No, really, "The Life"

I'm starting with the bad things did happen disclaimer. Skip this section if you don't want to hear about the downers

Disclaimer: My day was not perfect. I messed up my 4th toe on my right foot. I, as usual, had serious moments of insecurity at the first job of the day. I'm not missing a little bit of skin on the top of my right hand. I'm accumulating quite the sleep debt. I've been waking up before 8... every day. I woke up at 5am on Sunday. I ran out of time to eat dinner and my ravioli went bad. I swiped my card at the wrong turnstile on my way home. I saw a girl that looked like this kid-who-broke-my-heart's xgf (who he's pretty much still in L.O.V.E. with) and it made my stomach get a sinky feeling in it... etc. etc. etc.


But, today was a great day!
My tomato plants are growing. I arrived to both of my jobs a tiny bit early. The trains were on time. On my way home from ushering I was so sleepy I swiped my card at the wrong turnstile and despite my abrasiveness the guy at the Astor Place uptown 6 train still let me go in without paying the extra 2.25. While I felt incredibly insecure, people were nice today at job one and I did do a couple of things right.

I ate my lunch sitting on a tiny fence in the median of Broadway, in the sun. I didn't spend any money on lunch because I packed from home and it was delicious. The grumpy elevator man had a 1/2 a moment of less grumpiness when I asked him his name. His name is Jose. He was the perfect character. The freight elevator opened and there he was... a little dirty looking, smoking (no, really, a cigarette... inside, in the elevator), in his tank top with a scowl to make you feel like you didn't fit in the freight elevator with all his crankiness. Jose's alright.

None of my work boo-boos were noticeable to the people around me. I got asked out in seriousness. A friend who moved away from NYC is coming to visit and txted me to ask if I wanted to join her and her friends at Blockheads in a couple weeks. AND it's a day I'm not working!

Job one let out early so I walked to job 2. I was going to go to Barnes & Noble to kill time. Instead I stopped in Madison Square Park and laid in the grass and did NOTHING for a good 30 minutes. I didn't even write emails or make lists; I just smiled at the awesomeness of the world. After sitting there a few minutes 2 guys sat nearby and took off their shoes. I realized they were right, you could take off your shoes. I enjoyed the next 45 minutes of semi-low productivity, barefoot. A little boy waddled over to me and laughed every time I smiled. My eyes started to get stingy because of how blessed I felt in that moment. A few moments later I saw that girl mentioned in the negative section.... good to be back on earth... meh.

I walked to work and decided to stop at Barnes & Noble to change my clothes. The line to the bathroom felt too much like Cedar Point and it simply wasn't worth the wait. As I started to leave (after wishing I could buy at least 20 different books) my best friend [schae] called! We caught up just a little as I [originally typed we, but I guess I was the only one walking] got to work. We were short an usher, so on day 1 of training I was a real usher and met some great kids. These kids, of course, reminded me how I want to work with Jr. Highers/high schoolers and that I believe in physical theater and need to do more of it.

On the train home I met a guy named Seth and his dog named Murphey. They were both super nice and reminded me that if you want to change something (ie. people's inability to make conversation on the train when you know they want to... for however brief) you have to do it. Waiting's just not for me. I walked home surrounded by the perfect temperature of night air.

I arrived home to email from m.d., which always puts me in a good mood. Shortly after replying to that one I received an offer for a lighting designer gig.


Not every day's this great, but I have to soak these days up for other less favorable times.
I hope you're enjoying all of the sunshine & silver linings.

Surely Tums Will Help

Laying here, in my apartment in New York I had a flashback to the night before I came home from college, at the end of my first year. I laid on the floor of my dorm in Kollen Hall and waited for my friend to call me and tell me where the end of the year track party was.  She never called and eventually I just accepted that I was spending my last night alone.  We were both insecure and so I understood her fear of inviting someone to a place she was probably already having difficulty feeling a part of.  Looking back on it, we were silly, but at the time it seemed to matter.  I spent the rest of the night walking around, trying to soak in the campus. It was late April, early May. The grass was this rich grass green, and it has rained recently and so it felt like a real spring.  I don't remember being hot or cold, but simply craving.  I was craving to be in love with the world as I once had been.  I know this because I wrote it down.  I was also a little afraid to go home.  I didn't have a job lined up and I'm pretty sure I already knew I was about to get broken up with.  It wasn't for another month, but I knew it was coming.  Having a broken heart doesn't just keep you from falling in love with another boy, but keeps you from falling in love with the world.

I healed. It took a long time, but I healed.

Earlier I was talking with a friend about these guys in our lives.  We do this quite a bit.  It's fun... usually.  Often I try to help her work through thoughts about her love life and the questions I ask her to answer, I ask myself. It's good for growth.  It's nice to have friends like this.  I was telling her how something incredibly [seemingly] insignificant made me cry last night.  And I talked about falling.  Sometimes, by the time a relationship ends, that first part, the part when everything is new and exciting, if a little intimidating, falls away.  But, since this all happened at such an important time in my life, I can bring it to the front of my mind, like I imagine he does in the The Giver... so much so that if I had that power, someone else could feel it too.  I don't normally record those feelings in public domain.  It's dangerous. You never know who'll read them or misinterpret them. But, why is that enough to stop me?  I want to remember what that feels like.  It's awesome. It doesn't have to necessarily be falling in love, but the realization that you and someone else both think the other is great!  It's exciting and depending on who you are, it may cause you to act incredibly silly.  That's typically me.  Then again, a lot of things bring out my silly side.  My brother knew something up was up when I got in the car.  I seriously spent the entire spring break, and a good amount of time after I returned to school, high as a fucking kite, sans drugs.  I couldn't stop smiling and my insides felt like they were constantly injected with energy.  When I think about that too much I want nothing more than to fall in love again just so I have someone new to associate it with, who reciprocates it.

That's essentially verbatim to what I told my friend.  I then followed it up with a retraction because I have jobs to apply for.  I can't take risks with my heart right now.  A broken heart keeps me in bed longer than the flu.

But, it's still sort of fun to remember... remember having your heart jump when the phone rings and trying to not talk your friends' ears off about thing that seem so mundane to them. 

I was going to give you more detail and then I realized... a have a silver notebook.   And sometimes we don't share details with the world... or even good friends, not because we're scared, but because they're too sacred.  I think those words often get confused. 

As I told Jessica... "Goodnight! I love you! And make good choices... you know, ones that make you happy when you wake up"

I'm really grateful for my good friends.