A love note to my friends. Thank you.

I am sitting next to a window looking out over Queens, with a view of the Manhattan skyline peaking through the windows to my right, my best friend reading in her adjoining bedroom, and my dear friend and fellow auditioner-for-grad-schools on the couch next to an adorable purring kitten.  Our other kind and wonderful host is at an exclusive happy hour event at a place with a dress code, and just invited us out to a gourmet 24-hour diner a block away.  I’m not quite sure what life I am living right now, but I like it.  I swear to God this is really happening.

Five days before leaving the exquisite city of Portland, my roommate and I came home after a particularly rainy week to a flooded apartment.  So while salvaging my stuff and scrambling to move out before a month-long trip, I was also preparing for MFA Acting school auditions, rehearsing scenes for ACTF, opening and closing a staged reading, doing curtain speeches and pouring Ninkasi beer for Theatre Vertigo, wrapping up my temp job at Banfield, and trying not to lose my mind. Oh yeah, and picking up my poor roommate from the hospital when she unexpectedly broke her ankle.  

But now, tucked into a little oasis in Queens with wonderful people I love and nothing to do but the work I love best—act—for a month, I can’t help but feel like everything has happened exactly as it was supposed to. ...Except maybe for my dear roomie's ankle... :(  I have no job, no home, I’m unattached, and I now have nothing in my life but total freedom, big dreams, and incredible friends.  Friends who give me all the tequila I need and a place to crash when my apartment floods, friends who rally at the last minute to help me move and store my stuff when my landlord falls through, friends who welcome me with open arms and home-cooked meals when I fly across the country like a woman fleeing a burning building.  Friends who believe in me and support me no matter what.  Unlikely friends who make a “Flat Stanley” so I can take pictures with them in New York.  Oh yeah, and amazing parents who help me out in small, key ways from 400 miles away. 

This past week has been a beautiful reminder that every cloud truly does have a silver lining.  I lost a few things, but I was given a deep gratitude for the wonderful support network I have, and an absolutely clean and fresh start after six months of corporate drudgery and intense preparation for this next month of my life. 

I am brand new.  Ready to write the next chapter. 

A crime exposed

For the past six months, I have regularly engaged in an act of espionage and theft against a fellow coworker.  But in light of the impending end of my employment at Banfield, and in the spirit of the New Year, I am going to come clean. 

I have nothing against this coworker on a personal level.  He is a remarkably sweet, amiable, man.  At the risk of making a sweeping statement, most Mormons are!  And practically the entire senior management of Banfield is Mormon!  I like Mormons.  Anyone who’s lived in a Mormon-dominated region will likely agree that no group is, as a whole, more polite, pleasant, and full of smiles.  And who better to be in charge of a large company with 1000’s of employees than an intimate club of very pleasant people??

But this isn’t about Mormons!  This is about a large glass pumpkin that sits on the desk of a member of this kindly elite.  This large glass pumpkin contains a constant supply (we’re talking like 3 pounds) of Peanut Butter M&M's, which everyone knows were crafted in ancient times on Mount Olympus along with the Nectar of the Gods, the recipe for which was stolen by the god Mars in the form of a mountain goat and passed down through the generations to Mr. Mars, who would then start a candy company and mass-produce them, thereby making Americans obese and helpless under the blissfully torturous mind-control of peanut butter and chocolate in a candy shell.  Then, of course, Mars would go on to buy out the entire American pet food industry and a Portland-based pet hospital.  Obviously.

But this isn’t about Mars and his master plan! This is about the deft and devious way I have looped around the office on casual strolls, glancing casually into the fish-bowl offices of the executives, counting down the doors until I would see the glorious, crack-cocaine-filled pumpkin of mystical wonder glowing like a beacon of seduction to my salivating mouth.  On an ideal thieving day, the cheerfully nondescript Keeper of the Pumpkin would be miraculously absent from his desk, and the door would be invitingly ajar.  My heart beating with joy, I would then stride confidently and quickly into the office, swiftly lift the stem of the pumpkin, and scoop out a handful of the colorful guts.  Before the generous Filler of the Pumpkin of Joy could return or anyone could notice that I was a mere peon, I strode casually back out of the office and back onto my loop around the building, the tiny nuggets of peanut butter and chocolate safely cradled in my loving hand, where they would not melt, but rather wait to melt their transcendent bliss on my tongue. 

But this isn’t about the delicious prize of my theft!  It’s about the vacantly perky man who dutifully keeps a giant glass pumpkin on his desk filled with solid teardrops of ambrosia.  In my twisted criminal mind, I never once considered befriending this generous soul so that I might broach his office with casual small talk while nonchalantly nibbling away at the heaven-filled pumpkin.  I don’t even know his name!  And it’s written on his office window!  Somehow, it was not only the siren song of Peanut Butter M&M's that lured me onto these treacherous missions.  It was the thrill of the theft.  I was the closeted Wynona Ryder of office thievery.

…Well.  I am closeted no more.

....I am also not quitting....   Just try and stop me.  That shit is delicious. 

Whycan’tIdoeverythingalwaysallofthetime?

I am sitting quietly at my desk but in my mind I am running down the street
I am screaming at the top of my lungs I am dancing like a wild thing in the streets I am singing in a 200 ft tall cathedral I am singing in the shower I am singing at the Met I am singing in the grand canyon I am kicking up my feet I am calmly occupying warrior pose I am painting my fingernails lime green, grey, beige, red, gold, emerald I am cutting my hair I am dying it purple
I have a mohawk I am ten feet tall I am two feet tall I have a quiet beige simplicity I am feasting on mountains and mountains of luxurious dishes I am wasted I am running
I am running through this building and toppling cubicle walls I am running through this building and through my body with a warm embrace I am infusing everyone I see with all of the love and acceptance and hope and confidence and faith that can pour from deep deep deep inside of me
I am laughing until I pee I am crying until I run out of tears I am exalting.

I am sitting quietly at my desk. 

My typing creates quiet percussive cacophony of music in my 5 foot domain. 

My awkward company Christmas card and Mars brand Snoopy look at me in muted expectation. 

The spaceman on my water bottle grooves to the funk of a space jam from another world. 

My car keys sit enticingly on their peace-sign-carabiner (a gift from my father) begging me to run for it.

...
I am sitting quietly at my desk. 
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