Blame My Absent-Minded Heart

I always used to roll my eyes when my mother warned me that I would grow up to be just like her.

"Trust me," she'd say, "I tried to avoid it too, but it's INEVITABLE."

I knew she was lying, SHE HAD TO BE, because first and foremost, unlike her, I would not end up marrying my math teacher. I knew that much. I figured that I could avoid morphing into her completely if I carefully abstained from dating anyone in the science/mathematics/education field. I thought this would prevent me from becoming ANYTHING like my mother. This, it turns out, was the wrong way to go about this since it meant that I ended up just dating really poor people. Live and learn.

Obviously, she was right. It was inevitable. By the time college came around, I was getting pulled over for speeding tickets, I was volunteering for random church projects and heck, I was probably even wearing high-waisted pants. Friends of my mother tell me that our facial expressions are similar, our sense of humor is similar and that we both talk really really fast. Okay. Those are similarities I can deal with. But there is something deeper than I've inherited. Something in the very core of my DNA that I cannot escape:

I. lose. everything.

Growing up, when my mother left the house, we would count the seconds aloud, usually getting to 5 or 6 before she would race back through the door exclaiming, "I forgot my wallet! I forgot my keys! I totally forgot what I'm doing right now!" She misplaces things on a daily basis. She's left cellphones in hotel rooms, she's locked the keys in the car on numerous occasions and she goes through a pair of eyeglasses every three months.

A prime example has to be the time she went shopping for my 22nd birthday dinner. She carefully picked out all the ingredients in the supermarket and when she got to the register, she realized that she had lost her wallet. That night, on my birthday, we ate off the fine china plates which are reserved for special occasions. My mother had set the beautiful china out on the table because it was my birthday and also to draw attention away from the fact that we were eating Chinese takeout.

This is my destiny.

Margot, my roommate on tour this fall, rolled her eyes constantly over my predicament. You have to understand that tour life is NOT AT ALL conducive to my situation. It involves packing and unpacking every single day which allows for tons of opportunities to leave cellphone chargers, makeup bags, and stray socks behind. I did pretty well for the first two months, running back inside to doublecheck things approximately 500 times. But then, I got lazy.

How lazy?

Well, so glad you asked. So lazy that on the day we came back into the States out of Canada, we drove through Detroit to pick up Vegan Mike and then drove up through the middle of Michigan for another two and a half hours. We were all exhausted when we reached the fabulousness that was the brand new Motel 6 in the middle of nowhere. And then:

Me: Where's my wallet?

Margot: What?

Me: I LOST MY WALLET.

Margot: You always say that. And we always find it. You didn't lose your wallet.

Me: NO. I LOST IT FOR REAL.

Margot: We didn't go anywhere! We came into the States and got Mike at the airport and ate lunch at Wendy's...

Me: IT'S AT THE WENDY'S.

Margot: No...what? Really?

Um. Yeah. I left my wallet in the BATHROOM STALL at Wendy's. (We don't have to talk about the fact that I took the van by myself to go get it and that I forgot to check the gas tank before I left and that it was on EMPTY and that I sobbed hysterically and some lady bought me a tank of gas at the gas station because my wallet was AT THE WENDY'S.) So yeah, at least someone turned it in. They left all my credit cards but took the $1.50 I had in cash. I guess they were allowed, some sort of bizarre twist on the phrase "Finder's Fee". Who knows.

But I got it back. That was at the end of November. And things have been going swimmingly since then. And by swimmingly, I mean that in that time, I've only forgotten my keys twice, forgotten the slip that I wear under my audition dress (because I am a grandma and still wear slips) and misplaced my cellphone one day for four hours (it was in my coat pocket). Not bad. Until yesterday.

I had a long day yesterday. Long. My bag was full of crap. Tons of crap. I find that actors always carry around way too much stuff. Most girls resort to the little rolling suitcases with wheels but oh my God I'm vain and I just cannot walk around New York City every day with a SUITCASE, could you die!?!? So instead, I do what is logical which is to carry around at least three bags, each weighing 50 pounds. Audition bag. Gym bag. Miscellaneous...wait what exactly takes up so much damn room!? Lord.

So, I was in a consolidating mood yesterday and actually crammed all my things into ONE bag. Audition dress, shoes, rep book, wallet, keys, cellphone, planner, one glove, lip gloss (two kinds), eyelash curler, Anna Karenina, you get the picture. I went to the audition. I went to get my eyebrows done because, why not? And then I went to the bank to deposit my paycheck. I walked from the bank to the subway and reached down into my bag for my metrocard. Which was in my wallet. Which was no longer in my bag.

Sigh.

You guys? I lost my wallet. Permanently.

I figure someone saw it resting atop alllllll my crap and pickpocketed it or else it just fell right out of my bag on the street.

Totally awesome, eh?

Gone: Fifty bucks in cash. (And 83 cents.) My driver's license. My rent check to my landlord. My credit cards. My student ID! (CURSES!! NO MORE CHEAP BROADWAY SHOW TICKETS! WHY GOD WHY?!!?) My Equity card. My DSW Shoe Warehouse Membership Card. My Buy-10-Manicures-Get-One-Free-Card. Other insignificant things like...oh yes,

My social security card.

WHAT!? WHAT?!! Why did I have that in there!? Probably from a job interview two years ago. But. WHAT WHAT WHAT!? So uncool, Laura! Damn, you are missing a brain. So now, I'm a total prime candidate for identity theft. Fun. Super fun. I've cancelled all credit cards and put a warning on my bank account and blah blah, what does it matter. The most irritating thing is that I lost my wallet and tomorrow, I'm going to California. Well. Wait. That's not irritating at all, actually. HA! CALIFORNIA!

The twins' uncle lives in San Diego and I am accompanying them on their vacation and basically, that means I can tell people I'm "going to San Diego. On business." So, a business trip to San Diego in the middle of winter! I am the luckiest girl in the history of lucky! Well. Come to think of it, I might retract that statement after spending six hours on a plane with 2.5 year old twins.

Anyway. By the time I get back on Monday night, hopefully everything will be fixed, new ATM cards will have arrived, credit cards will be replaced and I will have accepted the fact that I will never again get to pay the student price for anything, ever ever ever again.

You know though.

I keep hoping that it will turn up. I keep thinking that the universe can't be so cruel to me, that someone has to turn it in, that someone GOOD found it and wants me to have it back. But honestly, I just don't know. I lost my wallet. It sucks. I am The Stupid.

BUT I'M GOING TO SAN DIEGO ON BUSINESS!!!!

So really, life can't be that bad.

Right, mom?

You Can't Stop The Beat

We got my mother tickets to see "Hairspray" for her birthday. You see how my amazing "Mom's 50th Birthday" plans became an all-out celebrate my mother EXTRAVAGANZA that never ends? I know, I know. It's genius. Anyway, I called her after the show tonight to see how she liked it. The answer? A lot. Then she put my dad on the phone.

Dad: LAWRA!

Laura: Hey dad! You like the show?

Dad: It was SO GOOD! Betta than Wicked!

Mom (In The Background): He thinks anything is better than Wicked.

Laura: Yeah. You hate Wicked. I know. Okay. So, show was good?

Dad: I really liked the...the choreography and we sat right in the MIDDLE, those seats were AWESOME and the dancing and the singing and oh man, it was CATCHY.

Ah, my friends. This is why I do musical theatre. Because it is catchy.

I've been getting a lot of exciting packages in the mail and by packages, I mean heaping amounts of information on my new health insurance. It kicks in on April 1st and apparently, there's a lot to go through. It doesn't make any sense to me since I don't speak "adult". All I know is that soon, life will be AMAZING because I can go to the dentist and get screened for chlamydia and stuff. Also, I can get back into therapy.

I have very specific requirements for a therapist. One is that a box of tissues is always present for my session for I tend to blubber about my happy childhood like you wouldn't BELIEVE and two is that the therapist herself is good looking. Everything else is negotiable.

The first topic I want to discuss with my therapist revolves around how I read magazines. I subscribe to three very important magazines : Vanity Fair, Vogue and Shape. This means that I read a LOT of liberal journalism and constantly feel inadequate about my body. It works really well since I'm a New Yorker and all. The thing is: I do not like to read magazines that I don't read on a regular basis.

*The exception to this is Glamour because Glamour gives me important life information like how to wear my hair on a date and which shade of lipstick compliments my skin tone. Glamour does this while simultaneously avoiding Cosmo-esque articles on sexual positions and how to please men. So. To paraphrase: Glamour makes me hip and in-the-know. Cosmo makes you white trashy.

So back to my therapist. I'm going to tell her that I do not like reading magazines that I do not read on a regular basis. She will perhaps ask me why this is so. I will reply that it's because I love reading the "Feedback" section where readers comment on articles from the previous issues. (This is particularly fun in Vanity Fair, where you can always catch irate Republicans writing in to say that the magazine is total liberal propaganda bullshit and I always laugh because DUH REPUBLICANS, this is why I read it!)

Anyway. The point of making this point is: I like reading the letters that people write and I like comparing how they interpreted or were offended or were encouraged by a certain article from last month. I think about how *I* reacted to it. I like juxtaposing our thoughts. The problem with just picking up a magazine off a newstand is that I probably didn't read the previous month's issue. Therefore, when I get to the letters section, I can't possibly understand which articles they are referencing and this upsets me. It bothers me greatly because I don't know what they're talking about and I ALWAYS WANT TO KNOW WHAT PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT, ALWAYS, IS IT ME? ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ME? ARE YOU POINTING AND LAUGHING AT ME?

So. I think that will cover the first session and we'll make some pretty good progress. Ah, April 1st. You cannot come soon enough. Let's hope I don't get chlamydia before then. That would totally suck.

Today.

I went to an audition and 300 girls showed up so they cut us down to 8 bars of music.

Then I went to another audition and since it was full, I signed up on the alternate list.

Number 102.

I waited around to see if I could get in.

At 5:15, the monitor called the last of the alternates.

She called numbers up until 101.

And then closed the audition for the day.

And I came home and ate lentil soup and laid down, face up, on the carpet of the living room floor, feeling tired and overwhelmed.

And I thought that I would like to have a boy there, wearing a hat or a t-shirt over a long-sleeve shirt or both because that's what I like boys to wear.

And he would say, "How can I make your day better?"

And I would say "Orange juice."

And he would bring me some.

And maybe lay next to me on the carpet.

And we would stare up at the ceiling, focusing on the places where the walls and the roof meet, holding cups of orange juice, silently analyzing the cracks in the plaster but not really thinking of anything at all.

And It's Living In The Winter That's Hard

Overheard in audition room today:

Girl #1: Dude. There were SO many Asians at that audition yesterday.

Girl #2: Wasn't it for "The King and I?"

Girl #1: Yeah.

Girl #2: So...

Girl #1: I don't know, it was a LOT of them all in one place.

Whaaaaaaat. UM. What does that even MEAN? I feel like I should be offended by that. Should I?

And then later on, another girl interrupted my conversation with someone and asked me a question using the word "espousing". I gave her mad props because that's a great vocabulary word! Don't ever say actresses are dumb!

Well. Do.

Because I didn't know what that meant.

The audition itself was great especially because during the first half of my song, the casting director was under the table picking up pieces of his breakfast that he dropped on the floor. I almost wanted to stop mid-song, point to a few crumbs and say, "Um, I think you missed a few pieces."

Apparently, I am so damn talented that people can't even sit still while listening to me. They are so overcome by my inner beauty and unique interpretation of a musical theatre standard that they have to get on the floor and roll around and pretend not to pay attention. It's so crazy, right? The power I have over people? I'd like to thank God and the Academy for all my wonderful gifts and for casting directors who drop their Egg McMuffins on the floor while I'm singing. That's all.

Bringing Sexy Back

The party was a success. I'm still sick but FINALLY! on the road to recovery, almost two weeks later. My vocal chords, they are traumatized. It is annoying. There are pictures posted on flickr from the big birthday bash. You can see them here.

I'm going to head to work though I'm not sure how since there's a broken rail on 59th and Lexington and no trains are running from Queens into Manhattan. Good thing it's six degrees out! God, I love New York.

Enjoy the pictures. I'm going to throw a New York commuter hysterical fit. The End.