REM & Coke: Lime Wedge and Pillow Optional

Ingredients

• 1 NYC restaurant host
• Crap damaged hypocretin
• A Lenten bedtime
• National Sleep Awareness Week!

Instructions

If... 

Please excuse me while I drop my head back and gape my mouth open for five minutes. 

Sorry about that. Now, what do these ingred...

Please excuse me while I consciously subject myself to a predictably open-ended and regrettable supine break atop my made bed. 

Oh, shit. Is that... what is that buzzing? Did something bad happen-- it's always something bad, isn't it?! Buzzing, ringing, vibrating... Ah, my phone! Alarm? Agh, what time is it? Is it time to wake up, or is my phone doing something else? What else do phones do?! PHONE CALL. My phone is ringing, I should reach for it, yes, it says a name-- my roommate's. Oh! Answer it, Anna!

"Hello?"

(What I mean to and think I sound like:

What I actually sound like:

 )

My roommate says something about me letting her into the apartment. I grumble something in regards to "yes," pull the phone away from my ear to realize where and when I am in time, and then make an unclearly motivated return to the phone to repeat my "yes." I ghost walk through the hallway to the front door, fumble with the lock, and, just as I swing open the door, gain alertness. No need to apologize, roommate! You saved me from a ~three-hour uncomfortable, unrestful, lights-on collapse. So, thank you. Thank you for waking me up.

... I'm not being sarcastic. Seriously! I don't even know how to be funny (or any civilized, socially appropriate adjective) when I'm in that weird state of sleepy, so it would be really impressive if I were being sarcastic. I have about three basic emotions in my wheelhouse while narcolepting: thankful, pained, angry. Mix 'em together and it's a solid languish. 

(By the way, this actually happened in real time whilst writing this article. That's some real life reporting. I'll take my Pulitzer now.)

While my roommate-- let's call her "Cascade", as I've had two people mishear her name for that, and now I really want that to be someone's name-- happens to be wonderfully understanding of my narcolepsy and its accompanying unintended aggression, not everyone easily accepts my extreme personality changes. 

Cue: Year 2 of Knowing You Have Narcolepsy:

2:30pm: I get to work at the restaurant. 
2:40pm: A manager asks if I'm OK. He half-jokes that it's less about looking pleasant in front of customers and more about being pleasant around those I'm working with. 
3:00pm: The maitre'd asks if I'm OK. She says I'm not my normal self-- all because I didn't say "hello" to her first when she came in, like I usually do. Do I always have to be June Cleaver over here?! I'm fine. 
3:30pm - 4:15pm: ... I begin to think my manager and maitre'd may be right. How did they notice it before me? What is it?
4:30pm: Mid-stuffing a dinner menu, I freeze. DAMN IT. I forgot to take my Modafinil stimulant this morning! How on earth?! I never forget! Whatever; June will have to power through.
5:00pm - 5:30pm: Dinner starts. I am pushing, not powering. I mention to my maitre'd that I realize I forgot to take my medication. She laughs.
6:00pm - 8:00pm: I gradually lose focus and stop talking. My typically energetic Cleaver-ful walk slows to something of a death march. My fellow hosts notice, of course. One is not happy, while the other asks questions about narcolepsy. Eventually, I am in my own little world.  
8:00pm: The closing manager says he'll be keeping me later and "you're OK with that?" I am not OK and I am not OK with that, but I couldn't even look at him. "Of course you're OK with that," and he walks off.
8:45pm: The maitre'd checks in with the other hosts to see if they can handle coat check on their own. Non-Understanding Host makes sure to let her know that they definitely still need me.
9:00pm - 9:35pm: I am slurring my words. I lose the ability to walk straight and have to support myself by leaning on the podium. After I slowly amble back from a trip to coat check, with all three watching, the maitre'd smiles and asks me if I'd like to leave. "THANK YOU" streams like tears from my mouth, but she follows with a teasing, "Next time, remember to take your medication," and a little laugh. All I can muster is, "Hey, this is much less fun for me as it is for you."
9:36: I am sent away with a "Feel better!" and drunkenly descend the stairs to the basement. How funny would it be if they found me sleeping in the locker room hours from now, I thought, actually considering it for a second. Then they'd know. 

Why this story? Why is this significant in Year 2 of Knowing You Have Narcolepsy? For the first time, I felt embarrassed. For the first time, my narcolepsy made me want to cry. For the first time, I felt it publicly, actively, and visibly affect my work performance-- for a job not at a desk! And I felt like, for certainly not the first time but the first known to me, no one cared.

Over the 4.5 hours of dinner service that night, I never once spoke with my manager about it. I'd only told one of my four managers that I even have narcolepsy-- what was I supposed to do, walk up to another one in the middle of service and say, "Hi, I have narcolepsy and right now I'm fighting an rarely extreme attack. May I please go home and sleep?" I was trapped. And how could they care, really, without knowing what narcolepsy is? These are good people I work with. Everyone in the restaurant business is tired-- we all haven't sat down in 7+ hours! 

Plus, in our Host Meeting the week before, we'd been told to not ask when your shift is over. And I always follow the rules.

At first, I thought this said "Superhuman." Hit me in the feels.

I am a good employee, (typically) motivated, kind, bubbly-- that's why they noticed June's change in demeanor in the first place. Yet, I felt like 2 out of the 3 people who knew what was going on thought I was acting like a baby. I adore my fellow employees, and still do, so I thought perhaps this was all in my head. However, the next day I greeted the maitre'd and she responded with: "I'm glad to see you're in a much better mood."

PEOPLE. People of the free world who have high school degrees or college degrees or advanced college degrees: narcolepsy is not a MOOD. Narcolepting (a phrase I feel no one else uses in the narcolepsy community, and so I'm just gonna say that I made it up) is not like waking up on the wrong side of the bed; I'm always on the wrong side of the bed. It's not like PMS; people understand PMS. It's not like being hangry; food and planning will not cure it (no matter how hard I try). Actually, it is somewhat like all of these things combined, in different ways, but at the end of the day it is an uncontrollable, unavoidable state, ready to attack at any time. It's not caused by any sort of personal flaw but rather one's brain's lack of hypocretin.

Hypo-WHAT now? This shit got cray. 

Hypocretin is a boss chemical in your noggin that regulates wakefulness, REM sleep, and other dope things like appetite and happiness. Those of us with narcolepsy largely lack it, which is cool because it gives us something to blame weight gain on and not cool because of everything else. Here, I happen to know a lot about the subject, so let me help explain it to you better:

I'm kidding, I have no idea what that means. This is all I understand:

So, yeah, folks: narcolepsy is an autoimmune neurological disorder that affects chemicals in the brain. Genetics. Science. Facts. My bad mood is not my fault. 

If what you're thinking is that I think I've found a way to blame weight gain, fatigue, and bitchiness on a tiny little chemical out of my control... then you're right. 

Oh, shucks, I can't lie to you: I still struggle to accept that I shouldn't and can't compare myself to others without narcolepsy. I still walk a fine line between motivating myself to "make a better me" and pushing myself too far. I still beat myself up. Not literally. What if I did mean literally? Would you call the cops? 

Anyways, Year 2 of Knowing You Have Narcolepsy is all about the struggle: figuring out the ying-yang between laziness and acceptance; dedicated perseverance and unrealistic goals; blame and, well, blame. How much can I blame on my narcolepsy/my lack of hypocretin cells? I'm learning to adopt all of the "lifestyle remedies" so I can blame everything that's left on my disorder. No, really, stay with me: honestly: that was poor wording: lemme try again: for example, my Lenten promise this year is regulating my sleep schedule, which I should've been doing all along. I force myself to sleep 8 hours a night, 12am-8am. I've also Lentenly promised to eat healthier and practice yoga every day. So NOW what, narcolepsy?! It's all on you. 

What parts of my fatigue are due to me and me alone? I have no freaking clue, but I have a frickin' clue, which is a lot more than the clue I had last year and the mystery I had before then. In the past year, I've met people with narcolepsy in Central Park, walked for the Narcolepsy Network in Battery Park, submitted a personal essay on narcolepsy as a writing sample to a publisher, told managers and too many first dates I have narcolepsy, met the Julie Flygare, and learned that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disorder! And that info is what changes everything. It helps recipients of this:

become recipients of this:

Autoimmune-screwed hypocretins bring me one sweet step closer to understanding what the freaking frick is up with my mind and body. Seeing as it can take some people as long as 10-15 years to even be diagnosed after symptoms appear, I don't take my sweet step lightly. I STOMP, y'all. 

In closing, in honor of National Sleep Awareness Week and Suddenly Sleep Saturday, in memoriam for all of the sleep we've all lost all those unnecessary times: take sleep seriously!

Wasabi Polish Doughnuts (For Weirdos Only)

Ingredients

• 1 Umami Burger server 
• $500 Valentine's Day menu (per person)
• "The three baddest horn section in Brooklyn", an Elton John-type songwriter, Maxway/Roses Wholesale Clothes, and making more money than your parents
• 7 phone numbers given out + 5 first dates in 3 months
• 1 search for a paczki

Instructions

1. Your Umami Burger server must be: the newest arrival at your friends' brunch get-together, a fellow actor and Astorian a few years older than you, and of the type that, upon seeing his face, you know you "know" each other. After twenty minutes of painstaking "do you know...? have you been to...?", look on Facebook for mutual friends and instead find that he is an Umami Burger server-- and that he therefore served you on your first ever Hinge date. You remember because he made such a friendly impression! He remembers because you requested to have no wasabi on the burger that clearly "needs" wasabi, so they left it on.

2. You can find cheaper options for Valentine's Day, but I highly suggest Atera, which costs more than Masa, America's "priciest restaurant." Why be cheap, with such crapola restaurants like Jean George, Eleven Madison, or Masa at costs of $258- $450/person, on a day primarily symbolized by plastic heart-shaped products sold at CVS?

3. When you have the idea to look online for freelance writer gigs, smartly delve into Craigslist. Next, and most key, accidentally forget to clarify "writer gigs" and instead search "all gigs." Locate the title "wheres the three baddest horn section in brooklyn!!!!!" and make sure they're looking for someone who "SHOWS SHOWMANSHIP AND DISCIPLINE AT TIMES....LOL (GOTTA HAVE A LIL FUN RIGHT?)". Search deeply for an "Elton John-type songwriter looking for his Bernie Taupin", specifically the one who clarifies, so necessarily: "Okay, so I'm not Elton John in the sense that I sing, but I do play piano and write songs that other people sing." Score gloriously when you see "ASAP $2 per photo of Maxway/ Roses Wholesale Clothes," in which all you have to do is take photos-- or samples-- of women's bottoms, particularly leggings, in Roses Wholesale Stores and Maxway Stores, but lose greatly when you learn the submission maximum is ten. Last but not least, to out-do your parents, read the words you've always wanted to hear: 

"it sucks beeing poor, you dont have to tell me I grew up with nothing and spent most of my life working like a slave for just enough money to pay the bills. 
If you are hot you dont have to do that. "

Because when I have nothing-- absolutely nothing-- going for me, the only possible motivation is knowing I could make more money than my parents. And the hope that I might be hot.

4. You must start dating, experience dating, and decided to end dating within 3 months. These phone numbers must be given out via any dating app/site. (No, at the end of the day, Hinge is sadly not much better than other dating apps/sites, because it is one.) These dates should be difficult to juggle. You should feel overwhelmed. You should put fun plans and important work aside to fit them into your schedule. You should learn that perhaps you shouldn't let on so easily how little money you have on the first date. You should decide that you don't f-ing care. You should come to the conclusion that you are spending too much time thinking about these potential dates that you don't even know, may not even like, and, with the current track record of such finance/business guys, will not want to see again. You should look forward to the final trickle-off of said dates, and hope that none of them ever text you again. You should celebrate your freedom from feeling that dating and going out is a necessary, integral part of your 20's. You should take advantage of the new time not spent using that app/texting a "match"/thinking about that date/going out for drinks and focus on your career, which is why you are in this goshforsaken city in the first place! You should finally admit to yourself that you are an old fashioned romantic traditionalist who likes quiet evenings at home, a bedtime, and her twin-sized bed because dammit it was cheaper and you have so much floor space for yoga. 

5. You must know what a paczki is. That is essential. You are a rare special human if you possess this ability. If you are Polish, you should know, or else. You should surround your Fat Tuesday, aka Paczki Day, with asking every person you see whether or not they know what a paczki is. You should express utter shock and disgust with the limited responses you elicit. You should spread the knowledge, love, joy, and beauty of pazkis with as many people as possible, and not feel ashamed at all when they find out that for real it's just a donut. You should spend so much time and energy into finding a paczki in NYC for Fat Tuesday and so much time building up the hype to everyone you have informed about it that you forget that the last time you had a paczki was... too long ago to remember. And that you cannot remember the last donut you ate, either. And that you shouldn't eat fried food because of what it and your severe acid reflux do to your stomach. Yet, when you find that one bakery open at 9pm in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the only Polish community in NYC, you should devour that sweet, sweet 'nut in one bite. 

... So... now what? By now, you're used to recipes with ingredients and instructions that have at least something to do with each other. These are almost completely random. Actually, they're completely random. I did that on purpose, because that's how I'm feeling right now: arbitrary. (And not in a bad way.)

"Life is weird." This was a line in a recent audition of mine, and it was the truest, most natural thing I said and felt in the entire scene. Life is SO weird! How, the morning after a waste of time first date (with a Hinge-ite who called me a "Broadway Queen") on Valentine's Day, did I end up agreeing to walk 20 minutes on one of the coldest days yet this winter to my friend's apartment in Astoria for brunch, where a friend and I bonded voraciously over our trials of the seductive mind-trap that is Hinge and shared our stories with the group for far too long, only to be met by a new brunch acquaintance that I was told I would not know but actually did recognize because, thanks to knowledge from Facebook, I remembered he was my server on my first Hinge date ever! FULL CIRCLE BRUNCH! 

Life is weird because, after taking Burberry and Hugo Boss dress coats and seating their owners at white-clothed banquets for two in a gorgeous Michelin Star-rated dining room accompanied by a live romantic jazz pianist and violets for their $199 6-course tasting menu, I wake up to these Facebook photos from my father, step-mom, and their 2 best friends: 

One photo had the caption, "steak and lobster tail on bone china... who could ask for more." Who could ask for more?

Life is weird because THIS happens in my hometown and NO ONE knows about it: 

Honestly, I wish I could've found less photos that I felt I needed to include here, but that's how the Paczki Ball rolls. Every year at the same time (though sometimes I wonder if it's actually all year long), this billboard pops up in Lorain County, Ohio:

"The Original Paczki of Northeast Ohio: Kiedrowski's have been selling the Best Paczki in America for over 30 Years." "Kiedrowskis's Only Sell Old World Traditional Polish Flavors According to Grandma Kiedrowski." "We play Polka Music to our Paczki to Give them a made in America to Poland taste." Polish Catholics, or, as I still sometimes naively think, all Christians everywhere, eat paczkis on Fat Tuesday, the day before Lent. They're glorified donuts, but with cool filling flavors and cultural meaning. My first year beyond Northeast Ohio, I was mortified and offended when no one at my college in Chicago knew what a paczki was-- Chicago is the largest population of Polish people outside of Warsaw, for goodness' sake! By Lent, I was so emotionally disrupted that at one point, upon entering my room and seeing my suitemate's Polish-speaking Polish boyfriend, I immediately shouted "PACZKI!" at him, hoping to finally receive some understanding. Instead, he was merely confused at why I'd shouted "donut" at him. 6 years out of Ohio and I still have no relief.

The Paczki Ball is thrown by Kiedrowski's ever year: "Polkas! Party! Paczki!" The even is held right before Fat Tuesday, is "family friendly" and BYOB, includes a buffet dinner of sausage and sauerkraut, cabbage and noodles, potato and cheese pierogies, green beans with bacon, and ALL OF THE PACZKIS YOU CAN EAT. Not to mention the Presentation of the Paczki by those half-naked men and women and the crowning of the Paczki King and Queen.

Life is weird because I have new stupid, maddening, exciting, stressful, weird experiences every day. Because when I leave work at midnight, emerging from a hotel basement and breathing in a breath of "fresh" air, I get to walk down an eerily empty 5th Avenue and look up at the majestic columns and lions of the NYPL Main Branch and a few key skyscrapers that surround this refreshing clearing in the heart of the city, and feel a mix of shock and pride that I actually made it here. Because each night when I take the 7 train into Queens and descend the steps to Queens Boulevard, I see a lit skyline of Manhattan in the near distance, congratulating me on staying alive another day. Because of that fact that I do this every day-- that I recently end each day with a dramatic yet honest inner monologue, reflecting on my disbelief that I made it through that day and that, even though the weird stuff that day happened and that there are so many weirder things about to happen the next day, at that moment the city takes a breath, I take a breath, and we rest. 

I signed up to be a "mentor" (ha!) for one of this year's Northwestern NY Acting Showcase participants and she recently asked what I liked/didn't like about living in NYC as an actor. I'd been preparing myself to censor what I wrote in my email, expecting it to be too harsh or hateful. Instead, I shocked myself. I struggled to find a reason why I disliked NYC except for the fact that it is cold, ugly, and dirty, simply because I like warmth, nature, and cleanliness. I've finally accepted NYC for what it is. We have a strong love/hate/need relationship. I've finally accepted that I don't want to be a "typical" social single in her 20's, whatever that is even supposed to mean. Me and myself are working on a strong love/love relationship. I've accepted that call girls and escorts do exist, because I saw those Craigslist ads and my maitre'd points real ones out at the restaurant. I shall never pursue any such relationship, even though it does sound like a great financial move. I have not accepted that most people don't know what a paczki is. That is ludicrous. I will work and I will fight and I will dedicate my life to spreading the love and joy of Polish dough until everyone on this blessed earth covers their Fat Tuesday in powdered sugar.

Life is weird, because you are weird. And you, and you and you and you and you. Deal with it.

Parental Panic + Snow = Wine

Ingredients

1. MOM                                                                                                    
Occupation: Worrier                                                       
View On Apocalyptic Events: Secretly lives for them                    
# of Cases of Water Bottles in Basement: at least 3 (at all times) (just in case)

Who uses batteries?

OK, accuweather, I see you!

Just a suggestion... they say... would also be of-- Passive language, be gone be gone!

Ah, yes, so I can be fired.

Ask me again if I've left.

WHAT'S GOING ON

Let's also notice my blatant disobedience of her orders.

OK.

Instructions
Looks like not only did someone steal my idea and publish it before I did, but also that I was not alone in electronic harassment by my mother: Buzzfeed's "Everybody's Mom is Freaking Out About the Blizzard-Pocalypse".

I sent that link to my mom and she laughed (or at least that's what her "hahaha" insinuated on Facebook; so at least she meant to laugh). She only said "I bet I will be embarrassed" when I told her my next blog post would be a knock-off of/the first-original-yet-unpublished version of the article. That's because I have a really cool mom who, just like me, enjoys making people happy. So much so that she would've overnighted an extra large box of extra batteries (for what?!), candles, and water bottles if it would've made it "on time". 

As seen above, I went into work the day that the "worst" "winter hurricane" "hit"-- I don't think I've ever used so many "ironic" quotation marks before-- can't stop!-- and my mother was NOT happy about it. So unhappy that she called me during my shift and wanted to know "what was going on". There was never anything more going on from one hour to the next, except the subways announcing that they were going to close at 11pm, but don't try to tell that to my mom. Let me tell you a little more about why. Here are a few of my mom's "favorites":

- Author: Stephen King (she tried yearly to get me to read books out of her Stephen King collection throughout my childhood-- my childhood-- because she read them as a child!)
- Books: I've always been highly aware, since I was a kid, that one of her favorite books is The Donner Party. So, that also means that, when I was a kid, she taught me about the Donner Party.

- TV Shows: The Walking Dead, Cold Case, Criminal Minds (in my opinion, the scariest show on television), and Grey's Anatomy (not a wildcard; think about it)

- Movies: any drama with crime, violence (guns are a plus, as is death), & suspense
- Pastimes: jewelry making, gardening, baking, paper crafting, our tiny dog 

RIGHT! Which one of these things is not like the other! My mother is a very sweet, unassuming, gentle caretaker, quiet as a mouse and cute as a button, with the most beautiful garden in town. However. She is secretly a dark doomsday fanatic gorging on the weirdest, creepiest dramas to feed her twisted soul. I'm so jealous! I mean, the same has been said about me-- one friend said that the way I see the world is not from rose-colored glasses, but instead peeking around the corner of a tall building I'm hiding behind with looming storm clouds above me. But I can't watch that creepy crime show nonsense. I can barely even watch the news-- gives me the heebie-jeebies. 

Other than my distaste for fictional anxiety, as I have enough of mine own, I am truly my mother's daughter. Even though she used to claim I wasn't because I didn't like chocolate, I am 100% her worried little spawn in almost every sweet, deep dark way. I will be honest-- she just about had me concerned about that "storm". I knew it was all cockamamy, but with her great, great persistence she had me callin' into work and asking if I was still needed! Checking the MTA service alert website every 10 minutes while I was at work! ASKING THE CORNER 99-CENT STORE OWNER IF THEY SOLD RADIOS AND HE LAUGHED AT ME IN MY FACE! Damn, she is good.

Now, I know that everyone devoured that Severely Concerned Tragedy-Minded Mom recipe, but, for those of you who are still hungry, I've prepared a complimentary dessert: an Emotional Emoji-Centric Dad dessert! It's a fantastic finish to your main course; though the brunt of your parental storm worry is with Severely Concerned Tragedy-Minded Mom, this Emotional Emoji-Centric Dad dessert is still incredibly rich with concern. It's its notes of sentimentality that make it a bit sweeter as your dessert. Do enjoy.

Ingredients
2. DAD
Occupation: Intense Protecter
View on Apocalyptic Events: Watch the news, use your brain, and you'll earn your way out
# of "R U alive" Texts He's Sent Since You Were in College: 478, roughly

Is that a eulogy?

Psh, I was drinking before I even knew I was supposed to drink.
(For those who don't know, it is mandatory in NYC
to drink when snow freaks city officials out.
So, almost all the time, amiright?)

I am always the first person to do something foolish-- thank goodness he reminded me.

2nd emoji heart! Also, here I kind of become a little shit.

Still unclear whether or not my boss was supposed to accompany me home or not.

Bringin' me down, Daddy.

(You know who I forgot to text, though? My mom. Who had been waiting up for me for two hours until midnight. I have awesome anxious parents.)

My parents and their simultaneous concerned texts... without even being in the same place!! Was I annoyed? Yes. Was I also impressed? Absolutely! Never communicating between themselves, they wer e concurrently hilarious that day/night and entertained my roommate and I fiercely. I know that was not their intent. But look how famous they are now.

Famous because this blog is so popular.

As popular as Winter Storm Juno was "the worst" "winter hurricane" "in the history of the city".


PS: These are the top photos (I have on my computer) of my parents and me. Now you see why I'm so cool and funny.