the crucible.

i had planned on writing a post about how lately i've been really loving to groove in my elevator. the small, moving, enclosed space is perfect for a one-person-dance-party. to hell with the camera in the corner.

but alas, that post will have to wait. (actually, that was kinda all there was to it).

right now i'm thinking about arthur miller's the crucible.

my favorite time to write is when i head to my beloved bookshelf in search of a reference. quoting shakespeare or shepard (or miller) i feel...important and learned.

i'll never forget the first time i saw the crucible. i was in the eighth grade. we were told it was about mccarthyism. miller wrote about the salem witch trials as a means to shed light on the activities of the house of representatives' committee on un-american affairs. you see, miller refused to name names. but when his friend elia kazan did, miller wrote the the crucible as a condemnation of kazan and the others involved. kazan responded with on the waterfront.

that first viewing was one of those small, but pivotal points in my life that led me to where i am now (well, where i was right before i began to doubt this life as an actor). i mean, theatre and history combined? theatre with a deeper meaning? yes, yes, that's what i wanted. {not to mention, daniel day-lewis is a god and was oh...you know...kinda good in the film.}

there's a lot of talk about plagiarism on the internet. and i imagine the blogging world is a veritable play-ground for those who might be tempted. c jane wrote a truly inspired post about it all back in april.

i got an email from a follower one time alerting me of some suspicious posting on another blog. by the time i followed the link the blogger had disabled the site, only to reopen it later with a very vague apology to no one in particular (certainly not me). and i didn't think much of it. in fact, i was somewhat flattered.

but then tonight when someone else posted a link for me to follow and i found myself at a blog with several of my posts i felt... well... not. so. flattered.

it's a funny thing to see your words passed off as someone else's. small changes here and there (which is perhaps the most insulting part), but your words nonetheless.

i have this lovely friend sam who recently asked if he could use some of my ideas as a springboard of sorts for other projects...source material, if you will. and i gladly said yes. i've known sam for many years, i've even blogged about him and i trust him to give me credit and do justice to this silly little blogspot-lover of mine. and to me. to do justice to me.

but i warned him. i told him to proceed with caution. because the thing is... i don't have a job that garners any respect or real money. no alumni magazine is gonna call me up for an interview. i'm not breaking any records here. i'm twenty-four years old and i'm just finding my way. i'm figuring it out. and all i have to show for the last two years are my ideas, my words.

and so they're important.

to me, they're important.

john proctor, miller's protagonist, confesses to witchcraft at the end of the play. but when asked to sign his name to a written confession--a confession for all the town to see, he cannot do it. and when asked why not--well when asked why not, john delivers one of the great lines of american theatre:

Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

this blog. these words. these ideas. the stories. they are mine. they are my life. my soul, if you will. they are my honest experience, through my distorted lens. and perhaps this is overwrought and histrionic (which my junior ap history teacher accused me of being on more than one occasion), but hell, this is my turf.

so you can post about my giant chewy sweet tart experience. or my love for now and laters. or about how you feel upon waking on your 24 birthday? and you can turn the subway platform into a gas station and make the burp into a cough. and you can change my aunt to a family friend and my uncle into your father. you can make it your 25th birthday and change why exactly it is that you're crushing on a man.

and you can do that all under your name.

and so we've reached the point in the evening where i'm temped to make a snide comment about how exactly it is that you differ from john proctor. but instead i'm going to abstain and ask,

leave me my words. leave me my story. leave me my name.

ps: to make sure i had all of my facts straight i headed over to wikipedia and looked at this site to make sure i had the right name of mccarthy's committee. and i'll admit, they inspired my use of the word "condemnation".

what a difference a week makes.

i decided to start an early spring cleaning this year. in an effort to will spring to come. quickly. swiftly.

i reorganized my furniture: life-size tetrus.

attempted to weed things out of my storage bins: oversized junk drawers.

and in doing so i came across this card...

...from my father.

my parents are always sending me things at which i roll my eyes.

but inside was the note:

meg

i saw this card and immediately thought of you.

i suspect you may have already used this quote on your blog.

love

dad

that's all. twenty-four words.

and pulling it out and reading it over i thought of how as a child my father would print out sesame street characters from the computer and leave little notes in my lunch-boxes.

little note lunch-box days were the best.

there was never a reason.

no special occasion.

just because.

i am so thankful...

for parents who do things just because.

for early spring cleaning.

and unexpected stores of courage.

for men who make flirting easy because they're willing to meet you halfway.

for the laundromat that willingly takes my dirty socks.

for the fact that i'm the girl who never bothers to wear matching socks.

for borrowed books.

and renegade winter sunlight.

unexpected, kind emails. and loving comments.

for today and the feeling that anything is possible.

a cautionary tale. and on how exactly it was that i came to see the face of God in a packet of giant-chewey-sweet tarts.

i have this thing. for dying breeds of candy.

i love them. all of them.

now and laters. check.

nerds. check. (might not be dying completely, but certainly on the endangered list.)

giant chewy sweet tarts. yes please. pass them this-a-way.

new york city is the place to live when you have penchant for long-ago-passed-over-sweets. (scorekeeper, a point to the city, please).

you see, whereas many a drugstore stopped carrying these throwbacks to the good ole days, we here in manhattan have bodegas and subway stands galore. and these little, movable candy stands never fail to impress.

so that's where i go in search of my now and laters. and my giant chewy sweet tarts. and while they're always a little stale and i find myself yearning for the halloweens of my childhood, i succumb to the call of the sweets, stale or not. beggars, as it turns out, cannot be choosers.

it was thursday night. and i was in the 59th street station. waiting for the A, my chariot of choice. and sometimes, after work, i feel like i deserve those giant chewy sweet tarts. well, as it turns out, i now know to run in the opposite direction as soon as i think i deserve anything. this feeling of entitlement is the kiss of death. in this case, literally.

but back to the chewy sweet tarts. there are four in a pack. and they take some time to eat. and paired with a good book, they make the subway right home almost tolerable. ( oh, yes, long subway rides home; scorekeeper please remove the aforementioned point).

so i pulled out the first one.

purple.

or grape, i suppose.

and there i am sitting and waiting for the train as this older african american gentleman croons away next to me (he was quite good, by the way). and i'm sucking on the grape. and it's producing a sweet juice in my mouth and i turn my head to look for the train and boom. the sweet juice (probably more phlegm than anything) slips down the wrong pipe. which if i remember correctly from freshman biology, means the epiglottis didn't close in time and pain was-a-my-way-coming.

so i start coughing. little hiccups of coughs.

and then i stand and start to walk, totally embarrassed that i'm starting to choke to death on the subway platform. because that's what's happening. i am actually starting to choke to death. right there. on the platform.

and here's the thing, my little hiccups of coughs aren't helping. and i can't get a good cough out. and i can't breath. oh, God, i can't breathe.

and there overlooking the tracks i will myself to throw-up. but throw-up what, i think? i'm not actually choking on the piece of the candy--this is just my own body voodoo juice slipped to the wrong place.

so i take in some breaths. and i am aware of the air entering the body and doing nothing. and i become acutely aware that choking to death feels nothing, not-at-all, like i expect. it doesn't feel like it looks (in movies and such).

and there in the 59th street station, standing on the edge of the platform. waiting for the A, listening to the man revisiting marvin gaye's greatest hits, God takes pity on me and grants a burp. a stomach rattling movement of air upward and out.

and it feels like almost nothing. it is far from satisfying. but it grants me life. for another day, at least.

and this burp is followed by another burp. and another. and my panicked shaking slowly subsides.

and i look at the other three giant chewy sweet tarts nestled in the package i still clutch in my left hand, and i think (very seriously, mind you) about whether to save them for later, or dig right in.

and then some wiser power (probably the aforementioned, no?) provides me with one of those rare, lucid moments. and the giant chewy sweet tarts, all three of them, find their way into the garbage can.

the train finally comes. and as i take my seat i flash on all those iconic scenes of new york city single gals coming oh-so-close to meeting their maker. miranda choking on chinese food. or liz lemon nearly done in just hours after jack's warning, "i would think that biggest thing a single woman has to worry about would be choking to death alone in her apartment."

well.

here's what i think:

turns out it can happen on a subway platform too.

and it's high time to find myself a man. or an insurance policy inclusive of such an end.

speaking with...

i've noticed that i've begun to have imaginary conversations in my head.

it's me. speaking to someone i might just like to speak to. in real life.

common enough. no?

we all do it? no.

tell me we do. that i'm not alone in this.

but, you see... the thing is. i've started having them aloud. when i'm alone. without even realizing what i'm doing. in elevators. walking down the street.

i've been caught several times, recently. it's super embarrassing.

and also, just a wee bit funny. i can see that. i haven't lost my mind completely.

the yellow is a product of cut and paste and some spell-check goodness. i can't figure out how to get rid of it. and don't really feel the need to. it's weird and makes me laugh.

trading in half-truths.

when the stomach flu hit i didn't think i'd ever get out of bed again.

but as most things do. it passed.

health returned.

and yet.

i remained. in bed.

and i slept.

some days are nothing more than experiments in resisting the urge to weep.

i can admit that i have an eating disorder. but i cannot admit depression.

i can admit that i am person who feels great sadness. and often. but i cannot admit depression.

and yet, i am...sad right now. winter blues? post-holiday decline?

the big eating disorder summit (yup, they have one of those) will take place in salzburg this year. and one of the main issues up for discussion is the newly recognized binge eating disorder. the question on the table: binge eating without occurrence of depression is not actually an eating disorder--instead it is just... overeating? not just, because things aren't so simple. but it boils down to depression as the defining factor--the tipping point.

and yet i cannot admit i am depressed.

i was. once. when this all began.

terribly so, in fact. which made the eating disorder difficult to diagnose. everyone said it was depression. anxiety. and i knew. instinctively, as my world fell apart, i knew: they were wrong.

and the depression subsided. and a slow recovery began.

and God, this recovery has been slow. i am slow. on the uptake. a late bloomer. always have been. so this should come as no surprise. and in effort to prevail i slowly, ever-so-slowly persist.

so when this funk began in october, i declared it just that: a funk. and moved on.

but breathing has been a bit harder these few months.

this is all to say.

that yes, i live in constant pursuit of laughter. and yes i do believe that anything is possible. and yes i cling to hope. just as i cling to the notion that everything happens for a reason. and hell, i have no idea what will come of all of this, so how can i judge it harshly?

but that is only half the story. that is the story i tell here because i want to believe it as much as i need others to believe in me.

but there are mornings that i cannot get out of bed. mornings when the sheer weight of my failures seems unbearable. when i don't think i'll have the energy to get out of the subway car at the necessary stop. when i can't ever imagine getting better. or imagine this ending.

so you should know. there is another side to the story. a mr. hyde to my dr. jeckyll.

*turns out yesterday was blue monday--the most depressing day of the year. i really love this blog and always enjoy what the women have to say. the latest entry covers a bit of all this.