Everything in Life is Only for Now

I've talked a few times about my profound personal growth over the past year. And as a result of that growth, certain things have changed in my perception...Usually when that happens, at least as it relates to me and the pop culture that I enjoy, something that I previously loved, I realize that I don't, or something that I used to hate, I realize that I love. Rarely does this shift go from loving something to loving it even more.

But in the case of the musical Avenue Q, it definitely grew from love to well, absolute love.

I came across Avenue Q at first when I was 16, it opened on Broadway, won the Tony for Best New Musical, (Something I considered a grave injustice at the time, I full to the brim with Wicked love) and my parents took us kids to see it.

I found the show hilarious. If you don't know the premise, the idea was to create an "Adult Sesame Street," that is to use a mixture of puppets and real people to deal with difficult issues facing young adults, like lack of direction, romantic relationships, sexual identity, etc. The show features hilarious songs including, "It Sucks To Me," "The Internet is For Porn," "If You Were Gay," and "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist." It also has a few more contemplative pieces, like "There's a Fine, Fine Line," "What Do You Do With a BA in English?", and the finale, "For Now."

A few months ago I listened to the Avenue Q Original Cast Album again, and I was kind of amazed by a few things. All of a sudden, the stuff they were talking about wasn't just funny...it was real. It was exactly what I was going through. When Princeton muses that he "can't pay the bills yet, cuz I have no skills yet," I realized, dear God, when they hand me my diploma, that'll be me. Kate Monster reaches desperately for affection, only to realize there's more to love than that.

And especially the finale, "For Now," hits me differently now than it did then. At 16, the thought just made me sad. The friends, feelings and well, life, that was around me was going to fade? That somehow seemed, wrong, and terrible. Now though, the thought that every situation is only "for now" is comforting. Crappy entry level jobs, depressing poorly lit college apartments, the lonely single girl thing....this is all temporary. It will give way to a different stage of life. Who knows what that will be, that's not the point. As the song says, "Maybe you'll never find your purpose, lots of people don't..." but that doesn't mean that we're alone.

As we stumble along...

Two years ago my best friend Katie and I conducted a little experiment. That experiment was called Tom Foolery Theatre. It's a self founded community theater group. We've done two musicals two summers in a row and we're getting geared up for our third...The Drowsy Chaperone.

In addition to putting on shows, we're a charitable organization. All of our proceeds go to groups outside of our own. Our first year it went to Guardian Angel Parish, and last year to The Rose Foundation of Haiti. Check out more about them here:

http://www.rosefoundationofhaiti.org/

This year we're going back to The Rose Foundation. They're an awesome group and Haiti still needs a lot of help. But that's not what this post is about. At least not directly. This post is about how now we're selling tee shirts on Cafe Press to raise that extra bit of cash we need to get this summer's show off the ground.

The shirt's simple, it features our logo and a quick little tag line based on something my dad said once. "Tom Foolery Theatre: Exceeding Low Expectations Since 2009" See, because we never expected this to work, when it worked spectacularly well, everyone was blown away.

Anyway, get a shirt, and help us out!

Rose Trees Never Grow

I've been getting ready in the past month or so for my post grad life, and one of the things that is required in that is job interviews. So far, I've had two, which I know is a low number. (I spoke to one of my girlfriends who graduated last year and she talked about 40 interviews before she got any offers) The interviews themselves I don't want to talk about, suffice to say either job (both entry level internships) would be an absolute dream come true, one in fashion and one in theater. But that's not what I'm talking about here.

Both interviews have been in New York City. I don't know exactly when I fell in love with the city, but I know when I'm away from it too long I get sad, restless and feel disconnected. Even in the deepest, darkest moments of my depression, the months that I have next to no memories of, the trips to the city are memorable. A day at The Met Museum's Clostiers and a Broadway perfomance of Pygmallion with the rest of my English department, taking my cousin's then fiance, now husband to see the tree at Rockefeller Center for the first time, (Tyler walked around exaggerating his Alabama accent the whole time, "Wowie, Meag! Look at all the PURRRTTTY la-iii-gg-hts!" it's a pretty tough memory to lose, regardless of mental health).

My only two "real" jobs have been in the city. An internship with the biggest department store ever. (You know the one, trust me.) I hated a lot of the job but loved my lunch break, wandering around midtown. My other job, working as a customer service rep for a website that sold shoes. (BEST JOB EVER! And nicest people ever. BUY SHOES FROM THEM!) It was a wonderful six months. I loved commuting, I loved the occasional Happy Hour in the Chelsea or midtown bars after work, our office was nicely nestled in between the two areas. I loved meeting my two best girlfriends after work during Fleet Week and flirting with sailors in Times Square. I loved the cute boy who worked at the Pret A Manger around the corner from my office and always winked at me as I bought my iced coffee and croissant in the morning. (I nicknamed him Taylor, as in "The Latte Boy.") I loved everything about it.

What's the point of this, do you ask? The point is I miss The City. Every morning that I wake up in my little single bed, in my college town apartment, and walk two blocks to campus to go to the gym, I wish, just for a minute that I was stepping not out of an old converted house into apartments onto a small city street, but off of the escalator at Penn Station, my I-Pod in my ears, Midtown waking up to go off to work and feel a real connection to who I am.

I've applied to jobs other places, both in Northern New Jersey, which will always be home, no matter what, and in other cities, God help me, but I know what I want. I want to be back in NYC. So how do I cope with missing it? I watch movies and TV shows about the city, (Arthur being my latest favorite) I've created an I-Pod playlist of all New York songs to make me miss the city less.

Like Frank said, "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere!" I've already made it there, and I'm just hoping to make my way back...

Bringing The Pretty

I was fourteen I started falling in love with vintage clothing. The thing is, I have a build that isn't always suited to vintage. I have what's called a "curvy" build, I've always been a little overweight and I'm five feet seven inches tall. Most vintage clothes that survived are for girls about half my size, so as much as I love the stuff, I've been forced to wear "vintage style" clothes not the real originals.

However, I do check out EBay occasionally to see if the rare real vintage dress in my size can be found. This weekend I was lucky enough to find one, and I won the auction and the dress is to die for. It also doesn't hurt that I've been running at least two miles a day for the past month and stopped eating between meals so I'm down a size.

Here's a picture of the dress:
I'm hoping to wear it for my graduation in May, although two of my cousins are currently engaged, so I figure there will be plenty of functions to wear it to. I got the dress from Trendy Hip Buys, and her eBay store is a wealth of larger size vintage goodies! I had to restrain myself from bidding on some of her other auctions and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on her stuff!

A Little Story

I just want to tell everyone a quick story, and then make an announcement:

Once upon a time there was a very unhappy princess, who decided that it was shameful that she was so unhappy. After all, she lived in a beautiful castle, the king and queen loved her very much and denied her nothing. She was given beautiful gowns and jewels, books to read to both entertain and educate her, and what she didn't understand, the greatest wizards would come and explain to her. She had many courtiers who made her laugh and smile, and although she had not yet met her handsome knight in shining armor, she knew that any day he could come riding in and they would live happily ever after.

But still the princess was unhappy, and because she decided that this unhappiness was shameful she told no one of it. She went away on a quest, where she met many more kind and wonderful people who were happy to help her along her way. As she neared the end of her quest the princess's unhappiness grew and began to present itself as a terrible dragon. The dragon mocked the princess and told her that she should be ashamed. Because she was afraid of the dragon, the princess hid in a dark cave, with only those books that entertained. She turned away her friends and courtiers and the kind wizards who had taught her so much. She hid in the worlds of the books where there was no dragon to torment her.

Finally, the wisest and kindest wizard who had tried to help her on her quest had enough and sent the princess home to the king and queen, with the instructions to not return to her quest until she learned how to slay her dragon and could complete her quest unfettered. Despondent, the princess hid, but when she returned home to the king and queen they also sent her away. She then found a village, where no one knew she was a princess, and she spent her days there, coming home at night to be with her parents and the one most faithful lady of her court, who along with the people of the village taught the princess that the dragon was not so scary, and she was certainly not the only princess in the world to face such a dragon! There was still no knight, but the princess was beginning to accept that perhaps she did not need a knight to be happy. After all her mother and many of the wizards had always taught her to be an independent and strong princess who did not need the support of any man, as all princesses should be taught.

After many months, the princess marched back out on her quest and when the dragon mocked her she laughed at it. For she had learned that she was not alone, and that if she was unhappy occasionally that was not shameful, but she had learned the difference between ignoring that unhappiness and choosing not to feel this. And so the princess slayed the dragon, though she kept one of it's teeth to remind her of the ordeal, and she moved closer to completing her quest. She also learned that while it was alright for her to enjoy the entertainments, she could not hide from her life and unhappiness in them.

Um...so I'm the princess, and this blog and my obsessive TV watching were the books, and the quest was my college education...the dragon was the pretty tough bit of depression I've fought through and uh, I think you can figure out the rest. (The Village was my job after I was kicked out of school temporarily.) I'm still trying to find balance in my life, but I'm going to try to start blogging again. I miss it. I'm still focusing on pop culture, but I'm going to make it more about my opinions and stories, than just straight up recap. Hooray!