I made the wall of shadow draw back, beyond desire and act, I walked on.

^^Why, oh why, did I decide yesterday to re-read Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair?  Neruda, guys.  He knows angst.  I was intermittently crying and laughing - laughing because I was reading my original copy from 11th grade, the one that's marked up and highlighted beyond comprehension, and there are all these hilarious notes written in the corners.  (The one that most frequently showed up: "NOT ABOUT SEX.")

Last night Anika and I went down into the Meatpacking District (or, as we call it, the Nexus of Evil) since neither of us has partied in weeks and we both felt like we've lost our mojo.  We started at the Standard, which is just the douchiest place since douchey came to Douchetown.  Seriously.  The guys are never really all that interesting or cute - but they, of course, think they are - and the girls are all bitchy.  (Anika and I both separately noticed a table of girls glaring at us angrily every time we wandered in their direction.)  Very bridge-and-tunnel, that crowd.  We bounced around to a few places, eventually ending up at Cielo where I met two cute neurosurgeons from Colorado.  (Or so they said.  Who knows.)  Unfortunately I couldn't party all night; I found out at 10pm that I had work at 8am.

So after about two hours or so of sleep, I dragged myself out of bed today and spent 10 hours doing the weirdest smattering of work notes - changing gel scrolls, moving some lights around on the balc rail (oh, my stomach hurt after that), wiring birdies, adding connectors to live cables (I really loved it when I was stripping the wires and the metal of my Leatherman made contact with the copper wire, eliciting a huge spark and zap, thus blowing the breaker but allowing me to continue stripping wires without electricity coming through them).  My favorite moment was when I was asked to go find four gobos that were supposed to kind-of-but-not-exactly look like this other gobo.  Hot damn!  I love these kinds of adventures.  And the one I picked out was perfect, of course, because I had an idea of what the look was trying to achieve.  (It was like when designers would ask me to pick color for them.  "Kate, find me a really nice yellow for like...a hazy early morning sunrise."  "Kate, find me a blue that doesn't wash too grey but isn't, you know, too blue without any grey at all."  Today's was, "Kate, find me a gobo that's like 'Dappled' but not really.")  Spot on.

I really like working.  Not just because of the money, but because being in the theater does something for me.  Especially working on these big shows.  I feel like I'm part of something, and that makes me feel less alone, I think.


**



Between the lips and the voice something goes dying.
Something with the wings of a bird, something of anguish and oblivion.
The way nets cannot hold water.
My toy doll, only a few drops are left trembling.
Even so, something sings in these fugitive words.
Something sings, something climbs to my ravenous mouth.
Oh to be able to celebrate you with all the words of joy.


Sing, burn, flee, like belfry at the hands of a madman.
My sad tenderness, what comes over you all at once?
When I have reached the most awesome and the coldest summit
my heart closes like a nocturnal flower.


See?  ANGST.

Life's too short, babe, time is flying - I'm looking for baggage that goes with mine.

Why am I watching Rent?  I hate this movie.  Although I have a real soft spot for "I Should Tell You." And "Take Me or Leave Me," of course.

Everything about today was an adventure.  I met Jeremy for lunch at this Panamanian place near Prospect Heights.  Neither of us had been to this restaurant before and ordering from the menu was something of a trial in and of itself.  Like, a menu item was just listed as "shrimps."  And "curry chicken" was listed twice, and no discernible difference appeared to exist between the two.  And when I tried to order tamales, the waitress informed me that they were "still frozen."  (To which I wanted to reply, "...couldn't you...heat them?")

Despite this, the food was delicious.  I had the "shrimps."  (It was shrimp with curry sauce and veggies and rice.)

After lunch I took the train into Manhattan, and met up with Megs at the U-Haul place way over on the west side.  Now, I haven't seen him in ages either (I mean, I haven't seen him since...Christmas 2009?) and this weekend/next week we're working on his show together.  Today we drove into Jersey with our rental van to pick up his shop order and load it into the theater.  More notably, after the load-in we went to this RIDICULOUS doughnut shop.  I had a huge square doughnut filled with coconut cream.  RIDICULOUS.

 For SERIOUS.

(the top one was the doughnut Megs had - jelly filled with peanut butter on top!)

**

Why do I feel so restless?  Why am I nervous?  I'll admit, the mornings and nights are the worst.  Whenever I'm being actively tortured by a particular feeling, I find that I wake up nervous in the morning and go to bed nervous at night.  I suppose I fear the things that transpire at night, and I'm going to wake up broken-hearted.  It's the part that still makes my heart sink into my stomach at the thought, that makes me want to lay my head into the crook of my arm and cry bitterly.

I-AM-DARK-HEART!

I'M WATCHING THE CARE BEARS MOVIES RIGHT NOW, DON'T JUDGE ME.  /endcapslock

Brooklyn is under a tornado watch?  What the fuck, guys.  And now it's all overcast-looking.  I took a walk earlier but I only like to walk when it's beautiful and sunny; walking when it's cloudy is just depressing to me.

Why are the Care Bears in a boat?  Why is there a giant talking star?  Why are fireworks coming of of their bellies? This movie made way more sense when I was 5. 

Yesterday I walked all the way to the Botanic Garden.  On my way back I ran into Jeremy, which was just too funny - he and I have been trying to coordinate schedules and find time to hang out for awhile now, to no avail.  And then by chance we run into each other (in the middle of an intersection, to boot).  We walked through Prospect Park, catching up on life (I feel like I've been doing a lot of that lately.  But it's a good thing).

Something was up with the male population of my neighborhood today.  On my walk some firefighters whistled at me from their truck as it was stopped at an intersection and I was crossing.  One guy passed me on his bike and turned to look at me and stared for a good five or six seconds before nearly running someone down.  And at another intersection, the cars were backed up (because there was a stoplight at the following intersection and there was simply not enough room for all the cars...as is typical around here) and this guy in an SUV tried to spark up a conversation with me.  Like this...

Him: "Hey, sweetie."
Me: *fidgets, ignores him, wishes I could cross the street already*
Him: "I hope you're having a nice afternoon."
Me: *continues to pretend like I can't hear him.  Scratches neck, pulls scab off a scratch, ow that kind of hurt, I hope I'm not bleeding*
Meanwhile, traffic begins to move.  He doesn't.
Him: "You sure do make the color green look beautiful!"
Me: *oh, I'm wearing a green dress today.*
Other cars honk loudly, he drives away, I cross the street to the grocery store where the guys stocking the shelves stare at me and watch me shop.  Seriously, what the fuck, this is the worst.  This dress isn't even that short. 

I think it's something in the air, or the water, or it's the tornado watch.  Usually maybe one of these things happens to me in a day...not all of them.  Although I was totally cool with the firefighters whistling at me. 

And don't cry. I can stand everybody's tears but yours.

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.

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.

I ask forgiveness, for the things I've done you blame me for.

Brief thoughts on the season finale of Glee -

• 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. 

Also, brief thoughts on PotC:OST -

• 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.

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.

Need anything? Milk...soda...a joint?

"I just want to know if you think I should trust him."
"That's like asking if you should believe in God."


**

I know this feeling, and I hate this feeling.  This is a feeling that has yet to end well.  Worse, this is a feeling that I can't ever seem to learn anything from, despite getting beaten down with it over and over again.

I keep hoping that one day it's going to fucking work.  Maybe this time will be different.  Maybe because this time I still don't know if I want it to be different, it'll thusly be different, and I'll discover that's what I really want.  Maybe the whole process only works when done in reverse.

different is good as long as different is also stunning.

In the past three days, I designed, hung, focused, and teched yet another show.  Yay me!

Last week at work was terrible - I had one really drunk customer I got stuck dealing with, and he was absolutely disgusting.  I really like working at the club - I mean, I get paid to party, essentially - but every now and then I get a customer or a group of customers who are drunk and belligerent and think it's appropriate to scream insults at me as security escorts them out.  All this drama, only because they hadn't paid their bill in full and I had the audacity to point it out.  Sorry, sir, I don't care how often you come here or how much money you spend or how many bottles you order or how you and the manager are BFFs.  You still have to pay, thanks.  And tip.  It's only polite.

Anyway.  Otherwise things are all right.  I had an amazing Greek dinner last night at this teeny place in Hell's Kitchen. Tonight, I plan on going to bed early - I've not been getting a lot of sleep the past week and I really should catch up. 

So, in April I'm thinking of planning a weekend getaway...maybe upstate.  I want to get in the car and drive somewhere I've never been and stay in a cute little place and revitalize myself.  Could be fun, right?

skin like a dying man's dream of skin.

I suck at blogging.

Anyway.  I've been in New York for three and a half months now.  This town is ridiculous.  I mean, shit happens here that just does not happen anywhere else in the world. 

I'm in between shows right now; my next one goes up in mid-March.  So I've been taking some time off from the theater, trying to enjoy the city in my own way.  I spend a lot of time riding the subway and exploring different neighborhoods and people-watching in Grand Central.

I've been going on dates with a bunch of different guys - maybe in an attempt to figure out what I want.  My mom says this is perfectly normal, but given that I've never really dated in my life - I've either been single or in a relationship - dating is weird.  And obnoxious, in some ways.  Like, just because you bought me a nice dinner - and by "nice," I mean it cost approximately my rent - does not mean I'm going to sleep with you.  Particularly if you're some self-important stockbroker schmuck tethered to his BlackBerry.  Yikes.

I've been seeing this one guy I've started to really like, but he's already made it clear that our romantic relationship is unsustainable in the long term.  And then I have at least two other guys who I'm not into but are harassing me nonstop.  And then there are the all the guys who think it's okay to try and pick me up in a variety of places I prefer to be left alone in: the subway, Duane Reade, Whole Foods, the middle of Times Square, Starbucks, the liquor store, Pret a Manger, the lingerie section of H&M, Bryant Park.  To name a few.  I'm emotionally exhausted.

Also, I really want to be in a flash mob.  Where do I sign up for those?