Tina's ProcrastiNation Palace

I was listening to a podcast where Adam Grant said the research he started on socialization was based on an incident when he was 13. He stole his friend’s basketball and the rest of his friends shunned him as a result. It was wild to hear about because I have periodically heard of folks who have lost a slew of friends. One of my cousin’s friends in undergrad had his entire crew turn on him and abandon him. I don’t know the reason. Friendships are one of/multiple of those relationships that there isn’t sufficient emotional vocabulary. I’ve said it before — there are plenty of movies and books about romantic relationship, which can make or break you, but what about friendships? Not as many big picture stories, and yet, they’re such an important part of our lives.

In middle age, it is incredibly difficult to make new friends, and yet you shed them all the time. There was some some New York Times article that said you shed one friend a decade. For me, it’s been faster. Either instigated by my change, or my friend changing, or differing life circumstances, I find myself at an impasse where I happened to have lost a load. Does that make me sad? Does it make me feel lonely? Yes.And yet, I have to accept it, right? Sometimes, you don’t travel forever with people. In fact, I think you often don’t. My most sane reaction is just, thank you for traveling with me this far. We are not continuing our journey together and I wish you well.

I’m just lucky this didn’t happen to me at a younger age. When I was undergrad, I auditioning for a MainStage play of Medea and became so obsessed that I was unbearable. My friends, organized by one former friend, slowly began to peel away from meals if I appeared, ignoring me if I spoke. Only after I directly addressed one of my group, whom I’m still friends with today, asking what happened? What did I do? She acquiesced and said she didn’t even remember why they did it, except it was instigated by one individual. All was restored after that, the connections restored.

And yet…

So climate change. When you’re outside in the summer, and it feels like the sun is actively trying to incinerate you, it’s hard to deny that the climate is getting harsher. When the Canadian wildfires turned Brooklyn skies orange and the air quality into the sewer, that was weird. When this summer had wildfires in Brooklyn’s Propsect Park, that was shocking, as that’s normally a West Coast disaster. Right now, the people I know in L.A. seem okay, their homes in tact, though being part of a community where there is so much suffering — ugh, I don’t know. But one LA friends said, look NYC has seen some tough times too and you got through. IT was tremendously practical advice.

I don’t want to only post when things are looking back. Frankly, I think 2025 is going to be tough and so we have to gird our loins, you know? Look for silver linings and try to avoid being paralyzed with despair whenever possible, to see the good that is happening in the moment of excruciating moments. Like Mexico and Canada sent volunteer firemen! Is that not a huge act of human kindness? Stupid president to be said something negative about LA, and you know what? Does anyone care? Does he have any power? I just feel like we should collectively ignore him.

As I told my friend in LA and I tell the kids, I plan on out living this guy, my children will definitely outlive him, and even when things look bad, no one knows what the future will bring.

It’s so bad right now. I’m still in a post-election stupor but I cannot have a heavy heart for four years. This failure to protect ourselves from a dictator is shocking when you grow up with stories that always or usually end in a happy-ish resolution. If I were a younger woman, I would go to law school. Poor Jack Smith. Just doing the right thing and now has a target on his back. What does fascism mean? It means a threat of violence if you disagree — and that violence is right on the tip of the tongue, a whisper, a shimmer — any moment, things can be set off.

I also privately wonder what is the obligation when we don’t agree? I hated watching President Joe Biden behaving cordially and respectfully in the hand-off meeting.

I am still processing so forgive the meandering nature of this post. I am thinking about how I can make a difference. I want to choose a specific area — reproductive freedom, reduction of guns? The racism of the country feels too overwhelming to tackle. I have avoided most of the analysis of where Democrats went wrong — who cares? Kamala Harris ran a perfect campaign with a terrible hand — not one misstep. I do not want to read editorials where she “misread the room.” Fuck off. We didn’t understand how uneducated our country is. Most cannot comprehend the thread of actions that lead to the current moment. Like remember the pandemic? People blamed hospitals, when what really was was a failure of leadership at the Federal Government, etc., etc.

Of the pundits speaking, I don’t disagree with Eddie Glaude, Jr, Professor at Princeton, who says that America has a serious problem with racism, that the election was not about economy and people not affording bread — it was about racism. Ooof. That is so hard. I don’t know if I can keep going if that is the main truth of this country, so I need another reason, another dimension. Like please god, let’s not be the main reason.

I’m planning to direct my first play reading this spring. I’m open to other weird ideas like running for office. Like hope is essential. Joy is necessary fuel for the revolution, and art is more vital than ever. It’s important for our sanity and as a space for independent original thought!

Anyhow knows. I have repeatedly experiencing a sand storm of multiple thoughts, and then my life budges not at all or just a smidge but it is exciting to think about possible ideas. For me, when I’ve been reading Waging Non Violence newsletters, they talk about the power of the collective — the coordination of a small action among many — kind of like choreography. Parris Gobel, the choreographer of Rihanna’s Super Bowl show, discussed how she loves how a small gesture performed by a large number people amplifies that moment. We can engineer a political action much the same way. Like what if I coordinated a collective Amazon cancellation in protest? That is exciting! So much potential!

Every week, I carefully and thoughtfully write down every single item to get at the supermarket. I bring the list with me and somehow invariably lose it. Then I have to try recreate it in my mind, which gives me brain strain. I explain I can’t talk to people I know when I run into them at Foodtown, because I have to focus. The last mother and daughter I knew just laughed and laughed. (Except this is not a joke. This is really where I am.)

My childhood bff Alex came in for a night and we are gabbing about all sorts of things as our children navigated the strange social interaction of obligation and being a kid together, etc. Among the funny things we discussed was a sleep away tennis camp.

First as an aside, it is hilarious how tennis came into my life. In Staten Island, where I lived for two years, my emo enrolled us into the local free tennis camp where my cousin Ed excelled (later he told me he would choose a song and play matches to that song in his head. Fascinating because that’s so not how my mind works). I played summer tennis there and then when we moved to New Jersey, that was the only team I could join. The truly athletic girls were in field hockey and the leftovers like myself were left to play varsity tennis, mindlessly yelling curse words as I ran across courts for balls that eluded me. Childhood BFF excelled. She was athletic and competitive; single matches lit her energy and focus. We both looked up to a senior Kris Chu who often said “I’m having a conniption fit.” Wow, we so admired that turn of praise.

But in that endless quest of what-to-do-with-my-child-during-summer, Childhood BFF and I shared a room a two-week tennis sleep away camp in New Jersey, on site at a boarding school called Blair Academy. There, we befriended a fellow camper who was a “townie” and day camper. She was a self-possessed, intelligent being. We snuck out at night and drove a golf car around on campus at wild speeds, along with guy friend who looked liked an embryo Brad Pitt. All I can recall is a terrifyingly bright blonde hue for his hair. Alex and I both had a crush on this young boy and he liked Alex. I acted crabby about it. I did not have the tools then to articulate my feelings of romantic and social rejection but this daytime camper spotted it right away. I remember her looking at me so clearly and saying something like “Oh Tina feels left out poor baby,” but she wasn’t mean about it. We were all about 13 years old. It makes me smile to remember this now and applaud in real life to have a friend who can recall this same ridiculous history.

We are on our annual family vacation and if trips could have horoscope predictions, we would have been warned that every little thing would go awry. I was completely depleted from work, I gave the wrong keys to the cat sitter, but when her daughter called to talk about the matter, I was disoriented because she has the same name as a reporter I’m working with — and I’m like how is this reporter calling my personal cell? Why is she talking to me about my keys? Then Husband got a random dental emergency — fortunately, found a dental urgent care and got antibiotics as he was light-headed with pain. In the Walgreens when I picked up the antibiotics and fine array of snacks for children, I walked up to the wrong minivan and opened the door and thought, “I don’t remember Husband wearing red shorts. Husband doesn’t have white hair” before I realized I MADE A HORRIBLE MISTAKE. I apologized profusely and the kids spotted the man convulsing alone in his car when I left so thankfully he was upset or offended. (I’m assuming he was convulsing with laughter, not like having a cardiac arrest.)

ANYWAY, none of that has to do with the point of me posting which is we grabbed lunch at a diner immediately after and we got one of those waitresses who exude effortless positivity. She was older (that’s saying something because I’m older) but active. Wore glasses, a super tan, and long blonde hair the texture of ramen noodles like the girls I grew up with in the 1980s. Metal band bangs tool. Why did I love this lady so? Specifically, she enthusiastically affirmed all of our meal choices like we were geniuses. “That’s a great order, hon, I always get that myself,” “wow, you made such a good decision with that ravioli,” “you will not regret that Cobb Salad,” etc. I mean, like she made my day, observing her example and receiving her affirmation energy, I want to see if I can bring that back to my work..

It’s funny, a while ago, I confessed to Husband that I missed being an actress. It’s been years that I’ve been on stage or that I pursued that life. And he said “I’ve got news for you, you are still an actor.” I was very struck by that because I realized that was very true.

First, just the skills and experiences of acting absolutely shape how I perform my job and are highly practical. It helps me just live and deal with certain moments, and I notice when I work with people who are former actors, they are strong communicators.(I mean, I appreciate that so much — like can you at least reply “got it” to my email?)

There are so many work situations or meetings where I just don’t feel like it. Know what’s useful? The experience of not feeling like doing an emotionally demanding scene or not having the energy to do a highly comic scene. You just had to get into the head space where you could do the moment, and that helps me so much at work today.

Likability. It helps in corporate American when you are widely liked, and I can do that because part of an actor’s job is to just be likable. (Because of this skill set, I do think most people don’t necessarily think I’m that intelligent or educated, but as we know, that would be incorrect.)

All of that is the practical and somewhat superficial stuff. What’s more difficult to explain are the moments at work that feel like performing. I don’t mean performing like you’re being extroverted or even presenting in front of a group of people. What I mean is that moment when performance work — where there is alignment between your body, your words, the moment and the world. I don’t know how else to explain that feeling, but when you get there, you tap into like a resonance or some kind of energy that’s greater than you. Exactly like if you were fitting all these different parts of pipe together and when you tap on one end, and the note rises through the whole thing.

No wonder I fell in love with acting and why it took so long and so much to leave it. I was hot pursuit and constantly chasing that feeling. Of course you had to practice and audition, and then even when cast, it doesn’t always work out, but when it does, I mean, it was the the best. It is the best. But what’s lucky is that I get to experience that in my life still, and maybe it is my time as an actor that makes me more attuned for those moments and that’s why I can still experience them. That’s why I still feel like an actor.

There’s so much of life where I definitely feel imposter syndrome, including during that time when I was an actor (really wasn’t about being on stage per se, but getting material that was so good that I had a drive to embody those words), but what’s nice about age is that those feelings fall away. And then there’s just you.

When I was in second grade, my top jobs were writer, actress, and waitress.(I achieved two of three of those dreams, people. What a life. Ha ha.)

“Waitress” was pretty high on the list and I thought about it so much as a child. It seemed so fun and required balancing so much; efficiency; an ability to keep track of details. Only recently doesn’t it occur to me that my dreams might have been shaped by the fact that there were so many TV shows centered around waitresses in the magical 1980s — “Alice” starring Linda Lavin (Husband and I being the same age means he can join me in belting when I start singing “kicking myself for nothing was my favorite sport…”). There was “It’s a Living,” which starred a popular blonde actress who continued in a starring vehicle called “Jennifer Slept Here” (a show centered around the ghost of a Hollywood actress who becomes good friends with one of the current residents of the house who can see her.) “It’s a Living” also starred Julie Hagerty (I think that’s her name, and I think she was in it) who starred in “Airplane” and “America” with Albert Brooks. Who can forget that nervous, neurotic energy on screen. (unless I just did, but mixing up her credits.) There was one episode of the “It’s a Living” that stays with me — there is a boatload of fish about to go bad, then the majority of the episode is how the staff handles a holdup. When the gunman is subdued, the hostess announces that the entire restaurant would be treated to a free meal, then she mutters to the waitresses as she speeds by “get a move on, girls, we are unloading that fish.” I mean, brilliant, non?

There was something recently that happened that made me feel like saying “we are unloading the fish”

Sigh. Now what if there were a lot of shows in the 1980s about about the rambunctious adventures of a group of female engineers? Wouldn’t I have applied to MIT then? Maybe. It’s funny how these chance, kind of superficial things can shape the path of your life or at least a large swath of your thoughts.

I would make a terrible waitress.

Wow, sometimes I’m out walking, minding my own business, and a song will pop in my head, like the theme to Harry Potter. I just love that theme song — it’s a piece of music that somehow captures a sense of magic and being haunted. The orchestral arrangement is so smooth, it feels like a machine. I cannot tell the human touch in this music. You know who wrote that? John Williams. He wrote the theme to Superman, Raiders of the Lost Art, and various Star Wars. All his music is highly evocative of alternative worlds — maybe that’s the spell I fall under because I grew up in the 1980s when going to the movies were things we did, giving over for two hours in the dark to whatever weird story the director decides to bring to us. How old is this guy? Like 120? He’s still writing music. Incredible. I cannot believe so much amazing work came from one individual.

I read today that Zendaya regrets not going to school, and you know what? That’s a solid regret, and I am glad I got through it, but growing up, and having this weird life experience of high school and the rest was worth going through. Sorry Zendaya. You are amazing, stunning, and like a good actor! But you’re going to be different from the rest of us.