So yesterday afternoon, I'm sitting in Union Square Park, waiting to meet up with Grant, minding my own business, when a guy comes and sits down next to me. I mean like, right all-up-in-my-business next to me. And proceeds to hit on me/strike up a conversation with me about his ex-girlfriend. Because it's Union Square on a nice day, the place is packed and there's really nowhere else to go sit, so I arrange myself with my purse in my lap and my cell phone at the ready and humor the guy (hereafter known as Creeper).
After about ten minutes (and I've gotten Creeper to talk about something other than his ex-girlfriend - I've distracted him by asking him what California is like) one of those obnoxious public proselytizers gets up on his little stand in the middle of the sidewalk and starts shouting about finding God and the Ten Commandments and whatnot. Creeper rolls his eyes and shouts at the guy, "Hey, can't you just leave us all alone and let us enjoy this nice day?"
Of course the guy turns on him and responds with something like, "I'm trying to get you all to care about your immortal souls!" But as he's saying this, this little old lady starts yelling at him too. Notably, she yells, "Shut up asshole! We're just trying to enjoy a quiet afternoon in the park!"
And then another audience member joins in with some super snarky comments, and a homeless guy too, and people walking and biking past are stopping to watch the anarchy unfold. The whole time, I'm laughing and tears are welling up in my eyes from laughing so hard. Eventually Mr. Religious Tract huffs away, and it was pretty much the funniest thing I've seen in awhile.
Grant arrived shortly thereafter, saving me from Creeper (who was trying to extricate my phone number from me, ugh) and we got some cold drinks and walked from 17th all the way to 50th along 6th. It was a very nice walk and we talked about all sorts of things. He and I haven't spoken at length in months, so we had much catching up to do. Then we picked up the train and went to his place, where we watched television and ate sushi and experienced something he and I never had while we were dating - witty banter and idle conversation. Why, it was like hanging out with a friend! And we both kind of laughed at the novelty of it.
Frankly it was nice to hang out with someone and see a familiar face. I'm putting a lot of stock in familiar faces these days - anything to keep from feeling like I'm going to slip through the cracks of this massive city and be forgotten.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
I feel pretty, but unpretty.
That was a fun adventure. I went to the park, since the weather is so pretty and everyone in the world is outside. And who do I run into but Marietta! We had a really lovely conversation and caught up a little on each others' lives. She lives right around the corner from me (by which I mean like, six avenues and seven streets over, but I digress, we're in the same neighborhood); it's a little funny because I was just asking Helen on Wednesday if she knew what neighborhood Marietta was in (Helen's response was, "...Brooklyn?"). Small, random world.
My flight in was a bit tumultuous; there was some issue with my ticket - because I changed flights, JetBlue charged a rebooking fee and they said the payment didn't go through. Well, this was one of those times where technology is a blessed thing, and I pulled up my bank statement on my iPhone and said, "Oh hell no, that $115 went through, bitches!" (Minus the "bitches." And the "hell, no.") I even waved my iPhone around to prove I was right (not sure how that actually proved anything, to be honest, but it felt like an appropriate gesture of irritation). And then I gave them the transaction number and that squared everything away.
So then I went through security (they didn't do the weird hand wiping thing, I noticed. Mildly disappointed. I'd like to think they're checking me for sweaty palms and I pass the test. "Yes ma'am, you are sufficiently not too clammy for this flight.") and got on the plane and that was all fine and good. And the flight was fine too, except for the part where we were literally just about to land and the plane suddenly tipped up and started ascending again. Of course, everyone in the cabin began murmuring nervously and looking out the window in confusion. A moment later the flight attendant came over the PA and said, "Well, for those of you who have never experienced this before, I think we're doing a go-around...but I, uh, have no idea why." Oh great, that's great. For some reason unseen to us we can't land the plane. This elicits more murmuring and the flight attendant hurriedly adds, "But there's no cause for alarm!"
A few minutes later the pilot comes over the system and elaborates, "Well, AirTran is taking its good sweet time getting their planes off the runway!" Well, excellent. There wasn't a huge plane crash just before our landing, or a terrorist attack, or something. It was just AirTran. Nicely done, guys. Way to be.
**
So, I'm back in Brooklyn.
I remember those first weeks at UNCG, right after I transferred and I was working on Sweeney Todd as an electrician. I remember before each work call I would sit in the women's bathroom and steel myself - I kept repeating, "This is where you live now and this is where you work now and you have to make this work. This is your home now." And sometime in my second semester it all clicked and I made it work.
I can cite a million things instances like that. Things always somehow work out, but I worry them to death until they do. It's just who I am. I'm hoping to grow out of my tendency to freak out any day now.
My flight in was a bit tumultuous; there was some issue with my ticket - because I changed flights, JetBlue charged a rebooking fee and they said the payment didn't go through. Well, this was one of those times where technology is a blessed thing, and I pulled up my bank statement on my iPhone and said, "Oh hell no, that $115 went through, bitches!" (Minus the "bitches." And the "hell, no.") I even waved my iPhone around to prove I was right (not sure how that actually proved anything, to be honest, but it felt like an appropriate gesture of irritation). And then I gave them the transaction number and that squared everything away.
So then I went through security (they didn't do the weird hand wiping thing, I noticed. Mildly disappointed. I'd like to think they're checking me for sweaty palms and I pass the test. "Yes ma'am, you are sufficiently not too clammy for this flight.") and got on the plane and that was all fine and good. And the flight was fine too, except for the part where we were literally just about to land and the plane suddenly tipped up and started ascending again. Of course, everyone in the cabin began murmuring nervously and looking out the window in confusion. A moment later the flight attendant came over the PA and said, "Well, for those of you who have never experienced this before, I think we're doing a go-around...but I, uh, have no idea why." Oh great, that's great. For some reason unseen to us we can't land the plane. This elicits more murmuring and the flight attendant hurriedly adds, "But there's no cause for alarm!"
A few minutes later the pilot comes over the system and elaborates, "Well, AirTran is taking its good sweet time getting their planes off the runway!" Well, excellent. There wasn't a huge plane crash just before our landing, or a terrorist attack, or something. It was just AirTran. Nicely done, guys. Way to be.
**
So, I'm back in Brooklyn.
I remember those first weeks at UNCG, right after I transferred and I was working on Sweeney Todd as an electrician. I remember before each work call I would sit in the women's bathroom and steel myself - I kept repeating, "This is where you live now and this is where you work now and you have to make this work. This is your home now." And sometime in my second semester it all clicked and I made it work.
I can cite a million things instances like that. Things always somehow work out, but I worry them to death until they do. It's just who I am. I'm hoping to grow out of my tendency to freak out any day now.
Friday, May 27, 2011
I ask forgiveness, for the things I've done you blame me for.
Brief thoughts on the season finale of Glee -
So, this past Wednesday was quite the entertaining day. It was Carnival/Fun Day at my mother's preschool. Which somehow involved me filling up hundreds* of water balloons. And I didn't even get to play in the bouncy castle (yes, there was a bouncy castle. For the record, my preschool totally never had a bouncy castle. I think we had an Apple IIe and a rocking horse, and a seemingly unending supply of Cheez-Its). The kids had a good time (but seriously, if you had a bouncy castle at your disposal, how could you NOT?), which was fortunate because everyone present over the age of 6 certainly looked worn out by the end of it - and if no one enjoyed themselves, then that would shake my belief in the power of the bouncy castle.
I went out with Helen on Wednesday night. I drove into Chapel Hill and we ate dinner at this terrific Vietnamese place, and then sat in the park and ate ice cream. I think the highlight of the evening was taking a joyride in her friend's borrowed BMW convertible. It made me feel like I was in college again - driving down the main drag of a college town, top down, blasting some kind of ridiculous hip hop music or something.
Yesterday I went out with Stephen, and we indulged in bad Japanese food at a little hole in the wall kind of place off of Wendover. I told him he needs to move up to New York already (I told Helen this too, actually) because the city would be so much more fun for me if they were up there. For serious. I'm slowly realizing that all my favorite people are, if not scattered across the country, in North Carolina.
Today I helped out at the preschool again, since it was the last day of school and nothing quite implies anarchy like the last day of school. Now I'm watching a show called "New York Originals" and it's about home-grown shops and restaurants and bars in the city. I'm fascinated by a place called Let There Be Neon down in Soho. If only I was more well-versed in neon, that would be a really fun place to work! I mean, bending neon tubing can't be any harder than all that analytical chem lab stuff I used to do, where I bent and pulled glass tubes over a flame, right?
**
I, of course, remain apprehensive about returning to the city, but as someone much smarter than I am recently told me, "you're not ready to run home with your tail between your legs, not yet. Actually, not ever."
I'm trying very hard not to be sad. "Fake it till you make it," Jenn used to tell me. I suppose as far as this particular feeling goes, I have experienced much worse. But this is something that never gets easier no matter how many times I experience it - it's like the first time every time. More than anything I'm upset at my own weaknesses - or more specifically, how my weaknesses don't seem to lessen over time.
You know, I was re-reading my old livejournal, and there were things I wrote three or four years ago that I could have written yesterday. In 2006, when I was a sophomore at Randolph-Macon, I wrote about my then-boyfriend's upcoming visit. "I'm nervous about having Ryan come up to visit me, largely because of my issues with personal space." Even in college I didn't want to show my living space to my significant other - but then, my living situation then is a lot like my living situation now (as in, I'm living in a place that I simply cannot make my home...thus making it a place I don't want to be in and don't want to share). In 2007, during my semester off, I quoted the one Bible verse you will ever catch me quoting, and it resonates even more strongly for me now: Blessed are ye who weep now, for ye shall laugh. Wow, do I need that written in big letters on my wall, now more than ever!
I lament life change, depression, bulimia, life responsibilities, troubles with boys/relationships/sex/etc, problems with money, insecurities about my talents and my future at large, and they all sound like problems I still have. And it freaks me out. Am I doomed to never outgrow these problems, only to pile on new problems, never able to solve anything? This is a genuinely upsetting thought for me.
**
I'm going out to dinner tonight at another one of my favorite Asian restaurants. And come hell or high water, I'm eating at Don tomorrow. Not leaving town without eating some of that spicy tuna don.
*okay, it was like, maybe 40. But it was really hot outside and there were ants everywhere and LOOK IT JUST FELT LIKE A LOT, OKAY.
- Talk about a lot of converging plot lines. Holy tying-up-loose-ends-while-still-leaving-me-feeling-unsatisfied, Batman.
- I did love Kurt and Rachel's rendition of "For Good," (albeit their severely and awkwardly truncated version of it) but
- I enjoyed reading the live #glee tweets on my mom's iPad more.
- Stop with the original songs, Glee. Please. Please. You're making Ke$ha look thoughtful and introspective by comparison.
- Matthew Morrison is the world's worst chaperone.
- I...I hate Penelope Cruz. I just hate her. And she's particularly nails-on-a-chalkboard obnoxious in this role. Keira Knightley, while often comparably frustrating, was so much more interesting as a young-woman-of-breeding-turned-pirate than Penelope Cruz as...well, just a pirate. She looks hot but every time she spoke I wanted to hit a giant mute button.
- All those veiled sex jokes? Unnecessary and unfunny.
- Loved Vernon Dursley as King George II.
- Too many messy, pointless fight sequences.
- Just go see Bridesmaids instead.
So, this past Wednesday was quite the entertaining day. It was Carnival/Fun Day at my mother's preschool. Which somehow involved me filling up hundreds* of water balloons. And I didn't even get to play in the bouncy castle (yes, there was a bouncy castle. For the record, my preschool totally never had a bouncy castle. I think we had an Apple IIe and a rocking horse, and a seemingly unending supply of Cheez-Its). The kids had a good time (but seriously, if you had a bouncy castle at your disposal, how could you NOT?), which was fortunate because everyone present over the age of 6 certainly looked worn out by the end of it - and if no one enjoyed themselves, then that would shake my belief in the power of the bouncy castle.
I went out with Helen on Wednesday night. I drove into Chapel Hill and we ate dinner at this terrific Vietnamese place, and then sat in the park and ate ice cream. I think the highlight of the evening was taking a joyride in her friend's borrowed BMW convertible. It made me feel like I was in college again - driving down the main drag of a college town, top down, blasting some kind of ridiculous hip hop music or something.
Yesterday I went out with Stephen, and we indulged in bad Japanese food at a little hole in the wall kind of place off of Wendover. I told him he needs to move up to New York already (I told Helen this too, actually) because the city would be so much more fun for me if they were up there. For serious. I'm slowly realizing that all my favorite people are, if not scattered across the country, in North Carolina.
Today I helped out at the preschool again, since it was the last day of school and nothing quite implies anarchy like the last day of school. Now I'm watching a show called "New York Originals" and it's about home-grown shops and restaurants and bars in the city. I'm fascinated by a place called Let There Be Neon down in Soho. If only I was more well-versed in neon, that would be a really fun place to work! I mean, bending neon tubing can't be any harder than all that analytical chem lab stuff I used to do, where I bent and pulled glass tubes over a flame, right?
**
I, of course, remain apprehensive about returning to the city, but as someone much smarter than I am recently told me, "you're not ready to run home with your tail between your legs, not yet. Actually, not ever."
I'm trying very hard not to be sad. "Fake it till you make it," Jenn used to tell me. I suppose as far as this particular feeling goes, I have experienced much worse. But this is something that never gets easier no matter how many times I experience it - it's like the first time every time. More than anything I'm upset at my own weaknesses - or more specifically, how my weaknesses don't seem to lessen over time.
You know, I was re-reading my old livejournal, and there were things I wrote three or four years ago that I could have written yesterday. In 2006, when I was a sophomore at Randolph-Macon, I wrote about my then-boyfriend's upcoming visit. "I'm nervous about having Ryan come up to visit me, largely because of my issues with personal space." Even in college I didn't want to show my living space to my significant other - but then, my living situation then is a lot like my living situation now (as in, I'm living in a place that I simply cannot make my home...thus making it a place I don't want to be in and don't want to share). In 2007, during my semester off, I quoted the one Bible verse you will ever catch me quoting, and it resonates even more strongly for me now: Blessed are ye who weep now, for ye shall laugh. Wow, do I need that written in big letters on my wall, now more than ever!
I lament life change, depression, bulimia, life responsibilities, troubles with boys/relationships/sex/etc, problems with money, insecurities about my talents and my future at large, and they all sound like problems I still have. And it freaks me out. Am I doomed to never outgrow these problems, only to pile on new problems, never able to solve anything? This is a genuinely upsetting thought for me.
**
I'm going out to dinner tonight at another one of my favorite Asian restaurants. And come hell or high water, I'm eating at Don tomorrow. Not leaving town without eating some of that spicy tuna don.
*okay, it was like, maybe 40. But it was really hot outside and there were ants everywhere and LOOK IT JUST FELT LIKE A LOT, OKAY.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
you'll be the road, rolling below the wheels of a car.
So, my stay in Greensboro has been extended until Sunday. The weather is just too damn nice here, and as far as I can tell the weather in New York is going to be gross until approximately the end of forever. (Wait...wasn't that supposed to be Saturday?) Anyway. Being back home is surprisingly kind of great. Maybe because New York wears me thin so easily.
New York is the kind of place that, for someone like me, compels me to constantly run on very high adrenaline. Always moving, thinking, talking, processing - fast. I didn't really think about how goddamn exhausting that is until I laid in my old bed in my old bedroom the first night I came home, and slept like the dead for 16 hours. Let it be known that, in the city, I can never sleep like that, and I'd feared I'd lost the ability forever.
Anyway...other updates. I quit the club (or got fired...or something). I'm over that scene. I'm over a lot of scenes, actually, but that was at the top of the list of "scenes to be over."
I've been electricianing off-Broadway for a few weeks and it's been like a balm for my soul. There's something infinitely comforting about work that is simultaneously mindless and challenging. And physically tiring. And requires normal-people working hours. I hope I keep getting hired; I'm under the impression that the next few weeks will be busy. I need to know that I didn't make a mistake not doing another summerstock - although it may be better for me to stay in the city, even though I'd love to get out of the city for awhile.
No, I have to remind myself. Stick it out. I look in the mirror and tell myself stick it out. I've been re-reading Gone with the Wind and I find myself relating very strongly to Scarlett. You know, the part during the Reconstruction. Margaret Mitchell once said, "Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't."
Perhaps I have gumption. I charge into the world, over and over, even if I get beaten down with it. I don't like the idea of giving up. It rankles me. I need to take a breather but I ultimately must keep moving forward.
New York is the kind of place that, for someone like me, compels me to constantly run on very high adrenaline. Always moving, thinking, talking, processing - fast. I didn't really think about how goddamn exhausting that is until I laid in my old bed in my old bedroom the first night I came home, and slept like the dead for 16 hours. Let it be known that, in the city, I can never sleep like that, and I'd feared I'd lost the ability forever.
Anyway...other updates. I quit the club (or got fired...or something). I'm over that scene. I'm over a lot of scenes, actually, but that was at the top of the list of "scenes to be over."
I've been electricianing off-Broadway for a few weeks and it's been like a balm for my soul. There's something infinitely comforting about work that is simultaneously mindless and challenging. And physically tiring. And requires normal-people working hours. I hope I keep getting hired; I'm under the impression that the next few weeks will be busy. I need to know that I didn't make a mistake not doing another summerstock - although it may be better for me to stay in the city, even though I'd love to get out of the city for awhile.
No, I have to remind myself. Stick it out. I look in the mirror and tell myself stick it out. I've been re-reading Gone with the Wind and I find myself relating very strongly to Scarlett. You know, the part during the Reconstruction. Margaret Mitchell once said, "Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't."
Perhaps I have gumption. I charge into the world, over and over, even if I get beaten down with it. I don't like the idea of giving up. It rankles me. I need to take a breather but I ultimately must keep moving forward.
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