Acting front

I've been working on a scene from T.Rebeck's Spike Heels with my partner from class, E. It's for our Scene Study class, which I;ve been wanting to do, forever. It's a great class. There are only two things bothering me about it. The time--I hate doing something important, creative, intellectual late in the evening. I feel I can't give it, to quote my character Lydia, "my best self." All I wanna do at 10 p.m. is watch TV. Seriously. Yes, I used to go out, but that was a year ago and before that. A lot of things changed when I hit 30. Especially at winter.
Second, there are too many of us in this class. Sometimes, not all of us get to perform. You can't learn acting from watching other people do it. Oh, No!
But, I like the teacher, and I've learned so much already. I mean, I started in October and already, it's a different field for me. I know what actors are talking about, doing, I understand the world...
Also, people are getting to know me at the theatre, which is kind of comfortable. I don't wanna be new everywhere all the time. It takes a lot of energy.

"What a crazy wooooorld..."

Sometimes I wonder if this world realizes how crazy it is. For example, only today the news were that the drinking water in New York City has 16 different drugs in it!Could you imagine that?! God knows what we're drinking. And the second one-- Governer Spitzer was caught on tape booking a prostitute worth $5,500 an hour! And you wonder where all the taxes went.
Serbia is not much better either. The government collapsed, again. Serbs are never, ever going to get along, and I wonder what the future would be like. Kostunica sounds and seems more and more like Milosevic. It is scary, at the very least.
I mean, what is wrong with everyone? When I hit 30, I started thinking how little time I have left on this earth and with people I love, and how to spend it as joyfully as possible, while helping others do the same. It seems to me that a lot of people don't think about their own mortality. They're trying to earn more money then they can ever spend, and by harming other people, in the process. I mean, how did all those drugs get in the water? Some greedy drug company must be dumping them somewhere,and not thinking that its own kids might drink it one day. And Spitzer has a wife and three kids! Did he stop to think about what he was doing to them, or he just didn't think, period. No one ever believes that he or she will be caught. But eventually we all do.
And Serbs? Unless they really believe in the after life, they better get their act together, and try to live their short lives in peace and prosperity. We should all remember that we don't have that much time left.

Movie not meant to see

M. and I have been trying to see No Country for Old Men and Juno for months now. We also got these Regal Cinemas tickets as a part of our American Express rewards, so we thought, why not use it. But the closest Regal theatre is in Union Square, and it's not that we don't go to the Square often(we do), but the timing somehow, for the movie, was never good. Either we are late for one of those movies, or too early, or tired, or hungry...And when we finally today redeemed those tickets for Juno at 4:20p.m., the electricity went down! I am not kidding. We are sitting there, in a half-full theatre, excited while waiting for what everyone says it's a great movie, with our medium gigantic popcorn bag and a home-style lemonade with more ice than lemon, when the previews died, there, in front of us. Then they rose from ashes. And died again. For good. Someone came to tell us that the power is down and that we can use our ticket stabs any time. They even reimbursed our $6 bag of popcorn. Well, it was almost full anyway. And it's not like we are going to eat it walking out of the movie theatre.

Lydia I am

My acting teacher gave me a scene to work with, and a partner. The scene is from Theresa Rebeck's Spike Heels, and my partner is my acting buddy-E. I've been in the same class with E. for three months now. We already had an improv together, which worked out well. She's nice and easy to work with. I'm trying to be the same.
In this play I am Lydia, a rich woman who's engaged to a sweet professor. The twist is that above my scholar lives a kind of trashy,good looking, swearing Georgie, who's really too good of friends with my Andrew. Or is it more than that? I confront G. when my fiancee postpones our wedding. On the same night, I also find Georgie's clothes in Andrew's apartment...Scary, ha?
As you can, no doubt, see, the scene is at the very least confrontational. But that is not the problem. The difficulty is that in this scene, Lydia and Georgie have friendly moments, where, for one, I am giving my heart out to one of my hearth breakers. And that will be really hard to do, and mean it. Really feel it.

Columbia

I went to Columbia University for the first time today. It's on 116Th street, which is a long subway ride for me.
I went to meet a professor of Serbo-Croatian literature and language, who I found by googling, and who was nice enough to invite me to her office after I dropped her an e-mail just a few days ago.
Columbia's campus is amazingly big and beautiful. I used to think American has a nice campus.
When you get in, after you go through an alley with old buildings on left and right, you see an Acropolis looking building, with an Alma Mater statue half way on the long stairs. On the right side are three huge lawns, in front of another library. The buildings are beautifully old and I had a feeling I was in a European museum complex, not an American campus. Not at all.
This professor is a sweet Serbian woman in her 60s, who invited and encouraged me to come to some Serbo-Croatian events and seminars in the city. I believe that Columbia is the only University that teaches Serbo-Croatian in New York.
I was interested in employment. She said that there's no chance for that, not even for their own PhD students. She also suggested I get one. And for a moment, I thought about it. But then she said, it would take at least seven years?! Seven years?
My, that's really long. I don't know if I can commit again, to something like that. I mean, I'm already married.

3:10 to Yuma

When M. ordered a Western from Netflix I wasn't exactly thrilled, as you can imagine. What I remember as Westerns are bunch or dirty guys shooting at each other. Period. And they certainly appeal more to manly tastes. But 3:10 to Yuma has an interesting title and actors, so I gave it the time of the day. It actually, to my big surprise, turned out to be a great movie. Both Bale and Crowe, were excellent, and the story just flows, grabs you in, and you can't wait to see what's going to happen. At all that, it wasn't shallow nor predictable. And the characters were clearly and deeply drawn, and there's a whole variety of them. The music was good as well. All and all, a pleasant two hours of one's life. You should see it!

Angry at Me, after Petrarka

M.'s family invited us to Tribeca today, for a brunch. So, by chance, we ended up having another meal at Petrarka's. I really have been craving a brunch drink, such as Mimosa or Bellini, so I had a delicious Bellini, herb and goat cheese omelet, and a cappuccino. Not all at once, of course.
Service at Petrarka was as good as usual. My omelet was just o.k., kind of doughy, not eggy, which was a bit weird, but the parts with goat cheese were yummy. The mixed salad that came with it was good too, and had avocados, which I'm addicted to. Cappuccino was in this huge cup, and very foamy, which I also love. M. had black seafood pasta, which was tasty as well. All in all, good brunch, in an unusually empty restaurant on Sunday at noon.
Actually, I wanted to go to an audition today, but since I was tired after the brunch, I didn't. I also forgot what the audition was for. When I came home, I looked at my Backstage paper, and discovered that it was for a film. I was soooo disappointed. My organization skills are usually pretty good, but I haven't been using them lately. I mean, film is actually what I want to get in to, so I should make sure to put a "must" or an exclamation point next to that kind of audition. Otherwise, all my acting classes won't get me anywhere. You see, it's not only enough to know how to act, and to be at the right place at the right time, and to be perfect for the role. I realized that one needs more than all that to get into this amazingly wanted, crowded, irrational business in New York City.
I was so angry with myself today. I don't have that much time to get to where I want to be. And with all my restrictions, such as no nudity, no sex-simulations, and so forth, I better have my act together, and a great plan to stick to. And lots of luck.