A True New York City Morning

October 1st.  Fresh, crisp, fall.  I head to Union Square and am greeted by the sight of police, barricades and chanting girls clad a variety of creative and bizarre outfits ranging from "Hot Topic" to "Hair."  It was the SlutWalk aka, as so eloquently put by a friend of mine, "every NYU lesbian's ex-girlfriend parade." 

(...Actually, when I was in Ithaca last week, Cornell's slut walk also passed by me... the sluts are following me?  At the same time they happened upon a group of 80 year old alumni taking a campus tour... after which the fratty male tour guide found himself forced to attempt an explanation of the situation...)

Anyway, I head away from Union Square, as the "sluts" stream towards me, and head to my audition, one of the only logical reasons in my mind to be up and at 'em before noon on a Saturday.  I arrive at Theater for a New City, a cool (and large!) space, which appears to have been pulled right out of RENT, that I must have passed by a number of times in my life but never really noticed.  I walk in and am greeted by a younger Johnny Depp rocking this look (and I dare say, pulling it off) minus the facial hair, who of course turns out to be the director of the film I'm auditioning for.

oh hey.

But wait!  Minor major snafu!  The e-mail with the audition information, which was slightly unclear to begin with, only went out the girls... who were supposed to read with the guys... so this is going to be a "practice" audition... and we'll have the "real one" sometime next week.  Ok...?  Out of 21 girls invited to audition during the vague time frame of "noon-5" (apparently narrowed down, along with 18 guys, from a pool of 650+, as we were so informed in our e-mail...) only 5 of us are there by 1pm.  One of them is not a day under 35 (though she resembles a taller Kristin Chenoweth) and another, while also super cute, has an exotic foreign accent (and I do believe the type here was supposed to be all-American girl next door, age 20-28, but hey, I'm not one to judge!)

oh hey.

I have my "practice audition" and the adorably sheepish director who clearly has no idea what he is doing gives me a high five and compliments (at least, I think that was a compliment... was that a compliment?) my "obvious" theater background.  Then he makes note of some possible line edits and asks if I'd like to read again in a bit or if I feel ready to come back in next week to read with "the big dogs" or "hot shots" or some other cliched term.  I choose option 2 and exit with a friendly smile and a wave. 

Back to Union Square where I pick up a not-as-healthy-as-it-looks lunch from the Whole Foods salad bar and the fall air inspires a clearly very necessary pumpkin cookie to go with it.  I pop on the train to Herald Square to spend my in-between audition time hiding out at my mom's office, a convenient resting spot for those awkward chunks of time where the upper east side seems far to far away, but killing 3 1/2 hours at a Starbucks seems entirely unappealing.

As I exit the train, I feel loud music wash over me, and what's this?  More barricades, police, and a gigantic red and yellow clad Asian-marching band?  Oh good, it's the tail end of the "Korea Times Parade."  Well then.  After a bit of crowd-darting and an elevator ride in which a student who appears to be moving two floors blocks me in the elevator with her cart, I am safe and sound, finally quiet and at peace... where instead of hunkering down to learn lines and review sides I plop down in front of instant netflix and determinedly write this blog post despite the fact that firefox crashes three times before I can finish.  Thank goodness blogger saves drafts.

Barely 3pm, it's pouring now and I have two more auditions and my final monologue coaching session spread out oh so conveniently (note the sarcasm) in time and space before this day ends.

Happy October New York.

P.S. I was thinking of holding on publishing this post on the off-chance that someone (perhaps even Mr. Depp Jr. himself) were to come across it before the completion of the casting process for this film and it were to hurt my chances. However, I decided to take the risk. If you are reading this Johnny Jr. I hope you will disregard it or look on it favorably, as something charming that perhaps a witty and sarcastic character, such as Kaitlyn herself, would write, and know that none of it was meant in an insulting manner. I would love to work with you on your super cute film and think that if you want your Kaitlyn to be 22 years old, I'm your girl ;) Also, If you're still having trouble with the dog's name, I think simply "Murphy" is much better name than "Mr. Murphy Lee."  I think the kind of girl that names her dog "Mr. Murphy Lee" is probably really annoying. Thank you. That is all. I think.

The post I should have written.

So life got busy.  Or something.

I should have written a post about that time I was granted free VIP access to the Johnnie Walker Whiskey tasting tour (access I clearly did not deserve seeing that I originally wrote "Johnny" Walker) and discovered that Johnnie Walker Red and Orangina is a tasty combination (read: does not taste like whiskey).  After that my invitee and I (no, invitee is the wrong word, I was the invitee, what's the opposite of invitee?  inviter?  That doesn't sound as cool) kicked back a few beers with the event's security personnel before being swept off to a rooftop party at the Hotel Gansevoort (Really?  This happened?  Really?)  I turned out to be a pro at not paying for anything and finding all the bathrooms.  Typical.  If someone ever asks me again if "my life is like gossip girl" (a popular question circa freshman year of college) I guess now I have a story?

That night ended with drunk pizza, apparently I ripped my dress, and the next morning I had breakfast with a group of girls preparing for a spartan race that night.  What?  Seriously, look it up, it's ridiculous.

*see below

Since then, I started at internship with The Looking Glass Theatre where the people are baller and cleaning the costume room turns one's snot black (ew), made a short film in which I ran around the woods in a little red dress, wearing a gas mask and carrying an airsoft gun (*see above), had the first of four (count 'em, four) rehearsals for the show I'm in, did a lot of collating and wrote a really long run-on-sentence (just now.)  I also ran into more people.  Some of them I said hi to, some of them I awkwardly pretended not to notice.

If you've been to Cornell's collegetown semi-recently, 

you know what this is, if you haven't, just go with it.

I also spent approximately 45 hours in Ithaca during which I saw outdoor theater indoors, served a lot of people my two minute "here's what I'm doing with my life at the moment" elevator speech, ate approximately 4 meals and 17 desserts, attended a 10 person party which was delivered a noise violation by the cops around midnight even though "they couldn't even hear the music outside" (cranky neighbors), and brought home wine and concord grapes in the backseat.  Also I saw bag-pipers on Ho Plaza and Johnny O's has been closed by the Tompkins County Sheriff.

Court order.  Served.

You know, I never meant this to be a "let me list the things that are going on in my life" kind of blog... but then again I guess I don't know what I was really expecting to write about? ... And I guess I felt like I needed to check in with myself or the world wide web or something.  That way someday I can look back and say oh that's what I was doing then, man that was crazy or wow that was lame and oof why did I think sharing it on a public forum was a good idea?  Did I think it would make me seem weird or charming or quirky or cool or something like that?  I don't know.  I guess I'll leave that up to you, internet folks.  Meanwhile I'm going to go to bed or probably watch another episode of Dead Like Me or something like that.  I feel like I've earned a little bit (read: this afternoon/evening only...) of a rest.  P.S. has anyone else discovered how weirdly amazing this show was?  I don't know.  I love it.

Finally, I leave you with this brilliant and all too true posting from one of my favorite tumblr's:

Click to make them bigger because if you can read them like this you have really great vision, congrats.