ape shit

i started my day off right yesterday by acting alongside my wonderfully talented friend Michael Cyril Creighton (MCC) in his delightfully hilarious, witty, and wildly popular web series 'Jack in a Box'. then i proceeded to fall apart into a hot mess with each consecutive step closer to my day job. the shoot was such an inspiring and cool experience and i cannot wait to see the finished product. meanwhile, this Sunday, i'm shooting a scene from my solo show 'Use It' with Jim Turner (super talented man behind the camera for 'Jack in a Box'). it's gonna be guerrilla style (no permission/license) in a Starbucks, and a real, live baby is going to be in it! (because everyone knows real babies are better than fake ones. except when they cry.). Here's the most recent Jack in a Box 'The Mother'...uuggghhh! i love this shit!

hold fast

i'm trying to keep hold of the film shoot i was in on Sunday and remember that i am an actress and an artist and i'm making progress. so hard to do when you are sitting at a desk under flourescent lights. it was one of the best experiences creating in a collaborative setting that i have had in a long time. it also reminded me that i'm a good actress. i know that i can do characters and change myself - but those are characters that i create. not that this is a minus. i love creating my own work, but it's very different from taking someone else's work, someone else's vision and carving a place in yourself so that you can tell their story. one thing that it re-inforced in me was how much i love the medium of film and how much i would love to do more. i love how it holds life up so that you can see it in all it's infinite intricacies. and i love how during and after the shoot it crystalized life into moments for me and opened up my mind to all these loveley film fantasies. wouldn't it be great to have a shit-load of money so you could make any film you wanted to make? maybe i shouldn't let money limit me, though. maybe i should make what i can with what i have and just keep auditioning and striving and trying to be in a g-d damn beautiful movie(s) some day. here's my latest character creation. her name is Jan Popper and i'm a mite obsessed.

getting hitched

I just got engaged. He asked me on my birthday (Oct. 3), and since then I can't stop looking at my ring. Gotta check in every 5 seconds. It is one of the prettiest things I've ever been given. Warren said: 'I think you love that ring more than you love me.'

'NOOOOOO!' (furtive side glance to check in on my ring)

We've been together 10 years. Yep, in other words longer than a lot of marriages last (we win!) (just kidding!) (nah, i'm a little bit serious). I never thought in terms of a 'time line'. Perhaps because my ambitions bend towards establishing my career as an actress (i.e. - mememememe! - but in the best way possible), instead of enwombing a life and driving my Prius to Whole Foods for organic apples so i can make homemade baby food with my hand-crank baby food machine and then sit on our wrap-around porch and breast feed while observing a baby deer leaping through our wooded back-yard (i.e. my vision board. Well, a corner of it anyway. Again, i'm a little bit serious).

I recently remembered a recurring dream that I had when I was an adolescent and well into my early twenties. In this dream, i would be marrying the wrong person. These dreams would begin with me totally unsuspecting: I was SO HAPPY! Then i would be walking down the aisle and i would see the groom was someone i KNEW i didn't want to marry. I'd turn tail to run and i would awake in one of those screaming episodes that is doubly terrifying because you cannot make a sound. Your empty maw clawing at the mute night. Ever see the Oklahoma wedding ballet sequence? Sort of like that. Mind you, i've only recalled these dreams recently and i'm pleased to find that it explains a lot about the way i have talked and thought about marriage leading up to this point.

In the early days of our relationship Warren and i used to talk quite a-lot about how independent we were from each other, and how self-actualized, and how marriage was just a contract, and we didn't believe it worked, and anyway we're artists, and other really pedantic, obliviously ignorant stuff. Outwardly i would agree because i didn't want to believe in marriage. I'd seen bad marriages (my parents' being my main primer) and decided it sucked and would be best to avoid. You see a crappy marriage as an example of the institution and you think: 'hmmm... not so much'. So i characterized it as cheesey and cloying and co-dependant and destructive and weak and dorky all these things.

And then around year 8, i realized that in many ways Warren and i were already married: eight years together, four years LIVING together (which is an entirely different beast, and no easy feat). We've grown up together, spending about a third of our lives with one another. Holy shit, how did this HAPPEN?! You don't realize it when you're living it, but one day it creeps up on you and you realize... this person is an integral part of your life: He unflinchingly embarrasses himself willingly in front of you, and ENJOYS it. You assault him with rude and unfragrant body noises while watching hot vampire sex on True Blood. He behaves like an ass in front of your friends. You say things that you would NEVER dream of saying to anyone else EVER... IN YOUR LIFE. You both forget anniversaries (keep an eye on those BIRTHDAYS though. God forbid). When you get sick and have to go to the hospital because you STILL don't have health insurance, he sits with you in the emergency room for seven hours and holds you when you start crying at hour five - and laughs uncontrollably with you when the homeless dude walks out of the ER with an open jar of gherkins (?!). You both melt when the little baby girl with the big brown eyes at the table next to yours, smiles at you. He plays the straight-man to your neurotic freak fests.

And when you look at the beautiful ring he slaved to get you and instead of saying yes RIGHT AWAY like you are SUPPOSED to, you start crying that you're scared and you don't want to fuck things up and be like your parents, he looks at you unflinchingly and says

'It's just a ring'.

'Yeah. A really beautiful one.'

'You can always take it off.'

'Over my cold, dead, corpse.'

Then you both laugh because he gets it, and you get it, and you both get each other. And you both have each other. And you're so happy. And you're HOME.

Craptastic

i feel like such an asshole because it's been over three months since my last post and i'm working at a desk job and my brain feels like cold oatmeal. so - i'm posting this video i made in an attempt to make myself feel somewhat creative/proactive/motivated. i'm going to try and make another one this week - however that most likely won't happen because this Saturday is my birthday!! and i have various birthday activities planned! yay birthdays!! here is Melody attempting to sing Pippin's 'Corner of the Sky':

hero

it's a dirty flannel day. i am sitting at the 24 hour coffee shop with a lukewarm cup of cocoa. there's a drunk guy in front of the window pointing at indiscriminate things: CAR! LAMPOST! CARWASH-STREET-BUILDING! there's no particular reasoning i can make out behind his cataloging of the world. well, he is so drunk he's stumbling so...

something got taken away. i had it and then the world said, 'nope'. i think about how long i've been in New York, moving like molasses. it's like trying to break through a brick wall with a fucking spoon. i want so badly to make sense of what has unfolded but i can't. so, i give up today. i gave up last night too. i might give up for a few days. hopefully i'll have some reserve for my show on Friday. $5! UCB! 7pm!

who do i think i am? who am i to wish happiness? what right do i have to live my dream? i think these things right now. i do. i am wishing them away so hard. i am wishing them away with all my might. i just don't have much might today. all of the stuff that i should be embracing like: everyone has their own path, or - everything happens for a reason or - when one door closes another one opens or - there is something that can be learned from everything, just makes me want to interject with

'please, shut the fuck up. please, shut the fuck up and quit spewing hope like it's something real because i'm sick of my hope being scratched out of me.'

it's not nice. but there it is. i was waiting in line and Mariah Carey's 'Hero' came on and my eyes started stinging.

So when you feel like hope is gone
Look inside you and be strong
And you'll finally see the truth
That a hero lies in you

REALLY MARIAH?! A hero in ME?!!
okay. i guess there is some cheesy, syrupy part of me that wants to have faith. that wants to believe. that wants to live life accompanied by the 'Glitter' soundtrack. i guess it's just one of those days when you've got to be where you feel. and if Mariah to the Carey is gonna resonate today, i will just let it echo in my heart. perhaps there is a hero in me. holy christ. at least i'm laughing right now. this shit is bananas.

JANEY'S RECESSION TIPS

i'm unemployed these days, which is actually NOT a bad thing. i'm happier than i ever was while working. it's easier for me to see things in a positive light and i'm full of creative energies! while this recession has got almost everyone (including me) biting their nails, i decided to describe the way i've been feeling about it through my character Janey, in audio visual format. i hope you like it. if you do, you can vote FUNNY. my goal is to make one of these character videos per week. if i miss a week though, it's okay. and it's okay if i want to make up for the previous week with TWO videos the following week. i'm totally flex like that. and now, without further ado, please enjoy 'JANEY'S RECESSION TIPS':

JANEY'S RECESSION TIPS - watch more funny videos

It's a Biggun

i'm gonna make up for lost time by blogging the SHIT out of this next post. it's a piece i read last night at this AWESOME reading series called How I Learned. if you have two legs or a motor-bike (fuck the MTA) and inhabit the island or one of the fair boroughs, you should absolutely check out the next reading (Dave Hill is a guest!). Here is a veritable tome dedicated to How I Learned My Adolescence Was Over. Boom:

I have a feeling that adult-hood or at least my adult-hood is sort of like a second stage of adolescence, except now I have to pay bills. Maybe it’s because I’ve chosen to live the life of a performer and writer and I don’t deal with the conventional trappings of house, car, dog and/or kid. Maybe it’s because I still read the horoscope section and pretend to be cynical but recently just cut out a Free Will reading for Libra because it said ‘You Libra, are hereby invited to regard the next 11 months as a time when you will make your own life a masterpiece. Unseen forces and unexpected allies will come to your assistance if you do’ and taped it into my journal. Maybe it’s because I slept with my buddy, (the name I gave my baby blanket. anything or anyone you love needs a name) until the age of nineteen.

I do have a crisp memory of when my adolescence began though. It was at the top of a water slide in Cedar Rapids Iowa. My dad and I had just gone to see Back to the Future. It was a father daughter date and one of the last times I remember being with my dad before he left for Florida for what was supposed to be a couple years but ended up being forever. He has a penchant for the nostalgic and as he looked up at me in my tankini about ready to push my self down the slide he said ‘Annie, I just realized this is probably one of the last experiences you will have as a kid.’ Bummer dad. I think I rolled my eyes and laughed at him for being so sentimental. But he was right. It was.

11/24/88 (Seventh Grade)
Dear Diary,
GOD! Why can’t I just disappear, huh? It’s pretty damn clear that my presence doesn’t mean a shit to anyone. I mean I’m treated like a fucking baby every fucking place that I go! I am so fucking sick of it! So what if I like love stories with happy endings?! So what?! I’m sorry, that’s just the way I am right now! I don’t like those stupid dumb, un-meaningful science fiction movies that all these deranged older people around me (my step-brother and older sister) like. I’m so sick of being treated like my opinions don’t mean a fucking thing! CHRIST!!!

Needless to say, seventh grade sucked. Fast forward to freshman year of college. A real shit storm. I was home-sick. I had no clue how to take care of myself because I’d been so overprotected and sheltered growing up in Iowa. Of course I didn’t consider that to be the case. I thought I was tough and self-sufficient, but as it turned out, I was putty. It was so devastating to discover that I wasn’t as cool or independent or grown-up as I thought I was. I remember closing myself into an orange bathroom stall in the building that housed my English class and sobbing so hard that I was dry heaving. So disappointed that I was still a baby.

On top of being lost at sea, I had a whopper of an eating disorder. Which is sadly not uncommon among young women (or as I’ve also learned, older women). It wasn’t the puking kind, gross. Just the Skelator one. I called it my problem with food. My first role in a college production was as Grandma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. If that’s not a sign I don’t know what is. Other than getting cast as a death camp survivor. It wasn’t about losing weight or having the perfect body. It was about controlling everything around me because I felt like if I gave in to any impulse, (read anything enjoyable) I would lose all control. Fun times. It served its purpose. It kept me child-like. And if it didn’t mark the end of my adolescence it did help me to mark the beginning of the end. I was like a snake sloughing off her old skin. Or if you are a fan of the precious - like me – a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Or if you are feeling the holy spirit and slightly narcissistic – like that Jesus guy’s forty days in the desert.

7/26/94 (Summer After Freshman Year of College)
I am SCREAMING! Inside. These thoughts will not leave me. I hate this so much. I hate food! I hate it for making me so FUCKING crazy so that I cannot have one fucking thought without this damn obsession that haunts me and will not let go. I HATE THIS!

That summer, my friend Laura asked me if I wanted to get on a sailboat and cross Lake Superior with four other girls. I was spending the summer in my mother’s house and crawling the walls out of boredom. YES!!! Anything that would get me away from my mom and that cathedral quiet house. I had also taken on this cult like job with U.S. PIRG going door to door about water quality and trying to reach quota and I HATED it.

Crossing Lake Superior, also known as the watery grave of the Edmund Fitzgerald, is not an expedition to be taken lightly. You can die. It’s pretty serious stuff. But apparently I was less worried about death than a summer gaping with boredom and megalomaniac hippies behaving eerily like Ricky Roma and Dave Moss from Glengarry Glenn Ross.

The co-captains of the crossing would be Laura and Sarah. They were two years ahead of me and they went to public school while I went to parochial. Sarah was my first girl crush. She was, and is, a beauty. Quiet, extremely bright and quick with a come-back if you were disparaging to her or her friends. She was like Ione Sky in Say Anything except with the endowments of Marilyn Monroe. And I wanted to be like her. Which for some reason I couldn’t cop to, even in my journal:

8/10/94
The thing about this trip. I came unknowing. I feel at times like I know very little, especially around Sarah. It is funny. I never knew her really, but I was always in awe of her. She was this friend of Laura’s who seemed so amazingly angelic and perfect to me that she seemed untouchable. But I think I have come to realize that things and people as well, aren’t all that they may appear to be. I no longer feel in awe of Sarah (I was full of shit – I was totally in awe of her and remember eating tons of homemade pie at Silver Islet because I wanted curves like her). Sometimes I think I am being jealous or childish. (Ya think)?

I’m sitting in my apartment in Queens with yoga toes on my feet right now. Those are the gel devices that spread your toes apart and are supposed to provide a yoga ‘work-out’ for your foot muscles. This is the kind of shit I spend my money on, instead of something responsible like a new cutting board or socks. My right toes have been tingling the last few days and I am playing the hypochondriac and worrying about all the awful, morbid things that this could mean. I don’t have health insurance and although things are looking promising on the acting front, let’s face it – this business is a crap shoot. A crap shoot that seems to also have the momentum of molasses. So I guess I feel unsettled. Don’t grown-ups feel settled? Don’t they have health insurance? Don’t they have careers that pay them a comfortable or at least a decent salary? Not necessarily, I guess. My point is, I should have health insurance. I should have a baby or at least the conditions under which it would be safe or at least considered a good idea to have one. I should own something more substantial than an ipod nano (which I lost).

Great. Now you're all gonna think I’m clueless and unsettled. I’m figuring it out is all. I think that’s the best I can do right now. And actually I don’t think anyone ever has it all figured out ever. At least I’m not nineteen anymore. Sweet Christ, that was SO tough. Also – did I mention I have a show? Running at Upright Citizen’s Brigade? Featured in Time Out NY? I AM a grown up see?! My show is sort of my life right now and I’ll probably corner you later and give you a postcard. (except i didn't have any postcards to give out at the show. whoops.). I'm working on it folks.