Saturday, December 30, 2006

I hate titling these things

I feel like I should reflect on 2006, but I wouldn't even know where to start.
I look back at this year, full of so many adventures, I couldn't possibly begin to speak about how these last 12 months have changed me. I embarked on the new year with an incredible journey and a million experiences that I look back on with wonder, as if they happened in a dream. And yet somehow, I feel again those little buds of excitement in the pit of my stomach thinking about each experience again, as I did the first time it happened.
Ordering crêpes on the Seine outside Kelsey's after a night of dancing.
Walking to my classes through the marbled halls whose arching ceilings once towered over some of the greatest minds the world has ever seen.
Walking through the latin quarter on a cool crisp morning, listening to my iPod and drinking in the amazing world stretched before me.
Crying quietly as I walked through the Lux Gardens, looking up at the stone statues of ancient french princesses.
Laughing and chatting with Martine and my host brothers and sisters over dinner at night.
Spending an afternoon in my favorite café, reading and writing for hours. Crossing the street to the little cinema that shows old black & white movies.
Meeting up with my american friends for a few drinks at Odéon.
Walking hand in hand, kissing in cafés, having american tourists whisper to each other, "look at that cute french couple" hehehe
My last night in Paris, Kelsey and Florian, riding through the streets of a city I love with all my heart and soul, lifting my arms up and letting my fingers float through the strange delicate perfumed air.
Crying in the arms of Juliette, Adrienne, Hélisenne, Clément on my last few days before our show. Saying goodbye to them was so bittersweet.

Qu'est-ce que vous m'avez changé mes Parisiens, et qu'est-ce que je dois une fière chandelle à Paris, pour ses bras ouverts, sa magique infectieuse pour que je vais toujours revenir et saisir encore et encore...

Oh la France...I'm going back in march, but I'm so afraid. Afraid it will be so different, afraid I will feel out of place, afraid I will no longer feel embraced. This time I will be a tourist, really a tourist, nothing more. I just want to rewind my life back to those blissfull months, a sort of suspended dream that enchanted me completely.



In other news, I've started thinking seriously about my thesis. I'm gonna need a chalkboard onstage, I hope that's possible. And some chalk.

Monday, December 25, 2006

It's a Morris Holiday

my mom and I managed to pull the decorations together at saaaaaay 3am christmas morning.

nice.

turns out my dad isn't spending christmas with my sister and daemon, as I had hoped. My mom and I don't know where he's going. Maybe he'll sleep all day long, like he did today.

My mom and I opened a bottle of wine with dinner. She had two glasses. I had the rest of the bottle. And then I had to shut myself in the bathroom to have a little cry.

I just wish something was going right right now. I'm so tired of being dissapointed.

To top it all off, I don't think my thesis is going to work. And I still haven't turned in a proposal and I still don't have an advisor.

And I'm still wavering between overcompensating and being totally fine about Hervé and being completely miserable and sad and swearing off men forever like I did sophomore year. Maybe I'll write another manifesto. God knows I need to feel something empowering.

Ironic to be plunged in this dilemma on Christmas, considering its supposed to be the birthday of the man who saved me from eternal damnation. Right now, I pretty much feel I'm headed in that exact direction.

And of course by eternal damnation I'm talking about living with my mother and drinking a bottle of wine by myself every night, watching bad romantic comedies on the Oxygen channel - for all eternity.

God, Christmas is depressing.

Friday, December 22, 2006

home sweet gnome...i mean home...

if you said that like a maxim model, it wouldn't rhyme.

SO, I'm home, sitting in my giant bed in my giant bedroom. I forgot how IKEA it was. I feel so scandinavian. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow morning and be in Oslo cuddled up with some mysterious yet tender Norwegian underwear model/chef who writes like Ibsen and makes love like a god. Is Ibsen even Norwegian? Just go with it. The magic of the season.

I had a bitter, depressing morning which came swiftly upon the heels of an awful night's sleep. I'm not going to go to Hervé's house when I go back to France for spring break because he has to work, which just for the record, I UNDERSTAND. But that does nothing at all to keep me from being really dissapointed. I want to see his adorable family. And his dog. And his house and his little village. Basically I just want to step right back into last summer and pretend nothing has ever changed. Which everything has.

Why does it always do that?

I was running through my romantic history in my head and I realized that every single relationship-type-encounter I've ever had (besides Gus, but he was CRAZY) has followed a very familiar pattern. Its always between me and someone who is not destined to be in the same place for more than at best, a few months. Or I'm leaving in a few months. Anyway, there's a big fat time-stamp on it to begin with. Things flare up and get very passionate very quickly and I start having these delusions of grandeur about the whole thing. Then the time comes and he pretends that it won't be awful and everything will be alright - and I believe it, fool that I am - and then he leaves and slowly (or not so slowly *cough*Erik Jennings*cough*) abandons me completely. Emails and phone calls get sparser and sparser, there's always a good excuse, but then eventually I get the picture and then they stop. And then its over.

over.

sometimes they pop back into my life. I'm hoping I can become friends with at least one, who I now talk to in a suprisingly not-awkward way. And Akilles and I are awkward but I'm hoping one day it will be not-awkward.

I just can't keep getting involved with men who either can't or don't let people into their lives. And by people, I mean me. I mean, I would rearrange everything to have someone I loved come visit, I mean I have, to the point that I jeapordized things in my life that I shouldn't have. I'm not advocating that. I'm just sure that no one I've ever been with would do that. I wouldn't expect them to of course, maybe because I know they wouldn't do it. Or maybe they wouldn't do it because they know I wouldn't expect them to. I just want to be up there on somebody's list of priorities. Which I've never been to any man ever in my life. Including my father, which is a whole other can of worms.

Anyway, I'm home. I'm hoping to do a lot of drinking with my high school buds who are home. That and making life a little more bearable for my parents. And eating for free.

and scrapbooking! Hopefully.

more later,
biz, Deb

Sunday, December 17, 2006

its better that you don't know the rest

Mara says:
then you'd just be a stumpy blind woman dating a hot lesbian
Mara says:
and everyone would be like "WTF?"

Saturday, December 16, 2006

I hate fox news but...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236483,00.html

there are no words...

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Why are all the good ones jaded?

I'm so tired of hearing these absurd generalities.
You can tell me 16 times that Love is a trap
don't you think I know?
Don't you think I know better than anyone?
Much better than you?
You've loved one person in your entire life
and she left you
and GOD am I sorry about that, if I could go back in time and convince her to stay I would, I really would, just to see you not crawling through life jaded like you do now, trusting no one, letting no one in.

All I have is what I can give you
which is everything
why isn't that enough?

All I want is to go to bed at night knowing that someday I'll see you again
Three times, Twice a year, once a year.
I don't care.
Just knowing that someday I will find my way back into your arms, back in front of that smile, back next to that man...I don't think anything else matters.

I'm not asking for anything.
I'm just asking you not to push me away.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Finalitudiness

Finished:
Draping final
Acting Final
Civil War Exam
Theatre History final paper

To do:
Civil War research paper

Mainstage was posted today. Nothing.
Its funny, every time I get this knot in my stomach, every time I walk down that deserted hallway I feel that tingling down there (no not down THERE) but I search and search that list for my name and its never there.
I had a long talk with Tina about how I feel as an actor. How I feel 40 years old and I can't stop crying. She made me feel like I'm not wasting my time. I've been feeling incredibly lost lately.
I've also been filled with intense longings for Seattle, although after tonights conversation with my mother, via skype, because my phone died, I'm not so sure being close would be a great thing. GOD. My dad decided to throw a tantrum and now he wants my mom and I out of the house on christmas. My mom doesn't want to put the tree up where he can enjoy it, so she's going to hide it away in her room. Same old bullshit.
Merry Christmas.

What I am to you, is not real.
You give me mountains when I ask for the sea.

I miss nature. I hate these buildings and streets and people, cold faceless people everywhere. Everything costs 100 dollars that I don't have. The only person who believes in me is my mother. God that's depressing.

I've been feeling not supported, seriously not supported here lately. I know everyone is very busy, but I feel myself drifting farther and farther away from everyone. I can't connect, no one seems to want to, besides to laugh at jokes. I'm tired of jokes. I feel like a joke. Can't anyone see me? Have I turned invisible?

No, the problem isn't that. That's not fair. I don't know what it is. I don't even want to talk about it. I'm so tired of talking. Talking talking talking gets me no where. I walk around with headphones on so I don't have to talk. Maybe I like being withdrawn.

I have to write a proposal for my thesis, on top of it all. Fuuuuuuuuuck.

I just want to ride away to some mysterious cloudy island in a canoe like an indian princess rowing to her grave, her face resigned facing towards the horizon. I want to be brave.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Bodybusy


So the Busybody ended on a triumphant note. So much enthusiasm was buzzing around the stage that it propelled one of the rapiers right into the first row of the audience. Wooops. The look on the director's face, which I interpreted as frantic concern for the welfare of the audience was in fact petrifying fear of a lawsuit, she explained to me later.
Oh the Busybody. I think it was sort of a test. To see how much I love doing this when I don't get to play juicy meaty challenging and stimulating roles. Would I still really love this, even if I wasn't really fulfilled by it? Its an important question to face, since that's what will lay ahead once I'm out of school. Years and years of bit roles, where the best case scenario is a really kick-ass costume. Which reminds me, check out my tits in that top. Hello girls...
Bottom line is, I did have a good time, even though I was a little bored.

I've been feeling very out of place lately. Seattle is sounding better and better to me, I really think I'm gonna move back there for Graduate school. Well I mean unless I get into Julliard or NYU. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa

I just can't imagine staying here. Its dirty and people aren't friendly and its so huge its just too overwhelming. I don't have a neighborhood, I don't have a community. Once I'm out of Fordham and semblance of that is lost, and I would just hate that. I already feel far away enough from everything and everyone, I don't need that extra push.

December is here, finals are knocking hard and fast at the door. I have to build my draping project. Finish my last TWO theatre history papers. Write my paper for Civil War History. Take my civil war final. Audition for Pericles and Man = Man. Go Christmas shopping. And still sleep on top of it all, and do laundry, and cook meals. Life is way too complicated.
Probably doesn't help that I watched two Harry Potter movies on TV today, instead of doing anything remotely useful. I just can't help it. That Daniel Ratcliffe is gonna be a superstud. I've always been attracted to great potential.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Wouldn't it be...?



lovely.

it was a lovely week. we strolled the city, managing our way through the crowds, did a LOT of shopping for gifts, and ate out. it was so nice to be near him again, to laugh together, goof around...i wish this relationship wasn't a ticking time bomb.
we talked about it a lot, i cried, he didn't. it didn't seem to upset him very much, which I know shouldn't bother me. he's just very pragmatic, as I should be - as we're both learning to be. all my girlfriends tell me that they are happy to see me with him, even if its not going to be work out because its the first time they've seen me with someone who doesn't hurt me. but this will hurt too, one day, when I finally make a decision or he finally leaves me.
but for now...its just what it is. i won't see him soon at all, months and months away, and we won't talk enough. we'll grow apart again, and both be full of doubt and sadness. but when i'm with him, laying in his arms at night, breathing him in my nostrils, its an irresistable high that I'm completely addicted to.

but really, it was lovely.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Heyyyyy!!

its boyfriend day! its boyfriend day! its boyfriend day!!

boyfriend day boyfriend day boyfriend day!!

Sunday, November 19, 2006

A Kiss for Kindness

This week has been full of its ups and downs (read: mood swings) but I can say that I have witnessed some extraordinary kindness, and it gives me heart to know that there are still people out there in this big bad world that recognise the difference between what is right and what is easy (ok so I stole that from Harry Potter, but that was a movie! This is reality!) and look out for people, even strangers. It almost makes me an optimist to see people trying to protect each other from pain. It kind of fills me with joy, like that creepy sun-baby from the telletubbies. Maybe I really would shine like that if not for the other type of people who are inflicting said pain. I guess that's life though, you get the good with the bad.

Had delicious pizza today, even though I'm supposed to be on a strict diet for the last 4 days, since Hervé comes on tuesday. Oh well, I only had two little pieces, that's not that bad.

Oh yeah, did I mention HERVÉ COMES ON TUESDAY. That is like ALMOST tomorrow. In six hours, that will be tomorrow. That's nuts! To combat my anxiety today I did what any red-blooded female would a gorgeous frenchman is flying across the atlantic to see her: I scrubbed down the bathroom. And took out all the trash and did a sinkload of dishes. Because that's how we foster obsessive compulsive behavior. I mean...oh fuck. I'm gonna end up like my mom, rearranging shoulder-high piles of tuperware on the kitchen floor at 4 in the morning. True story.

I'm reeeeeeaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllyyyyyyy excited. I'm already having trouble sleeping, its impossible! I keep imagining his beautiful face with his beautiful smile on it. And the sex. Have I mentioned the sex? Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of it. I have officially redubbed this weekend 'Sexgiving'. Who needs turkey?

I am going to make pies however, pumpkin and pecan with my mom's perfect recipe. Only I'm not buying a pumpkin, cooking it, and purée-ing it myself. That's insane, I'm not Martha fucking Stewart. I want to go out to Astoria and have dinner with Ian, we'll see what Hervé feels like doing. I don't want to push him into anything, I know he'll probably be really overwhelmed. And adorable. He's so cute. And french.

But before he comes I have to write a theatre history paper, do all my laundry and haul down to Trader Joe's to get some thanksgiving ingredients. And wine. Mmmmm being 21 is delicious.

Busybody went really well, my costume is wildly uncomfortable. But beautiful. And busty. Bam!



yeah I don't know. Emeril? I'm crazy.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

The Judas Kiss

Thank God its no longer last week. And yet...couldn't time just not advance any furthur...?

I finally made a few chips in my very thick shell of writer's block. Very lame chips, but hey, its progress, right?

I also talked to Clément, my very best french friend in Paris. He's in the theatre troup that I was a part of and they are mounting a new show, "Nous, les Héros" or "We, the Heroes". He sent me a recording of the opening sequence, just hearing all their voices, ohh it made me so homesick for Paris. Especially since I've been feeling so detached and empty lately. I feel very far away, so its been so easy to reminisce (sp?) about gay old Paris. But of course the truth is I felt disengaged there as well, but there I had the excuse of being a foreigner and therefore a convenient excuse. Handy, right?
At least I felt alive. At least I cried and felt and loved and partied like a PERSON. I feel like I just dig my grave deeper every day now, I feel so muddled and frozen. Every thing I do I have to bargain with myself. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I feel so compromised. I don't know. That doesn't even make sense. The point is, talking to Clément was so nice. France picked up a few points today (it has been losing lots of points every day due to no word from Hervé - not his fault, I just blame the whole country).

Five hours of Tech rehearsal tonight and you know what I did? NOTHING. Didn't go onstage once, didn't even play the flute. It was BO-RING. I took a nap and finished The Judas Kiss by David Hare. Which was so not the most constructive thing for me to be reading. Great writing though. Lots of delicious Oscar Wilde witicisms, which are invented but very convincingly Wilde.
Also,
"In prison I had the chance to read the Christ story. Over and over. It seemed to me the greatest story I ever read. But it has one flaw. Christ is betrayed by Judas, who is almost a stranger. Judas is a man he doesn't know well. It would be artistically truer if he were betrayed by John. Because John is the man he loves most."
also,
"Ideally, I like to drink anise. My favorite anise is the second. I drink it not because it makes me sleep - nothing makes me sleep - but because at the moment I drink it I believe that I shall sleep. An illustration of the perfect usefulness of science. The potion necessary to make me sleep does not exist. But the potion that provides the illusion that I shall, does.
Belief is everything.
Faith is everything.
It is the same with love.
The vulgar error is to think that love is a kind of illusion. It is the fault of bad poets who encourage this mistake. 'I am completely enraptured,' lovers say, as if somehow they were being deceived. When the affair ends, they say, 'I have been stripped of my illusions' When they cease to love they say, "oh I see clearly now'.
The reverse is the truth. The everyday world is shrouded. We see it dimly. Only when we love do we see the true person. The truth of a person is only visible through love. Love is not the illusion. Life is."

Now there's a topic for debate.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Willow, willow, sing willow

I had a nice long talk with meg tonight, I miss our talks. We're both so busy all the time, but when we do make time, its nice. I don't think I have another friend (in ny) who I really feel listens to me quite like she does. She's great, I liker her a lot.

Today has been hard. This morning was full of dissapointments, little trivial things which for some reason were really upsetting me. I felt nearly volatile this morning, combustible. Maybe I didn't sleep long enough or something.

Still no message from Hervé, still don't know if he is coming or not, but all this time waiting makes me think that he isn't and I've been fooled again.
I wish someone would tell you if its the last time you're going to see them. I would have taken so much more time, or done something huge, or cried more. I don't know. How can I make it right? Its all wrong.

Thank GOD for Busybody, its kept me busy enough to stay sane. I feel a bit like my character in Funeral Parlor - just needing to get through the day without dipping into her emotional reality, because its a dark scary place full of sadness and loneliness and if you even test the waters with your toe, you will fall in and never be able to crawl back out.

Tonight I thought about Akilles, for the first time in a very long time. I should write him an email, I wonder how he is doing. He started a new job, he's out of school now. I'm just curious, no big gesture.

Talked to my mom on the phone today for two hours - her idea of a "short" conversation. GOD how depressing. I just feel helpless and guilt-ridden and awful and horrible and useless and selfish and mean. And things at home are a disaster, and I hate spending time there and I feel horrible about it.

I need to know if Hervé is coming, but I'm afraid of the answer. I'm afraid. I want to call you but I'm afraid. Maybe I'll have an email tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

one way ticket to france: $346 dollars.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Tomorrow is such a long time...

I'm now living in a weird cloud. Endgame is over, Busybody tech is about to start. I spend a lot of time in rehearsal deep in my own thoughts, which as we all know, is absolutely 100% toxic.

I've also been writing silly metaphorical rhyming poetry, restoration-style. Its absurd.

Talked to mom on the phone today. Poison. Now she wants me to come to Oregon to see plays on Easter weekend, and if that means I can't go to France then that's what it means. Ummmm WHAT?! So you are giving me tickets to France as a gift but then deciding instead that I'm going to Ashland and not to France? I mean I hate to look a gift-horse in the mouth but bitch, you are one crazy fucking horse! She's also spending Thanksgiving alone, for which I could just scourge myself to death. I swear, my relationship with my mother is the world's deadliest mine-field.

Hervé is still coming for thanksgiving...I think. At least he was as of last week when I last heard from him, I hope that still means yes. I want to see him so badly and yet I'm dreading it with my entire being. I just have the strongest feeling that its going to end with me being very very sad, and I'm not usually wrong about these things.
I've found myself thinking and saying depressing things, like its only safe to be alone, and when you risk everything you lose everything. I'm feeling very afraid, afraid of everything, I feel like my next big disaster is right around the corner and I'm petrified. I don't know if there is someone here who can catch me this time. I mean I'm not gonna go jumping off a cliff but I'm not going to bounce back very well from this, I can see it already. And I hate struggling.

My Dad has a new job. So that's good. However, it doesn't seem to have calmed his explosive outbursts towards Mom, so what the fuck good does that do me? God, they are a mess. You think when people have been married 35 years they must really love each other; but then I look at my parents and I just think, "I'm never getting married. Ever."

I just can't deal with all these apprehensions, I feel unprepared and I don't know what I can do to make it better. The only way I am surviving is by ignoring it most of the day. And that can't last forever.

In other news, I might not be able to finish one of my three majors. Not sure, I have to talk to my advisors. I'm supposed to register tomorrow but uhhh I don't have my pin...oops...


"well, you're on earth...there's no cure for that!"

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

I forgot about you!

So...sorry I haven't posted in a loooooong time. For me. Which is not long for regular people.

Busybody rehearsals are way more than underway, we go into Tech alarmingly soon. We're almost done blocking the show. I'm in it for about 5 minutes, but its a fun five minutes, so I'm perfectly pleased. My costume is so pretty! Its hot pink with cleavage up to my eyebrows. Awesome. I love the designer, I was talking to her while we were in the shop today. She is so pretty and nice! She's assisting at Lincoln Center right now, she went to Yale. She's sooooo good, man, its exciting. I mean I could never do it, but to have her as a designer is exciting.

Endgame is taking up all of my time, I've been busting my ass on the costumes. I don't know how I feel about them, i think I like them, but I don't know if other people will. I mean it does fit with the concept. I've still got work to do tomorrow though, Doh!

Hervé and I had a big heart-to-heart. He's great because he's so realistic and down-to-earth, and he's open with me. But that means he tells me things I don't want to hear, you know, like the truth. Who wants that? Oh wait, me. Or at least I think I do. In principle, not in practice. No I mean I do. I just...I mean fuck the truth, really.
I just really really like him, but things are looking really really impossible. He's coming to visit for Thanksgiving, I'm so anxious to see him and yet so scared. I keep telling myself that if I lose 20 pounds and look really really great when he comes everything will be peachy...so untrue. Why do the good ones never stick around? Or live in the same country? He's so great. Its not fair.
I was so upset about it last week, he wrote me a very long, very honest email last wednesday and I was just...not in a good place. I spent hours writing a response and then I got REALLY stoned. I read my response later and it was like someone else had written it. I feel so lost right now. I just know that when I close my eyes at night I see him, that's got to mean something. I daydream about him all the time, his name pops into my head at random times. I think of little stories about him in every conversation. I don't know if that's love, I get that way so fast. The speeding train. Last week it hit the tracks and derailed and I've spent every last ounce of energy I've had, which hasn't been much due to all the work I've had, trying to drag it back on course. But the track has changed, I can't tell how, maybe the destination...something palpable has skidded off and I have the most rotten feeling that I'm going to end up broken and beaten down and at the bottom of the emotional gutter once again. I could break it off now, but every time I even dare to let that thought enter my mind, I just want to vomit. I feel very mixed up. I imagine his face and try to think what my reaction is going to be. Hopefully I won't just burst into tears. I'm scared that this is going to be the last time he wants to see me.
Whats wrong with me? God.

Alright, well its 1:30 already and class starts bright and early at 9am. I'm doing a scene from Funeral Parlor by Christopher Durang. Its funny, my partner is great. Hopefully I'll be fucking done with Endgame costumes tomorrow. I still have to show up every night for make-up. Sigh.

Also registration coming up. Important decisions about the future! Ooo!!

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Je Suis Berenice

C'est moi seul aussi qui pouvais me détruire
Je pouvais vivre alors et me laisser séduire;
Mon coeur se garder bien d'aller dans l'avenir
Chercher à ce qui pouvait un jour nous désunir.
Je voulais qu'à mes voeux rien ne fût invincible,
J'examinais rien, j'espérais l'impossible,
Que sais-je? J'espérais de mourir à vos yeux,
avant que d'en venir à ces cruels adieux.

Cette bouche à mes yeux s'avouant infidèle,
M'ordonnât elle-même une absence éternelle.
Moi-même j'ai voulu vous entendre en ce lieu.
Je n'écoute plus rien. Et pour jamais: adieu
Pour jamais! Ah! Seigneur, songez-vous en vous-même
Combien ce mot cruel est affreux quand on aime?
Dans un mois, dans un an, comment soufrirons-nous,
Seigneur, que tant de mers me séparent de vous?
Que le jour recommence et que le jour finisse,
sand que jamais Titus puisse voir Bérénice,
Sans que tout le jour je puisse voir Titus?
Mais quelle est mon erreur, et que de soins perdus!

Que dis-je? En ce moment mon coeur, hors de lui-même,
S'oublie, et se souvient seulement qu'il vous aime.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Slump City

I'm in an awful slump. In every way.
I'm uninspired and bored and lonely.
The only fun I've really had in the last two weeks is popping bubble-wrap and watching hours of Without A Trace.

I just feel like I'm sleep-walking through my life. I don't get excited about anything, all I do all day long is listen. Listen to other people stories and problems and ideas and beliefs and lessons and I step farther and farther away from myself. Its an awful feeling, and it makes me resentful and angry. But I'm so stifled that it all gets pushed down down down somewhere where all that resentment and anger and sadness hides and then comes out in vocal lab when I have nervous breakdowns in front of the entire class.

I should probably be in therapy but I can't afford it.

My dad is going to accept a new job; with a huge pay-cut of course. My mom is gonna have to go back to work. She doesn't get to go to her therapist every week anymore. Things are rotten at home, my dad exploded at her again. My sister has dissappeared off the face of the planet. I am completely frustrated and bored at school. My acting teacher doesn't know my name. I am unremarkable in all of my other classes. Everyone around me is getting on my nerves. I'm eating everything in sight and obsessing about my weight at the same time. My sex life is non-existant, and I don't know when or if my boyfriend is coming to visit soon. And to top it all off, my Dad's new company won't pay for my anxiety medication. Which means I can look forward to feeling like this for a long long time.

Its 2:15am and I have to work tomorrow. I'm so tired but I can't sleep. I feel frozen and floating away. I smoked and drank and did everything I could think of. I don't know how to thaw out. I forget how tap into that real place. I just woke up and felt paralyzed. What is going on?

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Dilemma

Alright so I have a major dilemma.

I could work tomorrow and friday and make another $400, which would be amazing. I mean, I could fly to france for $400. It probably wouldn't end up going to that, I mean, I don't really have time to go to france anyway, except for this summer I mean. But ohhh would that money be nice. So so nice.

BUT I've got lots to do for endgame, and just life-stuff to do. Like laundry and normal people things. I could spend these two days getting serious Endgame shit done, it would be sooooo good.

I don't know what to do. Maybe I'll compromise and come in on friday and then spend tomorrow on Endgame.

Life is hard.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Brrrrrrr!!

Its cold in here!
How did the temperature fall from a daily high of 68 to a daily high of freezing fucking cold in two days? Its winter, legitimately, its freaking me out. I'm not ready for that bone-chilling new-england cold. I'm not ready yet!! Nooooo!

What an exhausting week. Had two term papers to complete, one due on tuesday and one due on wednesday. I tried to pull two all nighters in a row, but seeing as how I have enough trouble pulling a single, a double was absolutely impossible. I managed to sleep a couple of hours both nights. Still not enough. And then I headed into the end of my week with no energy at all. I got my pay check (YES!!!!!!!!!) at Cohn Dutcher, that was exciting. I'm not gonna say I had a great time, but considering the work, I don't think it could possible have been any better. It was nice to be around fun people with real lives that aren't caught up in fordham-theatre-social bullshit. Let's all breath a collective sigh of relief at that one.

Subsequently, I have been shopping online trying to decide on what nice thing to buy myself as a splurge. We all need to endulge ourselves sometime! I haven't decided yet...a really fun pair of boots or pretty underthings...hmmmmm. Hard decision. I think I'm just gonna ask for that for christmas. This year I'm not letting my mom buy me a million little things. I'm just gonna ask for the unabridged diaries of Anaïs Nin and these boots that I want, and that's all. Seriously, she gives me enough.

My dad is narrowing down his job choices. Praise the lord he's had plenty of offers. One job pays very well but it would require him traveling quite a bit, so its just like the job he just had. Only you know, the people at the company aren't completely incompetent (hopefully). The other one is working as an office manager and salesman at a firm in my hometown, so he would be home every single night. Which is WEIRD for him. I realize that's normal for everyone else, but for the last 30 years he has been traveling all the time for work and pretty much only home on the weekends. I'm not sure he really realized what that's gonna be like, to be home every night. He says he feels like he "owes it to mom" but really, I feel like that could make them fight even more. Because even seeing eachother only on the weekends is causing problems, I mean clearly, there is a lot of shit to work on he is not facing. I'm not sure having to face that you're not facing it more would be a good thing or a bad thing.
Ultimately my mom and I both told him we want him to make the decision for himself and whatever he chooses will be fine. My mom will probably have to go back to work if he takes the non-traveling job. That would be weird, but who knows, maybe it would be good for her.

God my room is freezing!! Fordham hasn't agreed to turn on the heat yet. Because they are giant assholes. Its SO COLD in my room, last night I was shivering and my teeth were chattering, it was awful. I can't wait to move out of this ridiculous building, which if I don't make RA, I will get to do this spring!! Scary but exciting...if I only had money to get a nice apartment.

I haven't heard from Hervé in over a week :( I miss him, I worry about him too much. I know its crazy but I keep imagining him meeting someone else and never speaking to me again. God that would be awful. Cherie, si tu es en train de lire cela, m'écris un email, j'ai trop hâte d'avoir tes nouvelles!

Busybody rehearsals have started as well, we had our read-through which was ummmmmmmm ok. We've been doing lots of clown exercises which have been great, and I really hope people bring that to their work. This play will just be a disaster if we let it be boring. Well I shouldn't say we, I have nothing to worry about at all, my character waltzes on in a low-cut dress, jiggles around being slutty for ten minutes and then dissapears. Done and done. I'm excited. But I would hate for the play to fail, that's never fun.

I like the director a lot, she's also our theatre history teacher. She's cooky but really smart and I think she's got a sharp eye for what she wants, she's really cracking down on people. I just hope she gets results, some people are working on some major changes.

I've been a complete Hermit lately, I don't go out. I pretty much crash when I get home, or I sit up talking to Morgan.
I'm feeling those familiar lonely feelings, I don't know why they descend on me but they do. I just extract myself from the real present relationships in my life. Maybe its a defense mechanism. I'm also super uncomfortable with my laziness lately I need to hit the gym people!

OH and on an incredibly angering note: turns out my insurance doesn't pay for ANY kind of birth control except TUBAL LIGATION. That means getting your TUBES TIED. Can you believe that?! How fucking neo-christian right-wing patriarchal bullshit is that?! EVERYONE's fucking insurance covers birth control!! So I'm basically fucked because my birth control is on the pricey side because its a new special kind (Mara, you know what I'm talking about) so its like 50 bucks. I can't afford that every month, please. I may end up having to go on a different method that's cheaper. Its fucked. I hate men.
Its all so ridiculous because if I actually got pregnant, my medical bills for all the pre-natal check-ups and ultrasounds and shit would be so much. It doesn't even make fiscal sense for the insurance company not to pay birth control! A pox on them, I say.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

My Slice of Life is a little stale

So I woke up early this morning, showered, got on the subway, got to work, clipped, filed and scanned until 2, ate lunch, clipped filed and scanned some more. I leave in about half an hour. I go straight to rehearsal, which I will get out of hopefully at 10pm so I can have a drink with some family friends who are in town.

Is this what the real world is like? Wake up, work boring job, got straight to rehearsal and exhaust yourself until 11pm, then try and have a social life for two hours before you drop dead, knowing you'll get up in 6 hours and do the same thing all over again? Where is a personal life supposed to fit into this? I'm supposed to get home at 11 and somehow be able to sustain a relationship on the half hour left before we both go to bed? This is impossible!

See, this is why I will be alone for the rest of my life. A man would have to really really love me and know that a hectic schedule like that was short-term to want to stick it out. Even my boyfriend who is the patient, kind, generous person maybe on the planet.

doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Midterms: Update

Delicious midterms have arrived, which means I have two term papers due, one on tuesday and one on wednesday. And when am I going to write them? Monday of course! That's what that day is for!! Well that and the Macy's sale, but with the current state of my bank account its much better that I spend that time studying...yeah...

I realized this weekend, I have become a moderately boring person. I like to be alone a lot. And I don't go out very much, I mean besides just out with friends. I never go clubbing or to museums even or really anything. I pretty much only go out when I'm dragged out. That is bizarre.

Also, my insurance company won't pay for my birth control. Fuckers.

I find it disheartening that so many of my good friends who are writers, most of them men, really have trouble writing females. I was even a little offended, not that the writing is particularly mysoginist, but they just don't write women as human beings. If they wrote women the way they wrote men, everything would be fine. But instead they get the treatment of charicatures, these creations with random emotions who make arbitrary choices, they don't have human complications just like the male characters do. Its just not that simple! Clearly, men and women are not the same. But we're not THAT different. The human condition still applies to us, we still deal with it just the way you do.
I just find this frustrating, I don't want to spend the rest of my career playing characters who I have to fight to relate to.

I've been looking into what I would need to get a teaching job in france someday. I've been thinking about it a lot. I mean no matter what I decide to do, the point is gonna come where I do have to choose something. I don't want to float around forever working a job I hate and doing nothing that fulfills me in a city I don't love, putting myself into debt.
After I graduate from school, I'll stay in New York for a couple of years, and then I have got to decide. And let me tell you, lately France has been looking like an awfully nice choice. I just wish i could do theatre there, if I could really act there, I would do it. But I feel like choosing France is giving that up and I would regret doing that. Maybe, I think. I don't know. Sometimes I wish I didn't really love this, it would make everything a lot easier.

Well i've got to get together rehearsal costumes for Endgame. I have to go to the store to do that though, and my pajamas are reeeeeally comfortable...hmm...

Thursday, October 05, 2006

One Way Ticket

Um...where's my boyfriend?

I think I'll move to France. It was nice knowing you all.

Bye!

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

More Late Night Posts!

These next two weeks are gonna be intense. The rest of this week will include this job I'm doing for Katie, which I start tomorrow afternoon. After a full day of Acting class in the early morning, Civil war class, and then vocal lab where hopefully we won't see a repeat of my lovely demonstration last week. If that happens again, I'm going straight to therapy.

I have noticed that my emotional life, which is always harrowing at best, has been really close to the surface lately. I've been trying to take my anxiety meds more regularly, which always seems to help. Not sure why this has become such a problem lately, maybe its the birth control. Its nothing terrible I guess, I just hope its not a symptom of some big scary breakdown to come. All I know is I was nearly gonna scream today in draping because I couldn't get this pin through my dress form...that's pretty unstable. Michelle (prof) was like, "Deb. You're frustration is way too big for this room." Its true. And then we reminisced about the time when she was goofing arounf with me before my final critique for her design class and I burst into tears. And I realized all of a sudden: she thinks I'm completely nuts.

Maybe its true.

Anyhow, this long weekend will hardly be a break, I've got two papers due next week, tuesday and wednesday, and I'll be working all weekend on Katie's project too. Plus there's rehearsing for acting, and I've got to start combing Salvation Army's fo Endgame pieces. Under no circumstances do i want to put that shit off.

I was hoping maybe these two difficult weeks would end with a visit from my boyfriend, but that seems less and less likely. Sigh. I hope I see him soon. I'm not sure how he's doing, sometimes I think he doesn't want me to worry so tries to put things as positively as possible. And yes I realize you are probably reading this :) Hehe.

See? Everyone who knows me thinks I am completely unstable. Maybe I should examine this.

Orrrrrrrr maybe I'll just go to sleep!

gnight y'all

Sunday, October 01, 2006

More Sick Days

Spent most of the day in bed today, trying not to feel nauseous. I managed to keep down three meals though, and I'm doing my best to drink lots of fluids. Also, popsicles are the best things ever. I don't know why I eat popsicles when I'm sick, I just do. I think my mom used to give them to me when I had sore throats, maybe its just out of habit. Mmm, I could go for a popsicle right now. I probably shouldn't eat one in bed though...that spells disaster. That reminds me, I need to wash these sheets, they're probably covered in germs.

I also tried to watch about 4 movies today but I kept getting frustrated, because I've seen all of my movies before. I ended up watching 3 episodes of Law&Order, and most of the Fugitive, with Harrison Ford. I love him, he's so comforting to me. He's just so decent and father-like. And as Indiana Jones he saves the world and beats the bad guys to important magical artifacts, how cool is that? Maybe he reminds me a little bit of what my image of my own father used to be like, before I knew what my father actually was like. Talk about your dissapointments.

You know what I love about New York City? You can lay in your bed at any hour of the day or night and still hear at least 4 taxi's honking at each other. Fabulous. Especially, when you're feeling stuffed up and head-achy.

I also spent a good deal of time writing out my schedule for the next two weeks, and I slowly realized how much shit I have to do. I've got a bunch of papers and deadlines, this project I'm doing for katie (at least I'm getting paid for that)...strange. I think once midterms are over though, things should be pretty calm.

I love getting emails :) I love going to bed smiling, I love....well you know who you are.

Its late, and I'm not tired. I've been sleeping on and off all day. I don't know if I'll feel better tomorrow, or worse. Qu'est-ce que vous pensez, hein? I guess I'll lay my head down on the pillow and see what comes. God knows I can't stomach another movie.

Bonne nuit à tous
Here's hoping I feel better tomorrow!

Friday, September 29, 2006

I Feel Icky

So wednesday night I started feeling a little weird, sore throat, sniffles. And then I woke up thursday morning and BOOM. I'm sick. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I spent most of my day in bed, although I did venture out to the grocery store because I had no food and I got the feeling it was only gonna get worse so I better stock up now. And I was right. My eyes are watering, I can't breathe out of my nose, I have sinus pressure up to *here*. I just feel pretty all-around gross. Which I'm not handling very well because I don't often get sick.

I realized I haven't been sick in at least a year. I wasn't sick in Paris, I wasn't sick that fall - just stressed out and near a breakdown, but that's different. I'm usually not super susceptible to this stuff, why has my armor chipped? Nooooooo!! Anyway, at least I have an excuse to sit around in my pajamas watching 6 hours of six feet under and eating popsicles.

I also watched trystan and isolde. WHOA was that movie full of historical inaccuracies. And I'm not a super stickler for that kind of thing, especially in a movie with James Franco (clearly I'm not watching it for a history lesson). But the Irish never EVER conquered England, ok? That just offends so many good plays and stories that it is mind boggling. Plus that's what's so adorable about the irish, they just stayed on their little island and never bothered with anyone else. Well until they were attacked and colonized in the 14 century but that's another story. And even then they never attacked bloddy England, I mean jesus, they aren't stupid.
Anyway, terrible movie. James Franco is worth it though. And it has that adorable little kid from Love Actually. You know, the curly blonde haired boy with the Dora The Explorer-sized eyes? Point is, the movie is highly missable, unless you want to drool over James Franco who was, admittedly, better in Freaks & Geeks.

I've got a bunch of shit to do today, I have to go pick up the play for my acting class and read it. I should probably also have some visual research for my production meeting tonight. Plus, I have an appointment at Apple to have my iPod fixed/replaced and the Endgame read-through at 6:30. Not exactly my ideal schedule, considering I feel like I want to lay in bed all day and moan.

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhh mmmmmmmmmmmm guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Break-it Down

I had trouble sleeping last night, I tossed and turned and woke up many many times. My mind was racing, running away from the 20 nightmares that flipped through my mind like snapshots. Murphy's Law. That's what plays out in my dreams.

After dreading my performance this morning in class, I finally finished Hedda Gabler. I think I learned a lot about my own process, and maybe even my own strengths. Its funny, because I can't seem to play a character that doesn't have integrity and that isn't on some level vulnerable and fragile. Even a force-of-nature like Hedda, who is strong, demanding, and self-sufficient. I guess despite how complete we all are (or aren't) we all have dreams.

I skipped my history class today (ooooops) to sit in on Nicole's presentation for Endgame, which I'm designing in november. It was interesting, not necessarily terribly helpful for the costumes but it was an interesting insight into how a director's process works, how we approach a play. A bit of insight into Nicole as well, hehe.

Then I had vocal lab. Which was AWFUL. I knew, I just knew I was dreading performing my poem for some reason. I could never put my finger on it but every time she invited someone to go, I would stay glued to my spot - I never had the impulse to go. Today when I did, I could already feel the tears, the burning in my throat, mounting into my voice before I even finished the poem. When Elena touched me, I began to cry and then just waves and waves of helplessness came crashing over me and I could not stop crying. I felt like I was on display and no one wanted to watch this sad person, falling apart. It was terrible. I tried to breath through it, but my breath kept catching in my throat and chest. I was hiccuping and tears were rolling down my cheeks and I was trying so hard not to sob, to get control of myself, but I just kept digging deeper and deeper. I wanted to run out of the room, and when I did get back to my apartment there was no where to hide. My roomate was in the room, people were in the common room, just people everywhere. I just wanted to cry and I couldnt and I sat on the couch and stared at the television which Sammy was watching. Finally I crawled off to my room and took a nap.

I guess I do though, I do feel helpless. Or I feel guilty, feel like I should be doing something but its easier to do nothing. Every time I sit down and talk to one of them, I get caught up in it and I just want to throw myself out of window. Its a horrible situation that has no happy ending possible and even no ending in sight. Just misery stretching on and on, and I can't do anything to stop it. I hate that they're both miserable. I don't know the answer, I just can't fix it. I can't escape it, but I can't fix it, and I can't change it. All I can do is try to be there, but absorbing that pain and sorrow and fatigue and hurt just piles on top of me so much, sometimes I feel like I'm drowning. I don't talk about it, I guess, not out loud and I haven't cried about it in quite some time. But today it came pouring out of me and I couldn't stop it, so there I was crying hysterically in front of a dozen people, just sitting and staring at me with pity in their eyes. It was horrible.

I was walking away from class and Julia was talking to me, she asked, "is it about boys?"
Of course not, I told her, my boyfriend is wonderful. And he is, he is kind and patient and loving and he makes me laugh. I've never been more satisfied with that area of my life before. But it seems like once one part of my life straightens itself out and I just start to feel like I've got a handle on things, everything else slowly falls apart. And something tells me that this, is not going to change.

I know I know, its my life not theirs, I can't let their problems drag me through hell. They're adults and I should trust them to take care of their own lives. But my parents, my family, it just hurts me, pains me so greatly to see them unhappy. To see them in anguish, year after year, it is so hard. I can't make them happy, but I can't stand to see them like this. Its ripping me apart. And I can't fix it. And it feels awful.

Anyway...I was gonna try and stay up to see if Hervé gets online, but I'm sure he's got about a million things to do and I'm useless right now anyway. Maybe he'll be there in a few hours.

bonne nuit!

Monday, September 25, 2006

Fucking fuck fuck fuck

When my parents have arguments, I have to explain them later to my dad.
I have to explain to him why she was angry, what she was saying, and why it wasn't a good idea to say that horrible thing/storm out/shove her.
And he tells me that he tries to stay calm but that she just keeps talking and talking and he loses it. And I don't know what to say to him, because I just don't and this isn't my job and I don't want to talk about this. How can you say to your father that you think he's out of control? That you're afraid he'll end up in jail and you'll have to drop out of school, move back home and get a full time job to help mom with the house payments? How do you say that when he's trying, but when you talk to him you see already that he's going to fail?
I just can't stand to watch him crumble before me while the rest of my world crumbles too.
I just can't worry about this stuff, I'm so tired of worrying about it.

I just hate being a grown up.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

the Game

I was talking to a friend of mine last night, who happens to be an ex-of-sorts of mine, who had just been out on a date with a girl he's really into (yes I ended a sentence with a preposition). He gets back from what I would call an extremely successful date with her, where they talked all night long about meaningful things. And the poor guy can't even be happy about it because he's so convinced he's gonna fuck it up. He's so scared, and it made me rethink all the awful things I've thought about men/people in the past.

He's probably not a representative sample, he's quite brilliant and sensitive, but he started talking about 'the game'. He said, "she's really smart, smarter than me, and she just knows how to play it. Like you did"

So why do we play games? I was thinking about something I saw on Six Feet Under last night, where Ruth reminds Claire that the basis of intimacy is truth. Truth. So all the hiding, all the masking, all the pretending and planning that is involved in playing games must be designed - whether consciously or not - to avoid the truth. Because truth leads to real intimacy.

And then I had an epiphany, I realized what I and I think many other people are so afraid of about intimacy, and the truth. Maybe I'm just channeling my own experience right now, but part of what I've been struggling with so much with not talking to Hervé is this inexplicably dreaded fact. Fact - as in truth.

That maybe I need him. Maybe sometimes people need each other. We're supposed to be self-sufficient and independent and healthy and be able to figure it all out on our own. But maybe, really, that shouldn't be the ideal. Why is struggling and being alone better than admitting and surrendering to needing someone? Why is that so much more admired and why do we shame ourselves for not just wanting but requiring someone else's help. Man hasn't been a lone, nomadic hunter-gatherer for hundreds of thousands of years, even homo erectus traveled in groups.

Some people are great at being alone. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with that, and years of psychotherapy tell me that only the self-sufficient are healthy. But then why the fuck does everyone have a psychotherapist in the first place? Maybe not everyone needs intimacy in their lives, but something tells me that if everyone had it - whether that be with a parent, a friend, a sibling, a lover, a child, a pet, a fucking houseplant WHATEVER - maybe it would solve a lot of things.
Maybe that's why you see people on the street talking to themselves. They've got to tell the truth to someone.

I don't blame my friend for being scared. He's carrying around a lot of darkness with him and he's afraid to show it to anyone, especially someone who's opinion he lives and breathes by. That's a weighty fear, a worthy fear, maybe not justified, but one I can understand on a deep level. Its hard to share that truth with someone, you're afraid they will turn away, or be disgusted, or think you are disturbed. But I've watched my father struggle through his life, unable to have emotional intimacy with anyone, and he's become so alienated from his own feelings that sometimes I feel like he's drowning right before my eyes and I don't know how to save him. I'm not around to reach out to him all the time. The truth is, I don't know that it isn't too late to save him. I'm not sure he would know the truth inside himself, even if he went digging for it. Shouldn't that be what we're REALLY afraid of? Instead of being afraid of sharing with each other? Of needing each other?

Sorry to get so profound on you at 8:30 in the morning, but I've been tossing and turning all night, thinking about this.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Scenes from 10F

(sitting in living room, discussing ways to make a mold of Meg's boyfriend's penis)

Sammy: Get a milk carton, put his penis in, and then poor in plaster of paris!
Me: Yeah but, how would you get it out? I mean once it hardened, couldn't that hurt, pullling it out?
Sammy: Oh yeah...
Erin: and you have to figure out some way to keep him hard the whole time.
Me: I don't know. Just lick his asshole

(laughter)

Sammy: Another thing you could do is papier maché...
Meg: Or Jell-o!
Me: Mmmmmmm jell-o penis....

(Nicole meanwhile, sculpts a penis out of bluw play-doh)

Nicole: Lookie!!

Sunday, September 17, 2006

you know, bring drunk is funny

So my schedule allows me to have four day weekends, every week. Which is great. Except for I realize it leads me to one of my two worst tendencies, which is either to be disgustingly unproductive or dangerously emotional and caught inside my worries and insecurities. And I always sleep until 1pm. And I drink and smoke too much.

I need to channel this restlessness into cleaning orrrrrr exercise like all those people I hate.

I've been sleeping horribly as well, I think one of the reasons I sleep so late every day is because I never get into the right rhythm until like 6am, and then I'm still awakened every couple of hours. I wonder what profound effect this has on my personality. Maybe I should take sleeping pills. Maybe it would help my tremor. My brain doesn't have the time to stretch and exercise my neurons and synapses and so they become slow and brittle and I have lost the ability to keep my hands steady.
My doctor assured me that benign (sp?) tremors do exist. WebMD says they can lead to stroke. Fuck WebMD. WebMD also tells me I may have lupus.

I've also decided that working out has absolutely no effect on me anymore. But I also blame the drunk munchies I guess.
Losing weight is so hard, I wish I didn't worry about it so much. I just look at myself in the mirror and I think, "this is not what a woman's body is supposed to look like". But then I realize I have no idea what it is supposed to look like. And then I get confused and eat some cheezits to calm myself. But its ok, cheezits are magic and can't make you fat. I heard its true.

I've got to score my scene for Hedda Gabler (as I like to mispronounce, Hedda Jablé) and I have got to clean my room, and probably the bathroom. I really hate being not neat. Its so much less aesthetically stressful if things are in their proper (or invisible) place. And I've got to have a serious rehearsal with John when he gets back from Rose Hill, I hope that is soon, because I'd like to go out to Queens tonight.

No word from Hervé since the 7th. I hope he comes home from his trip soon, I'm starting to believe that I've completely invented him.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Monday monday...

Having class at 9:30 in the morning really makes my day strange.
I woke up at 8, made myself breakfast and then sat at the table thinking for about half an hour. My prof had us answer the seven questions (Who are you? What do you want? What are your obstacles etc.) for ourselves and let me tell you, my self-concept is extremely sub-par at 8 in the morning. All I could think of wanting to do was to go back to bed.

Acting class was interesting. Matthew didn't jump in as much as I would have liked, I'm a little dissapointed. But Tina had good things to say, so I feel I have somewhere to go for wednesday. We have to come up with something super different, part of me always dreads that exercise. exercize. how do you spell that word.

Then I had my civil war class which is A-W-F-U-L. I am literally falling asleep the ENTIRE class with the professor staring right at me. Which he does a lot. More than my share I would say, although I guess since my eyes are closed sometimes that may have something to do with it. He just stands there and lectures! And he talks really slow! And I'd been up since 8! This is a really difficult situation for me. Really not sure about what to do. I wish caffeine worked on me, damn ADD.

Well anyway, I stumbled back to my apart after class and took a nap which I just woke up from kinda. It was not a great nap, I have to admit. It was very mediocre and I don't feel so great now. Suck. Oh well, sometimes you get a good nap, sometimes you get a sucky one.

I'm gonna drop by Alicia's tonight, see what's goin on with that bugger. Being back is weird, still weird.

No emails today :( He really needs to get a computer.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Weekends are for winners!

I need to start going to bed at reasonable hours. 4am leads to getting out of bed at 2pm, which leads to more going to sleep ar 4am. Its a vicious cycle, which is starting to disgust even me.

Tomorrow I have to get on a normal healthy schedule, I've got to buy some last supplies for the apartment, do some cooking to get me through the week, and hopefully clean and organise. And rehearse with John more, for our Hedda Gabler scene.

I've been having an awful time this weekend, struggling against the pressure that is everywhere to weigh 12 pounds. Its been really hard, especially since all I've been doing in eating. Eating is just way to fun!

I went to Queens today and watched Design Star with Ian and Hannah, and then made a glorious dinner. We chatted about my trip and drank some wine and had a general lovely evening. I was planning on staying the night but then I just kept dreaming about my bed at my apartment and I was lured back. BUT we watched a GREAT movie.

Ed Wood. The story of the "worst director of all time" with a brilliant BRILLANT cast, including the always fabulous Johnny Depp in a heartbreaking performance. Also great performance by Walter Matthau (sp?). Beautiful clever sensitive movie - Tim Burton of course.

Alright, I can't process any more thought. Goodnight!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

The Groove

I made the most amazingly beautiful and delicious blueberry pancake this morning.
I love blueberry pancakes.

Then I cleaned my room and organised and now I'm figuring out what to do with my weekend.
I want to go see friends I haven't seen yet, like Juliet and go out to Queens to hang out. I wish I lived in Queens and not in this bedroom with A ROOMATE. I now fully realize I hate not having my own room. I HATE IT. I need my own space and not to have to talk to someone all the time. Not to mention her decorating (or I should say COMPLETE lack thereof) is depressing. I feel like I'm living in a mental hospital. Well I am sort of.

I love having suitemates, just not a roomate. And it has nothing to do with her either, she's a great girl, I just need my own space.

I MEAN REALLY, PUT UP SOME POSTERS OR SOMETHING!!!!

I'm listening to jazz.

Also, why is a nice bottle of wine 20 dollars? That's too much.

Hervé comes in october!

I'm looking through my scene from Hedda Gabler for acting class. I think its the same scene that Dana had last semester maybe I'll ask her advice. I've got to start working on it though, we have to be on our feet on monday, and I've got to have strong choices made. And I think I have to do some shit for vocal lab too. And reading to do for theare history, and for my civil war class...even though I uh don't have the books yet... problem? Perhaps.

I'm boring. But make great blueberry pancakes. It all evens out in the end.

Monday, September 04, 2006

The First of MANY Self-Pity Posts

I knew I would get there eventually, I just didn't realize I would get there so very soon.

I'm already feeling completely worthless and alienated, especially after the events of this morning which have left me realizing that nothing really has changed. Just because I'd decided I lived in this beautiful new world where I have a place, doesn't mean it really exists.

I just get so tired of having to fight so hard for credibility, for just a chance, for just a regard. I feel exhausted, after one week I feel utterly exhausted and alone. I feel like I don't have the courage to do this all the time, I can't possibly be expected to do this all the time when others have gilded footprints wherever they step. There is no never-ending well of courage, there is nothing like that. Just me, broken down and dissapointed and then finally realizing its pathetic not to try something, anything, to pull yourself up from the bottom. But my arms are tired from reaching, my legs are sinking into the mud, and no one seems to be interested in pulling me out.

What kills me the most is that the role I've been given is so brief but will still I'm sure manage to make me unelligible to try out for any of the november and december shows. Doors are shutting so fast, it seems everywhere I turn I just catch the slamming of the frame shaking and am left in an empty room with no way out. I didn't come back to New York to sink deeper, I came back to start something new. I don't think anyone else did, however. No one is particularly interested in changing anything.

I'm just dreading dreading the readthrough where I will sit for three hours listening to the play, throw in my five or six lines, and then liften to the end. Then we'll discuss the play and our impressions and I'll be grateful and smiling and interested, I'll have to be, because they think this is a gift. I hate it. I hate it. I hate having to act all the time. Why is me not good enough?

One-way trip to Lyon, France: $270
I long to be with someone who wants, someone who needs, someone who cherishes me.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Suprise?

So Fordham is closing the costume shop, tonight I discussed this with Morgan for quite some time. This means we can't construct for mainstage shows, we can't pull from stock for studio shows, and we have no facilities for our costume design majors. All mainstage shows will be in modern dress. All studio shows won't have any costume elements, basically, and all design majors will have no practical experience in a shop of any kind, nor will they have any experience building costumes. We'll just have to shop all the shows, buy things in stores. But do they give us any more money? Sure sure, $75. Seventy-five dollars. That's supposed to make up for the fact that we don't even have a pair of SHOES anywhere we can use. You have to pull from the actors' own wardrobe or buy EVERYTHING. For those of you who haven't yet realized, this is a complete disaster. A horribble disaster. And the department is all hyped because our auditions are going national, and we're starting to compete with programs like NYU but how can we POSSIBLY even dream of doing that without a full design program?! It is just so SO dissapointing. Every program I'm ever involved in is SO SO GOOD but has facilities that are just deplorable. We're the highlighted program of the school and this is what we get? This is a huge huge blow.

Then this guy, Sasi, who owns the apartment my mom stayed at STILL has her $350 security deposit and won't meet with me to give it back. He was supposed to give it to her the day she left but he was over an hour late so she had to leave to get on her plane. And now he won't return my calls, and when he does he expects me to come up to 187th st to pick it up! HEEEELLLL NO! Do you know where I live? I'm am not strolling up into Harlem at 11 o'clock at night to pick up $350 bucks which should already be in my bank account. YOU need to come to ME. Fuck that, that is bullshit. And what kind of name is Sasi anyway.

We need to get some serious decorating done in my apartment too, I feel like I'm living in a hospital. And my roomate's side of my bedroom looks like she fled the country in haste. Not so homey...

I am full of complaints tonight. I blame the fact that Hervé can't email me tonight, which means I won't have a message when I wake up. I was really getting used to that, it was nice. I hope he comes soon.

I hope I get cast in mainstage, that would be amazing.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

On keepin on keepin on.

So, I think I'm gonna keep this blog going for a while. You know, like a big girl, who started with livejournal and now have blossomed into a buxom blogger...hehhe.

Ok that was ridiculous.

SO, I'm back in new york city, with my very best friends in the world. I spent the whole first morning laughing and swapping stories and being so happy to talk to my Meg who I missed sooooo much! We got really really close last year and now I can hardly imagine not being around her all the time. I just love that girl!

in other news, I am glowing with happiness because....I'M A PERFORMANCE MAJOR!!! And a production major. Um and a history major. And in the honors program. What? But anyway, I can take advanced acting classes, and vocal labs, and movement and senior showcase! Only downside is i've now been demoted to a junior. Which means two more years. Sneaky how I worked that out...

My mom helped me move in and organise and then as usual, re-arranged everything the way she liked it while I was sleeping/distracted. She left this morning....not exactly crushed. She's going to Illinois to see her relatives so it makes me happy that she's going somewhere that is not home. Home is sort of a disaster right now, even though my dad's back in his program, it doesn't, as usual, seem to be helping at all. Suprise suprise.

I have been desperately waiting for any word from mon amour Hervé and I finally got an email yesterday! I got it in the morning too, when I didn't have time to read it and I spent the whole torturous day thinking about it. As soon as I got home I tore that email APART. It was perfect, as usual. I hope he comes to visit soon. I was planning to write a response but wanted to do so after my mother left that night - which then didn't happen until 2am. So I began writing and became so rapidly exhausted that I saved it as a draft and planned to finish it today. I didn't DREAM he'd be able to get back on a computer again. But of course, he somehow did, and had no email from me and was sad and dissapointed in a really apologetic way and I felt AWFUL. So I wrote him a frantic email explaining and called him on skype and I haven't heard anything else. If you wonder why I'm telling you this, the answer is because I'm completely nuts. I'm crazy. That's...yeah that's about it.

I think I have my schedule all figured out now, at least as far as classes go, and I only have class on mondays, tuesdays, and wednesdays! It rocks, pretty much. That means when I leave for the weekend I can leave on wednesday night if I want. Suh-weet! I'm only taking four classes: acting (and vocal tech), theatre history, draping, and civil war history. Interesting combination. I could also take that french class but it would tip me up to 20 credits and I don't know if I can handle that, I don't want to do what I did to myself the last semester I was here. I mean I had to LEAVE THE COUNTRY afterwards. Clearly not a good plan.

I auditioned for the mainstage shows tonight, or only one of them actually because there was just no part for me in the other. I mean really. Anyway the one I auditioned for is a restoration comedy called Busy Body. It went alright but I'm not optimistic about a callback, I've never even been called back for a mainstage. Saturday is the audition for Morgan's show which I'm REALLY interested in. We shall see.

So I guess that's about all that is new...yup. Off to the grocery store at 11pm. I love New York.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

The Hardest Part

I know all along I would need to write this entry but I kept putting it off and putting it off and claiming it wasn't the right moment over and over again. But it will never be the right moment, so I figured finally, I would just suck it up and do it.

I left Paris on the 14th.
I left Hervé on the 13th, at dusk. We stood on the train platform, locked in each other's embrace; me trying not to cry and him kissing away the tears that slipped out. I want to see him as soon as possible but we're both broke and although he works he's building his house when he's not away on business and I feel awful having him spend all his time and money to come see me. So hard. If he wasn't absolutely remarkable, I'm not sure I would let myself feel the way I feel about him.
I just don't think I've ever been with someone who made me feel extraordinary when I'm being simply myself. Maybe its part him and part the fact that this whole experience has made me more comfortable in my own skin, but it just feels at ease but nice. Its going to be horridly awful to be so far from each other, but I can't ignore the way this feels. I'm absolutely no good at that, and neither is he, thank god.

Couldn't we just drain the atlantic and build a big highway? Where cars travel at 1000 miles per hour and don't use gas? That would be swell.

I've been home for several days now, well over a week I guess but it doesn't feel that long. I went down to Ashland with my mom and Mara, which was so great. I hardy ever get to see Mara and we got to spend some nice quality time together. I am still jet-lagged so I start getting sleepy at about 10:00 at night, but I managed to make it through most of the shows, sorry if I wasn't excited Mara, I blame fatigue and the general shock of coming home.

So far the only things that stood out in coming back have been anoverwhelming feeling that everyone is staring at me, but I decided maybe this is a residual effect from france, where in general, everyone WAS usually staring at me.
That and everyone is so friendly in shops and restaurants here, I forgot all about that.
I also seem to speak with a bit of a drawl, I don't know why.

I leave for new york thursday morning THANK GOD, things are explosive here. My dad has interviews for a new job, I cross my fingers he finds something that pleases both him and my mom. She has been biting her nails to the bone (metaphorically, she has impecible nails actually). I long so much to be around all my best friends, but I fear so much that there's so mch I can never make them understand and I'll feel like I've alienated myself from them. I realize now I was already feeling alienated when I left, perhaps by my own doing. I just felt muddled and lost track of where I ended and others began, and I hate that feeling. Especially when its non-consentual, it feel so violating. Like someone is poking around in your mind and zapping away every sunconscious inkling that you find comforting. A horribly dangerous feeling for me, because I don't handle imbalance very well.

Hervé leaves for La Rochelle for work, I leave for New York (with my mom in tow, mostly so she can escape the domestic hell that is her life). Many happy reunions lay ahead but part of me is very scared, and I don't know why.

But yes, it is over. My 8 months abroad have changed me more than I could possibly express, so I hope these entries speak for themselves. I may or may not decide to keep this blog, I haven't been able to devote more than 10 seconds of clear thought to it and 12:39, when I'm still jet-lagged, and have just said goodbye to my lover who I won't speak with again for two weeks, is not the time to make an attempt.

a bientot mes adorés,

Deb

Monday, August 07, 2006

Une Vie Plus Simple

My plane leaves Paris for the States on the 14th.

I am making yet another impromptu trip to spend as much time as possible with Herve.
I'll only be back in Paris the night before I leave, which means these (until Wednesday) are my last days in Paris.

I'm sort of dazed and confused, and about 80% in denial.

I was in Bretagne for the last few days, the jagged rocks of the wild atlantic coast. It was cloudy most of the time, but that didn't bother me. A wild smokey ocean is what maybe I like most of all. And the food, oh the food...I think between Bretagne and the Alps I've put on at least 4 kilos (8ish pounds). GUH.

Spent three blissful days in the Alps with Herve, his brother Norbert and his brother's girlfriend Aurelie. We also had dinner a couple of times with his Aunt and Uncle and their daughter, Virginie who has a tiny baby girl named Noami. Took adorable pictures of us all frolicking in the mountains.

Herve tried to teach me how to play the guitar and I tried to teach him a little bit of the piano. We made up little songs.

Went apricot picking with Aurelie while Herve and his brother and their dad worked on mounting the giant bay window in Herve's new house. We got chased away by wasps but pretended not to be afraid.

One morning during breakfast I saw Herve's father outside picking wildflowers which grow on the grassy hill outside of their home. Brilliant gold and pink. Later I saw these same flowers in a vase on the mantle in the living room, beside the collection of photographs of Herve's mother, who passed away four years ago. Herve told me that every evening on his way home from work his father visits his mother's grave. I looked at those flowers and I looked at this man in front of me with sincere gentle eyes and I looked out the window behind him over the hills to the village in the distance with its gray stone church tower towering above the houses with their red slate rooves. I started to cry and though all I could do was apologize he took me into his arms and sat with me on the couch until after some time we both fell asleep.

When did life become so complicated? When did we lose our hold on the simple integrity of our own sentiments? Why do we apologize when we cry? Why isn't there always someone there to take us into their arms?

Saturday, July 29, 2006

The Beginning of the End

So sorry I've been a little lax about updating, I was in the glorious french countryside with a glorious man who I am totally crazy about. So basically: doom. No, he's wonderful and attentive and funny and down to earth and sexy and sincere. And 32 and lives in a tiny town in France where he's building his own house overlooking an enormous valley peppered with tiny brick villages and farms. The sun rises over the hills of the valley in the mornings and the scent of the apricot trees floats in the window and onto your skin. It seeps into your clothes and your eyes and your mind and you feel like every step you take leaves glowing footprints.

I'm going back down to see him on monday and we're taking off into the mountains for the whole week. What has my life become, someone please tell me.

But for now I am back in Paris. I did so much shopping yesterday, I do not even want to tell you how much I spent. When my mom sees my credit card bill she is going to blow an ovary. Well she would anyway, theoretically, if she still had them. But I bought some really nice things and I am almost completely done with my shopping.

Today is unbearably beautiful, I'm gonna stroll the city and take photos like a maniac tourist. I love this city. I love this life. Hooray!

Oh and I'm flying back to NYC on the 24th and move-in is set for the 25th!! I cannot wait to see you all, I miss you just terribly. Terribly terribly. Gros gros bisous from your little french girl!

à vos amours,
Debra

Friday, July 21, 2006

d'être l'étrangère

This week marks a month since I moved out of Paris. It feels like much longer. Traveling is an adventure but I feel more and more like a foreigner without anything to tie me down.

Last night upon my return to Avignon, I walked up early to the Palais des Papes to sit in the twilight and enjoy the view and I happened upon Carolina, one of my good friends from Paris and her boyfriend François. I could hardly believe it. We planned to meet for coffee this morning. Then I saw Les Barbares, which is Gorki, the same writer who wrote Platanov, which I loved. I had some problems with the mise en scène (read: directing) but I can't blame the director entirely, it is just not written with a central thread but the director did very little to magnify whatever there was. There were interesting scenes, but I found myself emotionally exhausted at the end from trying to attach myself to the characters. I went back to my hotel and crashed big time.

Met Carolina for coffee this morning. She's here tagging along with her boyfriend and his troupe, who are putting on a few shows at the Festival. I'm gonna catch one tomorrow before I leave town. Carolina is really incredible. She's disastrously beautiful, full of mysterious power and intensity, but carries herself with such breathless grace and ease that it almost hurts to watch her. She's one of those creatures that floats through life on a cool air and the rest of us can do nothing but chase after her for a glimpse. How I wish I had her luck. She's Italian but she's lived in Paris for 7 years, we talked about her current amours, and the possibility (which tears me up inside) of moving to Paris after I finish school.

I think about doing it every day and yet there is so much against it and so much for it and so much of me that would like to escape forever but knows there are chains that forever bind...j'en sais rien. I don't know how I feel, I feel mixed up inside, dizzy, like that game where you put your head on a baseball bat and spin around 7 times. Then someone pushes you and you wander stumbling forward while your eyes search for a clear horizen.

Tomorrow Hervé comes to pick me up and we'll spend 4 blissful days at his house in the country.

I miss you all terrible, but mark your calenders! I come home on August the 13th!

biz,
Debra

Monday, July 17, 2006

Ciao Bella

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm my skin is burning and it feels so good.

Well I'm still in the Cinque Terre, I've been here since the 14th and its now...um...monday? The 17th. The weather has been perfect if a little hot, I've met some really awesome people, I've spent way too much time in the sun, and I've eaten a lot of gelato.

My italian is terrible.

Yesterday I met a guy on the beach and then I felt obliged to hang out with him all day. Why do I do things like this. I really just wanted to be alone and I could tell he wanted to hook up and I was just not feeling it but I felt like I had to be nice until he actually tried anything. WHY?! Why do I have to be nice. If I don't want to spend any time with someone, shouldn't I be able to say to them, "look, I don't want to spend time with you, I'd really rather be alone". I'd feel horrible afterwards.

I also finished Bérénice, by Racine, which was so heartbreakingly beautiful I almost cried about 40 times. It has been a little while since I read something that struck me so entirely. Just the language and the sentiments are so perfectly beautiful and sad, I thought I would burst. I had to keep reading this one part over and over again, I just couldn't get enough of it. Could also have had something to do with the limoncello I was drinking but really, its just a beautiful passage.

If I had the book with me I would type it up here right now.

Now I am reading 'La Guerre de Troie N'aura pas Lieu' or The Trojan War won't Happen, by Jean Giraudoux. Its really challenging my french, I kind of wish I had a good dictionary with me. But its really interesting. It starts before the trojan war, when the first greek emissary comes to try and get Helen back from Paris. And in this play, the two don't even love each other anymore, and it plays with the idea of fate etc. Anyway that was a really poor explanation, BUT the point is its really interesting. Has a lot of things about the inevitability of war, which is kind of creepy to read Lebanon is swallowed by war between Israel and Palestine. Well oversimplification, but yeah.

Well I think its time for a gelato, don't you?

I go back to France early on the morning of the 20th, and Hervé comes to get me on the 22nd. So excited! I haven't heard from Akilles since he wrote me from Cambodia. Not thrilled about that. Maybe I'll drop him a little note.

bisous à tous!

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Quick Note

I made it to the Cinque Terre safe and exhausted.

On my way to the beach!

I'll write more later I promise. SO much to tell, this place is ridiculously beautiful.

ciao bei,
Deb

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Bliss à la Provencale

Decided at the last minute (before I went to bed) that I would take a day trip to Arles, another town in Provence, yesterday.

Got on the train at about 10:30 and was there until about 6 that evening. I took a stroll through the market, watching the Arlesians catching each other up. I wonder what my life would have been like if I had grown up in a small town like this. How different it must be than the American suburbs. Or New York City.

Arles has a huge roman ampitheatre that is still mostly intact, where they still have bullfights and all sorts of events. Parts of the Ampitheatre have been renewed: sandblasted, and the limestone is peachy and clean, the color of a baby's skin, and smooth. But other parts are graying and speckled with age-spots that climb up the wall in patterns like ivy. When the hot provencale sun beats down in the afternoon, these shadowy parts of the ampitheatre stay cool and wilting tourists gather and chatter in their different languages, making a busy little symphony which rises into the air and floats over the souvenir shops surrounding the the great circle of stone.

Across the street is the Van Gogh museum, which (as it boasts in proud letters) is air conditionned! The current exhibit is a collection of Spanish engravings of bullfights and works by Picasso, who was perhaps the sport's most famous fan. I take a peek but I'm not much for depictions of the goring of animals, and although I do like Picasso, I decide to search out other amusements.

Down the Rue de la Clôture is an ancient Roman theatre, built in the first century. I pay my petit prix (admission) and the man at the counter asks me if I speak a little english. "I only have the pamphlets left in english, is that ok?" I smiled.
I climb the steps and enter through a vomitory and stare out at the seats before me. I imagine them full of people, imagine the voices of the actors booming out over the theatre like rumbling low bell-tones. I walk to the stage (where they are setting up for what I assume must have been a concert) and hurry back to what was at one time the backstage, now littered with bits of broken history: stones from corinthian columns, their ancient engravings giving them a wavy appearance. I sit on one of them and stay for some time.

Wandering through the medieval lanes of old Arles, I come upon la Place de Forum, where I find un petit restaurant which suits my taste and has a nice wine list. I sit and enjoy une salade paysanne and a glass or two of cold white wine, light and sweet, making the sun beat softer down upon the streets, and the breeze play tricks with the leaves above the terrace where I sit. I read Molière and laugh to myself.

After lunch, I wander around the bits of Arles that Van Gogh immortalized in his paintings. I find an ice-cream shop which claims to make all their own ingredients. I choose peach, almond, and ginger, and I wander past the golden café, the hospital gardens, and finish my petit séjour with a walk along the Rhône river, back towards the train station, to the spot where Van Gogh painted the Starry Night over Arles.

A blissful afternoon.

To follow it up, I went to La Tour de la Défense that night, by Copi, which was like Oscar Wilde meets Martin McDonough who then revel in the sex and drugs of the 1960's; it left me with plenty to ponder until I went back to my hotel, took my long-awaited COLD shower, and went to bed.

Even though this morning I awoke hot and already sweating (at 8:30am)I was happy.
I got into town and bought myself a little breakfast of nectarines, pastry, and orange juice. Then I went to a play called Le Paradis Modeste, where a little clown goes in search of his companion who has died, through many different versions of the afterlife.

Now I think I'll have a little snack, and head up to the Park to grab a precious city view. Maybe I'll find a bookstore along the way. Tonight, La Poursuite du Vent, and tomorrow morning at 6:30am I leave for Italy.

I better work on my Italian!

ciao!
Deb

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Hot Hot Hot!

I woke up this morning at 9:30am. It was already 32°C. And this is oppressive heat.
Guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.
Yesterday I walked around all day long, and I was sweating so much I just couldn't get any wetter. I took a shower when I finally got back to my hotel at like 11 and I was standing there with the stream of water running down my back and I couldn't help but think, "i have been this wet all day long". God I hope it gets better. Either that or I will be spendingt all of my time in this internet café which is air conditioned. Mmmmmmm.

Last night I saw a group from Atlanta do a very famous contemporary french play by a very famous contemporary french author. Combat de Nègres et de Chiens, be Bérnard-Marie Koltès, or in english, Black Battles with Dogs. I had a few minor issues with the translation but it was incredibly interesting. It was hot inside the theatre and everyone was fanning themselves with their programs, I looked out over the audience, their faces transfixed but their hands fanning in unison. The actor who played Horn was fantastic, Leone was solid, Albery was ok, and the youngest guy was gorgeous but sadly not so great. I don't blame him because this is a really particular style that is incredibly unfamiliar to american audiences, just the cadence of the phrases, the sonority of the words. Some passages or songlike. Anyway, he was just not equipped and whether that was his doing or the directors, I don't know. Still, the show was great and the french audience gave them 5 bows.

Tonight I'm supposed to see some show with horses in it, cicus style. I have no idea what it will be like, more on that tomorrow.

Today is tuesday, I leave for Italy on thursday. So excited.

bisous à tous
Deb

Monday, July 10, 2006

As promised: an absurdly long post

Ok I had just typed pages and pages and then the power went out and I lost everything I had typed. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Ok, I will start over but that had better NOT happen again.

SO I can finally post! For those keeping track, today I am in Avignon, France. I will be here for several days, exploring and seeing plays at the Festival de theatre.
My hotel is really far away behind a mall in the suburbs, but hey, it was cheap. I can't complain.

I guess I will start at the very beginning. I hear its a very good place to start.

I left Paris. I'm still a bit in shock that its over, its seems almost impossible. I keep thinking I'm going to walk out of this cafe and back to my apartment on Avenue du Roule in Paris, but I won't. I said goodbye to my boyfriend, to my friends, to my host family, and I have no idea if I will ever see them again. I woulf like to think yes. Some of them have promised to visit. When I return to Paris, I will always have friends here, but its not the same. The last night Akilles and I spent together I started to cry only once, and only after he had left on the night we said our final goodbye. After the shows, which went extremely well, I was with my castmates until 3am. When they finally put me in a taxi, I was crying and kissing them all. When the taxi pulled away, they chased it down the street, aving and blowing kisses. I have emails and phone numbers and I hope very much they will come to New York.
This week they are out in the country, living in commune, preparing a show round-the-clock. What youth and spirit cannot do must be impossible. I love them and miss them.

Clement made me a CD which I haven't listened to yet. French songs that he labeled with instructions about when to listen to each: "for rainy days", "for feeling sad", "for driving in the car", "for i don't know what". I love him so much, i can't wait to see him again. Why do the great ones like boys?

So that was June 25th. That was leaving Paris.
Après ça, i have done the following (i'll try to be as organised as possible):

1) Leipzig: Spent most of the day in the train station, but did manage to take a long walk that evening. Leipzig is in eastern Germany, which still carries marked differences from ots Western counterparts; remnants of its time behind the iron curtain. In Leipzig lives Corrina, the german student (now in med school) who lived with my family for - months when I was 13 years old. She has lived in Leipzig for - years now, and was telling me about the lingering tensions in the relationship between eastern and western germany. She grew up in the West but she claims that she likes Leipzig better, with 5 eras of history on every block (although admittedly poorly mantained in some areas). She is leaving Leipzig soon to spend a few months in Hungary doing her internship: Leipzig is too full of students and too short on jobs. It was nice to see her and talk to her, but I was still in a daze from leaving Paris, and exhausted from lack of sleep. Plus we were leaving early in the morning for our train to...

2) Prague: Prague is great, especially if you like Art Nouveau. Loved the Mucha museum. It is remarkably well preserved as well, most of the old city sights survived the communist era without too much damage. We took a walking tour with one of Prague's old actors, he even took us to lunch at the National Theatre's cafeteria. The National theatre is where they filmed certain parts of Amadeus, and Mozart worked and lived in this city for 6 of the 'best years of his life'. Prague is also the traditional home of Black Light Theatre, which is across between puppetry, mime, and a lazer light show. Clearly a product of the 60's.
Just in front of the statue on Wenceslaus square, there is a monument to two students, 21 and 19 years old, who set themselves on fire in protest against the communist regime. Clearly, apathy is not a political epidemic in Prague. Not that anyone should make a habit of setting themselves on fire, but it certqinly made an impression on me. Have I ever been so devoted to a cause that I would sacrifice myself, much less set myself on fire? Could I ever be?

3) Salzbourg: The best thing about Salzbourg was the France-Brazil match. Beautiful town, a few interesting mozart sights, but mostly lots of tourists and not much to do. The highlight for me, was the hilarious 'Sound of Music' tour, which took us into the countryside. There are miles and miles of unbelievable countryside, wide clear lakes, charming villages, and plenty of strudel stands. In the van, the guide turned on the Sound of Music soundtrack and everyone on the bus started to sing along, which I thought was sweet. A testament to the universality of, if nothing else, Julie Andrews. The hills were indeed alive, and I wasn't even annoyed. Oh, and we went to a luge course and rode down the mountain in the silver metal tracks.

4) The next day we took a boat ride through the Wachau, a beautiful valley full of terraced vineyards and cute-as-a-button villages, skirting a 15km bend of the Danube. It was nice to relax. That evening we arrived in...

5) Vienna: I loved Vienna, and we were only there for barely two days, which is not nearly enough. It is a beautiful city, benefitting from the incredible wealth of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, and nearly completely rescued from the perils of WWI and II (which is more than we can say about the empire itself). I fell in love with the legends of the familial turmoils of the monarchy, especially the mysterious, depressed, and beautiful empress Sissy. Internationnaly misunderstood and yet unabashedly admired, she wrote poetry and travelled the world. Then she was assasinated by an italian anarchist. They devoted an entire museum to her legacy. I think I will pick up a book about her when I get back to the states.
Vienna made me want to learn German, and for those of you who do know it, if you want to live abroad and work on it, I would strongly endorse spending time in Vienna.

6) Budapest: It takes time for Budapest to surrender her mysteries to those who are willing to seek them out. I had one full day and one morning, which of course, was insufficient. Hungarian is also an IMPOSSIBLE language. The city is fascinating, and still recovering from the communist era, which hit Hungary particularly hard. My favorite sights were the Museum of Terror and the Public baths. It was also hot hot hot, and I got sunburnt, but France beat Portugal so I didn't care. I watched the game on an enormous screen, sitting on the ground in the middle of a square. People were everywhere, cheering, yelling. It was truly exhilerating, honestly, I sat there and looked around me and I just smiled. I think I would have been satisfied even if we had not won the game. But we did. Hehe.

7) Miskolc: just barely emerging from the veil of Communism. A small city in the hills, where my mom's cousin and her husband have been doing missionary work for the last 16 years. The countryside if lovely, and the town is a work in progress. Hungarian food is yummy, if you like heartburn.

8) Krakow: We visited Auchwitz-Birkenau first thing, which was a bit unorthodox perhaps but incredibly moving. It was so enormous and the sun bore down on us so hot, my heart was heavy with sadness. The atrocities that occurred here stand in stark contrast to the grass that now grows green and fragrant over the fields where crumbling chimneys of hundreds of prisoner barracks once stood. Really a moving spot, I would recommend a visit if you ever get the opportunity.
Krakow was nice, we basically just walked around a lot. It was beautiful, with a church on every corner, usually with a picture of pope John Paul II on it. He was born near here and Archbishop here as well. He's sort of a cult figure in Poland. The polish are ardently catholic afterall. Krakow is also full of tourists, but still worth it for a day or two I think.

And that's all. Now I'm here, and staring at this screen is giving me a headache. I'll try and update again before I leave avignon.