Leaving on a jet plane...

So, Monday morning at 6:30am I leave the big city of New York and fly back home to Los Angeles. I'm excited to go home, but I'm really sad, too.

I'm excited because I miss sleeping in my own bed with my own things surrounding me. I have tons of pictures of family and friends up on my walls, books on my bookshelves...And my bed is supercomfortable! (Especially in comparison to the chair I've been sleeping in since the 13th...not that I'm complaining...thanks Rachel!) Plus it'll be great to spend a little time with my family for a few days before heading back up to school on the 22nd.

And I'm actually excited about going back to school, too! I feel like this semester is really going to be good for me. I'm planning on working hard, and being prepared for all of my classes...of course, I say this before every semester starts and the usual pattern occurs: I'm really enthusiastic for the first two weeks, and then I put the homework off a night thinking "it's ok, I still have tomorrow to do it," which then turns into me making a list halfway through the semester of all the reading I still need to do. (Last semester I had over 200 pages for 2 classes that I never ended up reading. Did decently well in the classes though, so that's good-ish.) But this time I'm planning on doing it right, staying enthusiastic the whole time. I got to choose what classes I wanted to take this semester, they just mostly had to be upperdivision. (Nevermind that two of the classes I REALLY wanted to take were cancelled after I had enrolled in them...stupid budget cuts.)

Not only that, but I miss my friends. I feel like I always make some good friends towards the end of the spring semester, right before summer break, soI have people to go back and talk to. Plus, I have a new roommate, so it'll be interesting getting to know her. My other roommate is still there too, and he's newly 21, so it'll be fun going to bars with him and the rest of whatever crew we manage to scrape together.

On the flip side, I really am going to miss New York. Taking subways to get wherever you need to go, being able to go to a different show every night, seeing all the strange people...it's SO different from what I'm used to.

And I'm really going to miss the friends that I've made here. Because it was such a short time, a few of us got really close really fast, making things so much more enjoyable. I'm really going to miss Laura's brilliant comebacks ("It's people like you......who make the world............stupid."), and Emma's twinlike Baby Spice looks, and Rachel's....well, everything. I can't even pinpoint one thing. It's just going to be so different going back to school and not having the three of them (or even just one of them) with me all the time. They are the ones I spent the most time with while I was here. What's going to happen when we are all separated?

I wish I was better at keeping in touch with people, because then I would be less worried about the state of our friendship once we all go to our respective places of residence.

But for now, I still have the weekend, and I plan to enjoy it while it lasts.

Thanks New York. I owe ya one.

Secrets....for everyone?

Last week flew by so quickly! To be honest, I don't really remember much of what I did except for working at the theatre, hanging out with Rachel (different Rachel from before, this one is from one of my internships...we're also in a facebook relationship), Emma, and Laura, and watching a few episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Oh, and moving into Rachel's dorm because my brother came back and sort of left me with no place to sleep.

I've been spending most of my recent weeks with Rachel, Emma, and Laura. Emma and Laura are two girls from England who are interning at the same theatre as Rachel and I are. Rachel and I became friends last month after I had an adventure that involved alcohol, suspenders, and Williamsburg. All three of them are really awesome. (Hi girls!)

I think I'm going to change directions of this post though.

I had decided when I first started writing in this blog that I wasn't going to give out the address, that it was going to be a blog for me and if people happened to find it then so be it. Then I decided that I should give it to one person who knew me in real life so that I would feel like someone knew about it and then it wasn't really a secret. So I told a friend from school, and my cousin, two people in completely separate parts of my life. Then, I told Rachel about it (I think I was drunk, I'm not quite sure though). Then I asked permission to use people's names in it. Then I mentioned that I had a blog to other people, but didn't give them the link. And I have come to this conclusion:

I suck at keeping (most of) my own secrets.

I'm really good at keeping other people's secrets, but when it comes to my own...the cat is ALWAYS out of the bag. I have a crush on someone? Everyone knows. I'm not doing well in a class? Even information that shouldn't really be shared with people is common knowledge! It's frustrating because I plan on keeping things to myself, but somehow they end up shared.

The example I can think of most (besides the blog thing) is my cruisefling. (Ha, more sharing. Oh well.) I went on a cruise back in December to celebrate my grandparents 60th anniversary (seriously amazing) and my Grandmother's 80th birthday. I love the piano and anyone who can play it. (I've mentioned this.) I went to the piano bar on the first night of the cruise, and the piano player and I hit it off, one thing led to another and voila! A cruisefling was born. When I got back from the trip I decided that I wanted to keep it to myself, not tell anyone. It was my business, why should I share it? That didn't last for long. I think two days after I had gotten back more than half of my friends knew. And when I share a "secret," I kind of become obsessive about it. So I was talking about it a lot. Again, I think I've shared this.

Anyway, I suck at keeping my own secrets.

Here's something that shouldn't be kept a secret though: a blog about the new subway scrabble contest. Check it. Seriously.

I could go for a McFlurry right about now...

I've been watching a lot of Grey's Anatomy lately. And when I say a lot, I mean I started the first season last Wednesday at work, and am now almost done with the second season. Kind of ridiculous.

Second semester of freshman year there was a whole group of us that watched Grey's in my room. The group consisted of Matt F (my then boyfriend), Matt D (Matt F's roommate), Vianey (my then roommate), and Christina (a girl from down the hall who Vianey had made friends with and in turn I made friends with). We used to crowd around the tiny tv set that Vianey had brought with her to watch the season 1 DVDs and the second half of season 2. Those were good times. We used to watch episodes, then talk about how we would all be friends for a really long time. When all of us were sitting together in that room, you could feel the bond that we shared. I think that people who walked in could even feel it. They just knew. But times change, people change, I talked about this already. Eh. Moving on.

Thinking about those times makes me really miss the closeness of good friends though. And having someone to like/love. I mean, in the more recent days of my New York life, I've made some really great friends. But it's been a long time since I've had a boyfriend. Or a crush on a real person. (Not that the guys I've had crushes on recently aren't "real people," it was just never realistic to like them. Religious differences and all that jazz.)

What I really miss is liking someone. Or having someone like me. Someone that I can really talk to, really be myself. Someone who will understand that I like to dance to the Spice Girls, or watch High School Musical, or that I get distracted by glitter. And who won't just say "aw, you're so cute," or just laugh at me when I'm being self-conscious. Someone who won't judge me for staying up until 4 in the morning because I was reading and couldn't put a book down, but will be able to say "yeah, I've done that. I love when that happens." Someone that will be my best friend, but also my teddy bear. When Beth and Erik were here, I felt like I was able to be myself. Yeah, I even spun around the subway pole at 3am and they supported me, they didn't care that I was acting like an idiot. When I used to go to camp with Rachel and Sunny, I'd get superhyper, and they loved every minute of it. They got hyper with me. I need more people like that in my life, not people who will put me down because of what I like or what I think.

I guess I keep coming back to needing more supportive friends. I think it's more than that though. I'm lonely. I'm tired of not scrolling through my contacts list on my phone and not having anyone to call to tell about something stupid that I saw while walking down the street. I'm tired of spending nights by myself. I'm tired of not hugging people. I'm tired of being alone.

I know that you aren't supposed to look for love, or it'll come when you least expect it, or whatever, but...it's difficult! Ha, like I have to tell more than half the world. We all know it.

Well, I guess it's back to more Grey's Anatomy. I wish I had a McFlurry to eat while watching McDreamy and McSteamy...

Too many thoughts are running through this head of mine

I've started and deleted four entries in the past 20 minutes. None of them seemed interesting enough, so I'll just summarize them all here:

1. Last night I was terrified that someone broke into my brother's apartment somehow because I heard a loud bang in the living room. However, when I went to check (which I HAD to because my cousin made me) nothing was out of place...fricken weird.

2. My friend Erik (from the same theatre group as The Director) is in town and we're going to see August: Osage County tonight! I'm excited. I hope he doesn't get all flirty and weird like he normally does. But, since that's how he normally acts...He probably will. I'm excited to see him though, it's been a long time.

3. In Jane Green's novel, Swapping Lives, married men and women seem to not have opposite sex relationships with non-married men and women. I'm not married, so I don't know.
But it kind of seems true. I don't think either of my parents have relationships with non-married couples, nor would they go to lunch with one of their friend's opposite counterparts. I'm not quite sure though. Hmmmmmmm. Questions, questions.

4. I've recently discovered Pandora.com and I LOVE it. I typed in Ferras and now I get to listen to all sorts of awesome people like Ingrid Michaelson, Sara Bareilles, Ben Folds, The Afters, The Weepies, etc etc etc. AWESOME!


and now I'm off to see August: Osage County!

Die, Vampires, Die!

I saw [title of show] tonight. Since I didn't have work at the theatre that I normally have work at on Monday nights, I went by myself to get tickets. When I went in, the guy selling tickets told me about the lottery that they have, which had tickets that were the same price as back row in the balcony, but the seats are in the front row. The only catch was that the lottery wasn't for another hour.

When the time finally came to get in line for the lottery, I noticed a girl who had been sitting by herself in Starbucks (which is where I had gone to pass the time). I went up to her and asked if she was seeing the show by herself, and she said yes, so to increase our chances of getting tickets I asked if she would put down two and I could put down two, and she agreed that it was a good idea. Since we still had half an hour to wait for the names to be pulled, we started talking, and it turns out that she had the same major as me, just at a different school. She was in NY for the summer (like me), but taking a 6 week acting class.

Normally I feel like I have a handle on my insecurities, but tonight I feel like I really failed at keeping them in check. I mean, it's probably because most of the time I just try not to think about the fact that there are millions of girls who look like me but are thinner, who sing like me but better or with more control, who act like me but better...who are a better version of me. But when I was there, talking to this girl who was a musical theatre major who still had two years left who was taking acting classes in New York, who had been to 12 or 13 shows and was able to critique them, who already knew that she wanted to go to London next summer to study at the Royal Academy, who had more knowledge than me...I started doubting myself more and more. There is so much I don't know, so much I'm scared of, so many things that I think I'm not good at...Things that I need to improve on or I'll never make it anywhere. As it is there are only a few people who actually make it on Broadway or that are well known - who's to say I'm even going to come CLOSE to that?

When I see shows that have characters that question themselves and eachother, like [title of show] did, it brings up questions in me.

At school, you get out of it what you put in, but if you don't know how to put more in, how can you get everything you need out of it? I'm the kind of person that needs my ass to be kicked so I can learn what I need to know, but I'm scared. I'm scared of so many things...but I don't know how to get over it.

What if I'm never ready to perform on Broadway? What if I'm never good enough? What if...ugh. Damn those stupid "what if" questions.

In [tos] they have a song called "Die, Vampires, Die" which is all about killing off the insecurities and self-doubt. So I'm going to try to do that, but....ugh. It's hard, ya know?

Right When it was Starting to Feel Real...

I keep wanting to post something of substance, but Passing Strange is clouding my mind. How ridiculous is that?

When I came to NY before I went to Israel over spring break, Daniel (my older brother) had to go to work. I was staying with him for the three days before I left on my trip, so while he was at work, I wandered around the city a bit. He was living on the Upper West Side, so I just wandered straight down to Times Square and looked around there a bit. Because I didn't really have any particular place in mind, I just sort of walked around in circles looking for something that might be fun to do. Somehow, I kept walking on 44th between Broadway and 8th Ave, and I saw the sign for Passing Strange. I had no idea what that show was, so I kept walking, not even stopping to glance at the poster or signs that were around it. Around 5, Daniel called me and we went to TKTS to see if we could get tickets for anything that night. He told me to choose two shows, just in case one was sold out. My first choice was Spring Awakening, and then I picked one at random, and it was Passing Strange. Spring Awakening was sold out, so we got tickets for Passing Strange.

We went to dinner at this place called Mars 2112 (a weird alien restaurant across the street from Mamma Mia), which was interesting. During dinner, Daniel and I talked about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life regarding theatre or a cruise line or whatever I thought I wanted to do, so I kind of had that in the forefront of my mind when we went into the show. We ate dinner quickly, then headed over to the theatre.

When we first got into the theatre I didn't really know what to expect (since I hadn't heard of the show), and they were playing this really weird music that sounded like it was badly recorded. It wasn't music that I recognized, but it seemed kind of "olde tyme" or however you spell that. The show started off with Stew (the narrator) starting the story with the rock and roll kind of vibe, and it was very cool. The show continued, chronicling Stew's life through other actors. The whole story just really got to me, and made me think. It was about Stew's life and his attempt to write songs and music and whatnot.

I think one of the things that got to me the most was towards the end. Stew was talking about how after one of the free previews, his friend (who has a pretzel stand down in the East Village) told him that the thing that the Youth was looking for in the play, the "Real" only exists in art. And that really got to me. Of course he lightens the moment immediately with a "damn pretzel man. You're [deep]*" but it was enough to set me off crying immediately. It was just so...sad? Profound. I don't even know. The whole show just made me think about everything. I don't even know how to explain it really.

Anyway, while I've been back in NY, I've seen the show twice. (Unfortunately it closed today, otherwise there's a good possiblity I would have seen it at least once before I leave next month.) The second time I saw it, I was with Rachel and Daniel, which I've already briefly talked about.

The last time I saw it was Saturday at 2pm. Spike Lee filmed it. I think I cried through the entire thing. It just really made me...feel. Wow, I sound so lame, but it's really true. It made me think about my life, and how I'm always searching for something to make me understand more about my life, but it's just out of reach. I don't know if I'm even making sense.

I'm really glad that I was able to see this show as many times as I did, even if it doesn't make sense to you. The show is just so poetic and fun and amazing and...yeah. I hope when it comes out on DVD or on TV or whatever form Spike Lee decides to release it in that you watch it. At least listen to the music.

Some of my favorite quotes:
"Everything's alright"
"Only love is real"
"Love is more than real"
"Right when it was starting to feel real"
"Is it alright?"
"If I was any more real, I'd be fiction!"
"Don't be sad about your chosen path/and where it's taken you thus far./'Cause that is what you did, and this is who you are. And it's alright."
"Come down now/remove your mask see/all you've got to do is ask me/I'll give you all the love life allows."
"My love is more real than all your dreams."
"I've been thinking about leaving my fingerprints on your being."
"Life is a movie too/starring you/you're whole family's the cast and crew./that's a little secret between god and you."

It makes more sense if you're listening to it. I urge you to buy the soundtrack because it has the liner notes and all the lyrics and helps you understand who's singing so you can follow the story a bit better. I love everything between Youth and Desi. And everything with the mother. Really, everything is good. If you go to the website you can listen to a few of the songs. Check it out. Seriously.

And now I'm off to bed with the soundtrack playing in the background.


*I can't remember the right words right now, but that's the general gist.

High School Musical 3

Ok, I just saw this preview and I am SO EXCITED. I'm also an eight year old. Whatever. I'm totally going to the midnight showing.





I know it's awful, but I just love it so much. I can't help it. I watched the second one when it premiered on tv with a bunch of my friends and it was awesome. Eek! I'm so excited.


That's all I have to say for right now. Not enough words in my vocabulary to express my excitement, so I'll go away for now.

We are family...

I had brunch with my cousin (David) and my brother (Daniel) today. It was really interesting. I'm not a big talker, but I feel like I contributed to the conversation a bit.

The last time I hung out with my cousin was probably in December, when my family and my dad's brother's family and my grandparents on my dad's side all went on a cruise together to celebrate my grandparent's 60th anniversary and my grandma's 80th birthday. My grandparents are the cutest people ever, by the way. They'll have been married 61 years next month, and they still act like two teenagers. They are SO cute. It's ridiculous. If I end up half as happy as them I'll consider myself very lucky. (Yes, I might have stolen a quote from Friends for that, but whatever. It's totally true.)

Anyway, the cruise was the first time the whole group of us had been together as a unit for a really long time since probably my younger brother's bar mitzvah. So it was really nice for us to all connect again, this time with us all being a bit older (David turned 30 this year, Rebecca [David's sister] is 27, Daniel is 24, I'm 21, and my younger brother Lewis is 18). It made it so we could have seemingly adult conversations. It was a very different experience, having all of us sit at a "kids table" together, being the ages we are now, versus us 10 years ago, where none of us were really at the age where we all wanted to talk to eachother. Now we've kind of formulated who we are, and what our opinions on certain subjects are, and figured out how to talk to people.

Anyway, it was really nice being able to see David and Daniel and have a real conversation with them about things that we're all interested in now and feel included, instead of having all the subjects just go right over my head. I can actually contribute. And that's a pretty cool feeling.

Dance Dance

My best friend Rachel was in NYC visiting her cousin the past couple of days, so yesterday she made time for us to hang out. We went gallivanting around the city hanging out and making jokes and just having a really great time. It was really awesome hanging out with her. We always have such a fun time together, laughing and making jokes and just being so natural with eachother...it's just great.

It was also great that I got to ditch out on work just to spend time with her, because I haven't seen her since probably January when I was home for winter break.

Two winter breaks ago, there was a rumor going around that there was snow falling somewhere in the vicinity of where we lived. That was just amazing to us, because snow NEVER falls near where we live. Ever. So, we got on our hats and gloves and sweatshirts and went driving around, trying to find the snow. We drove north, then east, then south, then west...but no snow was found. We drove around for probably about two hours, looking for snow, but never found it. So I called my mom, and she reported to me that the snow that was falling was about an hour away from where we were. Sad news for us. So, we drove back to Rachel's dorm and hung out there instead, where she put new music on my iPod that she thought I would like but didn't have because my computer doesn't hold much music on it.

Then, we broke out my camera.

We took a few pictures, then put a song on that our friend Jeremy wrote, and made a music video. Not a good music video, not even close to a decent music video, but a music video that has her staring at her computer the whole time except random times during lyrics that she points to me and kind of dances a little bit, while I'm singing all the words making funny faces at the camera. We're both randomly laughing and holding out notes too long or saying the wrong words and it's just hilarious.

I found that video before I left for NY and laughed at the ridiculousness of it, as well as another video that's just of me dancing over by the tv for a few seconds to another song that the same guy wrote.

A staple of Rachel's and mine when we hang out is dancing in a parking lot. The parking lot changes from time to time (usually it's the abandoned parking lot next to the college, or the parking structure near the college), but we always make sure that we dance. We put on old songs from our childhood, like Spice Girls or N*SYNC or BSB or whoever and we dance and sing at the top of our lungs with the car stereo blasting. Always a great time. We just let loose and dance. It's awesome.

If you haven't experienced dancing in a parking lot listening to old songs with a good friend or two, I suggest you try it ASAP. And then tell me about it.

Finding love in all the wrong places...

I always have a crush on the wrong guy. The rabbi's son who was dating my then best friend. The camp counselor when I was a camper. My sixth grade science teacher. The advisor of my youth group. The director of my theatre group. A professor. A director of development at my internship.

And I make it worse for myself by becoming semi-blatantly obvious about. Can you be semi-blatantly obvious about something? I'm not sure. But I was. I'll go to the more recent ones since those might be a tad more interesting. (Plus I can remember more about them).

The Director of my theatre group and I had gotten quite chummy towards the end of my high school career. I was no longer in the theatre group, but I missed him a whole lot. Whether it was the friendship aspect or more is one thing I'm not sure about. In January of my senior year, my boyfriend (and best friend) had broken up with me. I was heartbroken and bitter, so I decided that for my creative writing class final, I would write a play about it. When I finally finished the play in April I felt much better about everything that had happened, and decided that I wanted to share my work with someone. I sent it to the Director and asked what he thought. That sparked the beginning of our really close friendship, where we began to talk about everything and completely opened up to each other, which inevitably led to me having a crush on him and him kind of liking me back. (Take note - I was 18 and he was 34.) He made dinner for me one night at his apartment and after that I was completely hooked. I spent all my time checking my email (our relationship was mainly maintained through email and IMs since I was still in school and couldn't talk on the phone during classes) through my phone. Over the summer it escalated into spending more time together, but it never got more physical than hand holding. This is mainly because I was an "innocent child" that he didn't feel right corrupting, then sending off to college. After I left for college the whole thing kind of fizzled out into the occasional email or IM conversation, then he abandoned talking to me completely.

The Professor was....wow. An ongoing "thing" for a very long time. I had the Professor my freshman year. I was smitten after the very first class when everything he talked about got me excited about learning...and the fact that he had a great ass. He looked to be about 23, not the 36 that he actually was (at the time...now he's 38), so I was unaware of his age until a few months later. One day during class, a friend of mine and I had decided to take a count of how many times he turned around to show us his ass, and at the first tally we both went to put it down on the same piece of paper at the same time and both dissolved into giggles almost immediately. We caused quite a stir (even though class hadn't started yet), so he kind of scolded us and tried to get us to tell what we were giggling out. Neither of us would tell (because how embarrassing would THAT be?) so he dropped it. The next week I found a comic that I thought pertained to what we were talking about in class which was mildly amusing, so I emailed it to him. The Professor emailed me back with "that's funny, but I don't think it's what had you laughing in class last week..." to which I replied "No. To be honest, what were laughing about during class is how I have a huge crush on you and I think you have the greatest butt ever. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable...Just thought I should tell you the truth." That's not even the slightest bit awkward, right?? My roommate came back from the bathroom after I had sent that email to me curled in a ball on my bed kind of shaking. Ha. Anyway, after that we had a lot of awkward emails sent back and forth during that semester, then we stopped. Then over the summer I emailed him again while I was drunk (there I go again with the alcohol!) and that got us started talking again. Then we exchanged phone numbers, and he took me to lunch when he was visiting near where I lived. A lot of emails and text messages and phone calls later, we had become friends, and I was very comfortable with having a pseudo relationship with this ridiculously intelligent (although occasionally arrogant) professor. My friends, however, were less than thrilled that I was talking to him in more than a teacher/student context. So eventually we stopped talking for awhile, but a few months later we began again. Then stopped. Then started. Then stopped. And so they cycle continues. Right now we're on a hiatus. Still nothing physical.

Now I have a crush on the director of development at the internship that I'm working at. 32, kind of reminds me of Buzz Lightyear (which I told him when he took all the interns out to get drinks the second week I was here). Apparently, that night (which I don't remember much of...yay alcohol) we were flirting pretty hardcore and he was reciprocating... What am I getting myself into now? Probably nothing. I'm just overanalyzing. But he just came to my building (there are two buildings for this company) and my stomach jumped into my mouth. My face probably turned bright red too. Awesome.

We'll see if anything happens. Probably not, but you never know, right?

Drink it up.

I like to drink.

Yes, that may seem like an obvious statement coming out of a 21 year olds mouth - or fingers as the case may be - but it's true. I enjoy drinking. Regardless of if it's wine, or malibu and pineapple juice, or Magner's Irish Cider, or kamikazees, or beer...I like it. However, that has caused some problems for me.

Fifteen days before my 20th birthday, I decided to stop drinking until I turned 21. The night before I decided to do that had been an excessively bad night where I had gotten blacked out drunk, banged my head eight times against eight different surfaces, told my friends I wanted to kill myself because I was so unhappy with the situation with my boyfriend Matt and my old roommate, ran into the street (it was late at night so luckily there were no cars coming), threw up multiple times, and passed out. Not such a good night.

The next day, Matt and I broke up. I resolved right then and there that the only way to figure out how to get my life back in order and take back control of the things I thought I could control was to stop drinking. So I gave it up. When I told my friends this, they thought I was crazy. Me, the nonstop party girl who always outdrank even the most capable of holding their liquor? I'd never be able to do it for a year! (My friends always show the greatest of confidence in me, huh?) (One of these days I'll write about how they actually do show confidence in me...)

But I had resolved to do it for me, just to prove to MYSELF that I was capable of doing something and following through. One week later, when I still hadn't had a drop of alcohol, I rewarded myself with a pint of ice cream. One month, a dinner at Olive Garden. Two months, a trip to a casino. Three months a play. Six months a dinner with all of my friends. I eventually made it to a year, without having even a taste of alcohol. A year was 16 days before my 21st birthday. I didn't do anything for the year anniversary of my giving up alcohol. I didn't feel it was as big of a deal as I had once built it up to be. I celebrated my 21st birthday in style, going to Vegas, having a mere four drinks on my birthday and declaring myself done. The next night I had one drink and decided that I didn't need to drink anymore, I had had enough the night before.

Recently I have found myself back in the same patterns as before I stopped drinking. Not as extreme, thank goodness, but taking one too many shot, or not eating enough before I start so everything hits me TWICE as hard.

And now that I'm visiting somewhere that I'm not used to, I shouldn't be exhibiting this kind of behavior. It's not like my college town, where everything is (seemingly) safe, people here are CRAZY! So, I'm resolving to drink less. Not stop drinking altogether, because I don't think that's necessary (nor do I want to give it up, I still like drinking!), but less. But hopefully socialize just as much.

Even though stumbling around and hitting on random strangers is quite fun.