In the Wings

i'm still here, I'm still here

2011-07-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

here I am. now. another year spent with hope and casual effort disguised to look like indifference. if I didnt put everything into my dreams I will not have failed per se. in all actuality I am fairly young, but in terms of when my career should have begun I have snowballed into complete failure. my self after school was so determined and hopeful. I knew if I just worked harder I would be offered the perfect job. I vacuumed and sang, I cooked while stretching, and I acted while on the subway. now I do karaoke to remind myself that I have a voice somewhere under everything. I used to have so much hope and that has been burried in an attempt to squash disappointment, but without hope I am nothing. I dont even know who I am supposed to be because i thought I was going to be the girl who never gave up. I haven't given up, but I have buried myself so deeply under everything that I have no idea who I am anymore.

I am four years past that girl who wrote about hairspray.

Different places

2011-06-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

I read what I wrote and a giggle. The same way I laugh at how naive I was when I wrote about that girl in middle school, I wonder at my ignorance last year. I was so alone and I felt betrayed and lost, those feelings I mistook for something else. I am glad you held your ground because I would be so miserable right now if you had agreed with me.

Now I am better and I am whole. I have even loved and lost within that time. Not quite the same, but not so different. Something new. We have our own ways of doing things and our own little sayings. We have our places that we go and our names for each other. We fight in different ways and also love. I want her in different ways than wanted you.

It is hard to let go of things when one doesn't think anything else will come along, but something does and without letting go, life would stay stagnant. Life is made up by a series of events and relationships that shape us into the human beings we are. It is important to absorb every second and continue to walk forward.

2010-10-04T18:47:00.000-07:00

I miss feeling like you understood me and wanted me. For some reason I felt pretty and smart when we were together. I never knew quite what I was allowed to talk about or when I was allowed to interrupt you, but maybe I liked it that way. Maybe I like that I think you are too smart for me, which I am finding a rare thing these days. I am not always good at numbers or words, but I can't stand people who aren't aware and most people aren't. I hate people who don't dissect society. I hate people who say mean things out of ignorance.

I had a dream last night that I went to visit you and you were living in a room with four other people who were not happy I was visiting. I asked you why you were there and you said "I am paying six hundred dollars" and I said "You are living in a room with four other people and several more in the next room, that isn't actually a good deal." But you seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable.

I was out last night and hanging out with a group that usually includes you. I hadn't realized the hole until I was there and you weren't. I just miss having your giant brain and skinny limbs around.

reflection

2010-08-04T18:29:00.000-07:00

I look in the mirror a lot and I am not sure who the girl in front of me is. I don't know what makes me unique or special or attractive. I have to write a cabaret about my life and my goals and then I think why does anyone care? Who will show up to listen to my stories. I am the same as the next girl on the subway or in the cross walk. I wonder why someone so smart would like me. I try so hard to be smart when I am average. I try so hard to cover up the blemishes on my face. I want so much to be someone special. I hate watching everyone else. When will someone watch me? I am so twisted and lost that I have no idea who I am anymore. I have a whole life of memories in my head. I have looked through the same pair of eyes for 23 years, but I still feel blank. I guess I know I am different from other people, but I don't know why anyone would love me.

When does this feeling end?

2010-06-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

I told you to choose and you did. It hurts me so much to think back to the time we cuddled in the sunlight and you told me I was the one. Now that I am thinking you might be the one, you want someone else. It makes me feel like everything we had was ordinary. It was to you, I guess. I am replaceable obviously. But I don't take these things lightly, nor do I throw my feelings onto someone. You are my drug and it takes every inch of my being not to call you right now. I can't stand the thought of never having you again. I know I didn't always want you when I had you, but I needed time to realize what you actually meant to me. Everyone else is tired of me talking about you. It seems like this happens to everyone and you move on after time, but I don't really want to move on. The fact you don't want me anymore should tell me that we can't be together, but it just hurts. I thought that you still wanted me, but you don't. I have been living in some alternate universe and all of a sudden I am having to face reality. I really thought you would choose me, but you didn't. You just used me and left me the minute she called. How long do break-ups usually take because I feel like I should be better now. You moved on, so why can't I?

quiet phone

2010-04-22T18:15:00.000-07:00

I am angry. I guess this is what I wanted, but really I feel like I deserve more. I shouldn't have to pull teeth to make you like me, to make you call me. Why do I lie alone in your bed, even though you are right there. Why don't you touch me first? Why don't you ever tell me what you are thinking? You say you aren't confused, but I am confused and a little pissed. I guess I don't want things to be serious either, but I want to feel wanted maybe just a little. I have several options, but they are all too busy or in relationships.

I hate that I am alone and you have someone else. I hate that there is some other girl in your bed. Is that why I am angry about not being called, because I know you are being called?

Dance me to the end of love

2010-03-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

the air is smokey. the lights shine through in beams catching a whirl of hair or the swirl of a skirt. dance me to your beauty with a burning violin. shadows turning in a frenzy. I can't see fully, but I feel so much. you spin into my arms and I get the chance to look into your eyes and kiss your lips then you are replaced by another body. I like the way our bodies move together, but I don't like the waxiness of your hands in mine. The muted trumpet blats through the smokiness and I look over your shoulder. the shapes of potential loom just beyond your pale shoulders. We cling to each other wondering what happens next. dip, turn turn turn, steppp steppp, stop and repeat. dah dee dah dee doo. You're mean to me, why must you be mean to me? Gee honey it seems to me you like to see me crying. I remember not caring what the steps were, but you insisted the steps were the most important part and now I am concerned that I don't know the dance. I falter and stumble. I want to just feel the music again. I want A trip to the moon on gossamer wings. I Just want one of those things.

putting back the pieces

2010-02-23T23:20:00.000-08:00

I need to fill myself once again with confidence, light, and determination. I am feisty and ferocious. I can bite through the obstacle set before me. I have let myself become so trampled by others it is embarrassing. I used to chide people for judging themselves against others and that is exactly what I have allowed myself to do. I know somewhere in my stomach or my lungs that I am an amazing human being and no one else can overshadow that. I was not compared to you before I met you, so why should I be now? I lived before you and so shall I again. I had no idea how much I had entwined myself. I am claiming the pieces and the pride back. I am gathering myself and heading back into the world. Defiance and strength. I need to separate myself from the masses in my head. I am unique and special and the right people will take note of that. Right now the only person who needs to love and respect me is myself. I have no control over what other people think about me or do to me, but I do have control over how I let it effect me. I have control over myself and I need to reclaim that.

falling down stairs

2010-02-19T21:20:00.000-08:00

a few weeks ago I slipped and fell down the stairs. There is this feeling of sliding and then crashing down and down and down and a minor amount of pain and then you think you're fine, but aren't. you feel that pulsing in the back of your throat and the ear clogging that suggests vomit. You sit down and put your hands and your forehead and try to keep it down. This is my life every day. i get smacked and then want to throw up and cry. I am so doped up on something right now. It feels like I consumed massive amounts of alcohol, but I just took tiny pink pills and they make me crash around like an elephant. I am too big and too clumsy to exist in this tiny world. I am careening head first down the stairs and tumbling and bruising. I am flat on my back and there is a boot on my chest. The apt. is haunted by sex. bonk bonk bonk. clank clank clank. ahhh ahhh ahhh. the room spins and I am very small in a very large space. The room spins again and I fill the entire room with my grossly obese fingers and elbows. Then I am tiny and shivering alone in my bed. I pull the covers up and pretend that I am in an ice cave. I have my myself and that is enough, but soon enough I will be so mangled and bruised that I won't exist to anyone else. Death is such an interesting thing. The people who are left feel a hole in their lives, but the world doesnt feel a hole. emotions link us the the people around us, but the people outside of those emotions are lost to us. Tonight a girl told me that new york is a big place, but I feel like it is very small considering. There are so many people here, but you can feel those people you want to feel. Until there is an absence. Do we feel that absence the moment someone leaves or do we feel it only when we are made aware of the absence.

2010-02-18T20:37:00.000-08:00

New York is being really shitty to me right now. I want to rewind back to 2 years ago. I want to start all over. I want my life back. I hate that there is some other girl living my life. I hate that you don't care about me anymore. I used to be your world and you don't give a fuck about me anymore. I know this is what I wanted. I wanted to be alone, but I didn't realize I was going to be this alone. I needed space I needed a break, but I freaked out and said goodbye. I can't help missing you all the time. It kills me that you are over it so completely and I have a huge hole in my heart. I hate being fragile. I hate having to meet new people and compare them to you. I hate that my friends are leaving and I can;t leave. I cant go somewhere and start all over, but sharing New York with you is hard. Why do you have to be in New York, why do other people have to leave new york and I am striving to make connections that seem to be so fragile and fickle. The only solid thing I had was you and you are completely gone now. I am trying to move on, but every little step I take there seems to be a huge obstacle.

cowboy boots on pavement

2010-01-30T23:15:00.000-08:00

I run home from the train. Slap slap slap. My breath is tight in my chest, but i'm scared if I stop something will consume me. I run. I run away from everything that pursues me. you, the hot girl from hair/class/cubby, people trying to grab me, to consume my soul. I run with my sanity and my credit card. I run with potential love that has not been given out and I run with talent that has not yet been tapped. I run with frustration and guilt. I pass the hipster couple that got off the train with me. I pass the pimped out van that the two guys live in. I pass the freezing streets until I am home. Then I dig in my pockets for the keys. My lungs are gasping and dying. I need to run more. The cold laughs at me. I go upstairs. I want to take a sharp clean razor blade to my skin and dissect myself slowly. I want to peel back the top layer of skin and see what is underneath. Then I will sew all the layers back together when i understand. Then I will get a big band-aid and put it over the wound to heal myself.
I have a sock from my adolescence that is caked in brown blood. It is the reminants of all my confusion. I looked at it last time I was home. Why do I keep this? In reality it is gross, in my memory it is necessary. This sock contains my healing. My break up in the Denny's waiting area, the sleep-over on the farm, and probably even the crazy hookah stealing business. All of my pain has been manifested on this sock. I know now this isn't how i should deal with my pain, but there is something appealing about a visceral healing experience instead of an emotional one I cannot track. I just want to feel better.
I'm in bed now. The air mattress creaks and I think about the rug I left in Queens. The door grinds against the floor downstairs. My roommate reaches a climactic agreement with her boyfriend. I am solitary with my thoughts and my words. I will teach the neighbor to sing. I will not eat cupcakes before my photo shoot. I will not fall victim to running home on a regular basis.

2010-01-23T12:54:00.000-08:00

It is hard for me to remember places without you. These places belonged to me first, but I shared them with you and it is hard to not feel that they are tainted. I gave you the Brooklyn Bridge, which used to be mine. I took you there and held your hand and now it is hard for me to remember that it used to be mine. I gave you myself and now it is hard for me to feel whole again and I hate that. I was a whole person and I thought that I would be whole again without you, but there is a little piece of me that is still yours. I think you must give yourself to others easily, because you have found so many other people to give yourself to in this short time. I still find it hard to believe it has been five months since we gave up our life together. My dreams make it feel like it was last week. I felt like I had lost myself with you, but now I feel like I can never get that piece of myself back and I am scared you are giving that piece of me to other people. I don't want to give myself to anyone else because I can't deal with losing more pieces and places.

Broken

2010-01-05T18:09:00.000-08:00

We throw punches. Blows that smack into my face and travel down to my heart. I am bloody and mangled, so I hit back. It goes on like this, but nothing is visible. There is no real blood pouring from my nose and ears. Only the sense of hollowness. I try to be a better person, but I feel so hurt and empty and you look fine. So I try to make you hurt, I try to make you cry. If you cry then I know I am not alone. I think if you cry I will feel a little better, but you always have more to throw at me. We both try to have the last jab and I am sure that you are just as crumpled and broken as I am, but it doesn't seem to help. I don't know what I thought would happen. Maybe I wanted you to come to me so we could comfort each other, but why would you run to the person who can't stop kicking the shit out of you?

retch

2010-01-01T22:10:00.000-08:00

My head was so foggy and my eyes kept crossing on their own accord. I don’t remember drinking that much, but I guess I had. I stood politely waiting for the bathroom as all the alcohol started to come up. I hold it. I don’t want to be a bother. You get me a cup. That in itself was so gross most people would have left, but you didn’t. I think later about what happened to the cup. I am humiliated. I can’t help thinking as you stroke my back and tie back my hair “someone is taking care of me, someone cares about me.” I am used to taking care of other people and usually the favor isn’t returned. but this is something different. I guess it should be expected that if your friend gets sick, then you should take care of them. I sat next to girls I barely knew with their heads in the toilets on many college nights. I put girls to bed and tucked them in afterwards. I don’t usually find myself in compromising situations, but when I do, the one person I want to be taking care of me isn’t. This time was different. So even though my head was reeling and my stomach flopping, I was ok. It was terrible, but in a way it was kind of special.

connections

2009-11-28T07:22:00.000-08:00

We are desperately searching for something to hold onto, someone to notice your face, something visceral and real. We dart out of subway cars like anxious race-horses released from the gate only to find that we have no idea where we are going. This is a city filled with anonymous people. Sometimes it becomes unbearable to be so alone. I want to clutch at a body, I want to feel skin or a warm breath at the back of my neck, I need to connect to someone. One is constantly surrounded by people and yet there are no connections and you are left empty and unsatisfied. We constantly search for saftey and stability, yet the world we live in is filled with invasions and disturbance. I keep having dreams where I am safe and whole and then I wake up and I can't help feeling utterly alone and unsettled. Something is wrong and I need to fill that void, but I am not sure how.

seasons

2009-08-31T14:53:00.000-07:00

Today makes me think of the wonderful fall days in New York. I love walking through Manhattan on a crisp day with an apple cider. In Oregon we had slightly bizarre falls where the leaves grew brown and fell in sodden masses to the ground. We rarely had a beautiful crisp day and on those few we had the piles of leaves were much too wet and muddy to jump in. We incorporated raincoats, boots, and umbrellas into our halloween costumes and ventured out to trick or treat. I remember watching Hocus Pocus and longing for the weather they had on Halloween. Now I get to live through some of those amazing fall days. I get to walk through Central Park and look at the vibrant trees around the lake. The summers and Winters in New York can be brutal, but at least those months in between have the potential to be perfect.

awake

2009-08-22T02:22:00.000-07:00

So I woke up this morning at 4 from thunder shaking the walls and then I was kept awake by the dull and aching pain in my mid-section. After contemplating the severity of my cramps I groggily decided that the pain was not getting better so I pushed out of bed and made the treck to the medicine cabinet. On my way my foot encountered a nice puddle of chilled cat vomit. ew. I washed my foot, took pain killers, and got the bleach to clean up vomit at 4 in the morning.
Now it is 5:30 and I will not be tired again until the rest of the world wakes up. I will sit on the couch with my penguin pillow, heating pad and computer until the day is supposed to begin or I fall asleep again.

disease

2009-07-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

So I was waiting in an audition today and reading "Angels in America" for a class. The play talks vividly about what AIDS does to a person. There is a scene where Prior is writhing around on the floor in agony and then shits blood. His boyfriend is there trying to help him. Can you imagine watching your loved one bleed out of every orifice. uhg.

My father tells me today that the Clinic in my home town has sent out a letter informing me that their refrigerators were not at the proper temperature and all the vaccines given out since '92 may not work. I never got the chicken pox so I got the vaccine, lets hope that one was fine in the fridge or maybe that explains all these mosquito bites haha.

another year

2009-07-27T18:12:00.000-07:00

So once again Hairspray looms on the horizon, but this time I am a different person. So much happens in a year. People come and go, attitudes change, jobs change, experiences are gained, and the world has a slightly different hue.

I have found recently that the way I perceive myself and the way others perceive me is very different. Being in a long term relationship has opened up all these new windows of awareness. I see myself as the relaxed one, because my girlfriend has anxiety issues and constantly needs reassurance of her worth as a human. Our friends view her as the chill one who always likes to have a good time and I am a controlling bitch. I do like to be in control of things and possibly I do treat her like a child upon occasion because she always needs to be coddled. But for some reason her flaws are untraceable and mine are more apparent. Why is this? I don't see the same person that they see. Who are we really? Are we the way we perceive ourselves, the way others perceive us, or a combination of the two?

I keep wondering when my career is going to start. I seem to continue to get older and yet my career hasn't taken off. It is scary how time is always moving forward even if you aren't.

...

2008-08-25T09:27:00.000-07:00

Funny how you can put your all into something and really have faith that you are going to get it and then you don't. I still don't know if it has totally set in that I didn't get the job. I know everyone says that things happen for a reason, but I can't really understand why that wasn't meant to be.

dreams flushed down the toilet

2008-08-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

so hairspray comes and goes. I find myself still thinking it is ahead of me, when quite frankly at this point I will never be penny in national tour of hairspray. I thought maybe if I really gave it my all that would be enough, I forgot about dancing. And it was bad enough that they couldnt put up with my dancing. I guess by this point they had enough dancing penny's that they were able to cast it. damnit, i was still holding onto that shred of hope. I dont know how i am going to get anywhere in musical theatre without the dance skills. And I am so frustrated, but I know that I am not going to get anywhere if I sit around and wish that they might call. I think the hardest thing is not knowing what is going on or who they are casting. I just need to tell myself that it wasnt meant to be, but the hard thing is that it seemed so right, it seemed like fate, and now here I am. oh well.

am I ready

2008-08-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

So the Hairspray audition is next friday. It is so frustrating that I feel like I have been preparing to get the role and now i feel like I am preparing not to get it. I need to take it as a challenge and not let anyone tell me I'm not going to get it. I need to wake up in the morning and say, I am going to land myself a job today. I have prepared enough and i just need to trust that. I need to go in give the performance of my life that I know I can do and actually show people what I can do, instead of putting myself down before I even get there. I am the one who isnt giving myself the chance to get the job and that is not fair. I have so much that I have worked for and actually completed. I need to pretend that I am doing the audition in Corvallis.
1. wake up and say "this is my day".
2. before I walk in the room, this is my challenge.
3. I am ready.
4. breath in penny.
5. good job no matter what happens I have accomplished somethign just being there.

I'm ready for big things

2008-07-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

It is July 1st 2008 and I find that I am ready to face my fears and follow my dreams. I have found recently that the only thing that gives me that feeling of excitement, determination, and passion is musical theatre. I would imagine it is the way other people feel when they are in love. This is my love and I need to just throw myself in headfirst and stop holding back. I recently read that "actors are just as scared of success as they are of failure", which rang a little too true.
Here I am sitting at work wishing that I was touring with Hairspray. Bob cline please be my link to success...
The only thing I want out of this year is a tour.