Warming Up

My moods jump around a lot these days. I wish I could say that I wake up every morning calm and centered, that I feel in complete possession of myself and am confident in my ability to take anything the world throws at me because, in my heart, in my soul, I know who I am and I’m proud of who I am and that energy guides me in everything I do. But that would be bullshit. When I wake up in the morning, I usually have no idea what kind of day it’s going to be, what kind of person I am, whether I should feel satisfied or miserable or sick or carefree, etc. Maybe this is because in the course of any given day (hell, any given hour), I feel like my disposition runs the gamut, from preening cockiness to shivering fear, as well as lots of little subsets in between (these include, but are not limited to: optimistic trepidation, jaded ambition, desperate happiness, and lack of abject confidence in my abilities that presents itself as self-deprecating modesty and, in turn, makes me feel rather charming).

Lots of things have happened in the last week and a half, good things too, but my feelings often seem to operate on their own crazed frequency, separate from circumstance. Maybe it’s because my life is so loose and free-wheeling right now, with ups and downs arriving in such a rapid, random succession: after weeks of abject rejection and rising depression, on the exact same day I got a tutoring job and a play I wrote was accepted by an off-off-Broadway theater (I don’t actually know what the correct terminology is here- accepted seems too informal, but I can’t say the play was commissioned since I won’t be getting any money). A few days ago, after a week of not really looking for another job and feeling ceaselessly guilty about it, I got an email telling me that I’ve been called in for an interview at a place I applied to about two weeks ago and had completely forgotten about. But that interview isn't for a few more days, and I don't want to worry about or jinx it, so...

Let’s talk more about my play. I got an email from the Artistic Director of this place, and just as soon as my exhiliration began to wane (I would say a couple hours after the news), the stark reality that I have to cobble together a full-scale production of a rather challenging play in about three weeks hit me like a buffalo stampede, a bloodied bash in the head that I’m still reeling from. Since then I’ve made a lot of choices about the play and this production, all of them under a self-imposed hard deadline. And, of course, the time that I haven’t spent making these decisions, I’ve spent up late at night in a cold sweat overanalyzing and regretting them.

What this means, what any of my life here in NYC means, is another thing that’s constantly fluctuating: maybe this production is a break. I hope it is. But it just as easily (actually, far more easily) could be a little thing that comes and goes, a blip on the screen of my life. What if I don’t end up being a playwright? What if I end up as a fiction writer, or my stand up comedy career takes off, or in another year I’m in China teaching English, or I go back to graduate school and decide to be a professor, or something else happens that I can't even begin to envision right now? My life could go in a million different directions, and even though I’m technically in control, I really have no clue what’s going to happen. There are a hundred different futures in which this production doesn’t matter, in which nothing I do during these wandering days in Gotham City matters in any real capacity. In that case, all I’m doing here, really, is just building up valuable life experience, that strange commodity that’s impossible to define, yet that people covet nearly as much as money and power.

I certainly have had already some interesting life experiences in relation to this show. For instance, two nights ago when I went to a public showing of the theater. The twist is, I wasn’t able to attend the showing for the new play festival that I’m in, so instead I attended the showing for the same theater’s Gay and Lesbian Theaterfest in November. It wasn’t an especially strange experience, all things considered, but the Artistic Director (who had a glass of wine in one hand and a tiny dog in the other) was definitely in his element with that crowd.

In any case, whenever I start to feel overwhelmed or stressed, I have a fairly successful tactic: placing things into context. The slow understanding that even though it feels like a huge part of my life is over, the real stuff has actually just begun, and I have no clue whatsoever where I’m going to end up, so in all likelihood everything that I’m stressing about is just complete bullshit and in ten years I’ll be somewhere I never expected. When this happens, I imagine I’ll think back fondly on my lost years in the city, remembering all the good times and wiping away all the loneliness and fear and existential dread that managed to coexist, happily, with all the fun stuff.

Still, I want the show to be good. That’s just a matter of pride. I feel that pressure, because no matter (and no matter the lack of money), this is the first professional-type thing that I’m doing as a writer. The insane, fast, throw-it-all-together mentality makes it seem like something superfluous, but it’s not. It’s me trying to do some version of what I want to do for a living, and I need to treat it super seriously (I guess you could say that the Sandman workshop/reading in Chicago was my actual first professional engagement, but the process-orientated causality of the whole thing, as well as the fact that nearly the entire audience was composed of current and former Northwestern students, makes me think otherwise).

In any case, we start actual rehearsals on Monday. So there’s no use talking or thinking about it too much.

I will say one thing: New York City is a hell of a nice place to feel lost in (it's also a nice place to get lost in, which is a slightly different thing, though they're related). I’ve been here for one month (just had the anniversary yesterday, marked unceremoniously by an expired MetroCard). And it’s true, over this month, there have been more than a few times where I’ve quite suddenly felt overwhelmed and dead inside and like I was getting swallowed in an a sinking vortex. During these times, I’ve looked around and wondered to myself, often in angered tones, why the fuck I ever wanted to live in a place so jam-packed-saturated with people. There is so much space in the world, and here I am in this one dinky island that has built upwards, stacking people on top of people on top of people until it becomes a sweaty, clogged mess. There’s the obvious crowdedness, but there’s also a real sense of isolation that comes with such an overabundance of strangers. Every day that I walk around New York I see hundreds and hundreds of people, very few of whom I make eye contact with, none of whom I will ever see again. And even if two weeks later by some chance I see that same short Asian businessman from Central Park knocking one back at a West Village Bar, I will never, ever recognize him. Because there are so many people in this city, the value of human life becomes far less important. Everyone is clearly, truly out for themselves. It can be a pretty damaging place, and this is coming from a guy who likes to be alone. When I saw a pretty girl walking around at school and didn’t talk to her, I could always imagine that she would turn up in a class or at a party or I would just see her walking around again, I could always tell myself that I’ll have another chance. I was always surrounded by people that were part of my same community, that I had some implicit bond with. And even if I only ever became friends with a handful of them, it was a reassuring thing. Now, I see a pretty girl on the subway, I don’t talk to her, and when she walks away into the swarms and I know that I will never see her again. So many people, and so few connections.

Luckily, whenever I get too deep into my head wondering about this, I rediscover why New York is such an incredible place to live. New York, more than anywhere I have ever been, has the ability to make someone feel, at any given moment , like they can completely reinvent themselves, change their lives for the better. New York as a place is so inspiring and exciting, and every part of it is so radically different: you get on the subway, and then ten or twenty minutes later you get out and suddenly you’re in what seems like a brand new city, a whole different world. This, from what I’ve seen, is unique to NYC. No matter where you are in Los Angeles, it still always, undeniably, feels like Los Angeles. Same thing with Chicago. There’s something about those places, that’s hard to pin down: an energy, a feeling, a vibe that translates across all their area codes and neighborhood barriers. Not so in New York, which really is like ten great cities (and about forty decent ones) all crammed together into one jumbled, crazy, invigorating mess. It’s a tiring, tirelessly expensive place to live, yes, but there’s also something really inspiring about it.

Of course, I’ve only lived here a month. I may have a working knowledge of most of the trains and a vague understanding of where Gramercy Park ends and Chelsea begins (very vague), but I am still very green in this place. These observations, I’m sure, are all very naive. But then, come to think of it, I’m also pretty green to this whole adulthood thing, to not having my schedule planned out and having very clear goals at any given moment of the day. I’m new to not being allowed to throw around that wonderful, always respectable moniker of “student" whenever it's convenient. I actually have no idea what to say to people now when they ask me what I do, but that’s something I’ve thought a great deal about and is, likely, the subject of a separate entry.

So, I’m doing good, right? I feel like I’m doing good. I’ve been here a month and I’ve got a job (part-time, and not making nearly enough money to live off of, and I haven’t even started training yet and have no idea when the deuce I will, but still). In another month I’ll be a produced playwright. I live in a good apartment with great roommates (all of whom are struggling with their own versions of this real world, sink-or-swim hysteria, but all struggling pretty admirably). There are times when I feel a sharp pain in my stomach or my heart rate rises without warning or I wake up at in the middle of the night shivering uncontrollably (all of these are my body’s struggling attempts, I’m convinced, to cope with the mental pressures breathing down on me). But then there are also days where I stroll through one of those gorgeous, idyllic blocks of the city (and there are plenty of ‘em) with Jay-Z pumping in my headphones, and I feel like maybe, just maybe, I’m king of this whole fucking world.

Fact is, I’m going to make mistakes, and I’m going to wish I could go back and make things better. But then, things could always be better. If this show in a month is, by some chance, a smash hit and, by some even crazier chance, seen by some people who matter, then what happens? My theatrical career will be off and running, but I’ll still want more. I’ll want to have plays on Broadway, I’ll want to be making enough money as a writer that I don’t have to do anything else. And if that happens, then I’ll want to find a way to transfer to TV and Film. And if that happens, then I’ll want to be on a better show, and have more power, and get more acclaim, and if by some chance I become the Creator/Producer of a huge hit series and win a dozen Emmys, I’ll probably look back on a life consumed by work and wonder what the hell it all meant, and why I never just dropped everything and went backpacking through the Himalayas.

And that’s just professional stuff. There’s also that whole friendship/love/sex/family component of life, and there’s also just how I feel about myself, deep down, separate from all these extraneous factors. There is a lot of stuff. Which is why it might be best to just take things one day at a time.

You know, I like this blog because it gives me a chance to put into words all of my personal philosophies. Now if only I knew what the fuck I was talking about.