Category: Being a girl

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"Other people" Being a girl Drew Memoir

The Starbucks Exchange

Last fall, I had this running joke on Facebook about the Starbucks employees having major problems getting the name “Drew” onto my drinks.  By all rights, at some point, I should have just switched to another one of the several thousand names in the world that are easily recognizable and have one spelling.

(Like…”Drew”??)

But I thought it was funny and each day I wanted to see what new perversion the baristas could come up with.

I stopped going to Starbucks to save the money, and for months I drank coffee brewed at work.  A three dollar bottle of generic vanilla creamer could last two weeks.  Such thrift!  My mother would be so proud.  But no one ever wrote on my cups for me. 

Then, after the fiasco with our wall (which is, in fact, finally finished and repainted!) the rental office very thoughtfully gave us a gift card to Starbucks, as a way to say “We are so very sorry about the ridiculous delays, and thank you for your patience.”  I basically grabbed it out of Drew’s hands and ran-not-walked to the nearest Starbucks to rediscover my addiction.  (Not true.  I did wait maturely until the next morning.)

And here is where, can I just say, Starbucks, I missed you.  I have been rediscovering the joys of my morning venti-nonfat-vanilla-latte.  I fear I may be off the wagon.

One morning recently, I gave the young gentleman behind the counter “my” name, and he looked at me thoughtfully for a minute, pen poised, before asking “D-R-U?”  I said with a tight smile, “D-R-E-W.”  And he said, “Oh, right,” and wrote it down. 

“Is that a girl’s name?” he asked.  It was high time for me to have moved down the counter.

“Drew Barrymore,” I offered.

“Right,” he said.  “Is it short for something?”

Should I have said, “It’s not my real name, here, write down my real name, it’s Syche”?  I just said it wasn’t short for anything, grabbed my drink and made a hasty exit, noting the correct spelling on the cup.

Maybe it’s time for me to pick a new name.  Maybe it reads too “clingy girlfriend” that I use Drew’s name.  Maybe I should just give them a number.  What’s the consensus here?

In the meantime, I leave you with today’s cup of fame.  Today, my name is Drak.  Address me accordingly.

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Awesome Being a girl Theatre Work

Equivocation, Installment 1

In college and in New York City, the theatre stereotype was always easy, right?  Most male actors were gay.  Sure there were the straight ones, but if you found youself guessing, you would err on the side of gay.  Of course there are always exceptions to the rule (one of them is the nicest exception I’ve ever found) but I don’t think too many people would argue with me here.**

**Actually suddenly all I can remember are the straight guys in the Davis theatre department.  But I know there were un-straight ones too.

In rehearsals for Equivocation, I’m finding myself faced with 5 male actors, and I’m having to drastically and somewhat ashamedly reassess.  In the first 3 days being in the room with the actors, I have learned that 3 of them have children, 2 of those 3 are married, and 1 of them just recently had his heart broken by a long-term girlfriend (aww…).  That leaves 1 actor who I still don’t know about (not that I have to know) and I’m too ashamed to hazard a guess here.

Besides, I’ve discovered the new actor stereotype: the green domestic who’s a healthy and conscious eater.

Of the 5 men, 3 of them have arrived at rehearsal with loaves of wheat bread, jars of peanut butter and preserves (not jelly, what are we, 5 years old?), mayonnaise and mustard and fixins.  Bunches of bananas and individual serving cups of fruit cocktail.  On even the shortest 10 minute break they race to the kitchen to make open-face sandwiches and mugs of tea.  The men gather in the concessions area and share peanut buttery knives and talk about Tupperware carousels and diaper genies.  Composting methods and child discipline.  Today I heard them discussing high fructose corn syrup and one was literally (but I think unconsciously) quoting the commercial: “It’s natural, made from corn, has the same properties as sugar and is fine in moderation.”  Earlier this morning they were bragging about how little garbage they produce: one said his household puts out one bag of trash per week, and the rest of their waste is recycled or composted.  Another admitted his household put out a couple bags per week, but “we have two kids.”

And then there’s me.  For lunch I had half a store-bought mac and cheese, a Yoplait, and a Coke Zero Vanilla.  And a Kit Kat.  I use lots of paper towels – washing my hands, cleaning, making paper cranes.  We probably take out a bag of trash every other day and while we do recycle, we do not (currently) compost.  Sometimes I leave the water running while I brush my teeth.  I don’t carpool.  (How far should this list of faults go here?)  I drink too much Diet Coke and not nearly enough water.  I leave my phone charger always plugged in.  My car might be due an oil change.  When I said I had a Kit Kat for lunch, it might have been 2 Kit Kats.  But they were small.

Coming up soon: A list of Good Things I Do.

I guess my point is that I think it’s kind of endearing – these men coming in carrying grocery sacks and telling stories about their 4-year-olds.  I’m going to hold on to this as long as I can because I think as we get closer to opening, they might get less endearing.  For now though I’ll eavesdrop on their stories and share their strawberries when they offer them to me, and I will never, ever, talk business to them while they’re on a break.

The Equivocation set going up

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"Other people" Being a girl Theatre

I think I got hit on today: an update

Oh, also!  I found out the story behind the hitting-on-me guy.

After a couple more Incidents which were puzzling to me (aside from the “no thank you” conversation, he is just not the type of guy who I would expect to be hit on by), I confided in Liz the Stage Manager.  She laughed a lot but told me that she thinks he’s just a friendly theatre guy.  I said, “You’re right, you’re right,” and let it go.  Then the next day, she leaned over during notes and said, “I have a story. About HENRY*.”

Later she told me (and then even later Henry himself confirmed) that Henry moved to the Bay Area for a girlfriend 3 years ago, thinking they would be engaged within a year.  After being in a relationship for 5 years, she broke up with him on Christmas Eve.  This last one, like less than a month ago.  Ouch.  So now we’re both really really sweet to him, and let him talk on the headset about wine and steak au poivre.  He’s actually a pretty nice guy.  (Although whenever he says “Woot” over headset I can’t help but groan a little inside.)

*Name changed to protect the innocent (if not innocent, then at least not guilty).

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Being a girl Endings Fiction

Maybe less caffeine before bed?

Last night I had trouble falling asleep.  As I lay there listening enviously to the even breathing of a certain other person who could obviously fall asleep just fine, I slowly didn’t know where I was anymore.  I lay on my side facing the outside edge of the bed and realized that the wall in front of me had two closet doors, one open and overflowing, one closed.  The bedroom door further down was closed for privacy.  The fan at the foot of the bed was off (this is the middle of winter after all) but I could sense it there.  I could feel the dusty curtains somewhere behind me over the grated window that led out onto the fire escape, and then I heard (faintly) the 7 train go by outside.  I reached a hand out and touched, not the smooth polished wood of the nightstand I was somehow no longer expecting, but the rough unpolished birch of a $7 Ikea side table.  Covered in piles of books, papers, and dust.  I let my fingers trail up over my head and I stroked the headboard I remember leaving behind.

I kept my eyes closed because I could see so clearly through the bedroom door, down the hallway, into the living room glowing in the light filtered in from streetlamps.  The ugly couches and the TV we paid off for a year were outlines, dusty ones.  If I went to the window the sill would be cold even with the heater blowing warm air from the vent below it.  Out the window the Manhattan skyline glittered: the Empire State Building, its lights already off due to heavy fog; the Chrysler Building, my favorite, sparkling like a Christmas tree; the CitiBank Building a blight as always on the otherwise perfect view.  Inexplicably an older woman would be pushing a cart down 61st Street even though all the stores and laundromats would be closed.  Would it be snowing?  Sometimes I could only tell by looking at the beams from streetlights – and sometimes it was everywhere.

The elevator rumbled innocuously past the 4th floor, delivering home someone who had just disembarked the recent 7 train.  The parquet floor was cold and the rug gritty beneath my bare feet.  If I knocked on Jared’s louvered doors would he answer them, wearing a t-shirt from God of Carnage or [title of show]?

I kept my eyes closed tight, rolled around in the so familiar feel of this bedroom I had lived in for 3 years.  I tried not to move so I wouldn’t disturb this feeling.  I wanted to peek and see if it was true.  Before I looked though, I wondered what was more likely: that the last year had been a dream and it was the beginning of 2009, I was gainfully employed in a job that challenged me and gave me health insurance?  Or that this was an alternate reality where I was in January 2010, but one where we had stayed in New York?  Would anyone else realize this was wrong?  Would Jared be happy or disappointed to have us back?  Would I be happy or disappointed to be there?  Would Drew?

Eventually I fell asleep and when I woke up I was in San Bruno, California, married and fully admitting it was 2010.  It seems silly and a little dramatic to imagine being back in Queens.  Of course I wasn’t back in Queens.  But it was nice to feel it, is all, around me, for just a little while.

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"Other people" Being a girl Theatre

I think I got hit on today

Here’s what happened.

On a ten-minute break I went to the kitchen to wash the myriad glasses we use in Sunlight.  Two of the tech guys were in the kitchen (both of whom I’ve tried to talk to in a friendly manner in the past, and who have been hella socially awkward/rude back to me).  One of the tech guys said, “I have a question for you – are you a vegetarian?”  I said I wasn’t and he said, “I like you more because of that.”  Then he said, “What’s your favorite hard liquor?”  I admitted I like tequila.  He said that’s better than vodka.  Is it?  Then he noticed (?) my ring and asked if I was engaged.  I said I was actually married.  Then after a weird pause he told me my ring looked durable, and his friend makes rings out of titanium.  Or something.  I left shortly after that.  The weirdest part was the other guy watching silently the whole time.  He has a huge beard.

I guess what this teaches me is that, those socially awkward tech guys from college may grow up, but they don’t always gain social skillz.