A day off! That is what today is. I've been working like a dog lately. At the 9/11 memorial visitors center. Talk about a downer. I'm the greeter, it feel a little something like this: Hi! Welcome to the 9/11 memorial visitors center where we will rehash horribly unsettling feelings from the worst attack on American soil in recent history!!!!!!!! Buy a t shirt so you can remember these feelings FOREVER or at least as long as the shirt lasts.

The weirdest part is it feels like a tourist attraction, but it's still filled with people who were personally affected by these events. Pretty unsettling. And this is where I've been working for the past two weeks. I didn't expect it to be so heavily visited or to emotionally affect me so much. The worst part is pretty much no one realizes that you need a visitors pass to enter the memorial because pretty much every newscaster managed to not say as much on tv. This one woman went to me: You should have told the Today Show to say that, my response was: I told Matt Lauer, you messed it up! But he wouldn't listen to me, her response: If you would have told Meredith, she would have listened. Amen sister friend. So anyways I'll get these people who are like I'm from out of town, I have today only and my best friend was in the hijacked plane right behind the terrorist and I have to tell them, I'm sorry you have to reserve your passes in advance online, and then I try to hold back tears meanwhile the video that has been repeating all day cuts to the part where the widow talks about how she can't clean out his closets but stares at his shirts remembering him wearing them... everyday feels like a constant battle not to slit my wrists. And I mean this in the most hilarious way possible. I am actually a stable person who does not have suicidal thoughts. (disclaimer).

Besides that, everything's been going well! If you can believe it. Working on starting to co-create my very first webseries! Also, might I add that despite my crazy work schedule, I've been managing to slip in a few auditions AND stick to the made up diet where I don't consume alcohol or ice cream. Not too shabby. Now if only I had a couple days off to devote to catching up on tv/movies that I've been wanting to see... then I'd be set. 

It's my first week back in New York and it of course has flew by. My horoscope said the end of September would be chaotic, but it feels like the whole month is providing some stiff competition.

The money job situation is definitely getting stressful. I immediately scheduled temp jobs for the next two weeks because I needed money, but I just had to pass up a great waitressing job for it and now I'm starting to wonder if I made the right decision by taking temp work. Not that it matters now, because if I back out of the temp work I'd pretty much be excommunicated from the office never to be hired again. At least I'm working.

I was thinking at first that temp work might be a better money job than waitressing, but I'm starting to second guess that because the money temping generally isn't as good and not even as consistent as waitressing can be... For now I'm going to have to table that debate because I'm going to be taking a quick trip home to welcome two new nephews into the world tomorrow.

I am all moved into my apartment in the city. Yay! It felt like a tease, I was all excited to organize everything in my room, but lets be honest I was more overwhelmed with all of the possibilities/lack of possibilities for storage in my room. Luckily my mom was there to help put everything back into working order. Back in NJ I'm tired from waking up early and spending time in the car driving. Feeling stiff. moving in general, no matter how big/little or far is expensive, I have a few things I need to purchase to keep it organized. Trips on the cross town bus to Cost Co will be a must.

Driving through the city today, it was so nice out everyone was jogging and bike riding around. Made me start to wonder, how am I going to continue to keep my serenity I found in the berkshires/my lovely summer cabin getaway in Jerz? I will have to make myself visit parks when ever I get the chance. Not just Riverside, Central too! I need to spread the love for the outdoors. Riverside park is great, but sometimes it can still feel like it's in the middle of all the hubbub that is New York City. The city really has a nack for sucking the happiness out of you and I have to make sure I figure out a way to fight the oppression! I also need to incorporate colors into my room that keep me positive and are soothing. I think putting a curtain up will help.

But I have to sit on all of these ideas, because I'm not living in NYC yet... until Tuesday.

So I did everything I thought I was going to do today-run and bake cupcakes-and really not a whole lot more. Which is fine with me because I am still on vacation in my beautiful summer home (aka mom and dad's).

This comfortable living will of course end soon as I am moving back into NYC this Saturday, and then promptly turning around and driving back home with my parents to spend Labor day weekend with them. Silly, I know but it will be easiest this way, because who wants to do any physical labor on Labor Day? Not this girl.

Trying to stick to a diet but it's hard when you have a compulsion to bake cupcakes. I will be making dinner though tomorrow night, so I have to search to find the perfect recipe for it, something nice and summery in honor of the last fleeting days of it. Fall doesn't start until Sept. 23rd and it's not like I am going back to school or anything.

Well, it kinda does feel like I'm going back to school, now that I think about it. I had a summer away in the rolling hills of the Berkshires and now back to the city, to complete my lesson on how to start a career as an actor. Hopefully this time I'll pass.

I've realized I'm really good at feeling sorry for myself. It needs to stop so I'm going to distract myself by going on a run tomorrow and then making cupcakes which I will surely consume not long after.

It's just that it's difficult to be on facebook and see how successful your friends are and then think about how you were finally cast in a show and had to turn it down in the end because you can't afford to do it because it doesn't really pay... damn you status updates, you've got me doing it again. I am banning myself from facebook. This will be more difficult than trying to not drink coffee, which only lasted 3 days. I'll delete the app from my phone, maybe that will help.

At least for now I should put the computer away and go to sleep. Then in the morning I will just watch tv and feel depressed about how much skinnier the actresses on tv are compared to me. And the camera adds 10 lbs!

Maybe I should just admit this battle against self-pity is one I'm never going to win.

decisions, delusions

I am currently vacationing at my summer home. And by summer home I mean my parent's house in Jersey. My vacay was interrupted slightly by Ms. Hurricane Irene, but luckily no damage was done to my area in-particular.

More troublesome to my relaxing vacay than the storm system is all the anxiety I feel while trying to make a couple important decisions. Well, they feel very important to me. Certainly not earth shattering to most people. Let me fill you in: I got cast in Pirates of Penzance at Fiddlehead Theater Co., here's the catch, I thought I'd get a weekly stipend but I wouldn't and I need to find my own housing. I'm having a really hard time deciding if I am either:

A.) Turning into one of those people who starts to sabotage themselves so they can't truly succeed.

Or

B.) Ignoring a strong gut feeling/instinct that I should listen to and will really make me happy in the end.

Here is what I know- It has been a very long time since I was cast in a real musical, it has been a long time since I last performed in a full stage production. In every senario I can possibly work out in my head I will be losing money from pursuing this endeavor. I can't really afford to lose money right now. I keep dreaming about imporv.

More scary still, here are the unkowns: I don't know if I will get cast in anything when I move back to New York.

That is a pretty big unknown. Here's one more: I don't know if the experience of doing this show will help me or hurt me.

The more I think about it the more I have subconsciously decided that I don't think I can do this show. And I know at first after officially making that decision I will feel a wave of relief and then regret and possibly I'll have a fire under my butt flaming a-new with the requirement that I book a show in order to fill this ugly void.

Before I decide I'm going to have to do some number crunching and online horoscope searching, because lets face it, I need some help in making this decision.

I can't believe the summer is over. I know, people say this every year around the last week of August. It always goes so quickly especially when you're enjoying yourself. I was definitely enjoying myself in the Berkshires. I actually feel renewed coming back into the city. I didn't think I was going to feel that way when I was leaving nyc to work in Pittsfield, MA where Barrington Stage Company is, so you can imagine my surprise when I feel like I can't wait to hit the ground running when I'm officially moved back into my apartment.

Today getting off the bus at Port Authority it was good to meet up with a friendly face. Getting lunch in that area I could sense a group of people around me who were my competition, talking about what audition they were coming from toting their audition back pack-ready to quick change into a dress and heels and belt out a 16 bar uptempo in the blink of an eye.

I immediately felt this dread of: oh great now I'm in a huge pool of girls just like me again, how am I going to stand out from the crowd, how can I get myself to wake up every morning to get rejected and wait in a room with all these beautiful talented girls which I can't help but compare myself to. Then I told myself to stop. Live in the moment, you're having lunch with your friend, enjoy that time. Don't think negatively, it will get you nowhere fast. It's easier said than done, but it helped. The more I focus on myself the easier it is to not be concerned with what everyone else is doing. That sounds horrible though. I don't want to turn into someone who is completely self involved. Yet, if I want to be an actor, I don't know if I have a choice.

This week I'm on vacation as far as I'm concerned. I don't start this new phase of my life: back in nyc and better than ever, until after Sept. 1. So for now I'm focused on what's on tv and what's for lunch. After that I'll get back to what's there to audition for.

#biffma

I saw a film at the Berkshire International Film Festival Saturday that I really enjoyed. It was called A Letter to Elia. It was a 60 min movie about how much film director Elia Kazan's work meant to Martin Scorsese. It was written and directed by Kent Jones and Martin Scorcsese. It made me want to watch On the Waterfront and East of Eden. It was my first time seeing a movie in a film festival. It was really cool because Kent Jones was there and spoke about the film before it and had a Q&A afterward. All the old geezers yelling in the back that they couldn't hear him wasn't so cool, but this is the berkshires... most of the people here have grey hair and a winter house in Florida.

Parting with the city for Summer

Pittsfield, MA. It sounds like a horrible place to live, and sometimes it feels like that, but the truth is it's a bizarre, beautiful town in the middle of the Berkshires (which is this cluster of towns that sit in the north west corner of Massachusetts). There is a vibrant art life here and lots to do and explore which is partly why I'm so happy this is my home for the summer.

I'm working as an associate box office manager at Barrington Stage Company. I really wanted to find summer stock work this year but I'm looking at this time away from the city as an opportunity to practice my audition material and refocus myself, because if the city is good at one thing it's getting people into debt. Not that I'm in a lot of debt right now myself. I just mean that the city is so expensive sometimes it's hard to concentrate on things besides how am I going to make money and how am I not going to spend it.

I'm most excited about being able to see lots of theater probably all for free (I'll get comps from BSC). And there is so much theater to see here it's kind of overwhelming between Berkshire Theater Festival, Williamstown Theater Festival, and Shakespeare and Company. Then there are concerts at Tanglewood and dance performances and classes I can take at Jacob's Pillow. I really want to be inspired by all of the art I'll experience this summer. Hopefully that will help motivate me when I return to New York and start auditioning again. I'm pretty certain it will.