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.

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.

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.

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

my mom: "The Truth Hurts"

The backseat of my mom's old car smelled like sour milk and soccer cleats for the better part of a decade. Ah, the mighty Ox. That's what we called her giant black suburban. The license plate was OX-48800. It's not like we had to reach very far for what became a classic nickname. That's the car my siblings and I all learned how to drive with — from learning to parallel park or how to get out of a fish tail situation on an icy morning, to getting in our first fender benders or breaking both the front and back windshields.

I'm thinking of her car now because I'm thinking about her. I'm thinking about her whole life, her life before me, before Larry, before Colleen, before Sean, before Timmy and before Kevin. I'm thinking of her before my dad, before she was a wife and a mother, before she was a nurse, when she was just a young woman, lost, like I am now. I wrote my first solo show, "Heart/s," last week and performed it Sunday night, and honestly, I could not have done it without her; she is such an integral part of me. And for those who saw the show, and for those that will come August 29th in Chicago, you can and will see how much so.

We talked on the phone the other week. It was during my lunch break from a gig I had at a production company in Santa Monica. I was driving to find a Mexican restaurant nearby the office. I'm shocked by the lack of solid burrito spots in Los Angeles. In Chicago there's a burrito restaurant on every damn corner, and they are all the best. Taco Burrito on Lincoln and Diversey, aka Los Tres Ponchos, is really the best, but they are all very good. Garcia's in Lincoln Square? Yeah, also the best. I mean, I could go on, but I have to stop. El Burrito, under the Addison redline? So good. Ok. I'm stopping. Not El Jardin. I'm not a fan of that spot (also in Wrigley — though I will say they do have a pretty stellar margarita).

Anyway, I called my little momsicle to talk because I miss her. I miss her all the time because I love her. Sometimes I feel like I don't know her though. I think a lot of people feel this about their parents. Last night in my Groundlings class one of my classmates did a character based on his father, and when asked what his father's point of view on life was, the student was in some ways at a loss. And when I reflected on how I might do Mary Sheila Marshall as a character (and she is a total character), I don't quite know what her point of view on life is either. If I had to say anything it would be, "Life is hard, things are hard, get over it because complaining doesn't make things better." A painful aphorism of hers is, "The truth hurts," which is a hard thing to hear when you just want an empathetic ear and someone to stroke your hair while not saying anything at all.

Whenever I ask her about her life she is vague, focuses on whatever she is doing at that moment and gives me a little rundown of what her plans are for that day. It's frustrating. It's frustrating to try and get to know someone I've known for almost three decades. She's shocked whenever I tell her I feel like I don't know her very well. I know her, her inclinations, the inflection of her voice, her catch phrases. I know her face, the roughness of her incredibly strong hands, the smoothness of her cheeks. I know what she looks like when she's just woken up, what she looks like when she's already sleeping, and when she's going from being happy to being sad. I know her — but so much of her is her history, so much of her is the past that makes up her present.

Can we ever know other people, truly? It's a widely believed notion that we can only be close to six people at a time. That makes sense. I only have six people in my car speed dial. Most family phone plans are limited to six. The big table at restaurants typically maxes at six, and then you have to add additional tables. As Marshall children, we know what it is to wait for the big table at any given restaurant, read: The Silo in Lake Bluff, Illinois, a Marshall family hot spot from 1990-2000.

There's something about that not being able to be close to many people — it's hard to spread the love to more than a select few. And I suppose, with six kids, a husband, parents, nine siblings of her own, and a slew of friends and acquaintances, Sheila Marshall has become an expert in loving others. She might be all over the place, but it's only because she wants to be everywhere at once, sharing in the lives of the people around her, and letting them know she does care deeply. She really does.

I hope to be more like her...minus her adages and the reality check no one asked for. (But, I suppose I've already inherited those things about her too.)

Preludes and Post Scripts

"I am moved by fancies that are curled 

Around these images, and cling:  

The notion of some infinitely gentle 

Infinitely suffering thing." 

-T.S. Eliot, Preludes

I regularly find myself remembering snippets of poetry that I had memorized due to my high school pastime, Forensics (also known as Speech Team). If you've read back to old entries I talk of my love of T.S. Eliot often, specifically The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which to me, sums up the tone of loneliness absolutely.

People say that those who surround themselves with people the most are typically the loneliest. They're trying to fill that void. I feel as if I am that way. It's easy to get lost in others as an escape from ourselves. I've been trying to get away from doing this — but instead of feeling like I know myself better, I find that it's daunting to realize I may not know myself as well as I assumed. It's strange to spend all day every day being myself without thinking about it, and then with others I am someone else, a hologram. I am there, but not present.

To be in the latter half of my 20s and finding these findings seems so old. I know, I know, "You're not old!" But I'm not young, either. I'm not like a spritely young graduate. I'm not a bourgeoning teenager. I'm not a child. I'm not a young adult. I'm not an old adult.

We call people in their twenties, 20-somethings. We can't even come up with a real name for it. I'm a 20-something. What that something is, no idea.

I am a person chasing after it — what is "it?" There is no label. I could say I'm chasing after a career in the arts. I'm chasing after a dream to be a creator. I could say—. I could say it all — but what is it that we want in the end? When people die are they shouting from their insides, "I wish I had written just one more play!" "I wish I had just finished putting the shutters on the house I wanted to flip." "I wish this," and "I wanted that."

Doubtful that it is things or a to-do list accomplished. A bucket list, sure, yes, we want to do things, but to what end, who for or who with?

What turned out to be the preview to when my grandpa Harry died, when he thought it was the moment to go, that is, his 10 children and numerous grandchildren, his wife, were all surrounding him. Father Trout was there to anoint him with last rights. He asked my grandma Celeste to sing Danny Boy for him. It was very climactic, truthfully told. And we kept waiting for him to close his eyes the last time, breathe his last breath, say one last thing. But it didn't happen that way. The doctor came in after what seemed like only a few minutes, but was in actuality much longer, and said Harry was not yet going anywhere.

It was the strangest thing. We all had collectively decided this was the time, and then it wasn't. But, I got to see what my grandpa Harry wanted to be like in his last moments. He was lucid until the very end. And in some ways, he got to be there for his last moments twice, instead of just wasting away sedated. That seemed like such a gift to me.

Surrounded by the people who make us who we are — I suppose that's what I want.

"Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning
Death 

Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning
Death

Those who sit in the sty of contentment, meaning
Death 

Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning
Death 

Are become unsubstantial, reduced by a wind, 

A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog 

By this grace dissolved in a place" 

-T.S. Eliot, Marina

A "goodbye to my old life" list.

A few years ago I made a huge list of all the things I had accomplished in my first year after graduating college. Today I went through my "pieces of paper with notes, bits and bots written on them." I have a lot of these. They're on scraps of paper. They're on receipts. They're ripped out from notebooks. They are a collection of the things I deemed important at some point in the last year or so.

I found one particular piece of paper that's a to-do list of things I had to get done before moving to LA. It's the longest list. I made it during a meeting at work. I remember thinking "I don't have anything to add, and also this meeting isn't pertinent to me anymore, but I guess I'll stay."

To Do:

• iPhone (Sepho) - I see where my priorities were. I don't know what Sepho means
• MacBook Pro - I ended up waiting to purchase one of these until about two months ago.
• Final Draft - Still haven't gotten it, but my brother, Kevin, gave me a copy of MovieMagic which has been really a great system.
• Boxes - I'm assuming at this point I thought I was going to rent a Uhaul and have everything perfectly packed into 3x3x3 boxes on boxes on boxes. I didn't end up doing that and most of my furniture is at my old apartment with my old life and my best friend to keep it company.
• Shin compression - For those of you who don't know, when I was hit by a car, the woman who nailed me hit my shin pretty hard too and tore the fascia, which is essentially the casing around all of our muscles beneath our skin. When it tears, the muscle becomes herniated, so I have a slight bump. I am self-conscious.
• 5 video sketches - These did not happen, but that's ok. I did a lot of other writing.
• Invent America - This is one of those sketches. My friend Erin moved away onto a boat for a while so we ended up never doing it, but it would've been cool, and we still can at some point.
• Apartment sublet - This I did. No thanks to my nut landlord (SUSAN, the hateful) who every single time I talked to her made me cry or made me yell — either way, I was a teary mucus-y mess. Some people are just volatile. I've never dealt with a worse person.
• Sell bed - I did this too! My cousin and close confidante Kathleen got this bad girl. 
• I ended up giving mostly everything else away or leaving it for the perfect Cynthia Bangert (desk, chair, couch, rug, kitchen chairs)
• Mail art - This was a stupid idea. I just wrapped it in blankets and put it in my car. It took up a lot of space, but it was worth it.
• Pack stuff for Kev and Col (my siblings) to take. Neither of them took anything back to LA for me because they said they didn't want to wait for baggage claim. True story. It's fine, but at the time, I was like, "Really? Whatever."
• Talk to MA (that is my Chicago agent that, while very kind, was not very good)
• SketchTest - I did this. It's a great show in Chicago where you can essentially put up ideas, thoughts, semi-finished sketches and see how they work in front of people on a stage)
• Ireland - Sept 25-Oct 6 - This was the best trip. I am so glad my mom, sister and I could do this together.
• Shower for Quinns - My cousin Brian got married, and my mom wanted me to help her throw the shower. I did. And it was nice. My cousin Colleen is getting married later this summer and my mom wanted me to come home to help throw the shower again. I'm not, but it would've been nice. I think I have to stay in LA without going anywhere for a while. I am going home at the end of August though for the wedding. It will be good.
• Michigan? - I'm really sad I didn't make time to go to Michigan last summer. I haven't been in so long, and it's really one of my favorite places. 
• Call David B - David Balkan is one of the best people I think I know, or that's out there in the world, period. I feel very lucky to have a mentor and friend in him.
• Call Kevin - Kevin is my baby brother who I love so much. It would have been next to impossible for me to feel as comfortable as I have been able to be in LA without him and Colleen, our sister.
• Call Col - Colleen and I are really lucky to have one another. Sometimes we don't tell each other what's going on in our lives, and I hate that. I hate not knowing how she is doing and that's become less and less of how our relationship is. I'm glad she's my neighbor. And I'm glad she cares about me. I get scared when I think about how we're all getting older and it makes my heart stop when I think about a world where one of us won't be there and the other will.
• Call Alli - Alli was my first Chicago roommate. She was my first LA roommate. She moved back to NYC, and I completely understand why, but I miss her, and I took our friendship for granted when we lived together. I'm really sorry about that.
• Car insurance for Pat Anderson - had to get it, also had to get a car. I really like my car. Pat Anderson is my lawyer. Or was. I am finally done with dealing with insurance claims and medical bills and the general stress that living after a really scary accident brings up. It's been 2 years. Things are ok.
• Credit cards - I don't know what this means. I think I was concerned about my credit score because of all the medical bills. But we're good here.
• Contact Bank of America - Ugh, the worst bank. I canceled all my things with them. A weight was lifted.
• PG Sched Sept, Oct, Nov. - I used to schedule the PG shows and for whatever reason was always stressed about it. I think I just took on too much because I didnt want to deal with things in my life, so I was just busy all the time. For those that are very close to me, thanks for seeing beyond this crazy person exterior.
• Meeting with Thomas about doing calendar - Thomas Einstein is a very good friend to me. He took over the scheduling with Jake Miller, and they've both been amazing. I talked to both of them at length last week and feel very lucky that despite being very far apart, we are close.
• Long Pause - My sketch group. I am forever thankful for the day Chris Bragg came into the Annoyance while I was interning and invited me to be part of my favorite group in Chicago. Thank you.
• Chris Gaines - One of the craziest shows and most fun casts. It was just a fun idea that Greg Ott dreamed up. He's a really good writer, and I like him a lot. I felt, I don't know, just lucky, I guess, that he invited me into the show. I only wish Bryan Duff had stayed in the show. That idiot.
• Goodbye Party 10/12? Honestly, this was a weird night. I said goodbye to those I love.
• Denver (Aug 19, Sept 1, Sept 9, Sept 30) - My iO improv team's final shows. So fun. Great group. Miss it. Love it.
• Annoyance Party - August 25 - I don't think I went to this. No, I did. This was the party right before they closed the old space. Now they just opened the new space. And, I so look forward to seeing it when I'm home later this summer.
• Brian Q wedding 10/11 - That wedding was a good time.
• Alinea - I took myself out to a fancy as hell 10 course dinner with my friend David Blum, Jessica Maciejeski and her lovely boyfriend Blake. I don't know how to spell Jessica's last name, and she goes by "The Treat" on facebook, so I will never know.
• Commercial and online? - What does this mean?
• Sept 5 - massage? - My old boss and friend, Casey bought me a massage for my birthday because he is the kindest.
• NYC (?) when? - This did not happen. It couldn't have. There is no time.
• CTA - I still have $100 in CTA money that I guess I can still use despite that new thing they have that begins with a V. I don't know. Vesta? No. I don't know. I could google it, but this is more fun.

So, this is my list. It was so full. Everything happened so fast, too fast. And, there still wasn't enough time. Carly and I left Chicago together on October 15th at 4pm. I know. I had to stop at the dealership in the morning. My mom came with me in a different car. When we pulled away from each other, she turned right and I turned left, and we held up traffic for a long time at the intersection of Route 41 Skokie Highway and Park in Highland Park. We were looking at each other from our separate cars, going into our separate lives, waving at each other and crying. It was really hard. Her face.

I write in coffee shops so I don't cry when I write, but I'm crying right now at Coffee+Food on Melrose. Well, I'm tearing up because I can't be that girl. I can't be the girl who openly weeps at Coffee+Food on Melrose. 

Carly was a champ. A real champ. I am so glad she was my transition friend. She is light. She is joy filled. She is what it means to be excited. And she's not a terrible driver, despite that police officer in Nebraska who wanted to give her a ticket, but then didn't because we are so cute. I'm not a great driver. I'm not a bad driver. I just want to go fast...like Ricky Bobby. Ha. Anyway. We had a goodbye coffee at Asado with Joe and Cynthia the day or so before: our quartet. We all cried. Even Joe. I want to remember what he said, "Oh, we're doin' this?" I think was along the lines.

When I went to get Carly on the actual day, she was so funny. She had a purple backpack for the week.  For anyone that has ever seen her in the world ever, you know the bag I'm talking about. Girl does not leave home without it. And she also had an orange creamsicle colored towel that we ended up using to clean off dirt from my car because I thought it was stupid to get a carwash while on a road trip, even though we legit could not see anything at one point. I mean, it is stupid, though, a carwash on a road trip, please. I kept that towel.

With every mile I got further from Chicago and closer to LA. Obviously. But it was weird. It was the slowest motion. My life changed, and I was witnessing the change. I was the one driving. I was the one making it happen. I was doing this to myself. I don't know how to describe it. It was like my heart kept falling when I would look at the mile markers or the "Welcome to" whatever state signs. This thing that I had dreamt of doing for years was finally happening. I was doing it. And I remembered why it was so hard and why it took me so long to do it — because of people. I knew how much I would miss my people.

I'm still shocked by how much I miss people. I don't know if it's shock, but I think it's a little that I did not know the depths of some of my relationships until I wasn't there in them, living them anymore. Even as I fill my time with work, with new friends, with new experiences, new shows, new improv teams, new everything, it's hard. 

I already had a whole life in Chicago. I didn't realize how deep my investment was there. And, I cashed it all in for something new. That's exciting, but it's scary. Los Angeles is the first place I've ever moved where I have no intention of going back to my old life. This is it for me.

this is not a poem, this is the most real thing i have written to a group of people who might read this and i am very scared.

This is coming from a place of honesty. I haven't written as myself in more than six months (i.e. my entire time since moving to Los Angeles thus far), choosing purposefully to write through the narrative voices of made up characters in made up settings with made up scenarios — or poems, so many poems. Often these stories and characters are versions of me, or the people in my life, as is the case with many writers, so it felt like I was still able to express what I thought, experienced and have been feeling. But as I continue to think about it more, I know that this has very much been a response to me not wanting to be really open about my fears, my future, my everything. It's my own little "arm's distance away." And because I love telling stories and creating worlds, and I'm good at it, I didn't know the level of self-destruction I have begun to take on.

There's that term, "take up your arms" when referring to battle. Every day to me feels like a battle, and I am so alone. I am fighting off those I am closest to every single day, and I am seriously fighting off those who could potentially want to be close to me. I'm doing this, and it is sabotage.

I don't want to share.

And, I don't want to do it because I am afraid. I am afraid that the things that make me who I am won't be good enough in the eyes of the people around me: close, far, unknown, known, doesn't matter. This is not ok. And, it's something I didn't know was a real problem until very recently, even though it has been boiling since September 2012, if we're being real, and I am. If we're really being real, then I would say it goes back further, but 2012 was the hardest year of my life. I feel like I'm not conveying the real gravity and impact of this period of my life or that it won't seem like that big a deal, but it really was. I am scared that you won't think it was as awful as I do.

In very short, because I am scared, awful things happened, and then I was fake-ok for a time. Performing was good, and I was insanely productive, but all the while I was going through a very destructive phase that involved things I have only told a very select few. But mostly, it involved me not being myself because I am afraid of being hurt. I don't know if I can go through that again.

The other day a truly good friend of mine was talking to me about her perception of me. Besides the multitude of kind things she believed to be true about me, she mentioned how I once told her that I didn't want to be seen as weak. This struck a chord — the idea of being weak. She said, the things that you say about yourself and believe to be true of yourself are in the eyes of others the furthest from how they actually perceive you. The example in her own life was that she didn't want people to think she was mean, and if there is one person in this world with a gentler disposition, who goes miles out of her way for the benefit of others, it is this woman.

I am so concerned about others seeing me as someone who can handle it; someone who doesn't need others. I thought because I still spent time with friends and family, made phone calls and sent emails, 'liked' things on Facebook, sent a note, whatever — that that was enough, but those things, while good and nice, have to be matched with the freedom to really share. It is not easy for anyone to share honestly. And, truthfully, I don't think one should share everything with everyone all the time — this is not what I am advocating to anyone, and least of all to myself. But for those I'm closest to or want to be close to, there is not real love, compassion, relationship, etc. unless it is met with the vulnerability to say you need someone, you want someone, you care about someone, and open yourself up to the possibility of them hurting you. For real connection, I have to be willing to take down this facade of being too cool, of having a game face, of using comedy and stories and small talk, in order to feign comfort. It's a faux comfort. Real comfort, though, that is what we all crave, and that's why many of us spend so much time alone. I'm the only person I can truly just be myself with. No one knows, no one sees. In truth, I want the comfort I have alone but with someone else. 

But I am afraid, so I protect myself. 

I find myself neglecting people, waiting for them to make the first move, and pretending like I am ok when they don't. I convince myself they don't want to know me anymore, and I am afraid to tell them I want to keep knowing them. It is gridlock because we all do this.

I verbalize the words: "I don't need you" every single day. I've said it to my mom, I've said it to my dad, I've said it to my sister, to my brothers, to my friends, to boyfriends, to teachers, to confidantes, to anyone that could remotely affect me. I've said it to friends about other friends. I say, "I like them, I care about them, but I don't need them." 

This, this is something I have said about those I need most. If I admit that I need them, then for me, it feels like they have the power to wound me. The truth is, they have it anyway, because I do care, they just might not know how much. And this perceived notion that I don't care lets them off the hook to show how much they actually care, if indeed they do. (That last bit was me protecting myself even as I write about being open. It never stops.)

The truth is, I care about the people in my life deeply. If you're in my life at all, I care about you. I am so afraid that I don't have the capacity to share who I am fully. I am so afraid that I will be rejected. I am so afraid. It's like a sickness, my fear.

Even as I write this now I find myself censoring my words, my heart. I'm afraid that someone will read this and think: "God, she is so freaking dramatic. I'm so glad she moved to Los Angeles so I never have to see her again unless she makes it, in which case, ugh, I am so jealous, because honestly, she isn't even funny or pretty, or nice, or anything."

I thought this thought the other day: "We are all scared people pretending not to be." I am a huge offender. 

Another phrase I use to hold people at bay is this: "Everyone is the worst, and I am the worst of all."

This comes from a place of shame. Shame is like a cancer, and it will destroy you if it isn't addressed. Shame is what we feel about who we are, and it's why we hide. It can come out of regret, it can come out of past hurt, it can seemingly come out of nowhere. For me, it comes out of past hurt, of past heartbreak. Not always the kind involving a girl and a boy, though it's been known to happen (both me breaking and being broken), but also heartbreak from friends, of let downs from my parents, of jobs I didn't get, of hugs not given, of love and compassion I didn't give myself; in short, when something happened that made me feel like I was not enough.

I listened to a Ted Talk another friend emailed to me (I know, haha, Ted Talks, but those are good!) and the woman, Brene Brown, talked about shame, courage, authenticity and vulnerability. 

She said this:  

"Shame feeds into our sense of worthiness. Those that have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they are worthy of connection. "

After talking to another dear friend about how hard it is for comedians to accept praise and compliments, I concluded that for me, it has a lot to do with the innate feeling that nothing quite fills me — discontent. The irony is that performers are perhaps the neediest people when it comes to them, but accepting praise (love and belonging) is difficult because we can stop for a second and be ok with our apparent success. For me, I always felt being content was the opposite of being driven. This is faulted. It is just not true. Being discontent, not accepting love from others, keeps us out of and feeling unworthy of connection. One can accept love/praise/compliments/etc, and still strive to be a better version of themselves on stage and otherwise, a more real version of yourself, yourself. Your real self.

To have real connection with others is a result of both parties being authentic: letting go of who I want to convey I am, and just be who I am: being vulnerable. 

I am not a vulnerable person, and my personality and actions are often calculated. As I'm writing this, I am rewriting, trying to be more clear, trying to show what I want to show, trying to be authentic, but somehow feeling like I am not, while still writing well, while still making a point, while I don't know. It's as if I want to share more about the specifics of my life, but the truth is I don't want everyone to know my truths. But, I want to be open to those who want to know me and who I want to know. The nitty gritty truths of our experiences aren't what's truly important, but rather they're things that draw us closer to each other. I don't think it's appropriate to tell everyone everything all the time, I'll say it again, but we're not alone in those experiences. And to try to go it alone is an upward and losing battle. I'm realizing this, and to keep myself an arm's length away is really hard and very lonely, and it's not worth it.

I'm just trying to have courage to share what I am going through as a person, because I think a lot of us go through this. A lot of people think we have to be some version of ourselves so someone somewhere will think something of us. Some. Some. Some. I'm trying to tell the story, the truth of who I am with my whole heart. I'm trying to have the courage to be imperfect, to be compassionate to myself so I can show compassion to others, to be real, to accept not except that being vulnerable means being ok that someone might read the first line of this and think, "Fuck this bitch. She is too much for me." It doesn't feel good, but it's necessary in order to be open.

I might be too much, but I would rather be all of me, then just some of me.

There is more, there's always more, but this is where I am at today. Hopefully I don't delete this tomorrow.

with you.

"I can't believe how empty your house is."

"Believe it, Serge."

"I don't want to," he said. "If I believe it then it's real, and then you're —"

Serge cut himself off, and the six-foot frame lanky before her turned away.

"—then I'm gone?" Hannah offered. She was wearing a pair of jean shorts and an oversize grey t-shirt she'd stolen from an ex-boyfriend. It was hot in her apartment, but they had already removed her window unit.

"Yeah," Serge said.

Repeating him, "Yeah."

"I'm going to miss you." Serge was still faced away from her. He was fiddling with her curtain. It was one of the only things left in her bedroom. This curtain and a slew of dust bunnies where her bed used to be were the only markers she'd been there at all. Hannah was thinking of just leaving the curtain there, but when she remembered how much it had cost her at World Market, she decided on keeping it.

"I know," Hannah said. Her face was soft and warm, the kind of face that a child has but is supposed to lose when they grow up, but hers stayed the same — big eyes and round cheeks, and just one freckle left of center on her nose.

Hannah wanted to say she would miss him too, but she didn't want to give him the wrong impression, which is to say, she didn't want him to think that this was the time for him to profess his love for her. It was too obvious, how much Serge loved her. And Hannah had known for a long time. She had known and she had let him sit with it because she cared about him, but not in that way and couldn't help that she was the only person who could make his unrequited love requited, but she couldn't actually. We all think how simple it would be if love was returned when it was offered. It's not fair, though, life.

You love who you love, Hannah would catch herself thinking after spending the day with Serge. Then she would text back and forth with whoever guy of the week she crushed on at the moment. And of course, those texts would go no where, and she would be alone, and Serge would be there, until one day he wouldn't be, because eventually we have to leave those sorts of situations. You settle so that your heart stops aching. You settle because you think it's the only escape from the continual brokenness that's yours until it's not. But, you always know you're settling, and the ache dulls, but it doesn't stop existing. It's just a soft stab...a shard of glass from a broken vase that shattered months earlier.

 "I know, too," said Serge. He wanted to say he knew she wanted to love him. But needs, wants, desires, unrequited, some things just are those and nothing more.

Serge looked at her; he wanted to grab her hand, wanted to hold it, wanted for his to be the hand she wanted to hold. He wished he was wearing his shoes, but he wasn't, and he suddenly felt like he shouldn't be there anymore. It would be awkward though, to just say he had to go and then have to spend a few minutes locating his shoes and then putting them on. He couldn't just up and leave.

 "Can you help me with this?" Hannah had broken eye contact with Serge. It was all too much. She was pointing to the curtain. It was white, and the bottom of the fabric had what looked like a summer grassy motif printed on it. It looked like an afterthought, and every time Serge had seen it in the past he thought that.

Serge turned to face her again, resigned to his shoeless feet.

"You're sure you want to bring it with you?"

"No," she said, brushing a loose hair from her eyes, a motion that undid Serge. Four feet apart might as well have been a world away, and they both knew it.

There was too long of a silence.

"It's better than nothing," she said.

Serge moved to the right of the window and began loosening the rod.

"You're right."

no exception to the rule.

The air is arid.
Get rid of the air.
There is no breathing here.

Escape from your life.

Breathe in that breath
And take a moment as your chest
ascends and descends.

The air is hot entering your mouth
Through your lips,
past your teeth,
down your gullet,
and through your lungs,
it pumps your heart.
You're insides are insides,
and then it's all out.

Hot.

The air is the same as before. but —

It's properties are different
And you are as well.
Different.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah.

Breathe in that breath
And take another moment.
Let it escape you.

The thought. whatever. the life before you.
And after? Sure.

There is no breathing when it's all done.
Because it's done.
All of it.

Goodnight. or bye. or whatever. It's all the same. And none of us are different.

perspective

From my perspective this is what you did. This is what happened. And this is why it's never going to happen for us. This is why I can't love you even if by some magical circumstance you got it together, which you won't, so I won't trouble my brain anymore with nonsensical thoughts about you. Foolishness. Utterly.

There were two people who liked each other. They told each other so, and then all the trouble found its way into that. As trouble tends to do to us weak people. Into those feelings. Into those people. This is what happened.

There were two people who wanted to make it work; they thought they did. But it was one more so than the other. A slight push, then an unnecessary pull. So, to make it easier on the one who wanted it less, the one who wanted it more tried to make up for the slight. Tried to convince the other through nice words and nice thoughts and nice feelings and nice nice nice, and this made the other one only more scared and more closed off and more childlike and more more more. This is what happened.

So these two people won't make it work because one person can't carry the whole load and they shouldn't have to and they shouldn't have to feel like they have to overcompensate for the let down that became the other. And the other shouldn't say anything bad about their non-partner. Because they were never in it together. This is what happened.

The other shouldn't make them feel like they did something wrong by carrying, by wanting, by hoping, by living bravely. What is that anyway? What beautiful words to characterize the actions of another: carrying, wanting, hoping, living bravely. Those are exemplary.

Living bravely and living recklessly are not the same. If you can be brave as recklessness takes you under water, threatens you into drowning, attempting to steal your very heart — then you are more than most. And we are not the same.

From my perspective, this is what happened.

I'm glad for it.

He wasn't wondering.

Reindeer boxer shorts rest limply on Conor Buckley's desk chair. It's June, so this is to be expected. The idea that someone would purchase underwear only for a particular season or holiday is ridiculous. He's had to explain this to a variety of overnight guests. He would be better served to use his breath on perhaps explaining why being such a slob helps him focus on his work. However, Conor can't actually do that. He can't do that because he has had "Art Block" for a week, and always does when his life's a mess.

Conor started off college as an English major, hence the borrowing and re-appropriating of the term "Blank Block." Conor would sooner say he had "Sex Block" when he inevitably failed at showing the ladies why he was an OK choice for the night (feel free to substitute: week or month, nothing more than that, obviously), than to admit that he's not always the most suave.

He's not-not suave. He's just, a — a guy — a guy in his twenties. And, he's figuring it out, just like the  rest of them...the guys, the rest of the guys in their twenties. Obviously he's excepting those who got tricked into a young-just-out-of-college-marriage. Everyone has a pair of friends like that, or rather, has a friend who has a wife or husband that you've had to become friends with because apparently they're going to be around for the long haul, probably longer than you in the end.

Conor's apartment definitely looks as though someone lives there, but not as though he plans on living there for longer than three months. Nothing hangs on the walls, but there are framed posters of Fight Club and Warrior leaning on them. The idea was there, it's the execution that's a consistent fail.

"Hey dude," Conor says to Patrick, his roommate, who's sitting on the couch Patrick's mom purchased for the apartment eight months ago. She came to visit from New Hampshire, had nowhere to sit when she "popped by" to say hello, so went to Pottery Barn and "made it right."

"Hey," Patrick returns. "How was yesterday?"

Yesterday? Patrick was referring to their mid-week debauchery. Conor had recently been let go from his job at some call center downtown, so decided to blow a hundred bucks like he had it.

"Fine — Jenn was there." Of course she was.

"Yeah, I saw her."

"Yeah."

Conor walks over to the pantry, opens it, looks into it for a bit, then closes it taking nothing out.

"She was with Katie," Conor continues. Jenn and Conor had never dated. They'd always teetered on the line. Sure, they'd made out. Sure, Conor had invited her over to his house after parties. Sure, they've seen each other naked. But, dated? No. "It's everything but the label," she had said when she explained why she couldn't do it anymore. "It's not the label, Conor, it's the lack of one."

It's not as though Conor thought he blew it with Jenn. By his calculation, he'd been the one rejected.

Flash to last night:
"Hey, there," Jen said, but, really it was more like a shout, from down the bar.

"Hey, hey," Conor said, smiling. "How've you been?"

Conor crossed over to where she was.

"I'm good. I'm fine. Katie's here."

"Yeah, I know. I saw her from the balcony."

"How mysterious..."

When Jenn smiles, she shows all of her teeth. She smiles, and she laughs. And it makes the people around her do the same. Conor never understood the phrase laughter's contagious until he met Jenn.

"So mysterious."

"How've you been?"

"Pretty good. Just working." Conor paused remembering he'd been let go. "I mean, I'm looking for work right now. Feels like a job. But I'm painting, and stuff. So..."

"Tell me about it."

"I just did." The two laughed.

"Funny. Anyway, I should get back —"

"Of course. Good to see you."  Jenn turned to go, then spun back around quickly. Conor was still looking in her direction.

"I'm here with someone."

She said it like he was wondering. But he wasn't wondering. And that's what's made the moment so awkward.

"That's great," Conor said, then smiled out of the side of his mouth.

They looked at each other, said goodbye again, and Conor proceeded to spend money like he had it.

"Anyway, she looked good," Conor said.

"Not a surprise, man."

Conor walks back into his room, closes the door, collects last night's clothes from the floor, then puts them on his bed. He picks up his jeans, examines them, smells them, then slides them on. He does the same with a green-grey t-shirt, then sits down at his desk, looks at his sketch pad, his reindeer boxers still on the seat-back.

done

--> There’s a place I’ve been where the walls are wearing skin

Where no one lives inside, it’s just an empty hollow hide

The snow falls briskly, leaving you thin, so prickly

Where short, short skirts tend to silken shirts

and we are all so low.

There’s a place I’ve been where you would only hear that pin

Where no one says hello, how dare you consider your friend your fellow

The sky turns purple, orange, red, you might as well rip yourself to shreds

Where wavy hair meets a woman’s stare

and she whispers hello, goodbye.

There’s a place I’ve been where all you want is out

Where children fear

and I tear

Where there is no air

and I tear

Rip it. Deface it. Call it Nothing.

There is a place I have been.

i'm a memory

i pace inside daily, and sprint outside come night.
i wake you up when sleeping
there's no escape
im wrapped around your throat tight

there are no words spoken
no feeling of air exiting your lips
i cannot be pinpointed.

there are blades of grass. they are lime salted
margarita mixed
you think about them in a blink
and then
they're gone

like me, but ever present.
so not.

i drive a fancy sports-car
it goes incredibly fast
so fast you might miss it

feel the blade of grass, that one
yes
that's her.
the one beneath your big toe.

can you feel it?
no

i whisper gently to you
lulling you to bed
until tomorrow when there is nothing
for you're surely dead

there are sheep above you
count them
one. seven. nine. four. noon.
you'll be up there with them
dead so quickly soon.

i live inside your heart. your brain. your candy-coated skin.
i live inside you until there's nothing.
and no one knows i was therein.

i cannot be pinpointed.
im a squiggle on your notepad in the middle of the night

count them.
one. seven. nine. four. noon.
there is no deciphering my meaning.
it'll all be over soon.

settled

Two nights ago I couldn't sleep. After returning late from an improv show at iO I was stuck thinking and rethinking about everything that had happened before, during, and after the show. Since I'm moving to Los Angeles in about a month all I've done lately is reflect on my years in Chicago. I had a few things to do on my checklist before I could leave here. I've done them all, and now I'm more than ready. But it's been all the things and people between those bullet points that have made Chicago everything. I landed here by default, but I chose to stay for as long as I have because I loved it.

All night Monday I was up going through drawers in my bedroom, clearing out what I assumed would be junk, but what I found instead was treasure. I found countless notes, cards and keepsakes from nights out. These were things I knew I would want to look at again before I boxed them in an old shoebox. I know myself well enough to know that these are the things I'll want to look back at when feeling low, maybe in LA, maybe wherever I go after that.

One of my favorite little things I found was a piece of white computer paper that I had written some thoughts on one night while at my parents house. There were existential questions like, "Why are we here?" and hopefully non-predictive statements such as, "Eventually, I will be broke," accompanied by an arrow pointing to the name: Peter Francis Geracy, Illinois' premier bankruptcy attorney. I can't decide if I meant PFG will say this or if he's whom I should call about going broke in the future. Both seem like viable options. But, what I liked most about this note I'd unintentionally written to myself was this poem:

They never loved you
I never loved you
I loved you, but I didn't
I did as much as I could

-and I was timid.
I was nervous. and I acted like we were new. and then it was old.
we were old. and we weren't supposed to be together
-and now I'm scared that I'll be alone and you were it.
and now I'm alone, but I never settled
Is that better?

-I wasted your time.
-I wasted your time.

It was followed with this:

If I were me right now I'd run. I'd be fine, until right before. My heart would race like crazy and I'd convince myself it wasn't nerves -- until I'd realize that would mean I'd have a heart condition. I have it all prepared. I have it played out in my mind. Why does my body convince itself it's not ready. Not prepared. No one else up here is really all that special. Every day I think -- I could do that. But here I am failing at the one thing I want. It'd be sort of funny to want to be a banker. And every time you count money you can't count because money made you so nervous. Living in general would be difficult. Money is such a big part of life. It really is.

There's this constant push to be moving forward, and I love that push. I love that drive, that fire, to pursue life fully despite nerves, despite fear, despite obstacles. It's a funny thing to never feel settled, and perhaps it's less in the destination, but more in the people where you're settled. Once you find your people, that's where the comfort is. So for me, I'm settled in Chicago. I'm settled in Iowa. I'm settled in the U.P. I'm settled in Lake Forest. I'm settled in San Francisco. I'm settled in Los Angeles. I'm settled all over because everyone I love is out there pursuing their lives, as I am.

So no, I did not waste anyone's time and no one wasted mine.

Summer in the city

It's 4:00 a.m. and so incredibly hot. You know, that sticky kind of heat that not even the best fan can break up. She's been moving from her bedroom to the living to the bedroom and back again, a short respite in a cool shower, and then snap to a few hours later. It's time to start the day. So says the sun.

It's 6:37 a.m. and already she's tired of this day. There are dishes in the sink, collecting quickly, gnats finding a home where they previously didn't exist. An empty bottle of Palmolive sits on the edge of her grubby sink. A grim scene if any parent were to walk in unexpectedly.

"Oh, Kimberly May, this is just--" and her mother would cut herself off, because she knew her dismay said more than any more words could. Ah, tone of voice. The careful decision to use her daughter's first and middle names. Disappointment, a feeling Kim knows well.

About a month earlier, it was probably 11:54 p.m. on a week night, Kim had called it quits with a guy she barely could say she was seeing casually. Or, put another way, if someone had given her a plus one to a wedding she would think about inviting this guy, but wouldn't because in the end the relationship had no legs to stand on. She tried not to be so cynical at the start of it, but that's hard, so with each passing day her defeatism grew into an inevitability, well, a defeat.

So, now it's noon on a Saturday. The week ended as quickly as it began. Thankfully so. She woke up late, having been out til the wee hours working the night before. She woke up alone, sticky in the summer heat. There's no room for anyone in this home, void of an air-conditioner, anyway. Sweat. Solo. Summer.

"Summer in the city, I'm so lonely lonely lonely I've been hallucinating you, babe, at the backs of other women And I tap on their shoulder and they turn around smiling But there's no recognition in their eyes " -Regina Spektor, Summer in the City

dads. my dad. dads.

Sheila & LarBear. 2012.

This is, I guess, more pertinent, or timely, than most of my posts. Mostly, because it's non-fiction, and it's about my dad. Oh, Larry Marshall, a man that in every moment is a dedicated daddy-o, entrepreneur, non-shirt-wearer when in the yard, self-described short-ditty-songwriter, avid gardener and amateur real-estate aficionado. My dad has always been a driver in my life. It took a long time to realize that he drove so hard because he hoped that the six of his kids would drive ourselves in the same way. He did good.

I will always prefer striving to stagnant, type A to slacker.  In short, I'm an Annie Edison, as opposed to a Jeff Winger. I don't know how to be content, so to this, I say thank you. There's always more out there.

The pair of us would make lists as I grew up. I don't know if he did this with my siblings; I have an inkling this particular habit sank into my sister Colleen's life though. We are so similar when it comes to how we go about dreaming and working to achieve. Perhaps it was a "Father of Girls" move. How lucky were we to have such a caring, thought provoking man as a dad? And remains so.

Me & Dad. 2013.

These lists, ah, these lists, they'd be the lists comprised of all sorts of things: what I was interested in, books I wanted to read, books I'd read, places I'd like to visit, places I'd visited, my favorite facts, things I loved, goals I set, goals I accomplished, people I admired, and so on into all spheres of life. I have kept many of these lists throughout the years: a hoarder of the relics in my own life. And for my unsurprising love of memoirs, I've kept track of myself for years in hopes that eventually I'll be able to piece together where I've been, where I'm going and where I want to be by the time I'm old. To this my dad laughs, then reflects on how he has grown and changed over the years. He'd think about if it were his little life lists. "I look pretty good, right?" A common catchphrase, more than a question. Then, he'd twirl the hairs on the back of his head, smile a side smile, and continue, "...feel like I'm 17, but then I remember I'm not. Doesn't matter. I feel it. Ya know, Bridge, you're as old as you feel." When he said this to me for the first time, he was in the midst of growing his hair a little longer in the back — he called it his stylish baby curls, while everyone else called it a mullet.

 

Birthday. 2010.

He discovers things and shares them with me, and luckily for me, he has promised to keep doing so. The other day he texted (by the way, it was a very exciting day when he learned to text) me about wanting to go to the Elbo Room or the Hideout to check out "Who's who in music land." Someone had recommended he'd like Robbie Fulks. Always an adventure seeker, despite living in the suburbs.

There was a time I remember so clearly: I was a teenager, Armageddon had just come out, and the film's album couldn't get enough airplay. When Chantal  Kreviazuk covered John Denver's "Jet Plane," my dad was so in awe of the song that when he came home one evening, and I greeted him in the driveway, as I was prone to do, he told me to get in his parked car, so we could listen and then re-listen to it over and over again. My favorite moments are when he turns to me and says, "I'm a pretty cool guy, right?" And, he genuinely wants to know my opinion, all the while genuinely believing himself to be a "pretty cool guy." He genuinely is.

I forget how lucky I am to have the kind of parents Steve Martin tends to play in movies. See Father of the Bride or Cheaper by the Dozen, if you're not sure what I'm talking about. Few people know what I have, and I am so thankful.

Colleen. Brigid. Dad. Christmas. 2012.

Something like it.

There were pictures everywhere in his apartment. Not pictures of family or friends, or anything that would speak to who he really was, but rather these faux antique prints. They were cool, mind you, but it bothered me. I couldn't quite figure out why until now. Something inauthentic about the nature of his life. I laid down my coat, as I had a few weeks before, on the floor. He picked it up, put it on the back of a kitchen chair. It hung there limply. We sat. We sat and starred at one another for a few seconds, each taking the other in. It felt like it had been a while, yet none at all, and at the same time it genuinely felt like it wasn't real. Oh, the irony.

A few weeks really isn't very much time. Don't we all let time slip by without even noticing? Years go by before our base instincts of "Wait! What's happening in my life" kick in. It's adult time, and a lot can happen in adult time. Blink, and you're thirty, or fifty, or dead.

It was late when I came over. Rain swept across the street, my wedges drenched in January precipitation. Not wearing enough make-up for it to run. Buzzed in. Door opened. Welcomed.

"So what's been up?" I asked, knowing his answer would be as void of content as my question.

"You know, just been busy." Ding ding ding. A pause. "You know."

But I didn't know. That's why I asked. How easy is it to get out of actually knowing a person? Very easy.

"Yeah," I smiled. "I know."

A few minutes later, jokes exchanged, conversation came easier, and with that a comfort we all long for. But it's a fake comfort. A fake relationship. More like a relationship that in the end no one wants, so we discard it like the groceries we intended to eat, but instead let spoil.

There are smiles that in the end mean nothing, and a connection that is no connection at all. So we sit at the bottom of the bin; it was anything but pretend, because it happened. And we both wish it didn't.

"And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile" -TS Eliot. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

life jackets. who's yours?

first aid kit. sometimes you just need one.

http://youtu.be/DDG8xqz7BIk

So you ask for my opinion

Well what is there to say
To be honest and just foolish
Won’t make you wanna stay
You’ve got to go on and get moving
I can’t do that for you
Got so many plans and so much you want to do

Love it tough, time is rough

Love is tough, time is rough
Whoaaaa on me

Well I see you’ve got your bible
Your delusion imagery
Well I don’t need your eternity
Or your meaning to feel free
I just live because I love to
And that’s enough you see
So don’t come preach about morality
That’s just human sense to me

Love is tough, time is rough
Love is tough, time is rough
Whoaaaa on me
On me

And it’s one life and it’s this life
And it’s beautiful
And it’s beautiful

Love is tough, time is rough
Whoaaaa on me