"Wish I could be just a little less dramatic, like a Kennedy, when Camelot went down in flames." - Miranda Lambert

So this is me. 4 months later.  There are two extremes to how I feel at any given moment.  One moment it's like Boston was years ago, this crazy other life that I had in a completely different movie with different characters.  The next moment it was as if I were just there... well ok I was just there.  I flew home last week to shoot an indie feature and was horribly surprised by the ugly truth that I cannot possibly move back if I ever want to regain my sanity from my breakup.

I gave him up for Lent.  It wasn't hard, considering he won't return my emails anymore and probably blocked my number.  But then it got harder, because I was trying not to think about him at all and then of course my trip home was... well, it was too soon maybe.  I was hopeful I'd bump into him casually at an open mic, but I was busy and I didn't think stalking was something I'd be too proud of.

He hasn't spoken to me since my birthday.  Even after his promises that I would get an email or a phone call every few weeks and we'd try to rebuild or regain some sense of ourselves, giving me hope that we could someday get back together. I was thinking it was the only thing I wanted in the entire world, that I would pack up all of my things in my car and drive home with my dog and start over our lives together, mending the hurt back to love again.

I remember that's exactly what I was thinking of doing when I totaled my car.  I thought, "I know, I'll pack up all of my belongings, quit my job, and drive all the way back through Arizona, Texas, Alabama, Maryland, Virginia, and avoid the snow to get home.  I'll prove how serious I was about working things out and take the road trip all by myself across America to clear my head.  I'll do it, I'll -- WOAH that car almost hit me -- "

*CRASH*

I froze, shaking all over, my puppy in the backseat crying because he was scared and stuck in his crate.  The diaper cake I had made for my friend's baby shower was somehow still in tact on the seat of the car. I had avoided hitting the black SUV next to me as they had tried to cut me off and sped away, but rearended the mini cooper instead.  I couldn't even speak when I got out of the car.  Somehow I managed to call AAA. The woman on the other end of the line was very concerned, "Oh no, are you alright?! Is there anyone you need me to call to come get you?" 

The worst pain I've ever felt was knowing that even though I had just totaled my car, perhaps could have died if I had been going any faster, my boyfriend wasn't going to be there for me anymore, because he didn't want to be.

He didn't want to call and make sure I was ok. He didn't want to be my person anymore.  He wasn't my best friend anymore. It's still very hard to believe that someone just doesn't love you anymore.  Or if they do, they don't want to.  It's quite tragic, actually.

One of my girlfriends just got a job in NY and her boyfriend, without even thinking about it, put in for a switch at work and is going with her.  I asked him about it and he said, "Are you kidding?  Do you know my girlfriend?  She's amazing.  I'd have to be an idiot not to see that.  Of course I would go with her, no question about it!"  I almost burst into tears.  Why didn't that happen with us? My mouth tasted bitter.

When I think of the story I told about how I murdered our relationship, I often still think of my day-to-day feelings as my having to mourn a death.  There are parts of me that are still in denial.  Like when someone dies and you go to call them, or you think you can't wait to tell them something funny, and then the tears well up again because they're not there. He might as well be dead considering the dead silence I get and being blocked on practically every social media outlet.  Maybe he wishes I were dead. ... Ok, little extreme...

I was just in Boston and every place I went reminded me of him.  Riding in the car especially, I used to be his passenger all the time.  It was worse because it was right before St. Patrick's Day, a day that had become the holiday we spent together, just the two of us, three years in a row up in Stowe, VT.  Last year we had talked about getting married there, back when we were arguably the most in love we had ever been.  Then he tried to teach me how to ski, and that was the beginning of the end.  I got accepted to my program the day that we got back, and the paranoia that he would leave me had sat in the back of my skull ever since. All of that anxiety, not that it's an excuse, but it built up to my sabotaging the relationship later on.

Yes, I still blame myself for pretty much everything. Maybe it's just easier to think it was my fault instead of admitting we weren't right for each other.  Or maybe I'm right and I'm a horrible person who deserves all of the guilt.  How else could I explain why he gave up?

Whenever I'm having too much fun, suddenly a dark shadow comes up behind me, and it's the zombie, that Frankenstein's monster that I tried to sew back together after bludgeoning him to death 5 months ago.  Jesus, has it really been 5 months?  How awful to think of it in terms of time. I tried way too hard, I was desperate and crazy and every part of me acted like an insane child, and my ex who tried to be there for the sewing ceremony up and left, ran screaming, wanting nothing to do with bringing the relationship back to life.  By then it was too late for me.  I was stuck with my choices.

I basically carry this zombie around on a leash everywhere with me, trying to stop him from eating all of my good times, good friends, potential flirtations.  But the leash gets pulled and I can't control him. He's too strong for me.  He eats away at everything, and turns it into a pile of death and sadness. Then he looks at me and smiles, the guttoral sounds coming from his throat and broken teeth, "I'm YOUR responsibility, you know. You made me. Now deal with me."

I don't have a choice, he just comes with me wherever I go.  He only has half of a heart, and half of a brain, kind of like how I feel most of the time.  Like half of myself.  Eventually, maybe years from now he'll die off completely.  But right now he's just searching for the halves he's missing. I think my ex boyfriend had a party when I got on a plane back to LA, and burned the halves he kept to ensure the final death.

Ashes to ashes.

Death.

Dead silence.

I think I'm a black hole.

Boston to LA and the death of my relationship

If a relationship ending is like a death in the family, then I've been feeling all of this shame and guilt, because I'm the one who murdered it with a rusty spoon. (continued after text below...)
I have remained somewhat silent about what happened, but recently have come to the conclusion that as I have always been an open book, I will come clean about what I've been discovering about myself. 

I told my manager that I had broken up with my boyfriend and he laughed.  He said, "I've never heard of any couple that moved out here together, or a long distance couple where one person moved out here, that it actually worked out.  They always split up! It'll be fine, you're fine, there's plenty of people to meet out here, you're young, focus on your career." 

I'm interning at a management company, learning about the business of Hollywood, getting ready to become a part of it, and I love it here in LA.  But LA came with a price, and that price was my relationship.  A 3 year relationship that I used to think was going to be my only one, my future husband, my soulmate, my one and only. But he wanted New York, and I prayed, I prayed and I prayed and with all of the positive energy, friends, and happenings that have happened during this program, I felt like God wanted me out here.  Too many coincidences, too many opportunities for work have fallen into my lap, and it just feels wonderfully and perfectly right to be here.  My William didn't fit in with that, or at least he doesn't feel that he could right now. 

I have severe abandonment issues. I have troubled memories as a child, shitty friends, divorced parents, the usual things that make kids whine and cry, and be sad, that scar them for life.  I'm not about to get too specific, but I will say that these issues were VERY prevalent in the beginning of our relationship.  I had never had a boyfriend, so I had trouble merely trusting the fact that Will wasn't going anywhere.  He wasn't going to abandon me, he wasn't going to stop coming back after a while.  He wasn't going to lie to me and tell me he'd be somewhere and disappear when I had my hopes up. 

But this mindset took A LOT of work!  He would be unable to sleep over, or he'd already slept over and it was the afternoon and he would go to leave and go home, and I would burst into tears!  I had panic attacks and felt like a small child with inexplicable anxiety when he would leave.  Any rational human being would take one look at a girl like this and be like, "Peace! I'm outskie, you got problems girlfriend!"  But he never did that.  He kept loving me and building something with me, through every fight, through every joyous moment, through life events like deaths, job losses, and disappointments. I no longer knew what life was like without him.

And then one day, as we had discussed many times, it was finally time for me to put on my big girl pants, and go to Los Angeles for a postgrad program.  I didn't know if I was coming back, I honestly had no idea.  I just knew that God wanted me to go, and New York wasn't the place for me to go at the time. So I went.

After a few weeks, it started to settle in that Will wasn't here. It crept up on me slowly, having little crying fits in my car, forgetting that he wouldn't be there when I went to a comedy club, calling him and not being able to expect him to swing by and stay over, missing his body next to mine, missing his face... then that started to turn into anger.  I kept asking him why he wouldn't come visit, and it was always about money, or work, or not knowing his schedule, etc. I was growing bitter and feeling lost and alone, realizing that I didn't know how to do this and be anywhere without him as my support system, my lover, my best friend.

So I started talking to other guys.

I'm not proud of this. I wasn't sleeping around, but I was trying to fill a void in my heart where I could feel him fading, but the hole was just getting bigger.  I was trying to replace someone that couldn't possibly be replaced.  I thought, "Well, this guy is here, and he likes me, maybe he'd be better for me right now."  And that's the worst thing I could have possibly done to myself.  I started taking the most wonderful man for granted, and I didn't even realize how stupid I was being. 

I even thought about the things I didn't like about our relationship to try and excuse my shitty behavior.  "He won't go to church with me, he hates Christmas, he always has money for weed but complains how he's broke..." when I should've been thinking about how great he was otherwise like, "he sends me love notes, he proclaims his devotion for everyone to see, he helped me move, he was always there when I was in pain, in distress, when I needed him the most."  But right then, in those first couple of months I was here, I started drowning in anxiety without him, getting used to a new place, and I felt all this anger towards him for not being there when I'm the one who up and left!

I wrote this down last week to basically sum up how I was feeling about breaking things off.  I thought it would be better that I ended our relationship because he was so angry with me being such a pain in the ass and whining about everything.  And I didn't want to cheat on him, because I was terrified that at some point, it would happen.  I would be sad and missing him, and try to use that anger to justify being a shitty human being.

I thought that ending things would somehow make me feel stronger, like I didn't need him, or maybe
So here it is.....

If a relationship ending is like a death in the family, then I've been feeling all of this shame and guilt, because I'm the one who murdered it with a rusty spoon.

I gouged its eyes out by hiding my selfish behavior.

Then I plugged up its ears when I stopped hearing my William tell me how much I meant to him. 

I broke its teeth by lying about my evil intentions. 

I chopped off its limbs by leaving him behind 3 thousand miles away and unable to come to me or hold me again.

Then I took a sharpened silver knife and punctured its chest and cut out its heart, string by string.

I took garbage bags and wrapped it up to hide the body from myself in cans, closing the lid shut, but each day its stench gets stronger, and stronger, choking me and beating me down with its rot.

It's dead throat gurgles and cries out to me, "This was you! This was all your fault, you killed me and you'll have to deal with me sooner or later!  You'll pay for this, your secrets will come out and you can't hide from me forever!"

And so each time I feel my addiction, LONELINESS, come creeping up out of the shadows and climbing up on my back, stroking my hair, squeezing my face, stealing my heart, controlling my thoughts with whispers and fake promises, I think, "I just need a fix! Fix here, fix there, then I'll feel better." I turn to other men for attention, empty promises always come so easily for them, and I believe every last one of them.  The hole in my heart that this relationship used to fill up just gets bigger, and wider, and emptier, being sucked up, lapped up, consumed by the addiction sitting on my back.  He finds glory and satisfaction in my demise.

I'm spraying febreeze on the trash cans that I can't move because they're so heavy with the weight of my transgressions.  I need to cover up the stench that haunts me and reminds me of how awful and needy that I am; each man I flirt with, laugh with, give a piece of my heart to, is just another can of febreeze being pitifully sprayed and having no effect, more like making it worse.

I wish I could have it back.  I wish I could open up the cans, unwrap each body part, sew it back together, and bring it back to life.  I want to see it alive and as beautiful as it ever was.  Could I nurse it back to health?  Could I do something to jolt it back, or would it be horribly disjointed, like some Frankenstein's monster, scars and moaning in all its horror, bearing hatred and resentment towards me?  How could its heart beat again, after I had killed it so?

I want to hold it in a deep embrace and have my tears melt away the stitches and scars, and have my love take the other hand so we can be together again. 

But I don't think he'd come to help me fix my mistakes.

So that's it then.

It's all my fault.

I killed us.

I killed our love.

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.