Sarabeths, Lady M, and Hedda, OH MY!!!

So, under the suggestion of Andy, I have now started a blog about my zany adventures in New York and Los Angeles. Given my addiction to television, I might equate my life to a TV show...deal with it. Anyways, I grew up on Long Island, thought I loved theater, then movies, then finally settled on television towards the end of high school when I started watching LOST and Six Feet Under because I figured out that I could have this power to tell much bigger stories. I now am a Cinema-Television Production major at USC and love it immensely. Starting this semester, I will be Personnel Manager for Trojan Vision, our school's television station. I have been working there intensely with CU@USC, a live talk show that films every weekday. I also interned with a film production company this semester, Odd Lot Entertainment, who just made the movie The Spirit. I'm working as hard as I can and, in the words of the Laverne and Shirley theme, trying to make my dreams come true. And I'm doing it my way :)

I'm going back to Los Angeles on Friday, but today I had what might be the best day in the city ever. I went in semi-early with Andy and we got in at 10:32 am. Our plan was to go to Sarabeths on the Upper West Side for breakfast as it is literally heaven on earth. If you ever want the best breakfast ever, go there!!! Anyways, we get to Penn and have to make it about 50 blocks uptown in 20 minutes...why you ask? WE HAD TO GET PORRIDGE!!! They only serve porridge until 11 so we Amazing Raced it through the pouring rain and got there just in time to split a bowl of Papa Bear porridge....soo good!!!

Afterwards, we went to Times Square and got student rush tickets for the matinee of The Fantasticks. Mission accomplished and we walked around until we got to go see that, which was awesome. The theater was really small and I entered with low expectations, but was really blown away by the talent. After the show, Andy nd I got to meet Nick from this season of The Amazing Race and he was super nice and signed our playbills. That was only the start to a very awesome day!!!

We then had the great idea of trying to go to the Met, but it closed early that day. I was a little bummed since I've never been and wanted to go, but we found an even better substitute. We went to this little "cake boutique" called Lady M and got these amazing capuccinos and quite possibly the best strawberry shortcake I've ever had. This was when Andy and I decided that if we lived together in the city, we would be broke.

We then did some shopping and just hung around, but 8 pm arrived and we got to see Hedda Gabler starring the brilliant Mary-Louise Parker. Weeds is one of my favorite shows and it was so inspiring to see her acting live on stage. We originally had third row seats way off to the left, but snuck over to the front row center to two empty seats right before the show started...SCORE!!!

The show was completely mesmerizing and really made me think about what I want to do with my life. I want to create moving works that are dynamic and will get responses even 100 years after they were created. Even as generations come and go, they all still have to live life and I want to depict that on screen. I want to leave my imprint on the world through television and do what I love for the rest of my life. After getting weirdly emotional and reflective about a somewhat psychotic desperate housewife, Andy and I bolted to the stage door and waited paitently to see...MARY-LOUISE PARKER!!! She is so nice in real life and I was very scared that she would be a celebrity that doesn't care about her fans but she really does! She asked not to take pictures because she had the flu, but she signed my playbill and I thanked her for her brilliant performance and told her how much I appreciated her work. She then held my arm, smiled at me, and genuinely smiled at me, and thanked me. WE HAD A MOMENT!!!!

All in all, this entire day was such a great day of reflection as I realized how much I love where I come from and my friends from back home while also seeing what I want to do in the future. I don't know how I'm going to get there, but we'll see how this life turns out. Hope it's just like what I see on TV.