Opening a Gift

I'm not proud of it, but I have come clean to my family. It was a real problem, that I couldn't control through much of my childhood. I hid it, and I completely got away with it, too. My parents never suspected that I would do such a horrible thing.

I opened my presents before Christmas.

After the illusion of Santa was crushed, (and I remember EXACTLY where I was when that happened . . . a story for another day), my mom would put the immaculately wrapped presents under the tree as she bought them, sometimes weeks before the big day. Did she have no idea what this would do to me? Was she under the illusion that I had self-control?!

My parents were asleep . . . I went to the living room to watch TV and there was the beautiful and majestic Christmas tree, with it's twinkling lights and years and years of homemade ornaments. The paper and cotton ball Santa, crumpled and held together with tape, that my dad made when he was in elementary school, Miss Piggy with angel wings and halo (my FAVORITE ornament), and dozens of multi-colored tinsel umbrellas that my mother had from her mother, just to name a few. There's nothing like my family Christmas tree. It's always crooked, the limbs are weighed down with far too many ornaments, and it'll never be the kind of tree you see on TV in a Christmas special, but it's the most beautiful tree in the world to me. And underneath that tree, dozens of mysteries wait to be unraveled . . .

It started pretty innocently. I casually strolled over to the tree, taking a peek at the "to" and "from" cards. (I liked to compare the size and quantity of my presents compared to my brothers . . . solely for research purposes. I'm not competitive or jealous, you see.) And, oh, one of the presents "To Erin, From Mom" is in a gift BAG. "Well, maybe I'll just lift the present, to see how heavy it is. Hmm, I don't suppose it would hurt if I just PEEKED inside . . . if the metallic green tissue paper shifted to the side, that's not MY fault . . . " And just like that, a red-headed, flannel pajama wearing, present snooping maniac was born.

It was SO EASY that year to pretend that I didn't know that the gift bag contained my yearly decorative socks! My performance was pitch perfect! "Oh! Socks with kittens wearing sweaters?! Thank you, Mom! I love them!" And she BOUGHT IT!

After that, there was no stopping me. I'd wait until my parents went out, and I'd get to work. As the years went by, I become such a pro. I could unwrap the Fort Knox of presents and rewrap it with the greatest of ease and no one ever suspected. I was untying and retying decorative bows like a ninja (if ninjas were into untying and retying bows). And I was getting more and more convincing with the shock and awe I would portray opening the gifts that I had previously unwrapped . . . which, let's face it, over the years became all of them. I'd even start to unwrap a couple of my brother's presents (for research, remember?) There was no stopping me.

At around age 14, after opening all of our family presents, I had a hallow feeling inside. My parents had bought all of these amazing and beautiful gifts, as they always did, and I felt like a jerk because I wasn't EXCITED. It didn't feel magical, as Christmas should, because I had known for days, sometimes weeks what everything was. I took that joy you get from giving someone a special gift away from my parents, and the crummiest part was, that they didn't even know (CURSES for being such a good actress!) I had this huge moment of recognition of how spoiled I was. (I still AM, but at least now I know it and I don't open my gifts.)

Years later, I casually mentioned, "Oh, yeah, I used to open all of my Christmas gifts," much to my mother's shock and accusations of, "Oh, you're bad! You're BAD!" And I really do feel bad about it. Why couldn't I stop myself? What a shithead! I'll never get those moments of surprise back.

So, to my wonderful Mom and Dad (and let's face it Dad, it was MOM doing all the shopping), I'm sorry I ruined the magic of holiday gift-giving for years. I guess the only way we could get it back would be . . . hmmmm . . . I mean, I promise I won't look . . . more presents?

Something that belongs to someone else

I am, once again, trying to get back to writing daily, so I cracked open my A Writer's Book of Days for some inspiration. Today, I write about "something that belongs to someone else."

The first thing that comes to my mind is my heart. Throughout my life, I feel like it's almost uncomfortable for me to have ownership of my heart. I give it away too freely sometimes and I've certainly had it returned in a million pieces. Right now, I feel pretty safe with the person who has it. He wouldn't frivolously toss it aside or do anything careless. It was definitely handed to him cautiously, and covered in band-aids. Every once in a while one of those band-aids loosen and I get scared. I worry about it breaking again because I feel like it's pretty close to having it's last punch so I try to build a wall around it or take it back, but he soothes my heart and mends those tricky wounds.

My friend Jamey put together a show a couple of years ago with artists in all different mediums. There was one scene that has really stayed with me. There were no words, just music and a man and a woman. They both wore a beautiful heart made of metal wires with long pieces of yarn hanging from it on their chest. As they portrayed "falling in love" they would attach one of their yarn strings to the other persons heart. Then, as so often happens, they started to grow apart. The actors moved farther apart in distance, stretching the heart strings to their limit. Finally, one of the actors took scissor and cut right through the strings, eliminating any attachment they had to one another. It was heartbreaking and elegant.

We build connections to each others hearts and sometimes it's really hard to detach. For some, it's easy to just cut right through those connections . . . for others (like me) it takes a long time to detach the strings, one by one, and let it go.

My heart belongs to someone else. He knows who he is. I hope he is as careful with it as I am with his because his is pretty tattered and beaten up too. Maybe that's how we ended up feeling safe enough to let someone else in again, who knows. I'm just glad that I'll never give up trusting there will be someone to take care of it forever.

I got nothin'

I got nothin'. I have been staring at this computer screen . . . hoping for inspiration . . . for a good 45 minutes. All I've got is this.

I'm grateful right now for:

My amazing family
Friends: from Orlando, New York, Singapore, Australia, Europe, EVERYWHERE
Someone to snuggle
An awesome room mate
Laughing (I did a lot of that tonight)
Group Therapy Improv Group
ACME Improv
A job
A super comfy bed
Ramen noodles
Yummy smelling soap and lotion
The relaxing melodies app on my iphone
.... speaking of which . . . I'm sleepy.

Goodnight.

Words

I can't help but write about this because I woke up early, unable to get back to sleep thinking about it.

Words are my downfall. They weigh so heavy on me and it's so hard for me to separate them from my emotions. If you've never read The 5 Love Languages, I highly recommend it because it really opened my eyes years ago. The basic premise is that we all show and receive love in different ways. After reading the book it's usually very clear what your "language" is (and what your parents languages are, which in turn really effects you) and that makes it easier to communicate love to others whether it be in a friendship or romantic relationship. When I read it I was immediately like, "HOLY CRAP!" I completely, 100% give AND receive love in the form of words.

I'm the girl who will always be forthcoming about my feelings (whether they are undying feelings of love or complete and utter disgust). I've always been that way. Sometimes it leaves me feeling incredibly vulnerable. I take what someone says in one moment and hold on to it for dear life. "But you SAID this!" We all know we say things in the moment that we very much mean . . . but then feelings change. That has been a huge lesson for me: to accept that those words were real at the moment, but now the moment has passed and I can't hold that person to those words.

Words are also why I have always loved reading, writing, and acting. They are so moving! I mean, gees, who can resist a Shakespearean sonnet?! (Okay, LOTS of people can resist them, but not me!)

So as I was lying in bed I was just thinking about a situation in my life right now where I feel stuck and it's completely attached to the fact that I am putting a TON of weight on words and how I often let the fact that the words aren't backed up by actions slip by.

"Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth."
Friedrich Nietzsche 

Reality TV: my frienemy

After a long crappy day yesterday I was shutting things down behind the bar at work thinking, "Great. I made this goal of being grateful for something each day and then I have a day like this. What am I going to write about."

I get home, check my facebook and have messages and comments from my friends all over the country saying they saw me in the audience of Bachelor Pad. I started cracking up. The stupid reality show (that I'm hooked on) turned around and made my day. All of a sudden I was reliving that day a week ago when Kat flew from Vegas just to go to the taping with me because we are HUGE fans and remembering how much fun we had. I'm so grateful for her friendship. The tickets were also given to me by a friend I adore and respect so much who wasn't able to make it to the taping because she's a good mommy and it was her son's school orientation. I have good friends. I'm a lucky girl.

And Kirk blew me a kiss!

WTF am I doing?

Hi.

I have spent every day the last month saying, "I'm gonna . . . ya know, get some writing done today," and yet every friggin' day, something took me away from that: reruns of Tosh.0, Facebook, staring at a wall, ANYTHING I could do to not have to put my hands on the ever-loving keys of my macbook and actually get creative, I would do. And then I'd convince myself, MAN, I just ran out of time today. CRAZY!

So, this pile of shit blog is where I put my foot down. Even if it's this blog entry that has no significance, I had to write because if I don't write something I feel like I'm just going to find more worthless, time-sucking, reality TV shows to zap all of my creative mojo.

Shits been hard. Yep. I've had a lot of tough shit lately but that's life. When is there NOT shit? Speaking of shit, the thing that got me writing tonight was my friend Julie's blog entry about shit today. She is hilarious and she is doing this whole "living joyously" thing where she basically does whatever she wants (including quitting her job) and knows it's all going to be fantastic. I love her. Julie's blog. (note: "shit" used five times in this paragraph . . . well, now six times I guess.)

Today I had a moment of intense and insane clarity writing down a take out order at the same time as playing tic tac toe with my fellow counter server where I thought, "Woah! Wait a minute. I'm sorry. This isn't my life. I must have accidentally beamed into someone else's body and life because this isn't mine." I think it's a combination of being really hard on myself (as always), being impatient (again, per usual) and being EXHAUSTED (by quite a few things). All I know for sure is that I needed to slap myself across the face tonight, force myself to say something, and hold myself accountable for my total laziness.

I need to focus on the amazing things in my life, even if it's the tiniest thing one day, I'm so freaking lucky. I have a tendency to get in a rut of only focusing on the things I want to change, the things that suck. The problem there is that there is always stuff in your life that sucks, no matter who you are. The difference between a happy person and a miserable one is that the happy person is looking at all the fan-flippin'-tastic blessings they have and the miserable one is focused on the shit they are wading through. Until I have a story to tell, I'm just going to let you know what I'm grateful for and focus on that.

Today I had my graduation show for my 301 UCB class. I love improv. I was hung up for a while, about a year ago, feeling like I just couldn't do it and that I was awful, and well, because I THOUGHT that, I was. Now, I don't even really care that much if I'm amazing at it, I just love that I LOVE doing it. I love making people laugh and I got to do that today. I am so thankful for that. My class rocks, UCB rocks and hanging out at Birds afterwards rocks.

And I'm grateful that I finally wrote something today. It'll make writing something tomorrow so much easier, and now, I have no excuse. I'm sure the THRONGS of people who read this will hold me accountable and urge me to keep writing. (And by "throngs of people" I mean, my mother.)

Goodnight.

The Worst (and Best) Wing-woman

My bestie Kat came into town from Vegas this past week and in accompanying her to the Roosevelt Hotel's Beacher's Madhouse show I realize that I am the worst (and best) wingwoman. Here's why:

1. I am not smooth. I lost the straw to my drink three times. Once it was in my hair, once I smacked it out of the drink and across the bar in an awkward dance move and I have no idea where the third straw went. We were still asked to join a VIP table area by a group of dudes (because Kat is incredibly smooth and has crazy flirtation skills.)

2. I, on the other hand, got rejected when I wasn't even flirting. I was trying to be funny and sarcastic with the waiter because he had a small flashlight in his mouth while he pouring drinks from the bottle at the table. I said, "Wow, you're really good with a flashlight." He didn't even turn back to look at me while he said, "Yeah, so's that guy over there. Maybe you should talk to HIM." Yeesh.

3. You want a picture of you, a dude dressed like a giant penis, Spiderman and Paris Hilton? You got it:

4. Or a picture with an Oompa Loompa?

5. OR the world's tallest stripper?!

I'm your wing-woman.

6. But the drawback is that you have to deal with me wanting to get up on a platform to dance with a human chicken:

The man to the right looks absolutely terrified/disgusted.

7. I can dance the night away with the best of them but don't ask me to have a seductive conversation at the same time because it will go like it did that night:
Cute Guy: "Hey, nice moves."
Me: "Thanks! It's my 'I got a big penis' dance!"
Cute Guy: <blank stare>
Me: "I mean, my 'I'm nine months pregnant' dance?"
Cue cute guy's swift departure. Whatever, I thought it was funny.

8. I will only have one drink so that I can drive, and pass the glasses of champagne that the random guys at the table pass me to you. GREAT wing-woman!!

That is the end of my list. It was definitely one of the most fun night's out in Hollywood I've ever had (I very rarely do it.) I'm so glad I got to spend an impromptu evening with Kat though! One more picture of Paris and Nikki Hilton:

Loving the expression on the Oompa Loompa.

This happened too:

But most importantly, we had fun: