Ups and Downs.

This month has been packet to the brim with so many ups and downs that I have lost count. And I am pretty sure that this will be incredibly indicative of the way the rest of this year is going to be. I should probably consider getting a better helmet, maybe some sweet elbow pads and knee pads too, because it is going to be a much bumpier ride than I initially anticipated.

I knew going into this that the real world was going to be tough. I knew the acting/theatre profession was going to be rough. But I didn't think I was going to tumble quite this hard. I set out into a very rough and dangerous storm in a little dingy boat. Ha! It's true though. Yes, I worked my ass of my last year in school to support myself, but I was also living in paradise. The real world in Santa Barbara (I have come to realize) is still a beautiful, pristine bubble. I was still looking at the world through that bubble moving here and the first few weeks I was living here. That bubble has now been totally burst. Ker-splat!

And I'm not going to lie, I'm not handling it all that well. I've had more panic attacks in the last month than I have in years. I've had to face the fact that no matter what I do to make money (short of selling my eggs, which I considered for a hot second) I'm never going to be able to afford ANYTHING in this city. No one can. It's just too damn expensive. I'm in the process of switching jobs, which is financially terrifying but completely necessary. Demoing is fun but not fun enough to make me stay with it; so I've signed up with a temp agency and will hopefully be placed in a temp-to-hire full-time receptionist position at some company in the city. After that happens I think I will be able to start breathing again. I've also started looking for electrician work in theaters. I have to be a little more careful on this front: I came here to be an actor, not to be a stagehand/electrician.

I've been submitting myself for any audition that I think I could possibly play a part in, but so far that hasn't yielded any results. And to be honest I'm not all that surprised that I'm not getting called in to audition. It's completely based on my headshot/resume. Now, don't get me wrong, my current headshot is a beautiful picture of me, but it's not a "New York headshot." And my resume is light; a side effect of not getting cast much. At least I can handle rejection well? You might be asking yourself, "Well Jen, why don't you just get yourself some NY headshots?" Well, I'm holding off on getting new headshots for a couple of reasons. 1) They are ridiculously expensive. People will pay $1000 on headshots and not lose any sleep over it. Unfortunately for me I am not one of those people who is made of money/owns a money tree. Fortunately, my roommate goes to school with a guy who takes amazing headshots and is more affordable. Check out his work! Isn't he amazing?!?! And 2) I'm planning on changing up my hair pretty drastically when I go home in March, so, kinda have to wait until that happens.

I find myself forgetting this all the time: "This is what I wanted, remember?" When I didn't get into grad school last year I took it as a huge open door to go out and live my life and *GASP* actually enjoy being in my 20s!! Which, I won't lie, is something I had not done until now. And while I am not always enjoying my 20s, I am definitely living my life: trying to learn from my real world mistakes (Example: If you are running low on cash don't go out or buy things you can't afford! You don't have tip money to do the fun stuff!!) and endeavoring to hold on to my mostly positive, bubbly, Santa Barbara self. I thought my year at SFSU was a huge growing year for me, and it was, but I can only image what Future Jen will say about the New York years...

This what life is all about, right? The ups and the downs? And how you handle what the universe, in her infinite wisdom, throws at you?

God. This has not been a happy post so far! I apologize for that! But it's about to get better! Yay!

Here's the upside for you:

I have been meeting some awesome actors and directors in the city, who are working and not all of them have an MFA. I can still be a fantastic working actor without a graduate degree!! Huzzah! New mantra!

Also, I've found a project to throw the rest of my energy into and that has been a fantastic way to distract myself from how difficult living here can be. Not only that but I was introduced to someone, a director, who is just as excited about this project as we are. I'll give y'all more details/save that story for another post down the road, but it's been every exciting working on it again. I will say this: Jenexia has reunited and it feels so good!

Oh- PS: On a funny and bizarre note, I broke a knife cutting into my perfectly toasted with a gooey center grilled cheese sandwich today. I guess I don't know my own strength. Or something.

Sweet Baby Jesus! When did it become next year?!

Not being with my family on Christmas Day was pretty rough, I'm not going to lie. BUT if I had to be anywhere in the world (and not with my family) New York is definitely where I'd want to be.

Our friend Sean came for a quick visit right before Christmas. It was really fun catching up with him and showing him around this awesome city. He was able to see a lot of excellent theatre and really get a feel for what this city has to offer. Kelsey and I tagged along to a few shows: Cymbeline put on by Fiasco Theater at the Barrow Street Theater AND Seminar on Broadway with Alan Rickman. Sean and I put our names into the lottery for tickets to see Book of Mormon (and for a split second thought we won when the guy said "And from the great state of California...") but were not among the lucky 14 names called.

Cymbeline: I truly enjoyed this production. It was performed with only 6 actors and was hilarious!! The plot of Cymbeline is not the clearest plot line of Master Shakespeare's plays but this company did a fantastic job of making the text accessible, the plot clear, and they were very smart about the comedy in the text. If you have a chance to see it before it closes on January 15th I HIGHLY recommend it! Student rush tickets are only $20.

Seminar: So back when I had a job I thought I wasn't going to be able to see this with Sean and Kelsey. Thankfully I was able to get a discount ticket (and FINALLY redeem my birthday present from my parents! Thanks Mama and Papa Michaels!!!) for the show. When I purchased my ticket I thought I would be sitting one row behind where Sean and Kelsey would be sitting, but when I picked up my ticket at the box office I found myself sitting in the 4th row from the stage!! I was so close to the genius that is Alan Rickman that if he had be vigorously speaking at the edge of the stage his spit particles would have landed on me. It sounds a little gross writing it right now, but it was GLORIOUS!! The writing wasn't the greatest, but the acting was phenomenal! Again, if you find yourself able to see the show, do it!

Christmas Eve was spent busily elfing for stocking stuffers and gifts for Kelsey and Domonique and everything felt like an epic adventure. I went on an adventure to find ugly Christmas sweaters/sweatshirts but ended up with ugly Christmas PJs and socks instead. Then there was the adventure to find wrapping paper that wasn't in a 3-pack (because lets be honest, I don't need that much wrapping paper) and ended up grabbing the last single roll at a Rite Aid on the Upper Westside.... It was exhausting! But then Kelsey and I started what could be one of the best new Christmas-Eve-away-from-home traditions ever: wearing ugly Christmas pajamas, enjoying a meal of homemade mac-n-cheese, salad, and wine while watching Love Actually and then a cup of hot chocolate and A Christmas Story. Twas a wonderful night before Christmas.

Christmas Day started off with cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate/coffee. Then Kelsey and I opened our stockings that we had gotten for each other. I had filled hers with Crayola markers, a friendship bracelet, Rolos, little cans of Diet Coke and a box of Cheez-its. She had filled mine with a silver sequined scarf, adorable silver flats, beautiful earrings that matched, and a "Peace Love New York" key chain. Then we exchanged our gifts to each other/from our families. Kelsey got me a HUGE penguin stuffed animal (he can stand up by himself and is almost 2 feet tall) which I named Wesley Watson Windsor III. Yes, he's part of the British royal family, he is an emperor penguin after all. My family and I got Kelsey tickets to any Broadway show of her choosing. Kelsey's family got us a really nice bottle of HBC sherry. Neither of us are really sure what sherry is but we are quite excited to try it! We both got to Skype with our families and open presents virtually which was pretty awesome. When I was home and we did our Modern Family-esque early Christmas I opened the few presents I had (my plane ticket home was my big gift this year and was by far the best present ever) and the gifts that I had gotten for my family. But my mom had surprised me with one more gift to open on Christmas Day. She had ordered me Marcel the Shell With Shoes On: Things About Me by Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp. Now, y'all know how much I love Marcel. This book is the cutest thing ever! And the best part is that Jenny Slate (who voices Marcel in the videos) recorded reading the book as Marcel. It's freaking adorable and cheered me right up after I stopped Skyping with my family. Domonique came over around 2:30 and we exchanged gifts. Kelsey and I got her some sweet ugly Christmas pjs and made her a stocking filled with Christmas socks, earrings, Sour Patch Kids, and a candy cane filled with Reese's. She got us these awesome arm warmers that are super warm, made us some DELICIOUS chocolate chip and butterscotch cookies, and Daniel (her boyfriend) got us some soaps that smell AMAZING. It was really great catching up with Dom and spending the afternoon with my little NYC family. Around 4:30 we all headed to Brooklyn: Dom to spend Hanukkah with Daniel and his family, Kelsey and I to spend Christmas dinner with Kelsey's classmate Kyle and his family who had come to visit from Louisiana. His mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew rented an apartment for the week and had prepared a scrumptious Christmas dinner with turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, and a vegetable medley that was to die for! It was so much fun getting to know his family. They are the nicest people to invite us and Velson (another one of Kelsey's classmates) over for dinner and now we all want to go visit them in Louisiana soon!!

The next few days were pretty lazy: mainly spent cleaning up the apartment in preparation for Kelsey's sister Leah's arrival, looking for monologues, ordering business cards, and trying to figure out what my next employment move is going to be...

And then I got sick. Not just "oh I don't feel great but I can push through it," but so sick I was completely laid out for a week. Fever, cough, runny nose, exhausted... and no matter what meds I took nothing helped. I was able to muster up enough energy to go see the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular with Kelsey and Leah. Radio City Music Hall is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

Gorgeous!

The chandelier in the lobby!

I spent my first New Years Eve in NYC in my apartment, bundled up, watching the shenanigans that were happening literally at the end of my block :( Not the way I would have liked to ring in 2012 but if the New Year started off this crappy it can only go up from there, right? Right! It was pretty cool though, right before midnight I opened our window and when midnight hit confetti from Times Square came flying through the window. That was fun.

On Monday Dom helped me get to the urgent care doctors office to get me on some antibiotics so I could get better. As soon as the doctor looked in my ear she almost jumped back and said "woah!" Guess I had a pretty gnarly ear infection going on in there and thats why I was so sick. I haven't had an ear infection since I was a youngster and my ears didn't hurt but she said there was a ton of fluid and whatnot. She prescribed a z-pac (my favorite!) and off to Duane Reade we went! Turns out they don't take my health insurance anymore but they gave me a killer discount because I clearly needed the meds ASAP and didn't know they didn't cover me. With antibiotics and Pedialyte in hand I almost skipped home I was so happy that I would be feeling better soon. Lo and behold by Tuesday I was feeling SO much better! Not fully recovered but well on my way.

Kelsey and Leah headed home to the west coast on Wednesday. And it's been very quiet here. I'm excited to get back to work demoing to get away from the apartment. I don't know if I'd ever be able to live by myself, I am not a fan of it and it's been less than a week. I'd definitely get a dog or two haha

I'm not really sure what this year has in store. I'm hoping for the best but in all honesty I'm just trying to keep my head above water. It's a pancake year. And you always throw the first one out :)