I wish to preface this post by stating, SOCIAL MEDIA IS A HIGHLIGHT REEL. My instagram is a curated portfolio of work, travel, and music. I’m proud of it. We should celebrate those victories and share them with our friends. But YOU dear blog reader, get the extra dirt. Stories below the glittering empire state building, there are a lot of rats, anxious people, and piles of trash. This is my real, boots on the ground report, of my first week in New York City.

No Money, but Plenty of Friends

My friend Abby (who’s made numerous cameos throughout my blogs) is a traveler and freelancer with friends all over the world. Time and time again, she has given me the extra push to go outside and try new things. Abby actually planned this entire Broadway girls trip and my grumpy, introverted face was roped in. It’s not that I didn’t want to see a bunch of Broadway shows with two of my best friends for a week straight, it’s just that for almost a year now, I’ve had a bad attitude. (becoming more new-yorker by the day?) It comes with having all my post-graduation goals blow up in my face and working a part time job I never planned to have. See? Grumpy award winner right here. I’m working on it Forest Friends. Mental health is more challenging for me than physical health. Perhaps because it’s invisible. Intangible. It’s something that you can feel and effects others, but an apple a day won’t solve. I am eternally grateful for Abby putting up with my grump on every adventure together in 2021. Abby if you’re reading this from your trip to Dallas this weekend, you make me a better person!

Meredith makes her Forest Friends blog debut today! Meredith is a Disney addict, a sugar fanatic, a video editor, and my future New York roommate. She is the friend you go months without seeing, but it’s as if no time has passed when you’re together. The three of us pranced around New York, rushing shows every day, admiring art at the MET, taking too many photos, and catching up with each other about the last two years of our lives. Needless to say it hasn’t been easy for any of us. Sitting in Bryant park, surrounded by Christmas booths, we let it all air out. It’s that “let’s pretend 2020 didn’t happen and try again” sensation. Abby brought us three to new york, I started taking classes, Meredith got a job, and all the pieces fell exactly in place for me to declare, “I’m moving here.” My grumpy face wouldn’t have done it without them. It true what Lennon wrote, we get by with a little help from our friends.

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Thursday night I was sitting in a trash shoot at 1am, hurriedly memorizing a monologue and texting someone maybe I shouldn’t. The trash shoot was my grumpy decision because I needed an isolated space to study. The texter was the perpetrator of grumpiness which lead me to the trash shoot decision.

Friday morning I was on the subway uptown to meet with a realtor about an apartment. This secondary perpetrator of grumpiness cancelled on me 10 minutes before the showing. I don’t like naming names but DO BETTER DON!!! Frustrated, I went back to the apartment, taking a full 2 hours round trip. Low and behold the apartment was locked and my key would not turn. Knowing full well it is not my apartment, but a friend’s, and I shouldn’t even have a key, I asked the doorman to help me with the door. He just gently turned the handle and it popped right open. (whaaaaat??!) Angry, I called my mom.

Through all this emotion, I forgot to do the one thing I had to do in order to stay at this apartment, deliver the laundry to the cleaners. Instead, I strutted off to class, where I did not have the monologue fully memorized. You heard it here first, a trash shoot at 1am is not a suitable place to learn your lines. Due to this error, I had to purchase another bus ticker for a later time so I could finally deliver the laundry. No, the first bus ticket was not refundable. After class I shoved some peanuts in my mouth and went to sleep. 1am again I woke up with my eye burning hot! I guess I was sensitive to something in the blankets?!

Saturday finally came and I tried to find the silver lining by doing the one New York thing I hadn’t gotten to yet, eat a New York bagel. Well that bagel cost $16. There was no seating left in the place so I had to pack it up and move on. One hand being occupied by my suitcase, my iced coffee spilled all over my expensive New York bagel. So I chose to rest and get reorganized on my way to Port Authority. The moment I put down my bagel bag, I was yelled at to leave the place I wandered into. Eventually, I sat on my suitcase near the bus terminal for the better part of an hour, sipping half a cup of iced coffee on an empty stomach. For some laughable reason, no one wanted to snap me back that morning either.

On the bus, I finally ate my very expensive, coffee soaked, bagel sandwich with the enthusiasm of a starving bear. I even opened my journey to chill out and get some thoughts down.

20 minutes later, my very expensive, coffee soaked, new york bagel sandwhich, was firing chunky yellow into a plastic bag I grabbed from the coach bus bathroom. The remaining three hours were spent wondering how long it’d be before I remember this as a funny story.

That evening, after a long shower, I posted to instagram-stories 5 of the most beautiful pictures from the week and added a polaroid filter and soundtrack to every one. The final picture of some bougie, hand-rolled sushi I captioned “Thanks again NYC!” Social media is a highlight reel. All those wonderful broadway shows, good time with friends, and images from acting class are real and lovely! However sitting on a suitcase in port authority, questioning your decisions, is very real too.

BACK TO BUSINESS

Last February, I had the great fortune to be cast as a featured kitchen maid in the Gilded Age on HBO! Now that the show is one month from its premiere, I can finally share some behind the scenes! As a maid of “the downstairs”, I worked for two weeks alongside Douglas Sills, Kelley Curran, and Celia Keenan-Bolger. The two directors, Michael Engler and Salli Richardson-Whitfield alternated days of filming in the kitchens at the Newport Mansions. My main guy was the 2nd 2nd assistant director Dustin Bewley. He gave us kitchen maids our blocking and so much more. He made it a point to learn all our names, give us ample screen time, and crack jokes in between takes to help us ignore the freezing cold February temps. We wheeled around mountains of elegant dishes, fresh breads, soups, and teas for the Russell upstairs. On my last day of filming, Dustin and director Michael Engler placed me right next to Mrs. Bruce and the big, fat camera on a crane. I felt like flying. That’s only a portion of those magical two weeks. Everyone in wardrobe, hair and makeup, the footmen and maids, became like camp friends. I chatted with the principals and PAs, swished around in my two custom made dresses on the steps of The Elms, and made friends doing what I hope to do for the rest of my life. In the midst of a covid winter, this was an summer break.

Despite the “No Good, Very Bad Day” above, my acting classes at MN Acting Studios have been a breath of fresh air every Friday. Working in the room again, feeling the push and pull of actor’s energy around me, is a gentle reminder that I’m where I’m supposed to be. Through countless auditions, emails, and almosts but not yets, I come back to class and remember how much I love acting. It makes the 3 1/2 hour commute completely worth it. Just a taste of the stage sets my soul on fire. The real actor’s life is a part time job and re-explaining yourself at every family holiday party. It’s realizing that your friends are going to have steady jobs and make more money even though you graduated college with a 4.0 and the highest recommendations. I work as a Barista to pay for my classes, my travel, my chances, and sometimes I get a role and feel absolutely blissful for a week. This is the boots on the ground. The dirt in the fingernails. I met several Broadway actors in New York who have had the lead in closed shows or are making their debut. They were cashing my friends out in the souvenir store. It’s just what we do. An actor’s successes are peaks and valleys.