and away

2011-12-31T14:36:00.000-08:00

Okay, so i'm just bored with waiting to write until i'm upset about something. there's so many tiny wonderfuls happening every day that why not write about them. its about connection right?! well i'm making a concerted effort to type type type about happiness and connections. there's something you should or maybe, should not, know about me- i have a river of emotional tears on constant reserve beneath these blue/green eyes. and at least once or more a day, they show up- i'm a liver okay! i cry. i love. i live. that's just me. so today- my connection was with the oh-so-wonderful show NEW GIRL- yes, their last episode was a holiday one and yes it is now new year's eve afternoon- so yes, i am a little late. but i just maybe decided how dreamy this world is at the end of the episode, when they are shouting in the streets - friends together, wanting amazement- wanting spectacular-wanting to be there for a friend who is just bummertown- and demanding happiness, and loveliness- from the lights on candy lane. i, of course, welled with tears, slugged my pinot noir at this point and just let go. my connection today, and a lot of my days, is friendship. we are too too lucky to have the friends we have. so - whatev-errrrs- sappy, sure. here's to my amazing friends: here in new york, a far in iowa and los angeles and san diego and florida and d.c. and new mexico and chicago and abroad... i just like you, okay? ... a whole whole lot.

2010-12-19T21:08:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KRD8e20fBo

i'm disgusted with apathy.
i'm disgusted with us.
i'm disgusted that i haven't done anything
that you haven't
that we all are in the dark
and like the dark.
just do something. anything. stop putting your head in the sand. and take some sort of action.
in anything.
stop being passive.
for once... just live and be heard.
be something.
stop letting lies spread.

this: the cove. food inc. foreign policy. the us.

estranged.

2010-10-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

my uncle Jim died. i hope his son is finding time to breathe.
my aunt Karen, my uncle's ex-wife is considering cremation
my mother says that ashes just get lost in the shuffle eventually
salt water pulls up to my eyes' brims and I bite my lower lip

who wants great great great great great so-and-so's ashes? she says
i want to want them. but i know i won't.

our family so close once and so foreign when meeting now

2010-06-06T07:47:00.000-07:00

summer dripping down my temples, my spine, behind my ears
the air conditioner surfaces my allergies but I suffer through
"don't touch me... just... don't" when I'm burning, body
not under the covers or sheets
a steady panting is our ambient noise from Jackson,
we've just cut his coat to cool
browned noses even with the sunscreen
streets sticky with the smell of melting garbage
bags and bags stacked
the breeze picks up
sometimes
but even it feels like a wool blanket thick
i want ice cream.

Dumber-est

2009-11-08T12:20:00.000-08:00

A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good. - T.S. Elliot

Dumber-est:
My best friend was recently in a downtown, off-broadway play. The word DOWNTOWN itself is more that just a place of reference, it is a adjective that nearly describes an entire movement of theatre in New York. If I were to say something had a very DOWNTOWN feel to it, it would most likely be abstract or edgy, new and probably confusing... not easily understood the first time round. My friend's piece was just this: confusing. But that isn't saying it was less than enjoyable, I just left with thoughts muddled and questions. It kept me thinking for a few days after even, which I think is wonderful. A piece of art affecting me so much as to care beyond the exit of the theatre. Something I had to hash out and ponder instead of swallowing mindlessly like most of the spoon-fed sugar we are taking in mainstream cinema. It feels as if there are few movies being created today that challenge the mind, unarm our own comfort zones and push us to question... most are only distractions. Movies and plays with ideas that are overdone, saturated with sex and crudeness, with no parting gift of thought provoking conversation to offer as you exit theatre. My friend's show may have been cold without any sort of emotional connection, but it raised questions on the institution of marriage, on fidelity and love vs. lust. I feel valued by the writer and director in the sense that he didn't dumb down the material to increase his audience size.

AgH! work, write more later.

A Happening

2009-11-05T12:03:00.000-08:00

"I often have a hard time understanding what large crowds chant at sporting events."

A Happening:
The bar was dead when I first arrived, a few tables filled with couples or trios drinking pitchers of happy hour beer. It was almost like an eerie stillness, weighted with anticipation, before the tornado hit. The Yankees were to play the Phillies in what would come to be the last game of the '09 world series. Steady streams of people started to flood in, and my pace of taking orders and delivering quickened. There was no point from 8pm on that I even glanced at the flat-screened T.V.s that littered the walls. I didn't have to watch the game to know every big play or score... the energy of the place buzzed as each New Yorker, so frenzied with excitement, relayed the score to my ears with "oohs" and "woohoos" and "awws". Chanting ensued, which made me laugh... a close friend of mine keeps a quote on his Facebook profile that reads "I often have a hard time understanding what large crowds chant at sporting events."... and from the moment the joined voices began to call out "Jeter, Jeter, Jeter" I couldn't help but picture the quizzical expression that would have clouded over my friend's face. It became an almost out-of-body experience, watching the mass of fans, faces upturned, eyes stuck to the screens... not even breaking their intense stares to reorder drinks or eat the food they ordered, which was most likely cold, sitting on their table, untouched for the past 10 minutes. I couldn't move through the crowd without playing bumper cars the whole way, and so as the game came to a close, I stood next to the bar on a box and just watched. Not the game but the people. When the Yankees finally secured the win, every single person erupted. I've never seen anything quite like it. People were literally, I kid you not, hanging from the bar's rafters. They were standing on the booth seats, swinging the lamps that hung above each table, cheering, throwing hats, and screaming screaming screaming. "We are the Champions" played out over the speakers of course, and the crowd simultaneously began to sing loudly along, top of their lungs. It was incredible, the intensity and overjoyed sense of togetherness. I almost burst into laughter at the silliness of it all... a baseball game causing that much commotion. And then as furious as its force had come, the crowd disappeared almost instantly. A modern day gold rush town turned ghost. Amazing.

Song on my brain: "Lalita" - The Love Language- Listen at: http://www.bladencountypress.com/uploads/1/4/9/9/1499665/02_lalita.mp3

A quarter

2009-11-04T08:47:00.000-08:00

I can hear my heart on the pillow beneath my head. "I'm alone." beats the blood through my veins and the stillness around me is deafening. If I thought this is what I wanted, I was so very wrong.

A Quarter:
Cheetos and Nestle Butterscotch Morsels do NOT make for the healthiest breakfast, nor the most satisfying, but when there’s nothing else in the fridge besides expired skim milk and blackened bananas long past their prime, it becomes your best option. I am now twenty-five. Sunday was my birthday and my eyes have seen twenty-five years go by, day after day ... I still am not sure if I'm an adult. Every birthday since the end of high school has been attached to the same question: When do you know? Fact: I've been, for the most part, financially independent since moving away from home, and this is very adult-y. Fact: I have a job, adults have jobs. It's not the most glamorous work and certainly not the most lucrative, but it provides for rent and bills and food (if I happen to one day buy groceries), Fact: I have countless failures and accomplishments under my belt, which all adults maintain. Yet, all things considered, I continue to feel separate. The grown-up world seems foreign and old, boring and rigid... not something I would friend on Facebook or call Mom late at night to whine that they weren't including me.

To at least attempt to grow-up and join the work-day world, I moved from Iowa City, Iowa, the town of my college, to Los Angeles, CA. My time spent there may come up later, it may not... but only if absolutely relevant, as it wasn't my finest of hours. From Los Angeles I moved to the opposite corner of the country: New York. And that's where I am today, in my one-bedroom central Harlem apartment. Eating my less than appetizing breakfast at a time when I should be eating lunch, as I have just woken up after a rough night.

After a time, I got used to the hugeness of New York. The wonderful feeling of disappearance... of not being found. I could escape to a remote book shop in the west village or a park near Columbia University and sit for hours without anyone knowing my face, my story. Then all of a sudden, from traveling the same route from work to home, from picking favorite bookshops and park benches, recognition slowly peeled away my hugeness feeling about New York. I made friends at work, one or two time bar patrons became Monday and Wednesday night regulars. The 2.50 slice pizza place on the corner between my bar and the subway began to ask, "the same?" when I came rushing in, always 5 minutes from being late to my 6pm shift start.

Clarification: my job. I work in Greenwich village, where NYC students booze nightly and tourists crowd into tiny cafe/restaurants/bars that line the one-way streets. It now feels familiar to me, and should, being there for a year and a half. I recognize faces that frequent my bar and the 24-hour coffee house across the street. I now know what each season feels like on the walk between the subway's exit and my work's front door. I don't feel new, but things still surprise me. That's New York though, the minute things feel settled and routine, you stumble upon a happening that boggles your comfortable level of Manhattan fluency.

Song for today's thoughts: Living This Life- The Dutchess & the Duke from Sunset/Sunrise (2009) Hear it at
http://www.hardlyart.com/mp3/DD_LivingThisLife.mp3

the clearest color of blue

2009-07-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

i need clarity.

another

2008-10-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

A Great Hail

In the streets of great cities, dwellers dwell

and torment

and those in fear, come here

polished silver, arched doorways, softened light, walls clothed in shag carpet

and devoured fruit

Caught up by places prepared by He, easy

to no prevail

-emilea

a non-poem

2008-10-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

O Horsemen of the Apocalypse

He sits in the palm of the moon, eyes aglow, reflecting the starry surround

Wrapped in the wrath of his youth, descending from heavens above

Sealed in sin, resurrection lost and separate of the body

A gnarled tree grows beside him, weathered by the woes of the fallen

-emilea

question what they tell you

2008-09-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

just a repost to clarify the facts... found on FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit... for those who care to know the truth behind the slanted speeches::::

FICTION FROM MCCAIN

McCain:::::

"(Obama's) plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor."

FactCheck.org::::

The plan exempts small businesses, and people who have insurance now would be able to keep the coverage they have.

FICTION FROM OBAMA

Obama::::

"Many of these plans cost money, which is why I've laid out how I will pay for every dime: by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow."

FactCheck.org::::

Closing corporate loopholes and tax havens won't pay for everything. His program will also be paid for by his proposed tax increases on upper-income Americans.

Emily the Strange

2007-10-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

And today... well taken from the title one can only assume the events might have been a bit off. Auditions have commenced and with them come oddities. Tonight was spent driving for the better half of 1 hour and 35min. to find an obscurely located audition venue. After I finally reached my destination and found parking, illegal of course on the street, I was 14minutes short of not making the call at all. I waited patiently outside a closed door to audition for a student film that of course had no pay, rarely any do... and much to my surprise, the woman before me barged out dramatically, slammed the heavy door that separated us from "them" and bellowed out "have fun ladies...he wants ya to do a lapdance." My jaw fell slightly as my lips parted, a timid "What?" fell from my mouth. The woman whipped around and taking a moment from her furry said ... "I'm not kidding. This is RE-diculous!" A series of events followed as such: I turned to the girl beside me, confusion rose between us, the director opened the door and hastily explained that she was the last of them and he "couldn't imagine what her problem was, she must have been a crazy"then he retreated back to the room. To shorten the story up, we decided to escape and off to the elevators we went, but close on our heels... the director, his proximity forcing us to resort to small talk and mindless chatter about moving to LA, being new, yada yada yada. He rode with us to the ground level, we exited, he stayed and rode back up. Our assumptions of course were that he had wanted to see if we would gossip about the event (true)...if we had been there to audition and had ditched (true)... etc.

just strange.

tomorrow and the weekend provide for more auditions... hopefully better things to come.

now and here.

2007-10-05T23:49:00.000-07:00

i didn't realize the pressure that comes with having a blog. the writer's block that comes with entering a title, the first word then sentence then complete thought. and make it worthwhile and something of value to both you and those who read. AGH! agony.

this is so frightening, yet liberating in a way.

so i guess what's on my mind now is a conversation i had recently with a very influential person in my life. it centers on the infinite problem with artistry...that of sacrifice. what it is you are willing to let go of in order to create a career or what you have to give up in regards to your career to have the life you want. can you do both? can you have everything?

i love living this artist's beat. treading the unknown. no definitive structure or trail to follow. completely free to decide my next step. but this freedom comes with great insecurity. i'm not sure if i can live like this for long... living in such instability. missing friends and family. working overtime every week, what with 40 hrs. in my rent job and then putting in just as much time to create a place for myself in the acting scene.

it is trying. and frustrating. and wonderful. there will be a breaking point though. but that is later. this is now. and now. and now. and now is where i'm at. now.

and yet

2007-09-30T00:34:00.001-07:00

and yet i still fail to understand this workday world. i have lived in los angeles for a bit over a month, and though familiarity begins to settle, i am still at a loss. where are we going at this crazed pace... a race that pushes us to barely breathe, with little room for much else besides go, go, go.

and our passion? our expectations of creating art that inspires, that challenges, that evokes progressive change within the world... where has it hidden itself away to in this quick-stepped hullabaloo?

are we settling for what we think is the good life? i want more. i will aspire for more.

and i guess this is my place to speak...or rather type my words, thoughts. welcome?