Tinychaos's Blog

Calling all hip knowledgable people.

One of the determining factors that brought me from the loving arms of my fair hamlet in Maine to big, bad New York City was the ability to enjoy shows/exhibits/concerts/etc. Really soak in some culture, experience something new, all those other things you are supposed to do in this electric concrete pisshole jungle I love to love almost as much as I love to hate.
Obstacle: I am a graduate student. I work  part time. Part time retail.  You can rest assured any expendable cash I might have I either get on tap or on the rocks.
I want to learn what is both cheap and fun in the city. If Anyone has any suggestions they would be highly appreciated!

So I went to a production of Threepenny Opera tonight and it all but made my very being implode from how much I miss acting. In college, I was pretty actively involved in the theatre.  I very well should have given the theater the majority of my rent check, with the remainder rightfully belonging to the local bar.  I was acting pretty much every semester, and if I wasn’t in a play I was involved in one somehow. I loved it; it was my addiction, and I will be damned if it wasn’t something I didn’t do well.
Now seeing a stage production, no matter the caliber, has always been a borderline (I cringe to use this word, but hopefully it transtlates)…spirtual…experience for me. Not in  meet Jesus, forgive childhood bullies, look down on sex and give up drinking kinda spiritual. More like I will get dizzy and feel like crying when I see a curtain call. In a good way.  However, now that it is something I am not so involved in, a curtain call will still make me dizzy and close to tears, but in the ‘I want to go home and take a bubble bath with Ben and Jerry and Jack Daniels’ kind of way.  Not the same.  This leads to an onslaught of “why can’t I”  “why not me”  “its because I’m short, isn’t it” and all of these other useless questions.

Moral of the day? Suck it up. Sulking on the train ride home for the theatre isn’t going to do me any good  unless I take that and turn it into something more productive. Now I realize this is common sense to most people, but if you really think about how often you let obstacles bog you down instead of letting them be the very driving force that gets you to where you want to be, you would be amazed.  Think about how much more accomplished you could be if everytime something got you down, instead of perseverating on that you put it on a list.
Everytime I get upset about _______, I am going to _________ to change it. And it has to be little things; Clearly if my goal was “everytime I feel fat I’m going to lose twenty pound” I’d be right back in the bubble bath with Ben and Jerry and Jack again.
But if its “everytime I feel fat I am going to go for a jog” or even “plan out my healthy for the week”…thats accomplishable.

So this is my strategy to get myself out of the funk I have been in lately. Easier said than done, but fingers crossed : )

Oh and on a TOTALLY different note, I read in a travel magazine about an avacado milkshake. Intrigued. Avacado?good. Milk?good.Ice?good. The math works, guess its worth a try!

I should win an award for going back on goals I set for myself.  Today is a perfect example.

On Preparedness:
I decided I was going to wake up early providing myself ample time to get ready, calmly walk out the door and arrive at work looking put together , caffeinated and nourished and not like something to be mistaken for a hobbit. Instead I wake up 20 minutes before I need to be at work.

On Dieting:
I decided I would begin a raw fruit and veggie diet for about a week or so, since the warm weather can be less than friendly to extra pounds, and when you are only 5 feet tall those extra pounds only have so many places  they can disperse.  I did relatively well, until almost as if possessed I made myself a turkey hot dog with jalapeno cheese. F.A.I.L.

On Academics:
What a lovely day! Because it was a day that I was fortunate enough to get out of work at a reasonable hour, I proudly came to the conclusion that I would bathe in the sun while catching up on my reading for my Ancient Greek Drama grad course.  After this responsible decision, I came to the less responsible decision that I should also have a container of wine to drink while I enjoyed the 80 degree sun, whispering breeze of Gramercy Park, and Euripides. Cut to me, book collapsed in my lap, tin mug of wine loosely held in my hand and head collapsed into my chest asleep in the middle of the park. Children wandered by wondering who that sad little lady who smelled like nail polish was, I am sure, and how she could read like that. I woke up, having made it no further into The Bacchae than the introduction, and shamefully packed myself up and returned home, where I placed my remaining wine in the fridge for a later time ( in an hour or so).

At least I accomplished a second blog post : )

Well let’s have a Thursday recap shall we?
Wake up at 6 am. Groggy, stagger, wash face, brush teeth, pull hair in ponytail, groggy, coffee, groggy, subway,and arrive at work where I prepare to put my years of theater training to practice by pretending to love hockey for eight hours. It’s not the worst job for a “meantime, while in grad school” type job. I can wear jeans, watch hockey fights erupt, and joke around with co workers who all have the twisted inappropriate sense of humor I appreciate. All good things.
I also get to meet a variety of different people. Sometimes these are excellent experiences, celebrities, fellow theatre buffs, etc. Sometimes these meetings are humorous, such as the woman who came up to me when I was standing behind the register and insisted I make her a skinny vanilla chai latte (If you didn’t gather, I work at a hockey store). Sometimes, these meetings are just plain weird/scary. Which brings us back to today. In walks a customer. Lets give him a name. Hubert. So in walks Hubert and orders a jersey to be customized. Nashville Predators, personalized with the name “Lucifer” on the back. I think he got the number 7 instead of 6 just to be cute, which, let it be said, he certainly wasn’t. He kind of looked like he had been cured in a barrel of gravy and tobacco water, and despite the fact that he had two bandannas and a hat on his head you could tell he was shamelessly greasy.  So after ordering his jersey, Hubert comes up and starts a conversation with me. Correction. He was talking to himself, and I guess decided mid conversation that I would take the part of alter-Hubert. “Nope, dunno how it got there, someone probably took it you know? Well, its understandable, it can be said its understandable” Then Hubert handed me his wallet and pointed to a picture he had in there. “You know who that is?” he asked me. Now one would think it would be a picture of his wife, kids, maybe a cute dog. But instead I found myself looking at a picture of Hitler, neatly framed. I didn’t say anything, maybe because part of me was hoping I was wrong and it was Chaplin. ” This is a VERY memorable historical figure” he said, taking my wide eyed look, mouth agape to be one of ignorance instead of shock.
“Well that’s…that’s Hitler, sir” I reply with an affirmative nod and hand him back his wallet, which was when I noticed the giant golden cross hanging from his neck.
“He’s still alive, you know. 121 years old. Living in Argentina. I went there once, the Italians there are pretty good, but couldn’t find him ’cause they didn’t give me his address”.

Silence. Nod.

Enter boss to save the day! “Hey Sam, can I steal you for a second I need help with a..this..thing over here”.  Exit Sam, to hide in the back until the psychotic loquacious anti-Semite leaves.
He returned later to pick up his jerseys (which he paid for with a wad of cash in his pocket bigger than my head) and to try and buy a highlighter from  my co-worker, because he had a “big time signature to get”.  My co-worker did not sell him our highlighter, to which he responded by shrugging and taking a swig of the whiskey bottle he pulled out of his jacket. The last I saw of him he was talking to himself in the mirror and smoking an unlit cigarette.
Exit Hubert. (Fortunately).