time machine mascara queen

I asked my mom if she made the decision of what she wanted to do with her life at 21 like I had to.

The closer I get to my senior year of college the more nervous I get about what I'm supposed to do. I'm not particularly excited about senior year considering I lost some of my closest friends on a huge of account of me being an asshole and at this rate I'm not sure if that will ever be repaired. But Manhattan is like America's Next Top Model, nobody goes there to make friends. I know I didn't.

I don't know if acting is something I'm still capable of doing and I know that I don't want to do make up for the rest of my life. I love doing make-up and putting it on people and coming up with looks and making people feel pretty or scary or excited, but I don't want it to be my job. I just want it to be another thing that I do, another thing about me.

I've played around with the idea of starting a make-up line and figuring out a safe way to do it in my kitchen. I've played around with wanting to write for teen magazines to girls so they'll hate themselves less. I've played around with wanting to be a motivational speaker, indestructible 'too cool for you' indie movie actress, relatable major motion picture actress, make-up mogul and bad ass business woman, ambassador of some kind of love yourself company. But everyone says to you that you have to pick one.

I don't want to pick one.

This might sound a little dissociative identity but there are so many versions of me that fit so many different molds. Stefani is what people call me, but they've all met a very different type of person.

I don't know how to be myself because I don't know which one is the real me.

Let's take a look.

Stefani at School: Whether she's talking about margaritas or being 40 twice divorced, you can find Stefani talking about how much stuff she has to do and how much work at Sephora she has to go to while boisterously telling you how great she is. Stefani at School might have her Judy Garland accent on or be telling someone how much of a 'perfect princess' they are for helping out with something (if she likes you). You might also hear Stefani telling someone to go away in a scathingly polite way. Her 'frattitude' (friendly attitude) and harsh comment spoken in a sweet manner are the deciding factor on whether people think she's 'fabulous' or 'just a huge bitch'. You'll often find her complaining about how exhausted she is and how badly she needs a coffee or how much she'd wish someone would take her major a little more seriously. She is also normally found at: Sephora (her work place), Cafe 101 on her lap top with Starbucks, The Costume Shop, or poking through affordable shops in SoHo.

Stefani at Home (in Boston): Stefani at Home has less friends and less people to impress so she spends more time thinking about who she wants to be. You will often find her at work or at odd jobs people call her to help with. She is often stressed about going back to school or requesting off the right days of work to go back to New York or figuring out how much money she'll need but the end of the summer. Since most of her friends are sleepy, busy, or soon undergoing surgery she spends most of her time in her house or on her own. With no one to really talk to, she spends most of her summer and other breaks soul searching and figuring out who it is she wants to be. She's often polite but even more often she is wary of the future and always feels like she might have her period. She is normally found at: home, which is an apartment above a hair salon, at Diesel Cafe furiously typing away or writing a in a journal with coffee, at Starbucks across the street from Diesel doing the same, at Buffalo Exchange, crying in Found over Chanel shoes, or at Sephora at the Prudential Center (place of employment).

Stefani with Home Friends: Probably the most realistic of the Stefani's and the most comfortable in terms of who she is because it's easier to tell people who have seen you scream-cry and shake over a crazy exboyfriend that you're sad and you don't know what you're supposed to do with your life. You see, the difference between people who have known her since she was 14 and people who have known her since 20 do not have the same understandings about her. Stefani is most likely to be found in Jenn's bed asking for answers, getting coffee with Bridget asking for answers, going on femi-dates (feminist dates that are really dates where I pay for myself because it's 2013) with Keith asking for answers, or getting lunch with co-workers asking for answers. And trying to give so many answers with the best of her ability. She is playful and witty with razor sharp remarks on certain life choices of people she used to know because regardless of how poised she wants to make herself seem she has no problem indulging in ignorant bullshit.

Stefani with Herself: A big mess.

A.

Big.

Big.

Mess.

I'm constantly swirling myself around between Stefani and Blair Waldorf and Audrey Hepburn and Miranda Priestly and bad ass mysterious indie girl and Girl Next Door meets Girl Next Whore and sweet romantic possible girlfriend and awesome friend who will listen to everything and  I don't know how to be all of these people at once.

I don't even know if I want to be all of these people either.

Are you supposed to pick? Or does it just happen on its own?



After a short pause my mom responded, at age 52, "I still haven't."

do what you love.

I've spent half of my day looking up talent agencies to submit my resume and headshot (that doesn't exist) into. I've considered over and over again submitting to Ford+ and Wilhelmina Curve but I'm not 5'8 and I figure if you're not going to meet the height requirement why even bother?

Can you still do print if you're not 5'8?

All of this sprung up because I was paroozing my Instagram and saw that a friend of mine was in the midst of filming. I don't know if it's a short film or not but I made something wake up in me. Something burn up and get me all kinds of fiery.

I've wanted to be an actress since I was five years old.  I can almost feel the eye roll you all made from this kind of cliche. 

I was cast in my first play at age four. My sister was doing a community theatre production of Alice and Wonderland and I liked picking her up and dropping her off at rehearsals with my mom and I think eventually I just begged my mom to let me stay. I had about six lines and was the youngest one in the cast, one of the Queen's cards. The director (and Queen of Hearts, Pamela DePasquale) had me introduce the show, and since I had no understand of what projecting was I just shouted 'WELCOME TO OUR PLAY! WE REALLY ENJOY IT. AND WE HOPE YOU. ENJOY IT. TOO.'

The home video might be my favorite thing to watch because I was just such a tool.

That's when I loved it. I liked being other things, I liked playing pretend,  I liked making people laugh, I loved the applause.

Through kindergarten to eighth grade I signed up for whatever acting/performance job was available at school, raised my hand to read characters in books, anything, ANYTHING to be somewhat acting. Every play we read in English class my hand shot up to read for the lead part, any dance that needed choreographing in the Christmas concert I stepped in, any loss of direction in a show I tried to come up with a solution. I just wanted to be on stage...I needed to be on stage.

At home, my sister and I did a plethora of fake commercials and dance recitals for our parents and just to put on camera. We went as far as to write scripts and build sets. I remembered really recently that we filmed a scene where I was on a train and we drew up train seats with people sitting on them and left a blank space for me. (We could go hard, or we could go home.) 

IN FACT, I auditioned for Zoom when I was around ten and made it to the second round of auditions in this big building. I think the reason I didn't get the part was because I sang this weird song that the older kids at school were singing that was about hating school and killing teachers. They put us on the spot to sing a song that you had to act out and I don't think mimicking a gun and saying, 'Murder her behind the door with a loaded .44, now she don't teach no more (no more).' was what PBS was looking for at the time. Not to mention, at ten years old, I don't even think I knew what I was saying. I'm 21 and still don't know what a .44 caliber gun looks like, to be honest, I don't even think I knew that a 'loaded .44' was a gun.

High school came and without question I joined drama club, scoring a supporting role in the Drama Festival production of A Simple Task. I was more at ease in Drama Club because most of the juniors and seniors knew my sister Courtney, a Drama Club alumni and popular among the wretched artsy souls of Somerville High. (Weirdly enough, I think if any of you met Courtney today you would not have guessed that she was ever in drama club.) These people were strange and emotional like I was and it was cool finally being at school and feeling like I fit in with people instead of only fitting in at Magic Circle Theatre, a repertoire theatre summer camp for kids ages 11-14/15. I'll make a whole different post about camp though, it holds a very special place in my heart and has really shaped me in different ways.

Through the years we put on shows like A Simple Task, then sophomore year (under a new director) we performed Thank You For Flushing (My Head In The Toilet) where I played smaller roles as different students and a mean popular girl. Junior Year, I held a lead/supporting role with my other half (Guchie, a six foot two half Brazilian half Japanese man with a taste for other men) as Narrator 1 in The Brother's Grimm Spectaculathon (probably one of the funniest shows I've taken part in). Finally, my senior year we put on Tracks, a darker play for Somerville High where people from different walks of life end up in a train station/purgatory where they have to wonder if the train will take them to heaven or hell.

All of these shows were taken to the Massachusetts High School Drama Guild Fesitival, where many schools throughout Mass compete in a big drama competition starting with prelims all the way to finals. Somerville High hasn't won in many years and we only got past prelims once in my four years of high school. However, I did get an award for my performance in Tracks where I played the Homeless Girl who is the 'all knowing' character as she's been in purgatory the longest. It was definitely one of the hardest roles of my career because I couldn't fall back on just being sassy like I had before, I had to really feel things and I worked so hard on trying to own that role. It was really amazing to have an auditorium full of my peers (8 schools worth) give me a standing O for that award and it's really something I'll never forget.

Also in high school I starred in a PSA against dating violence for my friend Mitch (and EXTREMELY TALENTED videographer, photographer, and director: here's his page). Unbeknownst to me they had entered it in a county wide contest against other schools and we ended up winning which got me and the crew an interview on Fox News (I wasn't aware of the political standing of the network at the time, I just thought it was cool that I was on the god damn news and was 17).

I mean, before I'm done going on and on I guess I should talk about my 'shining' moments in which the Pace BFA Acting class of '16 would call me a 'star' for:

Me as Rose Alvarez, Bye Bye Birdie. 

 You know, now I would probably feel really weird getting this role as I would be a white woman inherently whitewashing a character who is supposed to be of Spanish descent. In all honesty, I can't roll my 'R's by themselves, they have to be after a consonant, and I thought that was the deal breaker for this role.

I had never intended on ever auditioning for the musical because I didn't think I could sing. In fact I still don't think I'm all that great of a singer, especially in comparison to the people I'm in college with right now. Some of whom have already graced the Broadway stage. I had never seen Bye Bye Birdie or knew who Rose Alvarez was until I asked Guchie was the part was, his response: 'She's a slutty secretary, it's perfect for you, you should audition.'  So I did, with no thought that I would actually get the part. But hey, I did, and I really enjoyed my time in the show.

For the record, I only really wanted the part once I heard the opening horns for the reprise of One Boy. I'm a sucker for horns.

Belle, Beauty and the Beast. 

My senior year, I went out for blood. I wanted this part HARD and there were a few huge chances that I wouldn't get it. There were new people auditioning, talented freshman and sophomores whose talent I could range. I felt my most insecure when auditioning for this, down to SOBBING at my singing audition because I was flat during 'Oh, isn't this amazing/It's my favorite part because/You'll see...'  It was more stressful that a lot of the music was at or just higher than my range. (Hell if I even remember what my range is but I'm not a soprano, that's for sure.) Being Rosie was much easier because all of that music was in my range.

When the cast list was posted I was elated that I got the part and when I had the one on one with my directors, they explained to me that they didn't think I was going to be able to do it at first. 'We didn't think you'd be able to be so angenieux, we thought you were going to be too Rosie but when we saw you with Chris we were really surprised.' It doesn't shock me to this day that they thought I would be too bitchy to be Belle. My face still hurts from smiling so much.

A quick YT search and you'll probably be able to find me singing in each of these shows. I will be the first to tell you that it's not mind blowing and I still can't watch myself perform. Me hitting a high G? AHAHAHAHA, not in a trillion years.

Moving on...

Beauty and the Beast was the last show I performed in. I've worked on plenty of other shows in college but only behind the scenes because since then I haven't had the guts to audition for anything.

For anyone who hasn't yet moved to New York to pursue their acting career:

Manhattan is going to eat you alive if you let it. 

I let it consume me. In high school they warned me of 'little pond, big fish' syndrome and I told people over and over again that I was prepared to be a little fish in a big pond but boy was I wrong. I guess you're never really prepared until you get there.

Moving to New York and working backstage as a make-up artist has really humbled my high school Sharpay attitude (and trust me, I was a HUGE theatre bitch back then). It's helped remind me that I absolutely love acting and working together with so many creative and talented people to create a final project that can do and be so much for an audience.

Acting, performing, doing make-up has never been 'for me,' it's never been about the gratification of someone telling me I'm talented. For me, it's about making someone feel something, about making someone happy, entertained, sad, drawn to something, it's about encouraging a feeling or a thought or an idea. I do all of this for other people because doing those things make me so happy. I love putting myself in a second skin and the feeling of being something different, of channeling my energy into a different person, a different place or thing.

And I miss it.

I miss getting on stage or being behind a camera. I miss learning lines and I miss forgetting lines and I miss trying on costumes and meeting castmates and being excited. I miss watching the people I'm with make huge acting breakthroughs and getting notes and helping encourage cast unity and focus games and all of that other cheesy stuff.

I don't get annoyed when people in New York think I'm just a make-up artist, but sometimes it makes me lose myself and it makes me afraid that it's all I'll ever be because no one knows me as anything different. I've only auditioned for one thing since I've moved to the city and I shook through the whole thing. Scared. Embarrassed. Begging myself to feel at ease.

Tina Fey said, during her interview at ItAS that to be successful you have to be more than one thing these days. No one will take you seriously if you're JUST an actor. So I think it's good that I have the advantage of doing make-up, writing, and acting all at the same time.

I just need to have the strength in myself to know that as long as I love it, it can't hurt me.

I'm prepared for rejection. I just need to jump in. I need to know that I will do it. I will get parts. I will be in indie films. I will get to do what I want to do.

So if you're younger than me and you're scared to audition for a college Acting program because you don't think you're good enough, or if you got rejected from all of them, or if you're scared to do something because you have all this fear standing in the way: throw all that shit out the window. You are your biggest fear, so tell all those thoughts telling you that you can't over a 36th story balcony like a bong you're hiding from the cops.

Do what you love, fuck the rest.

Love Always, 
An inspired struggling artist in her early twenties: 

I might write a book.

I was thinking about doing that. This is the basis of what I want it to sound like, tell me if it sucks, I literally have no direction. 


PS. I'm supposed to sound like an asshole. 

'Your twenties aren’t exciting.

Having nearly completed one year of them I can tell you, truthfully, that your twenties will not look like they do in commercials, or in young adult novels, or on other blogs that tell you that your twenties aren’t exciting but if you’re quirky enough about your situation you’ll become funny enough to live in Brooklyn and have lots of other quirky friends and eat tofu on Thanksgiving because you are so totally over your meat eating family and their (and by their I mean your dad’s) Republican agenda.

Your early twenties are going to look like high school. College is going to look like high school. Nobody is going to tell you that, but that’s actually what it is. It will just be more fun because there will be more liquor and more gay boys to kiss when you’re drunk.

Maybe I’m just giving you a quick recap of my so-far-early-twenties.

I’ll give you the low-down about what my situation looks like right now. I am in the café that I’m always at in the summer. I am sitting in the back because it’s mid-afternoon and everyone is here, and when I say everyone I mean ever twenty-something to thirty-something who doesn’t have a job. I swear to God there should not be this many part timers at this café that are over the age of 25. It stresses me out that I’ll be here five years later typing away on my MacBook Pro thinking I’m better than everyone else.

This café is the most pretentious one I’ve seen and I’ve just spent, collectively, 27 months in New York City. Davis Square used to be where townies and meth heads united, but in the past few years the Tuft’s students have over run it with falafel places and two (soon to be three) FroYo confectionaries.

Excuse me while I vomit.

Diesel has modern lighting fixtures, expensive and ‘deep’ art, and rustic hodge podge seating ranging from booths to tables to a big community table in the back, where I am, at the end, praying that some fifty year old wannabe graphic designer doesn’t sit next to me because I’m saving a seat for my friend Bridget.

I spoke too soon. It literally just happened as I said that.

This man is wearing a graphic T with a bird on it; he is eating a bagel.

I want to remind him that one day you need to grow up and stop thinking that messenger bags are for you. This is not Portland. We are in Massachusetts. There are too many hip fifty year olds near me right now. Please go away.

Anyway, today I woke up unfathomably optimistic and I wondered if maybe I was just manic. Originally I woke up at 4 AM and got afraid that the demon from Paranormal Activity was in my room and watched Gossip Girl on Netflix until 5:30.  I woke up again at 10 feeling heart heavy or because I had a dream that my ex-boyfriend’s boyfriend sent me a text saying that he knew about our situation by Joe (my ex-boyfriend), and that he was moving on.

My ex-boyfriend does not have a boyfriend. Actually, he might, who knows, he wouldn’t tell me anyway.

As a reminder, I will tell you: Your love life in your twenties is not exciting.

Having nearly completed one year of them I can tell you, truthfully, that your love life in your twenties will not look like it does in commercials, or in young adult novels, or on other blogs that tell you that your love life in your twenties isn’t exciting but if you’re quirky enough about your situation you’ll become funny enough to find a boyfriend in Brooklyn and have lots of other quirky friends and eat tofu on Thanksgiving because you are so totally over your meat eating family and their (and by their I mean your dad’s) Republican agenda.

Truthfully, my love life looks like it did in high school. I am consistently gravitated towards the same boy that I fell in love with when I was fifteen.

Before you ‘ooh’ and ‘aww’ about how my object of attraction is my ‘high school sweetheart’ I will inform you that my relationship is the kind that requires years of counseling and a hospital visit. You can make your own decisions about which one went where.' 

I think maybe I'll make a character and make it not as 'true to life' but that's a lie because I normally only write about what I know best and that's being a total loser that thinks she's better than other people because she goes to school in the city and constantly ruining everything but when I say ruining everything I don't mean like...in an 'I listen to MCR and my parents hate me' way. I mean like, in a 'really Stefani please stop being so crazy and dumb' kind of way. I also think in run on sentences and my seventh grade teacher told me that I need to stop writing like a talk, but aha! bitch I'm not in 7th grade anymore. 

WHATEVER. 

Painstakingly and uncomfortably yours,