Flat Like Paper

A few things -

This past month has been full, and yet empty. I've spent the last few weeks apartment hunting day in and day out, as have my parents (they are the greatest parents in the whole world, I can't express how grateful I am), and most days doing intern work for the lovely and stupidly talented Ken Schatz. I'll begin his classes next month, so hopefully those will shift my gears a little.

I was on my first film set yesterday and the day before - Production Assistant sounds all fancy fun, and it certainly had some wonderful moments (sugar glass is AWESOME stuff), but the biggest lesson learned is that I am not cut out for menial labor. But doesn't everyone say that? And then doesn't everyone who says that get stuck in it forever? I met some amazing people, and I'm super stoked to possibly stay in touch with them, and Ken was involved, so it was obviously delightfully fun, in that aspect, but it was an all night shoot, averaging 90 degrees in the building, and I didn't get to watch much of the shoot at all, which was unfortunate. A fabulous learning experience nonetheless.

Learning a lot about the city's neighborhoods as I travel miles around the subway system to areas I've never been to, places I've never heard of, and realizing that being a little ginger white girl in NYC on a small, post-grad budget kind of sucks.

Need to get in touch with Laura, see if and when I'm back on at the store. I'm poor and I hate it. I'm still incredibly financially dependent (another thing I can't express enough gratitude for, since my parents are goddamn saints), which I also hate, and the grind that is apartment hunting and being extremely poor and having none of my friends around and feeling so empty, creatively, is leaving me with disturbing thoughts and a startling apathy. I don't know if it was the mental and emotional abuse of this past semester and Caesar, or if it's just post-graduation mental fluctuations, or something deeper, and more dangerous, but the apathy and hollowness of my creative desire is upsetting. What do I need to do? I'm stuck in this not-quite-real-life state, with my time at this apartment running out and no foreseeable place to call home, no job, no steady schedule, no income, and no real direction anymore.

I'm sure it's a thing for everyone, questioning their purpose and what they're doing with their life, but I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

Take What Is Yours

"I will be dead to myself, alive to the outward world. I will observe and participate in an imaginary world. I will wake up with my heart full of dreams. Sweet poison of an empty theatre..."     - Boleslavsky's "Acting: The First Six Lessons"

Hello again. I'm all gradamutated, as my friends tell me. I'm a mutant "adult" now.
The ceremonies were wild and incredible and startlingly lonely, being my only friend in a sea of purple. I had Commando and my parents there, and then Unicorn came to the Radio City ceremony, so afterwards I had lots of love and fun, but doing the graduation thing itself was surprisingly solitary, simply because I was one of two graduates from my studio, and the other girl isn't really a friend of mine. But it was exhilarating, and still doesn't feel real. I bet it won't feel real until August, when everyone goes back to school and I'm still off working and auditioning. Then these wet and paper-thin wings that have just cracked free will finally be dry enough to use.


Needed some space to myself, and it feels deliciously good to be home (and by home, I mean this wreck of a city that I belong to, now). I'm infected by this place, and I don't ever, ever want the cure.

I'm interning with my dear friend and incredible teacher Ken Schatz this summer, and, with any luck, will be continuing to work with him indefinitely from here on out. I'm taking his acting class in July, and will be assisting in the production of a trio of one acts starting this summer. It doesn't go up until the fall, but the process begins months in advance. I'm finally going to get to see how it all happens, the workings of making a production go, the process, which, until now, has been some cloudy mystery off in the distance. Unfurling the wet wings on my back so they can be seen.

Hanging with Ken also gives me the bonus of being exposed to some seriously incredible theatre. He somehow has a distinct knowledge of important and meaningful theatre, art that wants to be something, art that is made out of scraps of soul and life and sewn together with words and given as gifts to a listening public. I was fortunate enough to catch Erica Fae's Take What Is Yours the day before it closed. It's almost impossible to describe, aside from saying that, yes, this is the kind of theatre that needs to be happening. This is art that matters. This is relevant and powerful and striking and it is real in every sense of the word. Have a video.

Got some reading done today, hopefully more tomorrow, maybe I'll see some friends in the city too. Still working on sculpting my hair into some fun retro things, just to defy the pin-straight curtain it has always been. Working on embracing me, finding out where I'm going, what I want, how much I want, because I want so many things, now. It's all there to be taken, it's just waiting, and I don't know how to get it all yet, but hell, I will find out.


I love you all. Share love. Love is warm and wild. Love is cool and peaceful. Love is silence, love is music. I feel so much love I don't know what to do with it, sometimes.

Inappropriate revelation of the day: Painting your nails is awesome. Having your underwear ride up awkwardly with wet nails is far, far from awesome.