Thanksgivingness!

Holidays.  Are.  Exhausting.
Or maybe it is working seven days in a row that is exhausting!
Or maybe it is partying too much... wah wah.

Tuesday night after work I was chilling with the servers because I just didn't feel like going home yet.  Also, they got me some yummy dinner.  I decided to go out for "one drink" (HA!) and went to a bar in the east village.  There I had a great time just jamming to the band and chilling.  On our way to the next place I started talking to a limo driver and while I was chatting him up one of the servers decided to rent him for the night, so we picked up the rest of the staff at the restaurant as they were closing up and RODE AROUND IN A WHITE STRETCH LIMO ALL NIGHT!

This is my life.

It was awesome.  The guys I work with are so chill and really interesting.  And instead of going home I slept at my new place :) So I guess I was home!  Doug and I both worked in the morning and we stopped at a little Mexican place on the way, and the owner gave me a free donut.  At least that's what I think it was, it was a ball of dough about 4 inches big and it was DELICIOUS!  Except Doug told me there was cheese in it and there wasn't... the cheese never came!  Still yummy though.

After a crazy night and no sleep I headed home to start cooking Thanksgiving dinner.  I made a pie, and rolls, and some weird cookies.  Sarah and I wanted to use the pumpkin pie filling for something other than a gross pumpkin pie and we made cookies with german chocolate cake mix, marshmallows, chocolate chips, and oatmeal.  Weird.
Then we headed to bed because our alarms were set for 4am!
Before the crack of dawn we headed out the door.  We got to the parade route at 5:15am and got a front row seat.  We sat down, and waited.  We made friends with the family next to us, a little girl named Kassidy made the time go by wayyyy faster, she was hilarious.  We also befriended one of the police officers working the parade.  Finally, at 9am the parade started and it was AWESOME!  Its such a different experience than when you see it on TV.  You can see everyone holding the balloons, there is confetti and clowns, the celebrities are up close, and there are a shit ton of people.  It was super fun!

God I love Pikachu

SANTA! I KNOW HIM!

Definitely don't need to go every year though, it is quite exhausting!  When we got home, no rest for the weary, it was dinner time!

And I have to say, for 3 kids who have never made Thanksgiving Dinner before we did a really good job!  Especially considering that our oven is so ghetto.  The part that tells you the temperature on the front moves so you never know if it is exactly the right number, and it doesn't tell you when its heated up all the way, and there's no thermometer soooo yah, I'm pretty impressed with us.  We had everything!  Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, roles, yams, and two kinds of pie!  MMM.

MMM my homemade pie!

After stuffing myself I took a quick nap and then UGH I had to go to work.  I had another Thanksgiving Dinner at work and then I got home and went to bed!!!  Where I slept 10 hours and had to go to work again.

The rest of the weekend I rested, cleaned the apartment, and went to work.

Last night I headed out to Cipriani's with Jose and Juliet and had an amazing dinner, then we went upstairs and there was karaoke!  I LOVE KARAOKE!!!!  It was a super fun night but man am I tired!  After work today I slept and wrote this blog and now I'm going to apply for auditions.

Tomorrow is get serious time.  I'm moving in on Thursday and I will have my own space so I can practice monologues and sleep and get my life together!

I did not forget what I came here to do :) acting!!!

But for tonight, food and rest.

Bye byeeee

Home Sweet Home

Hi Friends!

Hope everyone is doing well :) I am doing great!  And excited to tell you about my last few days...
After my happiness post I went to work and had a GREAT night!  I had a lot of fun, couldn't stop smiling and was chatting it up with the regulars.  Now that I've been working for awhile I can recognize a few, including the comedian Anu Kalra and the hotel manager from upstairs, Fred.  I sat Fred right next to the stand and was chatting him up and guess what happened... he bought me a plate of shrimp for dinner!  And chef was making me mac and cheese and chicken as well, so I took a seat and chatted him up.  Cause that's what you do if you want more shrimp ;)
This is my New York City life.

The whole day Friday I was apartment hunting.  The first place was up, up, up, way up in the scary part of Manhattan and the room was the size of a closet.  And the girl told me about a giant cockroach, EW!  But hey, it was in my price range so I wasn't gonna say no right away... Until I went to Queens and FOUND MY NEW PLACE!  YAY!

Now kids that is a full size bed and behind it are about four feet of boxes... you can't see the whole room but BAM IT IS BIG YAYYYY!  And cheap, and there's a backyard, and a nice big bathroom, and great decoration, and it is QUIET.  And my roommates are sweet.  So I am super pumped, I move Dec. 1st and I will officially have my NYC address.  Ballin.

After a long day of apartment searching I had delish restaurant leftovers for lunch mmm and then I went to the village to film a scene with the NYU student Juan, who cast me in the short where I was the dead girl.  Again, I played a dead girl... wtf Juan!  Haha, but next time he casts me he promises I will be living... Anyway, it was fun and there were about 12 of us squeezed into a tiny apartment, and we watched Muppets in Space while we filmed, so it was a good time.

On set!  Maybe someday I'll get a picture of me for ya.

Saturday was hands down one of the best days I have had in New York so far... I stayed in "my" (Sarah's) room the entire day and did NOTHING.  Well I did some things... cleaned, watered plants, put my check in the bank, bought flowers, read my camera's manual, emailed my boss, did my nails, watched the entire first season of "Recess" on Youtube.

Why yes I am a 12 year old.

Winning.

It was a great day in.

I mean, I had every intention of going to the Brooklyn Bridge to take pictures and get some fresh air.  I even did my hair and makeup.  But then I ended up with this.

OMG like, Myspace called they want their pictures back!!!

Ya... That just happened.  Welcome to my crazy New York City Saturday night.

Sunday Sarah came home and we snuggled and watched the Amazing Race and I went to work.  It was very slow, but my boss got us some sliders and it was delicious!  And I made money checking bags which doesn't happen often... and I was just in a great mood :) We had some cool customers including this 70 year old lady wearing sequins who told me we had the same spirit and that was why I was so nice to her.  Awesome.

When I left work I needed some time to think so I started walking home.  I walked from Penn Station to the East Broadway subway stop... It took me about 2 and a half hours and I just got to see New York and the Christmas lights and displays and sit in the park and enjoy being there and listen to the thoughts in my head.

In Washington Square park, at 11pm, there was a huge choir singing songs of peace.  <3 only in New York City.

Choir singing in Washington Square Park.

Empire State Building lit up for Christmas!

The colors change day by day!

Now we are here today... and I did laundry, go me!  We went to Sarah's dress fitting and she looks amazing :)  I cleaned up and I chilled and now I have to get ready for work, work, work and THANKSGIVING!

Get ready for some awesome pictures of turkey and the Macy's Day Parade!

Now I have a place to live, it is gonna be the holidays, I have clean clothes and great friends, what more could a girl ask for?

Happy, Happy, Happy.  I love New York City!

H O P E

Wow!  I was so, so grumpy yesterday, so I decided to write a bit today just because I feel awesome!  Also, I have a lot on my mind and I'm hoping if I write it down and share it, maybe it will go away... or at least not take up so much space in my head.

After that long post I posted I spent the night NOT sleeping.  Don't know why I couldn't sleep but my brain was just wide awake... this is very rare for me, I love sleeping so it is weird to have insomnia.  I climbed out onto the fire escape and sat with my feet dangling off it.  I took some pictures with my camera for fun... I've had that thing since graduation and I have no idea how to use it.  Washington DC inspired me to take pictures, especially since I'm in NYC and there are so many things I want to show you!  Then I spent a few hours watching TV while drawing on the back of some posters I took from the restaurant, that they were going to throw away.  Wish I had my whole box of Prismacolor markers here!  Meh!

On the walk to the subway in Brooklyn.  I wish this picture captured the cuteness of that little girl!

New York is such an amazing place.  The year and a half since graduation has been... rough, to say the least. Nobody warns you what it is going to be like when you stop having everything planned for you and school is done and it is time to make your own decisions.  Even though I had an idea of what I wanted to do it was still tough to figure out how it was going to happen.
But I feel like being here is so great, inspiring, beautiful.  I don't understand how people don't like city life.  There is so much to look at and so much to see.  Every time I'm out I see something new and something interesting.  And even though I feel like I'm moving at the speed of SLOW when it comes to doing what I came here for, sometimes I have to cut myself some slack and realize I've only been here a month and a half.  And I have a job I love and I have shows the whole month of December and it is okay that I'm not a movie star... yet...

Good news is that I finally will have my own place to live!  After searching and searching and finding nothing, I now have five places that I'm going to be looking at during the next week (when it rains it pours!) and will for sure have a permanent address by Dec. 1st!  So all you darlings that are going to be coming to visit, you will have a place to stay :)

There is so much I am looking forward to.  This weekend I am filming at least two, maybe three times.  Next week I'm going to the Macy's Day Parade!  OMG get excited for that post.  Christmas is coming up and I'm going to have a bunch of visitors... Madison, Z, Marcus, and Lizzy!  :)  And I get to go home.  And NEW YEARS EVE in the city.  Ohmigod.  Let me just say: Hair in bows, glitter, fur, sequins, and high heels.  I'm pumped.

So much to be thankful for.  Walking home, tired, after a night out with my crew and I couldn't feel any better.  So much change has happened but I finally feel like I'm in a good place, even though there are bad days.  There is no better way to get to know yourself than uprooting your whole life and moving to a city where you know no one.  And I'd like to say that so far, I'm a pretty fun person to get to know.   I like me :)  Woohoo!

Time for a nap maybe, before work.
Hope you all are having a fabulous day!  And I wanna say THANK YOU to all my readers.  I have had over 900 views on my blog, and while many of those have been in the US I have had people from all over the world read my writing, how awesome!  Russia, the UK, Germany and Singapore!  Nuts!  You guys are amazing!

Whenever I write about going out, I'm with my loves 90% of the time... Juliet, Jose, and Jordan!

I know you've been thinking about making moves for awhile... well today is the day...

SO TAKE SOME ACTION!

Now or never.

Sicky Laura... and Washington DC!

NEWWWWW YORK
CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OF!
True story everyone.

It has been quite awhile.  Probably because the entire week after Halloween I was curled up in a ball on my mattress when I wasn't working :( Being sick is not fun!  But it was worth it after going out on Monday with Jordan, we went to the Village and walked around in the Halloween craziness and it was awesome!  Awesomely dangerous... haha.  I saw some interesting things that night let me tell you.  We were in a huge crowd being directed by the police and at one point some people started yelling "fuck the police!" and let me tell you Jordan and I booked it out of there as fast as we could.
She was dressed as Aldous Snow and we both spent the whole night going BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT.  I was a ninja.  We got a picture with a guy dressed as a penis.  Overall, a fun night.

Bahaha.  Awesome.

And I'm pretty sure the rest of the week I worked.  It got to the point where the staff was asking me if I slept at the restaurant, damnit.  And when I wasn't working I was coughing and sleeping, boo!
Slowly, but surely, I became a real person again.  The sun came out, I went outside, and on Tuesday it was completely gorgeous here.  Sunny, 66 degrees and I spent a couple hours with Jordan walking dogs with her :) A nice way to get some puppy love, even though they weren't my lil baby!

ROXYYYYY I MISS YOU!!!

And then I went to work.  Afterward, I went to Jordan's and hung out with her and her roommates... they are awesome people.  NEW FRIENDS how fun is that, I'm like a regular New Yorker.  Haha.  Anyway, she made us brownies with peanut butter M&M's in them (omg my favorite!) and ice cream on top, and we were all fat kids and at 1/2 the pan and watched Millionaire Matchmaker.  This is my fast paced NYC life guys haha.

Again, most of the week I slept and worked until... Thursday!!!  When I hopped on the train and went down  Washingon DC!

For those of you who don't know, Marcus is in the airforce and he was flying into DC for the weekend on a mission and we decided it would be fun for me to come crash the party and have some friend time.  It was just what I needed... Sightseeing and traveling and friend time and some good ol' soul searching on a train in the sunset and relaxation made for an amazing weekend.

I got into Union Station at about 7 on Thursday night and met up with Marcus and the other guy on his mission with him, Dan.  We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and headed out to dinner, which took us forever because we couldn't make a decision.  At one point all three of us were standing on a corner in the cold with our phones out trying to GPS a restaurant.  Fail.  Anyway, we ended up at an italian place (thanks to me bahaha) and the food was totally delicious.  Unfortunately, at this point I was fighting back a migraine and it was not fun.  I basically was like I NEED SLEEP and passed out as soon as we got back.  I'm so fun to hang out with.

The next morning I woke up and felt much better.  The first thing I did was GO SWIMMING!  Daddy would be so proud :) If there is a pool in a hotel I will take as many trips to swim as I can... even if it means getting up at 8am.  We eventually headed out at noon and had lunch.  We headed to the mall and the first place we went into was the air and space museum.  I texted Dad the whole time cause he is all about that kind of stuff, and the boys checked out the planes (Airforce Navigators, standard) but I liked the space part the best, especially when a little girl asked me how to use one of the computers and we spent ten minutes exploring the planets.

We left the museum and headed over to the Capital.  It was a great day for pictures with lots of big fluffy clouds, although the weather was a bit chilly.  We walked through the portrait gallery for a bit and then went to the natural history museum.  One word: DINOSAURS!

After spending some time checking out the dinosaurs everyone was getting a bit tired and we headed back to the hotel.  Again, there were issues figuring out dinner plans, especially when the hotel restaurant was an hour and a half wait, but we finally figured we'd just wait and get drinks while we did.  Since it got dark early it felt like 10pm but lo and behold we actually still were in time for happy hour.  I would say it was a pretty great, I got a kiddie dinosaur sippy cup, delicious dinner and a brownie for dessert, rode a ridiculous escalator, went to a bar called Luckies?  I think.  Danced, drank, got in a circle of people and rocked out, was hit on by the DJ who then played my favorite song ("Whatever You Like") and was told by a stranger that he was in love with me.  We started drinking at 6pm, we got home from the bar at 3am... you do the math but I'd say we rocked DC.

The next morning I got up at 9 and went swimming (I do not joke around) and then I grabbed some breakfast and talked to Beth (<3 sister love).  Got ready and headed out to see the Lincoln memorial.  We passed the White House, AWESOME! and the Washington Monument, and saw the new WWII memorial and went to the Lincoln Memorial and the Korean and Vietnam War Memorials.  Since it was Veteran's Day weekend there were a lot of people around, lots of veterans, and a lot of red white and blue... or maybe that's just cause it was DC.  Now, I've never been over expressively patriotic but it was really cool to think about all the history and made me PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN.. AMERICA!  Haha.  It was a gorgeous day on Saturday, sunny and warm.  We walked closer to the White House and then headed back.  After another quick swim it was time for me to leave :( boo!!!  Back to Union Station for the train home.  I passed out on my bag on the way home and got a great nap.  It was so amazing to travel again... I forgot how much I love it. Although coming home during the night and seeing the NYC skyline was quite amazing and made my heart so happy when I thought I LIVE HERE!

And here's a little shoutout to Marcus and Dan :) I had a great time!  Thanks for letting me share your vacation <3

There are dinosaurs in there!!!

Now, a normal person would've gone home... but I'm not normal and I headed to Jordan's place for pizza and the game.  By the game I mean some west coast football that I didn't care about but pizza!  I had planned to meet up with Netty, so while I waited for her plans Jordan headed out and I just hung out with her roommates.  When I pooped out and decided to go home they told me I should move in... very much considering it... haha.

Exhausted, I headed home to find that the friggin' F train was shut down and I had to take the bus partway.  Dumb.  I got home and passed out!  Wondrous.
OMG and Netty was here and I only saw her for about two hours but... I love that girl.

Now, I worked Sunday and Monday and I finally have a second to myself and I spent today doing NOTHING.  Lies, I cleaned and unpacked and searched for an apt., but it has been a relaxing day which is super nice.  Especially since Sarah is gone and I've been chilling in her room... omg having a door is amazing.

But also, you should keep Sarah in your thoughts because Josh (her fiance) just lost his mother and they're both having a rough time right now :( poor girl.  I love you Sarah!!!

So that's that.  Here are some leftovers that I forgot where they go but I'll put them here:

-At work the other day I was bored cause it was slow and people at the bar kept ordering wings, so my manager ordered two plates of wings for the staff and we just chowed down together.  Awesome.

-On the subway the other night some boys were talking about how pretty I was cause they thought I couldn't hear them, but I could haha.  Awesome.

-Also, on the subway, I was coming home after the Foo Fighter's concert and was drawing, and some drunk girl was creeping on my sketches so I showed them to her.  She said I should paint them... hm?  Interesting.  Maybe I will.

-I got tipped a $20 at coat check!  Ballin!
-I have almost 900 views on this blog!  You guys are awesome!

And lastly:

http://vimeo.com/31159101

Thanks Betsy!!!

Please don't judge me for my ridiculous amount of use of the word "awesome"