Snap out of it!

I may not be a New York Italian, but I've always believed that big boisterous Southern families are not that much different than Italian ones.

I watched Moonstruck tonight, which is one of my favorite romantic movies of all time. It's like a photograph come to life of an Italian family in Brooklyn and the potential for romance. Cher falls in love with Nicholas Cage (before he became a caricature of himself). My favorite part is when she gets a fantastic 80s hair makeover and they go to the opera. The soundtrack consists of lots of little redone bits from La Boheme. When all the characters look at the moon ("It's like a big snowball."), Musetta's Waltz plays in the background. It's such a great little movie about real people falling in love and what that means in the context of family.

Tomorrow, we're getting engagement pictures done. I'm tempted to pull out the "Cher-do" (Lord knows I have the hair to do it.) but I wouldn't subject Braden to that.

Even when I lose, I still win.

Right now, I'm temping downtown. Which means I get to train myself in a variety of office grunt work skills such as building MS word templates and filing and making double-sided copies. And while it can be somewhat disenchanting being a 20-something temp, I have to remember that lots of people became successful inspite of their insepid temp work.

- Ryan from "The Office" - Mostly just succeeds with impersonating the latest business trend. Right now I think he's somewhere between Gordon Gecko and hipster office chic.
- Tanya (Jane Adams) from "Hung" - Oh, to rampage on my co-workers by screaming "I'M A MOTHERF**KING PIMP!" Woman, you and your mousey resolve continue to inspire me.
- Julie Powell from "Julie and Julia" - Hey, she got a movie and second book deal. And she was an actress! And not only that, the only real person on this list.

I guess I'm not proving my point by coming up with fictionalized characters. The truth is people don't like to read about losers who continue to lose. No one wants to watch the movie where the temp is still the temp at the end of the movie, unless the director is trying to make some point with dramatic irony.

Tonight my voice lessons start up again. And so begins the home stretch towards grad school. And after admitting my fear, I am ready to buckle down and pursue this bitch. I don't care if my social contacts are weak or that my last batch of auditions resulted in nothing. It is so hard to disegard feelings of insecurity but well...I don't have a choice.

Life is young. And when you work downtown, you quickly realize that there are peopel wandering around that have it so much worse than you. I'll refrain from ghetto stereotypes, but even when I lose, I still win. In little ways. For example:

- I have a fiance (who, among other things, loves me sincerely and doesn't beat me)
- We have some inspired wedding plans and honeymoon plans (you can read about them here: http://www.ginnyandbraden.blogspot.com/)
- I'm not in rehab (zing)
- I have my voice. I'll always have that.

Paralyzed

People say that if you want something hard enough and you dream hard enough you can make it come true. I kind of lived by that philosophy my entire life until the last couple of years. I guess I've never really had the social skills to back it up. Or whatever popularity I had in high school I lost somewhere along the way. And throughout college I became more and more insecure that I pretty much digressed into a person. In addition to having a real abusive romantic relationship, I've realized that college was an abusive relationship.

That's a really difficult thing to write. It's embarrassing. Humiliating. It's like when I admit that to myself, I'm setting myself up for "it's your fault, you deserve it, you just weren't good enough, you were a freak." But at the same time, professors and students, would tell me something different to my face. And I would just kind of fall for it all over again. I feel like I missed out on a lot because I wasn't able to form close relationships with people. All these things happened...some were probably my shyness and oddness and others were just happenstance. I'm sad that I don't have the friends or even acquaintances that a lot of people do. I'm sad that I didn't know how to reach out to people. I'm sad that my anxiety got the best of me back then and made me a pariah and that to this day it still takes over me.

Now I've been balled up on the couch for the past couple of weeks, paralyzed with pain for a lot of different reasons. It's gotten to the point where my body is just attacking me, my neck muscles have completely clinched up. I cry all the time, every day. I don't sleep very well. I can't say that I'm suicidal but there have been days when I stayed in bed all day cause it just made me felt better. I have wanted to disappear off the face of the earth. I watch those Cymbalta commercials that come on late at night and after Oprah and relate to them.

I am really terrified about grad school applications. I'm just having a lot of trouble dealing with that pain and rejection all over again. I'm really scared about getting stomped on all over again. I'm scared to move to New York...I feel like no one would give me the time of day. I want to...I have a fiance with really no wanderlust or city desire in him, which sucks. I wish he was that kind of partner. I really don't want to be confined to these 4 walls and this little crunchy college town my whole life. I know for sure that would kill me. I know that. I've expressed that. I don't know who's in my corner. I don't know if I believe in myself anymore.

And my poor fiance sees all this and doesn't understand and probably never will. It probably seems like ridiculous minutae from his perspective. He's got his own crosses to bare. He's frustrated, annoyed, helpless maybe...a combination of all of them. Depression drives a wedge into relationships.

Anyways, this is my own little corner of the internet, and I guess in this day and age of adulthood and job hunting you probably aren't supposed to talk about this kind of stuff. But I can't afford a therapist and sometimes it's easier to write things out in plain English.

It's the first time in my life where I don't have any direction.

Being a Boomlette

Popular culture has a rough time coming up with a cohesive name for the current young adult generation. Gen Y and Millinikids never really stuck, so I'm hoping "Boomlette" aka Baby Boomer spawn will catch on. I can't really take credit for this term: my dad came up with it.

We were the first generation to fully take advantage of the internet and for most of us, it's become the primary way of communicating. We pioneered email, IMing, blogs and facebook.

Our movies, music, and television reach us by Netflix, iPods, and DVRs (and for many of us, just the internet.)

Our hovercraft parents escorted us to sports practices, music lessons and host of other activities to get us into 4 year colleges and the majority of us receive our diplomas right in the heat of the worst. recession. ever. Which means many of us overachievers can't find jobs (myself included).

The Baby Boomers were all about idealism and peace and love, all while fighting the system. Generation X was about how greed is a good thing and that a whole lotta cutthroat work ethic would get you the summer house, fancy car and the latest iphone, all by the time you were 30.

So where are we now? What about the Boomlettes (Baby Boomer offspring)? We were raised with the work ethic of Xers and hovercraft Boomer parents who wanted us to thrive and suddenly our economy went, pun intended, boom and I don't know about the rest of you, but now I have NO IDEA what we're supposed to accomplish, since many of us can barely break through the front door.

Now I've been a person who's just simply wanted to be a pursuer of the arts. Sing some opera, write a memoir, play piano, learn a language or two, cook the perfect gourmet dinner. I would have made a swell Victorian noble, or bohemian, depending on which side of the economic pendulum I landed on. I have always lived under the mantra that one should always be learning. I am pretty sure that if had I the time and one of JK Rowling's little time-traveler hourglass necklaces, I would have 5 bachelor's degrees (but the performing arts one is the one I wanted the mostess, so I went with that.) I think that's why my time studying abroad in Florence was so happy. An entire school devoted to teaching those language, music, cooking and art! Oh it was like a haven for me! With an unlimited bank account, I could have lived there FOREVER.


It should be noted that I studied in Florence in Fall of 2008. I was living in a dreamland of opera and art history, while the US was going through the worst recession in recent history. When I left, gas was 2.79 in central NC and the election was starting to pick up on all cylinders. When I returned, we had a new president and gas was 1.45 and everyone's life seemed to be shattered in someway. And I'm starting to think that, despite current economic circumstances, I should still live my life by pursuing knowledge and the arts.


But we all have to find a way to eat and pay bills. I think we're supposed to combine the two philosophies of Boomers and Xers. Do what we love, not what we're "supposed" to do to be "successful" and find a way to live off it. That's all I really want.



Oh and in case you're wondering...If I had five majors...they would be the following:


Theatre (check)


Vocal Performance


Media Communications


Italian Language

Psychology


Apparently you can make money with ads on your blogs. And considering I am without income as of this week, this is appealing. I'm not telling you to click those ads. But thanks for visiting. :)

When I walk down the street...

Being born 6 weeks early, I've always assumed that in a parallel universe, I was destined for other things. I'm pretty sure I would make a stellar Victorian bohemian, just moping around in some European city with a big hat citing pompous lines about impressionism and Oscar Wilde and imperialism while wearing a rather large chapeau. I should be wearing a big hat. It balances out the hips, creating a desirable silouette. The black church ladies get this. I would be singing in the streets (I really don't know what's stopping me from doing that...it's Carrboro, after all.) And hopefully finding a promising suitor who could also be a benefactor.

But then there wouldn't be blogs and I wouldn't have L & O: SVU as background noise on at 2am while I lie awake thinking how I'm going to pay this months rent. Which I suppose doesn't make me all that different from the 19th century Paris riffraff. And Braden, while not much of a benefactor (he did buy me a new vacuum cleaner though, so who's to say...) is a very fine fiance.

I will, if the stars align, be working again soon...! I had an interview today for an acting and muscial theatre teacher at a dance school in Durham. I would be teaching middle schoolers theatre games and scene study and coaching high schoolers on their monologues and song selections. WHICH is EXACTLY what I WANT to do. So that's exciting. The bad news is it's only once a week but the good news is it's the teaching job I want, and is definitely solid padding for the resume and grad school.

Here's the funny thing. I ended up pimping some references I know in the area who will remain unnamed here (other recent theatre graduates in the area with better jobs than I). So I basically almost got someone else hired for the job during my interview. But I have two weeks to come up with a curriculum and prove I'm not a crazy person. Time to pull out the ole' rolodex of teacher friends

In the meantime, still looking for full time day job that doesn't require a car. Mostly I just stay at home and clean like the good house-fiancee I am, and sing repertoire and play piano. Today I was inspired by Rodgers and Hammerstein and started singing Mister Snow from Carousel. And started crying at the part where she talks about getting married and how happy she is. I have a history of crying during singing but this one is little different. After reading the lyrics, I feel a very deep connection to this song that I didn't know I had. I'm pretty sure there's a study between emotions and hitting certain notes which means you're more likely to choke up while singing. It happens to me fairly frequently. I'll start singing and I'll get to a point in the song and start crying and lose the connection. Not because it sounds bad but because it suddenly becomes rooted in me. And singing is a vulnerable activity.

But Mister Snow really does emulate my love for Braden: down to earth, honest, traditional and real.

Vampire Virgins - my first foray into the Twilight films

I love my pop culture phenoms. I attended the last two Harry Potter midnight book releases. I dressed up for the Sex and the City finale and movie. But over the course of the last years, Twilight has completely passed me by. 

First and foremost, I don't understand the appeal of vampires. There's nothing sexy to me about falling in love with someone who has the capacity to kill you during your makeout sessions, as well as bring you into the clan of the undead. I never watched Buffy and found myself staring into space when my 6th grade French class swooned over Angel. And while "Hung" and "Mad Men" are always on my DVR, I've passed over "True Blood" (probably the only acclaimed cable drama I haven't given a chance.)

So the best chance of me watching the Twilight movies would be on a hungover Sunday afternoon sometime in the future, too lazy to change the channel. But I saw the Big 3 (Rob, Kristin, & Taylor aka "whats-his-abs") on Oprah a few days ago. Robert Pattinson showed off his dry British humor and Taylor Lautner won me over with his winning smile (also: ABS). The tiniest piece of me was intrigued...could I get on the Twi-hard train?

More proof that I was destined to watch these movies: my fiance had entertained renting them on Netflix too. Thank goodness for the internet. Instant gratification for our vampire curiousity! The titular Twilight starts out like many teen films; protagonist moves to new town and struggles to fit in. Bella is morose and moody and longing for...something. On her first day at school, she's POPULAR and all the kids want to get to know her and be her friend. Hold the phone, when does that happen in real life? The last time I checked, teenagers who sulk and pout are not the center of attention in the cafeteria. I should know. I was an awkward drama kid, and yes, I did become prom queen...er, sigh, moving on. Maybe someone should make a movie of my life?

Okay, so this is pretty much the first third of the movie. Edward looks at Bella longingly and lustfully, with a little bit of distain thrown in. She, like all young girls, continue to go after the guy that keeps pushing them away. We all want the one who makes us feel bad, don't we ladies? Their exchanges go something like this "I want you." "You can't have me." "I must have you." "No, I'm going to stare dreamily at you until you go away." It also must be noted that all their exchanges stay at the same low intensity level. I kept waiting for someone to raise their voice or pitch as they reacted to each other. Like regular conversation. The more you interact the more intense it gets...not in Twilight, folks. They pretty much read the lines as if they're reading a script cold for the first time. Flatlined conversation. Part of the problem is Rob's American accent. It's as if he's trying SOHARD to get our flat vowels correct that he's completely thrown emotion out the window. My acting professor from college would be so displeased.

So at this point in the movie, I really don't get it. This turns the teenage girls on? A pale faced pretty boy with no personality? For that matter, are 2010 teenage girls like Bella - outwardly morose and wanting to escape high school and present life by turning into a vampire? Maybe it's a sign of the times. The recession is still in full force, gas prices are high and a lot of us still don't have health insurance. Remember our late 90s teen movies (She's All That and 10 Things I Hate About You come to mind) - they were so optimistic about how awesome our lives were going to be, but in the meantime let's find the mate of our dreams and get laid. Now, those teenagers had FUN. Not in the Twi-era. Moody alternative music underscores our desire for a fantasyland and a mate that really is a fantasy creation.

After he tells her his secret "HEY BABE I'M A VAMPIRE AND I WANT TO BITE YOU SO HARD," the movie picks up its pace a little bit. We meet his vampire family (hey it's Dr. Coop from "Nurse Jackie"! Nice ascot.) We get some vampy battle scenes, he saves her life and in the end, Edward and Bella go to the prom. So the message I'm getting: we're all damsels in distress who want to be saved, and that savoir better escort us to the big dance.

So Braden and I made fun of it throughout the whole movie. But we never wanted to turn it off and as soon as it was over I asked him, "Wanna get the next one?" He immediately responded. "Yes, let's watch it right now." So despite the fact that it's sappy and wooden, there's no denying that there's something inexplictably enthralling about those vampires.

I'll spare you my review of New Moon, but let's just say the drama knob goes to 11. There's no condensing Bella's depression. We get montages accompianed by gloomy alternative bands. We get 360 degree angles of her crying in her bedroom. Edward Cullen has left the building and this allows Taylor Lautner to take center stage with an engaging performance (also: werewolf abs).

Jacob as a character is wittier, manlier and much more charismatic. Even though he's doomed with the same drippy romantic dialogue, his delivery is more convincing than his vampire counterpart. Braden is on board with Team Jacob immediately. "I don't understand why Bella doesn't go for Jacob. He has a personality and is more practical." Not surprising that my DIY fiance would relate to the motorcycle fixing werewolf. Bella spends most of the movie with Jacob and he begins to fall for her, despite the fact that she still pines for Edward. "Stop toying with his emotions, Bella!" the fiance proclaims. Edward returns at some point (I don't remember why) and the vampire-werewolf smackdown begins. The brooding pretty boy vs. the charismatic everyman. And they both want the girl! They both want to save her. It's a crisis every girl dreams of. Right? But in the end, Bella wants the one that can make her immortal so they can be together. 4ever. So Edward ends the film by proposing to her. Now that's an eternity promise, kids!

After watching the two films, I still don't have vampire lust. Which makes sense considered I'm engaged to a Jacob: practical, handy and endearingly romantic. As for the werewolf abs, well, we're working towards it.

Shame on me. PAZZO!

I know I have not written in long time...longer than I can remember. There is a big part of me that doesn't like writing about my failures. I've recently discovered that I suffer many symptoms of Avoidance Disorder. Which is a hypersensitivity to criticism and rejection, self-imposed social isolation and extreme social anxiety in groups (yet a strong desire for close relationships). That's pretty much me all over. I was reading about it in Braden's textbook today. I keep looking for clues about eye contact and self-confidence and I think I am coming closer to figuring out the puzzle.

In any case, I think I may have been avoiding this blog for those reasons. Shame for becoming a sellout? Shame for not being as successful in my singing and acting as my peers?

It's not like I haven't been doing shows. I did Dearly Departed and South Pacific in April and May...pretty much 10 weeks straight. And then every thing just stopped. I have been auditioning here and there. And I had some good auditions...but nothing really happened. But really my heart hasn't been in it recently. There has been so much going on.

My field representative job takes up about 90% of my energy and I just can't devote the time to preparing auditions like I used to. But I still take voice lessons. I had a recital at the end of May. I got the final slot. It was an honor. Right now I'm still preparing audition pieces. It's exciting - Rebecca, my voice teacher is excited for me! I'm excited for me. I'm about to embark on a wonderful life adventure and I'm not doing it alone...

...Braden and I got engaged. It was very romantic. He proposed at dusk on Cumberland Island after we had gone for a swim after a 6 mile hike. And then wild horses came out to greet us. A good omen, I presume. And we have a wedding venue and a date MAY 21st 2011! We are getting married at the historical Horace Williams house in Chapel Hill. It just fits considering we are Chapel Hill natives and we love this town. Our color scheme is red and black. Actually wedding planning has become a lot more fun now that we have some concrete details set in stone.

So I'm going to be a wife. And it's to a man I love who keeps me sane and makes me smile and every day I adore coming home to him. He wants a family and a house and wife and I want to be that for him.