We break from the Dog Days for this Update...

"I wanna be a part of it..."

And now I am. I officially am an inhabitant of New York City.

The facts:

1. I live in Astoria off of Ditmars. A lovely, lovely neighborhood where it does seem that they all know each other. I am subletting from a friend through April.

2. No, I don't have a job yet. But I am hopeful. I have a master's and am not afraid of work. It also turns out that while I cannot swallow my artistic integrity, I am totally able to swallow my pride so bring on the jobs!

3. This is a permanent move until I have a secured a teaching gig somewhere that is right for me...which may be years, but in the meantime, I will keep trying. I miss teaching.

The ambitions:

1. To have a reading up of my new play by May.

2. To continue sending out vT to other theatres for production.

3. To reach out to as many connections as possible to try to get in as an assistant director on larger productions.

4. To maintain a day job that can pay my bills and not kill my soul while working the biz.

5. To be able to deepen my yoga practice at the Jivamukti studio.

6. To keep getting better, mind body and soul, as I figure it out out here.

The truths:

1. I've unpacked for the first time in 7 months. It feels good.

2. Sometimes this city feels really natural and like I've always been here. It's always been that way every time I visit. I think because I've spent so much time here, this move doesn't feel like a big deal. It feels really normal.

3. Something has got to change from how life has been since May. This has got to work.

Dog Days #8

If you want people to except you for who YOU are, you better be excepting them for who THEY are.

Family and teachers included.

Dog Days of my Twenties...#8

Boys who won't cuddle won't call you pretty in the morning either.

Dog Days of my Twenties...#7

Some of us have life long struggles. We may win battles and lose battles...but the war trudges on regardless of what the rest of our lives look like.

It's important that we acknowledge and come to peace with that struggle because sometimes it's all you have. So you might as well be friendly with it.

Mine is my body. I know this.

I've been thin--ish. I've been morbidly obese. I've been really physically fit. I've been a dancer. I've been unable to make it up stairs without wheezing. I've had surgeries and diseases and chronic pain and achieved amazing things with it. I've done this all before age 30.

I can only imagine how this body of mine which I have abused and cherished is going to age...I'm praying for grace but hoping for, at least, acceptance.

In the meantime...the war wages on.

Dog Days of my Twenties...#6

Things that are worth it:

Teaching.

Relationship with God.

Love. In all of its forms.

Trying to find it.

Losing all sense of vanity and maturity due to a really good giggle with friends.

Coffee. Yes, it's really all it's been hyped to be. Believe.

Dog Days of Twenties...#5

Job-hunting never goes away. A degree does not mean employment and employment does not mean happiness. Happiness does not mean having money and having money does not mean ease. And ease...well, it's ephemeral so enjoy it.

What I am trying to say is, nothing actually is what it's been advertised as. Especially being a grown up. No one can really tell you when you ARE one or what being one actually means. And I kinda like that.

Dog Days of my Twenties...#4

Musts: Try it.

Don't try it.

Think about it.

Does it feel right?

Then seriously, do it.

-and-

Moisturize daily.

Dog Days of my Twenties...#3

This lesson brought to you by Nikki, age 23-25 and the cities of Boston and Manhattan.

Lesson #3: Credit Cards and Designer labels have no business being friends when you live paycheck to paycheck. (This lesson could also be classified under: You are not Carrie Bradshaw--she isn't real, wouldn't be able to pay her bills and probably has STDS.)

When I was 23, two things happened for me: 1) I got a fantastic job at a shi-shi boarding school with a faculty dress code, necessitating a move to a city whose cost of living was 33% higher than my current one and 2) I lost 85 lbs. throughout the course of that year, necessitating a new wardrobe.

My students were privileged, their parents were rich, my colleagues were much older and most married (which I now realize means two incomes, one house) and I taught at a school where students wore only designer their entire lives and went to NYC every weekend to catch Bway shows at $125 a ticket. I seriously took one of them to a Target for the first time in their life. (And for a Marshall girl, Target is something.)

Anyway, I maxed out my credit card in the first three months and got another one to be able to do Christmas in MN with presents and such. I signed a lease on an apartment way beyond my means, joined a gym and spent all of my money on clothes. I swear, the only reason I lost so much weight is because I didn't have money for food and had nothing to do but go to the gym. I was lonely and broke. But my shoes looked great. And while I was shopping Chinatown and designer discount outlets, I was shopping.

I moved home to Minneapolis at 25 with two maxed out cards and a ready-reserve at its limit. Two years out of college, I had managed to add to my personal debt enough to match my student loans. WTF, my friends, WTF...

No shoes look that good.

I paid off those credit cards finally last spring while going to grad school, NOT SHOPPING, and paying my student loans. At the end of 3 years of living on a stipend and side gigs, I left grad school with no credit card debt and half of my undergrad paid off, wearing Target clothing and my Boston leftovers the whole time.

And now, living gig-to-gig, all I know is the second I land some sort of extended gig, I'm buying a new pair of shoes. And they will be fierce...but moderately priced.

The Dog Days of my Twenties...#2

Lesson #2 I was kind enough to figure out throughout the last 9 years and 10 months:

Mom was wrong: Gossip DOES make you popular. It's the easiest way to break the ice in a group of "powerful people," make the right connections at business bar times in this business and make you seem funny and connected. Used correctly, Gossip WILL make you popular.

But it also makes you an easy target. Like, if you want to paint a red bullseye on your face, talk shit about someone. Seriously. Here comes retribution in 5...4...3...2...--

So don't do it. It's never worth it. Those people suck anyway. And the people worth your time are on the fringes trying to figure their way around those tigers in the middle too...

And being a good person is sort of--how do I say this?--awesome. The sleep alone...