What a difference a year makes

Happy Birthday to me!

And a happy birthday it was. Which is a nice change from last year. Last year for my 29-again birthday, I barely got out of bed. It was a miserable rainy day in Jersey City, and no part of me was interested in celebrating myself. I hid away until it was all over. I think I might have ordered a pizza and eaten a Hostess cupcake, no candle. It was rather pathetic.

This year, I was happy to have people sending good wishes. I was happy to share the news that, yes, today is MY special day and all the world should feel free to lavish me with love. And I was feeling the love. It was an extension of a birthday weekend, of sorts. Alex and I flew back to Jersey last week to deal with boxes that were being stored in my parents' house, boxes and boxes of books and photo albums and artwork and CD's and DVD's, things we knew we wanted but did not want to ship to Seattle until we had an address with a bit more longevity than the 6-month sublet we moved into in September. A 2-year lease on our current place meant it was time to bring our stuff home to us, and so we spent a couple of days digging around in crawl spaces and attics, finding things we'd been missing and other things we'd forgotten. We unpacked and repacked and prepared ourselves for a problematic visit to the US Post Office, but it all turned out to be much simpler than we'd anticipated. We only had one box turned away, because it weighed 5 pounds more than their 75-pound shipping limit, and using media mail meant we shipped 15 large boxes for only a few hundred dollars, as opposed to the thousands we would have had to spend to rent space on a truck. (AND, 8 of the boxes were just delivered to us this morning! I'm telling you, I am a BIG FAN of the USPS, even with all of my mail that's been lost over the years--mostly from my Upper West Side USPS branch--and the hours I've had to stand in long lines just to mail out a package--mostly while living in Astoria, which rarely had a wait of less than an hour. All in all, I find the services they provide to be excellent for the money they charge. And they brought me hundreds of pounds worth of books this morning. It's like my birthday continues!!)

We planned the trip to Jersey for this past weekend so we could be in NYC for my brother's Easter gathering, which made it easy for us to see the whole family in one shot: siblings, cousins, uncle and newly-curly-haired favorite aunt, pregnant sister-in-law and her whole family (whom I have adopted as my Other Family). Easter Sunday this year fell on my oldest brother's birthday, plus it was just 2 days before my own birthday, which meant there were cakes baked and songs sung for each of us. My 29-again birthday celebration began days early, even before Easter, when I got myself the awesome present of a haircut at a NYC hair salon that I've been wanting to go to, a salon that deals exclusively with curly hair. I spent 2 hours having my head fondled by 2 men, it was glorious!! And I got to visit with friends whom I haven't seen in months, friends who always make me feel special. And then there was the bonus of seeing my 19-year-old cousin, newly returned from a tour in Afghanistan, who came from Cleveland with a friend as an Easter surprise. I got to help a couple of Marines enjoy NYC for the first time, while celebrating my brother's birthday with a private bash in his closed-for-Easter East Village bar. It was a weekend full of celebration, a weekend full of love and good feelings, and it all kinda felt like my birthday. On our last night in Jersey, Alex and I went to dinner with my parents, then sat in front of a fire eating lemon meringue pie and playing with a kitten, AWESOME! I woke up on my birthday morning, and my favorite cherry tree, the one right in front of the room I called my own for many years, my favorite cherry tree was opening all of its little pink buds, as if to let me know that it had been waiting for me to reveal itself. A fine farewell from the east coast, and then a plane ride back to Seattle, where the sun decided to come out to welcome us home. And then, I went to my first rehearsal for the short play festival I've been cast in, which is about the best gift anyone could give me. It felt exciting to be in that room, to be starting this project, and I let everyone know that it was my birthday and they should feel free to celebrate me. No shying away from it this year!! Post-rehearsal, I went home to Alex, who greeted me at the door wearing a tie, and led me into the kitchen, where candles blazed and a lovely gourmet meal was waiting. Alex wanted to make me feel special, and he did, oh yes he did. As the minutes ticked away to April 27th, I felt special, I felt loved, I felt celebrated, I felt happy. I felt all the things a person hopes to feel on a birthday, all the things that were missing last year as I hid under my covers.

I am happy to be 29-again. I am excited for the year to come. I don't feel older; I feel happier. I feel like I am in the right place; even though I am far away from my family, I feel close to them. I feel excited for my soon-to-be-a-daddy brother and his too-beautiful-to-be-true pregnant bride, and I'm so excited to become an aunt! I feel like the miles between us are unimportant, as I am going to do whatever I can to be a part of every big occasion. I feel like the only thing that might get in the way of me doing that is the possibility of having some success as an actor out here, which feels like a very real possibility, and frankly, what a perfect dilemma to have! I feel younger than I did a year ago, which is directly connected to that feeling of hope. Last year, I felt lost, and stuck in a rut, and scared that I was never going to call myself an actor again. This year, I still feel a little lost, but more in a "This place is unfamiliar and I'm not sure where I'm going but I can't wait to figure it out" kind of way. This year, 29-again feels sexy, and fun, and energetic. This year feels good. I feel good.

What a difference a year makes. And the difference is me.

Spring is springing

Wait, is it really...how did it get to be mid-April already?

Greetings from a Seattle that is desperately trying to welcome in Spring. There are buds on all the trees, flowers are in bloom in planters and along the city streets, birds are singing their spring-y little songs. Spring has arrived! Though it's still in the 40's here, and the sun is fighting to make its presence known through the thick cloud cover. We're in that iffy part of Spring where we are feeling hopeful for what's to come but also a little gun shy to accept that it has fully arrived. I could really go for a steady stretch of temperatures in the 70's, but I have to be realistic and recognize that I am still months away from such glory. Temperatures in the 70's means summer has reached Seattle, and I'm still wearing my winter coat. Patience, Megatha, patience...

I am happy to report that I have full hearing in two ears!! I've still got some crackling and draining going on, but I can hear at a level that is acceptable for a woman in her mid- to late-20's. And it feels so goooood. Never again will I take my hearing for granted. I love my sense of hearing! It's one of my 5 favorite senses! Even as I write this, I am hearing all kinds of fun sounds: construction across the street, city traffic below, the KOMO News 'copter landing on the heli-pad 2 blocks over. I love all of these sounds, these generally ignored background noises that were missing from my daily soundtrack for a solid 3 weeks. Hearing them again is a joyous experience. I want everyone to appreciate these sounds! Listen to that, it's hammering! Ah, the sweet sounds of recycling day. Oh joy, sirens, sirens galore!! Yes, all of the daily sounds of city living that I generally do my best to ignore now appear to me as lovely little aural gifts. Isn't hearing stuff grand? I can feel myself becoming that person who warns people to TURN DOWN YOUR IPOD OR YOU'LL GO DEAF! Though I'm sure in a couple of weeks, hearing will once again seem like a regular ol' everyday experience, nothing much to think about or celebrate. I'm pretty sure I'll be keeping my iPod turned to a reasonable volume, though.

I'm also happy to report that I've been cast in a short play festival that runs through the month of June. I can't tell you how excited I am to have lines to memorize! It's been months since my last time onstage, and I have been missing it desperately. The past couple of months have been promising, as I've been able to audition for a number of companies I've been wanting to introduce myself to. And the introductions have gone well, they just haven't turned into jobs. My feeling on Seattle casting is that this is a small, interwoven community, and while people might get excited by a new face in town (particularly a face as fantabulous as my own), they also are a bit gun shy when it comes to hiring someone new. "Let someone else test them out first" seems to be the way things are done around here. I say, Bring it on! Let the testing begin! I am chomping at the bit here, I am dreaming of a time when I am so busy I want to cry from exhaustion. Seriously. Free time is nice and all, but it's kind of like hearing: it's hard to appreciate when you've got it in abundance. I lost my hearing for a few weeks, and now I want to stand on my balcony and soak up the sounds of city life. I've had too much free time to play with for awhile now, and the days have all kind of run together into a pasty lump of blahhhhhhh. Okay, perhaps that's a bit extreme, but the truth is, it's been too long since I've had any kind of excitement when answering the oft questioned: So what are you up to these days? I manage to stay kinda busy, it's not like I'm just sitting around watching TV and eating bonbons. (Though I must admit, in the last month, the month without hearing, there was an increase in my TV-viewing time and my bonbon consumption. Being deaf-ish meant my balance was completely skewed, which made exercise a no-go, which made me feel extra cruddy and seemed to cue my cravings for cake and cookies and chocolate in all of its forms. I think I've gained 10 pounds in 4 weeks, and I made a semi-permanent butt indent on our new couch during those weeks of antibiotics and pain killers. Gross.) However, I am primed and ready for a period of schedule juggling and round-the-clock rehearsing and busy busy busy busy busy-ness. A short play festival isn't gonna be all that consuming, of course, but I'm choosing to look at it as a beginning. A long awaited beginning. Spring has sprung in Seattle, indeed!