the cookie factory

 the cookie factory may make everyone insane, but it does produce good results.

COOKIES

crazy

COOKIES!

crazier

Christmas in the Cave

jim watson christmas at the Cave

the best holiday tradition in the Triangle, heck in all of nc, has got to be Jim Watson's Annual Christmas Show at the Cave. apparently this is the 26th year he has performed the christmas bluegrass special and sing along. i don't remember that far back. but uncle jim's evening is something that come hell, highwater, evil bosses, and mental breakdowns can't keep us away from. it's standing room only and the long timers know you gotta get their hours early.

i have only missed one as an adult, when spending christmas in italy. the only christmas i have spent completely away from durham and family... and yet it was missing the Cave that made me weep even when having such a wonderful trip with my then-beau.

fans of all types

sexy people and me

and while missing the cave makes me weep, being there makes me weep too. it isn't hard to psycho-babble out. christmas is hard. and the evening wraps so many memories underscored with a surprisingly emotionally manipulative soundtrack, despite the drunk people and the crowds.

smart way to jog

post halloween crash

it wouldn't be november without a blood-splattered bathroom. considering my costume this year was significantly less bloody (really you can't get more bloody than carrie-post-pig) i would have expected to make it through halloween without too much mess this time. but what am i if not a mess?

for as much as i love halloween and pumpkins and cheesy scary movies, i feel a bit like bride-of-frankenstein-cinderella after the ball. my dress needs dry cleaning, my ripped hose are in the trash, and my jack-o-lanterns are nothing more than shriveled squash. 

with 20-20 hindsight, there seems to be a pattern here. the melting summer days that run headlong into the excitement of crisp october nights. the highest sugar rush of costumes and bloody fun and cavorting. but as every babysitter knows, the caffeine and chocolate leaves a nasty crash. i try not to eat real sugar. sadly, i seem to be suffering the affects all the same.

winter is coming for me.

i can see summer just over my shoulder. the sunshine, the promise. but the days are noticeably shorter, the cold running through my veins.

summer is so easily a time to bake my brain into oblivion. lulled by beautiful days and the slightly slower city vibe. the afternoons run long, petering into delightfully cooler twilights. evening breezes seduce you into vampyric play long into the night.

but the frost burns my thoughts into action, racing in circles of could've, should'ves, as if mental laps would warm my blood stream.

i wrap up in layer upon layer, put my head down and burrow through the tourists, ping-ponging my way to each heated destination. but i can't seem to insulate my emotions.

i do have a plan this year: stay busy. audition audition audition. this, of course, could back fire spectacularly.

part 2 of said plan, then: let's just not think too much about the future for a little while, miss christina.

a couple months of ignoring the what-the-hell-am-i-doings won't kill you.

zombie wedding: we have feelings too!

i have been inundated with weddings!

this one, however had nothing to do with me. that being said, now that i've been alerted to it, i may need to beg one of my affianced step-sisters to rethink their plans. zombie wedding!

not only did the bride and groom get all dressed up for the big day, but friends on hand made sure the entire party was appropriate for the outing. they paraded to the official's office in all their glory, then spent the rest of the day drinking about town. i don't think TLC's wedding battle could have done better.

though my russian is a little rusty--thank you google translate-- these crazy kids are both on their third marriage, so i guess it was time to spice things up. and maybe after all those previous spouses, they needed something a little more permanent than "till death do us part."  strangely, when the interviewer asked if "the last time is special too,"  they replied " Oh yes!   It was a punk wedding - trash and refuse in our money instead of throwing beer caps, would still buy the grubs, but have not found."  --yeah, um thanks google translate... :/

perhaps they are zombies everyday and only put on the punk part specially... if so, i guess i can excuse both julia and rebecca from altering their current design scheme. i'm not sure i want to be a part of the trash and refuse. nor would i be particularly fond of the bridesmaid trash-bag dresses.

then again, it pleases me to see people who have found each other. all of us have a little bit of crazy in us, some more than others sure.  but despite my sometimes cynical outlook on love and certainly on marriage, the romantic in me warms, if only for their momentary happiness.

these guys know what i'm talking about. thanks mr. gosling. My Body's A Zombie For You by Dead Man's Bones

sometimes nothing is sweeter than falling asleep on someone's arm. even when you're a zombie.

pour me another one

i havent blogged in months and yet i had so much to talk about. it's like being bottled up with thick, viscous sludge. even without a cap, the bottle neck is too slender for it all to escape.

but i must document the Wedding of the Year debacle soon...

clearer? Cynicism vs. Conan take 2

i felt the need to add to yesterday's post after reading comments and talking to friends. i think the general craziness i bring to the world has tainted somewhat my intentions in this reflection on Conan's words. i didn't intend for it to seem downtrodden. to clarify:

i was surprisingly touched catching up with that last show over my laptop and had one of those "damn, they's is talking to me" moments when Conan looked into the camera:  "Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen."  

 and i felt myself rebel.  i'm a good person. i work hard and am nice to people.  and i wanted to say: i am not a cynic. which gave me pause.  that confusion is what led me to blog-it-out.

just how much of a cynic am i? how much of that latent struggle between happiness/depression/cynicism/naivete hold me back from achieving what i seek?  does even my own humor hold me back?

and yet, part of what i am, shaping the cartoon caricature of my soul, is that tug-of-war between skeptic and dreamer.  singer and weeper. story-teller and loner.

the chubby girl in the funny costume, saying "yeah? that's right. i'm a butterfly. deal."

and yet, Conan begs, don't be a cynic.  can i bypass the question by denying the struggle and faking peace till i am at peace?

would that solve anything at all?

clearer now? bees.

Cover me with your revelation 

Cover me with your sorrows tale 

Cover me with your holy water  

Cover me, dancing virginia

kilimanjaro: the metaphor of the mountain

with the rain delaying my run, i've finally finished posting my account of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. i'm glad i happened to look back at it today. it has been a tough week, i have struggled to come out of the dark side, to put out some positive energy, appreciate what i have without coveting everyone else too much.

yeah, i'm still going to struggle with that a bit, but having my own words thrust back in my face doesn't hurt:

"Can i hold on to the metaphor of the mountain? it is impossible not to see the implications of it in my own life. simply jogging, i am reminded- how can i quit now, this is not as hard as Kili, not as cold or hot, i can breathe, i am not empty. but of course even further the comparison is unavoidable. i am an actress- unemployed for quite a while, frustrated and more often depressed by my comparative successes to my friends and colleagues and family.

i see around me what i have sacrificed, the relationships, the security. but am i yet empty? and even when i have given everything, does that mean my feet stop? do i turn back, beaten, or do i go on? reaching my highest peak, battered physically, mentally, and perhaps only half brained, but reaching it some day all the same..."

read it here: shangala-bangala

wishful drinking - live!

i'm pretty sure i wrote about this book back when i first heard about it 6 months or so ago. carrie fisher's, aka princess leia's, memoirs about growing up with crazy family, fame, and eventually ocd/manic-depressive disorder.

well for about the last year carrie has also been developing and touring a one woman show based off of the stories in her book. it is fabulous. i was very lucky to be able to attend a special invited dress, to which i brought along katrina- whom i knew would appreciate the full crazy. the theatre was packed, for a dress. what made it all the more fun, was that many of carrie's good friends (not just the famous one's) were there.

this is now my favorite show playing on broadway.

Carrie Fisher is hilarious. she is also amazing. she has dealt with a lot of crap and had a whole lot of issues and some how come out on the other side with a fabulous broadway show in which she can laugh at herself and make fun of the ridiculousness that has been her life. but you know, she also says some pretty freakin wise things.

she talks a lot about her family in the show- the broadway version uses some really wonderful projections of her mother debbie reynolds (the actress) and her father eddie fisher (very famous singer) and the convoluted interconnectedness of hollywood "inbreeding". i love the stories of her grandmother locking her mother (as a child) in the closet -ala "Carrie" ironically enough, her mother retaliating by spitting on all her mother's clothes. carrie's parents infamously were divorced when her father left her mother for Liz Taylor, of all people. i cackled loudly when carrie admitted the neurotic fear of both parents (still alive!) showing up for her broadway hit on the same night and what might ensue.

the show, of course also deals with her addictions and manic/depressive disorder. again, how she handles it with such humor and grace-even if it took her her whole life to be able to do that, is amazing. i mean come on-- in the medical book for diagnosis - whatever its actually called- the definition of manic-depressive disorder has a picture of carrie fisher! that's like some one saying, yes christina, you are indeed a pathetic individual, let me show you here in Webster's.

i highly, highly recommend everyone in distance catch this show at Studio 54. and if you can't make it to new york. read the book!

5 stars

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?

manhattan fable-icious

here's the poster for my upcoming show

it's a very short preview run, with potential to move to a larger house


i'd love to see some friendly faces!

didn't drown today.

alright. so yes at a brief glance it would appear that it was going to be a rainy day today. however, fridays have become my day to get in a 12 mile run and i really hate to loose that. welcome, my friend, to the magic of weather.com's radar satellite. on this nifty little site you have you can play forecaster with all your local weatherman's tools. the best part is you can watch several hours into the future, following the blobs of clouds against your map. which means genius me was able to map out today that leaving work at 4:50 should give me a window of 2 hours at least before those pesky green and yellow blobs brought rain down on me. perfect!

ah. bargaining with... Zeus? well, it started out well. bright and sunny, if a bit muggy. thinking of my precious time gap, i thought it best to pick up my pace a bit. so i threw on next to normal--yes, i know i have sworn off listening to this crazy music, but for running it is surprisingly inspiring--and rocked out.

that's right. i admit to singing loudly between my puffing. i'll have you know it is a talent. besides, everyone wears earphones these days or is talking on their cells. and i'm not the weirdest person out on the path.

it wasn't until about mile 5 that things began to look ominous. across the river into jersey it was peculiarly dark. and the wind had picked up to an eye-squinting blow that made running like fighting against one of those workout jet mini pools . however, i had faith in my studious reading of the maps and was sure the storm would stay over there for at least an hour. ha. ha.

truthfully, i don't mind running in the rain. yeah you end up a bedraggled, wet rat, with your clothes sticking to you, but it is kinda nice, as long as your ipod is safely covered with a handy ziplock bag, especially compared to blistering heat. plus, running in the rain always makes me think of running up kilimanjaro with john. rain over new york smells surprisingly similar in that first burst to rain in tanzania.

it was when the rain suddenly turned horizontal that things became bad. just how does rain fall horizontally anyhow? huge pellets piercing my left side, biting into my eyes and ears till i was running with a hand at my face just so i could see the step in front of me.

then came the lightening. what does one do when one is far away from shelter in a lightening storm? and i'm not talking just flashes. i'm talking about clear distinct bolts. bright blue, splitting the sky all around me. each time one rent the air, burning on my retina, i jumped and yelped like a schoolgirl. and the real ridiculous part, i'd leap backwards, as if dodging a foot behind would save me if one of those electric spikes came down in front of me.

in spite of the storm raging, i kept my headphones in and turned up the volume. now this may sound foolish, however, did you not read of the girl who survived 300,000 volts because the charge went through her ipod wire, saving her vital organs?? just last week?? well i did. and those bolts were freaking big. and right above me. and though cars crept by me on the freeway, i remember from my youth that lightning is supposed to bounce off car tires or something.

it did occur to me that it would be the height of irony to be struck by lightning while rocking out to next to normal--Alice Ripley is belting out her electroshock therapy and i fall down crisp. it would be a fitting end to my last two weeks.

despite all my self indulgent musings on the effectiveness of electroshock therapy to cure one's foul mood, the thought of looking straight into one of those bolts was putting a bit of the fear of god in me. i played an electrocuted patient once for a doctor exam. they bruised me up all over then bloodied up my ears, where my eardrums i guess had burst, blackened up my hands, where the bolt supposedly entered, and bloodied up my feet where the burst was supposed to have exited. cool in makeup. not cool in actual burning flesh.

i admitted momentary stalemate by mile 7 and huddled under a tree for a good ten minutes, still leaping at the increasing light display. was i actually saving myself at all under this sad little bush of a tree on the shore of the exploding hudson river? i have no idea.

though the rain didn't let up much, the lightning seemed to move a bit further into the city and i took off again.

why is it that playing in rainstorms or defying your parents by leaping through ocean waves in the middle of a storm is only exhilarating, with barely even a hint that you might actually suffer? by the end of my 12 miles, i was running by children playing in the water while their parents huddled under plastic sheets. true, the rain was much kinder, but the occasional bolt, like an afterthought, still had me leaping backwards--a funny syncopated jog.

does the worry come from being older and wiser? i don't know. i don't have any storm wisdom. or is it the responsibility itself that creates the fear? as a child, the stormy ocean was thrilling--because, even if i wanted to ignore them, subconsciously it was ultimately my parents' fault if i got struck down? out there by yourself, well you've got no one to blame but you. you have to find the escape route, come up with the death-defying plan.

"sheild eyes with hand and out run storm" isn't much of a plan.

no more crazy

alright. enough of next to normal. it has been eating out my brain for the last week. i don't have that many good brain cells to spare. i don't want to end up like one of those crazy people on the subway, going in circles, talking to myself.

on the other hand, it is rather difficult to tell the crazy people from everyone else these days. the other night my friend michael admitted to being a random-line-singer. that is, he listens to his ipod on the subway, in the street, with his rather cool and remote expression. then suddenly he'll explode with a particular rockin out phrase, or a harmony on the chorus, totally oblivious to who or what may be listening. then it's back to his perfected bland, city disdain.

i think city dwellers are adversely affected by the need to have that perfected you-don't-bother-me, i-have-somewhere-to-be facade. you just can't rock out in the city, unless it's with your band, which 50% of the population has, or in one of the obscenely numerous karaoke bars. i don't really "club" but i guess that's the way whoever is left "rocks".

i don't miss driving, but i do miss rockin out in my car. no one should be denied the bohemian rhapsody experience, like my friends and i had--too many of us stuffed into my little car driving up to the mountains, on a college break i think, singing all the harmonies at full blast. that rocks.

alone is good too. spill your soul into the confines of your 4-door! i remember a director of mine told me he always warms up to his acting performances by singing opera in his car on the way to the theatre. i get that. open your throat, your breath, you heart and make the juices flow.

but what am i reduced to? toe tapping in the stifling sweaty subway. mouthing along the words. and yes, i admit it too, when the train rushes by and the sound decibels block out everything else, i let out a little wail.

my psycho pharmacologist and i

i read a lot of "zen" books in grad school. i mean that's what you do in acting school. you zen. you balance mind, body, spirit- so you are left with a malleable blank slate. not a blob of nothingness, after all, you have your own history, but it only lightly colors a spring board for genius characterizations and truth and life and being. yada yada yada.

well if i ever came close to achieving such a thing, it seems very far away now. especially after this crazy week. i think with the right ingestables, i could indeed see the aura surrounding me. and it wouldn't be pretty.

too bad there's not a quick fix to balance your soul back out. a pill you could pop that would make the bad things fade away. in carrie fisher's new autobiography wishful drinking she talks about electroshock therapy and how it works by pressing the reset button. erasing whole chunks from her head. that may be going a bit far for me, but it is fascinating. i've heard her talk about how her answering machine says, "leave a message. tell me who you are and how we know each other." yeah, a bit extreme. she's turned the book into a one woman show that roundabout is producing next season. i can't wait!


in next to normal the mother is a bit of a mess, to put it lightly. she has electric shock therapy, which "helps" for a bit, but she can't live with the hole's in her head. (today's playlist is a couple of good songs from the show. alice ripley just won the tony for her performance.)

it seems like such a struggle to stay balanced sometimes. i remember thinking during school that actors spend so much time and energy preparing ourselves to be free- to be open to other influences so that you can respond instinctually. normal people con't do that. normal people just bottle things up and compartmentalize... i guess.

or i've just had a hard week and need to buck up, as my own crazy mother would say. i am a grownup after all.

officially crazy cat lady

yes that is Chui. on a leash. in the park.

well, we all knew it was coming eventually--my fall into the crazy pile of new york. but in my defense, it was a beautiful day and i had just come from quite a long run so my blood sugar surely was to blame. also, while lazing in the park, my intrepid leopard at my side, i counted no less than 4 children on leashes, not to mention a host of peculiar little and big dogs. so there. it is perfectly reasonable to enjoy the afternoon walking your cat.

hey, my mother walks chickens. so i'm not that far gone, yet.

into inwood

 

Ahhhh! finally, i am in my own new apartment. or rather, i am newly in an old apartment- but it is all mine. it is a little ghetto, but that seems only right. i would be out of place in fine furnishings. it leaves room for the imagination to devise the right thing. well, having no furniture and sitting on an aero mattress in the middle of an empty apartment helps that also. one day i will have a dresser! and maybe a couch! oh, a bed! a bed! siiigh.

more important than my bare floors is inwood itself, at least where i am. i have managed to strike a balance that will hopefully keep me sane in the city. walking my streets, you would be hard pressed to say this is manhattan. a snapshot could easily be from richmond or carborro. best of all, a short walk takes you to inwood hill park. now when new yorkers call something a "park" it usually means there is some grass fenced off, unless of course it is a gravel park for dogs. it is ridiculous. a few months in the city and i can definitely say a "park" must be something one can run around. yes, there is the illustrious Central Park, with great lawns, theatres, and hidden inlets. but it also has such a sprawl of people, meeting a friend becomes a classic game of Where's Waldo? to run in central park is to put yourself on display with the crowds of fashionably coordinated packs. this is not nature. it is an event.

now My park is something else all together. it is, by manhattan standards, immense. surrounded by the hudson river, an actual forest woven with trails and hills and even caves! is bookended with manicured lawns. on one side are baseball and soccer fields with the most gorgeous view up the hudson and down to the GW bridge. on the other side of the forest are lawns to rival central park. it is comfortably filled on the weekends, with families and couples and strays from Columbia U, and deserted on weekdays except for a handful of joggers and walkers and a whole lot of geese. an inlet holds manhattan's only remaining marshes, where at low tide the birds gleefully stomp through the mud.  

g'night

december first

i love xmas music. i like those cheesy stations that start playing the "holiday" tunes from the moment the turkey day leftovers have been put away.
i am a fantastic xmas present giver. i'll easily throw down the credit card and wrack up the debt for the perfect gift. indeed, i'll waste hours thinking of such things with the music blaring.

but i don't really like xmas.

well, that's not fair- i can deal with the 25th. it's december as a whole that really drags me down.
why? is it the cold? the dark? the memories, the oldest of which still burn bright in reflected snow? even happy ghosts of xmas past are dredged with regret and loss.

this is clearly not good for my psych eval-- what does it say that this, the season of cheer, will certainly leave me in tears. maybe not tonight, but i know the countdown, how long i can hold out before my reserve of good faith, happy thoughts will undoubtedly run dry. as if the timer started today and now waits patiently to collect. sentimental bullshit really. and yet, also truth.

i tried to out run winter today. just me, 3 layers of clothes, gloves, a hat, an ipod full of harry potter, and 13 miles to keep me company. but i can't run forever.


i know where crazy lives. i'm not back yet.

musings while running

musings while running

i love when everything falls into place
only happens after i've given up the race
well i have eyes to see
i have life that's bursting forth inside of me.
so lets take the long way home
every moment i spend with you
lets make it slow, slow, slow
we'll count the moments as they go
~catherine maclellan

when you hear a song, is the message to you? or from you? is it meant for the moment and should you take heed? or is it just for the singer? or is it just chords?

when is my song no longer mine? i used to think when my songs and my play were performed for a crowd, they were still meant for me alone. but once everything is broken, do they now belong to a girl i've never met?

when the workers have all gone home, and it is just me and a 4 foot bird in fields of deep green coffee bushes, their little white flowers intoxicating, and the clouds clear, and the mountain is crisp and the vista suddenly extends forever and you can hardly breath for the beauty of it, is it for me alone? is it a smile? a blessing? a warning? or nothing at all? if i am not there to see it, if my heart does not skip a beat, is it meaningless?

if i am no longer yours, and your love is no longer mine, did i ever have it at all?

what is really mine? the few dollars-or shilingi- in my bank account? i suppose that belongs to the bank, unless i took them out and stuffed them under my pillow. but the pillow isn't mine either. it is my parents' or my landlord's... i once stole a thimble from a lost boy. that is mine. a faded painting with a faded promise. that is mine too.

my heart has many parts, the walls built thick with age. if i have given you part, when you no longer want it, do i get it back? or is it lost forever? does my heart grow bigger to make up for the partitions? or am i left with a little less for me each time? maybe those pieces still belong to others, not who they are now, but who they were then. the 6 year old, the 16 year old, the 21 year old... and yet just the right dart can somehow pierce the walls even now.

maybe it is better to save yourself for the mountain, the country, the perfect moment. at least they never change and you can always return and visit and even the coldest heart will beat.