A Little Nookie For the Soul Beats Chicken Soup Any Day

I suppose I was a little premature in calling myself the first Jewish nun; it takes a much longer commitment to celibacy than 2 months or so, despite the feeling that two months can be an eternity. I'm not wired for celibacy of any length, as evidenced by the fact that I had sex just this morning and already feel like I have been wandering a desert for 40 years and am starved and painfully thirsty. But this post is not about celibacy...oh no, not at all. This post is about the glorious inspiring healing properties of sex.

Yes, my friends, nookie is good for the soul, with far greater healing properties than chicken soup, not to mention the list of ailments it cures is infintely longer.

I'm sure this is not news to you; this is not a new discovery for me. But I had forgotten exactly how fabulously regenerative its powers truly are. Especially when its good sex.

I got some good booty recently and I am a new woman. Here me roar (I'm sure they did for a 10 block radius..all 5 times).

I have a wonderful convenient arrangement with a very good friend who I adore as a person out of the sack as well. We have a friendship first and foremost and a longtime history of being lovers if the stars are aligned, we are in a situation where we are free to do so, and he is in my neck of the woods. I am not the world's biggest advocate of convenient arrangements, despite having had far more fuck buddies than relationships in my 30 years; it can far tooeasily be an unhealthy thing. But this is the one instance in my life where it has truly ever been a really good thing. He's a wonderful friend, and there are many times when we get together and spend time just as friends. I respect the hell out of Mr. FB and that respect is most definitely returned. But I would never ever want to actually date him or be in a relationship with him, at all. Not because he's not a great person, he is, but he's just not the person for me. He is however a perfect fuck buddy. We discuss everything from art and politics to personal growth to food and travel. We laugh a lot. And when we hit the matress...its hot. Very hot.

I didn't realize how much I needed this.

I still have perma-smile.

Where Am I? Who Am I? And What the Fuck Am I Supposed to be Doing Right Now?

I love working part-time for Lady Charon; its ultimately a far more relaxing environment than the full-time sdj, despite being a lot more work, a lot more difficult, and of course the fact that I can neither blog nor email my day away there. It is a safe haven, if you will, of encouragement, positivity, love and $5 an hour more than the shameful salary I make at the sdj.

The problem (and you knew damn well there was a problem in there somewhere or I wouldn't be blogging abuot this) lies in finding the balance between working enough hours at both jobs, still having a social life, and getting enough sleep so that I don't kill myself with fatigue as I"ve been known to do throughout many a period of my life. And historically speaking, out of all of these things, sleep is unfortunately the first to be abandoned, as I am an overly social creature by nature.

But I just ain't 19 years old anymore, and while 30 is still quite young, I do need more than 2 hours of sleep per night.

I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed at the moment and am probably pushing myself a bit hard but see no other possible course of action when the stupidity of massive credit card debt is thrown into the mix. I'm certainly paying the piper, and the price ain't cheap, folks.

And just wait, because starting tomorrow, another time eating monster is thrown into the mix; I start auditioning again. My goal for now is at least one audition a week, even if its a stupid EPA*.

Watch my amazing daredevil feats of schedule juggling in awe and wonder! Watch my head explode from trying to do it all...on $10 and 5 hours sleep a day! Step right up, ladies and gents, the carnival has begun!

(Bets will be taken starting tomorrow as to the amount of time before I have a nervous breakdown)

*EPA stands for huge fucking waste of time because we've already cast it and are just doing this because the actors' union makes us hold open auditions for the pathetic members who don't have agent representation and haven't bribed a casting director. Or Equity Principal Audition. Whichever definition you prefer; either way, about as productive as putting your wet finger in a light socket, and about as fun too.

Oh Laundry, Like Blogging, Thou Art So Easy to Forsake

In case you haven't noticed (which would be of absolutely no surprise considering the infrequency of my posting as of late; something which, among the thousands of other organizationally challenged aspects of my life, I am aiming to rectify), I have been trying to get my proverbial act together these days. I've been trying to sleep more, eat better, work more hours, pay off astounding debt, and live on an impossible $10/day in Manhattan. Yes, I have completely lost my senses, thank you for asking. Oh, and I'm also becoming the first Jewish nun, at least temporarily, and eschewing the romantic roller coaster for the self-improvement Himmalayas.

Setting goals can be incredibly gratifying (though, admittedly not as great as sex despite all my efforts to pretend the contrary) when they are achieved, inspiring endless amounts of renewed confidence and self congratulatory momentary highs. And I have had my share of these recently, such as the miniscule and thoroughly uninteresting to anyone but myself personal victory of arriving on time at 8:00am to work my new extra job for Lady Charron as personal assistant and administrative help for the World Yoga Center. That's right, 8:00am! Me!

However, it is anything but gratifying when embarking on a personal journey of self-improvement such as this, when the simplest of tasks suddenly becomes a monumental obstacle that seems impossible to overcome. Yes, I am talking about my lifelong battle with laundry.

Laundry?? you ask incredulously. Yes, my friends, laundry. Even more challenging than the impossible $10/day budget is laundry.

I have a history with this particular battle, and it is neither pretty nor pleasing to the olfactory senses. I have improved, mind you, since the days of yore (commonly referred to as the college years) wherein I actually had a friend spend his one night in three months off of rehearsal helping me with and forcing me to do the endless piles that had accumulated over an embarassingly long time because he noticed in Theatre History class that my clothes were stinking. (There are certain things one shouldn't necessarily reveal on the internet, and that is probably one of them)

These days I do not stink, and I never double dip into the used pile, but I still loathe the seemingly unsurmountable task of laundry and end up carrying a way too heavy suitcase or two down the five flights of stairs and around the block to the always overpopulated laundromat with the scary little Asian woman who yells at me and mercilessly criticizes my folding technique. If I were to do it more often, not only would it take less time, but it would be far kinder on my back amidst the endless stairs. So I decided that I was going to try to do it once a week, despite my overwhelming aversion. This task must generally be done on the weekends, due to the strict all loads in by 9:00pm rule strictly enforced by the laundry nazis.

Did I do any laundry this weekend? Did I accomplish this one simple task? Absolutely not. Granted, our apartment has become an infectious diseases ward with The Lone Star Talent and I continually passing one strain of flu or another back and forth, thus Friday night through Sunday morning were spent in the sick bed (my 1/2 futon, as climbing into the loft bed is a bit of a scary prospect when my body calls an embargo on strength). However, I am feeling better today, and had the whole afternoon in which to get the damn thing done before meeting my old friend and perpetual flirt for dinner and drinks at 7:30pm. Instead, I finished crocheting a scarf, tried on any and all bathing suits (a depressing prospect) for my upcoming trip to Hawaii with my parents, and generally spent the day being silly and lazy with The Lone Star Talent; in other words fucking around and playing the game of laundry avoidance I seem to have perfected.

At least I did the dishes, and managed to shit out this thoroughly untinteresting and surprisingly long for the mundane subject matter blog entry. The day hasn't been a total waste, just a 7/8 waste. Lovely progress, no?

Now I need to go put on some clothes or something...despite my laziness, I'm being treated to dinner and I ain't gonna miss that one due to an overdeveloped propensity for fucking around.

This Makes My Day

Okay, I'm sure everyone's seen this already...I saw it a few weeks ago, but happened to run across it again by the weird trajectory that workday fucking around on the internet always seems to travel. And it made my day. So just to always be able to find it again and make myself shoot coffee from my nose, here is the fantabulous David Hasselhoff being hooked. On a Feeling. Wow.

http://www.thesuperficial.com/archives/2006/01/26/david_hasselhoff_is_hooked_on.html

For the first time ever, I'm embarassed to be half European.

(well, that and Jerry Lewis, but I ain't even going there...)

The 10 Day Old and Moldy Birthday Post

This is what evidently happens when you turn 30...you keep meaning to blog about what a glorious celebration it was but you keep forgetting to, as time accelerates exponentially once you round that corner. Hopefully my aged and failing memory can recollect enough to fill you in on the details...

The actual day was perfect in every way, as was the entire weekend. I must say, I am completely spoiled. All day people were calling and singing on my voice mail and the surprises were neverending. Since she wasn't able to be here in person, Chanteuse decided to make the building receptionist work for her money, much to her chagrin. My co-workers were duly impressed by the almost continual deliveries that were happenning throughout the day. The first surprise was stinky french cheese, my absolute favorite thing in the world, in this gorgeous basket from Murray's Cheese Shop with fancy schmancy chocolates and natural honey. As if that wasn't enough, the next delivery was a potted plant of tulips, which are one of my favorite flowers in the world (along with daisies), and then the coup de gras was an incredible bottle of French champagne and a bottle of my favorite kind of wine (Cotes du Rhone). Not only was it incredibly fun to be surprised all day long, but the fact that she knows me so very well (I suppose after 16 years we should) was incredibly touching. I also got a bouquet of tulips, some chocolate ice cream, and best of all...CASH from my coworkers! God bless the office collection.

I hobbled from the sdj, fullen laden with my birthday spoils. and made my way 20 some blocks uptown to my horrifically messy apartment where Mr. Artsy Hotpants was kind enough to brave the fearsome spectre of my room to join me in a lovely birthday champagne and cheese toast (all of which were incredible, by the way). From there we somewhat tipsily made our way downtown, in a cab no less (see, spoiled all around) to the west village theatre where Mr. Artsy Hotpants had treated me to tickets to see In the Continuum. MAH is my absolute favorite person in the world to see theatre with, and as always, we had a wonderful time discussing it afterwards. After the show, MAH took me out for sushi dinner at Sushi Samba, where despite the trendy and packed atmosphere we discovered that Japanese, Brazillian and Peruvian cuisines really do not mix (though I enjoyed the varied types of seaweed salad). The celebration was capped off by several beers and many wonderful cheesy songs sung at the top of our lungs at the Duplex, which has become a personal MAH/Synge tradition over the last two and a half years.

And that was just the beginning....Maman and Dad were still to arrive the next morning at the oh-so-daunting hour of 8am and the official celebration was to be the next night....

---TO BE CONTINUED---

Ack! I Was Tagged!

Oh my, I was tagged by Swandad...I haven't been tagged in forever. It was good for me, Swandad, was it good for you?

Okay, here goes...

Four Jobs I've Had: Actor, Cocktail waitress, Administrative Assistant, Pre-school teacher

Four Movies I Can Watch Repeatedly: The Princess Bride, Say Anything, Waiting for Guffman, West Side Story

Four Places I've Lived: Isfahan, Iran; Chatenois, France; Oxford, England; New York, NY

Four TV Shows I Love: Oh god! this is a tough one considering I don't ever watch TV! Umm...let's see...what did I see at Doc Harley's? Curb Your Enthusiasm; PBS Mystery; The Daily Show; The Simpsons

Four Places I've Vacationed: Dominica; Bonaire; Most of Western Europe; the canyons and mountains of the Southwestern United States (and most of the U.S. in general)

Four of My Favorite Dishes: Stinky French Cheeses!!; Coquilles Saint Jacques; Malai Kofta; Brussell Sprouts (prepared the French way, of course)

Four Sites I Visit Daily: Gawker; Bloglines (which makes keeping up with blogs much easier); Gmail; and I'm totally embarrassed to admit this, but I'm addicted to Go Fug Yourself

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now: Vietnam; The Atlas Mountains of Morocco, India; Turkey

Four Bloggers I am TAGGING: Jon, Ava, SL2000, and just to get him out of blogging retirement again...Mr. Artsy Hotpants

So there, I did it.

If I ever make my way out from under the piles of files around me, I still have to write about the BEST birthday (which lasted all weekend) ever.

Not-so-Poised On the Brink

It didn't really hit me until today, when graciously and repeatedly reminded through various phone calls, emails, and text messages.

Today is my very last day in my 20's.

Forever.

Come tomorrow, I will never be in my 20's again.

Its not that it necessarily bothers me; I have the wide open expanse of the unexplored terrirtory of my 30's yet to navigate, and from what I hear the paths are far less rocky, so one can spend more time enjoying the scenery and less time tripping up. Its just that its weird to think of. Its weird to know that as of tomorrow I am viewed in a different category. As of tomorrow the delicate balance of woman-child shifts a little more into the realm of woman and a little less in that of child.

I know its just a number, and numbers are arbitrary beasts...and its not like I haven't been identifying myself as 30 for the past 4 months anyway....its just that it feels so...final. Goodbye 20's.

In many ways, I am happy to bid a not-so-fond farewell to a decade of my life that was frought with nonstop drama and more painful trauma than many very fortunate people experience in an entire lifetime. Yet it also encompassed infinite strength and light years of personal growth. There were many mistakes made...many many dangerous stupid mistakes....yet here I am at the end of that path about to embark on a new one. And I am shifting gears, whether consciously or not; I'm already making life changes, what with the budgeting and fiscal responsibility, the grand experiment in mornings, and generally treating myself with far more care than the overwhelmingly self-destructive child-woman of my 20's ever did.

And these are things I am incredibly proud of.

I do feel like I am poised to enter my 30's with a self awareness that I never quite grasped before and a commitment to growth and healing that I never even considered. I feel good about who I am, and ready to point a foot towards this unknown future...yet somehow, today, there's a little sadness involved as well in this purely metaphorical transition.

I'm not sure what that's about.

Not to mention I deeply regret the unfortunate circumstances (a horrendous stomach flu) which caused me to spend my last week in my 20's vommiting profusely.

I also feel like I should do something really stupid and childish tonight that I will be embarassed about for years, just to comemorate a decade filled with such experiences.

But I won't. I will go to my Code Pink meeting, and then I will do laundry, like a responsible almost 30 year old. I will, however, be drinking at my favorite neighborhood bar with B.B. King (who knows in no uncertain terms that I am only available for friendship as women's solidarity is a deeply embedded-to-the-core facet of my personality - so don't worry, its just as friends) in between trips to and from the washer....perhaps there's still a little life in the old gal yet?

My Parents Were Kidnapped by Aliens!

I just wanted to write a quick something, knowing I've been more than remiss in my perpetually fatigued state of adjustment to the new sleep schedule and mornings. I can't dally, however, as my wonderful friend The Spunky Funky Triath-A-Mom is coming to visit and I will be spending all weekend laughing with one of the coolest womyn I've ever met in my life. This was her Christmas gift from her gusband, but I get wonderfully spoiled in the process-not only do I get a whole weekend with someone I love and miss dearly, but we will be staying together in what is evidently the world's smallest hotel room (which means it will still be bigger than my apartment) and I get tickets to go see Sweeney Todd! Of course this is someone who could make being trapped in an elevator seem like a fun vacation, so it really doesn't matter where we are.

My biggest news of late is that my parents have been kidnapped by aliens and replaced with these odd facsimiles who are undyingly supportive all of a sudden! Not that they are horrible parents normally, but let's just say that when I fuck up they're not ones to easily dismiss it.

I was dreading having the conversation with my father wherein I confessed my horrendous financial quagmire, but it was a necessary evil for both maintaining an open honest relationship and for being able to sell my mutual funds (graduate school money since college was free), which do not pay off the debt entirely but knock out a huge chunk of it. After much thought, I found this to be a much smarter solution than paying about twice what I owe once the exhorbitant interest rates of debt consolidation companies is factored in, despite the fact that it involved the terrifying spectre of my father holding this over my head for years to come and berating me for being so irresponsible and idiotic until I melted away into a puddle of what once was a tiny modicum of self respect. This fear was not merely exaggeration; it was founded in past experience, which explains much in my regards to be rather harsh on myself.

But this new alien father did not berate me or call me stupid (well, perhaps once, but that's nothing in comparison to my fears). This new alien father was wonderful and supportive and basically told me that I made my own bed and now will be lying in it, but that it sounded like I knew that already and was already making the necessary lifestyle changes so there really wasn't anything he could tell me except to sell the funds, continue paying off the remainder of the debt and learn my damn lesson. I was shocked to my very core. I confessed my great fear in having the conversation, and this stranger on the telephone went even further to say that if he had berated me in the past for mistakes made that he was very sorry and very very wrong to do so; he said that it most likely came from a fear that when his children screwed up in meant that he screwed up and that now he knows and understands that children are not an extension of you, but individuals completely separate from the parents.

What?? That sounded like both an apology and an expression/explanation of feelings! Impossible!

But yes, yes indeed it was. He then went on to talk a little about my brother and his feelings of responsibility he had to get over there. Wow. This is the same man who told me about a year ago that he only discussed feelings with the dog - and the dog had been dead for a few months at that point!

This alien father continued on to instruct me to stop feeling badly for having screwed up; that what was important was that I was doing something about it and to turn the page and just learn from it but move forward. The surreal supportive and oh-so-loving and perfect words just kept spewing forth from the lips of this alien father like coins from a Vegas slot machine finally rewarding the little old lady that has waited patiently all day pulling the lever in sad desperation and wearing a very bright flowered mumu. I was in tears by the end of the conversation. Gone was the fearsome spectre of the overly critical perfectionist and in its place was the supportive father I had always wanted; the one who could believe in me and make me believe in myself in the process.

If I didn't know better, I would swear my father had been sneaking in a little therapy on the side. Really. It was that level of healthy productive and loving interaction.

The next day I phoned my mother and talked to her for over an hour; she was not only incredibly supportive (she of the infamous "Oh Synge!" exclamations, with the insane ability to twist any innocous comment to put me at fault for something), but we also covered a broad territory of topics that needed to be discussed but were perpetually avoided. We talked very honestly and very in depth about my brother and his suicide, the sometimes taboo subject, and the many complicated issues involved therein. And again, she was nothing but loving and supportive. My mother and I healed our relationship long ago, and while I expect this from her more than from my father, it still seemed above and beyond the usual.

So, yes. My parents have indeed been kidnapped by aliens, but I am so thankful for the replacements they left behind...the realtionship with these two people has grown by such leaps and bounds since I began seeing Lady Charon. I'm sure a large part is my behavior that has changed as well, but still I see the huge amount of work they have out into this, and it is ever so healing. I am infintely lucky.



And that was so not the brief posting I meant to write. Now I must scramble to bathe, lest I arrive at the airport as the smelly girl.