Walking in Philly (not Memphis, and not running)

So, no running today or yesterday, and here’s why: yesterday was my grand trek out to Philadelphia, and today was my day to sleep in and recover from yesterday, and then spend the entire day walking around downtown with my friend Beardo. But that was today, this was yesterday. The bus I took to Philly dropped me off at a Greyhound station right near Chinatown Philly, which was about 1.6 miles from the theatre where my callback was. Since I had time, I decided to walk and see the city. I had a beautiful walk, with my nose stuck in my iphone the whole time trying to see if I was going in the right direction, if I was going to make it in time, etc. (spoilers: I made it.)

I’m sure a lot of actors have a special pre-audition routine that they do. Mine’s quite silly, but it works for me. First things first, I go to the bathroom and take a really big poop. I always have to. Something to do with nerves, I think, but anyway, there it is. Then I change into my nice dress, since I’m probably wearing some casual walking clothes. Then I either do or touch up my makeup: in this case, it was just a touch up, since I’d done m makeup ON THE BUS. Oh yeah, doing my makeup on a bumpy bus like a bossy boss! I don’t really know how it worked. And anyway, at the end of my tradition, after I’m dressed and made up and my hair is pinned back out of my face, I take a stupid picture in the mirror, because I want to feel confident or something.

The callback was fine. I did as well as I could have done, and once it was over I was ready to explore Philly! I found a comic book store, where I bought some old comics (I love old comics. Seriously, I LOVE old comics).

I found Chinatown (very impressive).

I found that I might really like Philadelphia (I use its full name because I’m serious). I mean, GASP! Anyone who knows me at all will be so surprised. All my life I’ve been all gung ho about NYC, THIS IS WHERE I WILL LIVE FOREVER AND NOBODY’S GONNA STOP ME! But oddly enough… I could really see myself living in Philadelphia. And like, this was the last thing I was expecting to happen. I didn’t plan on falling in love or even in particular LIKE with the city. But after walking maybe 4 miles through it, I discovered some really wonderful places that I hope I can explore again soon.

(I still fucking love New York, though. I just had a wonderful NYC day today to reinforce my love of this crowed, cold, rainy delight of a surprise of a city. So don’t worry.)

Me at 6AM.

As I’ve said before, I don’t think it’s possible for me to even be a human being at 6AM, let alone a good running buddy. I had a callback today at the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre, which meant that I absolutely needed to wake up at 6AM to make it on time.

Knowing this, and also knowing my penchant for staying up late (and also remembering how last week I slept in and almost missed my actual audition)… I came up with a plan. An evil plan, no, evil GENIUS plan.

Step 1: I got a nice tall water glass from the kitchen.

Step 2: Uncork one of my lovely bottles of red wine. (thanks Ellen Page, Aka Jimmy!)

Step 3: Pour a very generous amount of wine into the glass.

Step 4: Change into my pajamas.

Step 5: Drink up!!

Yea, I know how bad it sounds to be consuming copious amounts of alcohol as a sleep aid, but I had the best intentions. Get tipsy and sleepy so I can fall asleep by midnight and wake up at 6 refreshed and rested.

I woke up drunk.

Yes, I made my 6AM wake up call AND my 7AM bus to Philly… But it was not pleasant. Port Authority is probably the last place you’d want to be when you’re drunk or even just tired. Actually, I pretty much never want to be in Port Authority.

It was too much, though. Never again.

Six? As in, AM? As in, six in the morning?

SUCCESS!!! I may have actually found a running buddy who is a real person and not just a figment of my imagination (he looked just like Tom Hiddleston, I swear!). I posted an ad on the New York Road Runners page and actually got some replies!

One of them lives in my neighborhood, but is looking for a running buddy who can match her 7 MINUTE MILES. I was like “Yeah….. sorry, that’s really not going to work.” I mean I’d love if it did, but that’s really just not in the cards for me any time soon. At least in reality, anyway.

(In my dreams, I’ll be running 3 minute miles with Keanu Reeves and Tom Hiddleston and Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon Levitt and I’ll win the New York Marathon because my running shoes will be made of rainbows. But that’s just dreams.)

So then I got a reply from a woman close to my age who is running much more do-able and realistic 10 and 11 minute miles, which piqued my interest. She lives 50 blocks north of me, but we could just meet somewhere in the middle and call it a warm up. So I e-mailed her back and she said she’d love to go for a run next week, and to meet her at 6.

6? I’m sorry, did you say 6? As in 6 in the morning? As in, wake up at 5:30, also in the morning, to come and run with you at 6????

Okay, the thing is, I don’t usually get to bed until around 2 am (yes, in the morning). Yes I realize that I should probably work on waking up earlier if I ever want to get seen at any of these Equity Principle Auditions (gotta wake up early to get my name on that list!). But I was really sort of counting on daylight savings time to help propel me into a more normal sleep cycle. I can’t just, bam, wake up at 5:30 and go for a run. I can’t just text Keanu Reeves and invite him over for tea. I just can’t do 6am!!!

…I’m going to have to, though. I know, I know I’m going to have to. But, oh my god, I don’t know where to begin.

I call period.

I have no intention of running when I have my period. HELP! What do you do, runners? Help a sister out. I want to get my pace back, find a running buddy, take on the central park bridle path for the first time, and become a serious runner, as soon as possible please. But this female anatomy is really cramping my style right now. Any tips?

lazybones

Well, there you have it. I stayed up late, I slept in late. My alarm went off, and I went “hell no!” and rolled over and went back to sleep. The mere thought of running, both to and from a YOGA class, made my uterus quake with fear.

Oh yeah, ladies, it’s one of those days.

You heard it hear first. I… am a lazybones.

And the worst part is, even MY DOORMAN knows how lazy I am. “No run today?” he asks me as I’m walking through the lobby wearing my lazy clothes. I took one look at him and said, as is my wont, “hell no!”

The Sleep Problem

I don’t have any trouble sleeping. I sleep like a stone, a glorious, cocooned stone. I do, however, have trouble falling asleep. And it’s actually so much trouble falling asleep as it is my general lack of the desire to fall asleep in the first place.

I’m a night owl, and for good reason. All my best ideas come to me at night. It’s when I’m most creative. The daytime feels like it’s just time to kill until the sun goes down and I can finally have fun and do things wheeee!

HOWEVERRRR… I have a 10AM free yoga class at Lulu Lemon Athletica on the upper east side. Which means an 8AM wake up so I can have breakfast, get dressed, go for a run uptown, then have the yoga class, then go for another run to get back home (with a possible out-of-the-way circling of the reservoir thrown in if I’m feeling up for it). And then it’s off to sit on my butt in a coffee shop for a few hours while I edit pictures from a shoot I had the other day. And then from 4 to 11PM, I have work.

Work for me is being the hostess of a busy little restaurant. A not-so-little, two-story restaurant. Work for me is running up and down stairs all night long. I think that might be how I hurt my foot in the first place (that and my flimsy little ballet flats). It’s not such a demanding life (because no one is sitting at home crying “woe is me, I have to go and do yogaaaaaaahhhhh!!!”)

But then, interspersed throughout the day, I have to do other things, like learn how to manage my money one of these days, and then maybe memorize this long monologue for my Titus Andronicus callback in Philadelphia this wednesday, and be ready for an hour and a half session with my acting coach on tuesday.

And now you’re starting to see my problem. It’s not that I have too much to do; it’s that I have a lot to do, and I’m excited about ALL OF IT. And whatever time it is right now, I really want to spend it awake, I really do, but all these little tomorrow-things say otherwise. So now I’m off to go put away my computer, get my bag ready for tomorrow, crawl into bed, close my eyes, imagine some stories to write for maybe 20 minutes or so, and then, finally, fall asleep.

Tom Hiddleston Running Buddy

[Welcome to the new home of Run, Pal! Hope you like it. Actually, I hope you LOVE it.]

A POST!!! Which means, of course, I’M RUNNING AGAIN!!! Yes, ladies and gentleman, my darling HOARDE of readers and followers (taste my sarcasm, Michael! I don’t have a hoarde.) – I’ve been waiting for my foot to be 100% better, and after about 3 weeks there’s no more pain. So I went for a run.

Ugh.

More like, I went for a drag. I was excited. Fall was in the air, no humidity in sight. It was finally cool enough for me to break out my long sleeve bright yellow (sorry, bright MAIZE) Michigan running shirt, and I felt like such a badass. Someone even gave me a thumbs up for it, and I assume they must have shouted “Go Blue!” but I couldn’t hear them over ‘Shipping Up to Boston’ that was blasting on my ipod.

But it was a really difficult run. So difficult, in fact, that I tapped out at 2 and a half miles. I couldn’t do it. I basically just ran to the reservoir, took one long, sad look at it, and turned right back around and ran home. I felt like shit. Everyone was out training for the NY marathon, and everyone was in such good shape, everyone was doing so well, and here I was giving up after a measly 2.5? Well, it is what it is.

And now for my title! At one point on my run (my drag), I matched paces with a guy who looked EXACTLY LIKE THIS RIDICULOUSLY ATTRACTIVE MAN:

Yes, I did a double take, even a triple-take just to be sure. Of course it wasn’t actually Tom Hiddleston (if Tom Hiddleston’s beard and dark hair at NYCC was anything to go by). But he was still a ridiculously attractive man, and we did run together for a little while… like 30 seconds or so, until I couldn’t keep up with him anymore. He was probably running like an 8 minute mile and I was running about a million-year mile, so think of him as my interval training. Interval training… with Tom Hiddleston. I WISH!

But I got a smile from a cute guy, I ran more than 0 miles today, AND!!! AND! Not only did I see some people running in Vibram 5 Fingers, but I also saw two guys running COMPLETELY BAREFOOT. I smiled at them, but they were too busy being barefoot badasses to notice.