Emily Kaye Lazzaro

We have a subscription to Time magazine because of frequent flyer miles or something, and we got the one with the cover story about Millennials and I started reading it today.  I’m going to be really honest with you guys.  I didn’t read the whole thing.  I was distracted by Kelly and Michael and this video (so much crying) and Facebook.  I am a Millennial, after all, easily distracted and obsessed with instant gratification.  Also, I found that surprising.  I thought I was Generation Y.  But I guess Generation Y and Millennials are the same thing?  Who decides this stuff?  Magazine writers, that’s who.

Point being, the article, or the beginning of the article, the part that I read, said that Millennials have really high self-esteem, because our parents, the baby boomers, used to be hippies.  Or our parents are divorced and feel obligated to overcompensate by telling us how special we are.  Self-esteem is great because it makes you do really well in school and get dates and get jobs, but it doesn’t make you keep jobs or boyfriends, I guess.  I wasn’t paying super good attention to the article.  Haha, that’s how you blog, folks.  Scan half an article in a magazine and then develop really strong opinions about what you think you understand about it.

But part of me got sort of worried, I have to admit.  Maybe I have a certain sense of entitlement that makes me feel like I’m too good for an office job?  And maybe that same sense of entitlement that forces me not to settle for things that are sub-standard makes me lack direction and focus and plunges me into a deep ennui because nothing is good enough.  And maybe, since I will only ever find fulfillment and satisfaction by pushing myself farther every time I achieve something (be that distance running or play productions or acting roles) and will never be comfortable with my accomplishments, I am forcing myself to be dissatisfied and unhappy.

So naturally, I got to the point in the article where I was like “THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT ME AND THIS IS WHY I’M IN THERAPY” and I threw the magazine on the coffee table and sat on the bed while Billy got dressed and said “do you think I don’t have an office job because of my too-high self-esteem and unearned sense of entitlement?”  To which Billy replied, “What would be different if you had an office job?”  And realizing that the result of me having an office job would be that we would have a bunch more money helped me to understand that this article is bullshit, or at least the part of it that I read and the leaps I made connecting it to my life is bullshit.  If I had an office job, we would be wealthier and we would have more savings and we could buy a bigger house if we wanted and get a fancy car to drive me to my office job.  And I don’t care about that stuff, so that’s actually why I’m a tutor and babysitter and unpaid playwright/actor/screenwriter/blogger.

Every time some magazine publishes an article about the entire population of this country born in a twenty-year span of time as though we are all one thing, it’s safe to be suspicious.  There’s nothing the matter with examining one’s life and one’s decisions, but…

(Reads rest of the article…)

Well, this article has a pretty fair point actually.  You guys should read it.  Haha, A+ blog today!

Today it is unseasonably warm in Boston, so I thought it would be a good idea to take my dog for a long walk on the bike path.

Daisy doesn’t like going on walks that are not exactly the same walk we always go on.  So it was a negotiation from the start.  She stubbornly threatened to slip out of her harness within twenty feet of the house because we were going a different way.  We took it slow and eventually got to the bike path.  Ahh the bike path!  Trees!  Grass!  What could go wrong?

Children playing.  That’s what.

Daisy hates children.  They’re always loving her and saying she has nice ears and smiling pleasantly.

Long story short, Daisy is home and significantly happier than she should be for an animal that just spent forty-five minutes trying to run into traffic and stress pooping.

Aaaaand she just barfed on the hardwood.

Everything’s going great.

“I’ve found my productive-writing-to-screwing-around ratio to be one to seven.  So, for every eight-hour day of writing, there is only one good productive hour of work being done.  The other seven hours are preparing for writing: pacing around the house, collapsing cardboard boxes for recycling, reading the DVD extras pamphlet from the BBC Pride & Prejudice, getting snacks lined up for writing, and YouTubing toddlers who learned the “Single Ladies” dance.”

Sometimes I think Mindy Kaling must work so much harder than me.  But it appears that she and I work a similar amount.  Or maybe she’s just a wicked liar.

I do think there’s something real about that, though.  If I literally spent, like, ten hours in one day just flat out writing, I would have finished that screenplay and the pilot and the short story and I would have started that new play I want to write.  Like, I could probably do it in one long day.  I’m being completely serious!  So why can’t I?

Well, first of all, it probably wouldn’t be good.  Secondly, maybe it would be good.  I don’t know because I’ve never done it.  But thirdly (this list is not a list), I actually did do this a little bit once.  I decided I had to rewrite a play for a reading, from page one, in like three days, because I hated the draft I had and I was going to be presenting it to an audience, and I wasn’t going to put a piece of shit on stage in front of people.  And I did it, and the draft I wrote in three days was actually pretty great.

Maybe we’re all learning something here.  Maybe I need to write faster.  Maybe Mindy is wrong!

But in the end, it’s really about human nature.  If I don’t have something going up in front of an audience at a particular time in the future, then I’m not going to be driven to write like a maniac and finish everything.  Also, that time that I did it, I was completely exhausted.  Being creative and using your brain like that is really difficult and unsustainable.

And ANYWAY, if I finished all my projects in one day, what the fuck would I do with the rest of my life?!

And where would you guys be?  You wouldn’t have any of these rambling procrastination blog posts to distract you from your jobs.  Nobody wants that.

(I wrote this yesterday but the server was down. -ed.)

You guys!  Happy Monday.  So last week, I finished my screenplay.  Well, “finished” it.  It has an ending.  But it’s only like 73 pages so it’s not long enough.  It definitely needs tweaking.  But it has an ending!  So I’m going to check that off my list of crap I have to finish this month.  Now, onto the pilot.

But before I get working for serious on the pilot, it’s necessary that I share something with you, not because I’m procrastinating.  I’m totally not.  I really want to work on the pilot, but you guys are always so demanding that I write stuff for you, so it’s actually your fault.

Without further ado, because you guys are so pushy, not because I’m procrastinating, I give you this list of insults that are not offensive to any type of group.  They’re not gendered or derogatory terms based on sexuality or appearance or intelligence.  I’ve been trying to find more insults to use that do not actually offend real groups of people who haven’t done me wrong.  Feel free to use them yourselves!

Dipshit – this one is quite popular when I road rage which is… daily.

Jackass – this one is a classic, and is almost a little good-natured.  It’s an animal so it’s not to be used in situations of genuine emotion, like road rage.

Butthead/Butt for brains/Butt munch/anything with the word butt – makes one feel like a fourth grader, so this is really best for insulting children or animals under your care, i.e. the kind of insult that won’t make you feel like you should call child protective services/the humane society on yourself.

Asshole/Asswipe/Anything with the word ass – This is a serious insult, and it’s great because it’s really just calling somebody a butt.  Everyone has a butt!  It’s not really that bad a thing to be called, when you get right down to it.  But yeah, don’t use it on kids, because if they repeat it in school they will get in trouble.

Melon head – only offensive to people with melons for heads, which is mighty uncommon.  Or I guess it’s also offensive to melons.  Sorry melons!

…Alright back to work.

Sometimes you remember that last weekend you were out of town and your friend who is also a playwright came to dog sit for you and did some work at your desk.  And then you remember that he must have looked up at the bulletin board above your computer and noticed a few things.

Dudes.  It looks like I need a lot of encouragement.

1. Read a very interesting article about the guy from Happy Endings and how he has a cameo in Iron Man 3.  Fell into a rabbit hole of pop culture commentary for ninety minutes.

2. Read through all the submission opportunities on The Playwrights’ Center website.  Decided not to apply for anything.

3. Ate some raw, undressed cabbage.  Decided there is a reason this is not considered a normal thing to eat.

4. Wrote a frantic nine pages in my screenplay.

5. Ate a carrot.

6. Looked at available condos in Somerville to see if we could ever move to a bigger place.  Decided that the answer is no.  None of the kitchens in the listed apartments were built to my exact specifications, so…

7. Roasted a sweet potato and ate it.

8. Watched Semi-Home Made with Sandra Lee, Ten Dollar Dinners with Melissa D’Arabian, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Ann Burrell, Thirty Minute Meals with Rachael Ray, and now the beginning of Giada at Home.  Realized that is, in fact, a shocking number of cooking shows and not something I should advertise to the world.

9. Baked a batch of whiskey walnut blondies to give to my brother tonight, upon his arrival home from a month-long business trip to China.

10. Tried to reach my brother’s office to see if they know what flight he’s on.  This took significantly longer than one might expect and resulted in deciding my brother’s company just does not want to receive my phone calls.

11. Took Daisy for a walk.  Said hello to Murray, the neighbor’s French bulldog.  Pondered the unfairness inherent in Murray’s cuteness and his breed’s inability to give birth naturally.  Unnatural, unholy, adorable little monsters, those French bulldogs.

12. Wrote this blog.

Is that enough for one day?  Can I go to bed now?

Jeff Mosser, director of Girls’ Sports and general nice guy, posts short notes to artists on Facebook sometimes, and they are always great.  Today, he posted an article about a woman who does research on grit as a trait in people that accounts for more success than innate intelligence.  I’ve heard stories on NPR about this before, but it feels especially relevant to me right now.

I’ve never been big into trying.

In elementary school, I didn’t do my spelling homework.  I was really good at spelling (hair flip), but I didn’t feel the drive to complete the homework.  Maybe it was because it felt unnecessary to me.  I already knew how to spell these words, why did I have to write them all down on a piece of paper?  Who cares!

But I think, if I’m honest, that it probably had more to do with the fact that I was EXTREMELY lazy as a child.  I hated moving my body and exercising my mind.  I preferred to watch Rocco’s Modern Life and eat Cheez-Its whilst laying down.  Also, I was shy and hadn’t discovered theatre yet, so I didn’t feel like I had a lot going for me.  Childhood was not the best time in my life.  Anyway, point being: I am not innately gritty.

In high school I fell in with a group of gritty friends.  All of my friends were smart and worked hard and got really good grades.  I wasn’t used to trying hard, but they influenced me and I started giving a shit.  I pushed to be accepted into AP classes, I worked hard on long-term projects, and I auditioned for school plays and even got a little pushy if I wasn’t cast when I thought I deserved to be.  Theatre helped this along, too, because all of a sudden I felt like I had a goal I really wanted to reach.  I tried hard in high school.  I had some grit.

But then I got discouraged in college and sort of stopped trying.  I got terrible grades my freshman year.  I fell back into my old habits of questioning if it was worth the trouble.  But I picked it up later in college.  I made myself be gritty again.

But the cycle continued the years right after college.  I stopped trying.  I “quit acting”.  And I was really unhappy with myself.

Grit is a funny concept.  I like the word.  I like the image it conjures.  I imagine a piece of sandpaper rubbing against concrete.  It grips.  It’s hard and rough and it doesn’t let go.

I am generally more of a rubber bouncy ball covered in personal lubricant.  I change my mind, I try to please other people, I get discouraged, and sometimes I sort of float around.

But lately I’ve been trying hard to try hard.  I get up early and exercise.  I eat vegetables and get enough sleep.  I audition for everything I hear about.  I work hard on writing plays and don’t think about the possibility that they will never be produced.  I fight against my own discouragement and I try to use jealousy as motivation.  I make plans to finish my projects in one month.  I say yes.  And Jesus Christ, it sucks.  It’s really hard and the payoff doesn’t come right away.  But it’s like working in a garden, every day, forever, sowing seeds over and over and over again.  And some of the seeds don’t sprout, so you sow more.  And eventually, in like two years, something starts to bloom.  And maybe it’s just chives.  But I will take those chives and I will sprinkle them upon a deviled egg and I will tell the world that I am gritty, even though I’m actually just doing a great job faking it.

You guys.

You know I work from home on writing projects and don’t have a boss or, really for the most part, anyone who cares if I live or die.  Just kidding, many people care if I live or die.  But not a lot of people care if I write a play or pilot or screenplay or don’t.  Much of this work is about self-motivation because I am often beholden to no one.

Yesterday, Billy and I were driving back from a delightful weekend visit with Billy’s cousin Emily in Newburgh, NY, and we were listening to the most recent This American Life podcast.  It was a rerun of a show from 1998 (fifteen years ago, ahhh) and the show included stories from David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, and Anne Lamott.  All of these stories were autobiographical and I kept thinking to myself, “Self, you should write a book of personal essays about your childhood and adolescence.”  And then I thought, “Self, you have an unfinished screenplay, pilot, fiction story for young adults, and full-length play going right now.  Perhaps you should finish those projects before you start pretending you’re David Sedaris.”

And Self was right.  Now, how does one motivate oneself to finish four projects that have no due date and nobody who cares about them?  Well, one posts about it on one’s internet weblog, that’s what one does.  One tells all of one’s Facebook friends about it.  And, if the Facebook friends give enough of a shit, they can check in periodically.  Or they can give me shit about baking when I should be writing.

I’m going to finish my unfinished projects by the end of May, and before I start anything new.

MAY IS FOR MOTIVATION!  Both of those words start with M, so it makes sense.

Anyone want in on this?  We can check in with each other and give each other the shit that our nonexistent bosses can’t give us! Who’s with me?!

Last night I couldn’t sleep.  This never happens to me.  Usually I fall asleep the instant my head hits the pillow and don’t wake up until my alarm goes off in the morning, so I don’t take well to being awake, at 1:30am, on a Tuesday, watching Scrubs.  Interesting: all the commercials on TV at 1:30am are for diapers, or so it seemed to my sleep-deprived brain.  Makes sense, though.  New parents are the only people who should be up at that time on a Tuesday night.  Of course, most of my friends who live in New York were probably still finishing up a shift at a restaurant at that time.  Whatever, I’m a baby, what do you want me to say?

So since I couldn’t sleep last night, and my alarm went off at 5:30am to go to the Harvard stadium and run the stairs, I am now tired.  Is that partially my own fault?  Yes.  Is it entirely my own fault?  Maybe.  Is it the fault of the patriarchy that encourages me to feel inadequate as a woman if you can’t bounce a quarter off my ass?  Probably not.  Also please note, nothing bounces off my anything.

I know I started this post with a point in mind, but now I forget.  I’m so tired, you guys.

Oh yeah.  I wanted to talk about exercise.

I set my alarm for 5:30am, and actually got out of bed at that time, after sleeping for a sum total of three and a half hours, because I am in love with exercising.

As you know, there was all this life nonsense over the past couple of months (we’ve been through some stuff) which I dealt with by eating and drinking a lot and gaining something like ten pounds.  I perpetually want to lose ten pounds, because I’m a human woman in the United States of America, so gaining the ten pounds was, well, the opposite of what I wanted.  Well put, Emily.  I decided enough was enough, went on a diet, and started exercising a lot.  I’ve gotten good at exercising.  I run up crazy hills and around the river and I do intervals and I go and go and go.  Every time I run it gets easier and more fun.

This morning I decided that exercising makes me very happy and dieting makes me very unhappy.

Which is why yesterday I ran five miles around the Charles and could have done more.  And why this morning I climbed twenty flights of stadium seats, sweat dripping down my face, high five-ing strangers.  And also why I just ate four pieces of bread.

Enough is enough with the dieting.

Sometimes I tell myself that I have to diet because I want to be a successful actor.  But what is the trade-off here? What kind of life would I have to lead?  Would it be worth it?  I don’t know, but probably not.

Meanwhile, I’m just going to give in to my nature.  I’ll be the one running as fast as she can all year long, for as long as she can, then going home and eating all the bread.  Because you know what tastes better than skinny feels?  Bread.  Also: everything.

#bullshit.

The week of the marathon bombing, my mom was in New Orleans, my brother was in China (still is, actually), and my dad and stepmother were in Mexico.  It was weird and slightly unsettling having everybody spread all over the globe.  But anyway, I thought I’d take a break from thinking about all the shitty things that happen in the world and post an email my dad sent from Mexico before all the bad stuff went down.  It’s a nice little break from real life, with a small dose of mortality, just to keep it interesting.  Enjoy!

Greetings from Mexico.  Irma is our chef and housekeeper.  She seems upset when we ask her please do not make lunch after we had pancakes, omelettes, and fresh fruit for breakfast at 10:00 AM.  Then off she goes to make the bed and wash towels.  She washes the windows every day.  Pretty awesome helper, $25 per day.  We gave her the rest of the day off, but she made us margaritas first.

Anyway, Marilyn and I wandered down to the pool with our books, sporting bathing suits, hats, sunglasses and, of course, towels.  We’ve developed the habit of starting out with a dip in the ocean.  A stiff breeze blows right to left up the beach, which is nice because it keeps you cool in the hot sun.  The breakers are Misquamicut-like, although a bit lower today, some maybe four feet high at peak.  The beach sand gets roiled so the bottom sand is wildly uneven.  You look like a drunk walking in knee deep water because of the peaks and valleys that you can’t see.  We swam out beyond the breakers today, figuring we would float around a bit without the foamy battering we had received the last couple times out.  Suddenly we realized we were over our heads.  Not that big a deal normally, but I told Marilyn, trying to sound calm “I’m going in.”  Problem now becomes the rip tide.  It must come from the wind that tears up from the south.  You can go out or up, think east or north, but not so easy to go west back to shore.  Swimming, but not making much progress.  I’m thinking plan B just in case and look up for the Lifeguard.  Not there.  Commit to swimming to shore.  Fortunately caught a few breakers to give a shove in.  Swam some more and was able to gain footing.  Phew.  Tiring too.  Very happy to walk up the beach after that.  Outdoor shower then into the wading pool.  This is where we belong.