided to embark on this journey.  But at least I've made it this far.  One entry and one day at a time.

And then there was a post

This is an amazing hook.  Right now.  At least, that's what I was hoping for, the type of beginning word or phrase that sucks you, the reader, right on in and keeps you hanging around to finish at least the first paragraph.  Because that's how awesome of a writer I am.  Or at least, how awesome of a writer I hope to become.  While maintaining that the use of the word awesome does not preclude me from entering the world of blogging genius.  but perhaps I digress, at least let me begin with how this all began, or I guess, is beginning.

I am an adult.  Along with all the trappings of bills and responsibility, although I have managed to avoid jury duty thus far (I hope that admission doesn't promote some sort of karmic retrobution).  But I, I think like many of my so called generation, am still searching for my path, or my calling.  I'm about to finish my master's degree in Theatre.  I know, I know.  It has been amazing and tumultious though.  But more on that later.  And no, by the way, just because I know it's what you are thinking, I don't want to teach.  So what now?  I currently am floating between two coasts in a Keroacian avoidance of roots and commitment.  And I have decided to embark on the self-discovery route.  I want to know who I am and what I want to do.  It's strange to have arrived at the point I've always wanted, a crazy bohemian life where I travel, I observe and I record, and to find out that maybe I've missed something along the way.

Should I have gone to medical school?  Should I be enrolling in Law school next year?  Is there a greater purpose?  Maybe I should move to Africa and build wells?  Well, we've all done it different ways, and if Sara Davidson is any indication, we'll all keep doing it until we die, but this is going to be my way.  My little online exploration where I over-share, and I commit myself to two things.  Everyday I will work and try something new (I've always sucked at meditation, so maybe tomorrow's forte will be attempting to sit and calm my mind...) and everyday I will post at least something.  So here it goes.  I think self exploration will be scary and probably suck, but I need to stop telling myself I'm going to make a change, and instead just do it.  Yep.  Here it goes...

Oh and by the way, I'll fix all the grammatical errors later.  I read the latest Strunk and White, quite gripping.  But the great comma debate of 08 will have to be put on hold for a little while.