you are one of the bruised apples God threw out of Eden.

My most recent design job has led immediately to my next assignment, a night of one acts in the same theater.  These shows are quite fun, and I'm glad I've got something to keep my mind occupied.

I'm in that weird place again.  It's similar to where I was a few months ago, only several shades lighter.  I'm much more in control but I'm making these overwhelming discoveries about myself, now that I've been thrown into a world that isn't dominated by school, or my parents, or the friends I've had for years.

No, I'm growing up now.  The hardest part, oddly, is the social part.  I mean, think about it - I've been in school my whole life.  My friends were the people I had class with everyday, or the people I worked on shows with, or whatever.  There was an element of consistency that made having friends natural and easy.  Suddenly, now it's much harder, because my world is so inconsistent.  I work in different theaters with different people all the time.  I work in different clubs with different groups of people.  I know a lot of people, and admit that my social calendar is pretty full, but I still feel very much alone.

The answer, unfortunately, does not lie with other people.  No matter who I'm with, I feel alone.  At the bar with friends, hanging out with my roommates, on a date, at work, having sex - I'm constantly struck with the feeling that I'm by myself.

Maybe it has something to do with living in the city.  It's easy to feel swallowed up and utterly anonymous.  Sometimes I feel suffocated by my own unimportance.  I occasionally have that old nightmare of mine, where I'm standing in the middle of a crowd and I'm screaming, helplessly, but no one hears me.

I should feel happier, luckier, prouder than I feel right now.  Aren't I living the life I always talked about having?  But living the dream comes with a hefty price tag, it seems.

and I don't know where to look, my words just break and melt.

Highlights from New Year's:

• Penn Station fucking sucks.  
• NJ Transit has ghetto trains.  Or maybe I've been spoiled by the Metro North.  Either way, eeeeeugh.  I felt like I was on an old Greyhound bus.  (To be fair, the train back to NYC was much nicer.)
• A homeless man on the train said I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and proposed to me in front of everyone in the train car.  I politely declined and he took it in stride.  Maybe he had better luck in the next car.
• I saw Anne!  Yay!  And met a bunch of her friends.  Yay!  We played board games.  Yay!
• Trip to Wal-Mart.  Is it bad that I felt all nostalgic and warm and fuzzy when I walked in?  Like I felt at home in a weird and sick way?  That's not normal.
• Peach jello and spiced rum.  OM NOM NOM.
• Delicious, delicious baked goods.  And snacks.  I ate, like, half a pan of brownies.
• Really, where were Kesha's clothes?  Someone should make Jenny McCarthy stop talking, forever.  And AJ from the Backstreet Boys has gotten really old and fat.  He should talk to Jennifer Hudson about Weight Watchers, because I think they played the Weight Watchers commercial at every commercial break.
• Did anyone else feel like the dropping of the ball was really anticlimactic? 
• I got like, two hours of sleep.  I think I was still drunk when I woke up, which might be why I ate, like, four bowls of Cookie Crisp at breakfast.  Seemed like an awesome idea.  Actually, it was an awesome idea.

I tried napping earlier, but got nowhere with it.  So I spent the day lounging around in my underwear, blasting the heat and watching Grey's Anatomy on Hulu Plus (which, by the way, is freaking awesome.  Every episode of every show ever?  For $8 a month?  Eat that, Cablevision!).  I'm still trying to get used to being alone in my apartment - so far, I'm unsuccessful.  I felt like an antisocial loser so I went out grocery shopping earlier, where something prompted me to buy a half gallon of carrot juice.  Amongst other really random items (including a toothbrush, several bags of freeze-dried pineapple, a York peppermint patty, and spray butter).

Tomorrow I'm going to check out a fabulous used bookstore I heard about near Union Square.  I have one book in my whole apartment and that makes me feel like less of a human being.  I miss my books.