January: Muffin- baking
February: Gym
March: Orlando
April: Showcase
May: Graduation
June: New York
July: Harlem
August: California
September: Money
October: Bryan
November: Ruby
December: Snow
Monday, December 29, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Act I, Scene v
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smoothe that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Good pilgrim you do wrong your hand too much
Which mannerly devotion shows in this
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do.
They pray, grant thou, lest faint turn to despair.
Saints do not move, though grant for prayer's sake.
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smoothe that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Good pilgrim you do wrong your hand too much
Which mannerly devotion shows in this
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do.
They pray, grant thou, lest faint turn to despair.
Saints do not move, though grant for prayer's sake.
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Not sad but...
My two best friends are going to be in this very apartment within the week, I made $57 in tips last night, and I'm about to go on a D-A-T-E. Besides the disappearance the mini-infestation happening in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, what could be better?
Happy.
Happy.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Faith in Humanity
What a great fucking night. Wow. I have to write about this because my roommate is in bed and it's 2am on a Thursday morning, I just got home from a play reading that blew my mind and new freinds and a fun bar and amazing connections and what a small fucking world this is. This isn't going to be a coherent post, not because I'm drunk (one red wine and one Blue Moon, tyvm) but because I'm so high on how amaing things can be if you just let them happen and don't think and just talk and act and speak your mind and laugh.
Two months ago I did an EPA for a 6-person Three Sisters that pays nothing and I totally thought I bombed the audition. Two days later I get an email from the guy I read with , who is in the production, saying I thought you were great and I went to ACT too. I was quite flattered and happy. Then a couple weeks ago, he emails me to ask if I'll be in this informal living-room reading of a new play his friend wrote. I said yes of course (my first NY gig! sort of!) and was super stoked. I read it and wasn't crazy about it but the funny part was that I play a Russian coked out stripper (it takes place in a strip club) which is about two baby steps away from Sasha, the last part I played in school last March. Pretty funny.
So I go to the reading and I'm no in the best mood, but I'm wearing my power boots and my favorite green sweater and my red lipstick (I tell you, it's a fucking miracle, this lipstick- makes me think about my mouth which makes me want to talk which makes me want to have opinions) and I feel immediately welcome and friendly and interesting when I get there. he lives i nthis sweet apartment near Columbia, which is pretty close to my apartment and is a really cool area that I want Raife and Alex to live in so we can hang out there. There are two other ACT grads there from earlier years, and everyone is nice and fun. We chat, we start to read, and turns out this play is actually really good, it just needed to be spoken and not readwith eyeballs. The other actors are, for the most part, amazing. Only two or three don't blow me away, out of 11. One was the babka lady from Seinfeld! I love my part, I think I nail it at times, and everyone sort of agrees. I get lts of kudos, NOT THAT THAT MATTERS but it sure as hell feels grat after not acting for 4 months. Just to jump in and play with people and make choices and do a dialect and, well, ACT.
After the reading's done we have this awesome discussion about the play, giving the writer feedback (she's totally cool, my age and a vegan who works at themost awesome vegan restaurant called Candle Cafe on the UES, you have to go there if you ever get the chance) and I was like the polar opposite of how I ever was in Michael Paller's class; I actually had thngs to say that mattered and helped, I hope, and that people either agreed with or disagreed with but who cares, I said them and they were valid and I am a smart artist who can SO FUCKING DO THIS and my faith in my own talent and humanity has bee restored, at least for this one night.
We disband but five of us go to a bar, including the guy who emailed me and the writer and another ACT guy, both from the 90's and we know so many people in common, and have the same work ethic and aesthetic and to make a rambling story a tiny bit shorter, these two guys are like immediate best friends. I feel completely comfortable and fun and interesting with them, which is so rare for me ESPECIALLY with new people. I feel so remarkable. And they're both a little older.35 and 40, but I think that's wonderful and wasn't at all awkward.
All I had to do was trust that I was interesting and funny and smart, and it came true! Since no one knew me before, I coudl be this bold girl and not worry about how it compared to how i was last time, or something. I know that's utterly retarded but it's true; i think it's a big step in my growth. ther is something to be said for saying, fuck it, i am who i want to be, not who you think ishould be, and it maybe was a life-changing sort of night for me in that regard. i doubt it will last much longer, and who knows if any professional connecions come of this, but if only for the sense of energy it put back into my life, i will eternally be grateful and thrilled and remember this as my first sort-of acting job in new york.
*Please excuse the utter lack of grammar, punctuation, or sentence construction in this post. I'm high on life, guys.
Two months ago I did an EPA for a 6-person Three Sisters that pays nothing and I totally thought I bombed the audition. Two days later I get an email from the guy I read with , who is in the production, saying I thought you were great and I went to ACT too. I was quite flattered and happy. Then a couple weeks ago, he emails me to ask if I'll be in this informal living-room reading of a new play his friend wrote. I said yes of course (my first NY gig! sort of!) and was super stoked. I read it and wasn't crazy about it but the funny part was that I play a Russian coked out stripper (it takes place in a strip club) which is about two baby steps away from Sasha, the last part I played in school last March. Pretty funny.
So I go to the reading and I'm no in the best mood, but I'm wearing my power boots and my favorite green sweater and my red lipstick (I tell you, it's a fucking miracle, this lipstick- makes me think about my mouth which makes me want to talk which makes me want to have opinions) and I feel immediately welcome and friendly and interesting when I get there. he lives i nthis sweet apartment near Columbia, which is pretty close to my apartment and is a really cool area that I want Raife and Alex to live in so we can hang out there. There are two other ACT grads there from earlier years, and everyone is nice and fun. We chat, we start to read, and turns out this play is actually really good, it just needed to be spoken and not readwith eyeballs. The other actors are, for the most part, amazing. Only two or three don't blow me away, out of 11. One was the babka lady from Seinfeld! I love my part, I think I nail it at times, and everyone sort of agrees. I get lts of kudos, NOT THAT THAT MATTERS but it sure as hell feels grat after not acting for 4 months. Just to jump in and play with people and make choices and do a dialect and, well, ACT.
After the reading's done we have this awesome discussion about the play, giving the writer feedback (she's totally cool, my age and a vegan who works at themost awesome vegan restaurant called Candle Cafe on the UES, you have to go there if you ever get the chance) and I was like the polar opposite of how I ever was in Michael Paller's class; I actually had thngs to say that mattered and helped, I hope, and that people either agreed with or disagreed with but who cares, I said them and they were valid and I am a smart artist who can SO FUCKING DO THIS and my faith in my own talent and humanity has bee restored, at least for this one night.
We disband but five of us go to a bar, including the guy who emailed me and the writer and another ACT guy, both from the 90's and we know so many people in common, and have the same work ethic and aesthetic and to make a rambling story a tiny bit shorter, these two guys are like immediate best friends. I feel completely comfortable and fun and interesting with them, which is so rare for me ESPECIALLY with new people. I feel so remarkable. And they're both a little older.35 and 40, but I think that's wonderful and wasn't at all awkward.
All I had to do was trust that I was interesting and funny and smart, and it came true! Since no one knew me before, I coudl be this bold girl and not worry about how it compared to how i was last time, or something. I know that's utterly retarded but it's true; i think it's a big step in my growth. ther is something to be said for saying, fuck it, i am who i want to be, not who you think ishould be, and it maybe was a life-changing sort of night for me in that regard. i doubt it will last much longer, and who knows if any professional connecions come of this, but if only for the sense of energy it put back into my life, i will eternally be grateful and thrilled and remember this as my first sort-of acting job in new york.
*Please excuse the utter lack of grammar, punctuation, or sentence construction in this post. I'm high on life, guys.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
East Village Travelogue
Yesterday after yoga and Sri Lankan food, I wandered around the east village with my much-neglected camera. I hadn't taken a single picture since moving to New York! So I'm going to try and make a habit of taking more photographs. Here's what I found yesterday:
My favorite thing about this roll is that if I hadn't told you, I bet you would never know this was big bad New York City. I love finding these little oases and pockets that refuse to be paved over and boxed in.
My favorite thing about this roll is that if I hadn't told you, I bet you would never know this was big bad New York City. I love finding these little oases and pockets that refuse to be paved over and boxed in.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Titular Thoughts... or, An Excuse to Use the Word "Titular"
The title of my blog comes from a sonnet I wrote in Speech class towards the end of my second year at ACT. I worked really hard on it and was proud of the way it represented where I was at that time.
It's funny how people change and grow- a little at a time, almost imperceptibly, until one day you look back at old photos or journals and say, "wow, that is so not me anymore." Each moment is like a snowflake falling on a roof. Individually they have little weight, but pile a whole lot of them on and suddenly, all those tiny snowflakes have the power to bring a roof to the ground.
So, I'm posting the sonnet anyway, because I like it, but with this preface saying that I don't think it's really who I am anymore. Maybe I'm more of a plexi-glass bird now. Or paper. Something with a little more weightlessness.
"The Glass Bird"
Once windy wings are fragile, firm and cold
As blinking eye and beating breast give way.
She cannot shake the hardness that takes hold-
A lonely fog turns brilliant blue to gray.
So only mind can fly past frosty pools,
Through icy summers, echoing with song;
Dead lemon groves and cobwebbed garden tools;
The soaring was short, the waiting now so long.
Heavy on earth with eyes turned towards the sky
The glass bird cannot make her body fly.
It's funny how people change and grow- a little at a time, almost imperceptibly, until one day you look back at old photos or journals and say, "wow, that is so not me anymore." Each moment is like a snowflake falling on a roof. Individually they have little weight, but pile a whole lot of them on and suddenly, all those tiny snowflakes have the power to bring a roof to the ground.
So, I'm posting the sonnet anyway, because I like it, but with this preface saying that I don't think it's really who I am anymore. Maybe I'm more of a plexi-glass bird now. Or paper. Something with a little more weightlessness.
"The Glass Bird"
Once windy wings are fragile, firm and cold
As blinking eye and beating breast give way.
She cannot shake the hardness that takes hold-
A lonely fog turns brilliant blue to gray.
So only mind can fly past frosty pools,
Through icy summers, echoing with song;
Dead lemon groves and cobwebbed garden tools;
The soaring was short, the waiting now so long.
Heavy on earth with eyes turned towards the sky
The glass bird cannot make her body fly.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Apple-Flax Seed Muffins*
*Adapted from a recipe by Mark Bittman in How to Cook Everything
2 C flour
1/2 C sugar
1/2 t salt
3 t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
~
3 T vegetable oil
1 egg
1 C milk (I use light soy)
~
1/2 C flax seeds
1 1/2 C diced apple (I like gala or fuji)
-Preheat oven to 400 and grease a 12-compartment muffin tin.
-Combine dry ingredients, in a bowl, with a spoon.
-Combine wet ingredients, in a different bowl, with a different spoon or the same spoon.
-Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and pour in the wet mixture,folding gently until everything is just barely combined.
-Add in the flax seeds and apples.
-Fill up the muffin tin and bake for about 22 minutes.
Really great with margarine and honey, peanut butter (obvs) or plain!
Friday, September 26, 2008
Mice don't like cheese
They like peanut butter. Just like me!
So there have been tiny black mouse poos in the under-sink cabinet since my roommate and I moved in, about three months ago. I bought the kind of trap where you don't have to see or touch the mouse, put a piece of cheddar in the space for bait, and waited. And waited. And cleaned up more mouse poo. Waited some more. Forgot all about it, until a few nights ago when I heard it scuttling around in the walls. I even heard it squeak once, I think. I told a friend that if I ever saw it, I would scream. "That will probably solve the problem," he retorted.
So I knew it was time to amp up the ammunition. I had read somewhere that mice sometimes prefer peanut butter to cheese. I also read that they can fit through spaces as small as 1/4 of an inch, but I prefer not to think about that (as I avert my eyes from the hole left by the previous tenants' coaxial cable... clocking in at about 1/3 of an inch). So as a test, I put a tiny blob of peanut butter on a paper towel in the cabinet last night. It was organic Whole Foods peanut butter, to be specific... clearly nothing but the best for my household pests. I like to spoil my vermin before I murder them. There's a life and/or relationship metaphor in there somewhere.
This morning, the peanut butter is completely gone, along with a hole chewed through the center of the paper towel. That's right, the little fucker even ate the greasy paper. In the hope that (s)he would come back for more, I replaced the (old, yet not at all smelly) cheese with another little bit of PB. Then I ate some myself with some popovers that I baked yesterday. It was delicious, and the irony was not lost on me.
Tonight, as I was pretending to watch the presidential debate but really just putzing around my apartment trying to shake off a funk, I check my trap. Success! In under 10 hours! Yet another reason to thank George Washington Carver in my nightly prayers. I double-plastic-bagged that guy and took him/her downstairs to the trash. Apparently, one can be an animal-loving vegetarian and still get immense satisfaction out of the murder and subsequent disposal of a mouse. In case you were wondering, I cleaned up the remaining poos and mopped the floor for good measure.
Kinda makes me want to go here to celebrate.
So there have been tiny black mouse poos in the under-sink cabinet since my roommate and I moved in, about three months ago. I bought the kind of trap where you don't have to see or touch the mouse, put a piece of cheddar in the space for bait, and waited. And waited. And cleaned up more mouse poo. Waited some more. Forgot all about it, until a few nights ago when I heard it scuttling around in the walls. I even heard it squeak once, I think. I told a friend that if I ever saw it, I would scream. "That will probably solve the problem," he retorted.
So I knew it was time to amp up the ammunition. I had read somewhere that mice sometimes prefer peanut butter to cheese. I also read that they can fit through spaces as small as 1/4 of an inch, but I prefer not to think about that (as I avert my eyes from the hole left by the previous tenants' coaxial cable... clocking in at about 1/3 of an inch). So as a test, I put a tiny blob of peanut butter on a paper towel in the cabinet last night. It was organic Whole Foods peanut butter, to be specific... clearly nothing but the best for my household pests. I like to spoil my vermin before I murder them. There's a life and/or relationship metaphor in there somewhere.
This morning, the peanut butter is completely gone, along with a hole chewed through the center of the paper towel. That's right, the little fucker even ate the greasy paper. In the hope that (s)he would come back for more, I replaced the (old, yet not at all smelly) cheese with another little bit of PB. Then I ate some myself with some popovers that I baked yesterday. It was delicious, and the irony was not lost on me.
Tonight, as I was pretending to watch the presidential debate but really just putzing around my apartment trying to shake off a funk, I check my trap. Success! In under 10 hours! Yet another reason to thank George Washington Carver in my nightly prayers. I double-plastic-bagged that guy and took him/her downstairs to the trash. Apparently, one can be an animal-loving vegetarian and still get immense satisfaction out of the murder and subsequent disposal of a mouse. In case you were wondering, I cleaned up the remaining poos and mopped the floor for good measure.
Kinda makes me want to go here to celebrate.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Everyone else is doing it, so why can't we?
So, here goes.
Last time I was in San Francisco, my favorite urban eskimo said to me, "you should write a blog. I'd read it!" Yes, but will I write it? Am I willing to invest the time, make public my thoughts, fling open the doors to my life so that anyone can peek in? Oh, what the hell. Why not.
Tonight I put on red lipstick and curled my hair, and I'm going to see A Man for All Seasons at the Roundabout with my favorite play-going buddy. Skipping the Grey's Anatomy premiere in favor of Broadway, like a good little theater-nerd. Thank god for abc.com and the glory that is the full episode player...
Last time I was in San Francisco, my favorite urban eskimo said to me, "you should write a blog. I'd read it!" Yes, but will I write it? Am I willing to invest the time, make public my thoughts, fling open the doors to my life so that anyone can peek in? Oh, what the hell. Why not.
Tonight I put on red lipstick and curled my hair, and I'm going to see A Man for All Seasons at the Roundabout with my favorite play-going buddy. Skipping the Grey's Anatomy premiere in favor of Broadway, like a good little theater-nerd. Thank god for abc.com and the glory that is the full episode player...
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