A blog about nothing in particular. It's not educational or informative (well maybe a little bit?), nor does it use proper grammar/punctuation; but dear gawd, i hope it's entertaining.
Ok. Sex. It's something people are oddly opposed to discussing, but feel no embarrassment admitting how much they enjoy it. In my 23 years of living I could count how many conversations I've had with my friends about sex on one hand and the amount of conversations with my family on one finger. Although, I understand the aversion my parents have to speaking with me about sex, I cannot fully comprehend why my friends and I rarely discuss it. I'm not saying from now on I want to solely talk about sex ALL THE TIME ALWAYS, I'm just wondering why it's so uncommon to have the dialogue amongst people I love and trust... hm.
I was going to go to bed, but this one, indelible thought is keeping me from resting my weary eyes and dreaming once again about the Jonas Brothers (I really did dream about them, and yes it was weird). I NEED TO WRITE MORE.
Last night, sitting at a bar in Brooklyn, a friend and I had a conversation that accelerated my otherwise slow, painful spiral into oblivion. For months I have been allowing myself to become content in this state of blinding apathy, allowing it to take hold of my entire self and render me a senseless imbecile. I mean, I'm happy (I really am happy, it totally comes off as some fleeting, empty statement), but I don't feel fulfilled. I feel like I'm wasting away. Never have I felt so...lame. I don't know how to describe it. Devoid of intensity, passion, substance... lame. A walking shell. A rock, dense, contributing nothing of value. It's like I've forgotten that I actually have opinions and ideas. I need to get out of this funk. I was thinking about writing some essays or something. I haven't done that since college. I always felt so accomplished after completing an essay.
I dedicate this song to the love of my life: Writing. It's always been you.(Though, I think this song is really about Jesus... eh, oh well).
"Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air
I know I can count on you..."
I have to dedicate at least one blog post to the insanity I encounter everyday at work. Without trying to sound like that angry sales associate archetype I will attempt to relay the endless frustrations I experience everyday... Hey, maybe this single entry will start an unprecedented revolution of retail etiquette. HA!
Let's start from the beginning of the customer's experience...
Walking through the doors. It just astounds me that people have this strange aloofness when walking into the store, "Do you work here?" they ask, after I greet them, welcoming them to the establishment, after the walkie around my waste goes off alerting a department there's a "call on line one" for said department. Staring in bewilderment, unable to comprehend such a ridiculous question I used to be taken aback when I heard it. Now? Now I just say flatly, yes, I work here, using everything within me not to emphasize this you're-an-idiot tone in every word. Sometimes I want to answer, No, I just enjoy standing at the front of this particular store, smiling, and saying "hello" to strangers. Or say, "Heavens no, I just haven't taken my medication. I assume I am imagining all of you," and then spin around in circles repeatedly, laughing hysterically.
One question that I have gotten almost everyday since I've started working in NY has been "Is there a bathroom in here?" NOOO. NOOOO. NOOO, there is no bathroom in the store, and don't give me that look of disgust when I answer your silly question. This isn't an effing Macy's. Does freaking Forever 21 have a bathroom? Noooooooo. How about the Gap? Nooooooooo. Hm, maybe American Apparel? HELL NOOOOO. So, why the hell would this place be any different?! Get a grip people.
STOP LEAVING GARBAGE IN STRANGE PLACES. JUST ASK FOR A TRASH CAN. Rogue cups of Starbuck's coffee, candy wrappers, balled up gum, empty soda cans, full soda cans, potato chip bags, Pinkberry cups, you would think you were at a gd amusement park. So many cups of coffee have been spilled all over the floor, turning into a sticky, smelly brown mess. Yes, it was necessary to give you that visual. Throw it away before you get here! Or throw it away into the garbage can that's right outside! Or ask someone who works here where to put it.*
*note I was going to interject a lewd, unnecessary joke here, but thought better of it... kind of.
The most infuriating place, I'm convinced, in ALL OF RETAIL, is the fitting room. The most despised place in the store, where no one ever wants to go. People rudely yelling for sizes, and getting pissed if there are no more- truly believing, in their hearts, that we have vindictively planned to not have their size because, obviously, our entire lives revolve around them and their wardrobe. Mindlessly/carelessly tossing their clothes at you without saying a word, people shuffle into a room and slam the door. They don't think you're a human being, no just a clothing receptacle. A giant key that will get them into a room where they can stare at themselves for several minutes, looking over each inch of themselves, relishing in their "beauty." Or they're wrapping themselves in an insecurity blanket and redirecting their self-loathing tendencies onto others in the nastiest, most unkind way.
SO many people come in giggling about not knowing how many items they have, thinking it's a fun game to play while there are 15 other people waiting behind them to get into a fitting room and they have decided to pick up, oh 387945034030450 things and be completely entangled in them, like some kind of horror movie monster. And with a smile on my face, I try to make conversation so as not to completely go off the deep-end and honestly ask why they think it's alright to walk into a fitting room with 50489509485792734 items and not buy 1 thing.
Coming in with their parents wining selfishly about a skirt they really want, the spoiled preteens, tweens, teens, whateverTF they're called are TERRIBLE. All I can hear when they come in is a dull, continuous buzzing that fills my entire body until I start shaking and sweating knowing the harsh reality that these kids are about to spend a rent check's worth of money on one outing at one store. It's painful, really haha. I can probably write a book on the numerous amounts of things that remind me of class discrepancies or stratification.
The language barrier is also a story within itself. Pantomiming stupidly to foreigners, "No, you cannot bring those shoes into the fitting room with you. Yes, I know you want to keep them to try on. No, I will not put them back. They will be here in this basket." After a few brutal minutes, the dramatic act is over, and stupidity is immediately replaced with "What the hell was I just doing?"
Oh and this is merely the tip of the iceberg folks. There is much, much more where that came from. MUCH MORE. SO MUCH MORE IT'LL MAKE YOUR HEAD SPIN. I KNOW MY HEAD'S SPINNING.
And now to end with a song I have had in my head ALL DAY!
The move went quite smoothly, despite our (Brandon and me) incredible fatigue. A giant weight has been lifted and we're super excited to start decorating! Throughout this entire moving process I have also been rehearsing for a musical that was to be performed in the West Village Musical Theatre Festival, notice the key word in this sentence is "was."Here's the scoop, or at least what I gather:
My friend, Teddy, chose to direct this musical for the festival to challenge himself both professionally and creatively. He had to choose out of quite a few shows that were to be performed and thought this particular play, "I Don <3 U NE Mor," was the least horrible. The musical's about a guy who is completely overwhelmed by the technological age and proceeds throughout the entire play to clumsily, annoyingly use, question, and denounce technology as if he's some baby boomer from the '50s utterly baffled by new advancements in social media and communication. Oh and I think he's in love with some girl, too. Because we only got 15 pages of the script, I can't say that I think the entire idea is vapid and uninspired. Nor can I say that the ENTIRE musical was poorly written and the characters are caricatures of people you couldn't, in your wildest dreams, bring yourself to care about. I also can't say that the play sounds like something I wrote in high school (mine was better obviously). However, I can talk about the process in which the musical was eliminated from the festival.
I know Teddy. He's a director with a plethora of ideas that are expressed in ways that not everyone would understand immediately, but are genius just the same. We started rehearsal and were cast to play multiple characters, and there was lots of movement and some liberties were taken with the text. All of this was done without communication with the playwright or anyone affiliated with the play... why? Obviously they didn't care. Our rehearsals went along without Teddy getting any feedback from anyone. So of course he did what he was suppose to do-direct. He took this poorly written 15 pages and made it as interesting as he possibly could. Then, at our last rehearsal, some woman who called herself "creative director" came in and watched our rehearsal. The moment this woman stepped through the doors I immediately felt uncomfortable, like I was under a microscope that not only looked into your body, but your soul. She scrutinized us all with unabashed pomposity, sitting on her pedestal made of embarrassingly shallow ideals. The play, she told us, was chosen by Fringe, which I'm beginning to thing is a lie, because I'm pretty sure only great plays are in that festival, not hollow garbage. She also wanted to let Teddy know her name would not be associated with this performance BEFORE SHE EVEN SAW THE REHEARSAL. I instantly disliked her. Throughout the rehearsal she was feverishly texting "home base," like a child. I knew it wasn't looking good for us from the get-go, what with Sazuki walking to a score of beautiful music from a movie I can't remember the name of, the change of the stupid names in the script that were referring to popular social networks like facebook and myspace (myface), gmail (pmail) and so on, and then Teddy chose not to sing one of the songs in the musical and replaced it with something drastically different. I suspected our fate after that rehearsal, but then to actually have it happen was shocking. I got the email yesterday stating the play was pulled from the show. This was not the smartest thing for them to do. Now they're team seems difficult to collaborate with and no one wants to deal with drama in theatre.
The playwright did not come to ANY of the rehearsals. Their team barely communicated with Teddy at all until this week because the spy ("creative director") was probably freaking out. How dare they pull this no name play that NO ONE cares about. Who are they trying to protect? Themselves? They're nobodies. They should be grateful that Teddy even considered to direct that childish, sloppily written, brain-melting, sugarcoated string of "words" and "music."
So we were pulled from the show. After weeks of rehearsing and time being consumed unnecessarily, not to mention the sleep deprivation I was lucky enough to experience as a result of doing overnights and having rehearsal the same day!
Though I understand that if I had a vision for my musical and someone directing it was totally off, I'd be upset too, HOWEVER, I would have come to rehearsals to make sure we were on the same page. I would NOT have sent a spy FOR ME to scope out the play a week and a half before it was to be performed. Not only is that unprofessional and childish, but it's insulting to the director and the actors- especially because it's a new playwright who has absolutely no standing in the theatre world.
Dear Cathy,
Not only was your presence a nuisance during that ONE rehearsal, but your audacity to criticize the way it was directed and the choices made to enhance a terrible script is astounding. Not once did you attempt to see us before a week and a half before the show, so whatever you said is futile. Your show is boring. It has it's moments, but not many. I can only imagine how bad it is in its entirety. Don't ever do what you did to us again as it is negative a reflection on your ability to "creatively direct." It just seemed like you didn't care until you saw your show was going in a different direction. None of this would have happened if YOU as a "creative director" had been more responsive, took initiative, and maybe even- gasp!- creatively directed. I hope your play fails miserably.
