Losses and Gains

I am almost finished with my second month of living in Chicago! I have yet to be mugged or shot so I consider this whole endeavor a success thus far.  (Jacque runs around the apartment knocking on all wooden objects).

I think the theme for my first 2 months here is losing things. Losing money (not actually losing it but watching it seep out of my ever shrinking bank account). Losing my cell phone. Losing my wallet. Losing my sanity.

However, with the exception of money, I have also found everything I lost.

I left my cell phone in a cab 10 minutes before walking into a callback. Obviously that was just a delightful callback experience. After harassing cab drivers at the train station for over an hour after the callback was over the taxi driver magically appeared. My phone was in his hand and I think if you listened really closely a chorus of angels singing “Halleluiah” was playing in the distant vicinity of all things imaginary in my brain. 

I threw myself into the strangers’ arms and gave him a hug so fierce that you think he was a doctor telling me I didn’t have some fatal disease after all. Not all people are “huggers” so I think this act of passion threw Mr. Cab Driver off (resulting in him kind of running [literally he was running Olympic style away from me] /escaping away from the insane woman [me] who was freaking out).  So naturally I chased him down and threw 20 dollars at him because I was in a state of euphoria and shock and wonderment

Next up I lost my wallet without even knowing about it. I woke up one morning to a facebook message from someone saying that they found my wallet. I thought it was just some rando and fell back asleep. Around 2 hours later I revisited the message and realized this wasn’t a rando but someone who had a couple mutual friends with me. I look in my purse and SURPRISE…my wallet is missing. The kicker is that not only was my wallet returned to me with everything in it but the person who found it is a teacher at Second City…who started teaching my class this week (post wallet retrieval).

The most recent thing I lost was my sanity. My mother was witness to this. I was doing the dishes and had my phone perched in the cabinet above my sink so I could simultaneously facetime with her and do the dishes. I know what you’re thinking…the phone fell out of the cabinet…well you’re wrong it didn’t...that would make too much sense

I was almost completely done with the dishes except for one stubborn bowl that needed to soak. I filled it up with soap and water to sit for a bit. Mom wanted me to ft (facetime) her on a different ios device so I grabbed my phone from the cabinet – hung up the phone – and clicked ft (other address). As the phone started ringing time started moving in slow motion.  The phone just fell out of my hand. Not because I had hurt myself or bumped anything that would cause a nerve to spasm. Just one second this clumsy girl is holding onto a cell phone and the next I see it slowly plummeting to its depth (aka the bowl I had just filled with soap and water). Meanwhile we must remember that phone is still ringing and as it hits the bottom of my personal pit of agony and doom (water) my mom picks up to hear earth shattering screams. I am surprised that no one actually came to my door because if I heard a scream like that from another apartment I would be concerned that someone was dying. According to my mom she heard something like this

Mom answers the phone

Jacque: 

“ NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”

“RICE RICE RICE RICE RICE

sobbing

“PLASTIC BAGGIES PLASTIC BAGGIES”

“WHY DON’T I OWN ANY PLASTIC BAGS”

sobbing

“I DON’T HAVE 800 DOLLARS!!!”

“THERE ISNT ENOUGH RICE!”

sobbing

“I HAVE MINUTE RICE!!!”

more torrential sobbing

After having a semi nervous break down I call my mom on the computer, who already after hearing the word rice has made her own deductions and is looking up solutions on the inter webs.  Panic. Panic. Panic. Panic. Hysterical laughter. When life becomes so ridiculous, so intense nothing makes sense anymore. …Hysterical laughter. After literally 30 mins of agony and panic I remembered that I had forgotten that I have black tie insurance from best buy. So I brought my phone in…they gave me a spare to use in the mean time…and I got a brand new iphone for free 4 days later.

I would like to finish my thoughts for the day on a new segment I would like to call : Taxi Drivers of Chicago. At the end of each post I will chronicle the interesting cab drivers I met throughout the month.

Cab Driver 1: The Flutist

On an early morning cab ride to Union Station a nice man from Nigeria picked me up. His dream in life is to be a concert flutist. Instead of having the radio on, he had his flute on the seat next to him. At each red light or stop in traffic the flute would fly to his lips as he filled the taxi with a cacophony of music.

Cab Driver 2: The Soccer Player

On the way to an audition I complained about the miserable weather that we had been having. It was 103 and I did not like it one bit. He told me about how back in his home country, a small place in South Africa, it was 120/140 degrees outside.  The idea of living in that kind of heat made me want to crawl into an air-conditioned bubble. Apparently there is no humidity there so it’s actually not miserable at all. He talked so passionately about running around as a kid playing soccer with his friends. Everyone was sweating buckets but they didn’t care. They didn’t wear shoes…they didn’t have to. They just ran around and enjoyed life so fully until their mom called them home for dinner.

Cab Driver 3: The Sweetheart

This man by far is the best experience that I have had with a cab driver in Chicago. I was on my way to a job interview. (I tend to take cabs to places I need to look remotely attractive because in this heat (if I don’t) I look like I just took a dip in the lake before arriving.) He was this really sweet man from Belgium. He had a very typical French name of Pierre, which I found amusing. Pierre had moved to the city in the middle of May. So he hadn’t been there much longer than I had at that time. About 1.5 months. I heard some French coming from the stereo and asked him in French if he spoke the language.

Parlez-vous français ?

His eyes lit up. He told me that that in the entire time he had been driving a cab in Chicago I was the first person to ever talk to him outside of listing where they were going. Suddenly this man who was supposed to be just another body in a city of people to me became a real person. I started to speak my grammatically horrible French to him and tears came to his eyes (from joy…not because my grammar was so bad that it brought him to tears). All I did was try to get to know the person in the front seat and relate to them in their native language. But to him I had made his day. I made a lonely city feel a lot more connected. As Pierre spoke to me so beautifully about how he couldn’t describe the amount of joy that I brought to his day…I knew that even if I didn’t get the job I was on my way to I had already made a difference in the world today. 

Back On The Wagon

Falling Off The Wagon –

To cease or fail at a regimen of self-improvement or reform; to lapse back into an old habit or addiction.

The phrase “falling off the wagon” usually refers to alcoholism but in reality anyone can fall off of the wagon of life at any moment. Losing track of goals is easy when life’s stresses come down upon us.

I recently became OBSESSED with HBO’s new show “Girl’s”. It’s not that this is show is necessarily the voice of my generation. However, I do think it resonates. The shows protagonist Hannah is recently out of college with the rude awakening that her parents will no longer be financially supporting her.

Amidst all this stress a main storyline in the show is Hannah’s constant struggle with her weight. Hannah is a stress eater. This is shown throughout the show but was especially punctuated in “The Return”. An episode where Hannah goes home to visit her parents in Michigan. Things in her life are falling apart around her and in the middle of the night Hannah stands in front of the fridge basically consuming all food in sight whilst piling up more food in her arms to take with her for later.

I cried from laughing so hard watching Hannah stuff her face because I had been there. So many people have been there…that’s why they wrote it because the writers knew that out there were thousands of girls just like Hannah who had spent many an evening eating away their cares.

That moment has stuck with me for the past few weeks. The last couple months have been a massive ball of constant stress. Between finals, graduating from college, finding an apartment, moving to a city alone, and attempting to become financially stable as an adult. Somewhere in the middle of all that I fell off the wagon.

I had made a goal for myself at new years that by the following new years I would look like the girl that I felt like inside. For the first 4 months I was solid. I wasn’t necessarily making the best progress but I wasn’t giving up either. Then I wasn’t making any progress…and then I was stressed.

Then came the excuses.

It’s ok to have a milkshake because I don’t drink so it’s not like I’m having all those calories in Long Islands like my friends at the bar

Then defeat.

My weight isn’t changing so who cares what I eat nothing is going to work

So I succumbed to the stress again. I fell off the wagon because it was easier to have my instant gratification. My generation is so hung up on instant gratification. If a song takes more than 10 seconds to download we freak out. Why do the work when you can enjoy a donut now?

So today I realized that Hannah stuffing her face in front of the fridge is NOT ok. I am letting go of the one thing in my life that I have control over. Everything is up for grabs. Will I make rent? Am I going to get cast in that show? Am I the type for this role? Is everything I ever wanted and dreamed about going to come true? What is my future?

Some where between all the stress that life has thrown at me in the last few months I gave up. “The year is half over…I’ve failed”. This is what I’ve done every time. I fall off and then I give up because I’m so mad at myself.

But not this time

The year is not half over. It’s only just started. There are still 193 days till New Years. It’s time for people to stop making excuses. More importantly it’s time for me to stop making excuses.

Which comes to why I’m writing this… I’m writing this because I know that there are other people out there who feel like I do. Who feel like giving up every time they fall off the wagon. For years I have been looking at this whole thing the wrong way. Every time I hit a bump in the road…I see it as a failure and give up.

I have not failed. I have made an error like any other human. We need to stop giving up when things get hard. Accept that sometimes we mess up and just hop back on the wagon when we fall off.

When a girl falls at a track meet she doesn’t stay on the ground and never get up. She picks herself up and she finishes the race. She might be the last one to cross that finish line…but she crossed it didn’t she? It’s time that we all stop worrying about falling down and remember why we started running in the first place.

Welcome to the Deep Dish kind of life...

Well here I am…graduated from college…living in Chicago to pursue my dream to be an actress…unemployed (of course because I am a starving artist…once I have an income I will update my status to nearly starving)…living in a cardboard box on the side of the road.

Ok not actually living in a box on the side of the road but my mom will be the first one to tell you that the size of my apartment is like living in a cardboard box…a very expensive cardboard box…with no air conditioning or a dishwasher.

Nevertheless I love my new little home it is quaint and adorable and once its all decorated I will post pictures to share the wonder that is my new home.

So it’s almost exactly a month since graduation and I have to say that I have learned a lot in this first month of adult hood.

THINGS I’VE LEARNED SINCE BECOMING AN ADULT

1)  Don’t leave a voicemail for a professional phone call when you don’t know what you are going to say.

I applied to do a “work at home” customer service thing for enterprise and I was waiting to hear back about my application. So I called the HR and left a wonderful message. So wonderful that the HR lady called and left me a message to say that she couldn’t find my app but would love to talk to me on the phone anyway and to give her a call. Naturally I am very excited about this. So I call her back immediately (as in I’m in the middle of the road walking down the street carrying things and trying to pay attention to traffic while I walk home…obviously a great setting for a business call). The lady didn’t answer her phone so I proceeded to leave her a message sounding something like this

Me: “Hello this is Jacque ….(saying my name and phone # etc. and explaining that my legal name is Jacqueline and that might help in finding the app).  Because you see I go by Jacque so that’s what I said on the message for your…associate person…who contacted you…and then you contacted me…but you know that…but I wrote Jacqueline since its my legal name on the paper application …I mean…the website…by paper I meant online because I applied online via the internet…not paper…in case that caused any confusion. Anyway, that’s my info so you can look me up so we can either chat…or I can fill out another application…online of course…ok…thank you I look forward to hearing from you soon”

Obviously that went well. So naturally about 20 mins later I receive an email from HR saying they are looking at other people for the position. 

2) The human body likes to wait until the worst possible moment to do things

If you are easily grossed out I would just skip to #3…which is also quite gross but not as gross as this.

To put it simply when I get the slightest bit nervous…things happen in the south pole department. Needless to say this issue can get you into trouble sometimes.

For example when I was looking for apartments in Chicago I decided I would walk around to see where the nearest tube station was. I had lunch about 30 mins prior and I was feeling just fine trotting along the streets of Lincoln Park.

What you need to know is that for years all I have heard from my mom is how dangerous the tube is (in any city)…for YEARS. And for years I have blown it off saying that she is ridiculous and why are wasting money taking taxis.

So I am nearing the tube station and all of the sudden I see a dead squirrel in the middle of the road and then up ahead is the station and BOOM…terror. Those words I had heard for years are now running through my head and I am taking dead squirrel as a sign that I will surely get shot and die on the subway. This terror is interrupted by a new terror that suddenly drops in my stomach. Its time to go…and I don’t mean when I get to where I am currently walking…I mean NOW. Clothing shops surround me (not helpful) and down the road is a McDonalds. So I waddle as fast as I can to McDonalds telling my stomach to shut up.  I walk inside and the bathroom door is locked. Like with a passcode that you cant find out unless you buy something. Which is rude…as this was an emergency…like DEFCON 1…nuclear war is imminent and the battlefield will be my life. So I get in the long line all the while hopping up and down as the incompetent cashiers take forever to figure out what change someone needs. Time couldn’t possibly be moving slower if it tried. I finally get to the front and order the root beer I will throw away as I am allergic to McDonalds and all the food in it from cross contamination. I get the passcode to sanity and charge to the bathroom…and somewhere in the process of waiting in line…someone has left the door open and I could have just gone in.

Another instance of this fact is a few days ago I received a phone call inviting me to audition. Bloomington has actually the worst pollen and allergies I have ever experienced in my life. I had just returned from my cruise and it was 2 days till I moved to Chicago and I was doing pretty fine. I get the call about this audition and an hour later I am welcomed to phlegm city : population – me.

Basically what we can learn is that you never can count on your body to do what you want it to…because it has a mind of its own

3) nettipots are a gift from the phlegm gods

Due to my upcoming audition I decided to try out this netti pot thing. There is only one word to describe my first experience with it…AGONY.

Agony in realizing that for years I have been dealing with stressful mucus/phlegm filled performances and auditions…and I didn’t have to.

Yes it is a bit weird to watch a constant strain of snot goo pour out of your nose like the Niagara Falls. But literally no less then 5 mins later I could almost completely breathe out of my nostrils. It doesn’t last that long but it would last long enough for any audition or performance.

So there are 3 little pieces of knowledge that I decided would be nice to share with the greater public in the blogosphere.

I’ll check in from time to time with an update on my new adventures as a city girl in this Deep Dish Blog.