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DAY ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO: The Pauper Releases

Ever since I've gotten back into the acting ring (where people exchange cutting side-eye left hooks for punches), I've been trying to remember how to be a good actress.

Over the past few months, I've been trying desperately to come to terms with the idea that I'm no longer an honor's student at Frederick High School.  Shove me into an AP class there now, and I'd be lucky to leave with a C.  Drop me in a class at Loyola, and I've lost my Cum Laude status.  When you were once the kid that other kids gave a slightly audible "yesssssss" when assigned you as a partner, it's a weird and humbling transition to realize you rely on your calculator to figure out what you owe the busser in tip share at the end of the night.  Suffice it to say, I'm not the A+ student that got me those chords at graduation.

What I didn't realize until recently was that acting remains a skill in the same vein.  I grew up under the impression that creative talents were a gift bestowed upon you at birth.  That education in these fields was next to useless.  You either got it... or you don't.

Now, I have come to understand this is about as useful as allowing me to perform your vasectomy because I've seen my way around a dick.

Because eight years without any experience has brought me back to square one.  Except, joke is on experience.  Because my life has taught me the art of observation.

Theses gifts are, in part, bestowed upon us at birth.  We are left brain dominant, or we are right brain dominant.  Neither is right or wrong.  But in the same way that our sexuality is determined at birth (and it is), our logical vs. creative skill set is determined genetically before we are even capable of giving the middle finger.

So the person who once was a great actress.  Someone who found solace in the stage; an awkward teenager more comfortable making an ass of herself with the lights blinding her vision instead of flirting with a boy in gym class; now has to figure out how to regain that confidence with a whole new mound of deeper insecurities to cripple her.

The younger we are, the fewer inhibitions we have.  As ass backwards as it seems, our most "awkward" time (adolescence) couldn't be farther from it.  Awkward as a teen means breaking out in acne, not understanding your body, and having very little grasp on who you are.  These are skin deep issues.  I only wish that someone told me how deep anxiety would spread in your twenties.  When you start to doubt your own character.  When your goals and ambitions seem fruitless.  When you can't understand why you were put on this stupid piece of land to begin with.  THAT is awkward as fuck.

So dropping the whole acting thing during the prime of my maturation was regretful.  As now I have to relearn my craft as a human hobbled with self doubt and insecurity.

But tonight, I released.

During the rehearsal process of our upcoming sketch show, I have felt about 60% present.  I'm here.  I'm hosting.  And I am saying my lines.  But tonight, my brain let loose.  I've been watching the actors in our show.  I've been watching improv.  And I've been eating a hell of a lot more kale than pizza (which is hard at Pizano's).  And some where along this road, my brain opened up.

Credit the impending spring time (30 degrees!)  Credit the better diet (KALE!)  Credit the aforementioned euphoria (READ MY BLOG, GODDAMMIT!)  But I'll just go ahead and credit myself.  Because who else will in this crazy, fucked up world?  I make the choices I make.  All of this leads to a better me (hopefully?)  But somehow, tonight, I tapped into my inner actress.  And for the first time in eight years, I saw that girl on stage, age 17, who needlessly dropped a Madonna rap to little applause during an improv showcase and left the stage ready for more.

Can't Stop The Beat

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY: The Pauper Feels Euphoric

It's a weird feeling.  That feeling when you are used to being depressed, and you can't get your body to feel that way anymore.  It's called euphoria.

What makes us feel euphoria?  This happiness that you just can't seem to shake.  You work all weekend and check your newsfeed to see that everyone got crazy drunk celebrating Saint Patrick while you spent your weekend serving up some hot pizza pie to said drunks.  You spend Friday and Saturday night alone watching videos on Youtube and psuedo-Netflix binging.  You haven't made any professional strides.  And a song comes on the radio at work that reminds you of past love.  But it doesn't shake you.  What is wrong with you?

Perhaps euphoria exists because even if the immediate doesn't feel especially fantastic, you know it's because you made a choice for the greater good.  You stayed in all drunk weekend because you no longer find joy in binge drinking in the hopes you will find some sordid hook up that you'll forget about.  You spend your weekends tired from long shifts because you enjoy the relaxation of staying off your feet.  You take a break from professional advancement to enjoy the time alone.  A song reminds you of someone you once cared about, not someone who hurt you.  You are happy in your decisions.

After two months of frigid depression in this windy city, it can begin to feel unnatural to feel the opposite.  Why are you so happy?  This happiness is a fallacy.  This isn't you.  Even the dark week of your monthly Red Wedding should surely bring the empty thoughts.  But they aren't.  They won't.  You can't help but smile.

Why does feeling happy feel like a weird turn of events?  We should always feel this way.  That's the point, correct?  But when you are constantly plagued with fear, self doubt, and inadequacy, happiness can feel like some kind of seasonal flu for which no amount of NyQuil can dull.

So accept it.  Embrace it.  Hold it closely to your breast until it feels so full it might burst.  The moments we feel content in life, we should not question.  Over-analyization can start to bring the chaos back into your cerebellum.  Allow yourself to feel the good as equally as you feel the bad.  For I fear we tend to dwell on the bad and let the good slip away like an extra 20 we find in between the seats on the L and spend on an extra special bottle of wine.

It might be difficult to dwell on happiness.  It's easy to forget moments we get caught up in.  But perhaps, if we spent a little more time dwelling on contentment, we get a little bit closer to a euphoric life.

Nothing Wrong When A Song Ends in a Minor Key

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-EIGHT: The Pauper Makes an Honest Vow

One of the problems with being a creative is figuring out where the hell to put it.  Where do you assign your thoughts?  Not necessarily the channel, but where do you resign the segment of life where you output matters?

I've always felt my strengths laid in comedy.  In my group of friends, I got an inherent joy from making others laugh.  But as a current student of comedy, it no longer feels my strengths lie in that realm.

But one thing I have clung to - and perhaps why the show "Girls" has been such a grating pain to me - is that my life experiences have led me to believe I was put on this earth to dispel the fiction blasted to women through cinema.  I want to expose the truth.

Film, television, and media in general perpetuate ideas I have never found are true.  And that has led to a lot of misery through teenage angst and adult existential crises.  Life isn't about happy endings.  Important life events don't end on a note of poetic justice.  But we believe they do because our windows to "the world" portray them as such.  Perfect careers, perfect boyfriends and love affairs, perfect friendships and familial relationships.  These are the notions broadcast through the media aimed at adolescents: some of our most formative and impressionable years.

It isn't until we experience the fallacies of these "truths" that we realize how wrong they are.  And by then, is it too late to adjust our thinking patterns?  Is that why we grieve?  Is that why we suffer?

Life doesn't tie up its bows in pretty little Pinterest patterns.  So why should we create those realities in the minds of our youth?

I genuinely believe we are on the precipice of a revolution in popular culture - despite the Jezebels, Buzzfeeds, and Perez Hiltons of the world.  We are ready for the truth.  And I would love to be a part of it.

You will not know what you want to do with your life when you are 20.

You will not find total happiness in someone else.

You will not always want to get out of bed.

Your life will never montage.

You will gain weight.  And if you choose, you will have to work hard to lose it.

You will fall in love... and you will get your heart broken.

You will have to break someone's heart.

You will cry in a way that is not beautiful.  That consists of snot pouring out of your nose while drinking and listening to Fiona Apple.

You will succumb to vices.

You will disappoint people.

You will hurt people.

And it won't immediately be fixed.

You will make the wrong decisions.  But hopefully you will learn from them and make the right ones next time.

You will wake up in the morning feeling happy and fall asleep that night feeling miserable.

You will wake up feeling miserable and fall asleep that night feeling elated.

You will not get to make a wish that comes true every time you blow on an eyelash, see the time is 11:11, or blow out your birthday candles.

You will get nowhere unless you work hard.

You will get nowhere unless you work hard.

You will get nowhere unless you work hard.  Because you will have no montages.

And sometimes, songs will end in a minor key.  But that doesn't mean they didn't teach you anything.

It's Friday, I'm In Love!

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FOUR: The Pauper Stops to Smell the Tranquility

A funny thing happened on my way to work last Friday.  It was 9:45 a.m.  The rush hour morning commute had dwindled enough for me to find a seat at the Belmont Red Line - an impossibility an hour earlier.  And when I arrived at the restaurant, I danced and sang along to "Drunk In Love", which boomed over our loudspeakers as I set the dining room waiting for my red-shirted compatriot to arrive and help.

But in my moments of tranquility before his arrival, it had dawned on me that it was Friday.  This day of the week I once held in such magnificent high regard now appeared to be just another day at the office.  Because I no longer wake up on Monday mornings with this simple thought occurring once my brain registers lucidity: Five More Fucking Days.

There's no longer a day of the week I dread.  I no longer wake up stressed, wondering whether I remembered to accomplish a task at work, and if that meant I would formally get my posterior handed to me on a decorative platter.  There's no more self-loathing in the path I have chosen.

It doesn't escape me that this could be the result of not yet having the opportunity to fall victim to a routine.  Routine is the boner killer of creativity.  But for right now, it's a fantastic feeling to have gone from eating rotted Aldi fruits to fresh peaches bought off the beaches of Ischia.  And perhaps the next time routine befalls me, my senses will be ever so keener to its void.

You would think that without the low lows of Mondays, I could never have the feverish highs people experience at 5:00 on Fridays.  And to that I repeat: dancing and singing along to Beyonce at 10:00 a.m.  At work.