Oh illegal copy of Final Cut Pro, why did you have to fail me today? Today of all days, when I wanted to start trying productive things, and maybe put together pieces of the video I've shot in some sort of preliminary Magellan experimentation? Why must you suddenly realize that I have no actual claim on you, and decide to bar me from your wonders? Just cruel.
I had an entire list of things to do today, since the weekend didn't leave me much time for productivity. But then I was reminded that today was Memorial Day, and that half the places I was going to go are closed. So I slept in super late, took a really long shower, and chatted with my landlord about getting an AC unit put in my window today. Hooray. I'm not saying I was dying in there, but it was definitely a lot warmer than I'm normally comfortable sleeping in. And since I've now become accustomed to using my comforter as blanket, pillow and bedfellow, I need it to be cool enough for that thing to live up to its name. My landlord is so very nice - he tried to work around my schedule to get the AC unit in, but finally just asked if he could go in later in the afternoon, which of course I agreed to.
I befriended the other half of the staff at Perch Cafe today, and was told that several of the girls are leaving in the very near future. They all seem really nice, and one commented that it was a shame that they were befriending me just as they were moving away, but I'm still a little confused as to how there wouldn't be some open shifts considering that three of them are moving away. Diana, a waitress who's staying, said she'd drop my name and tell the owner that everyone liked me - hopefully I'll get a call. And tomorrow I'll go harass the people at other places I've put my application in. After e-mailing resumes to many different places around town, I'm really hoping tomorrow I'll get a flood of responses all begging for my two years' barista experience. It could happen, right?
So I started "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" today, which was a jarring transition from Vonnegut. Joyce and Vonnegut are, in some senses, totally opposite, and switching from such a natural voice as Vonnegut's to one that's as difficult for me to process as Joyce's has definitely been interesting. For some reason, reading Vonnegut was just very easy, as evidenced by the speed with which I tore through "Galapagos." But I've found myself re-reading passages of Joyce to figure out what's going on, confused by the amount of run-on sentences and random introductions of new characters. 50 pages in, but I may need to start it again . . .
5.31.2010
5.30.2010
It's the Little Things
Reason number 5 why I love my neighborhood (and also the Asians who live here): just down the street, you can get tasty Asian food for absurdly cheap. Like, three dollars for eight big balls of dough and meat plus six or seven little fried dumpling things. Or something. Quite honestly, I have no idea what I got for three dollars - the language barrier was far too strong for her to tell me what she was giving me, and in fact anything at all besides the fact that all this food was three dollars. But it was definitely delicious, and assuming that Asian food keeps at all well, I could have lunch again tomorrow as well. Yum.
I was preparing to walk a two and a half mile round trip to the closest Starbucks, but while walking up 7th Avenue, saw a Dunkin' Donuts and decided to save myself the long walk in uncomfortable shoes. I'm not saying their lattes are good, but when you load them down with mocha and whipped cream, it's not like you can really tell anyway. It actually thrills me a little bit that I managed to find everything I needed for my dinner within a five-block radius - it's the little moments, the break-throughs of self-sufficiency that satisfy me.
But while walking down 65th to get back home from the Dunkin' Donuts, keeping an eye behind me as this particular road is not at all safe on the other side of 6th Avenue, I smelled something that I recognized - honeysuckle. Creeping all along the back fence of a run-down Enterprise station, fighting with unripe black cherry trees, a beautiful honeysuckle vine lured me off the beaten path for a few minutes. Something about that little haven for one of my favorite flowers just charmed me, worrisome area and all. I picked a little sprig and brought it back with me - the smell of that honeysuckle makes me smile.
I drove Kevin to the airport today, which was a bit of an adventure - driving in New York is something that I avoid like the plague, and after four weeks of basically not having driven at all, I felt rusty for a while. I made it both there and back with relatively few issues (I hate driving in airports, because they're confusing as hell), and remembered that really specific joy that driving with the music up so so loud can offer. My car is like a sanctuary - to a great degree, I don't have to worry about people looking at me, hearing me, judging me. I sing and I scream and I immerse myself in the music in a way that I've never found anywhere else, and combining that with all the separate joys of driving (shifting, accelerating, calculating), it's one of the most wonderful things on earth. I knew I missed that sensation, but I'd forgotten how much I love it.
I was preparing to walk a two and a half mile round trip to the closest Starbucks, but while walking up 7th Avenue, saw a Dunkin' Donuts and decided to save myself the long walk in uncomfortable shoes. I'm not saying their lattes are good, but when you load them down with mocha and whipped cream, it's not like you can really tell anyway. It actually thrills me a little bit that I managed to find everything I needed for my dinner within a five-block radius - it's the little moments, the break-throughs of self-sufficiency that satisfy me.
But while walking down 65th to get back home from the Dunkin' Donuts, keeping an eye behind me as this particular road is not at all safe on the other side of 6th Avenue, I smelled something that I recognized - honeysuckle. Creeping all along the back fence of a run-down Enterprise station, fighting with unripe black cherry trees, a beautiful honeysuckle vine lured me off the beaten path for a few minutes. Something about that little haven for one of my favorite flowers just charmed me, worrisome area and all. I picked a little sprig and brought it back with me - the smell of that honeysuckle makes me smile.
I drove Kevin to the airport today, which was a bit of an adventure - driving in New York is something that I avoid like the plague, and after four weeks of basically not having driven at all, I felt rusty for a while. I made it both there and back with relatively few issues (I hate driving in airports, because they're confusing as hell), and remembered that really specific joy that driving with the music up so so loud can offer. My car is like a sanctuary - to a great degree, I don't have to worry about people looking at me, hearing me, judging me. I sing and I scream and I immerse myself in the music in a way that I've never found anywhere else, and combining that with all the separate joys of driving (shifting, accelerating, calculating), it's one of the most wonderful things on earth. I knew I missed that sensation, but I'd forgotten how much I love it.
Coney Island
So Kevin and I ventured to Coney Island today, which turned out to be one of the most amazing experiences that I've had up here so far. It was a nice ride, to start with - past my station, the N train goes above ground, and starts to get swallowed up by the odd jungle that surrounds New York City. Each successive station gets more rundown, unkempt and open air, and as the houses grow taller and start spacing out, the city starts taking on a whole other distinctive flavor.
One point of interest is that Coney Island is the home of Little Russia - basically all of the shops behind the boardwalk were Russian owned, complete with Russian symbols and very Russian people manning the counters. The best example was the cafe we walked into, hoping to get my first coffee of the day (the most vital one, mind you). "Could I get an iced coffee?" I say. "Coffee, coffee?" says the woman behind the counter in very broken, Russian-accented English. "Umm, yes ma'am?" "Iced?" she asks. "Yes ma'am." She pulls out a cold-cup and motions towards a large urn, but doesn't put any ice in it, then pulls out a tub of half-and-half and motions to pour into it. "No, no," I say, "black is fine." "No milk?" "No ma'am." She looks confused, but pulls out another carton that I think must be sugar. "No sugar," I say, but she looks confused again and says, "ice?" "Oh, yeah, sorry, ice would be great." She gives me half a cup of ice. "Okay? Okay?" she keeps asking, and I'm like, "yes?" I fill my cup with the cooled coffee, and then wait for several minutes for her to get me a straw. I pay up, refuse her again as she offers me sugar, only to find out that the coffee she'd given me was definitely not regular coffee. I actually don't know what it was - it was flavored or something. I was totally not down for that.
I wonder if the fact that so much of my blog revolves around coffee - and getting it, not getting it, or getting it done wrong - is a good thing or a bad thing? Or just a facet of my personality at the moment that is completely impossible to get around?
Coney is a really fascinating study, though. I can't entirely put my finger on what attracts me to it, although it is certainly that it seems stuck in a time long past. It's a carnival that's completely out of its era, but marches stoically on as its world changes around it. It's certainly a run-down place, in many senses - the old amusement parks are still functioning, if clearly ravaged by many years of less than favorable upkeep. The boardwalk is still beautiful, the beaches are still clean, and the water is still so blue, but the evidence of the passing years is strong, and brings up this wave of nostalgia for me. I'm not exactly sure why - in some sense, it reminds me a lot of Sea Isle City, and all the weeks I spent there as a child. The place is legitimately inspiring, though, and I can really understand why so many movies take place there. It's a place stuck in time, a place rife with spirits of old things and old gods somehow. I walked that boardwalk well aware of the many other, older people who did so. So interesting.
We had two shows today, but it was the second one that was the exciting one. At a certain point, the character Lem slips a bracelet off of Virginia's wrist - this is basically one of the most important parts of the plot, as the bracelet is the hinge on which the conflict turns. But when Lem yanked on the bracelet (because this guy does nothing at all subtly), the wire snapped and the "pearls" went literally everywhere. Julia, Simon and I had to cover our mouths for laughing so hard, but a few minutes later, I was asked to literally run to the women's dressing room, grab a backup bracelet, and book it around the building to hand deliver it. That was exciting. The actors all worked it out really well, though, picking up the pearls that Grant couldn't get to and joking about the bracelet magically being fixed near the end of the show. That was the first really major malfunction I can remember us having, and we really took it like champs - it was impressive.
One point of interest is that Coney Island is the home of Little Russia - basically all of the shops behind the boardwalk were Russian owned, complete with Russian symbols and very Russian people manning the counters. The best example was the cafe we walked into, hoping to get my first coffee of the day (the most vital one, mind you). "Could I get an iced coffee?" I say. "Coffee, coffee?" says the woman behind the counter in very broken, Russian-accented English. "Umm, yes ma'am?" "Iced?" she asks. "Yes ma'am." She pulls out a cold-cup and motions towards a large urn, but doesn't put any ice in it, then pulls out a tub of half-and-half and motions to pour into it. "No, no," I say, "black is fine." "No milk?" "No ma'am." She looks confused, but pulls out another carton that I think must be sugar. "No sugar," I say, but she looks confused again and says, "ice?" "Oh, yeah, sorry, ice would be great." She gives me half a cup of ice. "Okay? Okay?" she keeps asking, and I'm like, "yes?" I fill my cup with the cooled coffee, and then wait for several minutes for her to get me a straw. I pay up, refuse her again as she offers me sugar, only to find out that the coffee she'd given me was definitely not regular coffee. I actually don't know what it was - it was flavored or something. I was totally not down for that.
I wonder if the fact that so much of my blog revolves around coffee - and getting it, not getting it, or getting it done wrong - is a good thing or a bad thing? Or just a facet of my personality at the moment that is completely impossible to get around?
Coney is a really fascinating study, though. I can't entirely put my finger on what attracts me to it, although it is certainly that it seems stuck in a time long past. It's a carnival that's completely out of its era, but marches stoically on as its world changes around it. It's certainly a run-down place, in many senses - the old amusement parks are still functioning, if clearly ravaged by many years of less than favorable upkeep. The boardwalk is still beautiful, the beaches are still clean, and the water is still so blue, but the evidence of the passing years is strong, and brings up this wave of nostalgia for me. I'm not exactly sure why - in some sense, it reminds me a lot of Sea Isle City, and all the weeks I spent there as a child. The place is legitimately inspiring, though, and I can really understand why so many movies take place there. It's a place stuck in time, a place rife with spirits of old things and old gods somehow. I walked that boardwalk well aware of the many other, older people who did so. So interesting.
We had two shows today, but it was the second one that was the exciting one. At a certain point, the character Lem slips a bracelet off of Virginia's wrist - this is basically one of the most important parts of the plot, as the bracelet is the hinge on which the conflict turns. But when Lem yanked on the bracelet (because this guy does nothing at all subtly), the wire snapped and the "pearls" went literally everywhere. Julia, Simon and I had to cover our mouths for laughing so hard, but a few minutes later, I was asked to literally run to the women's dressing room, grab a backup bracelet, and book it around the building to hand deliver it. That was exciting. The actors all worked it out really well, though, picking up the pearls that Grant couldn't get to and joking about the bracelet magically being fixed near the end of the show. That was the first really major malfunction I can remember us having, and we really took it like champs - it was impressive.
5.28.2010
Art
We saw the Met today. Or, more accurately, we went to the Met, discovered a tiny part of the Met, and were awestruck by the amount of the Met that we couldn't even begin to tap. The building itself is huge and intimidating, but once we got inside, we realized that there was literally so much of it that we couldn't possibly see all of it - even a good fraction of it - in one day. We spent four hours in a single wing of the place, and as we were walking out, realized that there were at least two more wings and probably several floors that we hadn't seen. The place is absolutely breathtaking, spectacular, overwhelming, and humbling. The Picasso exhibit alone made me feel so grateful for the opportunity I've been given this summer - seeing in person some of the canvases that I've studied in art classes is one of the most amazing feelings on earth. Seeing the signatures in person of artists whose names are synonymous with artistic greatness? Mind-bending.
Quite honestly, and absolutely typically of me, I was most fascinated by the weapons exhibit. There's an entire, very large section of "Arms and Armor" that was absolutely mesmerizing for me. There were beautiful Italian and German suits of armor from the late medieval period - both horse and rider - where the steel was etched out in some of the most gorgeous curls and patterns I've ever seen. The artistry, the sheer skill required to make these spectacular works of functional art that have lasted so many centuries and are still as awe-inspiring as they were then, that cause you to decide without doubt that you don't want to go toe-to-toe with them - incredible. Seeing the weaponry of my people (the Syrians)? Amazing. I also saw the knife for me. Just, hands down, the one that I must have, the one for whom I will National Treasure that shit. I plan to go back to take pictures and take notes on what it is (in case there's a replica somewhere), but what I can say is that it is spectacular. It's got an ivory inlaid handle, no handguard, and the most delicately subtle curve on the blade that I've ever seen. It seems to have had the same ancestor as the kukri, but evolved into something much more slender, more graceful, losing some of its axe-like quality and developing into something both deadly and exquisite. Must. Have.
Two quick snapshots of the day: there's a stairwell between two floors of the "Period Rooms," and standing on that stairwell, two security guards were gossiping their hearts out. It was actually really endearing - one stood at the top of the stairs, and one stood at the middle, talking about that one girl whose boyfriend has been around a while, and didn't she have a daughter who went to school, but her boyfriend wasn't that girl's father? So on and so forth. And second, my word of wisdom for the day is that people who smack their gum in public should be taken out and shot. Most of all, if you're on a late-night train, and the place is quiet enough that we can hear you smacking your gum, please just do us all a favor and realize that we hate you with every ounce of our beings.
I essentially got and then lost a job within the space of three hours today. Walking out of the subway to go to the Met, I realized I had missed a call. I listened to the message, and it was from Q, the boss at Bean and Bean, telling me a part-time position had just opened up, and to call him back soon. I was literally walking to the Met, and I have an application in at Naidre's that I'd actually prefer to follow up on, but I called him back a few hours later to confirm. Better to just go ahead and take it, right? But when I spoke to him, he told me that in the three hours it'd taken me to get back to him, someone else had come in and gotten the job already. That's quite a turn-around right there. It's completely my own fault that I don't have a job right now - I'm not upset with Bean and Bean or Q - but it's still quite the hiccup.
Quite honestly, and absolutely typically of me, I was most fascinated by the weapons exhibit. There's an entire, very large section of "Arms and Armor" that was absolutely mesmerizing for me. There were beautiful Italian and German suits of armor from the late medieval period - both horse and rider - where the steel was etched out in some of the most gorgeous curls and patterns I've ever seen. The artistry, the sheer skill required to make these spectacular works of functional art that have lasted so many centuries and are still as awe-inspiring as they were then, that cause you to decide without doubt that you don't want to go toe-to-toe with them - incredible. Seeing the weaponry of my people (the Syrians)? Amazing. I also saw the knife for me. Just, hands down, the one that I must have, the one for whom I will National Treasure that shit. I plan to go back to take pictures and take notes on what it is (in case there's a replica somewhere), but what I can say is that it is spectacular. It's got an ivory inlaid handle, no handguard, and the most delicately subtle curve on the blade that I've ever seen. It seems to have had the same ancestor as the kukri, but evolved into something much more slender, more graceful, losing some of its axe-like quality and developing into something both deadly and exquisite. Must. Have.
Two quick snapshots of the day: there's a stairwell between two floors of the "Period Rooms," and standing on that stairwell, two security guards were gossiping their hearts out. It was actually really endearing - one stood at the top of the stairs, and one stood at the middle, talking about that one girl whose boyfriend has been around a while, and didn't she have a daughter who went to school, but her boyfriend wasn't that girl's father? So on and so forth. And second, my word of wisdom for the day is that people who smack their gum in public should be taken out and shot. Most of all, if you're on a late-night train, and the place is quiet enough that we can hear you smacking your gum, please just do us all a favor and realize that we hate you with every ounce of our beings.
I essentially got and then lost a job within the space of three hours today. Walking out of the subway to go to the Met, I realized I had missed a call. I listened to the message, and it was from Q, the boss at Bean and Bean, telling me a part-time position had just opened up, and to call him back soon. I was literally walking to the Met, and I have an application in at Naidre's that I'd actually prefer to follow up on, but I called him back a few hours later to confirm. Better to just go ahead and take it, right? But when I spoke to him, he told me that in the three hours it'd taken me to get back to him, someone else had come in and gotten the job already. That's quite a turn-around right there. It's completely my own fault that I don't have a job right now - I'm not upset with Bean and Bean or Q - but it's still quite the hiccup.
Wandering the City Again
Kevin and I went wandering around the city today - at a decent hour, rather than at one o'clock in the morning like we did last night when we found the young-n-hip section that is Union Square - and walked all up and down Broadway and well into East Village. It was a lovely time, most especially refinding that magical cupcake place that Grant introduced me to a week ago, and although I didn't do as much shopping as I did yesterday, I got a few choice things that will come in handy later.
Grant took Kevin and I to a few cool places around the Financial District - namely a rooftop view completely unrivaled by anything I've seen before - after the show, which went pretty smoothly. I would absolutely love to go back to this building, as it offers a view of every part of the city so clearly, and when it's lit up the way it was tonight, it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. With the verandas and the pavilions, this place could easily become a nice hang-out for me if they don't figure out that I don't live there.
Still on the job hunt. Nothing back from Naidre's yet - I suppose I'll just go in tomorrow morning and ask them directly whether they need me or not. I've started searching Craigslist, which is supposedly completely legitimate in New York (versus Columbia, where searching Craigslist for jobs is probably the last thing you want to do), but haven't really hit on anything that looked particularly exciting except the Foot Fetish ad. The things you can find on the "Etc." section of the Craigslist job listings are alternately hilarious and horrifying. But if all else fails, I go to a 3-hour nude photo shoot (actually looks really legit, again) and make 900 bucks.
More tomorrow - really tired tonight, totally ready for my bed.
Grant took Kevin and I to a few cool places around the Financial District - namely a rooftop view completely unrivaled by anything I've seen before - after the show, which went pretty smoothly. I would absolutely love to go back to this building, as it offers a view of every part of the city so clearly, and when it's lit up the way it was tonight, it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. With the verandas and the pavilions, this place could easily become a nice hang-out for me if they don't figure out that I don't live there.
Still on the job hunt. Nothing back from Naidre's yet - I suppose I'll just go in tomorrow morning and ask them directly whether they need me or not. I've started searching Craigslist, which is supposedly completely legitimate in New York (versus Columbia, where searching Craigslist for jobs is probably the last thing you want to do), but haven't really hit on anything that looked particularly exciting except the Foot Fetish ad. The things you can find on the "Etc." section of the Craigslist job listings are alternately hilarious and horrifying. But if all else fails, I go to a 3-hour nude photo shoot (actually looks really legit, again) and make 900 bucks.
More tomorrow - really tired tonight, totally ready for my bed.
5.26.2010
The Hipster Virus Sets In . . .
I think New York is just set up for me to become a hipster, which sincerely hurts my feelings. I found myself today shopping in Trader Joe's and Urban Outfitters, paying all my cash to an amazing used bookstore where the dude could chat with me about the different volumes of Foucault's work and the awesome antique New York books on the front desk. Apparently the part of town called Brooklyn Heights is just about the coolest place on earth - many thanks to the girl at Cafe Perch who recommended I go that way for a used bookstore, and then smiled and explained to me exactly how to get there without walking for three hours. I was told fairly definitively by the owner of the cafe that they wouldn't need my help, but I think it's almost as valuable for me to have a place to spend time and connect with the staff there. For some reason, I've always enjoyed having somewhere to hang out where I'm recognized, but not employed, and Cafe Perch may well fit that desire perfectly.
So I had my lunch at Perch - a fruit salad with fresh blackberries and bleu cheese, which was incredible - and got within fifteen pages of finishing "Galapagos" before the rush of the children happened. I talked to one of the girls who works there, and she said that the owner actually opened the place partially because she felt like she couldn't take her kids to coffee shops. So basically every day, somewhere between 3 and 6, they'll get a group of mothers and kids of varying size that congregate (I assume) to be in community with other young mothers. It's cute, and I don't begrudge it, but I also didn't feel like sitting there with that many little kids bouncing off the walls and yelling.
I took the B63 bus up past Atlantic Avenue to Court Street, where I saw the giant Trader Joe's and got off. I have to say, I really enjoy the way the bus moves, completely differently from the subway. The bus is often more of a gentle rocking motion. Standing while riding a bus is something vaguely resembling surfing, the way you shift weight and move with the bus. It's somehow captivating. But getting on a bus also means contending with lots of kids - I don't mean cute, sweet toddler kids, but annoying pre- and teenage kids who are old enough to ride by themselves and not old enough to not be obnoxious. Seriously, do these kids not have parents that teach them not to be self-important, unaware little punks? Or worse yet, are we all that way at that age?
Anyway, I finally bought new shoes. Two pair, in fact. But this is where the hipster part comes in - I bought two pairs of Mary Janes at Urban Outfitters. It was 2 for 20, I didn't feel like spending all my money on shoes and thus forgoing the wonder of used books. So I caved. But dear Lord to I feel like a hipster now. The upside is that my socks will no longer be blackened by the time I walk from my station to home - that makes it worth it. Right?
I bought three beautiful old books from the bookstore, including "Film Form" - the film theory essays by Sergei Eisenstein. I think I'm becoming a nerd. No, scratch that, I know I am, because I was deeply torn between the Eisenstein and the Kracauer, but ended up deciding to get the cheaper one and come back for the Kracauer. I'm being Jimmy Gilmore'd (new definition of the term here). To top it all off, I actually searched for a Foucault text, thinking that I'd really like to own one of his other works. I asked the owner about it, and I think he was amused by my question, but assured me that the "History of Sexuality" makes its way through his doors very often, and there'd surely be one soon. I'm frightened of what's happening to me.
I found out early today that Frank Frazetta died recently, and was genuinely sad about it. I can't exactly explain what always attracted me to Frazetta - his work, like Luis Royo's, largely consists of muscle-bound warriors and mostly-naked women - but I can remember the exact night that my dad told me to look up some of Frazetta's work, and the exact sense of awe that I felt. Some artists cause me to admire, some cause me to think hard on the nature of beauty, and a very few inspire me to create. His was the latter for me, and although I don't claim that anything great came out of that inspiration, there is certainly a special place in my heart for him.
So I had my lunch at Perch - a fruit salad with fresh blackberries and bleu cheese, which was incredible - and got within fifteen pages of finishing "Galapagos" before the rush of the children happened. I talked to one of the girls who works there, and she said that the owner actually opened the place partially because she felt like she couldn't take her kids to coffee shops. So basically every day, somewhere between 3 and 6, they'll get a group of mothers and kids of varying size that congregate (I assume) to be in community with other young mothers. It's cute, and I don't begrudge it, but I also didn't feel like sitting there with that many little kids bouncing off the walls and yelling.
I took the B63 bus up past Atlantic Avenue to Court Street, where I saw the giant Trader Joe's and got off. I have to say, I really enjoy the way the bus moves, completely differently from the subway. The bus is often more of a gentle rocking motion. Standing while riding a bus is something vaguely resembling surfing, the way you shift weight and move with the bus. It's somehow captivating. But getting on a bus also means contending with lots of kids - I don't mean cute, sweet toddler kids, but annoying pre- and teenage kids who are old enough to ride by themselves and not old enough to not be obnoxious. Seriously, do these kids not have parents that teach them not to be self-important, unaware little punks? Or worse yet, are we all that way at that age?
Anyway, I finally bought new shoes. Two pair, in fact. But this is where the hipster part comes in - I bought two pairs of Mary Janes at Urban Outfitters. It was 2 for 20, I didn't feel like spending all my money on shoes and thus forgoing the wonder of used books. So I caved. But dear Lord to I feel like a hipster now. The upside is that my socks will no longer be blackened by the time I walk from my station to home - that makes it worth it. Right?
I bought three beautiful old books from the bookstore, including "Film Form" - the film theory essays by Sergei Eisenstein. I think I'm becoming a nerd. No, scratch that, I know I am, because I was deeply torn between the Eisenstein and the Kracauer, but ended up deciding to get the cheaper one and come back for the Kracauer. I'm being Jimmy Gilmore'd (new definition of the term here). To top it all off, I actually searched for a Foucault text, thinking that I'd really like to own one of his other works. I asked the owner about it, and I think he was amused by my question, but assured me that the "History of Sexuality" makes its way through his doors very often, and there'd surely be one soon. I'm frightened of what's happening to me.
I found out early today that Frank Frazetta died recently, and was genuinely sad about it. I can't exactly explain what always attracted me to Frazetta - his work, like Luis Royo's, largely consists of muscle-bound warriors and mostly-naked women - but I can remember the exact night that my dad told me to look up some of Frazetta's work, and the exact sense of awe that I felt. Some artists cause me to admire, some cause me to think hard on the nature of beauty, and a very few inspire me to create. His was the latter for me, and although I don't claim that anything great came out of that inspiration, there is certainly a special place in my heart for him.
5.25.2010
Resume Day
So yesterday, having wandered all up and down 7th and 5th Avenue, I discovered that there are coffee shops that are hiring this late in the summer, and that I just have to have a decent looking resume and smile at the right people to get an instant in. There's still not any kind of guarantee that I'll be a contributing member of society anytime soon, but I've got applications or resumes put in at three separate coffee shops and one shameless court TV station, and I'm feeling better about my chances every day.
Last night I went home and attempted to make my resume look less like it had been thrown together in NeoOffice at the last minute (which it had), and a little more like I have professional experience of any kind and am not an amateur at everything who's brand new to the city and still wide-eyed (which I am). My lovely friend converted the blog header into a letterhead, which was admired as being "very professional" by the people who I gave the resume to. The guy at Naidre's was especially impressed that I included "traditional machiattos" in my list of skills, and we had a moment bonding over how Starbucks has ruined people for the beauty of a double shot of espresso with some frothed milk on top. Considering how many times I've given this rant myself, it seemed like a great sign that R.J. and I could laugh about it. "You have perfect timing," he said, "because one employee just had her last day today, and I'm about to take off myself." He promised to personally give my resume to the owner when she came in later that night. How great would it be if I got a call tomorrow? SO great.
Also, while walking around this particular part of Brooklyn, I wish I would have found a sublet around here. It's a much younger crowd, I guess, and there are a lot of kids and dogs and cute looking houses and such. Lots of cute stationary shops, bookstores, and independent coffee shops at every corner, along with lots of wonderful looking restaurants of a hundred different varieties. I think this is the side of New York that I want to experience more - less of the Wall Street area (where the theater is), more of the young bohemian areas.
Printing my resume today was a bit of an adventure. First, I searched Kinko's or other copy shops in my area. None that were listed on Google maps. Then I searched the same in the 7th Ave. area. Still none listed. So I ended up going to the Financial District and going to the Staple's Print and Copy shop up on Broadway, about two blocks from the theater. Now I've slowly gotten used to the Kinko's way of paying and printing, but this was something else entirely, and the PCs they had (PCs? How long has it been since I've had to figure out how to use one of those things? They make no sense to me!) were outdated and scary looking. I went up to the counter and I'm like, "so . . . the fastest way to print something off my flash drive would just be to use one of the computers, right?" The girl was really nice and pointed me towards one. So I grab the flash drive and stick it in the only port I could find, which was tucked away on the back. Confusing. The girl walks by - "girl, you can sit!" I laugh and say something about how it's been so long on a PC, I'm confused, blah blah blah. She walks over, takes a look at it and says, "where'd you put the drive?" I pull it out. "Right here!" "Um, girl, you'll want to plug that into the tower," she says, and puts it on the tower that's underneath the desk. Oh. I'm a dumbass. This isn't a Mac, Rachel. This is a PC. You can't plug everything into the two pieces of equipment in front of you. She was super nice about it, and I was laughing even as I was forced into the realization that I'm an idiot (effing Honors College!), but it was still totally ridiculous.
I think I'm really fascinated by the way New York is such a juxtaposition of old and new; it's a place full of odd opposites that work together in ways you don't expect. I wouldn't expect the back patio of a coffee shop in Columbia to have a full wall of vines and rocks and a wood deck. There are tons of trees in Brooklyn, and the way you can walk down a street and see beautiful little houses on one side and shops on the other. Things are just closer together here, somehow, even though everything is simultaneously bigger and more exciting. Some parts of it are so old, and some parts of it are so new, but it seems like you won't just walk from an old part to a new part that's quite as delineated as that.
Last night I went home and attempted to make my resume look less like it had been thrown together in NeoOffice at the last minute (which it had), and a little more like I have professional experience of any kind and am not an amateur at everything who's brand new to the city and still wide-eyed (which I am). My lovely friend converted the blog header into a letterhead, which was admired as being "very professional" by the people who I gave the resume to. The guy at Naidre's was especially impressed that I included "traditional machiattos" in my list of skills, and we had a moment bonding over how Starbucks has ruined people for the beauty of a double shot of espresso with some frothed milk on top. Considering how many times I've given this rant myself, it seemed like a great sign that R.J. and I could laugh about it. "You have perfect timing," he said, "because one employee just had her last day today, and I'm about to take off myself." He promised to personally give my resume to the owner when she came in later that night. How great would it be if I got a call tomorrow? SO great.
Also, while walking around this particular part of Brooklyn, I wish I would have found a sublet around here. It's a much younger crowd, I guess, and there are a lot of kids and dogs and cute looking houses and such. Lots of cute stationary shops, bookstores, and independent coffee shops at every corner, along with lots of wonderful looking restaurants of a hundred different varieties. I think this is the side of New York that I want to experience more - less of the Wall Street area (where the theater is), more of the young bohemian areas.
Printing my resume today was a bit of an adventure. First, I searched Kinko's or other copy shops in my area. None that were listed on Google maps. Then I searched the same in the 7th Ave. area. Still none listed. So I ended up going to the Financial District and going to the Staple's Print and Copy shop up on Broadway, about two blocks from the theater. Now I've slowly gotten used to the Kinko's way of paying and printing, but this was something else entirely, and the PCs they had (PCs? How long has it been since I've had to figure out how to use one of those things? They make no sense to me!) were outdated and scary looking. I went up to the counter and I'm like, "so . . . the fastest way to print something off my flash drive would just be to use one of the computers, right?" The girl was really nice and pointed me towards one. So I grab the flash drive and stick it in the only port I could find, which was tucked away on the back. Confusing. The girl walks by - "girl, you can sit!" I laugh and say something about how it's been so long on a PC, I'm confused, blah blah blah. She walks over, takes a look at it and says, "where'd you put the drive?" I pull it out. "Right here!" "Um, girl, you'll want to plug that into the tower," she says, and puts it on the tower that's underneath the desk. Oh. I'm a dumbass. This isn't a Mac, Rachel. This is a PC. You can't plug everything into the two pieces of equipment in front of you. She was super nice about it, and I was laughing even as I was forced into the realization that I'm an idiot (effing Honors College!), but it was still totally ridiculous.
I think I'm really fascinated by the way New York is such a juxtaposition of old and new; it's a place full of odd opposites that work together in ways you don't expect. I wouldn't expect the back patio of a coffee shop in Columbia to have a full wall of vines and rocks and a wood deck. There are tons of trees in Brooklyn, and the way you can walk down a street and see beautiful little houses on one side and shops on the other. Things are just closer together here, somehow, even though everything is simultaneously bigger and more exciting. Some parts of it are so old, and some parts of it are so new, but it seems like you won't just walk from an old part to a new part that's quite as delineated as that.
5.24.2010
Monday = Sunday for Theater
Apparently everything in New York that is theater-related just shuts down on Mondays. You can't really go see shows, or museums for that matter, on Mondays, so I was left with a completely empty day and not much to do other than laundry. It was actually a great day for laundry, though - it was just sprinkling, overcast, and cool, so sitting inside looking at the rain and starting on a new book seemed like a perfect way to pass two hours.
I started Vonnegut's "Galapagos" today, which so far seems really good. I'm interested in his voice, specifically - he writes in the omniscient, but somehow manages to maintain a really personal feeling to it, like he's telling you his story exclusively. Eighty pages into it, and I'm certainly interested to see how he's going to get where he says he will, and do so plausibly.
As of today, I'm an official, direct-deposit-using employee of the University of South Carolina. Which means, importantly, that I'm not going to starve next month, and that I may be able to make my rent. That's really great news, to say the least. I've also put in some face time with the manager at Cafe Perch - she happened to be sitting down the bar from me, and told me that my application was on top in case something went wrong with her recent hires - so I'm hoping one (or two) of her people just decide they hate it and that she'll need me to start working 40 hours a week immediately. Miracles do happen. Finally, as long as we're doing the job-hunt update, Hank gave me a lead on a paying internship yesterday. Paying. It may happen to be with the newly-revamped Court TV (that is to say, shameful), but money is money, and experience is even more valuable still.
I've seen some of the pictures from my cousin's wedding, and I'm just so very happy for him right now. I wish him all the best - if anyone deserves it, it's most definitely him. He and his lovely bride looked just gorgeous on the beach. Congratulations to both of them, and all my love.
I started Vonnegut's "Galapagos" today, which so far seems really good. I'm interested in his voice, specifically - he writes in the omniscient, but somehow manages to maintain a really personal feeling to it, like he's telling you his story exclusively. Eighty pages into it, and I'm certainly interested to see how he's going to get where he says he will, and do so plausibly.
As of today, I'm an official, direct-deposit-using employee of the University of South Carolina. Which means, importantly, that I'm not going to starve next month, and that I may be able to make my rent. That's really great news, to say the least. I've also put in some face time with the manager at Cafe Perch - she happened to be sitting down the bar from me, and told me that my application was on top in case something went wrong with her recent hires - so I'm hoping one (or two) of her people just decide they hate it and that she'll need me to start working 40 hours a week immediately. Miracles do happen. Finally, as long as we're doing the job-hunt update, Hank gave me a lead on a paying internship yesterday. Paying. It may happen to be with the newly-revamped Court TV (that is to say, shameful), but money is money, and experience is even more valuable still.
I've seen some of the pictures from my cousin's wedding, and I'm just so very happy for him right now. I wish him all the best - if anyone deserves it, it's most definitely him. He and his lovely bride looked just gorgeous on the beach. Congratulations to both of them, and all my love.
5.23.2010
Bay Window Musings
A friend of mine sent me a quote by Jim Jarmusch today that really resonated with me:
"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: 'It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.'"
As someone who would someday like to create - and who fears daily that her creativity isn't on a level to do so - this is incredibly comforting. I worry constantly that I'll struggle to convince people that I'm some kind of artist, only to one day come to the personal realization that I'm not, and that I'm not skilled in any of the things that I'm trying so hard to learn. And while that quote doesn't tell me that I'll soon and easily find my niche and discover passion for a series of projects or some facet of media - the passion that's lacking causes my media arts resume to be essentially empty - it does encourage me in the fact that my ideas tend to be less original and more derivative.
We only had one show today, and although our audience was even less responsive than the one last night, I felt like it may have been our best to date. It was a matinee, so after we finished up, Grant (the . . . what was it? Charming, witty, so-and-so ASM?), Simon and I went to the East Village for a while. We took a New York native/USC graduate (Hank, of Frobocop fame) with us, and had a really good time eating cupcakes, drinking coffee, and exploring parts of town clearly too cool for us to hang out in. It was really pleasant. I got home around 8, went out to buy some groceries, and have spent the last several hours fighting the internet for movies on Netflix. Internet always wins.
It's crazy how much my moods can swing in two days, but I feel . . . something-sick tonight. Not exactly home-sick. Not even just lonely for the people I miss, although that's certainly a big part of it. I think I need to figure out a way to get out a little bit more, so I have less time to ponder how big this city is, and how small I feel in comparison. It's not lack of opportunity so much as just a lack of drive to do so - I know enough people that I could start a network, but between my crippling financial worries and my increasing reclusiveness, I mainly just feel like going home early and curling up with some Honey Nut Cheerios and a movie or several episodes of 30 Rock (that I've already seen 50 times).
I'll be fine again tomorrow. I think I'll do some laundry, go hang out at Cafe Perch again, and maybe try to see about doing dinner with someone. Maybe I'll see about finding a project that means something to me, something I can get excited about. Or maybe I'll sleep all day instead . . .
"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: 'It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.'"
As someone who would someday like to create - and who fears daily that her creativity isn't on a level to do so - this is incredibly comforting. I worry constantly that I'll struggle to convince people that I'm some kind of artist, only to one day come to the personal realization that I'm not, and that I'm not skilled in any of the things that I'm trying so hard to learn. And while that quote doesn't tell me that I'll soon and easily find my niche and discover passion for a series of projects or some facet of media - the passion that's lacking causes my media arts resume to be essentially empty - it does encourage me in the fact that my ideas tend to be less original and more derivative.
We only had one show today, and although our audience was even less responsive than the one last night, I felt like it may have been our best to date. It was a matinee, so after we finished up, Grant (the . . . what was it? Charming, witty, so-and-so ASM?), Simon and I went to the East Village for a while. We took a New York native/USC graduate (Hank, of Frobocop fame) with us, and had a really good time eating cupcakes, drinking coffee, and exploring parts of town clearly too cool for us to hang out in. It was really pleasant. I got home around 8, went out to buy some groceries, and have spent the last several hours fighting the internet for movies on Netflix. Internet always wins.
It's crazy how much my moods can swing in two days, but I feel . . . something-sick tonight. Not exactly home-sick. Not even just lonely for the people I miss, although that's certainly a big part of it. I think I need to figure out a way to get out a little bit more, so I have less time to ponder how big this city is, and how small I feel in comparison. It's not lack of opportunity so much as just a lack of drive to do so - I know enough people that I could start a network, but between my crippling financial worries and my increasing reclusiveness, I mainly just feel like going home early and curling up with some Honey Nut Cheerios and a movie or several episodes of 30 Rock (that I've already seen 50 times).
I'll be fine again tomorrow. I think I'll do some laundry, go hang out at Cafe Perch again, and maybe try to see about doing dinner with someone. Maybe I'll see about finding a project that means something to me, something I can get excited about. Or maybe I'll sleep all day instead . . .
5.22.2010
Beautiful Morning
I woke up really happy today. Something about the morning just struck me right - I woke up a little before my alarm went off, and I just laid in bed for about an hour listening to the sounds of Brooklyn. Of Bay Ridge, maybe most specifically, and Bay Ridge certainly has its own sound to it. My friend mentioned that Simon and Garfunkel were the best music for New York, and when "America" came on (because it reminds me of Almost Famous, which is absolutely one of my favorite movies ever), it just put a smile on my face. Laying in the top bunk with music on and light coming through my bay window, and the sounds of many generations of mass-goers walking by, I felt some of the comfortable euphoria that I've missed since being out of Columbia. It's a really hard thing to explain, when I feel like things are falling into place and like I have many things to look forward to, and like I'm happy with where I am and how things are around me. One of the reasons I was most devastated about losing my apartment was because this last semester held so many of these perfect moments for me, and this was due in no small part to the consequences of having that apartment.
I think it's rare for me to be able to live completely within a moment, being as I am one of those people who worries about things more than is necessary. I'm trying to learn to appreciate these times more, and I feel like I'm succeeding - especially thanks to this blog. And I realize I'm rambling, but this morning listening to Bay Ridge, feeling the cool air and feeling like there just might be a place for me here; a few nights ago, spending those hours laying on a bench looking out across a river and watching people and their dogs interact and meander by; these are the impressions and the emotions that I'll remember most vividly for years to come.
So right now, I'm sitting in this adorable little coffee shop called Perch Cafe. I'm hoping that all my good references and charm will get me a job here - this place is great. They've got a pretty full bar and a really interactive staff, and I really feel like I might have a good time working here if they gave me the chance. The odds aren't good, but I've been chatting with the counter guy for a while, and he seems to like me, so hopefully his good word will get me a shot at least. I'd work here just for the music they play: Silversun Pickups, Corinne Bailey Rae (which I think may be the artist for the entire summer), and "Down In Mexico," which I remember very fondly as being the lap dance song from Death Proof (one of the coolest movies ever). I like the way all the workers interact with one another, and I'd love to learn some bar tending, which looks like it would be part of the job. Here's hoping.
Two performances tonight. I think the third and fourth performances should be the ones where we really hit our stride. Or at least we hope so. The second performance wasn't bad, but I think the second one tends to often be the roughest, because we're coming off the opening night high and forgetting that we really do have to work for it. I'm still sort of trying to figure out where my place is in this thing, but I think Simon intends to teach me how to run it in the very near future. I'm a little nervous about that - it's a lot of pressure, and people will yell at you if your timing's a little bit off - but in the meantime, I'm just watching him run the show and turning projectors on and off. Grueling work, I know.
If you want to stay not-depressed, here's a tip: don't look on Craigslist for housing. Ever, at all. Craigslist got me my Brooklyn apartment, but looking at Columbia housing for next semester is probably one of the most discouraging things I've ever done. I know it's way too early to start looking, but that's not going to stop me. And since I'm dead set against the condo-styles like Garnet Riverwalk and Pointe West, I'm going to have a hard time finding things without actually walking around Columbia and searching in person. There will be lots of couch-surfing for the weeks or months that it will take me to find something upon my return. Volunteers?
I think it's rare for me to be able to live completely within a moment, being as I am one of those people who worries about things more than is necessary. I'm trying to learn to appreciate these times more, and I feel like I'm succeeding - especially thanks to this blog. And I realize I'm rambling, but this morning listening to Bay Ridge, feeling the cool air and feeling like there just might be a place for me here; a few nights ago, spending those hours laying on a bench looking out across a river and watching people and their dogs interact and meander by; these are the impressions and the emotions that I'll remember most vividly for years to come.
So right now, I'm sitting in this adorable little coffee shop called Perch Cafe. I'm hoping that all my good references and charm will get me a job here - this place is great. They've got a pretty full bar and a really interactive staff, and I really feel like I might have a good time working here if they gave me the chance. The odds aren't good, but I've been chatting with the counter guy for a while, and he seems to like me, so hopefully his good word will get me a shot at least. I'd work here just for the music they play: Silversun Pickups, Corinne Bailey Rae (which I think may be the artist for the entire summer), and "Down In Mexico," which I remember very fondly as being the lap dance song from Death Proof (one of the coolest movies ever). I like the way all the workers interact with one another, and I'd love to learn some bar tending, which looks like it would be part of the job. Here's hoping.
Two performances tonight. I think the third and fourth performances should be the ones where we really hit our stride. Or at least we hope so. The second performance wasn't bad, but I think the second one tends to often be the roughest, because we're coming off the opening night high and forgetting that we really do have to work for it. I'm still sort of trying to figure out where my place is in this thing, but I think Simon intends to teach me how to run it in the very near future. I'm a little nervous about that - it's a lot of pressure, and people will yell at you if your timing's a little bit off - but in the meantime, I'm just watching him run the show and turning projectors on and off. Grueling work, I know.
If you want to stay not-depressed, here's a tip: don't look on Craigslist for housing. Ever, at all. Craigslist got me my Brooklyn apartment, but looking at Columbia housing for next semester is probably one of the most discouraging things I've ever done. I know it's way too early to start looking, but that's not going to stop me. And since I'm dead set against the condo-styles like Garnet Riverwalk and Pointe West, I'm going to have a hard time finding things without actually walking around Columbia and searching in person. There will be lots of couch-surfing for the weeks or months that it will take me to find something upon my return. Volunteers?
5.21.2010
Two Days of Musings
I didn't skip today exactly, for the record - I just wrote part of it tonight and part of it the next day. Because we got back late, and the thing to do seemed to be to jot down a few words about a few random things, then save the rest for later.
I met a really sweet friend of my friend named Jen today, who took us to this super cool little bar in Williamsburg that had, as she described it, basically the best vibe in a bar that I've ever seen. It was dark, had lots of candles and couches, a really amazing ceiling mural, and the coolest jukebox ever. This thing played Band of Horses, Coldplay, and Radiohead - you just couldn't go wrong on it. The owners knew Jen, and although the people inside seemed way too cool for me, I really thought the place was great, and intend to go back there sometime. Maybe most importantly, Jen was one of the coolest, most down-to-earth people I've met up here, as well as being a really great young photographer. I'd seen her website the night before, and it had really blown me away.
Opening night went really well - everything gelled fairly nicely, and the video was almost flawless. There was one minor timing issue, and once or twice the actors flubbed their lines, but all in all, it was a great success, and we were very happy with it. People really seemed to take to it - my two friends who saw it really appreciated all the weirdness, all the things that only halfway make sense but are important parts of the plot (maybe most specifically a scene where the ship's Captain strips, morphs into a woman, and then some kind of weird sea creature), and said that it never failed to entertain. So we definitely did something right. Also, theater people are great - they start the drinking before the show starts. We were preparing to start the show last night, getting situated, and then Julia busts out some expensive Irish whiskey. I mean, hey, it got us relaxed, and by the time the karaoke scene came around, we were all singing in the back. It was great.
It's going to be really strange coming back to the apartment tonight. Really lonely and incredibly depressing, as long as I'm being honest. Nearly a week of waking up to someone, having someone meet me in front of the theater, knowing there's a friendly ear when I want it - those are things that I'll miss intensely. It was a lovely week, to say the least.
I bought my ticket home today, which was exciting and scary all at the same time. I'll be coming home on the 22nd, and then leaving again on the 30th. The tickets were crazy cheap (thanks, Jet Blue!), and the only downside is that I'm arriving and departing from Charlotte. But hey, that means more bonding time for the wonderful people who are going to be coming to get me and coming to drop me off (right, guys?). I decided to go for eight days, because I've got so much to fit in such a short time - at least four really close friends to spend time with, a whole lot of family to see, and two nieces to spend a summer's worth of doting on. And that's just the first four days - the last four I'll actually spend at a beach house with my extended family.
So this morning I got up to repark my car to stay out of the way of the street sweepers. I went down three streets to 57th, which as it turns out, is an as-yet uncovered part of my neighborhood - the Italian side. I parked my car about twenty minutes before the the street-sweeping signs said I could, but I'd watched them go by already, so I figured it was fine. But standing on the opposite side of the street yelling into his phone was this Italian guy, who up-nods at me and tells me that I should go ahead and stay for a few minutes, just to be sure I don't get a ticket. A few minutes later he crossed back over and told me that five or ten 'til should probably suffice. It was actually really adorable.
One thing - I'm going out on a limb here, but I feel like New Yorkers bond in a totally different way from South Carolinians. In Columbia, people are brought together by Southern gentility, by the way most of us share some kind of common courtesy. New Yorkers like to get angry at the same things, and by that, seem to bond. The Italian guys getting angry about the stupid street sweepers is a great example - me and the three Italian dudes shared a moment getting annoyed about the fact that we had to watch our cars to be sure we didn't get tickets when the street sweepers had definitely already come and gone. It's just a different kind of community than the one in South Carolina, or maybe the South as a whole.
I met a really sweet friend of my friend named Jen today, who took us to this super cool little bar in Williamsburg that had, as she described it, basically the best vibe in a bar that I've ever seen. It was dark, had lots of candles and couches, a really amazing ceiling mural, and the coolest jukebox ever. This thing played Band of Horses, Coldplay, and Radiohead - you just couldn't go wrong on it. The owners knew Jen, and although the people inside seemed way too cool for me, I really thought the place was great, and intend to go back there sometime. Maybe most importantly, Jen was one of the coolest, most down-to-earth people I've met up here, as well as being a really great young photographer. I'd seen her website the night before, and it had really blown me away.
Opening night went really well - everything gelled fairly nicely, and the video was almost flawless. There was one minor timing issue, and once or twice the actors flubbed their lines, but all in all, it was a great success, and we were very happy with it. People really seemed to take to it - my two friends who saw it really appreciated all the weirdness, all the things that only halfway make sense but are important parts of the plot (maybe most specifically a scene where the ship's Captain strips, morphs into a woman, and then some kind of weird sea creature), and said that it never failed to entertain. So we definitely did something right. Also, theater people are great - they start the drinking before the show starts. We were preparing to start the show last night, getting situated, and then Julia busts out some expensive Irish whiskey. I mean, hey, it got us relaxed, and by the time the karaoke scene came around, we were all singing in the back. It was great.
It's going to be really strange coming back to the apartment tonight. Really lonely and incredibly depressing, as long as I'm being honest. Nearly a week of waking up to someone, having someone meet me in front of the theater, knowing there's a friendly ear when I want it - those are things that I'll miss intensely. It was a lovely week, to say the least.
I bought my ticket home today, which was exciting and scary all at the same time. I'll be coming home on the 22nd, and then leaving again on the 30th. The tickets were crazy cheap (thanks, Jet Blue!), and the only downside is that I'm arriving and departing from Charlotte. But hey, that means more bonding time for the wonderful people who are going to be coming to get me and coming to drop me off (right, guys?). I decided to go for eight days, because I've got so much to fit in such a short time - at least four really close friends to spend time with, a whole lot of family to see, and two nieces to spend a summer's worth of doting on. And that's just the first four days - the last four I'll actually spend at a beach house with my extended family.
So this morning I got up to repark my car to stay out of the way of the street sweepers. I went down three streets to 57th, which as it turns out, is an as-yet uncovered part of my neighborhood - the Italian side. I parked my car about twenty minutes before the the street-sweeping signs said I could, but I'd watched them go by already, so I figured it was fine. But standing on the opposite side of the street yelling into his phone was this Italian guy, who up-nods at me and tells me that I should go ahead and stay for a few minutes, just to be sure I don't get a ticket. A few minutes later he crossed back over and told me that five or ten 'til should probably suffice. It was actually really adorable.
One thing - I'm going out on a limb here, but I feel like New Yorkers bond in a totally different way from South Carolinians. In Columbia, people are brought together by Southern gentility, by the way most of us share some kind of common courtesy. New Yorkers like to get angry at the same things, and by that, seem to bond. The Italian guys getting angry about the stupid street sweepers is a great example - me and the three Italian dudes shared a moment getting annoyed about the fact that we had to watch our cars to be sure we didn't get tickets when the street sweepers had definitely already come and gone. It's just a different kind of community than the one in South Carolina, or maybe the South as a whole.
5.19.2010
Simon Knows His Justin
A few days ago, while out at dinner, two Justin Timberlake songs came on. Both times, my face lit up, and for Simon's benefit I yelled, "Justin!" The second time, Simon looked over at me and said, "girl, you don't have to sell me on Justin. I already know and love him." And last night, when I told him I was going to play some of The Timberlakes, he goes, "play Senorita. I've always liked Justified better than FutureSex." Can you get a cooler boss than one who not only knows who Justin Timberlake is, but requests the song you were going to play anyway?
I got a piece of cheesecake at the Bean and Bean today to eat after our falafels and lattes, and let me just say, cheap cheesecake in New York is better than any cheesecake I've ever tasted before. Oh my heavens it was great. So were the falafels, actually. I turned in my application finally. Here's a moral dilemma I find myself in: if I turn in an application with the words "University of South Carolina" and "ongoing" on it, the first thing a future employer asks is, "how long are you planning on staying?" I'm offered an instant brush-off if I tell them that it's mid-August, but I just can't bring myself to lie. I've been told to say something close to, "well, that's to be determined . . . and if I'm offered the right job, it might be long term." Because hey, if I'm offered a high-paying job by MTV, I'll quit school in a heartbeat. Just don't tell them that this job isn't that job, and it shouldn't be too big of a deal. But I don't like lying to future employers, even if it does mean the difference between getting a job and not getting a job.
I've legitimately gotten bored enough that I've started constructing playlists. When I put time and effort into them, they're surprisingly good - but most of the time, I'm just throwing albums into a shuffled-up bin and enjoying what comes out. I enjoy looking at the transitions, the way songs mesh together, the way keys and shifts and voices do or don't sound good together. They're not seamless, but it's a lot of fun anyway.
I got two e-mails from my mom today, both of which I thought were great. The first was a picture of Chloe with her new toy, which she apparently carries with her everywhere. I always love seeing pictures of my baby, but this one was just gorgeous. She's a little bit blurred out in this beautiful artistic fashion - but more importantly, my mom captured the most perfect moment of her personality, with her ears up and her eyes pointed off to the left really expressively. And when I opened that photo, I realized how much I missed that dog. I miss all her funny little mannerisms, the way she's so moody and the way her little (giant) ears are like semaphores. My mom also sent me a few pictures of a disembodied squirrel tail, which means that I owe the little munchkin a new toy, or collar, or something like that. Have to make good on that.
I got a piece of cheesecake at the Bean and Bean today to eat after our falafels and lattes, and let me just say, cheap cheesecake in New York is better than any cheesecake I've ever tasted before. Oh my heavens it was great. So were the falafels, actually. I turned in my application finally. Here's a moral dilemma I find myself in: if I turn in an application with the words "University of South Carolina" and "ongoing" on it, the first thing a future employer asks is, "how long are you planning on staying?" I'm offered an instant brush-off if I tell them that it's mid-August, but I just can't bring myself to lie. I've been told to say something close to, "well, that's to be determined . . . and if I'm offered the right job, it might be long term." Because hey, if I'm offered a high-paying job by MTV, I'll quit school in a heartbeat. Just don't tell them that this job isn't that job, and it shouldn't be too big of a deal. But I don't like lying to future employers, even if it does mean the difference between getting a job and not getting a job.
I've legitimately gotten bored enough that I've started constructing playlists. When I put time and effort into them, they're surprisingly good - but most of the time, I'm just throwing albums into a shuffled-up bin and enjoying what comes out. I enjoy looking at the transitions, the way songs mesh together, the way keys and shifts and voices do or don't sound good together. They're not seamless, but it's a lot of fun anyway.
I got two e-mails from my mom today, both of which I thought were great. The first was a picture of Chloe with her new toy, which she apparently carries with her everywhere. I always love seeing pictures of my baby, but this one was just gorgeous. She's a little bit blurred out in this beautiful artistic fashion - but more importantly, my mom captured the most perfect moment of her personality, with her ears up and her eyes pointed off to the left really expressively. And when I opened that photo, I realized how much I missed that dog. I miss all her funny little mannerisms, the way she's so moody and the way her little (giant) ears are like semaphores. My mom also sent me a few pictures of a disembodied squirrel tail, which means that I owe the little munchkin a new toy, or collar, or something like that. Have to make good on that.
5.18.2010
Headset Day
By far the highlight of my day was when Julia handed me a big, bulky black headset and a box and said, "toggle that button and we can show you what real theater is." Finally, the real fun begins. Tech for me is boring as hell - I basically sit around and screw around on my computer for hours, with the five minute interlude of taking notes every hour or so. I run coffee. I make people laugh. I take a lot of crap. Take notes for a minute, then talk more crap with Grant. Today I brought a ray of sunshine by playing some Justin Timberlake in our five minutes of stand-around-do-push-ups-and-yoga time (clearly I was doing neither of those things). But if I have a voice in my ear telling me snarky things about the actors and other crew, talking about all the crazy stories and stuff, then I'll enjoy this process a lot more. I'm already more amused just by hearing the way they interact, finding out about the way things go behind the scenes.
I filled out the Bean and Bean application today, so I figure I'll go in tomorrow a little before call at 2 and try to charm the socks off of them. If that fails, I seem to have charmed the socks off of the 3LD guys (who printed out the application and the resume for me), who gave me the names of ten different likely coffee shops and a lot of places to go. The thing that stresses me out about the job situation is the fact that I'm trying to come home for a week from the end of June to the beginning of July. But if I buy a Tuesday to Tuesday ticket, for instance, and then they make the schedules on Monday to Monday and can't accommodate me, what happens then? But on the flip side, the tickets are only getting more expensive every day. Oy. Making decisions when my post-June 6th world seems like a completely dark void as far as I'm concerned? Not fun.
A couple of times in the dress and tech rehearsals for the last few days, the musicians have gotten out of sync, which naturally reminded me of a 30 Rock episode. Remember the one where Jenna explains backhanded compliments to Kenneth? She says, "I can never watch American Idol because I have perfect pitch."
Just like yesterday, my guest is going out and seeing all those amazing things, spending hours and hours walking all over the city while I'm locked inside. I know he doesn't mind - really, it's more that I mind not being able to go see things with him. Oh well. Simon and Julia have asked me for a couple of days now, "what have you guys been doing?" Nothing. I don't have the time, and once he gets back from his miles-long treks, he doesn't have the energy. It's honestly strange how nine hours at the theater wears me out as much or more than nine hours at the coffee shop did.
He was actually really thoughtful and brought Simon and I coffee after planning his travels at Bean and Bean (Simon: "aww, tell him he's a sweetie."). He texted me asking if I would come out to meet him just minutes after I got asked onstage by the director and told to sit under a sheet of plastic while they shone lights in my face and projected onto me for a while. So I spent fully ten minutes being bossed around while the poor guy stood behind the video booth holding coffee in his hands with a confused look on his face. I was more just annoyed that I was consigned to doing someone else's bitch work rather than Simon's. Come on, people. I'm a one-master kind of girl.
I filled out the Bean and Bean application today, so I figure I'll go in tomorrow a little before call at 2 and try to charm the socks off of them. If that fails, I seem to have charmed the socks off of the 3LD guys (who printed out the application and the resume for me), who gave me the names of ten different likely coffee shops and a lot of places to go. The thing that stresses me out about the job situation is the fact that I'm trying to come home for a week from the end of June to the beginning of July. But if I buy a Tuesday to Tuesday ticket, for instance, and then they make the schedules on Monday to Monday and can't accommodate me, what happens then? But on the flip side, the tickets are only getting more expensive every day. Oy. Making decisions when my post-June 6th world seems like a completely dark void as far as I'm concerned? Not fun.
A couple of times in the dress and tech rehearsals for the last few days, the musicians have gotten out of sync, which naturally reminded me of a 30 Rock episode. Remember the one where Jenna explains backhanded compliments to Kenneth? She says, "I can never watch American Idol because I have perfect pitch."
Just like yesterday, my guest is going out and seeing all those amazing things, spending hours and hours walking all over the city while I'm locked inside. I know he doesn't mind - really, it's more that I mind not being able to go see things with him. Oh well. Simon and Julia have asked me for a couple of days now, "what have you guys been doing?" Nothing. I don't have the time, and once he gets back from his miles-long treks, he doesn't have the energy. It's honestly strange how nine hours at the theater wears me out as much or more than nine hours at the coffee shop did.
He was actually really thoughtful and brought Simon and I coffee after planning his travels at Bean and Bean (Simon: "aww, tell him he's a sweetie."). He texted me asking if I would come out to meet him just minutes after I got asked onstage by the director and told to sit under a sheet of plastic while they shone lights in my face and projected onto me for a while. So I spent fully ten minutes being bossed around while the poor guy stood behind the video booth holding coffee in his hands with a confused look on his face. I was more just annoyed that I was consigned to doing someone else's bitch work rather than Simon's. Come on, people. I'm a one-master kind of girl.
5.17.2010
Day Two of Tech
As per the theater standard, we're beginning tech and I'm ready for the whole thing to be over.
So Bianca - one of the main actresses in the play - walked by while Simon was in the booth working yesterday. She leans over the railing to look at the video he was working on, which was a sequence from the end where she and the rest of the actors are walking up stairs away from the camera, shudders at the sight of herself, and goes, "God, would you look at that ugly old shoulder?" We both laughed and Simon said something reassuring, and then Bianca goes, "but hey, it's Tina's ass that looks fat."
Julia and Grant - stage manager and assistant stage manager - have the only two headsets in the play, because they have to cue one another and talk to each other about costuming and such. What makes me really jealous, aside from the fact that they get those awesome looking headsets that remind me of my glory days at Chick-fil-A, is that they get to talk smack to each other the entire time. I'll hear laughter coming from the other side of the booth, knowing that they're being snarky about everybody in the middle through those headsets. I remember the days, and I miss that good fun. I keep begging Julia to give me a headset, but she keeps denying me. Sad day.
I got so bored at the theater today. I'm still here, and I've still got four hours left, and I'm sure I'll have more smack to talk about the night after this is all said and done. The director just spent twenty minutes deciding which of two actors would grab hanging rings to attach to a carabiner, and during that time, I got so sleepy that I literally walked outside to run some suicides on the sidewalk. Dear heavens it was bad. Between all the stairs I climb, the walking I do, and now the suicides I'm running to keep myself awake, I'm going to be ripped by the time I leave this city. I'm a little bit excited.
I think I may have found the shoes that I want - Puma ballet flats. Yes, part of my internship time now involves looking at shoes online. Yes, you should be jealous. Now finding them (and then paying for them, actually) is going to be probably the more difficult part. We'll see what happens. I just wanted to give you guys hope on that particular front. Simon told me to get them, because they have sequins on them, and everything is better with sequins on it.
Backing up all the way to the beginning - since I very often seem to tell my days in reverse - I had to come in and get someone to fix the first Sanyo projector again, the one which arbitrarily stopped projecting yesterday and started glaring a bright orange light at me. Warning filter? What does that even mean, we asked? So I trek up to the theater at 10 AM, expecting that Paul the TD will be there to help me. That involved getting up significantly earlier than I'd planned and taking two hours out of my day, but I've really found that in my internship, I do exactly two things: get Simon coffee, and make Simon laugh. Because it will basically take longer to teach me the applications than it would for him to do it himself, I've been mostly watching, getting the niceness on my resume, and running errands. I don't mind. Like I said, I'm just glad to be working. Also, British Aaron's way of dealing with the filter warning problem was to reset the life - basically lie to the projector to tell it that the filter is fine, and then hope that it doesn't overheat it by letting through too little air. When the projector just explodes on opening night, and we're stuck with no floor projections, I will not be the least bit surprised. Aid from the guys who are about to get evicted from their building for not paying rent? Just as ghetto as it sounds.
I ate a calzone as big as my head today. I do so love the food in New York City.
So Bianca - one of the main actresses in the play - walked by while Simon was in the booth working yesterday. She leans over the railing to look at the video he was working on, which was a sequence from the end where she and the rest of the actors are walking up stairs away from the camera, shudders at the sight of herself, and goes, "God, would you look at that ugly old shoulder?" We both laughed and Simon said something reassuring, and then Bianca goes, "but hey, it's Tina's ass that looks fat."
Julia and Grant - stage manager and assistant stage manager - have the only two headsets in the play, because they have to cue one another and talk to each other about costuming and such. What makes me really jealous, aside from the fact that they get those awesome looking headsets that remind me of my glory days at Chick-fil-A, is that they get to talk smack to each other the entire time. I'll hear laughter coming from the other side of the booth, knowing that they're being snarky about everybody in the middle through those headsets. I remember the days, and I miss that good fun. I keep begging Julia to give me a headset, but she keeps denying me. Sad day.
I got so bored at the theater today. I'm still here, and I've still got four hours left, and I'm sure I'll have more smack to talk about the night after this is all said and done. The director just spent twenty minutes deciding which of two actors would grab hanging rings to attach to a carabiner, and during that time, I got so sleepy that I literally walked outside to run some suicides on the sidewalk. Dear heavens it was bad. Between all the stairs I climb, the walking I do, and now the suicides I'm running to keep myself awake, I'm going to be ripped by the time I leave this city. I'm a little bit excited.
I think I may have found the shoes that I want - Puma ballet flats. Yes, part of my internship time now involves looking at shoes online. Yes, you should be jealous. Now finding them (and then paying for them, actually) is going to be probably the more difficult part. We'll see what happens. I just wanted to give you guys hope on that particular front. Simon told me to get them, because they have sequins on them, and everything is better with sequins on it.
Backing up all the way to the beginning - since I very often seem to tell my days in reverse - I had to come in and get someone to fix the first Sanyo projector again, the one which arbitrarily stopped projecting yesterday and started glaring a bright orange light at me. Warning filter? What does that even mean, we asked? So I trek up to the theater at 10 AM, expecting that Paul the TD will be there to help me. That involved getting up significantly earlier than I'd planned and taking two hours out of my day, but I've really found that in my internship, I do exactly two things: get Simon coffee, and make Simon laugh. Because it will basically take longer to teach me the applications than it would for him to do it himself, I've been mostly watching, getting the niceness on my resume, and running errands. I don't mind. Like I said, I'm just glad to be working. Also, British Aaron's way of dealing with the filter warning problem was to reset the life - basically lie to the projector to tell it that the filter is fine, and then hope that it doesn't overheat it by letting through too little air. When the projector just explodes on opening night, and we're stuck with no floor projections, I will not be the least bit surprised. Aid from the guys who are about to get evicted from their building for not paying rent? Just as ghetto as it sounds.
I ate a calzone as big as my head today. I do so love the food in New York City.
Stop and Start
The entire day is perfectly epitomized in the way Julia described the first tech rehearsal - "this isn't cue to cue, it's stop and start."
I went into the Bean and Bean coffee shop twice today, and was helped by the same guy. Of course I tipped both times - which I would have done even if I wasn't angling for a good word in edgewise - and on the second time, asked for an application. Apparently they don't do paper applications, so the employee ripped off some register tape and handed it to me, asking for my e-mail address and telling me they'd send me one that way. Imagine my surprise when I actually received the application within a few hours - I've been given the brush off before from potential employers, I know what it looks like, and it pretty much looked like that. Grant (the ASM) perfectly described it as being a Starbucks, but not. It's corporate, but still has enough soul to make it feel okay for me to try there. I have to say, now that I've gotten in a little bit with the theater people, they've been really great as far as trying to hook me up with people, show me the best places, and inform me of the happenings. New Yorkers are very different from Southerners, and there's no way of getting around that, but coming to grips with that fact has not made me appreciate their brand of culture any less.
It really seems like it shouldn't take six hours to run a cue-to-cue on a ninety minute play, yet inexplicably, we didn't even get two-thirds of the way through the script. Honestly, I blame it entirely on the director, who I've come to like less and less of late. He seems - to the rest of us, anyway - the one who makes things more difficult rather than less. Artistic vision be damned, I genuinely feel like there were multiple times today when a stronger director would have taken charge of the situation and moved the cast through the script whether they liked it or not. He would literally call "hold" every thirty seconds, and then spend five minutes just . . . looking at the scenery. God knows what he was doing. People would start adjusting things, just hoping to hit on what was bothering him, but most of the time, he took five minutes to fix whatever he viewed to be a problem (call me a big-picture kind of girl, but I really think the most important issue today should have just been getting through the script), then spend another five minutes looking at whatever we had just fixed before calling it a go again.
I know I wasn't the only one who was exasperated - Simon can only either do work or project on one computer, never both at the same time. The rendering process was apparently being especially frustrating on this particular day, but every time they would ask him for a block of color on some of the walls - something they did often, and really needlessly - he'd get this provoked look on his face, stop everything he was doing, and find the exact color of "magenta orange" that they needed for the projections. Really, people, if we're going to skim over all the important parts, do we really need to pause the video process to put a placeholder color on the walls while lighting and blocking out the dance number? I was only taking notes and running errands, but I was frustrated for poor Simon.
After the seven and a half hours of theater time, my lovely friend took me to a few of the places he'd been wandering in the time I'd been at work. He showed me the place that I needed to see most - an overlook onto the other side of the river, where we could watch the sun set, watch the tourists walk by, and just feel the presence of the water. I think honestly, one of the things I was most terrified of while being gone this whole summer was the idea of not having moments exactly like these - times (almost always at a body of water, for me personally) where I can relax, soak in the beauty of my surroundings, and feel the presence of someone whose company I genuinely value. There's a very small number of people whose friendship means the world to me, but I try to make a point of spending time with those people when I'm home. It's moments like these - or three hours, in our case - that make me appreciate the world the most, or maybe recharge my batteries in some sense. I may think that most of the world is comprised of absolute idiots, but I need that other one or half-percent to remind me of the quality around me.
I'm in a strange, happy-but-melancholic mood right now. The Corinne Bailey Rae I'm playing probably isn't helping, but that's another point. I want to say a lot of things about a lot of things, and most of those things I'll leave unsaid. I think I have a tendency to be most thankful for the tiny things than for big things, like being so thrilled about getting some pasta and generally overlooking the fact that I'm living the college dream in New York City this summer, but I do want to again say that I'm grateful for all the things I have, and all the things I've been given. And I'm done rambling for the night.
I went into the Bean and Bean coffee shop twice today, and was helped by the same guy. Of course I tipped both times - which I would have done even if I wasn't angling for a good word in edgewise - and on the second time, asked for an application. Apparently they don't do paper applications, so the employee ripped off some register tape and handed it to me, asking for my e-mail address and telling me they'd send me one that way. Imagine my surprise when I actually received the application within a few hours - I've been given the brush off before from potential employers, I know what it looks like, and it pretty much looked like that. Grant (the ASM) perfectly described it as being a Starbucks, but not. It's corporate, but still has enough soul to make it feel okay for me to try there. I have to say, now that I've gotten in a little bit with the theater people, they've been really great as far as trying to hook me up with people, show me the best places, and inform me of the happenings. New Yorkers are very different from Southerners, and there's no way of getting around that, but coming to grips with that fact has not made me appreciate their brand of culture any less.
It really seems like it shouldn't take six hours to run a cue-to-cue on a ninety minute play, yet inexplicably, we didn't even get two-thirds of the way through the script. Honestly, I blame it entirely on the director, who I've come to like less and less of late. He seems - to the rest of us, anyway - the one who makes things more difficult rather than less. Artistic vision be damned, I genuinely feel like there were multiple times today when a stronger director would have taken charge of the situation and moved the cast through the script whether they liked it or not. He would literally call "hold" every thirty seconds, and then spend five minutes just . . . looking at the scenery. God knows what he was doing. People would start adjusting things, just hoping to hit on what was bothering him, but most of the time, he took five minutes to fix whatever he viewed to be a problem (call me a big-picture kind of girl, but I really think the most important issue today should have just been getting through the script), then spend another five minutes looking at whatever we had just fixed before calling it a go again.
I know I wasn't the only one who was exasperated - Simon can only either do work or project on one computer, never both at the same time. The rendering process was apparently being especially frustrating on this particular day, but every time they would ask him for a block of color on some of the walls - something they did often, and really needlessly - he'd get this provoked look on his face, stop everything he was doing, and find the exact color of "magenta orange" that they needed for the projections. Really, people, if we're going to skim over all the important parts, do we really need to pause the video process to put a placeholder color on the walls while lighting and blocking out the dance number? I was only taking notes and running errands, but I was frustrated for poor Simon.
After the seven and a half hours of theater time, my lovely friend took me to a few of the places he'd been wandering in the time I'd been at work. He showed me the place that I needed to see most - an overlook onto the other side of the river, where we could watch the sun set, watch the tourists walk by, and just feel the presence of the water. I think honestly, one of the things I was most terrified of while being gone this whole summer was the idea of not having moments exactly like these - times (almost always at a body of water, for me personally) where I can relax, soak in the beauty of my surroundings, and feel the presence of someone whose company I genuinely value. There's a very small number of people whose friendship means the world to me, but I try to make a point of spending time with those people when I'm home. It's moments like these - or three hours, in our case - that make me appreciate the world the most, or maybe recharge my batteries in some sense. I may think that most of the world is comprised of absolute idiots, but I need that other one or half-percent to remind me of the quality around me.
I'm in a strange, happy-but-melancholic mood right now. The Corinne Bailey Rae I'm playing probably isn't helping, but that's another point. I want to say a lot of things about a lot of things, and most of those things I'll leave unsaid. I think I have a tendency to be most thankful for the tiny things than for big things, like being so thrilled about getting some pasta and generally overlooking the fact that I'm living the college dream in New York City this summer, but I do want to again say that I'm grateful for all the things I have, and all the things I've been given. And I'm done rambling for the night.
5.16.2010
Enchiladas and Book Judging
I think I earned my day off today - or, at least, judging from the 11 hour work day that I suffered through yesterday, and the weird day/night swap that I did the day before, I'd say I have fair reason to take a day off from stuff, even if Simon isn't granted the same luxury - so I spent it in rare luxury. That is to say, cleaning, doing dishes, taking trash out, gathering things from my car that I hadn't gathered before, and generally finishing the sad unpacking job that I'd done two weeks earlier. I've never been one to settle anywhere quickly, which is evidenced by the fact that I didn't need to pack some things at the Senate Street house because I'd never actually unpacked them. I'm not saying that this place seems like a home, or even like someplace I could come home to for an extended period of time, but if my hat goes here, then it should hang in relative comfort.
I opened up the windows this morning, which was really pleasant too. The nice breeze blowing in my bay windows and the long shower I took really started my morning off right, as did the text saying that my visitor would be making it a little earlier than I'd thought. I took my time getting the apartment in order - less for him than for me, because I really just needed a catalyst to straighten everything up - and then headed uptown to get my bearings and try not to get lost while showing him my part of the city. He took a little longer than either of us had anticipated, which led to me spending about two hours wandering the area close to Penn Station, and taking my time in the massive Borders right next to Madison Square Garden. I ended up reading on the little square area in front of the Borders, face to the sun, intoxicated by the people and the buildings and the beautiful weather.
That center area of New York really is the best for people watching, too. There seem to be tourists in almost every part of New York - which itself seems to be comprised half of hardened natives and half of awe-struck outsiders - but most of all in places like Madison Square Garden, Times Square, and Penn Station. We counted fully six or seven obviously different nationalities, and had a fun time guessing all the cultures in between.
I bought Camus' "Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays," which had been on my list ever since my history professor last semester had us read "The Stranger," which really rocked my world. Not to say that I'm going to turn into an existentialist, but a lot of the things we talked about in class impressed themselves on me, and I thought the smart thing to do would be to become more well-read on the subject. But that brings me to my point of subway observation of the day, which is that if you pull a book out, I will judge you on that book. I will be judging you hard, too. That's not to say that I'm any kind of elitist - in fact, something more like the opposite is true. I considered the fact that if I were to see someone holding Myth of Sisyphus, I'd probably think that person was a pretentious wannabe-philosopher with one philosophy class under their belt that just wants to be seen reading something more important than Harry Potter. I then thought I'd rather be seen reading vampire-lit than pretentious douche-lit. My friend at this point goes, "I don't want to know how you'd react to what I'm reading." I jump on this. "Fine, fine," he says, and pulls out this little purple book simply titled, "Genre." "That's Jimmy Gilmore-worthy right there," I say, and then can't help myself for laughing anymore.
We ate at a nice little Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood - he's convinced he should help me find places in my area to eat, since I don't have a kitchen and riding to Manhattan for dinner every night isn't practical. It's a noble goal, and I feel like we're well on our way to at least some accomplishment of it. I had a really fabulous enchilada, the like of which I haven't had since the last time I was in Kansas for Grandma's enchiladas.
Tomorrow it's back to the grind. Probably at least seven hours in the theater proper, with quite possibly some rotoscoping tomorrow. Funny tidbit - Julia told me yesterday I should start writing a blog of my experiences. Simon chimed in that I already had, but when I referenced it, goes, "oh, I don't read it." Julia had a good time giving him hell for that for a little while, but when she let him get a word in edgewise, he goes, "well, you know . . . she might write it differently if she knew I read it!" It's true, Simon. And if you're reading this now, go back and look at all the nice things I said about you - I would genuinely be less likely to be so candid about my pleasure to be working with you if I thought you read it. But since I'm pretty sure you don't, I tell you I'm talking smack while secretly telling the world what a great boss you are.
I opened up the windows this morning, which was really pleasant too. The nice breeze blowing in my bay windows and the long shower I took really started my morning off right, as did the text saying that my visitor would be making it a little earlier than I'd thought. I took my time getting the apartment in order - less for him than for me, because I really just needed a catalyst to straighten everything up - and then headed uptown to get my bearings and try not to get lost while showing him my part of the city. He took a little longer than either of us had anticipated, which led to me spending about two hours wandering the area close to Penn Station, and taking my time in the massive Borders right next to Madison Square Garden. I ended up reading on the little square area in front of the Borders, face to the sun, intoxicated by the people and the buildings and the beautiful weather.
That center area of New York really is the best for people watching, too. There seem to be tourists in almost every part of New York - which itself seems to be comprised half of hardened natives and half of awe-struck outsiders - but most of all in places like Madison Square Garden, Times Square, and Penn Station. We counted fully six or seven obviously different nationalities, and had a fun time guessing all the cultures in between.
I bought Camus' "Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays," which had been on my list ever since my history professor last semester had us read "The Stranger," which really rocked my world. Not to say that I'm going to turn into an existentialist, but a lot of the things we talked about in class impressed themselves on me, and I thought the smart thing to do would be to become more well-read on the subject. But that brings me to my point of subway observation of the day, which is that if you pull a book out, I will judge you on that book. I will be judging you hard, too. That's not to say that I'm any kind of elitist - in fact, something more like the opposite is true. I considered the fact that if I were to see someone holding Myth of Sisyphus, I'd probably think that person was a pretentious wannabe-philosopher with one philosophy class under their belt that just wants to be seen reading something more important than Harry Potter. I then thought I'd rather be seen reading vampire-lit than pretentious douche-lit. My friend at this point goes, "I don't want to know how you'd react to what I'm reading." I jump on this. "Fine, fine," he says, and pulls out this little purple book simply titled, "Genre." "That's Jimmy Gilmore-worthy right there," I say, and then can't help myself for laughing anymore.
We ate at a nice little Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood - he's convinced he should help me find places in my area to eat, since I don't have a kitchen and riding to Manhattan for dinner every night isn't practical. It's a noble goal, and I feel like we're well on our way to at least some accomplishment of it. I had a really fabulous enchilada, the like of which I haven't had since the last time I was in Kansas for Grandma's enchiladas.
Tomorrow it's back to the grind. Probably at least seven hours in the theater proper, with quite possibly some rotoscoping tomorrow. Funny tidbit - Julia told me yesterday I should start writing a blog of my experiences. Simon chimed in that I already had, but when I referenced it, goes, "oh, I don't read it." Julia had a good time giving him hell for that for a little while, but when she let him get a word in edgewise, he goes, "well, you know . . . she might write it differently if she knew I read it!" It's true, Simon. And if you're reading this now, go back and look at all the nice things I said about you - I would genuinely be less likely to be so candid about my pleasure to be working with you if I thought you read it. But since I'm pretty sure you don't, I tell you I'm talking smack while secretly telling the world what a great boss you are.
5.15.2010
Another Long Day
Working backwards through the day, I want to express the reason that this city still frustrates me the most. It's that a half-hour commute - a fifteen minute drive, but half an hour by public transit - takes an hour and a half at night, when I'd like to be home the fastest. The longer you wait to try to get home, the longer it takes, which leaves you standing on a subway stop for half an hour while the Jersey Boy-wannabe next to you tries to chat you up, informing you that he'd "leave New York City after the cockroaches do, and people say those could survive a nuclear war." Thanks for that one, buddy. Seriously, if I'm stuck in a subway station by myself and am standing with my don't-talk-to-me look on, I'd really appreciate it if you'd abide by my wishes and not talk to me. But tonight, my N-train to Astoria just suddenly decided to become a D train, which tacked another half hour onto my regular time.
My day was eleven-hours-full of projectors. I could draw up a laundry list of the frustrations that projectors presented us today, but the best story came at the end of the night. We'd had so much trouble with the remotes, the cables, the inputs, and the cabling job itself that we didn't even get all four projectors running until about 7. To put it in perspective, I'd come in at noon to start getting things together, get a working keyboard, and cable the last two projectors. I'd asked for help from Paul the TD so many times that when he saw me rounding the corner the last two times, he'd get this beleaguered look on his face, look over his glasses at me, and go, "what is it this time?" All justified reasons, though, so most of the time he really couldn't blame me. I'm convinced I may have worn out my welcome this time around, though. They're rethinking their idea to ask me on as their next intern.
So last twenty minutes of my night were right around 11. Simon was marking out all the obstructions in our projection path in Photoshop (it's complicated to explain, and kind of inconsequential), which required me to turn the projectors on one at a time. But naturally three of the projectors (the Sanyos) are (freaking inexplicably) linked together through a single (very crappy) remote with a messed up trackpad, which means that anytime I needed to lens shift, zoom or keyframe, I basically had to climb on the ladder, because that trackpad apparently doesn't respond to girl-fingers. Don't ask me, I don't know. The major problem, though, is that trying to turn on one projector at a time means aiming carefully, shielding the signal with one hand, and praying to God that it turns on the right one. Because if you turn on the wrong one, an extra one, or actually all three at once, they have to fire up, then turn off, then completely cool down before you start all over again. Literally the only way to get all three of them off at the same time is to turn them all on, then turn them all off again before the cooling period allows me to accidentally turn one on again. You think reading that was annoying? Try living it.
I hung out with Heather, the set design girl, today. We didn't have much time, since it was late at night and we were both kind of worn down, so we walked a little up Broadway and then stopped in a 24-hour "cafe," where we sat and talked for about an hour. Heather's a really nice girl, and although I'm really sad she's leaving for the rest of the world on Sunday, I'm glad to have connected with her - I'll see her at some point next fall. I'm also happy that I seem to have made friends with the stage manager, Julia, who offered to show me her New York - one full of excitement and coffee and intimacy in a way that I'd told her my New York didn't have. It's probably a little bit pathetic that I get so excited about making friends up here, especially since I'm not awkward at making friends - I just rarely go out of my way to do so, and in a city this size, I'm happy for the opportunities I'm given.
Funny thought - there are definite societal codes to enjoying music in a public place. This is something we take for granted most of the time, until we're faced with something completely out of our view of normality. Take tonight - Guy on the Subway, with your brown leather shoes and your black leather satchel, your too-unbuttoned button-up shirt and your spikey hair . . . you need to tone back the emoting. Knee-jogging is fine. Even head-nodding, if you're the kind of person who can pull it off. But twitching - radically - lipsynching, and head-banging are not acceptable behaviors for anyone, much less a guy sitting by himself and leering at all girls in the area. Two people can get away with some extensive bouncing around, and three can do the singing thing without coming off as being crazy. But alone, you should probably stick to head nodding and knee bouncing, and try to leave the craziness for another time of day and another crowd.
5.13.2010
Day Becomes Night or Vice Versa
I went fully nocturnal last night, which was simultaneously really liberating and one of the worst decisions I've made up here so far. It was somewhat necessary - I just couldn't take that sequence having beaten me one more night, so I pressed on - but going to bed at 7 AM really isn't conducive to a healthy, well-adjusted day. It wasn't that I had to be anywhere, but for some reason my body was just so confused that it didn't want to sleep, but it didn't want to function well either. It was an odd day, to say the least. I got up around 11, laid in my bed and stared at a wall for a little while, and went out to Starbucks to spend some time reading, drinking coffee, and eating scones.
Production meetings kind of generally suck. It's about an hour and a half of a group of noncommittal people indecisively discussing things that mean absolutely nothing to me, mixed with ten minutes of them telling Simon that they need the video sooner than they'd thought. Between the long-suffering look of martyrdom on Simon's face and the occasional dyed-pink poodle walking by (no, seriously), my tired-ADD self was totally off in my own little world. I like to think I make Simon's life a little bit easier - not as much in the work load so much as the understanding looks across the table that say "don't you just want to smack these damn artistic types? I know I do." All the passive-agressive demure whispering annoys me intensely, especially when coupled with the fact that our production has no clear leader. I understand being artistic and wanting things done a certain way, but I'm first and foremost a realist when faced with the workloads of others, and can accept that some people's specialties may make them more qualified to judge.
I hung out with Greg and Devon again tonight, which was also lovely - they're just excellent guys, both of them. Devon's goal for the city today was twofold: get his picture taken near Wall Street, and go to Chinatown. We only accomplished one of those two, but when we started getting to the heart of Chinatown (just past Little Italy, which was as glorious as I'd imagined and smelled twice as good), Devon's face lit up. "I love haggling!" he said, and I kid you not, started skipping from stall to stall trying to get the best price on some brand-name watch that only he really valued correctly. We went through four different stalls before he got the last guy down to a reasonable price. "The other guy said he'd give it to me for 45," Devon said, eyeing the guy with an appraising look. "Forget everything he said," the vendor said, "how much will you pay?" "30," Devon said, which had been his plan all along since he shoved all 200 dollars in cash into Greg's pocket and had taken only 30. "40." "37," Devon responds, obviously now just enjoying the hunt rather than caring about the money. "What difference does three dollars make?" the guy asks, probably getting exasperated by the grinning white boy with the John Mayer douche-hawk who clearly has the money and just won't give it up. And Devon's honest-to-God response: "Three dollars gets me a cup of ice cream!"
I got home with far less frustration tonight, although this time around felt like I may have been more justified in my paranoia. I've always erred on the side of caution (paranoia) in situations like these - drive around a few extra blocks if I think there's any chance someone might be following me, walk a little slower to let someone pass me if I'm not comfortable with the idea of them knowing where I live. Maybe I've watched way too many spy movies in my time, but I'm always far too careful when I'm alone, for better or worse. Tonight I literally sprinted up two sets of stairs and across a street to be sure that a suspicious guy wouldn't follow me. On the one hand, I think that I'm way too far away from aid not to trust those stupid instincts, but on the other hand, I'm fairly certain this is just me flying my crazy flag.
As long as I'm letting the crazy out, here's something I've realized about myself lately: the very tiny processes and methods in my life are the ones that keep me most sane and happy. The little ways that I organize my life are the ones which give me some kind of strange, comforting stability. For example, I keep my Metrocard in the left front pocket of my jeans, for these reasons: the right side has my keys, and keys and Metrocards shouldn't go in the same pocket. The back right pocket has my phone in it, and I've lost cash by pulling out the phone and not realizing what's next to it is sliding out too. And the left back pocket . . . just doesn't get used. I have trouble even reaching into that pocket. That card is in that pocket at all times, ready to whip out at a moment's notice, but not in danger of being lost. Likewise, during cold weather, I run my headphone cord between my jacket and my coat, so I can take off the coat for class but not yet have to relinquish my music (and thereby keep people from talking to me for a few minutes longer - also the idea). These odd little problem-solvers really are important to me, which I suppose just feeds into my weirdness. Oh well.
Scary Night-Time Lessons
The catalyst for the other lessons I've learned tonight was also the foremost of these lessons, and that was this: never, ever assume that a train will stop where you need it to, when you need it to. Assume that the train you need will be delayed by construction, will suddenly switch to the local or express just when you need it to be regular, or will not have the correct stop chart lit when you desperately want to know where the hell it's going. It's like there's both an excess of information when the voices come over the intercom giving out stops and transits rapid-fire to the point where you can't even understand them, but at the same time, there are never enough maps and charts and signs to help you get where you need to go. The subways are labyrinthine enough during the daytime, without throwing in all the extra construction and strange connectors at night. These are the circumstances that found me riding home at 1 in the morning, which was definitely not my intention.
I'm probably completely paranoid, and all of the things I was worried about were nothing to actually worry about, but these are the ways I coped with being in an uncomfortable situation like the subway at 1 AM. I stood, I never sat - call me crazy, but I feel less vulnerable when I'm standing, eyes towards the longer end of the car, always careful to appear alert and not open to any kind of conversation. On the one hand, I'm under the impression that the subway is one of the safest parts of the city, but that doesn't make it any less frightening when the large white boy thug is walking back and forth between train cars repeatedly and acting like he was tweaking on something. Or the guy that pointedly switches cars to stand across from me, even if he gets off a stop before me. The fact that I made it onto the correct train felt like a minor miracle. And for the two block walk home, I carried my phone in one hand, ready to make that safety call and pretend like I had someone at home waiting for me, and my pepper spray tucked into my other jacket sleeve, ready at a moment's notice. I felt safer on my dark Bay Ridge streets than I did in certain parts of the subway itself, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared.
I'm sort of missing the excitement of tonight, though, and that is that I went to Times Square with two good friends who came to visit me. Well, less expressly to visit me than to continue their tradition of a road trip every summer, but I had a lovely time with them. Greg and Devon are easily two of the coolest people I know, so the joy of exploration was greatly multiplied by doing it with fun people. We met near Penn Station, and then wandered the two or three miles up to Bleecker Street, then back down to Times Square. We met an SCHC alum and ate some of the best pizza around, then went up to see 30 Rockefeller Plaza (that's right!) and walk up 5th Avenue. All of which was a fabulous experience, but Times Square at night for the first time was really an amazing sight.
In some respect, I feel like Times Square was completely logically backwards. It's as bright as daylight while it's late at night. There are tons of stores open when everything should be closed. It's one of the few places in New York where everybody seems to be a tourist. It's loud, and it's crazy, and it's absolutely packed with people, but it's got this electric presence to it, like some kind of palpable being with such a specific energy to it. It seemed incredibly appropriate, on finishing American Gods, that I would wander into one of the places Gaiman talks about as being a holy site to the American people, a place where people naturally congregate and where the very land is different somehow. I don't know quite how to explain it, and I honestly feel like it will take several, more lingering visits to be able to get a good grasp of it. Suffice to say that wandering through those streets, I finally saw what all the other tourists see, and I was intrigued. More on that in the next few weeks.
Finally, more computer frustration. My poor laptop is really feeling its age right now, and it's breaking my heart both that it's struggling so much and that I have to put in so much extra work. The hours of work that I've lost are the biggest frustration, but the fact that it takes so long for it to do that work just builds up the annoyance. Today I did about four hours of work before heading out. I saved and then froze, a lesson I learned (the most brutally hard way) last night, but realized (ironically) that it's the freezing that freezes my computer. I understand that all those roto brush strokes take a while to flatten, but coming back to my apartment eight hours later, it had stopped halfway through and caused the other two open applications to stop responding. God help me. I force quit and reopened, sure that I would at least have all the work I did earlier today, but After Effects is just refusing to re-render those strokes. This is such a cruel set of circumstances.
5.11.2010
Day . . . Whatever, I Don't Feel Like Counting
I'm eating a baller sandwich over here - it's called The Soprano, at the Variety Deli right across the street from the theater. It's got prosciutto, sun-dried tomato paste, and . . . lots of other sundry delicious things. Also, in news of how awesome my boss is, Simon walks into the theater and pulls out a little Tupperware. "Here," he says, handing it to me, "it's soup. You don't have a kitchen. Just thought you might want some." I've had a few great bosses in my day (Kitty being one of them - the woman who gave me a gift card to Hunter-Gatherer just because she appreciated the hard work I put in), but that's one of the more thoughtful things an employer has ever done for me. It really warmed my heart. It's good soup, too.
It's still cold here. I talked to the two Aarons and Paul the TD (that's how we refer to them, because there are at least two Aarons and two Pauls), and they reassured me that this kind of cold is very unseasonal. I played up my Little Southern Girl charm and told them something about how I just hadn't been expecting it, but they also guaranteed me that it would be in the 80s by Saturday (thank God). British Aaron (Sarah's future man) and Paul the TD hung the last two projectors, which was a bit of a task in itself, because the lenses had to be shifted, the keystone had to be . . . fixed, and the angles had to be right. Think of two projectors, hanging seventeen feet in the air and about ten feet apart, pointed towards each other. Julia aptly described it as the "dueling projector scenario," which presented a myriad of problems as we tried to be sure neither projector threw a shadow in the other's throw. And then, as if that wasn't enough, we have errant lights that are pointed straight down (which is to say, totally useless) whose purpose no one seems to understand.
If I were into theater at all, I could get an internship with 3LD. I'm thinking about it, honestly - I should be getting my 499 MART credits for what I'm doing with Simon, but it wouldn't hurt at all to have an extra couple of things on my resume, along with the brilliant letters of recommendation that it could bring me. Even though I'm not a big fan of this grid system that means being so far above the ground without any kind of safety, I've made several fans while working at the theater, and might be able to exploit those contacts once Simon's finished needing me.
You know why I'm old? I see a group of four or more teenagers and start getting nervous.
Lo and behold, there was more rotoscoping to do. There will be much more in my future, and the fact that I'm doing this set really painstakingly carefully will probably pay off in the end, but the fact that I spent five hours working on a five second sequence is legitimately tragic. I don't know if I've gotten so much slower, or if this one was just so much more difficult (it was), but either way, I'll be up a good part of the night working on it again. After Effects, I've come to realize, is like a really stubborn teenager. You tell it to do something. It fights you. You finally assert enough of your authority to force it, but just out of spite, it does what you say to a much higher degree than you can accommodate. You tell it not to be bitchy like that, so it goes as far as it can in the opposite direction. Damn teenagers . . .
I miss the familiarity of home today. I miss walking out of my door and having a clear sense of left and right, here and there. Even the ability to get from place to place efficiently, to know where things are enough to go out and get something on a whim. It probably sounds funny - maybe more ungrateful than anything else. It's a huge adventure, but it's also an inconvenient one at times. The subway is excellent for some things, but I guess I just wasn't used to having to wait on anyone at home.
It's still cold here. I talked to the two Aarons and Paul the TD (that's how we refer to them, because there are at least two Aarons and two Pauls), and they reassured me that this kind of cold is very unseasonal. I played up my Little Southern Girl charm and told them something about how I just hadn't been expecting it, but they also guaranteed me that it would be in the 80s by Saturday (thank God). British Aaron (Sarah's future man) and Paul the TD hung the last two projectors, which was a bit of a task in itself, because the lenses had to be shifted, the keystone had to be . . . fixed, and the angles had to be right. Think of two projectors, hanging seventeen feet in the air and about ten feet apart, pointed towards each other. Julia aptly described it as the "dueling projector scenario," which presented a myriad of problems as we tried to be sure neither projector threw a shadow in the other's throw. And then, as if that wasn't enough, we have errant lights that are pointed straight down (which is to say, totally useless) whose purpose no one seems to understand.
If I were into theater at all, I could get an internship with 3LD. I'm thinking about it, honestly - I should be getting my 499 MART credits for what I'm doing with Simon, but it wouldn't hurt at all to have an extra couple of things on my resume, along with the brilliant letters of recommendation that it could bring me. Even though I'm not a big fan of this grid system that means being so far above the ground without any kind of safety, I've made several fans while working at the theater, and might be able to exploit those contacts once Simon's finished needing me.
You know why I'm old? I see a group of four or more teenagers and start getting nervous.
Lo and behold, there was more rotoscoping to do. There will be much more in my future, and the fact that I'm doing this set really painstakingly carefully will probably pay off in the end, but the fact that I spent five hours working on a five second sequence is legitimately tragic. I don't know if I've gotten so much slower, or if this one was just so much more difficult (it was), but either way, I'll be up a good part of the night working on it again. After Effects, I've come to realize, is like a really stubborn teenager. You tell it to do something. It fights you. You finally assert enough of your authority to force it, but just out of spite, it does what you say to a much higher degree than you can accommodate. You tell it not to be bitchy like that, so it goes as far as it can in the opposite direction. Damn teenagers . . .
I miss the familiarity of home today. I miss walking out of my door and having a clear sense of left and right, here and there. Even the ability to get from place to place efficiently, to know where things are enough to go out and get something on a whim. It probably sounds funny - maybe more ungrateful than anything else. It's a huge adventure, but it's also an inconvenient one at times. The subway is excellent for some things, but I guess I just wasn't used to having to wait on anyone at home.
5.10.2010
Laundry Day!
First order of business for the day is what I forgot to do yesterday in the scramble to get something small posted when I lost a long draft: thank the mothers in my life. I did my duty directly to the two of them - my mom and my sister - but I meant to put something a little more into Mother's Day. In some strange way, I count both of them as some form of mother to me, and I'm incredibly grateful to both of them for everything that they taught me. I guess I sort of touched on that in my "work ethic" rant a few days earlier, but clearly I believe very deeply that my family molded me in some profound way from a very early age, and I can't express my appreciation for them enough. A few things I really wanted to point out about these two remarkable women in my life, but which in no way are nearly a complete catalog of the great qualities that they taught me: my mom, with her dedication to a cause, really amazes me on a daily basis. When most people would have long since given up on something, she continues on, and does it with the exact fervor that she started with. She just never gives up, on people or on missions. I hope one day I learn to be as industrious as she is. My sister every day teaches me something else entirely, but a lesson that I value no less. She exhibits this kind of grace that I can't accurately describe, but one which even in my limited experience with it, touches every facet of her daily life in a really beautiful way, and maybe most importantly in the way I see her interact with her children. I hope I inform them of my admiration on a regular basis, and it's not just a yearly kind of thing, but I just want them to know that I find myself humbled every day by how amazing they are.
My dad sent me probably the sweetest e-mail this morning, and it really warmed my heart. There's a small number of people from whom praise takes on a different significance entirely, and he's one of them. The message that he sent me included a line about how proud he was of me, which just means the world to me. I guess I've been rambling a lot about my family lately, but I think being gone, even for this short time, has made me appreciate the network of amazing family and great friends that I left behind. Those of you who I love the most know who you are, and hopefully how much I appreciate you. And since I'm really going on about it - probably to the extent that some of you are starting to think I'm crazy - I'll leave it at that.
I'm going to legitimately cry next time someone asks me to rotoscope something like this. That is to say, tiny tiny details, multiple planes, and a long shot that makes the details hard to see. If Simon says, "Rachel, could you tighten up this rotoscope for me again?" I'll break down into tears of pain and rage. At risk of coming off sounding ungrateful, which I'm absolutely not, since I'm so thrilled to be doing work at all, this project has had its moments where I've had to step away, take a few deep breaths, and come back to it later. The occasional futility of it slays me. You fix one thing, scrub forward, realize you didn't fix something else, scrub backward. Repeat, repeat, repeat, until you're pretty sure you haven't actually made any progress at all.
The problem with me actually ever getting anything explored in this city is my train of thought: "ooh yeah, exploring sounds fun. Ohh, but I have to get out of bed first. Hmm. Okay, well, let me do a little work first. Oh man, it's three hours later already. Guess I better go out. But oh crap, I have to do laundry or I won't have anything to wear tomorrow and I can't do it tomorrow because Simon will be back. Okay, laundromat first. But jeez, it's cold outside. I think I can make it to the laundromat, but do I really want to go traipsing through the city when it's this cold? Man I wish I had my jacket with me. I wonder if my mom's going to ship it to me. Stupid jacket, why did I not realize it was going to be cold here? MAN it's cold."
So I managed to blunder my way through my first laundromat experience. The counter guy was onto me - oh, he was so onto me - and would occasionally glance over at me with a look of disdain on his face. I had to buy a little single-pack of Tide, which means that my clothes all smell nasty now, but they didn't have the stuff I normally use for sale (All Small and Mighty, just in case you wondered). The laundromat was an entirely new experience for me - I do my own laundry, don't get me wrong, it's just sitting around and waiting on it, feeding coins in, dealing with a new washer. All strange to me. I felt like I probably came off as some kind of spoiled rich brat who'd never used a washer before, but what can you do?
The sheer quantity of laundry most of these people were doing kind of blew my mind. I'm washing the six shirts I brought with me and the two pair of jeans I thought would be necessary (I brought a little bit of formal wear, I just haven't broken it out yet). The woman next to me was doing two full loads in the larger-sized washers, which took up two of the rolling baskets littering the floor. I think that if I had that many clothes, I probably would only need to wash them once a year or so. She was probably washing for a family of five, but it still amazed me.
Those old Cool Beans war wounds are acting up again. I noticed it first while climbing up and down ladders endlessly on Friday. The knee that I banged up (pretty badly) thanks to my dear elf shoes - the one that has been fully healed for several months now - started giving me trouble whenever I'd take a more significant weight on it, like when I climb ladders or go up and down stairs. It's that exact same twinging pain, that annoys more than really hurts. I'm apprehensive, but I'm hoping once it gets used to all the new walking and standing, it'll be fine.
Finally, I finished American Gods. It was really good, although I won't lie and say I understood all the intricacies of the references to varying mythology. I got a lot of it, and he explained a lot of it, but I feel like a full comprehension of this book would require a huge amount of knowledge concerning basically every mythological system in the world. Neil Gaiman is really a brilliant writer, as far as I'm concerned. There are occasional phrases that just floor me (pg. 578 - "[Shadow] felt a pang, like a minor chord being played inside him."), quirks in the ways he tells his stories that amaze me. He doesn't always let you in on the idea right away, and I like that. I like how easily he evokes moods, even more than he evokes images. Now on to find the next book of choice . . .
My dad sent me probably the sweetest e-mail this morning, and it really warmed my heart. There's a small number of people from whom praise takes on a different significance entirely, and he's one of them. The message that he sent me included a line about how proud he was of me, which just means the world to me. I guess I've been rambling a lot about my family lately, but I think being gone, even for this short time, has made me appreciate the network of amazing family and great friends that I left behind. Those of you who I love the most know who you are, and hopefully how much I appreciate you. And since I'm really going on about it - probably to the extent that some of you are starting to think I'm crazy - I'll leave it at that.
I'm going to legitimately cry next time someone asks me to rotoscope something like this. That is to say, tiny tiny details, multiple planes, and a long shot that makes the details hard to see. If Simon says, "Rachel, could you tighten up this rotoscope for me again?" I'll break down into tears of pain and rage. At risk of coming off sounding ungrateful, which I'm absolutely not, since I'm so thrilled to be doing work at all, this project has had its moments where I've had to step away, take a few deep breaths, and come back to it later. The occasional futility of it slays me. You fix one thing, scrub forward, realize you didn't fix something else, scrub backward. Repeat, repeat, repeat, until you're pretty sure you haven't actually made any progress at all.
The problem with me actually ever getting anything explored in this city is my train of thought: "ooh yeah, exploring sounds fun. Ohh, but I have to get out of bed first. Hmm. Okay, well, let me do a little work first. Oh man, it's three hours later already. Guess I better go out. But oh crap, I have to do laundry or I won't have anything to wear tomorrow and I can't do it tomorrow because Simon will be back. Okay, laundromat first. But jeez, it's cold outside. I think I can make it to the laundromat, but do I really want to go traipsing through the city when it's this cold? Man I wish I had my jacket with me. I wonder if my mom's going to ship it to me. Stupid jacket, why did I not realize it was going to be cold here? MAN it's cold."
So I managed to blunder my way through my first laundromat experience. The counter guy was onto me - oh, he was so onto me - and would occasionally glance over at me with a look of disdain on his face. I had to buy a little single-pack of Tide, which means that my clothes all smell nasty now, but they didn't have the stuff I normally use for sale (All Small and Mighty, just in case you wondered). The laundromat was an entirely new experience for me - I do my own laundry, don't get me wrong, it's just sitting around and waiting on it, feeding coins in, dealing with a new washer. All strange to me. I felt like I probably came off as some kind of spoiled rich brat who'd never used a washer before, but what can you do?
The sheer quantity of laundry most of these people were doing kind of blew my mind. I'm washing the six shirts I brought with me and the two pair of jeans I thought would be necessary (I brought a little bit of formal wear, I just haven't broken it out yet). The woman next to me was doing two full loads in the larger-sized washers, which took up two of the rolling baskets littering the floor. I think that if I had that many clothes, I probably would only need to wash them once a year or so. She was probably washing for a family of five, but it still amazed me.
Those old Cool Beans war wounds are acting up again. I noticed it first while climbing up and down ladders endlessly on Friday. The knee that I banged up (pretty badly) thanks to my dear elf shoes - the one that has been fully healed for several months now - started giving me trouble whenever I'd take a more significant weight on it, like when I climb ladders or go up and down stairs. It's that exact same twinging pain, that annoys more than really hurts. I'm apprehensive, but I'm hoping once it gets used to all the new walking and standing, it'll be fine.
Finally, I finished American Gods. It was really good, although I won't lie and say I understood all the intricacies of the references to varying mythology. I got a lot of it, and he explained a lot of it, but I feel like a full comprehension of this book would require a huge amount of knowledge concerning basically every mythological system in the world. Neil Gaiman is really a brilliant writer, as far as I'm concerned. There are occasional phrases that just floor me (pg. 578 - "[Shadow] felt a pang, like a minor chord being played inside him."), quirks in the ways he tells his stories that amaze me. He doesn't always let you in on the idea right away, and I like that. I like how easily he evokes moods, even more than he evokes images. Now on to find the next book of choice . . .
5.09.2010
Day Off Not-Venturing
Again, with the whole losing posts thing. If I were smart, I'd write them in Neo Office and then transfer them over to minimize the risk of losing them. Because this really sucks.
So today I was planning on going to the Brooklyn Bridge, looking around, and taking a bunch of pictures of the assembling bulkhead of clouds. All for you, my dear blog-followers, all for you. I wanted to show you a little more of the way I see things here, maybe give you a visual of the things that most of you have already seen, but that I'm newly experiencing. I set foot outside my door, though, and was absolutely shattered by the freezing cold weather and the even colder wind. It was about 45 degrees outside, and the wind was going at about 20 miles per hour, but I stumbled down to the subway station (regretting every step taken away from my reasonably comfortable apartment) and attempted to stifle the shivering once I got into the train.
I got off the R train, and went to transfer to the F train . . . only to find that the F train wasn't running this weekend. I stand there, a little frustrated by the fact that the iPod Touch app sent me this way of all ways, and got shuffled onto what they called the "F Express." That's nice of them to say, but the fact that it's above-ground means that it takes literally three times as long to get anywhere. It's also more difficult to navigate from here, as they don't announce the stops, and the stops are not delineated at all - very often the driver would only open the doors if someone requested it. Possibly because he didn't like that bitter cold any more than we did.
Anyway, I climbed off when I saw a sign with an arrow and "Brooklyn Bridge" emblazoned on it. Of course, that really only meant that it was in that general direction - not that it was within three miles of it. I walked probably a quarter mile before I realized it was just too cold for my long sleeved T-shirt and my Puma jacket (see that, Puma? I'm doing work for you over here!), and stopped into a Starbucks. I spent about an hour warming up and tearing through many pages of American Gods (by Neil Gaiman), which I'm close to finishing now. I need to find a used bookstore really soon so I can still have subway reading material. This trip has been great for my literacy, if nothing else.
Thought for the day: although the iPod Touch has been wonderful and revolutionary in a hundred different ways, has anyone considered the fact that you can see what everyone else is playing? Anytime you power on that screen, even just for a second, whoever is sitting anywhere near you can glance over, see the CD cover, and judge you. I say this because the little Asian hipster across from me in the subway was listening to the Glee soundtrack, which really amused me for some reason. But haven't we all glanced over at the iPod next to us, seen something we liked/didn't like, and snickered to ourselves? God knows I have, but then again, I'm a little bit of a music elitist.
So today I was planning on going to the Brooklyn Bridge, looking around, and taking a bunch of pictures of the assembling bulkhead of clouds. All for you, my dear blog-followers, all for you. I wanted to show you a little more of the way I see things here, maybe give you a visual of the things that most of you have already seen, but that I'm newly experiencing. I set foot outside my door, though, and was absolutely shattered by the freezing cold weather and the even colder wind. It was about 45 degrees outside, and the wind was going at about 20 miles per hour, but I stumbled down to the subway station (regretting every step taken away from my reasonably comfortable apartment) and attempted to stifle the shivering once I got into the train.
I got off the R train, and went to transfer to the F train . . . only to find that the F train wasn't running this weekend. I stand there, a little frustrated by the fact that the iPod Touch app sent me this way of all ways, and got shuffled onto what they called the "F Express." That's nice of them to say, but the fact that it's above-ground means that it takes literally three times as long to get anywhere. It's also more difficult to navigate from here, as they don't announce the stops, and the stops are not delineated at all - very often the driver would only open the doors if someone requested it. Possibly because he didn't like that bitter cold any more than we did.
Anyway, I climbed off when I saw a sign with an arrow and "Brooklyn Bridge" emblazoned on it. Of course, that really only meant that it was in that general direction - not that it was within three miles of it. I walked probably a quarter mile before I realized it was just too cold for my long sleeved T-shirt and my Puma jacket (see that, Puma? I'm doing work for you over here!), and stopped into a Starbucks. I spent about an hour warming up and tearing through many pages of American Gods (by Neil Gaiman), which I'm close to finishing now. I need to find a used bookstore really soon so I can still have subway reading material. This trip has been great for my literacy, if nothing else.
Thought for the day: although the iPod Touch has been wonderful and revolutionary in a hundred different ways, has anyone considered the fact that you can see what everyone else is playing? Anytime you power on that screen, even just for a second, whoever is sitting anywhere near you can glance over, see the CD cover, and judge you. I say this because the little Asian hipster across from me in the subway was listening to the Glee soundtrack, which really amused me for some reason. But haven't we all glanced over at the iPod next to us, seen something we liked/didn't like, and snickered to ourselves? God knows I have, but then again, I'm a little bit of a music elitist.
5.08.2010
Day Off Adventures
Not a lot of adventuring, mind you, but I feel a city this big gives me a lot of leeway to be timid and take my time getting to know it. I could liken this process to a relationship of some kind, but that wouldn't be doing the city justice - in a way, each separate borough is its own relationship, its own challenge to discover and become acquainted. It's such a huge task, and there's more information about what to see and do than I can really cope with. But I've got a new adventuring strategy, and one which I think might serve me well: I choose a point (something fairly arbitrary, like today's choice of the Magnolia Bakery), set my coordinates, and then wander the area around my target for as long as I have time, trying to get a feel for that particular area. It takes longer to get places here, so a single point of interest might take me an entire afternoon, but at least I'm moving outside of the tiny circle that I'd drawn for myself. That's forward motion.
Today's exploration of the Village was very pleasant. I don't know how much of it I covered - I walked up and down Bleecker Street again, but a different part of Bleecker Street than before - but I saw a lot of interesting boutiques, a ton of wonderful-looking restaurants, and a few shops here and there that I'd like to return to (most notably what looked to be a weapons store, but one which I hadn't mustered the confidence to go into just yet). The line to get into Magnolia on a Saturday afternoon was literally out the door and around the corner, but it wasn't as long of a wait as I'd thought it would be. This particular Magnolia is one of the smaller ones by the account of the . . . box-opening boy? He said that they don't have all the specialty cupcakes of the larger bakeries, but that was clearly no kind of turn-off for the fifty people mulling around on the sidewalk waiting for a shot at these glorious, fresh cupcakes. I actually saw a little hipster girl digging through the distinctive Magnolia Bakery boxes in the trash can next to the building, opening each one to see if there was anything left inside. She clearly wasn't that poor, but then again, I've never understood hipster culture well anyway.
I'm still disappointed that I'm forced to patronize Starbucks. It's not that I'm so terribly anti-Starbucks - those of you who know me know that I have no strife with the fact that it's a behemoth company with essentially no soul - it's just that I'd hoped to find an Immac/Cool Beans style place to hang my hat and feel at home. No such luck yet. And if three hours of wandering the Village didn't find me someplace like that, I feel like it might be a lost cause. Funny story: when the Starbucks employee wrote my name on the cup, she spelled it "Rachell." With two, very distinct Ls. I've never in my life seen a name like that. Anyway, there was some kind of street market going on very near the two subway entrances that I used, and I thoroughly enjoyed wandering past all the stalls of eclectic food and jewelry and wares. I stopped and bought a 3-dollar cup of cut watermelon, which not only tasted great but reminded me of home, and those white-hot summer afternoons eating huge pieces of watermelon in my backyard. (I get sentimental when I'm out of town for long periods of time. Sorry, all.)
Two things about the subway that I'll note today: 1. Anytime I sit next to someone, I feel this bizarre need to justify my seating choice. As if I could actually turn to the person I sat next to and say, "I'm sitting here because I'd like to be able to see which stops we're at without having to crane my neck, and not because I'm weird or creepy or want your body," and not seem like a total weirdo. I don't know what it is - maybe it's my own personal issues with body space, manifested towards the people whose space I'm intruding on by sitting next to them, or maybe it's that most New Yorkers seem to look at me sideways just a little bit - but I just want to tell them exactly why I chose that exact seat. I suppose I'm the strange one in this particular scenario. 2. I feel bad for the people have been stuck sitting next to me for the last couple of days. Imagine this scenario: you're sitting on a train, minding your own business, and down plops a rather slight looking 16-year-old (I'm judging this from someone else's perspective, and have come to accept the fact that I look like a child) who proceeds to sit next to you, ruffle through book pages, jostle her knee to her music, and sniffle. Not just a little sniffing here and there, but regular, repeated sounds that probably disgust you. She can't help it, mind you, but the fact that you're sitting next to someone on the grimy, overly-peopled subway who is clearly sick with some unknown ailment . . . not exactly the most comforting thing on earth.
I feel like my poor, distressed Toms have become something of a leitmotif for this blog. At one point today, while skipping a little to avoid the puddle that would have left my socks soaked, I noticed a guy crossing the street in the opposite direction staring at my toe. Maybe if I wore navy socks in my navy Toms this wouldn't be such an issue . . . anyway. And I thought to myself, in deadly earnest, "if it's such a big deal, maybe I won't get a new pair of shoes." My Toms, those mangled and ruined strips of canvas attached ever-less-surely to a completely bald set of soles, have become some twisted point of pride for me now. I say this having had to pick up a few razor blades from the floor of our theater, lest my toe get mangled on them the next time I walked by; having had to watch where I cross the street, lest my feet get wet; having actually felt the wind cutting through the one layer of sock between me and the open air. Sure, this conviction to continue on out of loyalty will probably go away soon (although in the case of those American Eagle jeans from 8th grade, it never actually did go away, they just got a little too skanky to wear outside the house), and I'll eventually cave and buy a new pair of shoes, but dammit if I don't think I could wear them just to spite the world. Crap. Does this make me a hipster?
Tomorrow, it might be time to learn the ways of the laundromat. I'm actually totally terrified. I've never in my life used a laundromat, and since looking like a dumbass is also something I'm really not a big fan of, I'm (fairly legitimately) nervous about trying this out. Quarters, right? And something about taking your own detergent? I guess I'll take my book with me, try to knock out the final hundred or so pages, and just hope that I figure it out without too obviously having to figure it out. I can do my own laundry, but what if this is a totally different experience? WHAT DO I DO!?
Last thing. I'm going to be "that girl" in this post, the girl who quotes song lyrics and then tells you how deep and meaningful they are. This is definitely a step past the song of the day, and I loathe myself for it too, don't worry. But go listen to "Brightly Wound," by a cute little band called Eisley. "It's happening all the time, when I open my eyes/I'm still taken by surprise/I hold sunlight and swallow fireflies/And it makes me want to cry." I guess it just sort of sums up how I feel about the city - it's beautiful and magical sometimes, and it surprises me all the time. But still scares me, and makes me feel intensely lonely. Also one of the later lines: "We were walking there, and I had tangles in my hair/But you make me feel so pretty." Thank you. :)
Today's exploration of the Village was very pleasant. I don't know how much of it I covered - I walked up and down Bleecker Street again, but a different part of Bleecker Street than before - but I saw a lot of interesting boutiques, a ton of wonderful-looking restaurants, and a few shops here and there that I'd like to return to (most notably what looked to be a weapons store, but one which I hadn't mustered the confidence to go into just yet). The line to get into Magnolia on a Saturday afternoon was literally out the door and around the corner, but it wasn't as long of a wait as I'd thought it would be. This particular Magnolia is one of the smaller ones by the account of the . . . box-opening boy? He said that they don't have all the specialty cupcakes of the larger bakeries, but that was clearly no kind of turn-off for the fifty people mulling around on the sidewalk waiting for a shot at these glorious, fresh cupcakes. I actually saw a little hipster girl digging through the distinctive Magnolia Bakery boxes in the trash can next to the building, opening each one to see if there was anything left inside. She clearly wasn't that poor, but then again, I've never understood hipster culture well anyway.
I'm still disappointed that I'm forced to patronize Starbucks. It's not that I'm so terribly anti-Starbucks - those of you who know me know that I have no strife with the fact that it's a behemoth company with essentially no soul - it's just that I'd hoped to find an Immac/Cool Beans style place to hang my hat and feel at home. No such luck yet. And if three hours of wandering the Village didn't find me someplace like that, I feel like it might be a lost cause. Funny story: when the Starbucks employee wrote my name on the cup, she spelled it "Rachell." With two, very distinct Ls. I've never in my life seen a name like that. Anyway, there was some kind of street market going on very near the two subway entrances that I used, and I thoroughly enjoyed wandering past all the stalls of eclectic food and jewelry and wares. I stopped and bought a 3-dollar cup of cut watermelon, which not only tasted great but reminded me of home, and those white-hot summer afternoons eating huge pieces of watermelon in my backyard. (I get sentimental when I'm out of town for long periods of time. Sorry, all.)
Two things about the subway that I'll note today: 1. Anytime I sit next to someone, I feel this bizarre need to justify my seating choice. As if I could actually turn to the person I sat next to and say, "I'm sitting here because I'd like to be able to see which stops we're at without having to crane my neck, and not because I'm weird or creepy or want your body," and not seem like a total weirdo. I don't know what it is - maybe it's my own personal issues with body space, manifested towards the people whose space I'm intruding on by sitting next to them, or maybe it's that most New Yorkers seem to look at me sideways just a little bit - but I just want to tell them exactly why I chose that exact seat. I suppose I'm the strange one in this particular scenario. 2. I feel bad for the people have been stuck sitting next to me for the last couple of days. Imagine this scenario: you're sitting on a train, minding your own business, and down plops a rather slight looking 16-year-old (I'm judging this from someone else's perspective, and have come to accept the fact that I look like a child) who proceeds to sit next to you, ruffle through book pages, jostle her knee to her music, and sniffle. Not just a little sniffing here and there, but regular, repeated sounds that probably disgust you. She can't help it, mind you, but the fact that you're sitting next to someone on the grimy, overly-peopled subway who is clearly sick with some unknown ailment . . . not exactly the most comforting thing on earth.
I feel like my poor, distressed Toms have become something of a leitmotif for this blog. At one point today, while skipping a little to avoid the puddle that would have left my socks soaked, I noticed a guy crossing the street in the opposite direction staring at my toe. Maybe if I wore navy socks in my navy Toms this wouldn't be such an issue . . . anyway. And I thought to myself, in deadly earnest, "if it's such a big deal, maybe I won't get a new pair of shoes." My Toms, those mangled and ruined strips of canvas attached ever-less-surely to a completely bald set of soles, have become some twisted point of pride for me now. I say this having had to pick up a few razor blades from the floor of our theater, lest my toe get mangled on them the next time I walked by; having had to watch where I cross the street, lest my feet get wet; having actually felt the wind cutting through the one layer of sock between me and the open air. Sure, this conviction to continue on out of loyalty will probably go away soon (although in the case of those American Eagle jeans from 8th grade, it never actually did go away, they just got a little too skanky to wear outside the house), and I'll eventually cave and buy a new pair of shoes, but dammit if I don't think I could wear them just to spite the world. Crap. Does this make me a hipster?
Tomorrow, it might be time to learn the ways of the laundromat. I'm actually totally terrified. I've never in my life used a laundromat, and since looking like a dumbass is also something I'm really not a big fan of, I'm (fairly legitimately) nervous about trying this out. Quarters, right? And something about taking your own detergent? I guess I'll take my book with me, try to knock out the final hundred or so pages, and just hope that I figure it out without too obviously having to figure it out. I can do my own laundry, but what if this is a totally different experience? WHAT DO I DO!?
Last thing. I'm going to be "that girl" in this post, the girl who quotes song lyrics and then tells you how deep and meaningful they are. This is definitely a step past the song of the day, and I loathe myself for it too, don't worry. But go listen to "Brightly Wound," by a cute little band called Eisley. "It's happening all the time, when I open my eyes/I'm still taken by surprise/I hold sunlight and swallow fireflies/And it makes me want to cry." I guess it just sort of sums up how I feel about the city - it's beautiful and magical sometimes, and it surprises me all the time. But still scares me, and makes me feel intensely lonely. Also one of the later lines: "We were walking there, and I had tangles in my hair/But you make me feel so pretty." Thank you. :)
5.07.2010
Long Day . . . Jeez
Well hello there, Honey Nut Cheerios. Honey Nut Cheerios is my version of ramen - I'll be eating it several times a day probably for the rest of the summer. I'm po', folks. At least until the money comes in, which could be . . . never. By the way, there's apparently fifty pages of paperwork that no one told me I needed to do on top of all the paperwork I already did - God love the bureaucracy of the University. But I may have money coming in by the end of the summer. I need a job real soon.
So first things first: I want to thank my parents for molding me into a decent, well-rounded human being, the kind of person that understands basic concepts of physical space and knows what common decency is. The kind of person that understands a little hustle when someone needs something, can anticipate someone's needs, and doesn't hesitate to get my hands dirty. Again, I reference my Facebook status update - I was by far the most useful person in that building today at any given time. I say this knowing how to be humble, and recognizing that my inability to climb 16 feet in the air on a rickety ladder to tie off cables may have hurt my productivity, but even so, my sheer willingness to work has really made me popular around the theater. It seems kind of stupid to me - little things that I take for granted have made some of them love me.
For example, while sitting at my windowside table rotoscoping yesterday, Nick (the one who's legendary. For being crazy) started carrying in a bunch of 2 by 4s. I watched him go by twice before I realized there were going to be a lot more trips, so I grabbed some gloves out of the bag he'd dropped nearby and started helping him carry them in. In my estimation? This was nothing. Just common decency, professional courtesy, what have you. But he was so struck by the fact that I helped out that he mentioned it several times to our co-workers (if I can really call them that) and Simon, and then told me he owed me a beer.
I feel like I'm coming off as really arrogant now, but repeatedly today I was grateful to my parents for raising me in an environment where a hands-on experience was as emphasized as it was. I learned how to move things and fit things, be safe on ladders, and not to be comfortable not working when other people are working. I'm so grateful for that. I kept grabbing things out from under the poor theater intern, who'd apparently never held a pulley rope in his entire life or learned when to grab the other end of a measuring tape. It genuinely baffles me how people can grow up and not have a basic understanding of things like this.
Helping out the hanging people today was a lot of fun, though. It took up seven more hours of my time than I'd anticipated - the two hour projector hang turned into a nine-hour lights/cables/speakers/projector marathon - but at the end of the day when I walked in my door with tie-lines still hanging on my belt loops, I felt pretty accomplished, like I'd just been inducted into some kind of super-special club. These were two of the cooler people I've encountered up here, very down-to-earth and fun to hang out with even when the whole thing was turning into yet another giant mess. Mike, a theater tech professor at some college nearby, gave me this piece of advice: "carry your money loose. If people take your money, you won't have to hand them your wallet and at least you won't lose everything. Just the money." Umm . . . thanks, Mike. He also told me to watch out when strangers tried to talk to me, to "keep your feet moving and ignore anyone who asks you questions."
Tomorrow is - ostensibly - my day off. I'll be getting up at a reasonable hour in order to watch the streaming video of Sarah and Brian graduating (congratulations, dears!), but after that, I think I'm going to go explore the city some. Clearly I won't be hanging out in Times Square anytime in the very near future, but I'd love to go to Central Park and take some pictures, or wander around the shopping area again looking for some new shoes. Poor confused theater intern told me on no less than five separate occasions that I might want to invest in a new pair of shoes. Thank you, Sam. I hadn't noticed that my big toe was hanging out over the front of my Toms. I'll get right on that.
All my grades are on Blackboard now - hooray! I didn't do too badly, so I'm happy. Probably happiest that I somehow accomplished an A in an intensive class taught by a professor who I respect more than just about anyone else. I'm not sure how much I actually deserved that A, but I take it as a vote of confidence and am incredibly grateful for it. There's a small number of professors at USC that make me want to actually try for them, and knowing that they respect me even a fraction of the amount that I respect them makes me incredibly proud.
So first things first: I want to thank my parents for molding me into a decent, well-rounded human being, the kind of person that understands basic concepts of physical space and knows what common decency is. The kind of person that understands a little hustle when someone needs something, can anticipate someone's needs, and doesn't hesitate to get my hands dirty. Again, I reference my Facebook status update - I was by far the most useful person in that building today at any given time. I say this knowing how to be humble, and recognizing that my inability to climb 16 feet in the air on a rickety ladder to tie off cables may have hurt my productivity, but even so, my sheer willingness to work has really made me popular around the theater. It seems kind of stupid to me - little things that I take for granted have made some of them love me.
For example, while sitting at my windowside table rotoscoping yesterday, Nick (the one who's legendary. For being crazy) started carrying in a bunch of 2 by 4s. I watched him go by twice before I realized there were going to be a lot more trips, so I grabbed some gloves out of the bag he'd dropped nearby and started helping him carry them in. In my estimation? This was nothing. Just common decency, professional courtesy, what have you. But he was so struck by the fact that I helped out that he mentioned it several times to our co-workers (if I can really call them that) and Simon, and then told me he owed me a beer.
I feel like I'm coming off as really arrogant now, but repeatedly today I was grateful to my parents for raising me in an environment where a hands-on experience was as emphasized as it was. I learned how to move things and fit things, be safe on ladders, and not to be comfortable not working when other people are working. I'm so grateful for that. I kept grabbing things out from under the poor theater intern, who'd apparently never held a pulley rope in his entire life or learned when to grab the other end of a measuring tape. It genuinely baffles me how people can grow up and not have a basic understanding of things like this.
Helping out the hanging people today was a lot of fun, though. It took up seven more hours of my time than I'd anticipated - the two hour projector hang turned into a nine-hour lights/cables/speakers/projector marathon - but at the end of the day when I walked in my door with tie-lines still hanging on my belt loops, I felt pretty accomplished, like I'd just been inducted into some kind of super-special club. These were two of the cooler people I've encountered up here, very down-to-earth and fun to hang out with even when the whole thing was turning into yet another giant mess. Mike, a theater tech professor at some college nearby, gave me this piece of advice: "carry your money loose. If people take your money, you won't have to hand them your wallet and at least you won't lose everything. Just the money." Umm . . . thanks, Mike. He also told me to watch out when strangers tried to talk to me, to "keep your feet moving and ignore anyone who asks you questions."
Tomorrow is - ostensibly - my day off. I'll be getting up at a reasonable hour in order to watch the streaming video of Sarah and Brian graduating (congratulations, dears!), but after that, I think I'm going to go explore the city some. Clearly I won't be hanging out in Times Square anytime in the very near future, but I'd love to go to Central Park and take some pictures, or wander around the shopping area again looking for some new shoes. Poor confused theater intern told me on no less than five separate occasions that I might want to invest in a new pair of shoes. Thank you, Sam. I hadn't noticed that my big toe was hanging out over the front of my Toms. I'll get right on that.
All my grades are on Blackboard now - hooray! I didn't do too badly, so I'm happy. Probably happiest that I somehow accomplished an A in an intensive class taught by a professor who I respect more than just about anyone else. I'm not sure how much I actually deserved that A, but I take it as a vote of confidence and am incredibly grateful for it. There's a small number of professors at USC that make me want to actually try for them, and knowing that they respect me even a fraction of the amount that I respect them makes me incredibly proud.
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