I've been pretty bad at blogging lately. There's been a lot going on, certainly some legitimately interesting things (or so I think), but I've been too insane/manic/depressive/hungry/tired/anything else you can think of to sit down and do it.

Now is the time!

Going way back, Thanksgiving (my GOD) was a lot of fun. It was great to be home-- I had been really looking forward to it and was so happy to be in my house, in my old room, with Slinky, with a real kitchen, with a bathroom that doesn't make me into a rageaholic every time I try to take a shower. Most of the extended family was there and I was so happy to see them. Fun things included eating way too much, eating some more, verging on barfing a million times, antagonizing the Guba's dog, eating still MORE, and playing Balderdash with a combination of people who didn't understand the rules, people who understood but had no regard for the rules, very Christian people, drunk people, and people who didn't want to be playing.

A highlight was going, the day after T-giving, to The Newest Lunch in Schenec and 'secretly' 'flirting' with all the guys who work there. This has been going on for approximately six years. They must know. There are a lot of them; Ange is my main crush. When he says "Hey, how you been?" twice a year, my heart goes pitter-pat. My family makes fun; but my crush on the hotdog man is all real. Some day! I'll tell him my love. Until then....I'll take one with everything.

After Thanksgiving, my insanity incread 450% because time started to run out before MY READING. Which happened two days ago. In the week leading up to Tgiving, I spent a minimum of four hours at Cafe Grumpy in Greenpoint, scraping together change to buy cups of coffee, ripping my hair out and doing a lot of agonizing over the three words I'd manage to write. I didn't do a lick of work over Thanksgiving. When I got back to New York, I realized that the new draft still didn't have an ending and that I was in big trouble. However-- I put one together, the folks at La Mama assembled a cast, and we made it through the to day of the rehearsal. I had only a few nervous breakdowns along the way.

And then it was Tuesday, my birthday, and the day of the reading. It's easy to guilt people into coming to a reading that they wouldn't necessarily come to when it's ALSO your birthday, I have to say. My parents were there, as well a many, many of my wonderful friends from all different places-- work, school, shows, etc. I can't imagine having another birthday when I might have so many people that I like in one place. The reading went as well as I could have hoped it to go. I was pleased. And a wreck. I wrang my hands, bit my nails, and compulsively took off and put on my sweater during it. I was flushed and my heart was beating out of my chest. I haven't been so worked up in a long, long time. It felt good. At the end, I was brought onstage while people sang happy birthday, which embarassed me to no end, and which made me turn even redder. Then there was a short, relatively painless talkback in which I attempted to walk the line between charmingly self-deprecating and impressively cool. Uh, I think we can all guess which one I veered more towards. Talkbacks are the devil. The only good part was the lights glinting off my sweet kicks. I liked that.

Some folks went out for drinks afterwards, and I had a great, great time laughing and drinking and eating cookies (my mom made some shaped like Lincoln-- do you see where I get it?). My parents gave me too many presents, including a pair of saddle shoes. They are fucking awesome. (I had a fit last night at the pizza place by my apartment when Nitz and I spotted a hipster girl at the next table wearing a pair. I was like 'NO! This was going to be MY style! How dare the hipsters co-opt it already?!)

So, now I'm 23, have cool shoes, and know that I have a lot of really awesome friends. That's good.

I think I'm slowly crashing from the nervousness/excitement of the past few weeks. The proof? I slept about 12 hours last night and spent today in bed, watching Arrested Development. Indeed. Painting my nails was my biggest accomplishment.

I don't know what's next for me. I know now for sure, though I've known it before, that though it makes me insane, I'm definitely WAY better off when I'm working really hard on something. I should do something new.

We'll see.

Christmas is coming up soon, which I can't believe. Despite attempts not to, I'm falling into the trap and getting stressed out about it.

In the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of his finest roles, I need to "CHILL."

Finally: We've gotten two letters to Santa here at work. The first one was from a girl who was writing on behalf of herself and her two younger siblings. The second on is from a 2-year old (a likely story!!) who asks for clothing and toys and ends her letter this way:

'Please Santa make my wish come true. I will really apprecaite it. This will be the best gift ever for Christmas and for my birthday that's in December 11th and I'm turn 3. Thank you so much. I love you Santa. I wish you a merry, merry, merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.'

I'm not sure how these people confused a beat off-off Broadway theatre with the North Pole-- perhaps it's the red facade?-- but these letters are too cute to be true.

Rain! Go away!

I'll mention this a million more times over the next two months, but...

A date has been set for my reading!

Come see (or hear):

We Things That Are Now
by Yours Truly
dir. Craigy Mungavin
Monday, December 8th, 7:30 pm
La Mama Experimental Theatre Club
74 East 4th Street b/w 2nd and Bowery
Free! Free! Free!

And then come party for my birthday afterward.

TEMPT NOT

So, Erin had her birthday party last night at Planet Rose on Avenue A (can I say 'Alphabet City'? Ooh, it just makes me fee so OVER THE MOON)...a karaoke place with a strange mixture of passive-aggressive screechy girls, Really Serious Karaoke Dudes, bros with baseball caps, and our gang.

Anyway, I've never done karaoke before, and put a lot of thought into what I would sing when the moment finally came. I decided on '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?' by Elvis Costello and The Attractions partially as a homage to Bill Murray's karaoke in Lost in Translation, and partially because I of course love Elvis. Now, as it happens, I wound up only singing a duet with the birthday gal on 'Paradise By the Dashboard Light' which was more that fine, considering that it was the realization of long-time dreams for both of us. Good.

Now, the point of this post is not to talk Meatloaf-- the point is that my eyes were opened to the amazing possibilities of karaoke in my life last night.

They. Had. Showtunes.

They had 'The Ladies Who Lunch.'

I was like "I could ruin EVERYONE'S night right now and have the time of my life doing it!" I think that kind of thing is only hilarious in indie movies, not when you're doing them yourself, but, man....'Delilah' by Tom Jones? 'One Bad Apple' by the Osmonds? 'Que Sera Sera', in the style of Doris Day? AMAZING. I was giddy with the temptation to do a really, really weird song. How many times can you hear 'Since U Been Gone,' anyway? You know?

But I resisted. Next time? I might not be so strong. Especially if I make it to cheap drinks/sing free happy hour, some rainy afternoon, by myself, with a hankering for some oldies.

A healthy eight hours!

From 5:00 am to 1:00 pm!

It's been a while since I've done that. Ah, youth! Too bad tomorrow it'll all be gone, gone, gone!

Work was very silly yesterday. I met up with Craig at around 8:30 in Times Square, which was a terrible idea but also a good idea, and we just wandered around and chatted. I was so happy to see him. He walked me over to the theatre where I saw....

'Things We Want.' It wasn't great by a long shot but it was good enough that I enjoyed myself and didn't fall asleep...which felt like a very real possibility as soon as I sat down. Paul Dano was really pretty good- he had the most to do, sort of. I don't know-- the play itself wasn't good. Josh Hamilton had to play two diamaetrically opposing parts of the same annoying, completely unbelievable character, and he did so in a way that, uh....made my flesh crawl? I couldn't stand him. I guess it served him as the play wore on, but at that point I was so done watching him that I didn't really care. Peter Dinklage had a fun part and got to do a lot of stumbling around and running into things, which people in the audience kept responding to with "Awwwww!," in a "How CUTE!" way. Iiiiiiiiiiiii don't know about that. And Zoe Kazan....her part sucked so much. It had so much promise in the first act and then all of a sudden fifteen minutes later she's walking around with no pants on and pretending to give Josh Hamilton a blowjob. Whatever.

For me, the frustrating thing is....of course I love to go to the theatre, even if it's bad, usually even if I KNOW it's going to bad. I'd usually rather see even bad theatre than do a lot of other things. And I really believe that and feel that, because I think everything has merit, even if it's just to show me what I have to spend the rest of my days combatting. To be dramatic about it. So I see things like this play-- certainly I'd rather watch that than Cats or those readings I saw the other night-- and I dont' expect everything, or really anything, to be perfect, but-- this play had what I thought were some serious, serious issues. Did everyone responsible for getting this production disagree with me? Because the thought that goes through my mind is-- Well, if they liked this piece of crap, then they'll fucking LOVE *my* play!

Which of course has absolutely no basis in logical fact. But you know? I know in my brain that it's all based on a myruiad of factors which have absolutely no part in my life. But in my not-brain, in my...heart? (what?), I don't know, I just think "What I have to say is so much BETTER than this!"

And maybe that's at the core of everyone who is stupid/ballsy/cocky/generous enough to enter into any sort of artistic pursuit. Who the hell knows. It's 2:00 and I just woke up.

After the show, I made the epic trek to Katy's house in Queens. I don't even know where in Queens I was. All I know was that the directions involved things like 'Okay, now you see those train tracks? Walk over them.' I wrote her address down incorrectly and wound up a few blocks from her house, amidst these dark, creepy, overgrown houses with freaky statuary and/or junk in the yard. I forced myself to have a second wind, and the night wound up being very nice-- the Boston caravan arrived around 2, and Pat and Ollie were there when Craig and Nitz arrived. We did Hannukah, and Pat and I each got a birthday cupcake. Everyone was so beyond exhausted that the punchiness level was sky-high, and almost everything made me laugh literally until I was crying. (THAT's what's on the other side of tiredness, Elaine!) Billy drove us home pretty smoothly. I went to bed at 5!

Today, I'm dedicating most of my day to watching Arrested Development with Meg. Because I can-can-can.