The Letter of Intention

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned-- it has been 8 days since my last post.


Season's greetings, my blog-babies! Now that Thanksgiving is over, I have allowed myself to jump on the Christmas bandwagon and get my festive freak on. The tree is up (my first artificial one ever) much to my kitten's delight (I've already caught her sleeping in it... yes, sleeping IN the tree), the balsam wreath is hung and wafting its sweet evergreen tang throughout the apartment, and I've nearly completed my holiday shopping. It's pretty easy when you don't have a significant other to buy for... <wistful sigh>. The Lady Apartment is looking like a fancy Christmas editorial from Real Simple Magazine or some other such inspirational publication.


Amid all this holiday preparation, I'm stopping to reflect on this past year and the year ahead. Yes, this week marks the anniversary of The Letter of Intention. What's that, you ask? In the words of Inigo Montoya, "lemme esplain". One year ago, on December 1st 2010, I sat down in my tiny bedroom in the back of my sister's apartment in Philadelphia (where I was living at the time), opened up a Pages document (because I have a Mac and I'm better than you), and began writing a letter. Who was the letter to? Myself. Who was the letter from? Myself... or the myself I would be a year from that night. That night I time-traveled and the 2011 me told the 2010 me about all the great things I had accomplished, all the positive changes I had made in my life, and all the lessons I had learned over the course of the year. These weren't goals-- I wasn't setting a bar in this letter... no no, all these things had already happened and I was just reflecting and bragging about them to myself. This was not a to-do list, this was a Letter of Intention. I talked about the great apartment I got, how it was decorated, what it looked like. I talked about the job I had, how much I got paid, and the kind of work I did. I talked about the artistic projects I got involved in over the course of 2011. I talked about my health, my family and my love life. And while I remember some of the details, I'm excited to open up that Pages document on Thursday (December 1st, 2011... exactly 1 year later) and read it to see how far I've come. For you see, I haven't opened it since I wrote it. I know that many things I wrote, that I projected one year ago, have been SPOT ON and have fallen into place, but I'm very interested to see just how accurate I was in my prediction about where I'd be on December 1st, 2011. We'll see...

Fred Savage, Christmas Trees, and Caves: Oh My!

It's been a few days since I've posted, as my mother reminded me over the phone this afternoon. I can pretty much sum up the last three days of my life in three subjects: Fred Savage, Christmas Trees, and Caves. I realize that those three things really sound odd and super random when clumped together like that, but it was just that kind of weekend! Allow me to explain...

The savage Savage

Friday: After working a long hard day at the theatre (which included pitching a restaurant partnership to a young, greased Mediterranean man in a track jacket... I'm not convinced he had a shirt on underneath it), my good friend Becky and I drove over to our good friend Jason's house for an evening of cheesy pizza and cheesy movies. Jason is a big fan of really ridiculous horror movies, especially the ones where objects become self-aware and start murdering people (check out the movie "Rubber" on Netflix... it's about a rubber tire named "Robert" that uses its psychic powers to blow up birds, bunnies and eventually people... ). Becky and I were excited to see what Jason had selected for the evening's entertainment. We were not disappointed-- I submit to you "No One Would Tell", a Lifetime movie about young love turning dangerous, starring none other than Fred Savage and Candace Cameron... that's right-- Kevin Arnold and DJ Tanner! They are in love, you see, but he has some severe jealousy issues (can you blame him after all that back and forth with Winnie Cooper?). SPOILER ALERT: Kevin Arnold murders DJ Tanner! This movie was filmed in 1996 (but released on dvd in 2006) and features the very best scrunchies, mom jeans, Full House side-boob, and unicorn jewelry I've seen in cinema in a long time. Needless to say, we had a good time.

Fancy tree!

Saturday: Bethany and I decided to spend our Saturday being fancy retail ladies. We put on our comfiest shopping clothes (later noting that we really looked like a lesbian couple) and headed to Webster, where the crafter's Mecca awaited. Hobby Lobby. God bless it! After doing 7 laps through the Christmas section (which was massive and had me repeating "I want all the things" over and over again), we got down to business with a cart. After about an hour, we had damn near filled the entire thing with various holiday items and a few crafty treats. Not to mention the GIANT ARTIFICIAL CHRISTMAS TREE for my Lady Apartment! That's right-- I have a beautiful 7.5 fancy Christmas tree! It's perfect and will look lovely nestled in my living room, festooned with frosty silver and champagne ornaments and decor. It's taking everything in me to wait until after Thanksgiving to put it up (I am morally opposed to celebrating Thanksgiving amongst Christmas decor). Anyway, back to Saturday-- we rambled over to Target, where we spent 30 minutes comparing and contrasting holiday wrapping paper combinations. We celebrated Bethany's fine trio of mod-printed papers with lunch at Uno, followed by one more trip to Hobby Lobby, where the cashiers made fun of us (right in front of us) for coming back. Whatevs, Christian cashiers, we needed our tacky glue and ribbon. PS- I am now equipped to fully bedazzle my Super Nintendo system.

Effin' cave

Sunday: I spent the majority of my day in a cave. YEP. A STRAIGHT UP CAVE, Y'ALL. Which I will use as my excuse as to why this post is not as cleverly witty as my last couple-- I blame it on the effect of cave air on my brain. For those of you who don't already know, I've been working on shooting "Indiana Jones and the Legend of Bimini", an Indiana Jones fan film through Tatem Productions. We started shooting in back in July and still have a few more scenes to get in the can before they can start editing and making it look like a fancy movie. I'm hoping we'll wrap by the end of the year (since my costume consists of a very thin silk short-sleeved blouse and very thin TIGHT capri pants- not conducive to outdoor shoots as the weather gets colder... and colder), though I have a feeling we'll extend into January. I've been joking that we need to add a "boob warmer" position to the crew. Okay, maybe I wasn't joking. Anyways, we spent the day shooting in Lockport Caves today, which was very cold, very dark, and very creepy. I spent the entire time on the lookout for giant cave spiders and pale bat-boys. I felt like an Inferi was going to pop out of the water at any minute, or that those creatures from "The Descent" were going to crawl out of the ceiling and eat us. This scene is the climax of the film and ends with my character, Carolyn, losing her shit and bursting into tears. Well, after standing in a cave, with the nearest ladies' room a mile down the road, freezing my ass off and having cave-ceiling water dripping on me for 5 hours, that shot was a drop in the bag for me. We were running behind schedule and the guy who runs the cave was pressuring us to wrap it up and we hadn't shot my meltdown yet. We had about 2 minutes to get the shot and get out of the damn cave. I did that shit in one take. And let me tell you... those were real tears at that point! I let it all out, right into my buddy Rick's furry chest hair (Rick plays Indy). Hahaha, that poor dude just held me as I sobbed ugly sobs into his open shirt and it felt like the camera was on us FOREVER. But I just kept crying, dude-- I was tired, freezing and I had to pee. It was not hard. As soon as I heard "CUT", I was outta there, man! It wasn't until I got all the way back up to my car when I realized that I still had my microphone pack on...


So that was my weekend: Fred Savage, Christmas trees, and caves. You know, the usual!

Oh cheeseburgers, why have you forsaken me??

I don't know how to explain my love affair with cheeseburgers. They are basically the foundation of my food pyramid. There is nothing better than a juicy beef patty hugged between two soft bready-buns with a delicious mustard/mayo/ketchup blend acting as the sweet glue, holding this holy uber-sandwich together. And let's not forget the cheese- the CHEEEEEESE! I will tolerate the presence of vegetables in the form of a thinly-sliced tomato and a singular leaf of lettuce. Cheeseburgers are lovely in any season, for any occasion! I even once made this computer drawing of a tap-dancing cheeseburger. He's fancy AND delicious.

In celebration of finding the coolest Christmas wrapping paper ever last night, I treated my taste-buds to my favorite beef-vehicle in the form of a Five Guys "little cheeseburger" (aka: 1 patty.... I was being conservative... for once). My first few bites were heaven-- perfect ratio of juicy beef to cheese to saucy-goodness. All of a sudden, my tongue scraped against something sharp on the left side of my mouth... was there a foreign shard hidden in my precious patty? No, the pointy object was... WHAT WAS LEFT OF MY TOOTH!


Oh lawd, oh lawd, child! You don't understand-- I've had NIGHTMARES about my teeth falling out or breaking. It's one of my ultimate freak-outs. Fortunately, I managed to keep my shit together until I got home, where I immediately typed the words "broken tooth no dental insurance Rochester NY" into my google search bar while trying to keep myself from tonguing my broken tooth nugget. The Type-A personality took over and determined a plan: I would call the Eastman Dental urgent care clinic in the morning and see if they could fix me asap. With that next step identified, I told myself to calm the eff down and play some pogo scrabble. I climbed into bed and attempted to distract myself with last week's episodes of The Office and Parks & Recreation. Alas, I turned off the lights and spent an hour laying there in the dark, mind racing, stress mounting, emotions spiraling, and eventually tears flowing. Stupid tooth nugget. Thank God for my kitten, who must have sensed my distress and sought to calm me and dry my tears by curling up on my face.


Cut to this morning-- I barrel through my 8:30am committee meeting and run downstairs to make the call. They direct me to come in anytime and warn me that my wait could be between 1-3 hours. I timidly explain to my department that I'm peacing out to get my broken toof fixed and I head to the clinic. Fortunately, the waiting room was nearly empty when I arrived. I signed-in, filled out the necessary paperwork and took my clipboard up to the counter. The woman behind the counter then proceeded to ask my some "standard questions", the first one of which was "are you married or are you... single?" I swear to God there were italics in her voice. I half-jokingly replied "and will that determine the quality of my dental care today?" which made her laugh and morph from bored and jaded nurse to normal woman. Anyhoo, I went back to my chair and witnessed 30 minutes of Paula Deen cooking Thanksgiving heart-attack dishes with a few short breaks to notice my fellow patients. How can I say this... there was one woman there with the crack shakes, another with stripper attire on, and my favorite was the woman with the sideways mohawk who only had teeth on the right side of her mouth, top and bottom. Fearing that my broken tooth was the first step into my metamorphosis into this woman, I buried my nose in a Real Simple and clutched my stylishly coordinating purse to my fashionable peacoat. (judger).

my future?

At last, my name was called. A beautiful young Indian woman escorted me into the examination room and settled me into the dreaded chair. In front of me on the wall was an LCD monitor and I momentarily was distracted by the exciting idea that maybe, just maybe, they let patients watch cartoons while getting worked on. But no, as I was to learn when the dentist entered the room and hit the power button, revealing the x-ray of my teeth. The kindly ginger-haired lady-dentist explained that I had an uber-cavity and that they might have to rip muh toof out.... RIP MUH TOOF OUT! I tried to keep my shit together as she left the room to further consult with her Dental Jedi Master. All I could think about was the toothless lady in the waiting room... was I to inherit the same fate? Would I soon find myself with a sideways mohawk and a good-for-nothing boyfriend named Rodney who wouldn't even drive me to the goddamn dentist, that bastard? Minutes later, ginger-dentist was back and with good news-- they had decided that they could save the tooth (and my sanity) with a super root canal. Fabulous.


Fast-foward about 30 minutes-- my mouth is wide open, my jaw is beginning to hurt, I can't feel the left half of my face, and I've got what seems to be 4 hands in my mouth, between the pretty Indian and the knowledgeable ginger. My fists were clenched, my knuckles were white, and the entire lower half of my body was trembling. For some reason, I don't know why, everything that I've been stressing out about over the last week or so just kicked me in the heart in that moment and out of nowhere I just started crying... which turned into choked sobbing complete with snorting and gagging noises (because of the 4 hands in my mouth) as I tried to breathe and calm the eff down. That poor ginger... she thought she had caused the meltdown with a particularly painful jab to my tooth hole. How was I to explain to her that I'm just a pussy and I really just wanted someone, ANYONE (even the beautiful Indian girl with the spit-sucker-wand-thingy) to hold my hand and soothe all of my anxieties? How do I tell her that I need support? Especially when I have a ratchet set in my mouth?


From then on, Ariel and Jasmine were very nice to me and repeated "You are doing great! You're so brave! You rock, sister!" about 40 times until the procedure was over. I got cleaned up (the combination of drool on the lower half of my face and messy mascara runs on the top half of my face made for a charming image) and thanked my Dental/Disney princesses for their services and sympathy during my molar meltdown. I also suggested they play Pixar movies on that little flat screen. I forked over my fancy purple credit card and deadpanned to the nurse "well, my family's Christmas gifts from me this year will have to be my beautiful smile... cause now I'm broke". She only half-laughed as she stapled my receipt to my "this is what was wrong with you" sheet and sent me through the door, back to the waiting room with Rodney and his toothless lover, Crack-shakes McGee, and Ol' Droop E. Beanbags the stripping wonder. 


In all my years I would never have guessed that my beloved beef sammich would do me in like this. It's God's most wicked irony that the patty I love best would be the catalyst for my ultimate tooth shame and an unwanted dental adventure that resulted in so much spit, snot, tears, and lingering jaw pain. It's enough to make me swear them off... for a few days at least... maybe... 

"Get Your Shit Together, Carol!!!"

Quite possibly my favorite line from "Bridesmaids". Why? Because I frequently hear Kristin Wiig's voice barking it at me in my head whenever my life gets a little too complicated or overwhelming, when I've been avoiding or ignoring various life-duties, or when my to-do list barfs all over me... which actually happens pretty frequently. I've been hovering in one of those moods for the last week or so, where I'm very aware of all the specific things that should be done to unclutter and uncomplicate my life. Now it's just a matter of getting my dick up to actually DO the damn stuff! (ps- I swear and say things like "dick up", "balls" and even the occasional "cock-wallet", so if that's not your thing, Martha Stewart has an excellent website and maybe you should go check her out instead. However, if you're cool with it, I can guarantee I can do anything Ms. Martha does WHILE saying humorously inappropriate things at the same time... which in my opinion is about as good as it gets).

Okay, so back to getting my shit together-- I've decided to put on my productivity pants this week and see just how many of those pesky life-items I can cross of my list! Apart from the usual laundry and everyday domestic activities, I have some other goals that I'd like to tackle: making a valance for my bathroom, hanging the large frames that have been sitting in the corner of my bedroom for the last 2 months, cleaning out my car (which has become the dumping ground for such items as a bag of crusty Gothic metal candlesticks, 1000 Dunkin Donuts receipts, half-empty water bottles of every brand, empty fiestaware boxes from Christmases long ago, cookbooks I've stolen from my mom's kitchen, and a large tulle tutu... etf?), finishing my DIY entertainment center, and organizing my walk-in-closet because I'm afraid my kitten will crawl inside and I'll never be able to find her amongst the scarves, shoes, bags, and other style-debris that have exploded all over that hellish 3'x5' armory of fashion.

I have convinced myself that completing these tasks will immediately cause some kind of shining, brilliant portal to open and I'll emerge into a gloriously bright and perfect world where everything is sunny and easy and calm and perfect and Ewan MacGregor will be there singing to me as he grins brilliantly like a lovable idiot, and there will be cartoon bluebirds and majestic centaur people (like in Fantasia) and they will have trays of cream puffs, and chubby cherub babies with rosy shining asses will fly above me and shower me with flower petals and I shall promenade forward through my life, basking in this new found perfectness... all because I finally got my shit together and cleaned out my car. 

So watch out Ewan and naked flying babies... I'm comin' for you!

Ta-daaaaaaaa!

Here I am, World! That's right, I've gone and done it- I got m'self a fancy blog!

Why'd I do it? I've never been a huge fan of the journaling (I was the kid in college who saved all my "journal-writing" entries for the night before they were due, then proceeded to engage in a midnight scramble in which I would switch up my handwriting and ink color to make it seem like I'd been writing them all along), but I've formed a very close relationship with my macbook and we've decided that we're both ready to take it to the next level. There have been many moments over the last year or so when I've thought to myself, "Self, you should really chronicle all this schtuff". So here we go!

What the hell am I going to chronicle? All sorts of things! DIY projects, before-and-after photos of the evolution of my beloved Lady Apartment, behind-the-scenes info and photos of my various artistic projects, life commentary, imaginative inspirations, random rambling rants on the topics of the day, my miscellaneous adventures, and much much more. If you have any ideas or if there's something in particular that you'd like to hear about, dear reader, let me know and I'll make it happen or ignore it completely!

So dig in, become a member and follow The Everyday Misadventures of an Adorkable Gal!