Let the awesomeness flow from within.

Someone smart said to me today, "Stuff is simple if you let it be. Smart people complicate things as an excuse not to act."

Without even knowing it, he boiled down the entire Miss Adventurous philosophy into a sentence and reminded me of who I am.

I'm a smart people. No reason to start complicating things now, right? Right.

Additionally, The Salty One referred me to this Article about Just-In-Time thinking as opposed to Just-In-Case. (It's good. Go read it.)

All this smacks of that whole John Kabat-Zinn Wherever You Go, There You Are sort of mindfulness. I read some of his stuff a little over a year ago, and I still find comfort in closing my eyes and whispering "This is it."

It's three different messages that all express the same thing: instead of worrying so much about what could be, I should really just focus on what is. I'm having a hard time with that right now, perhaps because the job I'm on isn't that awesome, and I'm really wishing to move up to something different, something more challenging. It's hard to stay in the moment when you're not happy in so many of your moments. I've been placing a lot of pressure on myself to make all my moments outside of the job happy to compensate for not being happy in the job, scheduling dates and runs and friend time instead of relaxing and letting things flow. In doing so I'm really just making myself even more miserable. When things just happen organically they always turn out much better than expected anyway.


Well today I give myself a clean slate. Simplicity is my mantra for the week-month-year-life-whatever. Today I will quit putting so much pressure on myself to force awesomeness and just let the awesomeness flow from within.

Today I'm takin' it back...back to when I first got here, before I had my career, before I had any real solid friends, before I had superbly awkward moments in the back of taxicabs, back when I had no complaints because I was experiencing my life as my own for the very first time. Back then I had only three things that made me happy: running, dancing, and tooling around New York with love in my heart and a fool's grin on my face. And that's exactly what I plan to do today.

I think I found my new quests! Woohoo!

I had some epiphanies over my super long 4th of July weekend. I spent most of it alone and all of it thinking thinking thinking... Here's the latest from my brain:

-I never dealt with the loss and frustration I feel from Hurricane Katrina. I need to do that before I start trying to be an emotional badass again. I am not an emotional badass. I thought I was, but I am most certainly not. As evident in ten posts. But hey, that's why I have a diary...so I can learn this stuff.

-I am afraid of succeeding because I feel like I don't deserve it or something. And that's just not true! I do deserve it! I am humbled by the precociousness of this girl. She's awesome for having figured out some of that stuff at twenty! When I read it I kinda felt like I was watching kids teaching other kids how to be grownups, but It's much better to just let go of that kind of judgement and just appreciate the wisdom.

-It is good sometimes to just go where the wind blows. And right now the wind is keeping me on track for a production office job. Did I mention I got offered another job today? I DID!!! IT'S AN AWESOME JOB!!! Goes till January...working with (mostly) the same great team... including Payroll! And maybe even the Art Shrew! YAY!

-I have social stamina that rivals everyone I know, it seems. Everyone else keeps talking about how they just want to chill out, not work, spend time at home... The hell with that, I say! Let us hang out, good friends! At the very least I demand take out and a bottle of wine!

-Speaking of my social stamina, I MUST start going to events that revolve around things that interest me. Comics and art shows and technology-y things. In New Orleans everyone's too laissez-faire to even have events, so this is all new to me... But it's what people DO here...and it's a bit different from the slapped-together-at-the-last-minute raucus parties that constitute New Orleanian social events. And it's my new social strategery to avoid flirting games gone awry at wrap parties and to expand my network a little bit.

So! The Adventures continue:

Quest #1: Deal with Katrina (oh boy).
Quest #2: Go with the flow at work; do what I'm good at.
Quest #3: Be the girl that gets promoted on her next job.
Quest #4: Get my function on and cut back on the drinking.
Quest #5: Snuggle with the adorable little Katrina kitty that's trying to climb into my lap. At least SOMETHING good came out of that damn storm.

Where did everybody go?

<--That is me today!

I have no idea where my glasses went... the catch 22 is that, if I don't find them, I'll never find them!

It's the 4th of July. EVERYONE is out of town. Everyone. I sent out an APB, emailed everyone I know... The film just wrapped, it's the 4th of July weeked, and nobody is going to be around.



<-- This is also me today.

I am trapped here with the tourists. I had hoped I would be going to Ohio to see my (very pregnant) sister and my Mom, but there was no time to plan. There was no money to go. So, like usual, I'm making the most of it! I'm gonna head out this evening for a city stroll and check out the fireworks....but first I have to find my glasses!!

Just where do I think I'm going, young lady?

I have a demanding job that offers little stability. I somehow balance working 65+ hours a week with being a dancer. I also I have a social life, even if it is mostly populated with people I work and dance with.

So why do I feel like my life isn't full enough? Why do I feel like Miss Adventurous is drifting through a lazy lagoon instead of sailing the high seas? Can it be that I'm...bored?

I'm eager to get my claws into something new. A new job will certainly be welcome. Maybe I just need to do something fun. I have plans all weekend; I have a (my) dance show Friday, the Mermaid Parade Saturday and the Brooklyn Bridge on Sunday. Maybe I'll feel better after that?

I feel out of touch with the world. I feel kind of unalive. I think I need a jolt of crazy to shake me out of it. Thinky got me all excited to go out dancing and wild nights on the town and tasting the New York fabulousness, but it keeps not happening. Why? Why does New York eat time? Why are we all always so busy? Why can't I date awesome people instead of losers? Why is it that the one awesome person I've dated is still a loser? QUIT BEING A LOSER AND BE MY FRIEND, PLEASE!

Someone pinch me, I'm having a nightmare. I can't have done all this work for nothing; why do I still feel bland and unsatisfied? What can I do to fast track my success? I'm growing too slow! I can't take the waiting! I feel so behind! I want to make up for all the time I wasted on the lies and empty promises of some naiive jerk in a backwards Southern city that sucks all the ambition out of people!

There's so much pressure that I sometimes feel my body buckling under the weight of it. I want to get out of the financial baby pool and into the deep end. I want to start making the kind of money I need to live my dream the way I dreamed it. The way the sellouts like PDF live.

I know this sulking and futility are contrary to the style of my Adventures, which are all about possibility and courage. I know I am being desperate and fatalistic and blame-y. I know I'm acting like an entitled little brat, my own pet peeve. This, though, these feelings, are fuel for my fire. This is what motivates me to work hard and challenge myself. This is why I'm a daredevil and a thrill-seeker and a goal setter. If I settle for anything less then I'll wind up being a complainer instead.

The way to head off my dissatisfaction at the pass is to find the next goal and then get to work. I am drifting because I don't have a particular destination in mind. It's time to set my sights on a thing. Something difficult but within reach. Something specific and definable. Something I can control. An apartment? A job? I need a quest!

Welcome to the Meat Market

Talker, one of the PAs on set had her 28th birthday yesterday, and the big celebratory event was an excursion to her favorite bar. She explained it as a big dive bar that played really great music, which sounded fine to me. "Will there be dancing?" I had asked. Dancing is a major selling point for me. "Of course! It'll be so much fun!" I was excited to hang out with Talker...she's a really nice, friendly girl with a boyfriend sob story that rivals mine. And she's the first person I've met here in New York who talks more than I do... I think I use a bit more discretion in my jabber though, believe it or not.

Up until now I hadn't really been out in the meat packing district, even though I've heard about the super trendy hot spots there. So last night after the Dance Parade, instead of passing out on the couch and watching Grey's Anatomy like my feet wanted to do, I prettied up for a night on the town.

I made it to the bar around midnight, and on the approach I noted the standard crowd of smokers. Then I got closer and saw that half of the people outside weren't smoking, they were waiting to get in. I sauntered up to the bouncer and flashed a smile. "I'm meetin' some folks, baby," I drawled. The Southern accent usually works to my advantage. I had noticed the tiny black dot on a smoker's hand as he exited for a cigarette break. "I was here before but that tiny little dot y'all gave me just washed right off." He raised an eyebrow but returned my ID, re-dotted my hand and sent me in.

Once inside I immediately wished I was back out there with the smokers and line standers. The near-solid wall of people that greeted me beyond the door was one of the most daunting sights with which I have ever been met in all my nightlife experiences. I have been in some crowded bars before, but this rivaled Bourbon Street on Mardi Gas Day. Somehow I found a bar back pushing his way through the throngs and jumped into his wake. As he pushed our way through I surveyed the clientele and realized that I had found the Manhattan meat market. 95% of the patrons were very clearly there to pick someone up, and the other five percent were already with someone. I recognized the familiar beat of bad top-40 style rap music, and quickly understood that Talker and I have very different definitions of the term dive bar, because as far as I could tell the word dive had no business being used in conjunction with this place.

Once I got toward the back and found the rest of the group it wasn't so bad. They actually did play some okay music, but nothing I would call great by any standard. I also discovered, as drinks were bought and conversations were screamed, that most of the people there were from New Jersey and the rest were from Connecticut. I had a lot of fun imagining an awkward two hour car ride in the morning from Mr. Connecticut's house to Ms. New Jersey's apartment.

The "dancing" basically consisted of everyone smooshed together and bouncing up and down, shouting the lyrics to standard meat market bar songs. Every once in a while a drunk girl would try to bust a move and then topple over onto her drunk girl friends. Those drunk girls...they just never learn. And they spilled beer on my shoe.

Even though that kind of thing isn't really my scene I still had fun. When you're in a place like that you just have to let go and play into it. So Talker and I sang our hearts out to "Sexy Back" and bounced up and down with the crowd and even drank beer (which I NEVER do). Payroll showed up with some of her pals (from New Jersey) and we all threw our heads back for an excellent "Ohhhhhh! We're halfway the-ere! Ohhohhh! Livin' on a pray-er!"

Turned out, Talker had never been to this bar on a weekend before, and I've heard from a few people that it's a great place to hang out on a Wednesday.

I had good company and it was kind of fun to throw myself into it, but I don't know that I'll be back in that kind of place any time soon.