i have been seriously considering making the jump to tumblr for a while now... and i think it's about to happen. i've been toe-ing the line for a while posting reblogs to my tumblr and writing here, but fuck it. this.is.the.future. to my 1.5 fans and my mom, please update your google readers:

http://misstrionics.tumblr.com/

“Make as much racket as you like people. Noise is life and an excess of noise is a sign that life is good. There will be time for us all to be quiet when we are safely dead.”


― Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence

"Oh, if life were made of moments,

Even now and then a bad one--!
But if life were only moments,
Then you'd never know you had one." -the Baker's Wife, Into the Woods

The laziest date...

The laziest date a guy can ask a girl to go on goes something like this:

At some point in time, guy mentions movie he liked as a kid and girl says she's never seen it. Guy freaks out and is like "What??? Are you kidding? You have to see it!" Then a couple days later he texts her being like "So do you want to come over and watch [x-movie]?" And then you get there and guy has made zero effort to clean up his place or buy anything to drink. He shoves his roommate's sweatshirts on the ground and offers you a seat on the couch. He spends the first half of the movie explaining to you why it's great and the second half trying to touch your boobs.

I'm not saying every date has to be a fucking hot air balloon ride. I love movies. I love sharing things that have made you the person that you are with someone new.  I love the awkward moment where you go from not touching each other to touching each other and then by the credits, you find that you are wrapped in each other. I think this is a totally amazing hang-out if you are a) hook-up buddies, b) in a relationship, c) 16 or d) friends who are trying to figure out if you like each other as more than friends. But if you are a single guy over the age of 23 who actually really likes a girl, it is shocking to me that you think this is going to lead to her being interested in you. It's not about money or fancy restaurants or buying roses-- spending money and showing effort are so different. But the audacity of being like, "Let's watch a movie you haven't been interested in seeing up to this point because I want to explain to you why my taste should be your taste," is kind of a bullshit way of getting people to like you.

A bunch of movies I've never seen that 3 dudes just got mad at me for never having seen

-any of the Terminators
-any of the Alien series
-Empire Strikes Back
-Return of the Jedi
-any of the Indiana Jones movies before that shitty one with the aliens
-Godfather Part II
-Blade Runner
-anything made by Hitchcock
-The Deer Hunter
-Raging Bull

Also, this came from me asking if I should see Prometheus if I haven't seen Aliens.

wow did not know this

via buzzfeed

Last Anagrams show tonight!

This class has been such a lovely and wonderful experience and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it. I get frustrated with UCB sometimes and myself doing improv often, but it's stuff like this class that makes it worthwhile.

Some of my favorite moments (re-blogged from Tumblr):

• When Peter and Rudy kissed
• When Mariola and Ali kissed
• When Anthony and Peter kissed to make up for the fact that they hadn't kissed on stage the night before
• When Jon broke the window
• The weed/boob pot shop where being kidnapped just means hanging out
• Mr. Richman, the rich man who set up his own version of NASA to compete with real NASA and then hired a real NASA scientist to make polymers for his space house
• "Here we are in college... where everybody meets."
• Brian's portrayal of Garyman and how easily he and Ali were fooled by Anthony's pranks
• Our class mascot Ramona
• Glenn's "What do you want on the grill?" guy
• When Mike's character, fresh from starring in Broadway, was asked to sing at his best friend's funeral and sang "Mr. Cellophane"
• impromptu Disney/white rap hotspot
• Andie McDowell porn-names
• "I just watched 3 women strapped to hospital beds fight to get a knife out of 1 woman's vagina using only their legs after murdering Janeane Garofalo and that was only the third weirdest thing in that scene."
• "Rudy, you're at 25. Jon, you're still at 1." - on attempting to share personal information in the scene
• "How do you want to pay for that?" "By check."
• Erik Tanouye, who has been wonderfully supportive and inventive, and when faced with a broken window, asked Jon if he was okay and then told him to finish the scene
• the marvelous group of people who I hope I will continue to see and perform with again soon!!! what an amazing experience!

Guys, this is the most like high school theater I've felt in a while...

SO MANY GLASSES!!!

i love the use of math as a verb

see more epicfails

I have been doing and seeing so much improv lately, thanks to my amazing 601 (Anagrams taught by Erik Tanouye), which is now surprisingly and suddenly almost over. It is a strange feeling because I don't know when I'll get the chance to take another one and I don't know that I 100% performed to my highest potential. With 501s, you always know that you can sign up for more, but with 601s, it's up to the instructor, so who knows? Keara told me I'm my own worst critic, which is definitely true, but I think the important thing is to keep challenging yourself and not give up even if you're critical. 

If you want to come check out the show, we have two more performances:

Tues 5/29 at 11pm at UCB Theater

Tues 6/5 at 11pm at UCB Theater

Jon Bershad made this awesome poster for it:

Our form is based on this book Anagrams by Lorrie Moore, which is super weird and interesting. And also if you happen to read a long chunk of it and then watch Girls, which is what I did on Sunday night, you will believe that we are all destined to be lonely and love more than we can be loved. So don't do that! Instead come to the show and laugh!

Ahhhh, the pigman cometh!
via Buzzfeed

see more epicfails

This is the story of my life:

via Hello Giggles

To be fair, half the time, Jake's all up in my Spottify and then I get a notice on Facebook that's like "You and 3 other friends are listening to MmmBop 45 times in a row." And I'm like... um, I am not.

A Cynic's Guide to Girls

Disclaimer: I have nothing new or original to say on this overanalyzed show that others haven't before. Then again, nobody has anything new or original to say ever in a post-Internet world and we all keep saying stuff anyway, so here's my $0.02.

I was determined to hate Girls... Or maybe I just did hate it. I walked away from the pilot with the same criticisms that so many others had and immediately went online to talk about. (It's not funny enough, it's too white, it doesn't represent real NY or real New Yorkers or real girls, the characters are over-priveleged and unlikable.) But something happened when I watched episodes 2 and 3 with my mom this past Sunday.

Something you should know about my mom: She is my constant source of honesty. I surround myself with a bunch of people who are pretty similar to me and let me keep my current mindview on things either because a) they think it's funny when I start ranting, b) they don't care, c) it's polite or d) they are weirded out by my intense aggressive tone and don't feel like arguing. Then every so often, my mom says something true and I am forced to admit that my opinions are shaped by reading the Internet all day, hanging out with comedy nerds all night, and generally being stubborn. My mom does not read the Internet all day. (Case in point: She didn't know what the Hunger Games were.) So she says things that contradict everything I've heard all day and night long and I am stunned into changing my worldview.

So after listening to my running commentary on all the things I found wrong with the show, halfway through episode 3, my mom says, "Why are you criticizing the show so much?" And I had no idea. I was reading an old Emily Gould blogpost called, What Are Women Fighting About?" (I recommend the whole thing, but an excerpt here):

I did not think "A Fortunate Age" by Joanna Smith Rakoff was terrible, not at all. In fact, I found it well-paced and full of extraordinarily acute physical description. But I did hate it. I hated it in the same bitterly guilty way I'd hate a person—a woman, really—who'd garnered some prize that I hadn't been in the running for, that I hadn't been qualified to win and, moreover, that I would have been loathe to admit to desiring.... So I become, once more, the kind of person I can't bear: the female critic who despises any female writer who doesn't project what she feels is the accurate or ideal vision of modern womanhood. This critic believes it is her job to tear down women who are "off-message" because there is only so much publishing space allotted to women, and so more attention for them is less attention for her and other worthy types.

It is tempting to feel resentful when we don’t see ourselves or our stories or our ideals reflected in the prevailing narratives of femaleness. Luckily, there is an alternative: instead of simply criticising other women’s stories, we can take it upon ourselves to make sure that our own stories get told. Creating something takes a lot more effort than writing a bad review or a dismissive blog post. But if we don’t make that effort, if instead we keep insisting that a mere handful of female writers are qualified to speak for us, we'll miss out on the larger truths that are to be found somewhere in the chorus.

And so when Lena Dunham and Allison Williams danced to Robyn, I gave a shit. I wanted them to succeed because Lena Dunham's success does not take away from my personal success, despite the fact that in some way, everyone's success-- especially women's-- always feels like it does. Yes, there are major problems with the fact that there are so many stories that are not told in her story. And yes, networks, TV, pop culture in general need to consider the amount and way they portray people of color, although I am far more offended by the way 2 Broke Girls handles it, than Girls (but that's for another blog post). But it is my responsibility to tell my story, not hers.

via Toothpaste for Dinner

This kid is my hero. (note for my mom who is the only person i know is going to read this: YOLO stands for "You only live once.")

Camera Phones

MOM: On the iphone, there is an icon that’s a little blue circle with a camera in it. What is it for?
ME: That’s your phone’s camera.
MOM: WHAT???????
MOM: This is AMAZING!!!!
MOM: I bet this is why they call them camera phones!
ME: Hahaha, yes! Why did you think they called them that?
MOM: Because they are the size of a small camera!

via When Parents Text

the role of the critic

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy: we risk very little, but enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and themselves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that‘s in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. [...] Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere ...”

--Anton Ego, Ratatouille

The discovery of the new and the great is my favorite part of working in comedy. But you want people to be as positively affected by how much you like them as they seem to be when they think you don't like them. I think it's hard for some people to take compliments because either they think you're just being polite or they felt entitled to them all along and are only just finally getting what they deserved. Every part of the entertainment industry feels thankless sometimes because there is so much ego that everyone wants to be recognized more than anybody can possibly recognize you.

on the eve of my first open mic

I'm doing my first open mic tonight. It doesn't feel like a momentous occasion because I've done stand-up a couple times as well as Moth stuff, improv, etc. But it feels like an open acknowledgement that here I am, trying, and trying not to worry about what people think of me. And maybe I won't end up doing it a ton more after this, but at the moment, it was something I wanted to try.

I spent a lot of time not doing stand-up because I was worried about what people would think. I don't want to be a booker who uses his/her connections to advance her own career. I don't like the idea of being judged by comics who I've had to turn down for various things. I know I'm going to suck for a while and I'm okay with that, but I don't like the fact that people are going to watch this set and be like, "She's not funny. Why does she get to decide whether I'm funny or not?" I feel like I've spent my whole life caring way too much about what other people think and trying to look like I don't care when I miss being the kind of person who cared HARD about stuff, who tried hard, who was okay being the girl who auditioned for every Hunter play and OTI 8 times and didn't get called back.

The fact of the matter is that I'm 25 and I don't know what I want to do with my life. I legit bought a book called "What should I do with my life?" from a used book store and guess what? It did not have any answers. (Okay, I only read the first 20 pages, but I'm pretty sure the end is not going to be like "Sachi, you are supposed to be an accountant.") When I first graduated, all I knew is I wanted to be near comedy and I was so lucky to get internships and jobs that allowed me to do that. But now I feel like I'm supposed to be making more specific decisions. I still don't know if I want to be a performer or a writer or a producer or a director or a network executive and I'm not going to cross things off until I know for sure that they're not for me. So this is going to be my year of trying stuff. I refuse to settle into the most comfortable and easiest path just because I'm scared of being judged. SO GO AHEAD AND JUDGE ME, YOU JUDGE DREDDS AND JUDGE JUDYS. or the more likely scenario: most people are too worried about their own selves to spend time sitting around judging me and it is self-involved of me to think anybody even cares about whether i try some shit out.

I'll probably be back here tomorrow like "never mind, i give up" but for now, I'm trying to keep spirits alive. #yearofpenny

a reminder to myself to TAKE THIS ADVICE

Love this advice from Erin Foster on Hello Giggles... She is talking about weddings when you're single, but it works no matter how you're comparing yourselves to others:

"Someone else’s story always dictates how you feel about your own... We compare ourselves so much to everyone else and basically live in fear that we’re either missing out on something better or being left behind.... We’re either using someone else’s life to pick it apart and make ours seem better, or propping it up on a pedestal to make us feel inadequate...

"Get your eyes off their plate. No one gets to decide if your life is good or if you are where you were supposed to be at this age. As long as you’re still curious about things and willing to evolve a little, make an adjustment on yourself here and there, you’ll be fine. So, they’re getting married. Or having a baby. Or crazy in love. Well, then it’s their turn to have that, and it’s not taking away anything from you or speeding up any imaginary timeline you’ve decided for yourself. You put it there without reason and you can take it away too. No one else’s story has anything to do with your own."

Safety Not Guaranteed

My favorite movie genres in no particular order:
-80s teen movie
-twee indie romantic comedy w/ a great soundtrack
-time travel romance
-Apatovian bittersweet comedy examining lovable losers in realistic situations

So the fact that this looks like some combination of the last 3 sounds delightful to me. Jake Johnson, Aubrey Plaza, and Mark Duplass all do stellar supporting work on their individual TV shows as endearing slackers. Also, I like Aubrey's glasses in this.

A List of TV/Movie Characters That Have Reminded Me of Me at Various Points in My Life (In (Arguable) Order of How Annoying They're Supposed to Be)

Casey (Party Down)
Max (2 Broke Girls)
Lisa Simpson (The Simpsons)
Leslie Knope (Parks & Rec)
Liz Lemon (30 Rock)

Julia (New Girl)
Any character that Judy Greer or Krysten Ritter plays in a shitty romantic comedy who gives advice to the main character and then sits at home drinking wine out of a comically large glass
Monica (Friends)
Peggy (Mad Men)

Penny (Happy Endings)
Jackie (That 70s Show)
Megan (Unsupervised)

Drunk Girl (SNL)
Miss Piggy

Baby Sinclair (Dinosaurs)
Moaning Myrtle (Harry Potter)
Tracey Flick (Election)

Realizations based on this:
(1) It is a truth universally acknowledged that every sitcom contains a normal hot girl/hot guy pairing and then a couple made up of a wisecracking ne'erdowell and a shrill high-maintenance bitch. Guess which one I always associate myself with.
(2) I was a really annoying kid.
(3) Presumably, the most annoying characters are also the ones that are most like me when I was younger, so perhaps I've gotten less annoying.
(4) Or maybe annoying kids grow up to be cynical but sassy adults. And nerdy perfectionist teacher's pet kids grow up to be adults who GET SHIT DONE.
(5) Lizzy Caplan makes 2 appearances on the list. I would have put Janis Ian on there too, but I don't think I was cool/detached enough in high school for that.

4 quotes

"When did you stop being a dreamer? How did you become so cynical at 25?" -my mom

"My sister says she never dreams at night. There are days when I know why. Those possibilities within her sight,
with no way of coming true 'cause some things just don't get through into this world, although they try." -my aunt, on my mom in "Rosemary"

"You would think that in your capacity as a producer your job would be to churn up creativity, but mostly your job is to police enthusiasm." -Tina Fey, on the rules Lorne Michaels taught her

"I'm the kid who has this habit of dreaming/ Sometimes gets me in trouble too/ But the truth is I could no more stop dreaming / Than I could make them all come true."
-Dar Williams, "The Kid." Also one of two quotes I chose to include in my high school yearbook half-page to define who I was at 17

there was a time

children scare me

Via Happy Place

via Sofa Pizza

“But whereas a girl of nineteen draws her confidence from a surfeit of attention, a woman of twenty-nine is nourished on subtler stuff. Desirous, she chooses her apéritifs wisely, or, content, she enjoys the caviare of potential power. Happily she does not seem, in either case, to anticipate the subsequent years when her insight will often be blurred by panic, by the fear of stopping or the fear of going on. But on the landings of nineteen or twenty-nine she is pretty sure that there are no bears in the hall.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night

i always feel old, i always feel young

I realize that part of the reason I've felt weird lately is because in many ways, I feel like this cycle of my life is coming to an end. 4 years of high school, 4 years of college, 4 years of real life, which i guess would make this my senior spring of grown-up life. But there's no graduation, no obvious next step, so I'm kind of at a loss. I wish someone would just tell me what my next steps were supposed to be.

Watching the Pudding with Rach was weird. The progression of my relationship with theater/comedy/etc. in high school/college/real life is basically feel insecure/admiring/bitter for 3 years, finally figure out a way to be part of the stuff in the last year, finally get the guy, and then after some awesome production, end up moving on, attempting to go back and visit, and realizing that stuff moves on, things stay the same, and you're not part of it anymore. In real life though, the hierarchies are more vague. There's no set time at which the old guard is forced to graduate and move on to the next stage of their life. People move to LA or get their big break, but the timing's much more unpredictable and you could spend 20 years hoping things change and finding you've stayed in exactly the same place.

In college, they groom you to care about traditions, to pass the torch on and be proud of the next wave. It's kind of a miracle that things could stay so similar when there's someone new in charge of an organization every year-- that not only can CityStep, the Pudding, the Crimson, and the Lampoon continue to exist but can so consistently have the same mindset, mentality, language and culture with an entirely new group of people. The Pudding is extremely committed to tradition to the point of formula. It's bizarre to watch a group of 19-year-olds that you've never met step into the shoes of their predecessors so flawlessly-- when you watch the show, you can see which character Peter Dodd and John Blickstead would have played and I'm sure someone 10 years ago felt the same way about some alumnus before my time.

On a different note, on the first warm day of 2012, I bought a pair of plastic pink sunglasses and a Ten Ren bubble tea, took out a book and walked. I felt like I was 13, 16, 19, and 22 again. So I guess it's nice that some things still make me happy a decade later.

Calling and not calling my name

A couple days ago, I attended the Moth StorySlam. For those of you who don't know, the Moth StorySlam is basically an extremely well-attended open mic for storytellers. It was my fifth time and the first time the producer recognized me and said, "You putting your name in the hat?" I thought this was a good sign. You put your name in the hat, and then immediately before each story is told, they call out the next storyteller.

The next morning, I had to go to grand jury duty. I had postponed twice and so it was the third time I heard the rules of their lottery system. You could say "serve," which meant if you were picked to serve, you had to serve, or you could say "application," meaning you were asking to postpone again. I had seen some people say "serve" and then not have their name picked, although they never tell you exactly how many slots there are or how many people are must-serves, so you don't really know your exact chances. All the "serve" people's names go into a big Bingo machine and the warden pulls out names one at a time until the juries are filled up. They don't even give you a chance to say, "I'm a racist" or "I don't believe in the judicial system because I think most people are too stupid to understand basic concepts of legality and ethics."

In both instances, I was filled with anxiety. Like Hunger Games level anxiety. With each name called, I knew my chances of being called were less likely. But my body still tensed up each time a name was drawn, and I still willed my name to be called in the first case and not called in the second. Every time they called out a name starting with S or Sa, my heartbeat quickened and I was sure it was me. It felt excruciating. And in both cases, I was unlucky. I did not get to tell my story and I was picked for jury duty.

In the end, neither of these things turned out to be monumentally important. 6 months from now, I probably won't miss these two weeks of work or bemoan the fact that that story remains untold. But during those moments, the anxiety of the lottery system and the element of chance really affected me. I read a study a while ago when they put in those NYC subway electronic alerts that tell you how far away your train is, that said that people's well-being was drastically improved just by knowing how far away the train is. Even if your wait is exactly the same length of time, you feel better knowing it will be 10 minutes than thinking there's a chance of it being 1 minute and then having it be 10 minutes.

I know I would have felt better in both cases not having believed that there was a chance things would go my way. If I had just gotten a letter saying I was definitely serving or if I was told at the beginning of the show exactly who the storytellers were. I was the kid in class who was always whining to the teacher, "But that's unfair." I wanted merit/effort/my pure and good heart/how annoying it was to listen to me whine to have an effect. A lottery system is probably the most "fair" system there is, but I would rather the system not be so publicly visible as a giant wheel where names were pulled out one at a time, leaving you to wonder, moment by moment, whether fate will spare you this time. The knowledge that through luck alone, someone else got the reward I was equally likely to get but unlucky enough not to receive always makes me feel deprived and frustrated. You might think I would feel deprived no matter what. But the time spent listening to other people's stories, the time in jury duty, those things don't bother me as much as the moments where I could see someone looking at a name and I didn't yet know whether it was mine.

my childhood plans

As for me...
My profession would be: food critic/Broadway actress
My wife/husband would be: (the late) QT from 2gether
My car would be: a Porsche
My home would be: Club Med
My best friend would be: this girl from Cirque du Soleil who I was obsessed with
My backyard would have: an outdoor stage
All my dinners would include: salmon skin and green apple sour straws
My kids would be named: Lydia, Mac and Adrienne Jade

via Pleated-Jeans

via Mike Mitchell

I'm not sure I'll ever get past this point.

so true

Via Andrei Esca

automatic parks and rec re-blog

ohmajeez adorbsable!!!! but where's lil retta and lil jerry gurgich?? (not to mention lil lil sebastian)

holy schnikies

This is the modern day equivalent of that series of Swingers messages he leaves on her answering machine. Ugggggh cringe inducing.

Gossip Girl visits the UCB

via Nate Dern

I like how they make it seem like improvisers are completely unable to go off-script and would be made crazy uncomfortable by being forced to improvise.

Also, I haven't watched the last 2 seasons of Gossip Girl, but the idea that someone would write a novelized version of their life and change people's code names from things like Chuck Bass to Charlie Trout seems extremely sophomoric. In fact, it reminds me of being in 10th grade (sophomore year? sophomoric? get it??) and writing a fictionalized version of the Starbucks Club with Rachel. Our characters' names were things like Spyder (Ryder), Pamzi (Ramzi) and Mondhya (Sandhya) and Katie's boyfriend in it was in a band called Nightmare Avenue. Then again, I guess these actors are supposed to be in high school, right? I always forget because they still look like they're 10 years older than me and my friends.

an invention worth having

there are some times in my life when i really could have used this...



via HappyPlace

via Pleated Jeans

that's ambition

via Failblog

Happy Valentine's Day

credit: Jon Defreest

automatic re-blog: my two favorite people

once you were just griff on boy meets world and janis ian from mean girls...



from Vulture

Also, which of those guys is Jon Heder? Both?

dream journal

Last night I dreamt that we were on this kind of Hunter alumni field trip. The alumni reps for our grade were Greg, Alex, Ben and James [LAST NAMES REDACTED but suffice it to say they were not nice to me in high school]. And we were walking with Ben and I said something kind of snarky under my breath about how it was dumb that those four guys were supposed to represent our whole class, that just b/c they were popular didn't mean everyone liked them. And Ben made fun of me to the whole group and was like "Being popular means you have the most friends, so actually it does mean everyone likes you." And I said "Whatever, Rachel and Yoko and I love each other more than any other friends could love each other, so fuck you."

So you know, apparently I still care about that bullshit. I don't think I've used the word "popular" in that context or thought about those people in like 5 years (thank God). But the bottom line is more that I LOVE MY BEST FRIENDS.

stop making me love you more

love this more than most things

adam brody on the set of lovelace

even with that creepy '70s moustache, you still make my top 5.

Breaking Bad Audition Tape - Anna Gunn

slight spoiler alert if you haven't watched breaking bad



love this but hate her as a character so much. like I can almost hear the director being like "Can you be a little more like the most heinous concept of a wife ever created? you know how women are, always like smoking while pregnant, fucking their bosses and generally giving dudes a hard time for being dudes."

go to I Heart Chaos for more Breaking Bad audition tapes.

i usually use hiiiiii more than heyyyyy but i am always guilty of including way more letters in salutations than are needed.

via Failblog

another person i am

via Julia Segal

a plausible theory

via I Heart Chaos

Things I just figured out about me and the Internet while at work at 8:30pm

-Apparently, I still have an OK Cupid profile. It says I live in Boston. So I guess I made it when I was in college. I can't figure out how to log into it to delete it though.
-My livejournal's still online. There's only like 5 posts in it. Short-lived blog.
-I still write pretty much the same way I always have... besides the short time where I used to say weird azn slang. I still act, think, feel the same way I did when I was 19, 15, 12. I still have the same problems, neuroses, bullshit. WHEN DOES IT END?!?

the office is empty and i'm starving. but i still would feel weird about playing minesweeper here in case the cleaning crew walks by and judges me.

i can feel myself turning into this person

via Cat Vs. Human

via No Hetero

Love these *ding ding ding*

Check Out Some Breaking Bad–Themed Valentine’s Day Cards

this isn't happiness™

  “Idiot. You wouldn’t have this problem if you had killed yourself after the prom like I told you to.
- Andy Richter, talking to himself on Andy Richter Rules The Universe

Re-watching the 30 Rock pilot

It's weird when you watch a show from the beginning and then it suddenly goes into syndication and you get to re-see Chandler's original floppy haircut and how young and pudgy Michael Cera used to be. After a while, when a show's been in syndication for a while, you become accustomed to every possible version of the show. But at the beginning it's kind of jarring. How young the youngest kid in a sitcom family used to be, how '90s they used to dress. It's also weird working in TV now and knowing how much work goes into just the pilot, so much more analysis and worry and rounds of notes than any episode after that. So re-seeing a pilot is a different experience for me now.

Some thoughts on how 30 Rock has changed since this first ep:
-It's way more realistic, way less out there. It actually seems like a semi-serious critique of the TV business. Which makes it all the more surprising that it managed to stand out past Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which at the time looked like it was going to crush 30 Rock and be the next big show.
-The voice of the show seems completely different. There's none of those flash-tos, which seem like they came out of improv's revolving doors (down to the way those scenes are edited). It feels more like a mainstream sitcom.
- Jack doesn't have any quippy jabs that perfectly convey his point of view. He's just kind of an anonymous boss.
-Tracy is way more likable. Crazy but not the level of crazy he is now. He doesn't say weird babylike things.
-The set and concept of the show seem more like SNL.
-Tina Fey wears less makeup. Also Tracy seems way thinner.

Personally, I like 30 Rock a lot, and I guess the show has found its voice in its creation of an absurdist world where anything could and does happen and Margaret Cho plays Kim Jong Il. But I also miss some of the realness of that first season. The characters seemed more real and worth rooting for. There must be a way to have both.

Things in the cultural zeitgeist I formed an opinion on in 2011:
The Help
The Hunger Games
Words with Friends
American Horror Story
Dylan McDermott's butt
2 Broke Girls
Spottify
Netflix Instant
Homeland
Drake
Community getting shelved
Rachel Maddow
New Year's Eve
Michelle Bachman
Grizzly Bear

Things I still don't have an opinion on:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Tim Tebow
Lana Del Rey
Oprah leaving
Regis leaving
The Wire
Turntable
Friday Night Lights
Selena Gomez
"Countdown" by Beyonce
grizzly bears

2011: The Year I Became a Cat Lady

What I remember about the beginning of 2011:
My apartment was cold. Really fucking cold. We didn't realize that we had heat because Barry was away on tour and had stored all his stuff in his closet and we weren't going to go through his closet and apparently that's where the controls to the heat were. So we suffered through the winter, wrapped in blankets, watching Jeopardy and eating Plump Dumpling. I spent three days working on a shoot for free and it was freezing. There was one day very early in January where I found out that I had gotten a job I really wanted and also worked on 50 First Jokes 2011 and I remember thinking that was the happiest day of my life. I got fired from that job like a month later, but that's another story.

The point is I'm pretty sure when I look back on my life I will think of this year as a year of great change. January-March, I will always remember as being miserable, freezing, really really hard months of my life where the shit hit the fan a few too many times and I was sure I was just an unlucky person. Then we got our apartment, I got my current job, we got our cats all in the span of the next two or three months. Between the job I got fired from and my current job, I met with some really amazing people who do really cool stuff in comedy and I'm so grateful to them that they took the time to meet with me, let me shadow them on shoots, gave me work to do, kept in touch via e-mail, etc. I did taxes by myself. Jake assembled a TV stand from Ikea and I set up Netflix Instant. I signed myself up for health insurance from my new job. At the end of the year, I sent out Xmas cards with a photo of my cats. That's who I am now, I guess. And even though I still don't feel like an adult yet and I still don't know what I want to do with my life, I feel 175 times closer to where I want to be than I did at the beginning of 2011. At the end of 50 First Jokes 2012, I thought about going home to my warm apartment with my warm cats. The vet said their normal body temperature is closer to 101 degrees and that's why they feel so warm to us.



I never, ever thought I would be here. I used to think of my resting state, and the happiest I could be, as drunk at a bar surrounded by comedians until 3 in the morning and now I think of it as home with my cats and my boyfriend watching Parks & Rec. I don't even like writing that because I am still getting used to the idea that this is how people grow up and change and ugggghhh I don't want to be a grownup and there are still nights when I am so happy being at a bar watching comedy. But I am happy to be warmer now. What a fucking year. Here's to 2012!