Abby Rosmarin's Blog, page 17

We Need to Change How We Go About Addiction, Because I Never Want That Phone Call Again So Long As I Live

It was 4:30 on a Tuesday.  I was driving down a familiar stretch of highway.  In another town, in another state, my best friend was right in the thick of her work day.  But I still thought nothing of it when she called me out of the blue.

“Anna’s* dead,” she told me in the way that people do when the shock has yet to wear away.

“Do you know how it happened?” I ask in the exact same way.

“The public statement is that it was natural causes,” she replied. “But I mean, you knew how Anna was…”

The conversation we had next was one I was a little too familiar having: we knew she had her things going on, we were hoping she’d clean up, we can’t believe this happened…  We’re speechless.  We’re sad.  We’re weirdly resigned.  After a while my best friend hung up and I spent the rest of my car ride blinking back tears until I gave up trying to fight them.

In a way, I felt like I didn’t have a right to cry.  Anna was my best friend’s former roommate.  A friend of a friend.  She was one of the thousand of various connections one will make throughout their entire life.  But it might as well have been a beloved childhood buddy or a family member.  It hit me in a way that I couldn’t shake off.

Two weeks ago, my best friend and I had this exact same conversation.  Downright verbatim: an old high school classmate had passed, and in a very similar fashion.  Replace “we knew she had her things going on” with “we didn’t know he had that going on…” and it’s the same conversation.

It’s a conversation I had last year with an elementary school friend, someone I hadn’t talked to in years, getting in touch with me to let me know that our friend’s sister suffered the same fate.  Or when it was my turn to call my best friend, telling her that someone we once knew well was gone.  The frightening part is that I could go on, playing Six Degrees of Preventable Deaths, reciting this and that conversation, point out this and that person from my life, using words like “heroin” and “alcohol” until people would stop me midsentence and go, “If this were fiction, no one would believe it.”

In some ways, it’s easy to dismiss the prevalence of this conversation.  We’re so interconnected these days.  The number of people who play or played at least some role in our lives easily reaches the thousands by the time we leave college.  We all keep tabs, remembering classmates and coworkers and families of friends when they used to fade into the background.

And statistics are statistics.  Know enough people, and you’re bound to go to a few funerals.  You’re bound to find out about a few deaths by overdose.

My hometown has a heroin issue.  There.  I said it.  My middle class, white-picket-fence-suburb-of-Boston is a statistic.  And my hometown is not a special case: heroin ODs are on the rise in Massachusetts.  Between January and April of this year, there were 185 heroin ODs in Massachusetts alone.  And the rate of overdose deaths in America has tripled since 1990.  This is an epidemic.  Way more than Ebola in America, but there’s no time on the news for the things that are actually killing us.

I know the general attitude when it comes to addiction: they brought it on themselves, they got what they deserved, serves them right…  So — of course — slash funding for resources.  Think about addiction and treatment in black and white terms.  Turn our backs.  Why waste money on recovery programs?  Why remove the stigma of those suffering from drug abuse?  We have the War on Drugs.  Close enough, right?

It’s easy to blame the addict.  Far too easy.  And I could go into how addiction is just like any other mental illness — including the genetic predisposition towards it – but we already know how our country feels about mental health issues.  It’s a useless endeavor to attempt to dissuade anyone’s negative opinion of the addicts themselves.

So that’s why I’m writing this, from my egocentric, bleeding little heart to yours: we need to change how we go about addiction, from the inside out, from the bottom up.  If nothing else, then because I never want to have that conversation again as long as I live.  I don’t want another phone call, I don’t want another text message, I don’t want another link to an obituary.  Addiction ruins lives, but it’s more than a bomb that hurts those in the immediate vicinity when it goes off; it’s a mushroom cloud, affecting everything in its path for miles upon miles, stretching farther and having more impact than we can even begin to fathom.

If I were in a better mood, I would remind you once more how interconnected we all are.  Everything affects everyone — socially, economically, emotionally.  It’s far too easy to balk at “one more dead addict”, forgetting the people who are affected by their deaths, and how their feelings will ripple out, creating a butterfly effect, affecting communities, regions, countries as a whole.

But I’m not in a better mood.  I’m tired and I’m sad and I’m honest-to-God sick of it.

People will die from addiction, be it suddenly from an overdose or slowly as their bodies break down.  And countless people around them will die a little bit with each piece of news.  In a way, the pain is reassuring: it’s a reminder that life is sacred and beautiful and important and commonality of losing it doesn’t cheapen the situation.  But society is too busy labeling addicts bad people, lost causes, to realize they’re making a bad situation worse.

There is hope.  Change is already starting.  Just this summer, Massachusetts passed a bill that will have insurance companies partially cover addiction treatment and recovery.  People are unhappy about it.  Insurance companies are fighting it tooth and nail, saying it’s going to make everything more expensive.  But it’s a step in the right direction.  It won’t solve everything — and it’s going to take a lot more than just making treatment more accessible to curb this epidemic — but it’s a damn good start.  For those suffering from addiction, for those suffering from yet another life lost, for everyone.

*name changed to protect the innocent

Blogging Versus Essays — or: “It’s a Huge Fucking Pet Peeve When You Call My Articles ‘Blogs’.”

For the last year or so, I’ve decided to expand my operation.  I went from the would-be novelist (and not “would be” as in, “Someday I’ll write the next Great American Novel,” but as in, “For the love of St Fuckitallsburg, someone purchase one of my manuscripts.”) with a sporadic tendency toward short stories to pseudo-journalist, writing essays and op-ed pieces on current events.

It’s been one helluva ride.  While getting my work out there has not made it any easier in getting a manuscript sold, I have found a modicum of writing success.  I’ve had a few viral essays (and isn’t that everyone’s dream these days — to “go viral”?), including one with nearly half a million social media shares.  I got to talk on a radio show about another essay, and my time at one website helped set the stage for the release of my ebook.

I’ve been able to share my stories and provide insight and give at least a few people solace by articulating how they had been feeling.  It’s an exhausting labor of love (especially since most websites don’t pay their freelance writers *sigh*) but the emphasis is on “love”, not “labor”.

However, there are few things in this world that tick me off quite like when people mention an essay of mine that had just been published by saying, “Oh, I read your latest blog!”

…

This right here is a blog.  I am currently blogging.  Which is why it wouldn’t annoy me if you read this and then said to me: “I just read your latest blog entry!” (because, remember: saying, “I read your latest blog!” is kind of like saying, “I watched their most recent TV show!”  It’s nonsensical, unless you construct entire TV series(es) or blog websites in your spare time.)

But what I do for sites like Elite Daily, or Elephant Journal, or xoJane, is.not.blogging.  Even what I do for Thought Catalog — even though they grant their writers the most creative freedom — is not blogging.  Those are essays/articles.

Let me explain why it’s not blogging in a nice, bulleted, listicle format:

* I don’t have to write a pitch to a production team in order to blog.

* I don’t have to get approved for publication in order to blog.

* I don’t have to fill out W2s (for the few sites that pay their writers) in order to blog.

* I don’t have to cope with editors who can and will change up everything, from your wording to your paragraph structure, until you don’t recognize your own writing anymore.

* I don’t get nearly the traffic I do when I write for a website (instead of “blogging”) because, at the end of the day, those are websites that accrue millions of hits a day.  And I’m a schmuck with a blog.

It’s a tremendous pet peeve of mine when people label an article of mine a “blog”.  It might seem like semantics, but there’s a world of difference between the hoops a writer jumps through to have their work posted on a website and the supreme lack of hoops a writer jumps through to write on their own site, powered by WordPress (or Blogger, or Tumblr).

Any schmuck can sign up to any number of blogging sites, knowing full well that their pieces will never be emailed back to them, asking for a rewrite before it can be considered for publication.  Their entries are posted in real time, available for the world the second you click “publish”.  It’s hard work to write for someone else, but it forces you to be a better writer.  Blogging, if you’re not careful, can turn into one masturbatory verbal fest.

Obviously I have no problem with blogging — again, as blogging is something I am doing at this exact moment.  But it would be like confusing singing in a professional band with karaoke, or photojournalism with bystander cellphone shots.  The overlap is there, but replacing the former with the latter negates the hard work, the challenges, and the potential rejection.  It runs the risk of trivializing what is in front of you.

And if there’s anything you should never do to someone who is laboring away at their passion, it’s trivialize what they put out.  There are many writers in my shoes, who toil away, not content with just a few Tumblr tweens reposting your entry.  It takes a lot of ego swallowing to write for a website; an ego that is already big enough to play the semantics game with “blog” versus “article”.

For someone who doesn’t understand what goes on behind the scenes in the writing world, this change-up with wording can seem unnecessary.  But, for a writer who could fill up an additional full-length manuscript with rejected query letters and pitches, it’s the difference between appreciation and invalidation.  Something to think about the next time you run into a writer — or professional singer, or photojournalist, or anyone knee-deep in what drives them forward.

AND, since this is a blog and not an article, I can just leave the post here, as is, without an editor asking for a more concise conclusion.  Mastubatory verbal fest complete.

Why You Should Be Upset About Being Upset at Girls Saying “Fuck”

Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism by FCKH8.com from FCKH8.com on Vimeo.

The title is, “F-Bombs for Feminism: Potty Mouth Princesses Use Bad Words for a Good Cause”.  The video — which has taken off like wildfire across the internet — shows girls aged roughly between 8 and 14, dressed up as princesses.  They start by daintily holding their hands and saying, “pretty,” while music fit for a tea party plays in the background.  One of the girls interrupts the pretty-fest, screaming, “What the fuck!” and pointing out how she is not, in fact, some pretty, helpless princess.  The girls then ask you one simple question: what is more offensive, a girl saying, “Fuck,” or gender inequality?

If you read the comments in any article or posting of this video, the answer is unfortunately the former.

The comments range from ones that actually bring up a valid debate point (“Should we really be using children to prove a point?”) to the absolute asinine.  The most common comment I’ve been seeing includes some type of bemoaning of “innocence lost”; how horrible it is that they’re “making girls says the F word” and how these poor girls have now lost their “purity” by daring to swear.

But here’s the problem: getting upset about an 11-year-old girl swearing is symptomatic of the exact problem they’re addressing.

Let’s flip the roles around.  Instead of young girls swearing about how inequality could affect them, it’s young boys swearing about how inequality could affect their friends, their sisters, their moms (or themselves, since gender inequality affects everyone, but that’s for another article).  Now we have a 12-year-old boy in a Prince Charming costume swearing up a storm.  There’s a 13-year-old boy yelling, “What the fuck!”  There’s a 9-year-old saying, “Fuck toxic societal values!”

Genuinely think about how we react when we hear a pre-adolescent (or “tween”) boy swearing.  Genuinely remember how society at large handles any situation like this.  What do you think the reaction would be to this video?

A laugh, a facetious roll of the eyes, and a, “Oh, boys will be boys!”

Maybe some people would mention something about the potential exploitation of children to prove a point.  But I’m willing to bet money that absolutely no one would be bemoaning the “lost purity” of these boys — a purity that should have been preserved at all costs.

We see “shattered innocence” as something that comes from war, assault, abject poverty.  Not swear-free talking.  Unless we’re dealing with girls.

This type of reaction is a reminder that we still hold arbitrary and unfair standards for girls versus boys.  Worrying about a girl’s swearing — putting such a heavy emphasis on chaste thoughts and words — is the precursor to judging a grown woman based on how few men she’s had sex with (while, ironically enough, being as sexually attractive as possible).  If society is overly fascinated with the concept of purity, then it isn’t that much of a jump from “good girls don’t swear” to “good women don’t have sex.”  The reaction to this video demonstrates that, in many ways, we still haven’t veered from the values that are as old as the Middle Ages.

And this is the stuff we have to get at.  We can identify the overt, but it’s a lot harder to get at the more subtle, nuanced forms of inequality.  It’s also a lot easier to piss people off when you do.  But it’s these little judgments — fretting over what a girl says versus the “boys will be boys” mentality — that create the foundation for bigger judgements: like where one stands on equality laws or how one reacts when they hear about sexual assault in the news.  And, since it is so subtle, no one questions their judgments or takes a moment to wonder where they are coming from.

So let me be the first to say, “What the fuck!”  Because I am far more worried about the implications of such a public reaction than I am about a tween saying a Swear Jar-worthy word.

Run Like Hell: A Runner’s Tale of Redemption

A long, long time ago, I ran junior varsity track for my high school (junior varsity on the track team at my high school was kind of like saying, “Eh, it’s like intramural sports, only with meets.  Here, have a uniform.”).  My junior year, our high school temporarily dug up its racetrack, which resulted in me not signing back up for track (“Me?  Go to other towns to practice?  You mean, put effort into this?  Surely, you jest.”)  And running essentially faded from my routine, replaced by absurdly brief trips to Northeastern University’s gym, where I’d give the elliptical a half-hearted stab as a way to “lose a few pounds.”

I returned to running after college as a way to (sigh) try to “lose a few pounds,” and later as something to process the immense strain of teaching overcrowded classrooms with unforgiving administration.  I slowly built up my distance, occasionally getting a good 5- or 6-miler into my day.  And — thankfully — somewhere along the line, I stopped running to “lose a few pounds” and started running because I liked feeling efficient with my body.

In 2013, running took on a new meaning.  It’s been over a year since the bombings and yet I still cannot articulate exactly what it meant to me, and how different it all is when it is your city under attack.  I watched what I considered a part of my Northeastern neighborhood become gated up and I laced up my running shoes with a brand new resolve.

One week later, I signed up for my first half marathon.

After a summer of absolute struggle — learning the hard way just how important things like hydration and blister protection are — I ran the Ashland Half Marathon, which started and ended where the first Boston Marathon took place.  I was brutally exhausted at points, but I maintained pace, never stopped once, and finished with a 2:07 time.  I immediately signed up for a 16-miler, convinced I would build up my running stamina and make it all the way to the Chicago Marathon.

Two things I didn’t take into account: an abnormally cold winter and my downright pathological ability to get injured.

After two separate injuries and the worst two-mile run of my entire life, I pulled from the 16-miler in January.  I nursed a pulled calf muscle & strained hip flexor (as well as two very achey knees) and waited for the weather to warm up.

What happened next, I’m not sure.  Perhaps it was because I had been using my cheap, short-term knee braces for every run.  Perhaps it was because I was using cheap, shoddy knee braces meant only for the short-term.  Perhaps I was overstretching before my runs and pushing myself past my means in yoga.  Perhaps it was a mix of all of these.  Either way, I ended up in the middle of a run with a hamstring tendon that kept getting tighter and tighter, to the point that it actually hurt to extend my leg.  Me being the egotist that I am, I refused to stop.  I had a half marathon in a month!  I was going to beat my old time by at least 8 minutes!  Muscle through, wimp!

The next day, I was in such agony that I could barely walk.

One month later, and things were still injured.  I downgraded to the five-mile option, somehow powered through without exacerbating my injury, and went home to lick my wounds.

In some ways, the injury was a godsend.  It taught me a lot about patience and acceptance.  It taught me to stay humble and to listen to my body.  I learned some vital techniques in yoga for those with hamstring issues, which meant that my real world fuckery was translating into yoga instructing skills.

And, in other ways, the injury was a pain in my ass.  Technically, knee.

So now it’s the summertime again, and the registration lottery is coming up for the Boston Half Marathon.  No, not a half marathon in Boston, but the half marathon that the Boston Athletic Association puts on.  At that point, I had been going on small jogs with my husband, testing out my knee after a spring of absolutely no running.  I decided to do a bit of a gamble: if I could get into the BAA Half Marathon, then it means I’m meant to run it, come hell or high water.

Two weeks later, I get the confirmation email, and I start out on my own half marathon training schedule.

While the previous summer was a slow, tedious climb to longer distances, I was able to bring myself back up in distance fairly quickly and, by the end of September, I was running 8-milers with relatively no difficulty.  I was on the fast track to owning the BAA Half Marathon, until one day when I went into a simple forward fold stretch and felt something pop.

I still don’t know how I did it.  I had long gotten out of the habit of forcing myself into stretches (a behavior I learned after months of post-injury hamstring pain).  I certainly had done stretches that were far more intense.  But there I was, one week before the race, potentially back where I started.

The only difference is that, this time around, I pampered myself.  I took it easy, even though I hated every minute of it.  I replaced training runs with light jogs.  I stopped pretending like I was a skilled dancer, twirling around the house as she did her chores (hey, whatever gets me to clean up the house, amirite?).  I went into my yoga classes and modified, modified, modified.  I even opted out of all the fun stuff in kickboxing (like learning how to do a spinning backfist into a spinning sidekick).  My house smelled of mint as I used enough Icy Hot to potentially render me eligible for stock shares.

I was the quintessential pushover mom, catering to the every whim of her entitled and bratty knee.

The day before the race, I found my right hamstring routinely cramping up, potentially because it was jealous that my left leg was getting all the attention.  I handled the way any proper adult would: I huffed and I fretted and I waxed existential about the futility of mortal bodies.

But race day waits for no man and I refused to pull from the race.  I woke up at an ungodly hour, drove all the way down to Boston with my husband in tow, and got ready to run for over two hours.

I learned a few things during that race:

1) You can fret all you want over lingering injuries, but you’ll most likely deal with something you were not expecting, like a misstep right out the gate that nearly twists your ankle in Exorcist-like ways.

2) Sometimes you have to undertrain in order to avoid injuries.  But be ready for exhaustion the likes of which you’ve never dealt with before.

3) Never underestimate the pervasive power of exhaustion.  At one point, I was so tired that I nearly burst into tears because a BAA volunteer went, “You can do it, Abby!”  Our names are printed on our bibs, but mine read, “Abigail” since that’s technically my legal name.  The onlookers made their words of encouragement personal by reading out people’s names at the end of their statement.  I heard, “Abby,” and spent a solid minute or two choking back tears, because, “he said my nickname!  He cared enough to know I probably don’t go by Abigail!”

4) Gu tastes disgusting, but it’s efficient as fuck.

I also remembered a few things during that race, the biggest one being that distance running is a meditative endeavor: after a certain point, calculating your distance and how far you have to go is a useless thing to do.  You become too tired, too disheartened, too ready to give up.  So you focus on the now.  You focus on the ground immediately in front of you, the footstep you are taking at that exact moment.  You become so aware of the present until you realize that it’s all you have, and you realize it in a way that you don’t get in your day-to-day life.

I hobbled, I stopped for water, I choked back tears.  I finished the half marathon, hobbled over to my winner’s spoils, and checked off the half marathon from my list.  In 10 months, I had gone from someone who was hell bent on getting a sub-2-hour half marathon to someone who was perfectly happy just finishing it.  I finished ten minutes slower than my Ashland Half Marathon, but I also finished without angering any old injuries.  And between Ashland and now, I learned to listen a little less to my ego and a little more to my body.

As is recommended, I’ll going on a small jog on Tuesday, and then probably taking the rest of the week off.  I’ll probably keep my running routine light for quite some time: just enough that everything heals but doesn’t atrophy away.  I might meander on my path to the Chicago Marathon — much like this blog entry is meandering — but I’m okay with slow and steady.  Because, apparently, when you’re talking distance, slow and steady will win the race (and by “win” I mean “finish in time”).

Five College Subjects That Will Make You a Better Writer (Aside from English)

Elite Daily writers are welcome to post their writings to their blogs after publication.  So, without further ado, here is the original version of my article (link down below).

Like many would-be writers, I majored English in college. I brushed off the comments about the degree’s lack of marketability, or if I would “teach English” someday, and dove headfirst into the subject. It was trying at times – it definitely put me into a position where I forgot what reading for pleasure felt like – but I don’t regret my degree in the least. The English degree makes a lot of sense for fiction – and nonfiction – writers. Dissecting previous works and understanding what made them successful is vital information. Plus, almost all writers carry a deep, passionate love for reading as well, which makes the gravitation over to studying English as a subject that much more powerful.

However, for my aspiring writers currently in college now, it’s important to take a step outside of our writing workshops and English literature surveys. We need to make use out of the classes outside of our required core courses, because there are other subject matters that will make us better writers:

 

Sociology

This is first on my list because I actually minored in Sociology. More often than not, I was the only English major in my Sociology courses. I would self-consciously joke that I was actually majoring in non sequiturs, as it felt like the two subjects I studied the most were on opposite sides of the spectrum (and campus).

But learning how about people think and act in group settings is crucial as a writer. Sociology shows just how pervasive our environment is, how even the tiniest changes in a group’s behavior can radically alter an entire person’s mindset. It demonstrates that major issues in a society can find their roots in the subtlest of values; that racism and sexism and all other forms of bigotry have nuance.   Nobody behaves in a vacuum, and a better understanding of how communities work will make your fiction more believable and your nonfiction more universal. And it can open your eyes to problematic concepts that you might have been transferring over to your writing as well.

 

Psychology

It just makes sense that, on top of understanding humanity on a macro level, gaining better insight to humanity on the individual level is just as important. The same way we are products of our environment, we are also products of the mechanics in our minds. Understanding the ins and outs of what makes someone tick on a personal level will translate into more well-rounded characters. Engaging stories present people as they truly are, warts and all. No one is just black-and-white “good” or “bad” or “crazy” – and a good story addresses those shades of gray. At the very least, a writer needs to understand what might drive a person to do a particular action before writing about said action.

 

Gender Studies

What it means to be a man or a woman – and how we interact with one another — is the foundation of any worthwhile read. And it is far too easy to fall into stereotypes and two-dimensional characterization when writing characters who are the opposite gender of you. Gender Studies is more than studying issues surrounding women; it covers the whole spectrum of identity, representation, and the issues that affect us all. If nothing else, Gender Studies might help you become more aware of the characters you create and avoid any toxic archetypes in your story.

 

History

Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, right? All you have to do is look at the cyclical nature of issues in today’s society to realize how true that is. A good history class is more about memorizing dates and names; it will dive into how and why events had unfolded the way that they did.

No one enjoyed answering the ubiquitous, “What was the cause and effect of this particular moment in history,” questions from high school history tests. But life is a series of causes and effects. There is an event, a catalyst; an event that takes shape and spawns a multitude of reactions and other events. Grasping the intricacies of history can help you create your own intricacies. Perhaps an event or series of events from the past will even inspire your next work.

 

Philosophy

The field of philosophy takes an even harsher beating than the English department. I feel for philosophy majors every time I hear a variation of the remark: “You’re getting a degree in philosophy? What, so you can quote Socrates while flipping burgers?”

At the bare minimum, philosophy classes force you to rethink old assumptions. Even if it is just to crank out a five-page paper, philosophy will make you see things in a different way. You don’t have to ascribe to the concept of nihilism to perhaps create a character who sees life in a very nihilistic way. Allowing yourself to think in a different way than usual will help fire up those creative tendencies and potentially get you out of any ruts or writer blocks.

–

There are some easy go-to subjects that I didn’t discuss; namely journalism and communications. While both are important subjects that can contribute greatly to your ability to write, both subjects are exactly that: easy go-to subjects. Sometimes, as writers, we get stuck in predictable paths that we hope will help us in our craft. But to be a good writer, we need to be a good human. We need to understand the ins and outs what it means it be human; we need to be well-rounded, because our writing is exactly as limited as our views on the world.

Likewise, for all college students, we are exactly as limited as our views on the world. Being a better anything means being a better person. It means understanding life outside of our area of study, even (and especially) when we get the blinders on, worried about getting our core requirements taken care of. Because life is a lot more than where we get our paycheck; it’s about unraveling the ins and outs of what makes us tick and why. With the price of a college education these days, our time in college is a precious commodity, and it is on us to make the most of it.

 

Read the Elite Daily version here: http://elitedaily.com/life/culture/fi...

Non-Compete with the Homeless

So, this is a new one.

I have hit the ground running in terms of establishing myself as a yoga instructor.  And — unlike my tai chi instructing attempts — this has been pretty fruitful.  I teach two classes a week at my favorite studio — the studio I’ve been with since I moved to New Hampshire and actually did my teacher training at — as well as two classes a week at another studio the town over.  As of last week, I started teaching a class at another studio and, as of yesterday, I signed on to become a teacher at yet another studio.  This is on top of my volunteer work at a homeless services center, where the classes have been small at times, but the people who do come seem genuinely interested in understanding yoga.

Since my teacher training wrapped, nearly every attempt has turned into a hit, at least in terms of studio owners letting me on.  Only time will tell if the classes will be popular, if the clientele will stick around, or if the owners will like me enough to keep me on board.  And sometimes those attempts are misses: one studio I was subbing at closed their doors recently (just as I was about to potentially become a regular teacher), and another studio just ignored me completely.  But the most recent miss is one for the books:

This particular studio was looking for new substitute and regular teachers.  I did my usual song and dance, writing to them about my experience, my training, and my teaching philosophy.  They then sent me a formal application to fill out, which included writing down where else I teach.  I mention every place I work at — including my volunteer work at a homeless services center — and send it in.

Today, I got a reply back, letting me know that I would not be able to teach there due to their non-compete agreement.  They ask that their instructors do not teach at any other place within a 15-mile radius, which is a fairly common practice.  They then cited the two places that would fall into that category: the studio I started at last week and the homeless services center.

…

The best part is not just that they took the time to mention the homeless center, but they mentioned it first out of the two places that would potentially violate a non-compete.  Now, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt: I’m sure if I were not teaching at the other studio, they would not have counted my time at the center against me.  But the fact that they took the time to write out that I teach at the homeless center is tickling me pink.

And it’s not like it could have been mistaken as work at an actual studio.  I specifically mentioned in my cover letter and in the application that it was volunteer work (because, while I don’t do it for the résumé boosting, it totally is a résumé booster).

I mean, who notes your volunteer work at a homeless center as potentially violating a non-compete? And even if I were getting paid, how in the world are you going to count yoga for the homeless as a non-compete violation for a studio?  ‘Cause, y’know, I’m totally gonna get all those clients who can afford yoga classes at an upscale studio to shuffle on down to the services center to take classes there instead.  Yes, lady in the $65 Lululemon tank top with the $150/month unlimited pass to the studio, I also teach at a homeless services center.  And if you’re really interested, I’m there on Tuesdays.  You don’t need this swanky studio!  Come swing by — we meet in the cafeteria!  Just make sure to take anything of value with you and lock up your car; the neighborhood is notorious for smash-and-grabs.

I can’t stress enough that this is more funny to me than anything else, and, for the sake of storytelling, I’m choosing to believe that this studio would genuinely feel threatened by my time at a homeless center.  It is just so tempting to reply back with something like, “I totally get it!  My time with the homeless would violate a non-compete.  Because, I mean, who can compete with the homeless population?  The city officials sure can’t!”

Oh, it’s funny because the city in question has no interest in helping curb homelessness or addressing the root causes of it, but they’d sure like the homeless people to magically disappear.

My Time As A Pretend Stewardess in a German Film

(aka my first movie extra experience)

Not from the movie

I fully recognize that my acting skills are … well, they’re on the same level as a lot of TV and movie stars, actually — but still extraordinarily shitty.  However, that has not stopped me from aligning myself with a casting agency that specializes in extras.  Because life is too short to never be a blurry figure walking next to something in a TV show.

Usually (and by “usually,” I mean, “Every single time up until now”), I would throw my name into the ring and be met with silence.  Understandably so: aside from the fact that everyone and their brother is signed up for this casting place, very few casting directors are interested in putting an unnecessarily tall woman into the background … unless the scene calls for unnecessarily tall women to be in the background.

But, Monday night, I got the call: I would be part of the airport scenes in an upcoming movie.  I would need to be at Logan Airport by 6 am — could I get there in time, and hair & makeup ready?  Oh, of course.  It only means I have to wake up at 2:30 to be out the door by 3:30, in order to catch the first blue line train into Boston, in order to get to Logan at 6 o’clock in the %$ing morning.

And that’s exactly how it went down: I woke up at 2:30 in the morning (and — at that point — I didn’t really “sleep” so much as I took a long nap) to do my hair & makeup and chug enough coffee that would kill a small mammalian creature.  I get out on the road by 3:30, swerving my way around night construction until I get to the Wonderland Station in Revere, feeling every bit like a hungover stripper, complete with the glitter makeup and excessive hairspray.

I get to Logan airport right on time and sign in at a conference room at the Airport Hilton.  Within minutes, the wardrobe lady comes in and asks if any ladies brought black high heels and is a size 8.  I’m a size 8.  I have black heels.  I raise my hand like the proud schoolchild I am and like that I am upgraded from unnamed patron to stewardess #3.

A brand new wardrobe, touch up on the makeup by a professional … I look like something out of Pan Am.

After getting my hair and makeup redone, we’re brought out to Terminal A in Logan.  The producer looks vaguely familiar and the director looks like Phil Collins mixed with Bob Hoskins.  I look over and see two more stewardesses, only with incredibly more detailed makeup and intricate hairstyles.  I genuinely wonder to myself why I didn’t see these extras in the conference room.  After listening to the director, assistant director, and two done-up stewardesses, I realize two things:

1) This movie is very much not going to be in English.

2) The extras I was gawking at were actually the stars of the movie.

Every extra ends up being used throughout the entire day, which is usually unheard of.  According to those who are extras on a regular basis, the day is usually spent in the conference room, wasting time until they call your group up.  Instead, we spend all of the morning and afternoon walking up and down the skywalk by Terminal A. One scene involves all of the flight attendants to walk down the hallway together (until another main character stops one of the stewardess main characters and we continue on our merry way).  After walking behind the not-actually-extras-but-big-name-actresses-in-Germany for a few hours, the scene is completed and we move to a different part of the hallway.

For another scene, everyone walks down the corridor and around a corner as two characters talk.  As a “noteable” extra (aka someone in costume), I only walk down the hallway once.  Everyone in everyday clothes turns to walk in the other direction once they reach the each end of the hallway.  I watch from the sidelines in awe, amazed at how much timing and organization is involved to make the hallway look like a regular, crowded airport corridor.  I’m also amazed that I’ve never noticed this trick of using the same extras over and over and over for the same scene in any movie or TV show I’ve watched — which I guess is kind of the point.

Halfway through shooting, it became obvious that the language barriers were becoming quite the insurmountable obstacle.  We would be directed using words that were close to what the director wanted, only to get frustrated that we weren’t getting it and start manhandling people instead.  Or perhaps that’s more of a culture clash than a language barrier.  Who knows.

But nothing is as funny as the people who would inadvertently become extras.  While some areas would be temporarily blocked off for key scenes, others — like the one where everyone walked up and down and around the corner — were kept open.  And I’m not sure what was more amazing: those who would ruin a shot by standing around, pointing at the camera and talking, or those who were so wrapped up in catching their flight that they zoomed on past, looking very much like the airport patrons we were trying to portray.

Friggen Reveeyah

We were dismissed after lunch and I made my way back to the Hilton, changed out of my clothes, and started my long journey home (with a brief stop-off at Revere Beach to soak my aching feet in the cold Atlantic Ocean).  As I’m slowly making my way up 93, I got a phone call from the casting company, letting me know that there has been a change and they wouldn’t need me tomorrow after all.  I thanked them for letting me know and continue on, slightly let down that I wouldn’t be working a second day.  Fifteen minutes later, I have this phone conversation:

“Hello, Abby?”

“Yes?”

“This is Becka from Boston Casting.  Were you a flight attendant today?”

“Ah, yes, I was.  I became a flight attendant at the last minute.”

“Okay, so I know we just said we wouldn’t need you but… can you come in tomorrow after all?”

Since I was technically a character extra, I had to come in earlier on Wednesday.  Since I was coming in before the T was open, I was told to park directly at Logan (where they would take care of my parking expenses).  Because that’s just how public transit works, I found myself leaving at the exact same time as I did on Tuesday, because getting to Logan via car by 5 a.m. takes about the same amount of time as getting to Wonderland Station by 5 a.m. in order to take the 5:15 bus to the Airport station (and a shuttle bus to the terminals).

Day Two. Exhaustion is starting to kick in.

Shooting that day was a little different than on Tuesday.  For most of the morning, we hung around, with only a few extras being used at a time.  We were also in Terminal E, right on the ground level where arrivals from international flights, well, arrive.  This meant we had more time to sit around and chat.

My favorite part about modeling has always been getting to meet new people, and being an extra was no different.  I might’ve idly chatted with a supposed German celebrity on Tuesday, but my eyes lit up when I talked with one extra whose side job was coaching MMA fighters for Bellator (aka the minor leagues compared to, say, the UFC).

Being on the sidelines meant I also got to watch everything go down, which included the inadvertent extras.  While we had our gawkers, our too-busy-to-notice passengers, my favorite had to have been one lone Asian college-aged boy, who walked right into the shot before turning around, seeing the cameras, and stopping to watch until the director yelled cut.  Coming in second was the lady who just had to use the Pay for Parking kiosk right by the cameras (as opposed to the five others around her), giving everyone the stink-eye for daring to block that kiosk (as opposed to the one that was fifteen feet to her right).

I spent the afternoon walking over and over again in a crooked C shape path, strolling into the shot with a fake pilot and back out.  We had to pretend like we were knee-deep in co-worker pleasantries, which involved saying the phrase, “Nice day for a flight” over and over and over again.  The next shot called for me to walk straight down the hallway next to a male flight attendant, also while knee-deep in pleasantries, although his comments were sardonic enough that I couldn’t help but break from of my Stepford Wife Smile.

At some point, my shoes became the topic of conversation.  I had learned my lesson the day before and went in with bandaged toes to prevent blisters.  I was also taking off my shoes every damn chance I get because girls who are 5’11” are not used to wearing heels for longer than 10-minute sessions.  Both the director and producer said something about how my feet must hurt — or, at least I think the producer said something to that effect.  He pointed down to my shoes and said something in German, and I responded the way everyone does when they don’t know the language: smile, laugh, and shrug.

The shoot wrapped two hours later than the day before, but somehow I got out of Boston with less traffic to deal than on Tuesday.  I then promptly went home and took a nap, because — while I tend to avoid naps even when I’m bone-tired — waking up at 2:45 two days in a row will throw off your concept of day versus night.

Three days later filming and I’m still trying to get back the sleep I lost on Tuesday and Wednesday.  But it was still an incredibly fun experience.  As a non-SAG member, I didn’t get paid very much; broken down by hour, I essentially got Massachusetts minimum wage.  But no one was there for the big bucks.  Everyone was there because it is actually a lot of fun to do.  It’s a break from whatever routine we usually have going.  It’s a chance to meet new people and try new things and gain a little bit into insight on how this crazy movie-making process works.  Maybe you’ll get a chance to see the back of Denzel Washington’s head (not in a German movie, but I’m sure in others), but that’s just a somewhat-unexpected perk.

The only drawback is that life kind of goes on pause when you have to be on set by 5 or 6 a.m.  Going back to being a proper adult is difficult when you have barely hit college student levels for the last 48 hours.  And it’s only made worse when you decide to blog about it instead of, say, doing dishes or returning emails.

Interstate 95: Where Hopes, Dreams, and Peace of Mind Go to Die

If you have never found yourself on 95 (or, for you out-of-towners, I-95 or The 95), particularly the part that loops around Boston, go right ahead and give yourself a high-five (and no, that’s not a sexual thing…yet).  Congratulate yourself for never having to deal with the drudgery that is when 95 and 128 come together to make a perfect storm of suck.  You have been blessed by God and all the Heavens.  Continue on in your life knowing that you have been spared.  But best believe this post is directed at you lucky fuckers.

If you have dealt with 95 in your lifetime, then you have my condolences.  If you deal with it on a daily basis for work, I think there’s a support group out there for you.  You know firsthand that 95 is where cars and dreams go to die.

The first problem with the 95-128 Power Couple of Hate is that people in Boston insist on calling it 128 over 95.  This is how route naming works: when it comes to roads with multiple names, state routes trump street names, and interstates trump all.  This is because state routes end, but interstates go on … y’know, through other states.  This is all fine and dandy (albeit illogical), until someone advises you to get on 128 when 95 is still just 95, hanging out in its evil solo glory.  Hope you got GPS, dickface!

“So, I got onto 95.” “You mean 128, ahahaha!” “…I live in Attleboro, jackass.”

So let’s pretend you’ve made it onto 95, even though that jackoff from Waltham called it 128.  You’re feeling good.  You’re circumnavigating Boston, which means you won’t be dying a slow, uneasy death in the O’Neill Tunnel (at least not today).  There’s four beautiful lanes set out in front of you.  You’re ready for an easy ride around and towards your final destination.  You’re expecting the rightmost lane to be the granny lane, the center-right lane for those who are slightly faster, the center-left lane for those who are even faster, and the leftmost lane for passing.  Right?

Wrong, douchebag!

Get ready to go warp speed through an obstacle course of people going 50 in the leftmost lane, 90 through the rightmost, and fuck-all in the middle.  Test your reflexes as drivers with a death wish attempt on-ramps that are essentially bumper car entrances.  Hate life with a bitter and burning passion as you deal with intersections with both 93 and 3 — and people proving that the Prisoner’s Dilemma is a real phenomenon as no one gets in line to exit or respects the zipper formation when entering.  Watch your life flash before your very eyes as you deal with a highway that is perpetually under construction, shifting lanes with absolutely no shoulder, crooked concrete medians, and drivers who will miss your car by centimeters as they cut you off, regardless as to the level of traffic or the amount of space in front of you.  Realize the level of people’s meaningless consumer-driven lives as you pass not one, not two, but three major malls packed with enough people to make you wish for a second coming of the Black Death.  And if you think it’s bad now, just wait until Christmas season rolls around!

Nothing says Christmas cheer quite like dicking someone out of merging into your lane!

So you if you find yourself north or south of Boston and need to get to the opposite side, I suggest public transit.  Or flying.  Or cartwheeling.  Anything, really.  Anything at all.  Abandon your car in Canton and find yourself a new one in Woburn.  Or just abandon all hope, ye who enter.

5 Things We All Need to Do Before We Hit 30

My 28th birthday has officially come and gone.  And by “officially” I mean, “A public official totally came out an announced that my birthday had, in fact happened.”  Or something like that.

With Montreal last weekend and a barbecue this weekend, we’re technically celebrating all week.  My actual birthday day was a mix of the low key and the extreme: I spent the morning idly gardening, before going out for coffee, a drive, and some more fall decorations for the house, only to spend the afternoon doing a triple whammy of a 4-mile run, an hour-fifteen yogalates class (if you’ve never done yogalates, think of the most intense yoga class you can imagine, and add pilates ab work), and two hours of kickboxing practice — complete with some birthday sparring with my husband.  And — as if my body was trying to prove that the late twenties are nothing like your early twenties — I went into a 9-hour coma and woke up sore from head to toe.

Being 27 was actually pretty good to me.  It was a transformative year, but it’s safe to say it was probably one of my best.  It got me thinking about what I did at 27 that I wouldn’t normally do in the other years — or at least not to the same level.  Which is why I came up with the 5 things we all need to do before we hit 30:

1) Truly and genuinely, without any preconceived assumptions or expectations, question everything about you.

It’s a nasty trap we all fall into.  The values we grew up with must be the right values.  The belief system we have must be the correct one.  The decisions we are making in life are the only decisions we can make.  This stuck type of mindset is only further cemented by a culture that has downright replaced rational discourse with yelling, name-calling, and metaphorical circle jerks for those who think the same things as you.

Even if you only do it once in your life, take a moment to genuinely question why you think the things you do.  Question why you consider something proper or improper, right or wrong, correct or taboo.  Question every assumption.  Question every value judgment.  Doubt every single thing about your life.  Doubt your views on the world, your friendships and relationships, what you want out of life, what you’re doing with your time.  Come up with an actual, cohesive explanation for why you feel the way you feel and do the things you do — an explanation that does not come from an automatic assumption that you were right in the first place.

There is nothing to lose: either you’ll strengthen what you already have because you will have found proper rationale (as opposed to just regurgitating what you have heard and seen all your life), or you’ll drop old habits and patterns that do not serve you or the world.

2) Let go of complaining.

Complaining has essentially been a rite of passage for most of us, starting somewhere in junior high and never really stopping.  We’d complain about teachers, homework, friends, enemies, boyfriends, girlfriends… this morphed into work woes, boss woes, co-worker woes, financial woes.  In an ironic twist, “happy hour” would typically be spent complaining about what bothers you.

And it feels good to complain!  You bond with the people around you with your shared misery, you let off some steam … no harm done, right?  Unfortunately, you’re doing a lot of harm: since it does feel good to complain, you’re creating a behavioral pattern that will only make you more likely to complain in the future.  Complaining actually makes you a more negative person, making you actually seek out the negative so you can talk about it and continue that twisted “feel good” sensation.

It’s time to drop it.  If you want to be happier in life, let go of complaining, even if everyone around you is doing it.  Because — really — if your only way of bonding with someone is through shared misery, maybe it’s time to rethink that friendship, as well as that job (see #1).

Life is tough.  Life is frustrating and unfair.  People do things that tick us off.  But we have a choice.  It doesn’t feel like a choice at first, but it is a choice: we can let it get the best of us and let it fill our days with complaints, or we can channel that energy into something more productive, like communicating what needs to be communicated — or finding a way out of a toxic situation.

3) Find every opportunity to step out of your comfort zone.

I define “finding yourself” as, “seeing you how you act and interact in a multitude of contexts and finding the areas of your personality that overlap.”  Finding these contexts mean different things to different people.  For some, this means travel.  For others, this means trying new hobbies.  And others, this means changing career fields.  But there is one thing each have in common: each requires you to step out of your comfort zone.

Board that plane to San Juan.  Step into that MMA gym.  Enroll in that nursing course.  Agree to try rock climbing or salsa dancing.  Agree to take on a different set of roles at your job.  Lace up your shoes and try jogging.  Like Mary Schmich advised in her 1997 article (which later became known as, “that sunscreen song” to anyone born before 1990): do one thing every day that scares you.  Your potential rests just outside of what is familiar.  And you’ll never get a grasp of who you are and what you are capable of if you don’t challenge yourself.

4) Walk away from the people that do not serve us.

I had a very nasty habit for the majority of my life: I kept people that were nothing but toxic way too close to me.  From “frenemies” in junior high, who’d only let me tag along so they’d have someone to make fun of, to insecure friends as a young adult, who were resentful of every little thing I did that they didn’t get to do as well, to coworkers and family members that I was better off keeping my distance from.

There was always a reason for keeping them around: they weren’t as bad as they seemed, they were good people underneath it all, I’m sure it was something I did, eventually they’ll be nicer…  They never changed, never became nicer — and, in some cases, grew more resentful or self-absorbed or mean.  And all it did for me was keep my self esteem and self worth down.

I’m not saying to cut ties with people who are not constantly at your beck and call, but to recognize when people are a toxic influence in your life and be brave enough to walk away from them.  There’s always a reason for keeping someone around, always a reason for letting their behavior affect you negatively.  Even if it’s just an emotional distancing, leaving those people behind is a must.

5) Embrace the uncertainty.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a super famous triple threat: dancer, actor, and singer.  Unfortunately, I’m 5’11”, have two (very big) left feet, never learned sheet music, and never even auditioned for a community play.  When I was 12, I decided I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.  I was going to churn out novel after novel and be like Stephen King — only, y’know, Stephanie King, because I’m female.  I swore I would write my first novel before I graduated college, get published before I was 25, and be a megastar novelist before I was 28.

Well, I did write my first manuscript before I graduated college, but it has yet to be sold (much like the other two resting on my hard drive), and, with my 28th birthday barely 24 hours behind me, I’m no where near ‘megastar’ status, in anything in my life.  On the more pragmatic end, I swore up and down in college that I wanted a job in the publishing world.  All it took was one internship to make me change my mind.  In 2009, I swore I was destined to be a preschool teacher.  I spent four years in the early education world but I ended up leaving the entire field behind and going back to school to become a registered yoga teacher.  I also thought I’d never get married or leave Boston; I celebrated my third wedding anniversary a few months ago and have been making mortgage payments on a house in a small town in New Hampshire since 2013.

Life puts you on some serious zigs and zags.  What you planned, what you expected, and what you get are three totally different things.  Life is uncertain and the only thing we can do is embrace that uncertainty.  Fighting tooth and nail over life going unexpectedly will only bring about unneeded suffering.  Life gets a lot easier when we accept that unknown, accept that life will throw us curveballs and not go according to plan.  We only get two choices: we can fret over every little detour or we can enjoy the view, regardless of what road we’re on.

…

These are things that you don’t have to wait until you’re closing in on 30 to do, nor is it too late to do them if you’ve already passed that milestone.  But these are five things that can help ensure we’re not scrambling at 50 or 60, wondering what happened with our lives.

In a Place Where Even the Police Sirens are Polite

My husband and I just got back from a long weekend in Montreal.  After about three or so years of remarking that we were actually a closer drive to Montreal than we were to New York City (especially after we moved an additional half hour up north), we finally spent time in our closet French city.

It was also the first time I ever planned a trip entirely by myself.  This was my pet project, so I was in charge of budgeting, finding/booking the hotels, and figuring out the itinerary.  Some things went awry (like the part where I didn’t pack myself any socks and the one sweater I brought “just in case it got chilly” became the one thing I wore at all times because — gee — it’s fall and I’m now 4 1/2 hours northwest of an already-cold region in America), but the vacation itself went wonderfully.

We did the usual touristy stuff — we went to the Olympic Park and went up the tower and experienced the Biodome — and we lucked out in that we were in Montreal during a gorgeous Chinese lantern festival at the Botanical Garden.  But we spent a good amount of time just wandering around.  I had a few places on my list I wanted to see, a few streets I wanted to go down, and I walked.

Wandering around is my specialty.  My favorite memories from camp don’t involve teenaged hijinx or arts & crafts, but long, wandering walks down the quiet roads.  My most poignant memories from college involve getting to know my city one footstep at a time.  If I had a million dollars and all the time in the world, I would spend it going around the world to wander, avoiding only the cities where I wouldn’t be able to do that safely.

It’s a wonderful way to learn the true ins and outs of a city, to understand how the neighborhoods link together.  The streets become more than a step on a GPS, but an area with texture and sights and smells.  There’s a moment when you wander down a new street and come out in an area you already know — a moment when things feel like they have literally and metaphorically come full circle.  I have been to Manhattan at least five or six times at this point, and I feel more intimate with Montreal, if only because I spent those three days walking absolutely everywhere.

It’s safe to say I am truly in love with Montreal.  There’s something about that city: the old with the new, the gritty and grimey with the stylish and sleek, the conservative with the blatant disregard for what we consider taboo.  I walked from neighborhood to neighborhood, feeling like I was putting together patchwork of all the cities I have come to love over my life — how this area feels like downtown Boston, how that area feels like a neighborhood in Belfast, how this street is just like Beacon Hill and how that square is just like one in Rome — stitching them together with a steady stream of coffee from the local cafés.  I got into small conversations and wondered how quickly I’d learn Spanish if I lived in a bilingual city where English was considered the second language.

After driving past Tristar Gym (home to two of my favorite fighters) like a wicked creeper, we made our way to Vermont, where we stopped in Burlington, Vermont and — you guessed it — walked around, through the downtown area and around Lake Champlain.

In some ways, I have become a lot more anchored in my life.  I own a house and a marriage certificate and there’s talk of expanding out our family of two cats and a coop of chickens to something a bit more substantial.  But there will always be a part of me that lusts for the piece of wandering, regardless of what scale I get it.  It’s the same part of me that thrives on three completely different, completely scattered jobs, instead of one steady job with a steady paycheck and concrete goals.  It’s the part of me that would love to be exactly that obnoxious person on Facebook, posting a near-constant stream of location updates and snapshots of city vistas.

But it’s also the part of me that forgoes the car on a crisp August morning, even though the roads in our town in the woods can stretch on for miles with nothing in between.  It’s the part of me that finds a good playlist, laces up her shoes, and makes a different set of patchwork images with the trees and the streams and the vacant ponds.  It’s the part of me that goes down an unknown road in a neighborhood next to me and comes out with a smile when she realizes that she can always find her way back.