Stress, and happiness?

I’ve been feeling very emotional lately. Not that this is a shocker or anything. But it’s more than usual, I guess.

I think it’s this acting thing. It entails a lot of self-doubt, and falling on your face, and a voice in your head that says oh yeah, the chances of this turning into anything are……SLIM. I often feel like I’m not doing enough: auditioning for enough student films, taking enough classes, reading enough plays, seeing enough plays, trolling enough websites…and all the while I’m like, “Well, is this what I’m supposed to do? What if in a year nothing has happened? Why haven’t they emailed me back about auditioning for “The Reindeer Monologues?”?” And so, and so forth. This hyper emotional I-live-with-my-Dad-and-am-almost-23-and-not-sure-if-I-have-what-it-takes results in such occurences as breaking a glass at 1 a.m. last night, waking up my Dad (who wakes up at 3:50am for work), having him try to help me clean the mess and  me freaking out and telling him to just go back to sleep, then me freaking out existentialy or something aka crying because my Dad is getting old because at 1a.m. he looks old, and….so on and so forth.

Also, Dad I’m going to harass you online now about getting healthier, so geeeet pumped!!! 

a) eat something at mid-day, like a sliced chicken breast, or oatmeal with peanut butter.
b) walk up the stairs from time to time.
c) maybe once a week do something crazy like take a 20 min walk around the Park and eat at home.
d) aim to be in better shape in six months than your 80-year-old father. Reasonable goal, me thinks.

(My mental health thanks you.)

Uh, so thank God for New York City. One veers into cheesy Carrie Bradshaw territory to say that this city is my friend. But it is. It gives me what I need. I can sit on Broadway alone and eat strawberry Haagen-Daz at 10:30 at night; I can stare at people for hours on the subway: old women with scarves, girls in ripped leggings with their boyfriends hands on their knees, men falling asleep with coolers between their boots; I can listen to the fat middle-aged man in the Dallas Cowboys jersey rocking out to “Gettin’ Jiggy With It” on his iPod for the whole world to hear, not to mention…..”I reeeeecall, Central Park in Faaaaall.”

Is there anything better? Also, Lulu looking at my hip tranny grey manicure and saying “the pink was so cuter” makes me happy too. Also, when I told her she’d get to meet my boyfriend soon….okay, I have to interrupt myself by saying that Lulu is really smart, and when I talk nonsense three-year-old gibberish to her, she sort of looks at me with annoyed face, and goes back to painting crowns or gluing acorns to paper. But whenever I say anything pretty honestly, or tell her about stuff that actually IS happening, she always responds, and is interested. So I just tell her what’s up, and that I miss my boyfriend or I saw a mouse on the street, and we chat. I’m like, “Hey Lulu, my boyfriend is coming to NYC soon, and I’m excited.” And she’s like, “Is he nice?” And I’m like “Yeah.” And she looks at me with her wide eyes and her face covered in finger paint and is like, “Does he have a scissor hand too?”

(Um, what? I told her Mom, who besides the boats in the park is my other new best friend, about Lulu’s interesting inquiry, and she informed me that Lulu had seen a clip of J. Depp on the tv the day before, and naturally, wanted some explaining. I told Lulu my boyfriend is sans scissor hands, but then I made her believe a 1-inch plastic lion that I named Tony was going to eat her and me, and she got sort of scared for real, so I don’t know if she believes me or not.)

Another thing that makes me happy is my friends, many of whom I don’t see much anymore. My friend Giavanna made me a mix at the end of the summer, and I’m one of those lame people who listen to mixes over and over and over, so now I have sort of a soundtrack to my September so far. (Um, yes I just wrote that sentence…) Here are some of the tracks. They are perfect for listening to while pushing a wee babe through the Park and the leaves or waiting for a train or stepping in gum on 78 and Columbus. EEEEEEEEEEEEE-mo. Giavanna has wonderful taste. (Ignore the scary videos…)

My favorite of them all. 

One last thing that made me smile when I saw it:

K bye.