Wedding Cake with My Tears

Ingredients

• October wedding
• October wedding shower
• February wedding
• Spring wedding shower
• Spring wedding shower #2
• June wedding week
• July wedding week
• A bulletin board solely for save-the-dates
• 4 invites with the words "plus Guest"
• Open bars

Instructions

Some of my absolute favorite people in the world are getting married this year! It's super exciting and I couldn't be happier for them. I truly look forward to all of the crying and all of the cake. Not to mention all of the plentiful and professional options for a new Facebook profile picture.

However.

My poor fridge cannot handle any more save-the-dates; I fear the magnets are losing their magnetization under the heavy weight of cardstock. My travel calendar is multiplying by the day. Anyone in New York should plan on not seeing me between the months of February and July, due to the "I'm in the wedding" excuse I'll be exercising to fly more than usual to Ohio and Georgia. Finally, my ability to casually dismiss "plus Guest" is diminishing, because by the 4th invite it simply seems mean.

They told me it would happen-- the proverbial "they" being everyone 2+ years older and thus lightyears wiser than me: the wedding years. I was so safe for 2 whole years post-graduation, and then BAM: 4 weddings, 2 of which I'm in. Wow! OK, let's go! These weddings take place in 4 different states, in 3 seasons, covering both of my families. The engaged include 3 cousins and my stepsister. The 2 weddings I'm in? 2 weeks apart.

The Proverbial They imparted their pedantic "your time will come" wisdom down on me as a warning, as if the start of wedding invites and bridesmaid dresses was the beginning of the end. Is this the real end of my adolescence? Did college graduation mean nothing? Is this what actually crosses me over the line between fun young adult and suffering lonely young woman? Will people finally stop seeing me as a kid when they see me in wedding party photos-- with the sight of my hair professionally done and the knowledge that I sat through a wedding and contemplated my own maidenhood? Should I have spent the last 2 years basking in childlike innocence and shouting, "I'm single and it doesn't matter!! No one cares!!" 

I thought the annoying part would be the scheduling and traveling, but good GRACIOUS I love my family and I love any excuse to leave NYC, especially if it involves a beach! The dresses? Oh, sure, my 22-year-old stepsister and gorgeous cousin are gonna pick out some real taffeta monsters. The money? Ha ha ha. No, I'm still unemployed with parents. 

That's it! These are family weddings. Even if I didn't love and like these engaged folk, I'd be familial-ly obligated to go. I'll know the majority of people at the weddings, so I'll always have somewhere to stay and people to hang out with. Plus, my parents help out with the costs! If these were friend weddings... that'd be a different conversation in itself.

I don't want to go to there-- let's go back to what we were talking about...

I suppose I now officially join the ranks of the Proverbial They, so here's my take on the warning: Once you're first asked to be in a wedding, or once you start getting invited to 2+ weddings a year, you realize the world isn't your world. Not everyone does things the way you do. Your way isn't the highway. Some people are getting married-- you're not, but some people are. These people may get pregnant in the next year-- you can't imagine starting a family right now, but some people can. Your social calendar is not as important as celebrating the special day (definitely multiple days) of someone you love. You will stand in the background of many photos, be the least important person in many rooms, be the last in line for dinner at the reception. Over and over and over again. Nothing magnifies the positive attention on someone other than you like a wedding-- and you can't deny how happy that makes you! For a whole day, a few days, maybe even a week, you are selfless and feed the spotlight on someone else. Whether or not you like their location, decorations, or bridal party matters 0%. Think about it: When choosing a college, we're forced to write essays about and weigh school options based on our dreams, likes, and dislikes. In college, we're encouraged to develop our voice, our own personal style, wants, and needs. After college, we're taught to stay true to our ideals and follow our individual paths. Joining the Proverbial They shakes us out of that extreme self-centeredness and reminds us that what we believe is best isn't always so. 

[Guys, I have a real problem: I really love punctuation. I have a problem with semi-colons and there are a lot of em-dashes going on, as well. I only... I want you all to read it like I'd say it? But I also want it to be grammatically correct! It's really hard sometimes to follow the ACT/SAT grammar rules that I teach; I've wanted to incorrectly use the word "just" at least four times so far in this post!! If someone can help me, or knows someone who can help me, I'd really appreciate it.]

You'll never hear me complain that my beloved Rupp cousins, 2 beautiful & cool sisters that both my sister and I looked up to since we were born, are getting married this year. (Not to each other. I know you'd never think that, but you could've read it that way.) I literally just (proper usage) Facebook messaged my other cousin Jessie to tell her how excited I was for her brother's wedding-- her brother being the one of only a few cousins (out of 15) to be in the same generation as me, and baller enough to forgive my sister and me for breaking his new toy train set at Christmas and eating all of his Easter Candy. I will not ever curse my step-sister, who I have known since I was 6, lived with in two homes, vacationed with to Mexico & Florida islands & Virginia Beach, and nicknamed "Watermelon-ie" and "Melonious," for asking me to be in her wedding. The weddings themselves are not annoying or cause to complain. How they make me FEEL...

... is another story. Perhaps I will get used to it once I myself am married. 

Nooooo no no no-- that did NOT help! 

To those getting married this year, who've felt the unnecessary pressure to hand-make save-the-dates and who've outdone each others' engagement photos, thank you for sharing your wedding day with us. We wish you a lifetime of joy. To the other previously-still-pediatrics crossing over with me into the Proverbial They this year, the best of gained perspectives to us all. Cheers to our lively celebration of another human's dreams and ideals. Let each of us follow the decree of Marie Antoinette, and "let [us] eat cake." 

A Palate Cleanser

Ingredients

• Walking a bulldog
• Running in 90-degree heat
• Walking into an empty apartment
• Running out of food
• Walking a fine line between authoritative & cool
• Running out of ideas

Instructions

Did I mention that one of the reasons why I'm speeding up this cookbook is because I'm running out of things to complain about? I'm going to pause for a moment to let those who know me well stop laughing.

We good? K. Quite frankly, I think I stopped complaining a while ago. I'd have to go back and check, but at some point I stopped complaining and started dispensing wisdom, thinly veiled as potential "disastrous" circumstances. If you're thinking that I'm thinking "Gee, New York isn't so bad anymore!", you can bite me. What it really comes down to is that whatever I thought was weird or upsetting 2 years ago is now unquestionably normal. Walking through and running into plainly boring and painfully typical, unexciting humdrum that's so undeniable it's almost unnoticeable. Impossible? Oxymoron? No-- it's New York.

Here's what I have left to "complain" about-- or, more in my own terms (as I don't like to think that what I've been doing is as basic and annoying as complaining), what I have left to vent about-- that's not so deeply personal or too intimate to speak of in this setting: because oh YEAH could I fill BOOKS with what I have left to vent, but not here:

- Bulldogs are stubborn and don't like a lot of exercise. UGH, I was so looking forward to being one of those cool New Yorkers who walk a dog through Central Park! GOSH, I guess this means less work for me to do at my new babysitting job involving a bulldog-- annoying!

- I had 8 days to myself in my apartment after my subletter left and my roommate came back, and it was a little lonely. MAN, space and privacy and quiet is the WORST! I hate leaving my stuff everywhere without consequence!!

- The sun is so bright in the summer and, since I run early in the mornings while I'm still wearing my glasses, I can't protect my eyes with sunglasses. FOR GOODNESS SAKES, trading eye comfort for general mobility is such a difficult compromise! Yeah, this summer I got to run for the first time in about 3 years and it's made me such a happier person, but at WHAT COST? SQUINTING?!

- Letting my kitchen run dry has limited the amount of food I can eat in a day. WOW, WHAT THE HECK, like I should ever have to learn how not to waste food or how to prepare cheap, bulk foods in advance! I HATE knowing that I can get by on much less than I thought! NO, one day I will NOT look back on this summer's severe money scrimping with a sense of legitimate accomplishment nor see it as a tangible and uplifting comparison of how far I've come! WHY!

- Gaining a middle schooler and pre-teen's respect is tough. GAHHHH, it's so FRUSTRATING that I am the first person to have noted this problem! SWEET HEAVENS TO BETSY, it's the most difficult part of my new job! My job consists of overseeing a 10-year-old, 13-year-old, and a bulldog named Penny, and she is NOT sweet and I DID NOT meet the family through a trusted personal connection NOR is the family down-to-earth and understanding AT ALL-- GRACIOUS ME, I don't know from WHERE YOU'RE GETTING THESE WILDLY UNSOUND ASSUMPTIONS! I thought we agreed that my jobs must ALL SUCK!

You get the point. 

I still have 9 recipes left. You will not disappointed. However, isn't kind of a major disaster if I end this cookbook with a few recipes of... positivity? Nay, success? 

Sounds fun. But let's not get too "glass half full:" I want to hear from you all one more time. Send me your gnarliest, worst, most grueling ingredients of chaos for one huge, really bang-out fest of negativity focused venting. That's what we love. That's why we're here. 

Email me at annaleighmarr@gmail.com with your ingredient(s) by Wed. Sept. 16th at midnight, in whatever amount, length, or hilarity. GUYS, your chance at FAME! Truly, though-- what better than a recipe full of diverse and nuanced collective shit? 

Oh; right. That.

All-Natural, Grass-Fed Human Laws

Ingredients

• 1 person, other than the performers, in the audience of your improv gig... and it's your roommate
• 1 actual 16-year-old in your commercial audition (for a 16-year-old)
• 1 totally separate actual 16-year-old playing your friend in your filmed scene (as a 16-year-old)
• 2 overnight shoots
• 2 times that you throw up in front of your date
• 2 weeks until your day job starts
• $3 for a bottle of water
•  3 career aptitude tests
• 3 teenage tutoring clients
• 4 days as the only woman with 3 straight guys
•  $4 pints of pre-made margaritas
• 4 days in New Jersey

Instructions

1, 2, 3, 4. The simplest numbers... a pattern as old as time (not really, technically.) Today's recipe is brought to you by the idea that all of life's greatest mysteries can be solved by life's simplest lessons-- lessons so basic, so ingrained that they're easily forgotten. But enough with this flippancy! Castrate your carelessness! Do you see that list of ingredients up there? You don't have time for this forgetful nonsense-- you must dig way down deep and selflessly extract some Laws of Nature, or else you'll continue to be subjected to date vomits, shocking career test results, and countless days in New Jersey. 

Lucky for you, I spent the last 2 weeks excavating incredibly simple, inherently necessary human lessons to help you process this batch of ingredients. I know we're working with the basic numbers 1 through 4 so far (totally arbitrarily, by the way), but, since you've all been such good kids lately, I thought I'd spoil you a bit with DOUBLE the amount of Natural Laws-- that's right, double that arbitrary number of 4! Get these 8 Laws into your body, because summer is almost over; the ocean can't wash off your mistakes much longer.

Law #1:

Anything in a script that takes place during the nighttime will be shot during the nighttime. 

(That means that, even though you have narcolepsy, you can’t avoid overnight shoots. Welcome to the rest of your career!)

Law #2:

Drinking on an empty—entirely empty—stomach is never a good idea. 

(That means that, even though you weren’t hungry, that little voice in the back of your head telling you to eat something all day was right. Ms. Monday Fun-day, say "Hellooo!" to Ruined Tuesday!)

Law #3:

When you’re 5’1, roughly 100 pounds, cute, and blonde, don't be surprised when you keep getting type cast as a high school cheerleader. 

(That means that, even though you are 24 and never were anything remotely close to a cheerleader in terms of both physical ability and popularity, you’ll finally be able to live out that childhood adult dream. Cue Hilary Duff's "What Dreams Are Made Of!")

Wanna play a game called "Spot the Real High Schoolers?" 

Law #4:

When you don’t get a weekly paycheck, you don’t get weekly money. 

(That means that, even though you’re tutoring at $90/hour, you won’t see that lump sum of money until the middle of next month when your paycheck comes. Another dinner of homemade, bulk black bean/quinoa/lentils/rice mash, please!)

Law #5:

People like it when you treat them like people. 

(That means that, even though there is one sole woman hanging with you and your boys, you can still tell your boner stories and make explicit sex jokes! Does this mean you really needn't mention how she's cool "not like most girls" and you don't have to reassure her that she’s funny-- no, like, really funny--  at some point, completely out of context? MIND BLOWN!)

 

Law #6:

Deals on alcohol are no different than deals in the clearance section. 

(That means that, even though it’s $4 Margarita Monday, you don’t really want those margaritas. Mmm, this drink tastes not nearly as good as how quickly it was prepared!)

Law #7:

Career aptitude tests make you feel bad about your life. 

(That means that, even though you already know what you want to do and are simply taking a few tests for fun, seeing "Clergy" as your top match is confusing and upsetting. Ooo, here, a "Vice President," you say?? Ain't nothing like knowing I should aim for 2nd best!)

Law #8:

Any venue's drink minimum also applies to you. 

(That means that, even though you've decided not to drink for a while [see above] and you're performing at this comedy venue, you're not special so you're not exempt. That's right, "strongly encouraged" actually means "if you don't, you're an a$$hole!")

NO. No, YOU'RE NOT.
BUY THE $3 WATER BOTTLE.

... Fun stuff, right? I can see that your body is adapting to the rediscovery of these innate truths, and I hate to interrupt enlightenment. So, I'm going to let you sit motionless & affected for a bit while I go make myself a smoothie. You be careful out there, ya here? There's teenagers in these hills... Let's not make the same mistakes they're making. 

Post Script

We've hit the final countdown, lovers. There are only FIFTEEN (15) more recipes left before we hit the mark! It's only taken 2+ years, too! In honor of true & tangible DISASTER, these last 15 recipes will be coming at you daily. That's right. I said DAILY recipes for complete and utter total devastation to your livelihood. I'll see you on the flip-side on September 17th. 

Thanks, Michael.

Your Pantry is a Superhero

Ingredients to Sustain Life on $2-10 (assuming your pantry is a superhero)
Cookies:
for your breakfast, snack, or health-ified sweet tooth
(I'm not kidding; these are actual edible things I made)

• whole lotta quick oats
• plain yogurt
• chocolate chips
• a tad of cocao powder
• spoonfuls of PB2 (original and/or choc. flavor)
• smidgen brown sugar
• splash almond milk

  

  This article? Really exists.

• some partially melted "butter," or what have you

Burgers:
for an actual meal

• lots of lentils
• yeah, quick oats
• so much quinoa
• can-a black beans
• peppers, whatever-- go apeshit with your leftover produce
• 1 egg
• let's say 2 TBS buckwheat flour
• spices, and lots of 'em
• some olive oil

Pancakes:
for an "F U" to those dumb "super skinny" "carb free" "pancakes" floating around Pinterest; because 2 eggs and a banana makes a CREPE, idiots

• 1 banana
• 1 egg
• get dat plain yogurt
• yeah, oats
• more *PB2
• protein powder-- amount dependent on how bad the protein powder tastes in relation to how many pounds you can deadlift
• a pinch of, like, whatever flour
• cinnamon!
• the dregs of your sugar-free maple syrup
• smidge of "butter," for cooking pancakes the right way
  
  *For any unfortunate misfits who still don't know what PB2 is:

  

  Click: "What's the Deal with Powdered Peanut Butter?"

   It is amazing.   Stop judging. 
  
  

Sides:

• brown rice!
• mixed with quinoa!
• because quinoa on its own is confusing, texturally and otherwise!
• kale
• plain yogurt (calcium is important, man; it's worth the cost of whatever the cheapest off-brand family size is at your local, savings-oriented grocery store)
• corn tortillas --> tortilla chips
• popcorn kernels (ain't none of that microwaveable sh*%-- I'm talkin' 99-cents of GOYA)

Instructions

Cookies: Put all of these things together in a bowl, in various experimental amounts, and stir/continue to add until the consistency reaches dough-ish enough. Plop onto a greased cookie sheet, in whatever haphazard ball-shaped size you want. Bake at probably 300-350 degrees F for, like, I don't know, 20 minutes.

They end up looking like this:

(No, they don't.)

Burgers: Cook, eh, a cup of lentils and a cup or so of quinoa. While they're doin' their thing, realize what you're doing: you're cooking lentils and quinoa for the purpose of making a burger. Do you get that? Do you see where I'm going with this? Good. Now, the lentils and ancient grain are probably done by now. Mix them together in a big bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Make sure your veggies are finely cut, because who likes inedible chunks. Coat your pan with cooking spray and some olive oil, then go to town skilleting these burger freaks.

Here's the final result:

(For sure, in your dreams)

Pancakes: Whip up all of the ingredients, except for the the maple syrup, in a food processor/blender/Bullet/Ninja. Coat a pan and cook like pancakes. Mix together plain yogurt and whatever's at the bottom of your maple syrup bottle for a delicious and less overwhelmingly sweet topping. You'll get caught with a supreme load of sweetness anyway, so let's at least try to take it down a notch?

Because the following is a photo on my blog, they have to look like this:

(Alright, seriously? I didn't even mention chocolate.)

What do you do when you're in between jobs-- and by "in between jobs" I mean you got another restaurant hosting job to hold you over until you start your well-paid nanny job in September because you thought you weren't making enough money at your old restaurant, but due to that whole training period with training wages thing you totally forgot about, plus those days you missed because you were sick, plus that whole week you missed because of the workshop of a new musical you did, you're really making way less money there-- and all of your tutoring clients are summering in the Hamptons; and Backstage and Wix both spring those damn yearly subscription fees on you out of nowhere? When you reach that sad, pathetic No Man's Land where your bank account will be well overdrawn if your landlord feels like cashing your rent check, which could happen any day now? When you have had 3 unpaid charges from your friends that have been sitting in Venmo for over a week, definitely making you "that guy?"

You raid your pantry.

In the past week, I have bought: 1 large container of plain yogurt, 2 corner grocery bell peppers, 1 bunch of kale, and the weak splurges of 2 boxes of on-sale cereal + a carton of almond milk and, heaven help me, a f*#$ing back of discount pretzel thins. That may seem like a fair amount in a week, so let me fill you in: I started with next to nothing--

Except the pantry.

The hot August air matched the stuffiness I felt in my own life: I was stuck. Trapped in a classic case of lower middle class New York City actor with the inability to spend a single dollar due to an overdrawn bank account threat. Classic. Money was as tight as a pair of cheap jeggings in July... Hey, when you're in a situation like mine, you can only think in metaphors. "Boy, this is a doozy, and a hungry one," I thought to myself, as I peered into the cavernous shadows of my nearly empty fridge. But then, I saw her--  fully stocked, bountiful, with goods for days. She called herself a pantry, and she gave me an idea. It was the kind of clear, tangible idea that clung to you like something real... a hearty plan of non-perishable goods. "What kind of poor kiddo does this kitchen take me for," I gloated. "I know my way around a pantry." That's right; I'd beat the system. Hell, I'd beat the whole damn world. And my pantry? No dame her size had beans like hers, flour for hours. She had everything I needed... or so I thought.

(I had to buy yogurt and kale. That was really it.)

Yes, for the last week I've been, I guess you could say, living in the shadows. Baking away a storm in my tiny kitchen to sustain my tiny body. I eat bountiful and nutritious staff dinners at work and throw healthy-ice-cream-making parties with friends to A. combine my pantry with their fridge&freezer and B. avoid going out and spending money. (C. when would I not throw an ice-cream-making party) When you lay low, and are honest with your friends about your financial situation, you can survive on very little. But need I say again that you must have one thing: various grains, flours, beans, lentils, baking ingredients, spices, popcorn, powdered peanut butter, chocolate chips, soup, Nutella, oats, oatmeal... one thing. A capital-P Pantry. Tell me your Pantry isn't a superhero and see what happens. Try me.*


*Follow Up: If you argue that your Pantry cannot defend you against the inevitable trust-fund-like amount of money it costs you to start dating someone, you will win. 

Crazy Stupid Ice Cream, for Actors

Ingredients

• 9 episodes of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" in 1 sitting
• $420 spent on 2 acting classes
• 40 7th-grade girls in a musical about a 24-year-old half fairy man-- fairy above the waist and mortal from the waist down-- whose highly desirable shepherdess girlfriend catches him kissing his fairy mother who looks like she's 17
• Starting Improv 201 the day after you finish Improv 101
• Deciding to watch "The Last 5 Years" right before you leave on a first date
• The sentence "I've started watching a bunch of TV, though, and that's been fun." in response to someone asking what is new in your life

Instructions

The sexual undertones in a story about a man who is fairy from the waist up, mortal from the waist down, who is accused of cheating on his fiancee with a much younger woman whom he claims to be his mother are STRONG. I love drama teachers who have such confidence in their student actors. Only in an esteemed all-girl private school in New York City, am I right?

Watching my not-so-little-anymore 12-year-old friend (slash child I used to babysit), while sitting next to my super supportive, ultra sophisticated late-30's friend (slash her mother and my ex-boss), laughing at this rarely produced Gilbert and Sullivan musical performed by girls cross dressing with commitment and singing their hearts out about subject matters beyond their years, I was... I was... 

Hmm, you're waiting for me to say "inspired," aren't you? See, I was so happy watching them: fully entertained, engaged, appreciating their comedic interpretations along with their naive ignorance of the play's wry political wit. However, after I hugged my favorite cross dresser goodbye, leaving her with her new fan club (she played the male half-fairy lead and murdered that Upper East Side auditorium), chatty hyper girlfriends, and sincerely adoring parents, I walked down Lexington Ave. with a sudden stupid sadness. I'd spent less than 2 short hours in a bubble: I was with a real family who introduced me to their parent-friends as a part of that family; I partook in an elite Park Ave. community, with women in pearls and children in Ralph Lauren; I was surrounded by beaming (& the usual few bored) parents and their giggling gangly children with their wiggling wangly friends, hugging and smiling and begging to walk home alone after the cast party. But when I stepped through that utopian school door, I was me again. I was the 23-year-old who, before getting on the train, stops at CVS to buy a quart of sugar-free slow churned vanilla ice cream because I know it's on sale and that quart will accompany me back to my empty apartment like the boyfriend I don't have. 

It's not about the boyfriend, sheesh! Good goodness, I miss my family! Or do I miss being a kid? Or do I miss school, structure, guaranteed productions? Folks congratulating me on my portrayal of a boring ingenue or my handbell solo? Or do I just want to cross dress and sing Gilbert & Sullivan?

You know, probs all of the above. I think I'm going insane. This is the longest I've ever been in NYC without leaving, and let me tell you, I cannot stand STILL anymore. You want to know how long it's been? 3.5 months. 

Exactly, Emma. It's not long. At all. But I'm a baby! I fly for free! I live an hour-and-a-half flight away in Ohio where all the Midwestern families grow-- plus I was on tour for 3.5 months last year, plus I had my broken-foot-homestay last summer, plus I took trips to Costa Rica and South Carolina. I don't stay here, that's not my thing. So, yes, I'm getting antsy over here. Though I fly for free, my financial "situation" doesn't allow for me to simply jet pack around the world, missing work and begging my fellow broke actor friends to join me. No, no, when I have the courage and religious reasoning to ask for a few days off of work, where am I headed?

Amherst, Ohio, baby.

Too many people get down on me for not taking advantage of my free standby flying privileges, and-- trust me-- I get it. I should fly to Spain tomorrow because it's my day off, I've never been there, and that's exactly how this works. But when Easter knocks on my door, there's nowhere I'd rather be than the Sandstone Capital of the World. 

Any other time, though?... I know that, as excited as I am to go home, I will miss New York all too quickly once I'm back in that suburb of a suburb. Though I clearly miss my family, as shown in the solace found in a CVS ice cream sale, I do not want to spend quality time in Ohio. That's right, just like Anna Kendrick's character Cathy in the new movie/old musical "The Last 5 Years." As a wee tot of 15, I used to belt those lyrics, "I'll get on my knees, and pray I can state in my next bio, 'I'm never gonna go back to Ohio!'" in the shower like I was someone who knew how to belt. 

Please, by ALL means, bring my family to me or wherever I may travel to! Just not Ohio. As I reminded when I was crippled and confined in my mother's living room for a month this summer, I left Ohio for a reason. That's right, just like Anna Kendrick's character Cathy sings in the movie you can rent instantly on Amazon Prime, "When we get to my house, take a look at that town, take a look at far I've gone-- I will never go back, never look back anymore."

This insane, antsy feeling I have has more to do with wanting to flee the city. For those of us who haven't reached their goal here in the Big Apple-- or Chi-Town (as no one calls it) or the City of Angels-- and reach instead for all the improv classes and ice cream deals this city has to offer, those lyrics HIT us in the FEELS. A lot of actors have escaped their hometowns or homestates for anywhere else. Though we complain about our shitty rent and how often the 7 train shuts down, we are so grateful to smell the shit. Call us masochists or idiots... both are true.

So what if watching TV has become my new favorite pastime? It's for my career! What's it to you if I use Forever 21 as my personal auditions closet because their only return policy is store credit? "Baggy clothes" and "Peter Pan sweater set" auditions deem it necessary! To the outside world, actors are crazy. I never find these things weird until someone else judges them, though; I am proud to work night shifts for my Forever 21 Closet cash. I deem to no longer fill other voids of my life (social, romantic, escapism) when what's actually missing is the crux of why I'm here: a job that I want. The other day, it hit me: Reflecting on Saturday night's solo date with Netflix, I asked myself, "Ugh, Anna, if you had a boyfriend, would that solve the current stage of the 'New York City Lost' drudge you're in? Would it?" NO. No? No. NO! It wouldn't! But what would?

Boom. Acting.

Thanks, Ryan. But it's true, no matter how corny it sounds: I'm not going to be satisfied until I'm doing what I have dedicated my short life to doing. (Am I talking about my height, or not?) I can escape home or even to Spain all I want, but the real adventure I'm looking for is in my career. Which brings me one step closer to being in a movie with you, Ryan. You're welcome, Ryan.

So, sure: I may blubber alone on my futon at 4pm on a Wednesday while watching a little movie called "The Last 5 Years" (you may have heard of it); I may hold back a sniffle in a CVS after leaving the joy of other families; and I may be staying afloat solely due to my large tax return, because I spend all that's not rent on improv and acting classes. BUT: I got to play a sassy murdered prostitute living inside the head of a troubled detective this past Saturday. Because that's the character a casting director assigned me for our class. No innocent teenager or quiet ingenue... A complex dead whore. New York City, we're movin' on up. See you soon, Ryan and Anna K. 

Love,
Crazy Stupid Love

The movie.

Those GIFs. Are from the movie. 

PS: That's Movie #2 I'm forcing you to watch for full completion of this recipe, as well as all 13 episodes of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt."

*Note: TL5Y should only be watched by yourself in the comfort of your own home, and finish the whole Kimmy season before deciding whether or not to tell the whole world that it's outright offensive. THERE GOES YOUR WEEKEND.