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

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!

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.

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.

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!!

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 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.

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!

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.

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.

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.