For instance, for a week I listened to one CD endlessly.  It was a CD that a couple of friends and I recorded on a laptop one summer after college.  My friend Leigh is an amazing songwriter and lyricist, and I felt obsessed with it for a week, and now I probably won’t pick it up for at least a few months. 

I read all the news stories I could over Egypt and now, well, the main part is done with and I feel kind of over it.

Josh and I watched almost all the episode of The Office Seasons 1 -6.  But we finished them. 

Maybe it’s wrong of me to assume that I exist on this earth to really do one thing spectacularly.  I have been searching for this one thing for awhile now, and it’s apparently really hard to find.  Can I be happy with myself if I’m always simply doing many things well?  Should I be happy with that?

Here’s a picture that makes me really miss New York…

There are other things that I really miss about New York.  I miss the way New York made you feel good about being who you are.  I miss the high expectations.  I miss the personality vibrance that you find in New York.  I miss the ambition. 

Maybe it’s just my overly ambitious, fun-loving, inspiring friends that I miss…

This weekend my fiance helped a friend move into his new place, which took all of Saturday afternoon.  This allowed me to do that thing that I cannot do with my fiance around, namely watch musicals.  I started with “Enchanted”.  Why I love that move so much, I’m not quite sure, but Amy Adams is simply fabulous.  And of course who is more dreamy than James Marsden?

Next I put on “Phantom of the Opera.”  Somehow I always forget how disturbing that movie is.  And yet excellent.  And then, to make my weekend simply wonderful, I got to enjoy “Glee” last night.  Always enjoyable, although I’m not sure what is more entertaining: the song and dance numbers or watching “Sue Sylvester” have yet another near breakdown. 

Musicals are another double-edged sword in my life.  Maybe more of  a catch 22.  I love music and I love singing, but sometimes I hate the sound of my own voice.  Singing does not come easy to me.  I’ve always had problems with it.  And my voice will never do what I want it to do, that much I’m sure of.

So why do I love it so much?  Is there something in life that draws us to those very things which give us the most trouble?

Sometimes I’ve caught myself thinking that anything easy, instantly becomes boring and therefore repulsive to us, whereas a challenge is always fascinating.  But in this case, I think it’s more than that.  I LOVE musicals.  I really do.  They are a different world to me.  They are more than just people singing when they could be talking, they are a world where life is choreographed.  Where things fit so perfectly together that they exist in literal harmony.  I love this about them. 

I am an optimist to the core.  And I want to experience this kind of world, if only for the moment of watching or actually being in a musical.  I will always love them.  But will watching them ever be enough for me? 

My intense love of fantasy novels is the same way.  Will I be satisfied by simply reading them?

It’s creation that takes us further into these magical worlds than anything else.  And that is why I’m drawn to it.  Perhaps it has nothing to do with my talent (or lack thereof) towards these things.  It’s the fantastical world of make believe.  The dream world that I’ve always longed for.  And creation hands it to me on a silver platter.  Creation is my golden ticket.  But am I brave enough to end the world?  What happens if it doesn’t live up to my expectations?

It must be hard to live life in the attack position.  Jaws bared.  Muscles tensed.  It must be really hard to have to continually glance over your shoulder and watch each and every one of your steps.  So why choose that life?  How did they get that way?

I’ll never understand..

I often find myself wondering what I would have been like, if I had grown up somewhere else.  I had a charming childhood, in a beautiful, quiet Connecticut suburb.  I have wonderful parents who allowed me to take dance lessons and music lessons.  I always had plenty of food and clothing and toys.  There was very little hardship in my life before the age of 21. 

When I started college, I met people from all over the country.  When I ventured out more in New York, I met people from all over the world.  My fiance grew up all over the country, his mother being in the Navy, he doesn’t claim a single childhood home.  I think this greatly affects who I am and how I live my life.

Especially now, with riots happening in Egypt, Yemen and Jordan, and Tunisia operating in a state of chaos, I think about just how lucky I am.  Safety and stability are amazing things that most Americans take for granted, not that all Americans are able to enjoy these luxuries.  I wonder how this shapes us.

The ways that life has tested me have never been harsh.  I’ve had my hardships but they were never anything that I couldn’t overcome, especially since I had the help and support of the many who love me. 

So I wonder, if I were Egyptian, would I be protesting in the streets?  Could I stand up to brutal violence and even shooting?  When would I have the nerve to join the movement, or could I have been brave enough to start it? 

Could you? 

They say great amounts of stress and oppression can bring out the best and the worst in people.  What would it bring out in you? 

Being an American, I suppose I will never know.  And believe me, I’m thankful for that.  It’s a wonderful world we live in where I can be confident that I won’t have to fight a war, not personally.  But the people in Egypt are living in a very different world. 

Several weekends ago I jumped on a plane and I travelled hundreds of miles in only 46 minutes.  With the internet, cellphones, and high speed travel, the world is more connected than ever.  Civil wars can no longer really be civil wars because even if it’s just filling the role of a spectater, the rest of the world is involved. 

I can read all I want about Egypt but I will never know what it’s like to be an Egyptian.  I can talk with other people my age from all over the country, but all I can ever know is what it was like to grow up in my home town.  I cannot know whether I would be a different person if I had grown up under different circumstances.  My feelings have always been my feelings, and part of me has come to believe that I would have been myself, no matter where I came from and where I ended up.  But I can’t know for sure. 

Perhaps that is why I am drawn to modern fantasies that thrust everday normal people into wild worlds.  If I was suddenly thrown into a world of magic, would I be able to overthrow the Dark Lord?  If I suddenly found myself surrounded by vampires, could I enter their world unafraid?  If I was taken hostage, would I be the one to keep up the others’ morale? 

They are living turmoil in Egypt right now, and I don’t envy them.  But I wonder, what is it like?

There are so many things that I seem to grow away from each year.  I read much less US Weekly, for instance, and much more world news lately.  I have also stopped keeping up with movies and TV shows, making exceptions for things that particularly peak my interest.  I saw Harry Potter 7:Part one on opening night, but it was by far the exception.

Yet when the night of the Golden Globes or the night of the Oscars comes round, I find myself taking over the TV and staying up past my bedtime, to watch the broadcast in its entirety.  Why? my fiancee would ask.  Why do you care?

So I’ve been trying to figure out just why I care.  And I do care.  I enjoy the beautiful dresses and interesting hairstyles, but there is much more than that going on.  I know part of it is I’m waiting to be inspired.  Though it happen very rarely, sometimes someone will get up and from their experience of being awarded for their artistic creation, and share a little bit of that something that pushed their creation in the first place. 

Usually, when I have finished watching an awards show, I find myself dreaming wild dreams of success.  It’s not that I want to win an Oscar, or a Golden Globe (not that I would neccessarily turn one down if the opportunity arose), but I dream of that recognition.  To create something, a performance, a script, a design, and release it to the public where a wide audience cannot help but judge it, usually harshly, is a very brave thing to do.  I believe courage is one of the most admirable qualities in the world.  I know that I am not alone in this belief, or else Harry Potter would not have had so much success.  Courage is a great difficulty in my life. 

Its an extreme degree of courage that’s required to be an artist.  In most professions, work or inventions or ideas are graded by themselves.  If one idea goes over badly, an individual simply needs to substitute it with another.  However, an artist is almost always judged as a person by his/her art. 

We see an actress perform and it is instantly personal.  We love her, or she’s terrible.  We hear music and we judge.  We see art and we judge.  There is no physical scale to measure art upon.  We cannot judge by productivity or by cost effectiveness.  We cannot give it a concrete value.  The values we can give it are determined by popularity.  One critic likes it.  This many people went to see it opening weekend.  And it’s mostly a matter of opinion.  I have a friend whom I went to school with, we learned the same acting method, studied with the same teachers, were in some of the same productions, and we have very different views on what we consider “good acting”. I am usually less critical.

Most likely, I am less critical because I give a certain amount of credit to anyone who simply stands in front of a camera.  Don’t get me wrong, there are actors and actresses who I cannot stand to watch.  But usually, when beginning a movie, I try to give the cast the benefit of the doubt. 

Getting back to my point, I think what I really watch these awards shows for is that moment created by the sentence “And the oscar goes to…”  I think about it this way: After years of putting oneself out there for judgement, years in a business where the success rate is so ridiculously low, years working an unethical number of hours a weak, and working in way that mind, body and soul are all fully invested, after all of this, and all of the rejection, there comes one moment where they are recognized as succeeding universally.  It’s an instant end to anxiety.  In a proffession where it is part of the job to worry about what people think, one can finally breathe in and breathe out and as an academy says “this year, you did your job the best of anyone.” 

In the world of art, there is so much critique that every good review can usually be balanced by a bad review.  It’s difficult to ever experience the same pride and certainty that a raise or promotion might bring in another job sphere.  As an artist, that is what I yearn for.  That moment of acceptance, that release of anxiety, when the world says “great work.”  And watching that moment is addicting.  Even when, as oftentimes happens, I watch speech after speech of uninspiring blabber.  Even when I disagree with the choice of winner.

What does it take to be an actor?  Talent? Connections? More than anything else I believe it requires the difficult balance of sensitivity and insensitivity.  Being able to have your heart open enough to create and have your skin thick enough to survive the critcism.  And when are you considered a success?  When you make a million dollars?  When you get to quit your day job?  The line is blurry, but there is a sense of clarity about the success that surrounds winning an academy award. 

I think even if I didn’t know the actors or directors and hadn’t seen any of the movies, I would still enjoy award shows.

But if I’m really going to do this, then I have to just do it.  So I’m taking up my blog, again, to hopefully write everyday.  Not that I promise to blog everyday, but having a blog will help me write everyday, because I have an established place for my writing. 

How else is a blog helpful?  I was reading an interview with a teen lit writer and she claimed that the best thing about having a writing bloc, or a team of people, or graduate school even, was that it taught her when to take constructive critisicm, and when to ignore it.  Well, I am a very sensitive person.  It was my biggest strength and biggest weakness as an actor.  It’s also the scariest thing about blogging.  There will always be people in the world who don’t want to understand you.  They have been taught to be judgemental.  It’s a defensive survival tactic in some ways.  I never properly developed that one so it’s a good thing that I am mostly likable and the opposite of intimidating.  The harshest attacks often come in the form of comments on this blog, from people who will never know me.  And they hurt, if I am being honest. 

But it’s a way to build up strength.  It’s good to read these comments, and while I need to eventually decide that some are not worth taking to heart I try to evaluate them.  What an insight into human nature to see how all different people of the world view you.  A simple smile can mean 20 different things when viewed by twenty different people.  Is she being sweet?  Malicious?  Proud? Nervous? Is she interested?  Is she uncomfortable? Is she just happy? Is she hiding something?

And many different things can be true at the same time. 

So in all likelihood this could be the sort of garbage I write here.  Mindless babbling in the attempt to get over my fear of jumping in the water.  And probably later you’ll have to endure endless discussion about the beauty of sunsets.

So this first post comes with a warning.  Reader Beware.  Read at your own risk.

Today I feel like, Ellen Pompeo as her character Meredith Grey.

I don’t feel well.  I haven’t really felt well for about a year.  Which makes me wonder, is this what growing older feels like?  If so, why didn’t anyone warn me?  I really don’t feel well today.  My stomach feels unpleasant and its kept me awake for two nights in a row.  I’m also having other pains which make me think I need to go back to the doctor but I’m too annoyed with doctors to do so.  This is just my badly tied in introduction…

Compassion yes.  That’s what the title said.  Okay, so I should say that I like Grey’s Anatomy and not just because its about sexy doctors who sleep around.  In fact that’s the part that I don’t like all that much about it.  I like it for the same reason I like books like His Dark Materials trilogy.  Because growing up I felt like good was good and bad was bad, as I’m sure many comfortably do, considering it makes things much easier to handle.  

Life is complex. People are complex.  Politics are so difficult because people seriously believe different things, and not all of them understand that there are other beliefs that matter.  My boyfriend believes that animals are the most precious things in the world and that anyone who cannot see that is a bad person.  I see that while he believes that and might say that I have a heart of stone (he doesn’t mean it because he sees how much I care for his cat), he also believes in war and the death penalty, i think.  While he has compassion for animals, i have compassion for people.  I mentioned Grey’s Anatomy because the latest two episodes touch on this, as Meredith befriends and tries to really save a serial killer.  In specific a serial killer who preyed upon compassionate women.  And she does it knowingly, all the while knowing she would have been a target before he got caught, and knowing who he is. 

That’s how I feel, and not everyone understands it.  I feel sorry for everyone who ever committed a crime.  I feel sorry for victims and for the causes.  I find it very hard to hate human beings. In fact I can’t hate anyone, at least not anyone I’ve come across.  

But I think the main difference between me and Josh, or me and my parents, is not our compassion but that I understand how they can feel differently.  Or I can accept it.  And they believe they are right.  That’s it.  They believe they are right, and I believe we both are.  Is this crazy?  

The writers of Grey’s Anatomy understand and that’s why I watch the show.  And I know that sounds crazy as well.  But I believe it.

Today I feel like: Dade, the cat.  

I’m off work and I decided that I was going to accomplish NOTHING today.  except maybe a little reading and movie watching and package accepting.  and sleeping.  Which makes me like this lovable cat who i am almost always jealous of (he really has the life).  

Dade and I have done an awful lot of cuddling today.  Also a lot of lazing around.  

Tomorrow I’m moving to Williamsburg.  How trendy of me.

So this post is a little bit late.  Most of my posts are.  I’m glad 2008 is over.  Not that I tend to believe a New Year will change anything.  This isn’t a statement about hope or anything, but personally, I tend to stay away from resolutions.  I think of them as presents.  I’m the type of person who likes to give presents when I feel like giving them, as opposed to waiting for a birthday or christmas.  That being said, with the New Year, I have more time and am trying to get back to the gym.  Coincidental I tell you. 

So there are a few things I’m excited for in 2009:

President Obama….  I’m daring to hope that one man really can make a difference.

The Messina Perdue wedding….  A really really exciting and fun wake up call that says “Patti you are all grown up, no do something with your life” 

And a few things I’m not so excited about…

It seems every year we make new friends and every year we lose some.  They move to far away and go from someone you see every day to someone you never talk to.  I know that a lot of people who have grown close to me last year will be going far away this year.  The first being Rob, who has already left for Afganistan.  The next being Miah, who leaves for the Air Force in February.  Not all will be such complete or military-caused partings.  But I know there is a great chance that Leigh, Megan and Jason, Wenxiao, Nova…. so many people who I look forward to seeing every day won’t be around.  

Take it one day at a time right?  That’s how I’ve been living for awhile now.  Probably since this whole surgery thing came about and I realized sometimes planning doesn’t work out.  Or even before that, with Kim and Ethan, and how wonderful that was.  And that’s also how I think I really fell for Josh, the special circumstance of completely living in the moment.  A lot of things to be grateful for.  

And a resolution that I said I wouldn’t make, but am going to.  In 2009 I hope to write more.

Today I feel like Paris Hilton, because Josh and I are obnoxiously spending money that we probably shouldn’t because bankruptcy could be closer than anyone thinks.

So today I bought the most fabulous coffee pot in the world.  It has a grinder and a timer.  So that I can set it before I go to sleep, and be woken up by the sound of coffee grinding, which will stop and then coffee will percolate and nothing could make me want to wake up more.  If anyone is wondering how expensive a magical coffee maker is… the answer is too expensive. 

Josh beat me by buying a fancy garbage can that cost more than my magical coffee maker.  

Why is it that when I need to save money most is usually when I have the biggest problem with it?  I have gotten almost none of my christmas gifts yet and i already feel like i’m hurting for money.  This should be fun.