Live a Little More

Mourning a loss, going to plays, and my Summer 2024 bucket list!

It’s been another week in New York City and aside from surviving the debilitating heat wave, I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing much. I’m certainly culturing myself; this past week, I saw two plays (one broadway, one more indie), visited the Jenny Holzer installation at the Guggenheim, and for varied perspective, spent the weekend in rural Connecticut (the John Deere tractor and gun owning, Republican American subscribing region), visiting my grandparents.

I didn’t have any modeling work this week. This is a big issue, please take it up with my agent, Fuji! However, I like to remind myself that as long as I’m not rotting in bed all day (which is however, sometimes, very essential), I am on some correct path to at least one of my goals. Broad, but some useful perspective in avoiding existential crisis.

The first play I went to see was An Enemy of The People, an adaption by Amy Herzog starring swanky television actors like Jeremy Strong, Michael Imperioli, and Victoria Pedretti. I was lucky enough to be gifted a ticket to the final matinee by my good friend, Morgan Siskind, who couldn’t make it to the show herself. Three days later, Morgan was back in town and she took me to see Maia Novi’s Invasive Species. (executive produced by Jeremy O’Harris!!!) This show had me on the edge of my seat for its entire eighty minutes. I think because, at so many points, it felt like it was holding a mirror right up at me. Novi plays a version of her past self, an aspiring actress in Yale’s graduate program. Quite literally bitten by the acting bug, she tanks her sanity in order to live her American dream.

Any drama nerds out there? I love going to a play. It’s only a recent re-obsession of mine, sparked by taking acting classes. If you didn’t know, I was actually a HUUUUUGE musical theater kid. I was in Boston Children’s Chorus, Wheelock Family Theater summer camp for multiple years in a row, and even had a short stint at a church day camp where we did a production of Seussical The Musical. Growing up, musicals were everything to me — classic trans kid trope — but as an adult, I’m maturing into plays.

Both plays I saw this week have now reached the end of their initial respective runs, but I can’t recommend enough going to see a live production of a play! Any play! No matter where you live, or the scale of production you have access to, there are plays around you, that you can, and should go see! Plays make you think about life in a different way, and often I leave one feeling seen, or less alone. Go! See! A! Play!

I went on to spend the weekend in Connecticut, taking in some much needed quality time with my mom’s side of the family. I hadn’t been back there since a one-day trip last summer, and that side of my family has experienced some tragedy since then. I’d say the energy of the weekend was rather celebratory, as I got to help my uncle host all of his friends in congratulating his wife on her retirement, very cute, many trips to Costco! But there was definitely an air of somberness around my cousin who we lost this year. I definitely squeezed my aunt the tightest when I said my goodbyes.

I came back to New York with this much needed reality check and appreciation for life. I’m ready to hit the ground rolling in terms of LIVING. No more spending the first three hours of the day in bed, doom-scrolling. Time to go outside and connect with the world. Observe strangers. Interact. Fall in love. Life is too fucking short. Go live it. I’m talking to myself, but I hope if you’re reading this, you internalize some of it too.

Anyways, since I’m in my living era, I thought I would leave you with some notes from my Summer 2024 Bucket list. If any of you have a way to make just one of these happen, please contact me!