upon waiting for the 1 train.

there's a cool breeze teasing the edge of my miniskirt as i wait on the above-ground train platform- a treasured rarity in the depths of summer in the city.
i can see across the harlem river from here.
there is a small peak of rolling green hills amid the high rises which, seduced by the momentary fresh air, reminds me of italy.
which reminds me that my passport has just expired. damn.

but, i can't bear to sink below that film of disappointment. so i brush it aside, closing my eyes and turning my face into the beating sun.

here and now i will relish living in a destination city, even if the language is my own and the gleam has long faded and my dreams sit dusty in plastic storage crates under my one-side mussed bed.

the sky is bright blue. the color richer through my fancy sunglasses, a deeply perfect robin's egg.
it is surprisingly quiet for a 9am work day. the truck grumblings muffled somehow. a siren does a quick crescendo, but just as quick fade out, leaving only the light chatter that beats below the city, a heartbeat that never stutters.

there is no train in sight. unsurprisingly. i'm going to be late. the mismanagement of public transit is just another truth to be swallowed down on a pretty day.
but it does mean the tracks extend unblemished into the distance, curving enticingly away.

how many pictures of roads from all over the world are scattered in my life?

each curving forward. a promise, as all roads are, of paths ahead and paths behind.

salvador dalí, only in new york

the museum of the city of new york has an exhibition currently showing called "only in new york" based on photographs from the LOOK magazine archives. as usual, the archival images of new york are really compelling. what is it about this city that holds people's fascination?

living in new york is not easy-at least not for everyone. for me it is hard as hell. despite all my education, training, experience in multiple fields, i struggle to make ends meet, working several part time jobs in order to live out the desire of achieving my dreams. yet with the stress is the high ups of pleasure, entertainment, culture at your fingertips like a drug.  sometimes it feels new york embodies the ultimate schizophrenic, bipolar personality. something that, admittedly, flirts with my own artistic self.

life between the boroughs is literally crossing borders of culture and language. the economic classes, despite living on top of one another in the 22 square miles of manhattan, subsist in alternate realities. money changes not just your daily schedule but your entire relationship with the city. but even within your own reality life is in constant flux here. ups and downs, light and dark, sunlit days and megawatt nights, subway tunnels and grand ballrooms, high art and xxx porn, bikram yoga and hangovers.

it is surreal.

one of my good friends from the past is in town. whenever i am confronted with the reality of life outside of new york against my own day to day hyperbole, i see a bit of the edges of our bubble ny life.

i appreciated the jolt of salvador dali this morning. i have always had a fondness for dali, picked up as a self possessed teenager with limited drawing skills, but a ridiculous imagination. some how he captures the edge of reason with an air of both impending mortality and hysterical giggle. today, i feel that struggle not only in my own work as an actress, but in my aesthetic of life.

and on that note, a few dali quotes for the day:

I am painting pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest aesthetic concern, I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint them honestly.

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.

The desire to survive and the fear of death are artistic sentiments. 

when did everyone else suddenly become an adult?

a couple weekends ago my besties was quasi surprised by her beau proposing. quasi because she has badgered him about it for months. so much so, in fact that when he actually did propose, she thought he was playing a joke.


it was actually a very sweet, spur of the moment change. too many friends were risking giving away the whole surprise, so he just called me- said come take the camera and hide, i'm doin' it now. and really it was the best. maria is a fabulous mix of fancy hotness, hiding in a pair of holey sweatpants and donald duck tee. so proposing in the middle of the farmer's market in union square was the best thing.


though i was hiding behind a statue and couldn't hear, my favorite moment was when he got down on one knee and she's like, "what are you doing? get up!" even when he showed her the ring, she was still busy shaking her head and gesturing around her, looking for the gag. it was incredibly sweet.


i unfortunately had to run to rehearsal, but before i did we celebrated with some champagne and oysters. my rehearsal was - ehem- well lubricated. ;)

the weekend was also a good excuse to see some people i haven't seen in a very long time, despite living at various times on the same island as them.

the only problem now, is i'm pretty sure maria is now an adult. boo.

does this mean she's now going to creep over to that third of my facebook friends who all have babies and pta and all sorts of other things i can hardly even imagine??? i'm not too addicted to facebook, but each time i'm on, i stumble across something from at least one person i last remember sauntering down the halls of high school, complaining about a crush or gossiping about an outfit or hanging "being cool," and now they are building houses and running carpools! this is meant in no offense to any of these people. you guys are still awesome. it just... your adults!

i may work a million part time jobs to cover my acting habit, my own apartment, a bottle of tequila in the freezer, and yes, i do have a spoiled cat, but somewhere along the way i missed the adult train. i'm still kissing on cute boys, wear way too many hippy clothes, and like my pigtails.

hmmm. i do live in new york. i guess none of those things really mean much one way or another.

can i buy my ticket to Where the Wild Things Are yet?

they only come out at night

i admit to be a little exhausted right now. i'm relatively good at fighting the exhaustion caused by running between part time jobs and rehearsals and auditions and attempting to have a teeny bit of social life. however, i feel slightly justified as for the last week and a half my apartment has been a total disaster zone. living in a disaster zone is not conducive to restful happiness.

then again, it is really just your typical manhattan story. a few weeks back i get a call from the super announcing "they have the right" to break into my apartment. which they will be doing. through my window. this doesn't leave me feeling particularly secure in my little inwood abode. i mean who's cousin has been hired to so easily walk through my window into my apartment?? as fierce a hunter of large creepy, crawly, and flying invaders as Chui is, the only human she seems intent on taking down is me. my calves are particularly attractive targets when she is hungry.

though she has been known to leap onto my back when trying to make a point, she clearly put no such fight up to the invading hordes, who proceeded to demolish the wall of my bathroom. when the leak they claimed to be fixing could not be found, they haphazardly covered said wall in what appears to be black trash bags.

one does not want to be able to see inside the wall of one's new york apartment. one does not want the creatures that live in one's walls to be able to gallivant about ones bathtub as if on holiday. even when one has hungry feline friend.

the unknown plumbing bandits are still parading through my apartment while i toil at my "survivor" jobs, leaving bits of crumbling cement and tile strewn about.

little do they know, i've lived in africa. i have plenty of experience finding alternative means of brushing my teeth.

sweat tea and lemonade

...as my sister would sing.

i am counting down the hours before i hit the road with my baby (yes, the cat) and embark on a 10.5 hour drive to boone, cakilacky! woo hoo!

i need to revamp and recharge for a summer in the city. it has been a difficult couple of weeks, but i'm determined to enjoy every aspect of this trip, especially meeting my new niece!!! woo!!

more exclamation points!! woo!!

alright, maybe i have not had enough sleep the last couple of days. there might be a slight possibility that i am unprepared for the ridiculousness i have completely thrust upon myself. 10 hours?? ten and a half hours?? yes. i'm an idiot.


but i did want to drive instead of fly. i admit to having a momentary tinge of jealousy upon learning katrina is already in town after a very early morning flight. however, i am reaffirmed after reading of the latest "bird strike" on a flight at la guardia--the plane landed safely this morning and no one was hurt, though paramedics were called. this was what befell flight 1549 that landed in the hudson - it was attacked by the hordes of geese that live in manhattan.

now am i afraid of a hitchcokian geese attack? perhaps when i have to run through a stubborn flock of them, refusing to move from the path in the park, but i'm not particularly concerned that one might take my plane down. unfortunately for the geese, the city does not share my faith. new york will be culling 2,000!! of our geese in the next couple months. it's pretty sad, especially as the humane society is crying foul -hardy har- and saying the geese that took down the hudson river flight weren't New York residents at all, but migratory geese.

i'm not sure how i would expect them to get the job done, but i am sure i wouldn't have imagined that they would be trapped and gassed!! we might as well write the disney movie right now-- or maybe it would be more appropriate as Hayao Miyazaki film... dark and subtitled.

this started so happy and now it is saddies.

no! happy times! with a little bluegrass, featuring my uncle Jim and one of his bands to lead the way

Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world

so the city of new york supposedly has a population over 19 million people. you'd think then it would be relatively easy not to ever bump into people you intentionally avoid. alright maybe not intentionally avoid-- but really its like somebody enjoys laughing at the little idiosyncrasies of my life.

completely randomly, i bumped into someone i used to date tonight as i left the the theatre. now really this isn't such a big deal. but i haven't moved in the same circles as this person and seeing him as actually existing apart from me is like a bizarre wrench into my reality. yes, the world revolves around me. (and your world revolves around you, so no big whoop.)

it's just hard to contemplate. is this because i'm not a grownup yet? i guess so.

i often think about the paths of life. of the moments i could go one way and go another. in fact i have a fully rationalized theory of the whole thing. basically it has to do with the physics theory of multi-universes. (which i love) in a nut shell, in this explanation of physical reality, every thing that could happen, has happened-- in one universe or another. everything you can imagine actually is a choice in the infinite possibilities of existence.

so here's my little thought on the matter-- there are definitely 2 moments in which we can sense the crossover of our self in our universe and the us in a different universe- 1) when you feel dejavu, it is because of some sort of residual "yes you've actually done this". and more to this post 2) when you can see laid out in front of you the path you took and the path you could have taken. i mean really see it, if only a few steps of it. those memories you hold on for years and can clearly say to your self, "what if i had done this? said this?" i think they stay locked in our minds, even the shortest or most inconsequential moments precisely because it is a moment where our universe has split. one of us took one path and one the other. and because we are the "original universe" we retain a strong connection to the moment of split.

ok, so i don't really under stand the physics, quantum physics? i don't even know what you call it. but i listen to a lot of lectures so there :p
and for those who often say i am full of shit check out this fascinating podcast explaining the multiuniverse theory: WNYC Radio Lab.

status: dirty

i like new york. i do. i like not needing to drive a car. i like having the theatre world at my fingertips, the culture, the clubs, yadda yadda yadda.

and yet at this moment i am incredibly nauseous. i was minding my own business, walking down the street when i had the pleasure of watching a young woman casually turn to a trash can and proceed to violently vomit. ew. i do not like vomit.

this isn't even the first time for this to happen to me. i have been subjected to full blown vomiting pedestrians on at least 4 occasions, none of which were bar-induced, late night, club scenes. no this is just your average, early morning or middle of the day vomit. ew.

and it is hard for me to tell which was worse- the midday pedestrian vomit, or the early morning homeless person pissing in the work-crowded subway car door. that just tainted my whole day.

perhaps i'm just being too delicate. admittedly, i still cringe when people spit onto the sidewalk or the subway platform. seeing that bubbly expectorate sitting on the concrete with no where to disappear to turns my belly. down south if one has to spit, one spits in the grass, cultured-like.

then again we've had yet another 7 swine flu deaths reported this weekend. and i have never in my life spent as many days sick as i have living in this city. colds, viruses, heck even food poisoning. you start to take it for granted-- oh so-and-so is sick? did they have the take-out or the cafe on the corner?

my sci fi geekness has a field day here on the island. it is just too easy to see how a michael criton or a stephen king virus could sneak in and take out half the city before anyone starts to really get nervous.

the other day on the subway, i had to fight every nerve in my body to keep from running from the car when the man behind me continued to hack, cough, and wheeze continuously for a good 25 minutes. i didn't want to offend the poor man, but i could practically feel the virus creeping all over me.

at least when the plague-- man made, alien, or natural-- descends, i'll be one of the first to go.

kili time

kili time

from sylvie emmanual's fabulous coffee farm when she had us over for tea:

september 11th and john leaves to go to canada today. isn't that strange. what am i still doing here? am i absconding from life or living it?  it is hard to say. life is different, that much is true.  and hopefully i am different too. i make grand promises to myself about how to live life, how to survive in america. only time will tell.