Forbidden, For Biden: ForBiden - a parody cologne commercial roasting Joe Biden

For my sketch team last month I had the idea to write a parody cologne commercial roasting Vice President Joe Biden. His status as an entrenched Washington bureaucrat and his inability to see that his well documented creepery made him a prime target. Anyway, it was really fun to write something and cut together this ad in the style of a Martin Scorsese cologne short film/advertisement. Enjoy :)

I am an endless well of love. I really am, and I don't want to be any other way.

In my whole life, the only thing I've ever been certain I wanted, but didn't know it was certain I could have, is encapsulated by this TS Eliot poem:

It’s called, “A Dedication to My Wife,”

To whom I owe the leaping delight
That quickens my senses in our wakingtime
And the rhythm that governs the repose of our sleepingtime,
the breathing in unison.

Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Who think the same thoughts without need of speech,
And babble the same speech without need of meaning...

No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The roses in the rose-garden which is ours and ours only

But this dedication is for others to read:
These are private words addressed to you in public.

I read this piece in The Cut -- and among other things, it solidified more deeply my belief that I am in fact courageous for loving deeply. I am vulnerable enough to say "I love you" first. I am honest enough to admit to myself and to others that I have hurt them, and I am so sorry.

As someone who consistently feels like I have to justify my presence, I want to keep being someone that looks at others and lets them know that they deserve to be there. I want to treat myself with the same love and care I have for others. And I deserve that same care back. I might not always get it, but I know I deserve it.

I can be empathetic, compassionate and loving, and still know my worth when someone makes me feel like I am less than worthy. I can understand that they didn't mean to. I can know that whatever is or was perhaps had nothing to do with me at all, but know it affected me, and it hurt me. And I can even know that I don't have to be OK with that to move past it. I can forgive them, and I can love myself and them more still.

This quote from Rumi echoes these feelings too.

I've said this aloud before, but sometimes it helps me to write it so I can remember this moment later -- I am an endless well of love. I really am, and I don't want to be any other way.

It might seem like too much, and I might be too much, but we all deserve to be deeply loved; I deserve to be deeply loved. Any other way is selling ourselves short because the truth is everything you want... you can have it.

xx

I would sure like to feel different.

I've always been a sucker for Death Cab for Cutie. I know. Such a 2000s band name, but laying that aside for a moment, they've got this one lyric. It gets in my head fairly often, and to me that means it's a solid line:

"So this is the new year.
And I don't feel any different."

What a poignant observation. Time is a construct. We are a construct. The concept of the individual is a construct. Nothing matters unless we give it meaning. What in the actual fuck is going on and why? Anyone who claims to know has just put forth hope in an idea. That doesn't mean anything necessarily. It has the meaning one has given it.

I've always found religion one of the most frustrating aspects of living. It's amazing to me that people can so fully "believe" in something. And then someone else can so fully "believe" in something else. And one belief system can negate the other's. How amazing and insane and confusing and, fuck.

2018 was a strange year. I jumped in with a sort of laissez- faire-fuck-you attitude, ambivalent, excited, tired, and waiting for the shoe to drop, while just trying to do what I wanted to do. For so long so many of us are told it's wrong to have wants, to do what we want to do. Why the hell is that such a bad thing? Why shouldn't we do the thing we want to do? Do the thing that will make us happy? If we're all following our bliss, and perhaps not following the blind construct some other person told us we wanted, then won't we be the happier? I guess murderers want to murder, and that's tough if you don't want to be murdered. But, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about going for the career you want (save for murderer as career path), having or not having a family, going on the trip, spending frivolously if you've got it. Why must we always save for the rainy day? Some people save their whole lives waiting for the bottom to drop out, so they could say, oh, good! I'm glad I never did anything so I can try to beat cancer with all this money I've saved, never you mind that the cancer was caused by XYZ factor that maybe could have been avoided if you'd just have LIVED a little.

I'm ranting here. I'm tired. But, mostly I'm tired of being confused about what it is I want out of life. I'm tired of watching people make decisions and be happy about those decisions, while I dabble in the here and there, never certain of any choice I've ever made. I'm tired that the thing I was told would make me happy, isn't actually the thing I want, and I've wasted so much energy chasing after bullshit. Energy I could have spent figuring out my shit earlier.

I have a fear of wasting time, and it seems all I have done my whole life is waste time. Granted it, I wouldn't be "me" if I hadn't do all of this, but still, who's to say "me" now is a better version than "me" as the ideal version of myself. Sometimes it gives me comfort to think of alternate universe me's, and knowing maybe there's a version of myself out there that is the best version of me. I don't want to rag on myself too much, because in general I like myself, my life, what I'm up to, etc. But, when I really let myself think about it, the anxiety and stress of living eats me up.

So it's 2019. This is the new year, and I guess I don't feel any different. I would sure like to though.

Autonomy and the Oops!, Gritty Details

This year I think I turned into myself. Really, it's who I always was, but I didn't have the confidence to carry her around. Through the grapevine that is my family's way of communicating, I learned that they think I have dum dum dum! CHANGED! It was weird to hear this, like a far-off thought that was slung my way from behind a barrier, meant to define me, categorize me, hurt me... I honestly don't care.

I went through a lot this past year. Sparing you the gritty details, I was essentially tossed to the wayside without explanation after three years of building what I thought was a castle with someone, but was actually a sandcastle. It's what I imagine great cinematographers feel like they can do when filming a miniature set, tricking audiences into thinking it's the real thing. Behind the scenes, we see if they'd just zoomed-out that it's not real. It's make believe. It was marvelous, but in the end, it's not feasible. You can't live in a sandcastle. So he crushed it, packed both our bags without telling me, and told me to go home.

My therapist loves my metaphors. What I'm saying is, I was dumped, and dumped hard. We had celebrated our three-year anniversary days before, him taking care to call the restaurant and tell them we were celebrating this occasion, them giving us two glasses of champagne and dessert. The actions of a man in love, I thought, and all romantic comedies would lead one to believe. Thanks to an overly shall we say "helpful" aunt, I had read He's Just Not That Into  and The Rules and even Not Your Mothers Rules. If I wanted the things that conventional society says I want, then I knew what to look for and, more importantly, what to avoid. (Note part of my growth is realizing, um, I don't want what conventional society says I do... that's why I moved to Los Angeles to become a star. Cue the music!) Anyway, we had had a hard couple of days, but the ship was righting itself until I walked into his apartment, swinging by just to pick up some paint cans I'd left in his garage. I opened the door and before I could say, "Hello," before I could register sadness, toil, trouble in, well — it wasn't paradise, but aren't all relationships this way?— I heard the words, "I need to break up with you."

You know that feeling when your heart is beating fast, and you're wondering: is my blood outside my veins? Are my veins outside my body? Should I grab a pen, because this is too good to make up, and eventually I'll want to write about the person who made trust seem like a luxury I'd never known I had until it was gone? That feeling? That feeling where you're wondering, how did I let this happen? How did I not cut and run before he did? Aren't I worth something? Aren't I worth more than this? Is every self-help book lying to me about my inherent, undeniable value? Aren't I worth more than this moment suggests?

In the first few months after I'd wonder nightly if I had just not gone over that day, would we have worked it out? I'm glad we didn't. And this isn't all to say that every person who rids themselves of another person is pure trash, because that isn't true. I actually wish him nothing but the best. But, in sharing this I get to own a little bit more of my life. We are a combination of what happens to us, whether it's our own doing or the doing of others.

So, I guess I didn't spare you all the gritty details. There's a lot more to this — obviously more family, learning about boundaries and how I'm allowed to have them (What?! Who knew!? I did not. Irish Catholics don't love autonomy), and a bottomless pit of anxiety quantified by a black sphere holding space behind ribs for too long. That probably hurt the most. The metaphysical ambiguity was startling and, frankly, pretentious.

I started this with the intention of showing how I turned into myself, and this was a big thing that catapulted that growth. I'm grateful for it. I wish it didn't have to happen the way it happened, but it did. I've turned into myself in the way that only traumatic experiences can show you who you are. Spending time and money on self-care is worth it. These days I look at it like its making up for all the years where I didn't even think I was worth caring for. I didn't know I felt that way until I saw what I was and didn't recognize her. This year has been one of authenticity, speaking up, and setting boundaries to help me maintain my autonomy, then tripping, falling and getting back up again to do it over and over and over.

Anyway, one day we'll be dead. :)

I'm Out. Drops the Mic. & a Critique Involving How Life is Improv (whaaaaat? I am so original)

**I found this in my drafts just now, and I can't believe I never posted it. Feel free to read it, and then read my thoughts on it at the end.**

"And, that's my time. Thanks, guys. You've been a great audience. Sincerely."

I twisted the microphone back into it's holder. The audience still clapping. It was a lazy clap though, like they felt they had to do it. I've been in those audiences, been the person who just did not want to keep being there.

This has been my fear for so long, I don't even know how to quantify it. I mean, I suppose I could say for the last 27 years. Or, I could say for the past 7, or I could say, for as long as I knew what stand up was — imagining all the while that talking is difficult. Talking in front of strangers is difficult. Talking. Difficult. Frozen.

BUT. That's not how it is at all. Man, if only I knew. There was one time about two years ago now where I was at a birthday for a friend, well, the birthday of a friend's boyfriend and we were all comedy people, doing improv in Chicago for the last four years, whataever, some standups, some writers, some actors, all jokesters. Anyway, there was a microphone you could use to roast the birthday boy.

I've always been a rather funny person, I guess. I make people laugh in conversation and tend to be opinionated about things that have no bearing on anything. I hold fast to my ideals even if it means that I stick with the wrong thing because I thought it was something else and then I realized I was wrong but don't want to admit it.

Basically. I am a one woman show wherever I go.

Stand up just makes it such that no one can interrupt me when I'm going on my verbal expeditions. Taking a crowd of people with me on my journey from learning how to play a guitar, numb fingers and all to why firemen have the easiest job on the planet.

If people do interrupt me, there's a special name for them (heckler) and they get thrown out! If only this happened in my real life when people are being real dicks.


**It would be nice if people would stop interrupting my verbal expeditions. What a great phrase, Bridge. But in all seriousness -- I think why I didn't publish this is perhaps I had the fear that I then would be accountable to becoming a standup, and not just a standup, but a good standup, a female standup, always held to a different higher standard, because god forbid, we have a female Dane Cook.

I chalk it up to this feeling: if I missed a mic I couldn't call myself a standup anymore. Some arbitrary rule I made myself follow. Throughout my life, and I'm sure most of us do this, I've had nearly one-billion irrational fears. Because I grew up competitive, and have a brother who one could say was a natural athlete, it escaped me that practice was necessary for most everyone. And the truth was, my brother was given a ball when he was a baby, so he'd actually been practicing his whole life, so scratch that, practice as necessary for everyone. My brother just never lost interest in his thing. And, what happens to most of us, I'm learning, is we lose interest in that first thing. It happens in improv all the time. You could say most people's lives are rather rough improv shows, that we trudge through hoping somehow it will all tie together, everything will make sense in the end because we remembered our suggestion.

We remembered, "Ball," and we can trick ourselves into thinking we were going to get back there all the time. That there is some invisible hand guiding us home, and maybe there is. I like to think so.

My goal at the present moment is to not just cut myself some slack with my purpose in being alive, but to remind myself I'm just making all of this up as I go along. I've never done this before. I've never done today before. Have you? How can I possibly know what I don't know? And when I strike gold, when I have those little victories that makeup a life, when I remember something I did learn, and I then put it into practice, that's a gift, it's not the rule.

We're just doing a bad improv show most of the time, and it's fine. We just made it up. Just do as much as you can with what you have, and it's pretty tough to regret those choices. It's sort of nice to think of life this way.

That said, I don't do standup, but I should again because it was fun, and man, some of my Twitter jokes get a lot of favs. I see you, favs. Thanks!**

c.s. lewis, wordsmith

been reading a lot as of late. re-reading one of my dearest books: a severe mercy. reminded me of my once passionate love of all things c.s. lewis. so, in reading some of his work, and came across this beautiful quote:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

it sparked in me real joy. and real frustration. because real vulnerability is not something that comes easily, to me or anyone else. but vulnerability begets vulnerability. like all things worthy in life, it's a chicken versus the egg scenario. a catch 22.

and just like my chosen career path as an actor, writer, creative -- there is a catch 22.
and just like with all relationships -- there is a catch 22.

tired bones

My feet hurt, do yours?

We danced for a long, long time

But we love to dance

Full Episode HERE

"This is an American problem. Everyone is involved...You can't fix something until you admit that it's broken."

I can't say anything that hasn't already been said, but I can agree.

Our government is corroded from the inside out. Everything is affected by everything else. We can't have actual change until everything is addressed. We have a problem with the people who are charged to serve and protect; we have a problem with communities (both those who are physically more affected and those who turn a blind eye); we have a problem with family dynamics; we have a problem with schools/education; we have a problem with drugs, violence, rape violence, and guns. 

It's a problem that as a whole, we are a country so broken that pulling the trigger equates to just a regular walk in the park. It's cops killing citizens — it's citizens killing other citizens — it's politicians killing citizens. We have a problem with respecting life. 

So, I agree.

raison d'être.

College feels like a million miles away. It feels so far that it nearly feels like it didn't happen, or barely happened. I don't remember it. I didn't drink heavily. I didn't party hard. Sometimes I'm shocked by the amount of "doing" that I just didn't. I went to class; I auditioned for one play (and got so embarrassed by forgetting my monologue that I dropped out of the theater school entirely); I wrote for the Daily Iowan; I hosted a weekly radio show for three years on KRUI 89.7. I  called it "The Early Morning Airstrike."

Higher education — it's supposed to be this time of self-discovery, learning, adventure, finding out what you're good at, trying things — but I don't really think I did those overarching things. I was busy doing this and then that, creating friendships that when looked at closely these days aren't all that close (at least not anymore). Both of my college roommates ended up in Los Angeles post graduation, yet we seldom get together. It's no ones specific fault. We just lead different lives, have different interests, different priorities. We're different, after all. When I really think about it, it's unbelievable that we've made it this far because we are so different.

This time last year, I was just ending a sub-chapter back in a University setting. I was behind a desk, working in an office, watching students linger outside classrooms, skateboard past signs that say "No Skateboarding," and wear business suits as an assignment — And now a full year after that, I'm left wondering, where did it all go? Even if you're in the same decade, it's unbelievable how different a 20-year-old is from a 29-year-old. The incremental change each day of those 365 days from 29 to 30 hits you the day before your birthday. It isn't incremental at all. And now that keep hitting these painful numbers, it feels like I've somehow moved further away from something rather than toward something else. I don't think I'll ever feel my age again. Maybe when I'm 80. By then my hips, knees and eyes won't let me skip past the truth like they do now.

I'm not old. I'm not. I'm really not. But, I feel old. I feel left behind. I have this overwhelming sense that my life is passing me by. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Like I didn't just waste a couple decades. It seems that for most people their job is where they find their satisfaction, their reason to be, "raison d'être." And as a performer, it's tough to know that my career is somewhat in the hands of others. Yes, I can create my work — I can write for myself — I can join teams and perform shows, and so on, and on, and on; I can do all of these things, and that is amazing. But what does it matter if no one sees it. If no one thinks it's good enough to pay for. Where is my worth? I have so much control, but what is control anyway?

Google defines it as "the power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events." But this is only a half definition to me. Control can direct, sure, but when you're out of control there is also a direction, and it's not always down. The relationship between control and success is a lie.

I have so much less "control" than I think. I can do what I can to direct the course of my life, but life will do what it wants, and other people in their lives are doing the same, and my life will intersect with theirs, and there will be "right time and right place," and then the less popular, but more common, "wrong time and wrong place," followed by the confusing, "wrong time and right place," and then of course, the ever frustrating "right time and wrong place." If we're looking at life as a Punnett Square based on life situations: Time and Place as the main variables — "right time and right place" accounts for just 25 percent of what life hands you, the rest, darlings, is unfortunately 75 percent the mismatching of everything else. We cannot control time. So inevitably control is for nothing.

If I want to make any money at my creative craft, that alleged control I love to have so much, goes to the birds. Others write my paycheck. It's incredibly tough.

Where does that leave me?

It leaves time as the constant variable that won't allow itself to be controlled.

Willows

I like them when they fall down
like weeping willows
They’re crisp and together at the same time
as being
wispy, faint, there and then gone

Crackle down the barrel
of a gun
But not a gun gun.
A finger lost
A holiday to remember

I like them when they fall down
like bodies
like Tina Turner’s 80s hair
like everything and then nothing.

Happy Birthday America
You did it.

That Moment When...

This post is in response/coordinates with moments ago when I made a joke Tweet that started with the familiarly annoying "When you..." which is like those garbage sentences that read, "That moment when..." It's the start to a Tweet in which I read it and then just want to punch a person (Read: My mirror if it didn't cut my fingers up. They are delicate so that would be bad, so I don't and never have.)

Anyway, the Internet, gees.

summer violence.

when the sheets
crumble
beneath your sweating body
damp

ugh—
how gross is that word?

but that's all it—

you're cut off—

it's just a bit of moisture

sick, i said stop.

what?
...moisture?
moisture. moisture. moisture.

pushed to the ground
crumble
why don't you just buy a fan
you dumb motherfucker?

joy

It's been a long time since I've written something that wasn't an email. That wasn't a poorly scrawled note to my friends in distant lands. That wasn't a note typed into my phone to be forgotten about until I'm scrambling for poorly thought-out stand-up material in the back of a show that has already started. Sometimes, I am a true mess.

At the moment it feels as though it's a-million-degree LA day, so it's as good a time as any to chronicle some things. I'm in my bedroom in my second apartment since moving to Los Angeles nearly two years ago. I'm happy to say I've finally gotten around to purchasing a rod iron bed frame, and a beautiful one it is, at that. I have an accent wall that is painted "Olde Amethyst." My sheets are light turquoise. My pillows are beige, yellow and gold. My comforter is white. I am classy, I tell you. My roommate Kristina once remarked to me that my bedroom looked as if it were out of a page of Anthropologie. To say I was anything less than jazzed is to lie. I was and am pretty jazzed.

Lately I've been jazzed about a lot of things — on Sunday I got home from an extended trip to the East coast, where I celebrated my friend Kerstin's Bachelorette in Boston, where I went to Maine to visit family, as well as tour the Vertex Pharmaceutical Facilities, where I met my boyfriend John's family and friends by way of a wedding in Pittsburgh. These were all fun, interesting and joyful privileges.

So, in closing this frankly very lackluster post, I would like to write 5 things I love and am thankful for:

1. I love that I have an artistic eye for colors, how things go together, and that I can afford to make things look nice.
2. I love that I have friends who are willing to pick me up from and drop me off at the airport.
3. I love that an icepack on the back of my neck actually does cool me down enough to focus when it's hot out.
4. I love that I have three roommates who always want to chat even when they say they can't.
5. I love that I have family members that care about each other and me deeply.

Life is Long.

I hurt easy, I just don't show it

You can hurt someone and not even know it

The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity

-bob dylan, "things have changed"

Life is long. It is so long. I get it, "if you don't stop and look around once and a while, you'll miss it." Whatever, Ferris. I challenge you to think this instead — "if you don't look around and reflect and think about the future, you'll live your life without feeling the pressure of how daunting it is." 

Life is long. It is so long. I often forget about just how fucking long it is. There are full days I have no recollection of, there are full years I am told I lived. There are moments that last forever, days that won't end and feelings that never fade. Life is so long. It is so long.

It's so long that it stresses me out. Simply continuing to exist is this huge burden sometimes. It's a huge burden because there are so many instances to fuck it up. Every moment is a moment you can wreck everything you've worked for. Split seconds, that's what we get to make decisions that effect this whole long life. This incredibly long life.

You can fuck up your body, you can fuck up your mind, you can ruin someone else's life, you can taint the world with your very existence. There are so many opportunities to wreck everything, and it just seems like the bad far outweighs the good sometimes.

And, it's not fair. It's not fair how easy it is to destroy everything.

Even something as simple as weight gain or loss. Someone eats a hamburger, slurps a milkshake, they skip a work out, take the bus instead of ride a bike — our bodies suffer the consequences. Then someone eats a salad, drinks a glass of water, hits the gym, and rides a bike on their way there — our bodies are better for it, but you have to do that 10-1. What unfair odds.

I think of Adam Sandler in one of my favorite films, Big Daddy, as he chats with his new 5-year-old friend about eating. He makes the insanely accurate, and thus hilarious comment, "I drink a milkshake and my ass jiggles for like a week."

This life is so long, and lopsided. People remember the bad things said about them, they gloss over the good. You do it. I do it. Let's call an apple an apple.

Why do we do this? Life is too long to do this. Whether your life is 10 years or 100 years, every moment counts, so stop doing this. I'm in my twenties, and sometimes I feel as if I have been here forever. And it's this weight of knowing that even my own body will fail me, even my own mind will leave me, everything I have isn't mine — and that makes life feel so long.

dear you, my friend, my confidante, my pen-pals.

I have a lot of pen-pals. You know? Pen pals — those people who your third grade teacher somehow arranged for you to write to so that you, the youth of America, could get to know the intricate lives of other kids in other towns. So you could spread your mind. Expand your universe. Realize you're not so alone. Those. Those are the pen-pals, I speak of.

As I've continued on this seemingly endless journey, I've managed to keep a running list of friends who have become better friends as a result of letter writing, far beyond the bounds of that elementary tradition. As I continue to move and change and grow and live, people drop off and pick up — and it's fun. Sometimes I forget who I wrote to and what I wrote them until I get a letter back...like a little treat. I keep them all, the letters/cards/notes. I put them in a shoebox and every now and again, I pull them out, remember the moments that went into them. I reread over and over. They're reflections of the lives we were leading in that moment, however far apart, however close together.

I think there's something truly exciting about writing someone a letter. The reality that there is only one copy, that once the envelope is open and its contents delivered, that sensational anticipation withers until the next go-around. The struggle of a hand cramping, a tear smudging, the USPS seemingly dousing the whole thing in a bunch of dirt...

Sometimes I write long notes, sometimes short, but I sort of like not knowing exactly what I wrote once it's stamped, sealed and sent.

It's so easy to write and rewrite and go back and clarify things on a computer, that sometimes I wonder if it even matters — my life edited is not my life. There's something to be said about the intention that goes into writing a letter, hoping to remember exactly what I told someone, remembering the questions I asked, the thoughts swirling in my mind at the time.

With computers and email and texting and comment threads and message boards and all these different ways to "drop a quick note," I revel in the one-on-one correspondence of it all. I revel in having only their responses to go off of, like a Best Friend necklace, we each have our sides, even if we're not best friends.

A few weeks ago a friend sent me a letter that detailed his life.

We've known one another for years now, peripherally, but letter writing has since made it more apparent how similar our overall experiences and thoughts are, while also showing how incredibly different our day-to-day lives actually are. We started at the same University at the same time, wrote for the same college paper, and though we didn't know each other well — well enough to say, "Hi," to befriend one another on social media, to feel comfortable "liking" a photo on Facebook, or thoughtfully responding to a status update — we've struck up a friendship born from our mutual desire to share.

Putting our minds, our worries, our thoughts of the moment, to page in specific correspondence with one another — I don't know — it feels more real than some of my daily relationships.

At the moment I have three regular pen-pals, and a harbor stocked with friends I write regular emails to, and even more who read this blog (the ultimate one-way pen-pal situation, so I guess just pen?).

Sometimes depending on the pen-pal, it feels as if I'm reading the book of their life, and they're reading mine, like a memoir unedited, unabridged and unending. It's a delight, and I hope it doesn't ever stop. As friends come and go from my life, as in-person relationships fade with distance and time, I'm glad that however arcane it might be to grab a ballpoint and a college-ruled piece of paper, I have people who's addresses I can send to knowing they're excited to hear from me.

Write more, everyone.

hate mail / hate male: i did it for the jokes.

At the start of my collegiate writing career I experienced one of my then most exciting comedy breakthroughs — an opportunity to write The Ledge, a weekly joke column for my school newspaper, The Daily Iowan. Being offered this chance to deliver to the masses a social comedic commentary that would truly influence lives (!!!) was like being offered Saturday Night Live directly by Lorne Michaels himself. It was something I never imagined I would get to do, but there I was, doing it —as a sophomore, no less. (I would like the record to reflect that I am now able to see that my sights were not set high enough.)

The previous week Michael Moller, a DI colleague of mine, wrote a Ledge titled, "Sexual Things Women Don't know About Men." It was funny, if generic, and having grown up with four brothers, I got the jokes. What I didn't get at the time was that for many college boys, that bulleted list wasn't a joke like I saw it — a list highlighting the "funny" things that used to be true, things that are so ridiculous that they're clearly a joke. No, Michael's list for many guys (at least at the University of Iowa, and continues to prove elsewhere) was the Truth List, funny because it belittled their female peers.

On one end of the scale, the column read, "Every guy has measured his penis..." (laugh-worthy, sure) and on the other side of the jaw-dropping chuckle fest, "If they have an STD, they will not tell you" (a pretty blatant violation of sexual trust).

But, hey, it was a joke. I love jokes. Still do. And, I am absolutely positive all those gals with HPV have been laughing nonstop about this one.

So, I decided to write a "Come-back" column. At the time I thought I was on the cusp of some major Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus precipice, ready to discover something truly original in what I now know is a never ending conversation about gender roles that I hate. I was young. I didn't know!

I wrote my list, my hilarious, insightful, indignant and violently hyperbolic list: "Things Men Should Know About Women." I proclaimed things like, "We all are smarter than you, wherever you went to
school and whatever your GPA is." God, I was good. I played with words like Seshat would, spilling my outspoken female psyche onto giggling co-eds. "We’ve got feminine wiles. Did anyone ever hear of male wiles? No." And, they didn't, and don't.

I was a brilliant mastermind falling right into a clichéd collegiate squabble. But, hey it was a joke! I did it for the laughs! I only wish I knew that it wasn't some dumb playground back-and-forth. I wish I knew that this conversation, these sorts of "men do this, and women do that," ping-pong competitions, jokes or not, are so, so dumb.

Shortly after my list was published I received a melee of hate mail, or rather hate from males. I was harassed on Facebook. I was harassed over email. No one ever harassed me to my face because, God, there's something so...what's the word, oh, EMPOWERING, about attacking people through the thick vat that is the Internet.

I got messages from an idiot named Eric (can't remember his last name) telling me in no uncertain terms that due to my lack of sexual prowess he could "guarantee" that "no guy had ever bought [me] a drink in a bar." Oh, man. Stinger. Like the class-act I've always been I wrote a bunch of trite sassy responses, none of which I actually sent him, instead opting for the high road. I informed him that "I'm a person," and he had offended me. Obviously, it only made sense to thank him for reading my column. The honor to have him as reader. I was so, so blessed with his presence.

But, the most malicious response came in the form of a terribly crafted email written by a University of Iowa football player, Jovon. I only shared his email with a few people, including my boyfriend at the time, Brian, and my two roommates, both named Elizabeth.

Then that was it. I don't think I ever responded to Jovon. He hurt me more than I even knew then. I don't remember the whole email, and I've long since deleted it, hoping that with a quick hit of the button I'd never think about him calling me a "beat ass chicken head," among other things again. But, I do. It's been eight years of randomly remembering Jovon's hateful words. I remember thinking that receiving hate mail was part of what being a journalist was. I remember Brian telling me that Jovon's email was garbage. I remember him telling me he loved me, and he would definitely buy me a drink in a bar. I remember laughing about it with my friends, and I remember crying about it alone.

The Elizabeth's encouraged me to forward the emails to my editor, as did Brian. But, I thought having a brave face, ignoring this incessant gender warring faction, was the way to really prove I was an equal sex. I don't know if I was right to ignore the advice of my peers, opting to "not be a tattle-tale." But I will say now, I wish I spoke up, rather than becoming silenced. What I didn't realize then was that I wasn't just being attacked for being a jokester of a female, I was being attacked for daring to joke about gender inequality, daring to just kid around about women being superior to men, about not wanting to get into the kitchen to make a sandwich, etc. Joking. I don't believe women are superior, nor do I believe men are, but plenty of men do think they are — and even kidding that it could be the other way around was too much for some male counterparts, then and clearly still, now.

Since then I have grown as a comic, as an improviser, as an actor, as a writer. That experience long ago sticks with me, and there have been others since then, too, perhaps not as sticky in my mind, but they are there.

I've made jokes about males. I've made jokes about females. I've delivered stand-up about how people don't say what they want. I've delivered stand-up about my fears that saying what I want will make me look like a weak little girl. I try to tackle the things that matter to me, whether it's through comedy, writing or just regular conversation with friends. And still, I find myself self-censoring because sometimes I am still scared of rocking the boat, of offending, of saying something or doing something that will make someone not just write me mean things or prank call me spewing hate, but really hurt me.

There is nothing worse for a person's soul then to feel like they have to hide who they are because of the fear of what someone could do to them.

I don't want this for my fellow peers, male or female.

Another List of Yesteryear.

Things I've done since October 2013:

1. I traveled to Europe for the first time since college — this time to Ireland with my sister and mom. The three of us had never taken a trip anywhere together, and save for three blow ups* (one each), we had a pretty excellent time. 
• Colleen's was right after landing when my mom picked her up from the airport at 6am and somehow a 20 minute car ride took 3 hours. ("Fuck one way roads."-Mommy Sheila)
• Mine was post getting hammered in Dingle when my mom told me I couldn't get more hammered. I was a woman outside of herself. I've had many a terrible moment, but I think that one takes the cake as far as intent to cause pain.
• Sheila's came when Colleen and I made her ride 33 miles around the Dingle Peninsula. She claimed she couldn't do it and had allegedly not ridden a bike in eight years. Lies. Not a month ago my father made her go for a bike ride around our home town and she claimed again that she hadn't ridden a bike in eight years. What gives, Sheila?
2. I bought my first car: a brand new 2014 black Volkswagon Jetta SE. In the '50s someone my age might be in the market to buy a house or pop out a child. To that I say, this car is my house. She doubles as my baby. Some of you may pipe up, "But, B, what about that sweet ass Pontiac Grand AM you used to cruise around Chicago in?" — well, that was a family car that first belonged to my sister and then eventually bopped around between my younger brothers and me. It was not technically mine, and I am glad for that. My taste is better.
3. I said goodbye to too many of my best friends when I left Chicago. But I did it. I hopped into my new ride and drove from Chicago to Los Angeles in five days stopping at hotels and the houses of friends and family along the way. It was my first cross country road trip without my family, my first time driving further West than Iowa, and my first time doing it with a friend.
4. We drove. We stopped in Iowa City and Des Moines, cruised through Nebraska during the day time, fully experiencing flyover land. Carly almost got a ticket from an eager police officer, and I went through my first corn maze. We went to Denver for the first time. We hiked Red Rocks. We saw dinosaur fossils. We stayed in the Unsinkable Molly Brown's Hotel. We bought trashy swimsuits from H&M and PacSun. We drove up and down a mountain by accident in Boulder, Colorado. We didn't find that waterfall hike we were looking for. We drove through the desert. We took Route 66. We heard the Barenaked Ladies song "Odds Are" 100 times. We drove and hiked through Monument Valley. We drove to the Grand Canyon. We wore our trashy swimsuits in the hot tub at the Grand Canyon Inn we stayed at near the North Rim. We were hungry, and nowhere was open. No pizza delivered, and we split a smushed granola bar for dinner. We hiked. We drove on. We drove through Arizona. We listened to the Maria Bamford special three times on Comedy Central XM radio. We crossed into California blasting the Beach Boys and then that song "California," aka The OC theme song. We unloaded my car. And I moved into my first Los Angeles apartment.
5. Only two weeks later I got my first job at my first interview and worked for a talent agency for the first time — that is until I quit that job because it was terrible. I reflected on the decision to quit with happiness. Quitting that job meant knowing that if I didn't like something I could change it, so I did.
6. During that time at that awful position, my mom came and visited for her birthday. She asked, "What's LA got anyway? Some cement and one palm tree?" I went home for Thanksgiving, then my friend (and now current roommate) Julie Pearson visited, a few days later my friend Mike Kelly visited, and after that I went home for Christmas. Everyone asked me how LA was for what seemed like hours and probably was hours. I answered with "It's great"-s and "I'm so glad I did this to myself"-s. I did it because I both believed it and wanted to believe it. Through gritted teeth and a faux smile sometimes, I said many things I didn't believe at the time, but at the end of the day, I really am glad I made this choice.
7. I decided to finally take voiceover class and now I have this great demo I made with Carroll Kimble Casting. I'm shopping it around.
8. I had my first New Years in LA at a speakeasy called No Vacancy. Aziz Ansari was there, and I felt so cool. Zooey Deschanel was at the after party, and I was drunk. I stepped on her foot, said sorry, and felt less cool.
9. I took my first UCB classes; I took my first Groundlings classes; I took my first workshops; I took a solo sketch writing class. I jumped fully in with all my clothes on. And it felt like sinking sometimes. For me, it's become increasingly evident that I love taking classes, but I haven't finished any programs here because I am so tired of improv class. So, I recently signed up for a Commercial Auditioning class for working actors with Killian Murphy at the request of my agent. Also, I have an agent. Now I consider myself a working actor.
10. I've been part of three short films since moving. I've been in a handful of sketch videos. I've done a slew of improv shows and handful of sketch shows.
11. I tried stand up for the first time, and I loved it. I need to do it more because it makes me think of the world differently.
12. I made an independent improv team with friends that I knew peripherally and now consider best. We pretend that we want to write a play together, and hopefully we will some day. Our name is Windy City Gyros, so called named after that delicious gyro restaurant in Chicago on Broadway. I once dropped off Anthony Oberbeck there after a (long pause) rehearsal instead of at his house. I remember thinking that of anyone I knew, I could certainly imagine him actually living in the basement of Windy City Gyros. I hate the name of our team, but I love us. 
13. I worked as PA on the set of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" I had the best time, running around for 14 hours in a row, checking on things, getting stuff, gophering essentially. For a busy body like me, it was the best. Like camp, but you got paid. It was there I met my friend Tori who became my second LA roommate.
14. I wrote a two-person sketch show with David Blum in two (or was it three?) weeks called "Faithful: Relationships, Schmelationships" performed at the LA Comedy Festival. We had fun, and I love(d) writing with Blum.
15. My family took a trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and I got some of my favorite stand-up material out of it. For the first time in a decade we all vacationed together in the same spot. For eight people to somehow manage that was a trip in more than one way.
16. My dad came and visited Col, Kev and I, then we went to Santa Barbara. We rode bikes along the ocean path, went to the zoo, had a fancy dinner after my dad schmoozed the hostess into seating us, tasted so many different kinds of wine, and had a really lovely time. My dad watched me do stand up about him, and he laughed.
17. My friend Joe Underbakke came to visit and his itinerary showed me all the reasons why I love living here. Mike came to visit again, and we went to our first Dodgers game! I proceeded to go to three more baseball games this year, none of which were White Sox games, which was sad, but in the end just fine. (Angels with Blum, Dodgers again with my indie team, and a Rangers game when I went to Dallas to visit my brother, Sean.)
18. I went to visit my brother Sean in Dallas when he was working there on a contract job. It was the first time I ever spent more than a few hours one-on-one with Sean. We went to the Stock Yards, I sat on a bull, we got barbecue, he took me to his favorite breakfast spot: The Waffle House, we stayed at the Hilton one night, he took me to the Rangers game, picked me up and dropped me off at the airport, and we didn't fight once.
19. My friend Nancy and her daughter came to visit too, and I played hostess, showing them all the reasons I live here. My friend Carmen Christopher came, and I showed him reasons I love it here. My friend Cynthia Bangert came, and I showed her reasons she should move here. My mom and little brother Timmy came, and I unsuccessfully showed them why I love it here. 
20. I had an existential crisis for four weeks after my birthday through Independence Day. I wrote a lot. I was very unhappy, very aware of my loneliness despite surrounding myself with people, like a shell of myself. My comedy was really funny (and I don't even care if that sounds conceited), because I was really sad. It was the only thing that made me feel good.
21. It was then I wrote my first solo show: "Heart/s," which I performed in both LA and Chicago at three different theaters. So many of my friends came, so many regular audience members came, and I was so overjoyed at the outcome and their reactions. It was nothing short of heartwarmingly unreal. I'll be performing it again soon this November at Second City Hollywood, as part of a double bill with my solid friend, Rich Baker, performing his solo show, "Let's Break Up." 
22. I dated people. Now, I date one person, John, and I am so happy about that (mostly because his Pittsburgh accent provides unending opportunities for me to do spot-on impressions of him).
23. I went home to Chicago for my cousin Colleen's wedding at the end of August, and it was a much needed respite. I bought my first black tie gown for the wedding. I performed "Heart/s" at my favorite theater in Chicago, The Playground Theater. I started the show late because my dad was late, and I didn't want him to miss it. At the end he said he would have watched 15 more minutes. I smiled. I dressed up in an all gold jumpsuit and did a fun music video lip-sync to Run DMC's "Tricky" with my dear friends Emma Mullens and Jeremy Pautz. I went to Michigan to my parents cabin with one of my closest friends, Joe Underbakke, along with my mom, sister and dad. We had the sort of vacation you have when you're nine, and I was the happiest girl. I saw the new iO and the new Annoyance, and I saw how many of my friends have decided to move out of Chicago, and I saw all the ones who have decided to stay. I cleared out my childhood bedroom of everything I didn't want. I saved all of my journals, short stories, essays and plays. I found the first play I'd ever written, "It's Complicated."
24. I became part of my first iO West Harold team, Steel Shark. They are all excellent and hilarious players. It's exciting to be part of a group of people that are not just fun and talented, but are real friends. At the risk of sounding weird, I want to say this, I value them an insane amount.
25. After the success of "Heart/s" I was confident in my solo material, and so was my friend Joel Axelrod, so he booked me for the top slot of his new show at iO "Risky Business." I performed "All That Glitters," a collection of characters who all wear that gold jumpsuit from my Run DMC days. A slew of friends came. My sister Colleen and I got dinner beforehand, she watched the show, and so did John. I was nervous because, well, nerves, but it was so fun. John and I got "Good Job, Brigid" milkshakes at Mel's afterward. 
26. I joined a gym, vomited up half a bagel with cream cheese and a handful of blueberries onto one of the personal trainer's desks after pushing myself past my brink, and then somehow signed up for 7 training sessions, which have inexplicably been morphed into a recurring monthly fee. You could say I've lived to regret joining a gym. However, I've beat the system and figured out a way to get out of my (hahaha) not-so-ironclad personal training contract. I maintain I was under the influence of vomitsanity so cannot be held accountable for any of my choices. I don't know how I got home.
27. I started a new job that came in the nick of time — before the fear of being a poor starving artist became a reality, but not before I thought "Shit, I'm going to be a poor starving artist. I'm not going to be able to afford anymore shoes." I enjoy the job for now, and I'm thankful that I have one. It provides me with the chance to meet people in the industry, watch Q-and-A's with actors like Billy Bob Thornton(!), and the flexibility to go on an audition when called, plus I get to keep living in LA. Sure, I'm sitting a lot (see last blog), but it's a fair trade for now.
28. I celebrated a year of living here, and at no point did I feel like I made a bad decision in coming here. To commemorate my year, I took myself to my favorite coffee shop, Bricks and Scones, vented to my roommate about my job (I'm still a millennial artist lady, after all), and then cooked dinner and watched Tommy Boy with John.

the past/ sitting/ and the future.

You can light the fire that's in your head

Put it off, tomorrow will come instead

We don't watch the tower that tells us when

Pull the wicked flower out from its bed.

The Dodos, "Walking"

This time last year I was passing through Arizona, crossing the border into California, and eventually rolling up into Los Angeles onto Russell Avenue. A new apartment in my continued life, a new part.

One of the most generous, caring and scattered people I've ever met and loved forever, Carly Mandell, was in tow. And sweet, thoughtful, generous and gentle, Alli Arnold, was waiting with fresh homemade cookies and beers. Everything I saved from my old life was with me, ready to be part of what my parents called my "new adventure." (I originally thought that was a rather condescending sentiment, but then again, when my sister Colleen moved out here in 2008, my parents referred to Los Angeles as "Camp Hollywood" for two years.)

Three-hundred-sixty-five days isn't that many days (even if spelling it out makes it seem the opposite), and the longer I am here, the more I realize that truth. It's so funny. The first question new people ask of you tends to be, "How long have you been here?" or some derivative, and after about three months, I literally became old news; that felt so good. It feels good to be considered part of this insanely transient city where people are like migrating birds, telling themselves: "I'll give it a month," "I'll give it a year," "I'm just testing out the waters," "I'm going to see what I'm made of," etc.

But then you meet the people that are here for decades, that grew up here, that have no intention of leaving — and you're a baby to them, this one-year-old baby with chubby cheeks, a can-do attitude, and more blind faith in their talent than maybe even armed with talent. But as Steve Martin says in his book Born Standing Up, "Persistence is a great substitute for talent."

In some ways I thought moving here would change everything, but it didn't. It didn't change my drive — it encouraged it. It didn't change my energy — it grew it. It didn't change my goals — it clarified them. Making this move has made my life more pointed. I know where I want to go, and all of my choices (I hope) are evidence of that, down to the variety of jobs I've held since landing in La-La-Land.

Even now, after months of go-go-go, for the last four weeks I have spent an unusual amount of time sitting down — first in my car — then in a chair — that's in my office. So much sitting at this new job, a short term gig that will take up my days until the end of the year. It's too much sitting for me. I don't know how so many people do jobs like this for their whole lives. The only logical reason that one could do this much sitting is because it's what you have to do in order to keep living in Los Angeles because living is expensive and when you're not at this job you're trying to be a paid actor. (Run on sentence to illustrate my psychotic ability to do a million things, however frantically/poorly.)

I am so thankful that I know this won't be how I spend my life in the long run. I am so thankful that I am not content to bounce around from day-job to day-job without the hope that my persistence, talent, comedic sensibility, look, and all these things a million people have, but that I somehow illogically think will make me different — will actually make me different.

And it's fine. It's fine that this is what you have to do. People don't talk about the grind they had before they did what they want to be doing. It's the first chapter to the rest of your life. So right now, yes, it seems that most of my life is going from one sitting job to the next job I sit at, but fortunately for me, there's a smattering of film projects, sketch shows, improv performances and auditions in between. I am so thankful.

But seriously — I cannot believe how much sitting I do. (My next post will be a break down of the amount of sitting I do, if you're curious.)

So here's to being here for another year, and all the years after that.

On Writing When You're Not Sad.

It's a frustrating thing to be happy — and it seems to infect most people. There's this inkling feeling that it won't last. It's painted best in Robert Frost's poem,  "Nothing Gold Can Stay."

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

My best writing, or at least, the writing that I connect to most emotionally I write when I'm so sad. That's an interesting concept, too, that in my mind, best equals emotional. When I have too many feelings welling up inside me I can't help but emit them through writing, through performing, through singing. I cannot help myself. Perhaps it's the notion of something good must come from this pain; I have to create something beautiful, something real, something heartfelt to make this moment have more meaning than just wallowing alone in my: "I am hurt. It hurts. It will pass."

But, why, why can't the same be said when I'm happy? Why is it harder for me to express my joy creatively? Is it the distraction of how happy I am, I don't want to reflect on it for fear that it will dissipate before me? There are too many questions.

Periodically I look back on this blog so I can see who I am or was throughout the years. I have often noticed the amount of writing I did or didn't do during years of hardship and during times of happiness. I can so directly see the correlation between my writing and my relationships. At the start of 2010 I wrote a lot. Not coincidentally, my longest relationship ended. And, then the Fall of 2010 happened, my writing slowed to a trickle — I was in a new relationship. Flash to 2012, I wrote a ton again. That was a hugely difficult year full of car accidents, breakups, job transitioning — the gambit. And then again my writing picked up as I picked up and moved to LA. Spring of 2014 happened and again, a flood. It's frustrating to know how much my writing is a reflection of my emotional state. I love what I write when I am sad. I don't love being sad, though; and I don't want to manufacture emotion. I can't anyway. I've tried.

But even right now, as my life is on an upswing, I am all smiles, yet full of lackluster uninspired stories. I have people in my life I'm excited to see, and that are excited to see me. I have parents that love me, that call me unexpectedly, that fly across the country to spend time with me. I have siblings that are kind, that go out of their way. And while it's not as if we don't carry our baggage or throw one another under the bus on occasion, those moments pale in comparison to how my throat chokes up when I think of what my life would be like if they didn't love me like they do.

So, here I am, waiting for it all to fall apart so I can write a heartfelt blog post, script, poem, song, etc.

NO!

That Frost poem always left me feeling so negative. Now though, I'm attempting to grasp how, yes, things fade, but other things take their place. When a flower blooms and dies, in a few weeks or days, or whatever, time happens, and a new bloom takes its place. Life will always be up and down.

That's comforting.

But God, is it tiring to have all those feelings and be writing and emitting so much. It has to stop. There has to be respite from it. So many writers (comedians, screenwriters, novelists, etc) get their material from things they're pissed about, things that have hurt them, or how they have been wronged. It can soften the blow, or cause you to relive it. You just have to know from where it's coming and to where it's leading you. And sometimes, just sometimes it's better to look at the world without a critical eye.

It's too taxing on your soul otherwise.

somebody different

“Maybe the first time you saw her you were ten. She was standing in the sun scratching her legs. Or tracing letters in the dirt with a stick. Her hair was being pulled. Or she was pulling someone's hair. And a part of you was drawn to her, and a part of you resisted--wanting to ride off on your bicycle, kick a stone, remain uncomplicated. In the same breath you felt the strength of a man, and a self-pity that made you feel small and hurt. Part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me.”  -The History of Love, Nicole Krauss

Sometimes I remember that before I was who I am now, I was someone different.

At the end of the day, we are a sum of our parts; when I look at myself in the mirror, I see a collection of my own choices, adventures and failures. This might sound weird, but I'm sure we all do it, so whatever, I'm over it — I have many times stood in front of my mirror totally naked. I know, get over it, get over all the junior high oh-la-las, and just listen to me for a moment. I do this because I am in a way taking stock of myself, and just me. Not me in a cute J.Crew skirt, not me in a bikini, not me in a bridesmaid dress, not me in anything. Just. Me.

There's something about standing in front of the mirror and realizing that at the heart from the outside, this is all I am — a petite body, with pale skin, a nice smile, and long curly red hair.

I remember right after my bike accident, I was very concerned with the way my body looked. I didn't have scars, just tons and tons of broken blood vessels, scrapes, bruising, a herniated shin muscle and chronic pain from a broken non-displaced pelvis. Every couple of days I would get up from my bed, taking a break from the show that kept me company for weeks, Keeping Up with the Kardashians (another blog for another day), and I would get undressed to take a shower. I remember at first being so scared that I would fall, but only once did I ask someone to wait outside to make sure they didn't hear the crash of me slipping and breaking myself again. I still don't really know why asking for help is something I only ask for when absolutely necessary. But, alas, I had to shower, if only to keep up some semblance of dignity.

Before I would make the slow climb into the tub, I would stand in front of my mirror, balancing on my crutches, figuring out a way to slip off my sweatpants without falling. And, I would stare at myself, at the imperfections that had become me.

There's something about nakedness that polarizes how you value yourself. What are clothes, but another thing to hide behind, to help identify ourselves as someone we want the world to see us as? While nakedness is just another way to be vulnerable, even if it's only yourself who sees.

At the risk of jumping onto a high horse and screaming "Clothes are for the weak!" which very well may be true, I think it's important to take stock of ourselves. People say you come out of the world as you came in, naked — but how many people do you know who have been buried in the nude? We go to our final resting place, dressed how the world wanted us to be.

There's a book I truly adore called, The History of Love, that I quote at the beginning and end of this post. The title makes it sound like a much mushier and false account of what it actually is. At the start of the book the main character, an old man, Leo Gursky, in his early 80s decides to throw caution to the wind and be a model in an art class. Before he goes to the class he disrobes in the comfort of his own apartment to assess who he is without any sort of wrapping paper. And it is not an Adonis he describes...it's just who he is, an elderly man with loose skin, sun spots, white curly hairs everywhere, and lumpy bits covering a weak frame. I love this description. I love that it is unapologetic.

It's strange to realize that the body you have seen naked the most times is your own. Yet, every time you see it, it is different, changing as you change, aging as you age. I suppose this post is more of a reminder to myself, if nothing else, that beneath everything, we're all just people.

“At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that's why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived.” -The  History of Love, Nicole Krauss