I want to know

The Invitation

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and
closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

- David Brown

What to Do

What do you do when you don't feel a song in your heart or a hop in your step? Aside from roll your eyes at how corny a rhetorical question that was, it was actually the issue of my day. Do you just give in to the self pity and the overwhelming sense of UGH? Or do you actively work to pull yourself out of it?

It was 97 degrees of a rough go of it in NYC, especially because I brilliantly could not sleep after 4am and started my day off in the uncomfortable vulnerability of an early morning acting class (It really sucks to suck at something... it's been a while since I really truly sucked at something, like at the beginning phase of learning anything new for the first time. OUCH! I know it's good to suck at something, it means you still have stuff left to learn, blah blah blah, I've used all these lines before, but they weren't making me feel any better)

After class, I had this vague sort of empty feeling of not actually being good at anything as I walked away from the dance studio. Incomprehensibly slowly for a six-year transplant, I meandered my way to LaDuca Shoes to pick up my refurbished black character heels. Then I roamed uptown (I've never walked such an unstraight path in New York City in all my years of living here... even when I was a newb). I ended up at the music library at Lincoln Center, thinking I would find something to make my whole being wake up and want to sing.

At the Song Reference Desk there was this woman who looked like she had stepped out of a Mad Men shoot, or more accurately, out of the alternate dimension that was the 40s, and just tore her way through the lining between worlds into New York City's Performing Arts Library. She was stunning. Period perfect. UTTERLY bizarre and of unplace-able age.

I felt a little less lonely somehow, seeing her and realizing that everyone in New York, perhaps everyone in the world, is just trying to reinvent themselves, sometimes aggressively, toward a version of themselves that they'd rather be. That active effort - forced reincarnation, a novel form of etch a sketch that still leaves a grainy imprint behind - at once appeals to me, disturbs me, and makes me feel like I'm home.

40s reincarnate must have checked out a bazillion Disney song books, because they were strewn over the reference desk. One was open to "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" and I started humming the familiar tune as I thumbed through the pages of sheet music. It was the oddest thing, but I teared up in the middle of the stuffy lobby at this old Disney stuff that made me feel like I was four again,

and I felt better.

So I guess the moral of the story is that everyone has their own process for finding what to do to feel better, and the only thing you can really do for yourself is not judge your process while you're in the middle of it.

Beautiful Things

It's 5am and I can't sleep because of how hot it is.

Don't have much shop talk to share, but I do have this lovely link of pictures inclined to restore your faith in humanity. Instead of voicing my frustrations about our country's current political sphere, I hope that by sharing these images of generosity and openness, you may be inspired to be more generous and open with the people in your lives, as I was:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/pictures-that-will-restore-your-faith-in-humanity

The 9 to 5

I took a modeling gig today for 10 hours, and was pleasantly surprised to run across my friend Carolina! This industry really is so intimate; it's heartening to know that you can almost always expect to see familiar faces anywhere you go in New York, especially if you're a actor/dancer/singer/model type.

As girls often do when we get together, all the model girls got to talking about the ways we cope with lulls in our performance work. Carolina said something I really liked and agreed with, so I thought I'd share it with all my fellow performing artists out there.

I feel like most little kids grew up thinking that they would have full time career tracks that resembled their parents' work. So much has changed since we were young! Even more traditional jobs have begun to take on new parameters and shift more towards free lancers. Unlike a more structured work day, dancers, actors, singers, and models have to actively create their own schedules and aggressively pursue work almost constantly.

We spend so much time worrying about our next contract that we forget what a performing artist's true 9 to 5 job is. The distinction may seem like semantics, but hey, changing the way you think about things can change your life!

Basically, Carolina was talking about how if you want to be successful as a performing artist, it's so valuable to recognize that pounding the pavement for your next job and putting the effort into developing technique is the actual 9 to 5 job you have. Whenever we actually book work and sign a contract, that is our job bonus.

Here's to a greater sense of agency in the world of performing arts + more job bonuses for everyone!

The Relative Power of Wealth

Last night, I went to a party in a new acquaintance's apartment.

I should have been clued into the extraordinary socioeconomic experience awaiting me by the modern art museum-esque lobby and guided walk to the elevator, but I really wasn't prepared for the door to open out into the entryway of what turned out to be the entire floor of the building (not to mention a gorgeous terrace with at least 10 square feet of lawn and view of actual stars)

Complete, btw, with an air hockey table that was flanked by ORIGINAL AND SIGNED Warhols and Lichtensteins (that reference is particularly for the roomie and the subletter)

Plus this Warhol:

 

And this Lichtenstein:

Which was conveniently located next to it's appropriately colored art companion:

As to be expected, the young man who owned the apartment had not one but three refrigerators. Of course keeping beer separate from food makes sense, but color me fascinated by the separate and specifically calibrated wine cooler disguised as a kitchen cabinet.

This young man, by the way, he's 26. In defense of my absence of Warhols, he's also a Bermuda trust fund baby, but good lord the night of direct interaction with opulence was not lost on me.

Every now and again its healthy for me to experiencer what life is like for those non starving artist types out there in New York City. Some people just don't realize how much they have, and how little others have.

It was even more valuable to realize via direct immersion in money, (DAD STOP READING NOW) champagne, free table service at clubs, and (OK DAD YOU CAN START READING AGAIN) all the associated accoutrement that money CAN buy a lot of things... but the Beatles were right: "money can't buy me love."

In The Name of All Things Gorgeous

Roguery!!

I cannot believe the night I just had. I started with a pleasant enough date in the West Village at this obnoxiously scene-y place called Little Branch. You won't know it to see it because the bar is hidden by a wall of brick, but there is a friendly, well dressed bouncer outside.

My date was late, but I ran into this girl I've done many musical theater workshops with, and she, her designer roommate, and I waxed poetic on the subject of summer hats for several minutes until said (unfortunately questionable) date arrived.

After unnecessarily long date, I find myself stranded in Union Square with a NON FUNCTIONAL 456 line and a NON FUNCTIONAL NQR line, both of which were unacceptable. I love Obama, but I do not love that his presence is keeping my city from its fully functioning state.

Never fear, because a nice man named Luis picked me up in his Escalade and drove me to Grand Central, where he was meeting his friend. You know, it's probably questionable to hitch hike in New York, but it is not something I do aggressively so maybe it's okay.

After that I was like, woe is me, there are no cabs. I make sad eyes at some young man near Grand Central and asked him if he was going uptown, and low and behold, he was headed to his destination on the UES that was but a few blocks from my apartment! He was kind enough to take me to my destination and I got a nice conversation and a number out of the bargain.

Potentially problematic choices, but all in all, a job well done.

Cheers,

A Broadway Baby

P.s. Here is your gratuitous hot Joe M photo: