When We Were on Fire (book review/thoughts)

I just finished reading this book, When We Were on Fire, and I can't tell you how many sleepless nights I have had due to its powerful words making my head spin, bringing back painful memories (and somewhat good ones too) from my days as an evangelical Christian.  I'd like to take a few moments to reflect on how this book affected me, what I thought the outcome was going to be, and where I'd like to go from here. 

Addie Zierman, the author, goes through her faith story from age 14, up to having her first son.  She talks about how she survived her first heartbreak from another Christian boy, the expectations of other Christians at school or in church, getting married young, church hunting, depression, and drinking to deal with that depression. 

The book opens with her standing at a flagpole outside of her school, praying in the pouring rain.  As soon as I started reading this, tears welled up in my eyes.  I could barely remember that I had done that, and suddenly I remembered the "See You At the Pole" prayer circle we had every year with my youth group.  It was supposed to set an example, students would see a group of other students praying at a flagpole, and perhaps it would plant a seed in them that prayer was something people still did.  A subtle way to preach to young people we didn't know.

This was before I was overtaken by my evangelical friends.  This was when I was going to a Protestant UCC church, where they still told us not to have sex before marriage, but I think the general views of the church were pretty liberal.  I remember finding out there was a difference in churches, and between my current youth group not-so-close-friends, and then my super close marching band friends.  My marching band friends were all somehow going to church together, without me, and if you've read anything about my faith story, the main reason I went to church as a kid was to make friends.  I was jealous, and I thought I should be part of THEIR church group, instead of the one my mother was very comfortable with me attending.

They were the EVANGELICALS. The BORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS.  The REAL Christians.  My UCC church suddenly was described as LUKE WARM Christians.  They weren't quite so faithful about God because they weren't preaching enough about Hellfire and whathaveyou. 

This blog in particular, I started when I was going through a terribly tough time in college.  Well, to be more fair, most of my time in college was very rough.  And a lot of that had to do with God, but then with friendships that were negatively influential and transparent, and with my eating disorder, and mostly with a boy that I thought loved me because we both also loved God.
Now I no longer really write in this blog.  I also no longer use my prayer journal.  It sits under my bed collecting dust, like a forgotten novel that I got bored with and didn't care to find out the ending.  Perhaps this has happened with things in your life that you used to be very passionate about, and then suddenly either moved on to something else, or you have felt depressed during certain points in your life because you've lost any passion.  You've felt guilty, disjointed, without direction. I often wonder whether anything I do in my faith is ENOUGH.  A common theme I have with how Addie often felt growing up is this yearning for acceptance, not just with other Christians or with God, but perhaps with herself.

I'd like to take a better direction with my blogging, and perhaps vlogging. I'm thinking of starting a new youtube channel, or just recommitting to my blog, and not associating it with "India Pearl the actor, the comic" but making it about a 20something female who doesn't always know where she belongs in the world because she's a Christian.  I'm an ABNORMAL CHRISTIAN.  I love God, but like I've said in past blogs, I also love vulgar humor, drinking too much wine with my gals, and my boyfriend who doesn't go to church (though I do wish he'd go once in a blue moon aside from begrudgingly on Christmas). 

Lots of REAL CHRISTIANS would have a problem with that.  Just like lots of NORMAL PEOPLE are shocked that I even go to church.

So where do I belong?

Well, maybe if enough people read this, I'll be able to find at least one person who's just like me.

Next blog: more specific topics will follow, though I have yet to decide the order. Perhaps I will pick from the book and go from there on how it related to my growing up and where I'm currently at. Stay tuned.

I am what I guess you could call a "bipolar" Christian...

*photo credit: postsecret.com


When I was younger, I had friends that would talk about God like He was another part of our group of friends.  As though He were someone who would pop over for tea and biscuits whenever we needed Him, or a Father that we would have deep discussions about and how He played a role in our decisions, our way of considering others feelings, our way of deciding how to be better people.  Some people consider this a weak way of thinking or being, but to be honest, I miss it.  I miss it a lot.  I miss being able to talk about God with people like He's a person that we know.  But I know it's uncomfortable for probably about 90% of the people that I know, and I don't wish to change my relationships or friendships with those people.  I don't want to offend anyone, and society has pretty much changed into the direction of, "faith is something to keep to yourself, it's a private matter".  And I get that idea and where it comes from... I just wish that I had more time set aside in my life to keep that connection that I used to have.

I pray every day, I think about God with this undoubting faith in His mere existence, but I still miss being able to have a relaxed conversation with things like, "What are you doing with this? Are you praying about that?  Doesn't it say in Luke that this happened?  Maybe God has a bigger plan..." As if they were perfectly normal things to say to your friend.  Because to me, they are.  I constantly repress these feelings and tell myself that maybe my old friends were "too Jesus-y" which to some people they probably would be. 

Last year I took my boyfriend to a wedding of some friends of mine, and they hadn't had sex before the wedding.  The wedding was so "Jesus-y" that it quickly became apparent to my boyfriend and he leaned into my ear, "Wait... they REALLY never had sex yet?!" No, surprisingly in today's world some couples that I know won't do that before marriage.  Now, regardless of my own opinion on this (or yours), the reason I bring up this wedding is because of its sheer beauty overall.  There were many biblical references to love, and not just the obligatory "Love is patient, love is kind..." verse that everyone has their cousin read to make her feel special at their ceremony.  It had prayer, and songs I listen to on Chris Tomlin radio when I put on Pandora, and this message of marriage being a pure Godly choice between two people.  I loved it, and I bawled my eyes out (a couple of times).  And this was the environment that I was in on a twice-weekly basis in high school and college.  Sunday church, and bible study, and talks with my friends.  But that's not the whole story...

When I was in college, I lived a double life.  I was an officer of Navigators, and teaching a bible study, and then living in my sorority house and drinking and doing things not worth mentioning if my boyfriend were to read this.  I was constantly having a mental battle with myself, not knowing if I was a good person, not having a clue if I was even a "real Christian" because I have always had an unshakable faith in God, but I felt like I didn't know how to make good decisions.  There are two schools of thought on this, and I still struggle with which one is "right" or "wrong" or if either make sense.  There's the idea that if you're a good person, and you do good things, then you won't go to Hell and you don't even have to really believe in anything.  That's what probably most people believe in today's world.  Then there's the other side of the coin that you could be a crazed zealot about God and faith, but if you're a crappy person and you're missing the point of Jesus' message (or any religion's message of being good to others) then it doesn't matter and you'll go to Hell.  So imagine me, feeling like I was a bad person but I had a lot of faith... and then when I would go on a mission trip or try to participate more in church, I would feel like the person with the least amount of faith and like I didn't deserve to be there.  Always, it was like I didn't feel good enough to belong in a group.

I swear, I drink, I have a boyfriend, but I go to church on Sundays and I pray all the time.  But I still feel like sometimes I don't have anyone to talk to about God like He's our friend.  Like we can call Him up and Hang, and it's normal.  But I would feel like I had to censor myself in front of old friends that I could that with sometimes.  Like I wasn't "Christian" enough for them because I swear and I was too adventurous.  And I know some of them would hate my standup comedy!  But then there's my friends I'm with all the time, fellow performers, colleagues, etc, and I feel like I have to hide a certain part of myself or I'm gonna be a freak.  So I still feel like a lot of the time I don't belong or maybe I'm never FULLY myself.  Is anyone ever really fully themselves?

I go to this church that's amazing, because they accept anyone and they have a rainbow flag above the door, and I feel like it's good for people like me.  But then sometimes I feel nervous to talk about God like he's a friend of ours, because they're not the crazed-for-Christ types that I was used to at my old church (but then again those crazed types weren't really ok with sex or gay people). I hate talking to God like he's a symbol, or praying out of obligation.  I miss the way things used to be sometimes.
SO IS IT ME OR DO I NOT BELONG ANYWHERE?!  This is really sad and conflicting for me, and it tears me up inside.

a logical look at LA LA Land

I spent 3 weeks in Hollywood and now I'm back to my normal life. Ugh.

So I guess what I should say is that everyone keeps asking me about whether I'm moving and when, and I should answer you all.  Yes... and I don't know.  I have an idea about when, but nothing is set in stone.  My lease is ending on my apartment July 1st, so I should probably make that my deadline because I don't want to sign another lease and then get screwed if/when I can't find someone to replace me.  I'm applying for an acting program that would start in the middle of August, so perhaps it would all work out anyway.  Then there's my boyfriend who, assuming he is joining me, we have a lot to plan together.  While this may seem like a long time away for you readers, when you work freelance and plan film shoots and gigs like we do, it's very hard to put off something like planning.  Though at this point we'll just leave it until after the holidays and not live our lives on "What-ifs" right now.  We don't need anymore stress on top of our stress.

Who knows though, what could possibly happen in the next 8 months or so?  One of us could hit it big out here with something completely unexpected that we weren't even truly aiming for.  Dustin Hoffman got his first film after being seen in a play.  He didn't even WANT to be in The Graduate, but was later convinced, and where did that get him?  There are plenty of people who were seen onstage somewhere and then got a great agent and started touring.  So there are always possibilities for the both of us.  Though it would be smarter for us to go to where the "big work" is, and the sooner the better if people love him and I'm not going to be able to play a high schooler for too much longer.

Right now what I'm sick of, is that I've been making the same income for about 2 1/2 years.  It's like no matter what I do, I get a new nannying job that's supposed to pay more, and then they try to give me way less hours than what I was hired for.  Or I'll be told by an actor I should get every Saturday in October at this gig, and then I only get one from the person doing the schedule.  I just feel like I can't trust people, and the longer I go, the more a salaried job feels so fucking tempting.  But I would kill myself after two weeks at a desk, and I definitely don't want to go back to school and feel stuck somewhere at a job I hate.  No, I'm a performer.  I just have to wait it out like everyone else and be ruthless.

That's the other reason why getting my SAG card and moving is so tempting.  I know people who make their rent off of just extra work, and I also know some people who can request me as one of their extras.  So it's like, even though I don't know any Spielbergs, at least I know how to make my rent and probably make more than I'm making out here.  The acting instructor at the program I'm applying for asked me what I would like to have happen in two years. I said that I'd like to make enough money so that I can just live off of acting, and nothing else.  I don't need crazy fame and over the top fortune, but I'd like to spend more time changing my costumes, than changing diapers.  Which at this point, it's about 70-30 and that's not terrible.

I'm going about this whole move in a very logical manner.  I'm saving my money, I have a LOT more experience on set and onstage than most actors who just mindlessly move to LA thinking they'll be famous in two weeks, and I connected with a fair amount of people during my visit.  I have a reel, I have a plan... I know what I'm doing, is what I'm trying to say.  I'm sick of going to family parties or whathaveyou and having people try to give me advice, when they don't do what I do for a living.  As if I don't sit on the computer every day and I don't know what my resources are, or what sort of steps I should take professionally.  This is not an easy business, and I fully understand that, which is why I'm going about all of this in the way that I am.  So the next time you see me and ask how the plans for LA are going, let's just assume I have it covered.  Unless you work in my business, I'm probably going to just be polite and let you say your piece but inside think, "yeah.. I know."

I'm not the kind of person that will pack up and leave without giving it a lot of thought first.  This just isn't the same when I studied abroad because I was bored with my life, this is a major career move and the love of my life is also involved in this decision.  So I'm not going until I feel that I'm truly prepared for an agent, for set work, and having no friends for a while.  And my boyfriend has things he wants to get prepped as well.  But we got this, and we're still doing great things in the meantime.

no time to waste, no time to kill

I don't know what made me say it.  I had just taken a nice nighttime walk on the beach near the Cape house I grew up in, so happy that the man I love finally got to see this precious gem in my family's lives.  We were holding hands and getting wet sand between our toes, looking at the mist and starting to climb a jetti to get to the next beach, and I finally said it out loud.

"I'm just feeling kind of... sad lately."

As soon as it came out of my mouth, I suddenly had an epiphany.  I was admitting this to my darling that I look to for almost all comforts, the comforts that I can't substitute with prayer or my mother, and he replies with almost a laugh.  It had struck him that he may be unhappy as well (disclaimer: not with each other!)

"Yeah... me too. I don't know why. It's funny that you said that."

I held him close, knowing he's one of the few things helping me keep my sanity.  We're both workaholics you see, and as great as that is to be a "hard worker" and admired for tenacity, it can be exhausting.

Sleep? What's sleep?  Coffee is my fuel, there's plenty of time to sleep when you're dead.  But more importantly, my calendar would make you cry.  I have it color-coded thank you much, and that thing is a fucking rainbow.  Running around doing at least two things per day that are work-related and very time-consuming, can make you go insane.  But it's a very slow process that creeps up on you, you're going about your business and have no idea how it's affecting you, until one morning you wake up and realize you're in a mattress-lined room and you can't move your arms. 

Suffocated by your own commitments.  You think you love all these things you're doing, and yes you do love them very much, but you should probably love them separately and spread out instead of climbing all over each other like the wrong flavors of ice cream melting into one another.  You start to take bites out of the world's most random sundae and you feel sick.  Because really, no one should mix peanut butter and black raspberry ice cream with with coconut sprinkles.  That's just gross.

If you knew how much (or how little) money I took home every week for the amount of work I actually do, it would make you sick.  "Get a new job," you'd say, "it's not worth it!"  Oh, but it is.  Whenever I make a new friendship or a connection, that's a new possible job (and of course a friendship).  The time I spend onstage or in front of a camera when I can turn my "India" brain off and pretend I'm someone else is very well worth it.

There is what's called taking pride in your work.  But performers are also very prideful.  They want to do as much as they can, as often as they can, and stay one step ahead of everyone else.  Then you read or hear about someone you know doing slightly better than you, and it just guts you.  This is competitive, and it's our lives.  Work is not something you leave at the office and don't think about when you go home, you live it.  It's what you breathe, eat, and bleed.  If you can't handle that, then this is not the business for you. 

People wonder why I'm OCD about scheduling, I plan everything and I have anxiety when I have a day in my calendar with absolutely nothing.  That day will soon have blocks on it that say, "gym, laundry, guitar, youtube" because I just can't handle not scheduling myself! 

So I go down the Cape this weekend and I'm leaving in two hours and NOW the sun starts to maybe peek out?!  No wonder I'm stressed, it's been raining and I had no way to turn my brain off and let myself fry on the beach for three days.  I ended up almost literally running around with my Nana the entire time, who's like me but old so while I'm worrying about three auditions and a rehearsal I've got to prepare for, she's worrying about the guy fixing the bathroom tile like it's the apocalypse if he doesn't come and do it tomorrow.

This is why movie stars go to the middle of the equator on an island for weeks at a time.  They work 10-16 hour days for a couple of months and then just take off.  I'm actually jealous of people that go to work, go home, and don't have to do anything important.  They have their cute hobbies like jewelry making or knowing all of the football stats for the year, while I haven't sat down and watched an entire Red Sox game in weeks and it feels awful.  I love baseball.  I don't even have time to look up baseball stats!  Someone got injured this weekend and I can't even remember his name! What the hell is wrong with me, I thought I was a Bostonian?!

What to do... Welp, for starters I'm going to go for a run on the beach before I'm forced to leave this heavenly retreat.  Then I'll probably have a little cry on the way home, and then suck it up and bury it all deep down until my next mental collapse.  Sounds like a plan, right?  Usually I wait until I can't take it anymore, I finish up a few projects and then I retreat to Millbury where things used to make sense and I had no responsibilities in my life aside from working at a movie theater and deciding which bathing suit to wear on the canoe.  Well supposedly I have a week off in August so perhaps that should be the time to plan another trip to my mother's. 

God I can't wait to just pick up and move.

me, the bee, and Jesus.

I'm gonna tell you a quick story.  This was far too much to put in a simply facebook post.

I'm allergic to bees.  I've never gone into anaphylactic shock or anything, but the few times I've been stung the reaction was pretty severe.  When I was a kid I remember stepping on a bee or getting stung on my hand, and my affected limb was immobile for days on end from the swelling and temporary nerve loss.  Even a few years ago, I stepped on a bee and my foot was so swollen and numb that I was taking benadryl for three days at least.  These reactions make me never want to think about how my body would react if (God forbid) I were to be stung in the face or the core part of my body.

This morning started out pretty interesting.  I woke up at my mother's house, to a bee next to my head.  The bathroom window had a bee sitting on the screen, so I quickly shut the window and I think he's still stuck in there.  I didn't think much of this aside from, "Well the house is in the woods, bees and bugs happen."  Nothing abnormal about it, right?

Until this happened...

I'm in a bathing suit, getting ready to go outside and sunbathe.  I'm on my laptop in the livingroom, and I start to feel a prickle on my ankle.  I think, "It's just an ant, nothing shocking, just brush it off."
I look down and see a very large yellow-jacket crawling around on my ankle!!!

Immediately I freeze.  My mind stops, and I don't know how to react aside from maybe just cry about it and don't move a muscle until it flies away.  I wait about two minutes.... he doesn't move.  I flicked a muscle in my foot, and he moves, but he still won't leave my leg.  Not to mention that I'm still in a bathing suit, feeling very naked and VERY vulnerable.

I pictured what would happen if I tried to squish him, or flick him off my leg with my fingernail or perhaps a magazine within reach.  The stinger either would've immediately gone into my leg, or he would've flown away and come right back, stinger forward ready for vengeance!  This kept me still, going over all the options but feeling powerless to do anything about the current position of the bee.

I decided it was time to pull out the big guns... or at least the only guns I have when I'm stuck in a sticky situation that I feel I have no control over.

I prayed.
Dear Lord Jesus, please remove this bee from my ankle.  Please God, please don't let this bee sting me, please get him off of my ankle.  Please God, Please Jesus, .... 

You get the picture.

I started to feel a tingling in my ankle, and my ankle started to go numb, and then I really started to become frightened thinking that the bee had somehow stung me without me feeling the initial sting!!  I got the courage up to actually look at my ankle, and my foot muscles twitched slightly, and there was the bee. 

He wasn't moving.  But it wasn't like before, this time he seemed frozen.  He seemed... dead somehow.  My ankle still had tingling, numbness, and now warmth.  I thought he had stung me for sure and that explained him being dead.  Then suddenly, he snapped out of his frozen state, and it was as though he had been hypnotized.  I've seen bees behind glass at the zoo or a museum and the way he was moving was just... strange.  He very slowly turned around, and walked down my ankle, and over the top of my foot in a straight line, and casually crawled off of my foot and onto the carpet.

The nonchalant attitude of it all!! Oh God, how this bee just decided he wasn't interested anymore and walked off was a serious blessing and so very strange to me.  And he kept walking! He didn't even fly off, he just kept sauntering in the opposite direction.

I decided, heart pounding, hands shaking, tears on the brink, to protect my bathing suited-self and the oblivious dog sleeping near me on the couch, from this culprit.

WHAM!!

Sorry, bud. Wouldn't want your friends coming to join you later.

crippling fears and embarrassing tears

The past couple of weeks have made me come face to face some of my greatest fears.  I'm sure everyone has more than three legitimate fears, but here are the three I have felt are most pertinent to my current daily life:

1. a question of safety in my own backyard (refer to last post for details)
2. the dentist (I cried and had panic attacks all day Monday when I had to get a filling)
3. Shakespeare

I know.  You're thinking, "India, how can YOU, a highly trained actress that works and gets up in front of people, be afraid of Shakespeare?!"

Well folks, I'll tell you how.  It makes me feel stupid.  There, I said it.  I went to a university, had to take sciences and calculus and all sorts of classes to graduate with my Theater degree, and still I feel like a fucking idiot when I read or have to memorize Shakespeare.  There are so many words that I don't know what they always mean, and I have to read a monologue 6 times before I can understand what's going on and the intent of the words.  I'll even admit, I didn't do well on my SATs which is probably why I went to UMass because I wasn't confident in even attempting to apply anywhere else.  I know that I'm smart, and almost finished my degree with Environmental Science as my second love, but the words of my dear William make me second guess everything about my understanding of the English language and I hate it.

It also makes me feel "less than".  I feel like some of the great actors that are admired for their education and how it made them great actors (Meryl Streep, Anthony Hopkins, etc) did all this Shakespeare and it molded them into becoming fabulous.  Sometimes I feel like I'll never be as great as them because I can't even go to a Shakespeare audition without fucking up and embarrassing myself.  There have been three times where I've blanked during a monologue that I spent weeks memorizing, two of which the director stopped me and sent me outside to try it again and come back in.  Needless to say, I did not get called back.

Now, I can't say that a play that is too "wordy" gets me.  I'm working on a Greek Euripides show right now, "The Bacchae" and it's one of the best I've ever done.  But that English jerkface that spent years of his life making up words from his Latin education confuses the heck out of me, and I think he made up ridiculous words just to fuck with people.  I didn't take Latin, therefore I have no idea how to decipher a word like some of my Catholic school friends do.  Even my boyfriend has to tell me sometimes what a word means and it makes me so mad to have to ask in the first place.

Just now, I am writing this from a library that I had to go to print some stuff out, but before that my boyfriend was driving me in Somerville to a Shakespeare audition.  I started crying in the car on the way there.  There are no words for how ashamed of myself I was because I just knew I was going to screw up and forget the monologue I've already fucked up before at the ART auditions last month.  Will pulled over and held me and said, "You don't have to go, you can do whatever you want."

Which made me realize, "Why in the hell am I auditioning for this in the first place?!  Do I even WANT to do a Shakespeare play on the off chance that I got this part?  NO!"  And that settled it for me.

Ladies and gents, here is my official announcement that I know and will not pretend to say that I am a Shakespearean actor.  I have Shakespeare training, both acting and literary, and I could write a heck of a paper, but at the end of the day I'd much rather do a Greek myth if any classic stuff at all, and will always prefer something from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Being honest with yourself and where your real talents lie is always better for an artist's growth.  Don't get yourself stuck trying to do something you feel weak about and may not even want to do in the first place. 

Boston Marathon Bombing

So after all the shit that went down last week, I would like to reflect a little bit on my perspective of what happened. It would seem impossible that some of you might not know the details of the entire week since we were all glued to the news for days. This is just the series of events with my reactions to those events.

ANYONE THAT DOESN'T WANT TO READ THIS WHOLE THING can view it on my youtube channel: www.youtube.com/IndiaPearlTV -- this is very long, and would probably be more enjoyed via watching.  I just thought I'd post the script because I haven't done a blog in a while and for those who enjoy reading my blog.  If you don't want to watch it but read this, go check out my channel for a laugh anyhow.

What is Marathon Monday? For those of you who have never experienced one or are not from the area: It's a day when a bunch of crazy athletic people run a bajillion miles and time themselves... for fucking fun. Oh, and they donate a couple thousand dollars apiece to a specific charity so all their rich friends go down near the finish line and get shitfaced at a bar to cheer them on. I imagine that the rest of us bottom-dwellers watch the marathon so that we can cheer on our hopes and dreams to also someday donate our rich person money to a crazy endorphin loving friend's child with diabetes or cancer or something.

The reason I'm telling all of you this is because aside from it being Patriot's Day (which by the way, is only a holiday in like, 4 states) I don't get why the fuck those assholes decided this was a great thing to ruin. This wasn't a democratic rally, this wasn't a religious gathering, it was for freaking charity you idiots! Ok, maybe there are a fuck ton of people in Boston during that, but do you even know your reasonings?! Why, because we're American? Whatever they are, they're probably not very solidified. It'd be like if I decided to go ruin a little girl's birthday party because all the kids there liked cake and I hated cake.

I was minding my own business, babysitting a 5 month old while her parents were with their 6yrold a block from the blasts, so when I got ten million text messages if I was ok I was very confused about why anyone was asking me this. I got a more specific message from my boyfriend and turned on the news, only to realize that I couldn't get ahold of my boss as I'm watching the blasts on repeat. Then I realized, “It's a holiday, and India Pearl loves drinking – why WOULDN'T I be down there?? Not only that, but I'm one of those people that fights my way to the front of the stage in a concert, if I hadn't been working today, I could very wel have gotten blown up out of my own dumb need to be up front for things.” Thank God 15 minutes later the Dad got home to tell me they were all ok, but I can't tell you how awful it was holding a baby in one arm and trying to keep it together while holding my phone in the other hand, just WILLING it to send me a text message from her mom.

That NIGHT there were reports that police were finding “devices” which I guess means they found bombs around town. And not just around town, no they found them at Harvard square which is very close to where I live and a T station I'm at at least twice a week, it's my favorite place to hang out so I was ripshit that someone tried to screw with it, and then they found one of the devices in fucking Newton! Complete opposite side of town! Now I don't want to go anywhere. I don't even feel safe leaving my apartment, especially when my boss drove me home saying he didn't want me on public transit that day.

Ok so everyone is still reeling from the reality of it all, and I'm watching the news two days later when they announce there was a threat and they had to evacuate the Courthouse downtown. This is when I decided, I'm never taking the train again. Nope, not doing it. I don't even want to go into Boston proper ever again with all this shit going down. I couldn't even describe how this was making me feel, because number one thing was fear, but then more like pure confusion as to how we had all gotten to this fear in the first place.

So I'm already upset and I don't want to do anything or go anywhere, and I wish I could just have my boyfriend glued to my side so I never had to be alone for 5 seconds ever again, when I get 6 text messages from people late Thursday night about a shooting at MIT. This was before most people knew that this was related to the bombing. I'm thinking, “What the fuck, so now that the crazies came out of the closet, all the other ones decided it was their turn to go out in the street and play too?! Where are your mothers?! Why is noone supervising you, because clearly you have the violent wants and needs of a small angry child thinking you can just shoot people for no reason. And how the fuck is everyone getting a gun or whatever they have whenever they want to?”

Apparently, (and if anyone has corrections on my statements of the events that ocurred I will say that a lot of news stations were confused and I was trying to watch all of them to get the most accurate statements) these assholes decided it would be fun to throw pipe bombs at cars and go fucking up Cambridge. This all ended in a horrific police-suspect weapon fight, a smoke bomb, explosives, and then the older brother dies and the scarred pussy little brother wanted to get out of the police barracade so badly, that he ran his own fucking brother over with his car! Pretty sure this was also a stolen car. Now, I'm not gonna lie, I've seen a lot of movies and I know that this was a tragic event where an officer died, but if and when a few years down the line someone decides this would all make a good movie, this would probably be the most exciting part. I was super curious, enough that my little weakling scared of blood girl brain decided it would be a fantastic idea to look up the mutilated body of the brother on imgur. (Don't do it, you'll throw up and I've seen enough movies to say that with confidence.)

I woke up in the morning not knowing any of this aside from the fact that there was a shooting and someone on the run, didn't realize it was connected until about 6am when I got a text saying I didn't have to watch the baby that day because the T was shut down. I didn't think it was a big deal, I'm texting him back like, “Oh yeah, you can totally pick me up later if you still need to go to work.” and he goes, “No, stay home. This is serious, noone should be out of their home right now.” Now I'm thinking, What the fuck happened. They already shut down the T once this week, shit is going down.

I get in twitter, and of course that's where you'll find the most reliable news, and this is when I learn the whole story from the night before, and that Boston, Watertown, Cambridge, basically that whole area just outside of the proper city, is fucking. Shut. Down. Do you know, how serious this had to be, to shut down an entire city and surrounding areas? About $333 million in lost revenues serious!! That's why noone has ever done it before!

I'm sitting there at 7am watching the news and realizing what this all means. A kid with potential bombs on his person, is running around who knows where in a stolen car, and they even suspected he could be heading towards CT or on a highway somewhere. My town was not on the lockdown list, but I can walk to Cambridge, and a lot of parts over here where you walk into Davis square area is Cambridge and Somerville, and a very quick and easy drive in to Watertown. I used to work there. I'm frantically texting my old boss that I hope she's going to be alright and her house is going to be safe, and I'm not fucking going anywhere outside today, and to make sure she was wearing a bra because I knew she did not want to be surprised by Boston's Finest in her pink pajamas when they were doing door-to-door searches. She was very grateful and assured me she was already on top of that.

Watching all of this going down was a bit surreal. I honestly started to feel dread. I cannot explain the sinking panic in my chest in any other way, I couldn't breathe, I coudln't move, I could barely speak without gasping for air. So of course that's when I decided to start drinking at 8:25 am. Thank God I had my emergency-in-case-of-terrorist-attack bottle of vodka in my cabinet. *phew*

I was feeling great, until at about 12:30 when they're in the height of working out whether or not this kid was on a highway somewhere, my power went out on my entire block. Here I am, skype day drinking with one of my friends, hoping my roommate gets out of the shower soon so I'm not alone, when everything goes out. People started slowly creeping out of their doorways, just enough to poke their scared fucking faces out to make sure it wasn't just them. I was convinced that that little fuckface had somehow figured out how to shut off my internet and TV, and my basement suddenly became the scariest place I've ever set foot in my entire life. My roommate came out of her room to see me laughing, and crying in hysterics flipping light switches and finally curling up on the floor in shock from the sheer audacity of it all. How could our power go out, 'DURING THIS?!” She asked if I was ok, I said, “There's a fucking terrorist now the news can't tell us where the fuck he is!!” I started sobbing.. then laughing... then sobbing again. And within 15 minutes National Grid came and turned the block on again so thank God that ordeal didn't last very long.

Later that evening after hours of aggressive and over-stimulating newscasters that didn't have any new information for about 14 hours straight, the Governor decided that they were done with telling people they couldn't come out, and they let the T start running again with limited service. I was still not leaving my fucking house. While they were pretty sure that asshole was in Watertown, they didn't know where another fucking “device” could be. And most places were still closed. So people started posting on facebook, “getting outta the house” – I'm sorry, but you don't think you're going to go into the city, do you? Where the fuck do you need to be right now that's so fucking important? STARBUCKS?!?! The only place you need to be right now is either the liqour store or the hospital, and then back to your Goddamn house. And neither of those things require you to ever get on a train!

Of course then it gets to the part where the cops found the kid and he's hiding, which was an hour long ordeal of them getting him out because he could very well explode everything. Assholes in Worcester and over other parts of Massachusetts that I knew had almost no real connection to what was going on, started posting smilling, laughing, and happy pictures of champagne, beer toasting, saying stupid shit like, “Time to start celebrating, I totally deserve a beer, Oh my God been SUCH a long and stressful day! Can't wait til they get the guy so I can start drinking.” FUCK. YOU. That's all I have to say. Unless your brother or sister or someone lives in a lockdown town, or you yourself were in the lockdown, I don't want to see your stupid, smiling, sighs of relief like you're counting down during the last quarter of the Superbowl you think we “have it in the bag” or some shit. This was not fun. This was not a sporting event. And it was not a time for you douches to start posting happy shit while it was still going down. Sure, I had funny memes later on that I posted, but I was actually drinking all day because I was scared shitless for myself, my friends and family that all live HERE. I worked down the street from where that kid was found, I had my aunt and uncle and my old boss all live in Watertown, and while I'm all for solidarity, you don't get to have fun after all that was over, especially when you're posting these pictures like, “look at our safe, smiling, drinking faces like this is all a game and we're watching it go down with half-hearted hope you're ok fb statuses” when you've only ever been to Boston for a Red Sox game that you're too drunk to even remember. This is my home, you assholes!

Of course I was also this angry after everyone and their grandmother starting shit with each other facebook because with all of us being stuck in the house, noone had anything better to do. There were the know-it-alls, the jokers, the wicked serious people, and the people that commented on everything just to shit on the person that posted it because they can't get over the fact that in t-minus 24 hours everyone was going to go back to not giving a shit about your two cents. Everyone has a huge pecker behind a keyboard, and today was just not the day to be starting shit or bragging or being that guy that posts on everyone's updates, “Well I HAVE AN OPININO TOO AND YOU'RE WRONG BECAUSE FARTY MC FARTY BLAH BLAH BLAH and I live in the middle of nowhere so I have a lot to be opinionated about.” I just couldn't deal anymore so instead of giving valid arguments I told them to go fuck themselves. Surprisingly, it made them shut up so maybe I should do that more often.

Ok, moving on basically they got the kid out of the boat, and I decided after all that was over that I made some memes of my own out of relief and the need for a laugh. They're all at the end of the video if you want to see those. I was finally able to breathe, and I allowed myself to laugh at something,

In all seriousness, I knew Kristle through my old job and my sister knew her. Her wake was a block away from my apartment and I know her family was very touched by the thousands of people that came out, I watched the all line up for blocks. I'm not sad in a “that was my friend” way, but this thing in its entirety has been really upsetting to all of us here in Boston and the whole area. You think only 3 people died and it's not like 9/11 at all, but a lot of Bostonians died in 9/11 that's why New York reached out to us right away. Boston is so small that most people either knew a person that was injured or died, or know at least 3 people that did know them. And it was our place, our home, this woman on NPR said it perfectly when she told her little boy that people are sad because someone tried to hurt “Our Mother”. I'm glad they caught that little fuck, and while I'm sorry that he was brainwashed and he has to live with this guilt for the rest of his life, I hope his tongue stays injured and he never speaks again. Because that little boy will never speak again, and so many others might never walk again. But Boston will walk again, and we will have our marathon next year, because like David Ortiz said on national television, this is our fucking city.

Do you know what the Colonials did when they were pissed about taxes? They had a tarring and feathering like it was a weekly sporting event. They took one of John Hancocks ships, dragged it out of Boston Harbor, not a little dingy but an entire fucking merchant vessel, and brought it through Boston down to the Liberty Tree and burned it. You know what John Hancock did? He didn't get mad, he helped fund the war because he wanted to be on the side that noone fucks with. Noone fucks with us, or we shut everything down and we will fucking find you. And we here in Beantown won't do you the dishonor of killing you once we do, no we want you alive, because you deserve to live through every moment of dread and being put down like the dog that you are on OUR terms, not yours.

And shut the fuck up all of you people who are making this about the Russians, or Islamaphobia, because I don't care to hear that bullshit. The unibomber, Timothy McVea, and and all those pussy bastards that shot up movie theaters and schools this year were American. There's assholes everywhere, and it's reall fucking sad to have to think about living in a world like that, but we do. Just know, that you are not welcome anywhere, especially not in MY CITY, because you will regret it til the day you are legally put down by the man.