Thursday

7:30 AM - rise, read the news, check email
8 AM - research train tickets for Spring Break, journal, read spirituality essays
9 AM - run four miles at the gym while reviewing a new screenplay
10 AM - shower and shove my life together
10:25 - run to the 22 bus, eat yogurt on the bus spilling on leggings
10:50 - jump off the bus and go to Dunkin for a vanilla cupcake coffee for me and a large regular for my mentor
11 AM - arrive at mentor's house, he greets me with pastry cake, continue outlining our new pilot
12:45 - walk to work at T Community College
1 PM - meet with a student to tutor her in paragraph sturcture
2 PM - catch the train to Lakeview, read The Things They Carried
2:20 - get a pink manicure
3 PM - sit in a table read of a new screenplay
5 PM - give feedback to famous writer (!)
5:45 - go home to Puhg, buy train tickets, organize papers/plans for tomorrow's classes, eat kale bowl
6:30 PM - improv class at The A________
7:50 PM - Lyft to i_, answer student emails in the car
8:15 warm-up with Dollar in the green room, other castmate brings cookies in a Ziploc
8:35 do two-person set with Dollar about high school detective duo
9 PM watch rest of show
10 PM sit at the bar with Pookie & Had, chatting
11 PM ride train home, walk the wet sidewalk
11:30 double-check lesson plans, snacks for full-day ahead
11:55 sleep

Five Awesome Things That Happened on August 3rd!

1. Two mile walk while listening to This American Life!
2. I worked on my new screenplay fueled by a snickerdoodle iced coffee and a s'more muffin from a hut called "Deja Brew." The treats were a total of $3! Maine prices!
3. Met up with a woman I met on the cruise ship who happens to live in Maine and happens to be a high school theatre teacher and also happens to have been trained in Michael Chekhov which no one is ever trained in but I was!
4. Did two short form improv shows and entered the musical game as a Taco Fairy and sang a song called "With Great Tacos Come Great Responsibility"!
5. Dollar made us all go to a little beach on the way home, and I was annoyed, but then "Love Story" by T Swift played while we were lost in the woods and when we finally got to the beach the stars were incredible and I could see so much Milky Way and Jams kept seeing shooting stars and apologizing since we didn't see them so we all decided to look the same direction and the brightest shooting star ever flew down and turned GREEN AND EXPLODED and we squealed with delight!

Questions Surrounding the Trash Dress

Dollar told us last summer he discovered the local DJ in town was someone named DJ Jeff Buffington. I literally laughed just typing that. I love dancing, and I don't do it that often, so I was on board. So was Tulsa. Even the theatre bartender.

I packed two huge bags for this trip: show clothes, hiking clothes, exercise clothes, casual summer clothes...no club clothes. It's so hard to be a girl. I fairly consistently don't know what to wear. What does one wear to any given bar? I decided what I'd really like to wear is a trashy dress. The kind all the girls on MTV Real World slither on every Friday. I tell Tulsa at heart, I am a trash person. If I had it my way, I'd be eating daily Taco Bell and listening to Kelly Clarkson on repeat. He didn't seem to believe me. "No I am!" Later I mentioned how much tanning beds appeal to me. He blinked, "Wow. You are a trash person."

There's a huge wreckage store in Maine--a warehouse of granola bars that have fallen off trucks and sport socks for fifty cents. That's where my trashy dress is, I knew. I asked the guys if we could stop there before the show. In the dressing room I tried on two leopard print minis and a hot pink thing with fake jewels for 9.99. Bingo.

Oh, the dance floor was hot and sticky. We had just finished two shows. Time to cut loose. And after lots of sweat and bumping and jumping we were propelled out of the bar by way of "Hit the Road Jack" via DJ Jeff. I liked the Maine air on my legs under a synthetic pinched cape. The one strap and the tight chest piece. It's comfortable for me.

We wound down in Tulsa's room. I thought about the dress, how I kind of wish I could wear it every day. "Tomorrow," I said. "Why shouldn't I wear it tomorrow?" Dollar said I'd look like a freak. "But who cares?" I asked, "You guys know me, and everyone else will never see me again." He shrugged. He was sitting on the floor in the doorway. I am still thinking about this puzzle. Of course I wouldn't dress like a Jersey mouse for a job interview, but why not today? Why would I still be embarrassed. Tulsa says perhaps the mental energy of knowing people are judging you is a time-suck, but who says we would need to pay that mind?

Faith

1. If you think you are incapable of not screwing something up, the news is, you will screw it up. One of my friends dated a very nice, very committed girl and said he only thought it was "fair" to tell her he would ruin things "with bad communication." What do you think happened?

2. If someone thinks you are incapable of a job well done, and perhaps they don't tell you, but they send the brainwaves out into the abyss, what do you think will happen?

3. Beyond belief. Knowing.

4. Because someone told us there would be a meteor shower we stood on a beach at 1 AM watching the sky fall to pieces, waves lapping up footsteps away from us. But last night on the ride home, "Only the Good Die Young" blasting one more rocket shot down across the horizon of chain stores and fir trees. All three people in the car saw it, and I squealed, like "What are the odds we all hit the jackpot together?"

Lighthouse at sunset with my mom and aunt. Maine!

And I don't know what's the right way
to make them see that, see that. 
Cause in this maze, yeah, we're all flames, we're all flames.

Say there is a fire in the dark when I close my eyes 
And it's keeping me up at night and it's making me feel alive
I got a flashlight summoning up the stars 
And it's showing them where we are.
We'll be lighting up the dark. 
Oh oh oh flames. 

Grapefruit Body Wash

Was only going to be in Boston for two days, so I used the grapefruit body wash in Bex shower, assuming two squirts would not be missed. I rarely eat grapefruit because it's so obnoxious, but if it's on a brunch menu? Some brown sugar-crusted magic? Sigh, sigh, I have the luck of remembering the first time I ever ate grapefruit. I was 3 or 4 and up tootling around the house as my childhood insomnia had me to do. First stop was usually my grandmother's recliner. Sometimes I could shake her awake and ask for a story. One this night, I'd like to think it was summer, but who knows, she grogged awake and asked if I'd like to try grapefruit. I did because what is that. She took me to the kitchen and explained the two halves, the special spoon, the tartness. I slurped it up. From then on every time I visited her I asked for some, but it was never in the kitchen again.

I liked the body wash so much the day I got lost walking through the city (making a 2 mile journey into 5) I stopped in a CVS to alleviate some of my back sweat and bought some. It's what I have been using here in Maine. A happy, fresh way to start my day. The new cast member Dollar arrived Sunday. I started noticing something in the tub--sometimes my pink bottle was suddenly open. I had left it closed. But then I started noticing sometimes I would walk into the bathroom to find the cap open, then closed, but I hadn't showered. Last night while brushing my teeth I asked both the guys to come into the hall. I asked, "Who has been using my grapefruit body wash?" Dollar admitted it. He seemed embarrassed (?) to be caught in a way that made me wonder if I should have said anything at all. "I don't care!" I said. I just wanted to know. Then, Tulsa: "Wait, what does it look like? Pink? Yeah, I've been using it too." It was like the time Hill and I were hanging out at our guys' house and we realized on the way to lunch we were all wearing the same deodorant. It made me feel gushy, honestly, that my castmates and I all pump the beady syrup into our palms once a day. I shouldn't have said anything, I thought. This doesn't matter. "You can use as much of my body wash as you want!" I exclaimed between spitting my toothpaste out. Dollar walked into the bathroom, picked up the soap, said, "excuse me for a moment," and opened it over the toilet. "No!" I whisper-yelled at 2 in the morning. He put it back. This morning I got the third shower. The pink line was lower.