Well, that was "fun"

This has been the week from hell. Between starting two new jobs, fighting off a cold, fighting with my landlord, trying (and in a few instances, failing) to stay on this detox diet, one (only partially suicidal, but also including riding the cart around the aisles like a skateboard) trip to Ikea* resulting in five unopened boxes sitting on my porch, waking up before 9 am four out of seven days, going to bed after 2 am five out of seven days, and just generally trying not to scream my head off in any public places, I've had a week. Now that its Sunday at 4:22 pm PST and I've eaten nothing but fruit and juiced kale/lemon/apple/ginger today, I'm showered, dressed, probably sporting a 100º fever, drinking tea, watching a week's worth of back-logged DVR, and still have two hours before heading back to the restaurant I finally feel like I'm catching up on my life.

*I'd like to thank my dvr for playing 30 Rock right now and Tina Fey's writing for "starting with the worst place in the world!"..."Ikea on a Saturday?"

I just re-read that and I think I need another nap now.

And Valentine's Day is tomorrow. Which means I'll be at work awkwardly serving all-you-can-eat tacos to depressed, fat, LA singles. Or couples headed for Biggest Loser-dom by going to a trendy Mexican restaurant with an all-you-can eat special on Valentine's Day. Or my friends who I'm enticing with my beauty and guacamole. I'm just glad I'll only be at dinner and not a fly on the wall for the apres-meal hump and belch fest. I apologize for the previous sentence. Valentine's Day bores me. I can't eat any dessert but dark chocolate anyway, and I have enough Teddy Bear drama as it is, so I'd rather just use it as an excuse to send those ridiculous ecards and make extra money on a Monday night.

Let's see, other things? Ummm, I'm obsessed with the IFC show Portlandia. I've never been to Portland, but I can honestly tell you that every single aspect of hipster culture, not to mention any other alternative lifestyle, crafting/DIY, art world, ex-hippie, green yuppie, etc, etc, etc culture is portrayed with SHOCKINGLY accurate wardrobe, vocal inflection, and prop placement...and it's hilarious. I've watched each episode twice (mostly because I tend to watch it after I've "had a few" and need a recap) and I can't wait for the next one. Mustaches, birds-on-things, sweaters, bikes, publications, glasses, and bangs. That's all.

Ummm, what else...I just started getting New York Magazine. Wanna know a secret? It's too depressing to read it because I mostly just wish I could go to the things listed, so I generally read the approval matrix and then just spend the rest of the week doing the crossword puzzle. And I just got the first season of Daria from Netflix. So at least my mail is arriving. Except the package of all my ski stuff. That's been lost. No biggie, though, because I can afford new ski pants, a jacket, gloves, and goggles. Because my bank account doesn't have $0.54 in it. Nope. No biggie whatsoever. I should try and deposit that one check I have. It's gonna be great.

Wanna see another picture? I just took it with my phone, so it's not great quality, but Downtown LA looks crazy dramatic right now from my porch (and not just because The Grammy's are tonight...oooh snap. That sucked...blame it on the fever) and I felt like sharing.

I'll end with this, I really want to choreograph a theatre/dance piece with no words, just the entirety of Tom Wait's Rain Dogs. Downsides include: people thinking Tom Waits is weird, I don't have dancers or a dance space, I have four jobs and no free time, my bank account is resting one quarter short of being able to park at a meter for 45 minutes. Anyone in LA want to collaborate on this and/or have ANY ideas as to how to make this happen/be interesting/not be lame?

A

Two Posts in One

PART ONE

It's come to my attention lately that most of my friends "back home" (now I sound like I'm from the boonies..."Mah fry-ends bay-ack hoome be missin' me") use this blog as a way to keep up with my life here on the West Coast. SO...in an effort to not bore the bollocks out of the rest of you who don't care about my guacamole and kale diet (just kidding, I can, like, totally, eat more than that), I'll direct you to the second half of this post. For those of you who went to high school or college with me and had the pleasure of knowing me when I was twenty pounds heavier and eighty-seven times more likely to erupt in beer tears on any given week night, please read all of this, not that you owe me anything else at this point. I honestly can't believe we're still friends after all I've put you through. Gosh, I've been a self-absorbed prick for many of these years, haven't I? Wait, here I am, assuming (and sometimes using force to ensure) that you read this regularly enough to care about every minute detail of my life. I haven't changed.

Anyway, who cares, I'd read your blog if you had one. So...I've officially started working at the restaurant (no more training) and damn, does it feel good to be gainfully employed. I even got a haircut today to celebrate not being broke anymore. And then I made dinner. I know that bragging about one's cooking isn't thrilling for others to hear about, especially without photographic proof, but honestly, we ate it so quickly that I couldn't take pictures. I made Red Pepper, Garlic Bruschetta on sprouted grain bread, Baked Thyme Sweet Potato Fries, Rosemary Eggplant Fries, and Lemon Artichokes. I should end the post here. I'm salivating again. All this stuff is on my diet. Jealous?

PART TWO: The negative space

...the air between lyrics, between chords. The pregnant pauses, the moment after the crack of the burning log. The stasis of a flying hawk's wings and the clouds leaning over the horizon, and the emptiness in the separation of the ocean's waves. The calm, the peaceful and the moment when the last guest has left the party and the echo of the door closing has evaporated. The house settles and we breathe, negative space.

We crave a place where the is no accelerator, no brake, no roof, no power windows, and no space bar–the great, departed nothing. A land of silence and lavender, cloaked in sunshine and non-specific breezes. A place neither over, nor under the rainbow, not beyond, not in the abyss, but here. The familiar, only stripped of convenience and choice. A land left to its self. A people devoid of influence.

~home~

 

 

 

2/6/11-echo park, LA, photo by Adria

 

 

Saxophones and Panic Attacks

So many things have made me cry today, KCRW, finally getting a restaurant job, the panic attack I had when I came home and realized that I had to immediately make dinner before even so much as sitting down, Central Park West by John Coltrane on the radio (that one actually made me write a "poem" about what I miss about New York on a post-it on my steering wheel while turning on the ramp to the 101S–no, I won't post it here, poetry is weird and personal and never as good as I want it to be), and this, (particularly when the writer gets asked what she wants to be when she grows up and she answers "happy").

I think it is fair to admit that I've had a few glasses of wine. Halfway through the panic attack (between yelling at a piece of chopped onion and going onto the porch to take a few deep breaths) I decided that a glass of wine (or 3) was a good idea.

Let's backtrack to the Coltrane song. Have I mentioned the jazz thing in my life here yet? Well, my dad was a jazz drummer for many years, a jazz enthusiast forever, and thus, jazz has always been a huge presence in my life. I'll put on the local jazz radio station and recognize songs whose names I don't know, artists I don't know, but melodies? Well, I know the melodies like my own first name. There's something about a Coltrane sax solo that always makes me feel okay. The way it sounds like New York smells, the way it reverberates in your head, chest, gut, and soul until you remember the point of it all is to be good. The point of everything is just to be good, and happy and eat a big bowl of pasta and laugh loudly. Did you know that? The point of life is pasta. That's what I grew up thinking at least. Pasta and jazz. Which brings me to "what do you want to be when you grow up?" "Happy". Because that's just about the only answer that makes any sense, and yet the most difficult to achieve. I sent my mom an email one night, probably late, my sophomore year in college and I'm pretty sure that all it said was, "Do you think I'll be satisfied with my life?" (I was worried about my pending life choices, my lack of a relationship, my inability to make decisions, and, probably, my unsightly weight gain). She responded with two full pages. I know because the document is still saved on my computer. One of the best parts of the whole response was this:  

It's the knowledge and feeling that things can always be better. More just. More fair. More human. Better color combinations. Better composition. A better melody. A better taste. Less fat. More passion. Wow- life is really great- GREAT! Will Adria be satisfied with her life? YOU BET! I KNOW you will. How do I know this? I just know. I'd stay away from that "end up" thinking,because life is an ongoing journey. If you follow something you're passionate about, you can't lose. You might have to compromise at times. So I married a man with bad manners.

She continues, but I'll spare you her whining. Just kidding. She didn't whine...and my dad does have terrible manners. PS: notice how she wrote "less fat"? She was clearly concerned with my Keystone Light, Late night pizza dipped in ranch dressing, and Grilled Cheese diet. Regardless, I think that advice is really good to remember sometimes. Things can always be better, but its always about following the thing you're passionate about.

I just felt the need to share that. More later. I'll leave you with a photo that I took of some pasta and wheatgrass on my window sill.

A

Traffic to Apples...and other things that don't make sense.

I used to draft blog posts on my phone on the subway. Now the only thing I can do while I'm weaving through side-streets to avoid clogged freeways and backed up boulevards is tense up my shoulders and scream through my bluetooth to whomever is, unfortunately, on the receiving end of that particular phone call.

I'm not trying to make excuses, I honestly have less time to blog when it takes me over an hour to get home from ––––. That line=anything that I might have to do. Like go to the grocery store, or have lunch with an old colleague of my father's, go to an audition, or perform in a show. I'm so burnt out by the time that I get home at any given point, that I don't have time to form my thoughts into any sort of coherent stream of thoughts. I've actually started forcing myself to deep breathe in the car. I'm one of those lunatics who's "oooommmmmmm"-ing through traffic, and I'll admit it. If it means that I won't drive my car off of an overpass then it's worth it.

Honestly, though, I have been pretty busy. All that grief to find one good job and I get three part-time jobs that pay me a big mac above a fast food salary. Sigh. What can you do?

Remember when I mentioned the raw food diet? (Shameless plug for nothing) Well, that bad boy has been seriously effective. Effective to a detrimental point. I started doing it to lose a few pounds to feel better about myself at a time when I was broke, unemployed, and unable to exercise. Well, now I'm employed, my foot has healed, I'm still broke, and none of my clothes fit. I know that no one wants to hear about how you have to go buy new pants because you've lost weight...but I'm telling you for some reason anyway. Bottom line...if anyone has recently gone up a denim size and would like to trade, I'd be down. And I'd buy you a milkshake, because I'm that kind of douchebag.

Anyway, I performed twice this past weekend and the results were to my liking, for the most part. I had a great turnout of friends which is always nice, and my new material seemed to go over well. The show on Friday was the best show, all around, that I've ever been a part of. The energy was great and the audience was really involved. Last night was the polar opposite. Monday night's are rough, but this was a whole different story. Between the 60 year old woman wearing a sequined shirt in the audience who was constantly heckling the comedians and talking about her six children (who were all in attendance), the Flamenco dancing street artist who fancied himself a comedian and gave a painting away onstage, and the three other female comics who felt the need to go into grotesque details about sex...to be more specific, there was a lot of, "my pussy doesn't get fucked enough" and the like, I felt like I was performing in a talent show at an insane asylum. I think I just moved my blog into a whole new category of NSFW, but seriously...obscene.

To validate the decency of this blog I've added a photo of my coffee table centerpiece. Enjoy your Tuesday night/Wednesday morning/snow day (I hear there's snow 'round some parts...)

The3six5

I got to be a part of something pretty extraordinary today (no, not the DGA Awards, that was boring, even when I brushed up against Ron Jeremy–don't worry, all of my vaccines are up to date), the3six5 . It's a year-long (well, now I guess a two year long) series of personal entries from different people's perspectives. I heard about it from Laurenne, who did an entry in 2010, and thus inspired me to sign up for it myself. I completely forgot that it was today until I woke up to an email from the friendly 3six5 staff reminding me. I'll save you the boredom of rehashing it here, just go and read it for yourself! And sign up!

Happy Saturday, all!

A

PS: I'm currently watching Benny & Joon off of my dvr, because it was one of my favorite movies as a kid (I know...rright?) and I guess I dvr-ed it from being on in the middle of the night because the commercials are HILARIOUS. I just saw one for a vibrator. Straight up. Have you seen that? The Trojan brand vibrator (oh, sorry, massager) commercial? It's hilarious. That's all.

Lovely Rita, Metah Maid

Today was a little bit, crazy. I'm going to do the obvious "storytelling" blog tonight, sorry.

I had an interview at a catering company this afternoon, 20+ miles away (which in LA can take you either 25 or 125 minutes. Woohoo) and I had a weird feeling about it. Well, they hired me. I'll be penguin-suited up/Party Down-wardrobed for both the DGA Awards this Saturday and the Oscars at the end of February. Before I get all kinds of "oh-em-gee celeb sightings!" comments, let me preface by saying that I'll probably just be refilling wine glasses for some random ass producers or something (not knocking producers, but, you know...its not NP and her French Baby Daddy-furthermore referred to as such-FBD). Also, I'd really rather hug a toilet for six hours than have to pour Javier Bardem and Penny Cruz their mojitos all night. Well, not really, but I'd feel silly. Aaaaaanyway, I got the job, so good. I have at least $100 coming in the next 28 days. Fucking magnificent. I leave the interview and see a tow truck backing up...towards my little engine that could. Dodging oncoming traffic, I ran across the street screaming, "That's my car!!!" and the tow truck operator drove away, car unattached. Leaving me with but a $48 citation. Exactly how much money my short stint catering gig on Saturday will yield me after taxes. How deliciously ironic. Kill me. To quote, well, myself, from earlier, in a phone conversation to my mother, "I'm either really lucky I didn't get towed, or incredibly stupid for parking in a space that expired within a half hour from the beginning of my interview." Her response, "You're stupid, but at least you're lucky". Thanks.

So, to celebrate, I took my seventh trip to Ikea.

Actually, I went to an Open Mic night tonight in Hollywood. It's really just a place where you pay a guy $5 and you get to sit and watch other comics work on their new material and you can do the same. It's basically heaven for a newb like me. I worked out some new jokes, figured out what material to cut from the show tomorrow night (again, LA-ers...come represent!) and had a jolly good time being one of the two vaginas in the room. Female comics are scarce. Attractive female comics, toot toot goes my horn...sorry, just being honest...I'll reword: Not unattractive/overweight/gruesome female comics are basically an endangered species. It's the only time I feel like I might have an advantage. My jokes didn't kill or anything, but I shook Marlon Wayans' hand on the way in and introduced myself. And then had a slice of pizza (who am I kidding, I enviously watched another devour a slice of–gross looking, LA pizza–while I swallowed the pollution) with the progeny of Andrew Dice Clay. If nothing else it was an evening where opportunity seemed but a handshake away. I'm not saying these guys could do something for me (they couldn't, really), but I genuinely feel closer to, and more devoted to my goals here than ever before. That's huge.

Oh and then I watched The King's Speech. As part of my SAG Awards voting duties I have access to screeners. I must say...it was good. It was shot beautifully and the performances were undeniably top shelf. Best movie out there? No. Good enough to warrant a strong recommendation? Certainly.

A

Another night going to sleep as my NY friends wake.

Jeggings, Photos and Excuses

Please excuse the lack of blogging lately. I’m using up every last ounce of energy trying to write jokes about the absurd and all-too-prevalent appearance of mustaches and knit Mexican ponchos in my immediate vicinity and get a job. Those two things should very obviously go together, but for some reason, they don’t. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, it’s incredibly difficult to be funny when your reality is boredom. I’m past the point of wanting a job because I could use the money. Now I just want to a job to have a reason to put on clothes and leave my house. I motivated myself enough to throw on a pair of jeggings (your honor, I plead guilty to the charge of “wearing Jeggings”, on January 26, 2011” and a cardigan and go out to my local coffee shop. My local coffee shop is overrun with chest tattoos, the aforementioned mustachiod men, and their Mexican poncho wearing female counterparts (or male counterparts, it appears that the hipster movement knows no gender bounds). I’ll admit it, I’m wearing a pair of vintage, plastic framed reading glasses, so I’m not entirely excluding myself from the masses here. However, a young, overweight child just walked by wearing a plaid cowboy shirt and carrying a guitar. I got so distracted I almost submitted myself for a role on “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant”.

I guess what I’m trying to say is…I’m not trying to say anything. I’m just trying to make it seem like this blog has a purpose, direction or moral. I’m not proving myself right in any capacity.

Want to see a few pictures? (Yes, I'm resorting to this) Yeah? Okay, here goes:

Grand Canyon

 Sedona, AZ sky