24.

There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents ... and only one for birthday presents, you know. - Lewis Carroll

I thought this was interesting.

I did this survey a few months ago, and it seemed really intriguing to me.  You can find out a lot about a person by the books they have read.

Don’t take too long to think about it.
Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you.
First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.
Copy the instructions into your own post.

These are in no particular order.

1. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
2. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
4. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
5. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
6. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
7. The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George
8. Jemima J by Jane Green
9. This Way For The Gas, Ladies and Gentleman by Tadeusz Borowski
10. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
11. Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund
12. Always Looking Up: Adventures of an Incurable Optimist by Michael J. Fox
13. Possession by A.S. Byatt
14. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
15. Lamb: The Gospel According To Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

Tell me something I don't know.

By now I'm sure you all have seen the new update about my position over at the Courant.  I am pleased by this outcome, as it means I will still be contributing but without the ethical loops I would've had to undergo had I been paid for my services.  If my parents have done nothing else to me over the last 24 years of my life, I'd like to think the one thing that stuck was my willingness to do the right thing and to be a good person.  Expect postings to start around mid-October, after I move home.

I turn 24 next week and I thought about what my life was like last year when I turned 23.  Last year I drove to Boston to see my friend Gina and we went to the New Kids on the Block concert at the Garden (don't judge me, I love them).  We had pizza and cupcakes and went out after the show, and when I went to bed Gina put a tall glass of water and a vitamin on the counter and ordered me to drink it to prevent being ill in the morning.  The next day we went to IHop and I ate my body weight in pancakes.  The difference between this year and last is simple: I'm having it in my own apartment with friends I've made here, and they want it to be outlandish and crazy while I prefer to keep it very simple.

Also speaking of moving home...it still doesn't feel real yet.  When I go home I'll probably end up moping for a few days, wondering if I did the right thing.  And then I'll think of those dark days in July when I spent a week straight crying and couldn't tell my father that I wanted to come home again.  In the long run I will look back on my time in New York and know that it was the most transformative and greatest summer of my life, and my career had nothing to do with it.  I learned so much about myself and I've become more accustomed to this city and the people in it.  Before this summer, I was very certain of what I wanted to do but very naive about the process and demands required to do it.  I wanted to be involved in some way in the arts but when I moved here I realized that in no way was I prepared or ready to undergo what the people in this city have to go through on a daily basis to do it.  Overall, what I realized was this: in NYC, very little 'acting' is involved.  It's all about what you look like and who you know.  I just wanted to sing and act and be onstage and goof around and still have a normal life.  Which is obviously NOT what NYC acting entails.  

I will leave this city twenty pounds lighter (despite eating more cake and ice cream than I have ever eaten in my life, thanks Angelina and your Tuesday night dinner parties!) and a great deal wiser.

When I think about what I'll miss about NYC, acting has nothing to do with it.  I'll miss waking up at 8 AM and making my own breakfast, wondering what the day will entail.  I'll miss grocery shopping at West Side Market and Greenmarket in Union Square, even though I never bought anything.  I'll miss eating lunch at my little nook table with food I bought myself.  I'll miss the gay guy at New York Sports Club who works out next to me all the time, pounding the elliptical in a polo shirt and khakis (you wish I was making this up, right?).  I'll miss having an Urban Outfitters right across the street from my apartment building even though it devastated my paycheck.  I'll miss the crazy guy who called himself Captain Saxophone and blessed me for giving him two dollars to buy Johnson's Baby Oil.  I'll never know why he needed it, and frankly I never want to find out.

I'll miss walking to The Bean for coffee and reading on their squashy chairs.  I'll miss the hot, overcrowded subway with the greasy poles and the random woman who walked up to me on the F train and demanded "DO YOU SPEAK RUSSIAN?" I'll even miss walking to Washington Square Park and seeing a heroin addict walk repeatedly into a wall at 10AM.  I'll miss cupcakes with the girls.  I'll miss Tuesday Night Dinners on the Upper East Side, Greek food on the Upper West, and Friday Night Films in Queens.  The countless nights of staying in and cooking dinner for myself, watching TV and writing.  And dreaming.  

But I'll be going to my family.  And to the countryside, or as countryside as you can get when you're ten minutes outside of Hartford.  Cold New England nights.  Fireplaces.  Leaves turning gold in my backyard.  A backyard.  My best friend who's promised to take me apple picking; I promised in return to bake a pie with the apples we get.  Meals that don't begin with the words Clif Bar.  Mom.  Dad.  Jenna.  Mike.  Todd.  

I thought if I didn't move away, I'd stop growing.  Now I realize I could grow in CT.  I just needed assistance, like those vines you wrap around sticks to keep them vertical.  

Here's to those who keep dreaming.  I know I will...

ally

PS.  Another gem of wisdom from my parents: never be afraid to ask for help.  life sometimes can be too hard to tackle alone, no matter how strong you think you are.  

And now, an essay.

Onward and upward, I say.  Nothing more will be mentioned about the brouhaha involving the Courant and my contributions there.  I thought, on this gorgeous Sunday in the city, that I should write something that would make you all laugh and/or pick a fight with me.  And I apologize in advance to all of my friends who are probably going to hate me after I say what I'm about to say.  Here we go.  

Twilight sucks.  

It is the epic epicenter of suck.  It could be studied by Stephen Hawking for his black hole theories.  Oh, it sucks so bad.

Now, before you all bite my head off (pun intended), let me just say that I am a voracious reader of fiction, particularly fantasy and sci-fi.  I'm writing my own book right now and it's getting increasingly hard not to steal from Tolkien at least every ten sentences or so.  It's embarrassing how often I tried to recreate classic scenes from medieval literature in my backyard when I was 8.  And 16.  And 19.  And 23.  But anyway.

One of my dearest loves has always been vampire lit. Before Stephanie Meyer ruined vampires for me forever, Anne Rice introduced me to the world of the charismatic, sensual, villainous vamp.  In her books, I found vampires who not only were incinerated in sunlight and drank blood, they actually killed people.  Killed people, and liked it.  Their fingernails looked like glass.  They spent a lot of money on clothes they didn't need, and partied till dawn until they crawled back home to sleep in their coffins before the sun flayed their skin.  They had sex.  They didn't bitch and moan about their existence.  They relished their eternal damnation.  My favorite is Lestat de Lioncourt, an obvious choice.  He's brash and charismatic and bold, and legitimately enjoys his work.  He's also a bit of a fashionista; he'll stop midnarration to talk about the coat he has on, which I always found hilarious.  When I read them now I feel sad that Anne abandoned her Vampire Chronicles to write the abysmal Christ the Lord series.  

Vampire movies also rank pretty high on my list of enjoyable things.  Interview with the Vampire is one of my favorite movies, even though it stars Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and I usually hate them with the fire of a thousand suns.  It completely freaked me out as a child when I caught it on TBS one night at the unfortunate moment when Lestat sinks his teeth into Louis' neck and blood pours to the floor.  And the scene where he kills the Creole hookers? GAH.  Vampires in that world kind of rock out with their brutality.  The Underworld series vampires, too, impressed me with all of their leatherbound and guntoting glory but those vampires are more in the vein of zombie horrorshow archetypes than traditional vamps.  There's very little mysticism and sensuality in those stories, if you don't count Lucian and Sonja.

Just realized that this entire harangue is going to make me sound like the biggest geek on the planet.  This may be true.

Anne Rice obviously isn't the only name in vampire fiction.  Bram Stoker practically invented the genre.  One of my favorite books of the past ten years (or the Aughties) has been Elizabeth Kostova's opus The Historian, which sets up the idea that Vlad the Impaler was really a vampire in a Da Vinci Code-esque narrative but with longer chapters (and, um, better writing).  And of course, the thousands of vampire books that have come out over the past few years such as the Sookie Stackhouse series which inspired True Blood on HBO.

When Twilight came out, I unintentionally put it on the backburner.  I was entering my junior year of college at the time and didn't have brainspace for recreational reading.  Last year, at the request of several of my friends, I stopped in a bookstore, picked up a copy of Twilight, and before I went up to the cashier I read the first few chapters, just to make sure it was my cup of tea before purchasing.

Now, let me get this straight.  They're vampires, but they can be in the sunlight? But they...sparkle?  And they're vegetarian vampires, but they feed on animal blood (PETA would have a heart attack).  And they don't like feeding on humans...because it's...morally wrong?

And did I mention they sparkle? 

However, the piece de resistance of the whole debacle? They don't have fangs.  They just have unusually sharp teeth.  So really, what you have here are strange emo-punk glitter fairies who abuse dental insurance.

Oh dear Akasha, what hath Stephanie Meyer wrought?

My vampires do not sparkle.  My vampires do not feed on animals because they don't want to hurt itty witty humans (although Louis de Pointe du Lac may disagree with me on this).  They bite into human necks and tear in until they hear arteries snap, and they drain them dry.  With fangs.  Whatever happened to these vampires, the ones that used to terrify me?

If Twilight vampires were human I would hate them.  Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate them.

They'd wallow in bowls of cookie dough unwrapped straight from the freezer and to hell with the salmonella risk.  They'd listen to really bad music.  I'd pass them on stoops outside of Union Square, reading Dante with an obvious air to their face (although you can't see it because it's under bug sunglasses) a beret perched on their head.  On their cigarette-thin frame (enhanced with, well, a cigarette) is thrown together pencil jeans and a Salute Your Shorts shirt, worn with the kind of self-referential irony that makes me want to kick every hipster I see.  They'd eat seitan wrapped in lettuce and drink vegan fizzy wine, gallivanting to poetry readings in the East Village so they can talk about it loudly the next day at Joe the Art Of Coffee while making plans to see Antichrist at the Angelika.  When they feel like the world doesn't understand them they will weep to their Livejournals and post passive-aggressive Facebook status updates and take to their Twitters with Churchill-like vitriol, then press the @ over a period of hours to check on who supports them.

Now, I know I'm getting a bit aggressive.  And granted if I were just talking about the book, I would stop now.  But I haven't even gotten to the best part.

The movie. 

Now, I have not seen the movie.  And I almost went to see it because of Rob Pattinson, because I am a huge Harry Potter fan and Cedric Diggory is one of my favorite characters from Goblet of Fire, because you want to hate him for stealing Cho from Harry but he's a genuinely nice guy.  I'm also a fan of them getting Katherine Hardwicke to direct (although I knew she would take it into a warped, Thirteen-ish direction which isn't necessarily a bad thing).  But oy.  It just looked so dreary and depressing to me that I skipped it.  Plus, the girls who were waiting in line to see it when I went to see Revolutionary Road were the kind of girls that I really, really hate.  They were so "OMG KAWAII" about the whole thing it turned me off from seeing it altogether.

The casting of Kristin Stewart as Bella, however, was the final nail in the coffin.  Her casting made it impossible for me to attempt sitting through it, although I will admit she was wonderful in Adventureland (then again that movie was impossible to screw up, and her character was minimal enough so that it didn't take me out of the story).

Her general 'blah' face bugs me.  People who look that bummed out by life all the time really just annoy me in general.  You've got an awesome life, sweetheart.  Enough of the "Oh, my life is so hard, no one understands me, I'm gonna sit here and hide behind my tangled hair and my ripped up jeans, wah wah waaah" nonsense.  You're the star of one of the biggest movie series of the past few years and on your off hours you get to make out with Cedric Diggory.  And you get the unGodly chance of getting to portray Joan Jett in a film.  

So, smile every once and a while darling.  Life could be worse.

Will I see New Moon? I don't think I will.  But there is a glitch in this plan.  One of my favorite actors on the planet, Michael Sheen (he played Tony Blair in The Queen and Lucian in the Underworld series) was cast as Aro, the leader of the vampire clan called the Volturi.  To see this man that I associate with werewolves play a vampire would be unbearably cool, but I have to remain strong.

In my opinion there should be more vampire fiction in the world, so on one hand I applaud Stephanie Meyer for bring them into the pop culture realm more handily than most other authors (and the fact that she didn't do any vampire research before writing the books explains a hell of a lot).  And I'm told reading her books is addictive.  But just don't call it a vampire story.  Because they aren't vampires. 

Me? I can't wait until werewolves come back into vogue.  Give me some lycanthropy any time!

Where do I go from here

'There is nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."

- Red Smith

I knitted you a hat all blue and gold

This weekend marked the first preseason activity for me and the team (well, the team's been doing things together already but this is the first time I've seen them since the White House trip).  First, a trip to Frankie Valli!

On Sunday, my family and I went to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons at Mohegan Sun, and proceeded to commandeer the back section of Geno's Pub.  I love Mohegan, but I still get a little weirded out when people treat Dad like a celebrity there.  At Wildwood we have this concept of MS, which is a guest we Must Satisfy.  When we go to Geno's Pub, it's like we are a MS Guest, which is so bizarre.  At one point when we walked into the casino I overheard someone behind us say "You know who that is? That's Geno Auriemma." "No way! Awesome!" 

Me? I was more excited that Bobby Flay is opening a Bar Americaine there.  I asked Dad if we could eat there when it opened.  "WHAAAAT?  Don't eat there, it's competition!" he roared.  I didn't argue, even though the fare at Bar Americaine is completely different than Geno's Pub.  If anything, it's closer in spirit to Michael Jordan's Steakhouse.  I'm digressing from the point.

The concert was much better than I thought it would be.  If anything, I was worried they'd have to push Frankie out in a wheelchair and in between hits he'd have to take a hit of his own-off a ventilator.  But I was pleasantly surprised.  He wasn't as limber as he once was, but the songs sounded brilliant.  The backup singers however were the real deal.  They were ridiculous.  At one point they had to sing "Oh What A Night" and you knew that their inner monologue was "YES.  I get a moment to shine! Better be as flamboyant as possible!"

Another thing that proved interesting during the concert was how quiet the audience was.  Last week at the Taylor Swift concert, my ears almost started bleeding.  This was more of the 'sit back, relax, awww look at the old guy sing' sort of concert.

At one point during the show, Dad came over to our side of the box and started talking about how certain songs move people to tears.  He even got a little misty as he mentioned that one of the songs that gets him going is "The Rising" by Bruce Springsteen.

Dad: I listened to it today when I was running and I had to stop and collect myself.  Even just thinking about it now is setting me off! 

Jenna: Wow.

Me: You are such a girl.

Dad: I KNOW!

The next day, Labor Day, I went to the gym and was greeted with an awesome surprise: Shea! I was really happy to see her and decided to work out next to her like I did in St. Louis.  Once again, I regretted it terribly as the day wore on because the girl is a monster on the elliptical.  

Later that day the team came over for a cookout and celebration of Chris Dailey's birthday.  It's the first time I've seen the team since Obama, and I was so happy to see all of them.  I finally met our new freshman, Kelly Faris, and she's pretty quiet but very nice.  Maya insisted on hearing about the best thing I did all summer and was extremely happy to hear that I was coming back to UCONN.  Also, I got a ferocious hug from Kaili who begged to know when I was coming home.  When I told her I wouldn't return for a month, she feigned total impatience and stomped her foot.  I love those girls.  

One thing that I love about seeing the team is that there are a few things that will always happen: One, they will hug and/or greet everyone in the room before sitting down.  Two, they will eat everything in the house.  And three, they will retreat to the basement for an epic ping-pong battle before coming up for dessert.

All in all, a very successful weekend.  I can't wait for the season to start.  Sadly I won't be attending the Championship dinner but I will be attending everything else! The countdown to the Supershow begins!

only comes out at night

There is a very good reason why I've been less than chatty on this lately.  And the reason? Work.  I work every single night of the week, which is usually my blogging time.  So now I'm here, awaiting lunch, watching The Golden Girls.  My boring life, let me show you it.  Trust me, once the season gets underway, I will have plenty to talk about.  And since I'm moving back home, I will be blogging quite a lot 'behind the scenes' at practices and such.  It's been a real blessing, this job I get, because I have the chance to go to a lot of Dad's practices again.  I used to go all the time as a child, but once you've dislocated a finger and sprained an ankle while attempting to scrimmage, the shine wears off pretty quick.

I'm procrastinating on reading some of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for the GRE after a morning of packing some clothes to take home this weekend in a suitcase as well as doing my laundry and running the dishwasher since there'll be some people coming to see my apartment this weekend.  I also need to read the rest of my Rainer Maria Rilke poem book as well as the George Eliot books.  The GRE is truly scaring me.  It's in a month, and I want to do well.  I want to do well, because this is just such a different career path than the one I ever thought I would go down.  A friend of mine at dinner the other night said to me "Some parents are surprised when their kid wants to run away to NYC and become an actor...you were doing what they expected you to do but now you're surprising them by getting a real job and being a teacher."

My family and I will be going to a concert this weekend, which should be gallons of fun.  I quite enjoy this feeling of being able to follow through on plans.  A few months ago, I honestly wasn't sure if I could go.  Now, I can confidently say "Yes, I can."  I like having that stability to my schedule.

Speaking of schedule, I don't know the entire basketball schedule this year for the girls but I am positive I will be traveling with them to Florida State, as well as Duke.  If the tournament doesn't work out for me it will be because I've been cast in a show, since there will be a lot of community theatre offerings next year that I'm really interested in.  Plus, this will be a chance for all of you fine people to see me in a show in Connecticut (and it wouldn't break any banks to come see it!).

A few things that I'm really excited about right now:

1. I bought quite a few vintage pieces last weekend when I went home for the Taylor Swift concert.  I expect to rock several of them for Labor Day (who says you can't wear white in the fall?) I'm wearing a sequined jacket for the concert.  Because I can! Living in NYC has really emboldened my fashion choices.  Because, really, when you see some of the stuff I've seen on the streets of New York, you really aren't living near the edge in anything sparkly.  Some of these people have built estates on the edge.

2. New A Fine Frenzy, Michael Buble and Carrie Underwood albums.  Yes.

3. Top Chef, Biggest Loser, Glee, So You Think You Can Dance, Supernatural, The Office, to name very few.  Oh man.  I may never leave the house.

Lunch, and gym.  Ah, my life.