here there and everywhere.

hArD rEtUrN. i am back in the city, back at work, back to my studio, back to my life, but far from back to normal. not that i really even know what normal is, or think it applies to me. but whatever. i'm here but part of me is elsewhere. i feel a little scattered and unanchored and like i'm sleepwalking. as though i am just an observer on the outside, not really a part of all that is going on around me. perhaps that sensation will fade away over the next couple of days, or perhaps it will stay with me as long as my mom is sick. time will tell...

the trip home was brief, a bit of a whirlwind. in the end i barely felt like i had gotten through the front door and was turning around again to go back to new york. and, yet, at many times during those brief 60 hours, i was amazed at how much we were accomplishing and how much time there seemed to be. the passage of time is slippery and elusive, especially when it comes to family and illness. one on hand, it is slipping through our fingers, too fine and too quickly to get a grasp on, blink and 2 days have gone by, emails and calls still to be composed and made, people to be informed, errands still to be run, preparations still to be undertaken...and, on the other hand, meandering leisurely and slowly like that obnoxious woman in front of you on the sidewalk who is taking her sweet old time, all the while zigging and zagging at every moment you try to get around her to move ahead at the pace you need and desire to go, blocking your way. there is much to do, perhaps too much to do, this week in order to be ready for 30 days of radiation therapy, but, still, it feels like it will be impossible to sit tight and wait another week for them to begin. we still have to wait 6 days for the "dry run" and then another 3 for the first treatment and then 30 for the conclusion. to be on the other side of the radiation, and, hopefully, on the other side of this cancer. and i say we and that is ridiculous. it is my mom, my poor mom, who has to undergo all of this. i am essentially a concerned bystander. and, so, from afar, i will wait and count the days - until treatment begins, until i can go home again, until this is over...and i will be here. and i will be there. and i will be everywhere and nowhere.

we are tied to the ocean. and when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.

pHoToS oF hOmE.

for whatever we lose, like a you or a me, it's always ourselves we find in the sea.

hOmEwaRd bOuNd. these days i feel like a frustrated child being constantly reprimanded and learning the hard way, at every turn falling down or breaking something or being admonished or corrected. most of these lessons i thought i knew, or should know by now, and yet...
careful what you wish for. i will, after much longing and much complaining, in fact, get to go home to the ocean. but not on terms or for reasons i would like. i will see the ocean and breathe in its salt air and synch my breath to its rhythms and hope that it can help to calm my troubled soul. but i will only get to do this because my mom has cancer, a spot in the back of her throat and a larger mass in a lymph node. and so i go home to care and grieve and worry and hope and heal and help. to prepare her for radiation and surgery and feeding tubes. to hold her and be held by her and try to not ever have to let go. to hurl my hurt and rage and fear against the massive atlantic.
i keep hearing sally field's voice in my head, that line from the funeral scene of steel magnolias, when she says she could run all the way to texas and back but her baby never could. and then she loses it. i am learning the same lesson. it does not matter what i do. it does not matter how strong i am, how strong i try to make myself, how healthy i try to be, it cannot save those i love, it cannot change what they have gone through, what they are going through, what they will go through. and i know that when i take care of myself, when i step into that bikram studio every day, i do it to try to heal and atone for unhealthy things i have done to myself and to keep myself protected from my genetic disposition to things like heart disease and cancer, but i also think part of myself is trying in futility to make up for the fact that for no good reason at all my father's heart gave out on him when he was only 41. and that here my mom is, not even 60, and battling cancer for the second time. and it is not fair.

yes, that man on the mat next to you is who you think it is.

sWeAt iS sWeAt iS sWeAt. if a celebrity is not a major celebrity and looks a little bit rougher and chunkier in real life than he does on film or in photographs, is it still knee-weakening exciting to lie in savasana next to him? judging by the reaction of many of the other ladies practicing at my bikram studio, the answer to that question is YES. holy crap the giddy excitement this guy's presence at the studio brought to the ladies locker room.

if i can - you can!

bAd aD. have you seen these interboro ads that are plastered all over the subways? you know, "if i can-you can!" "i am indira and i am interboro." this morning i rode the L train face to face with indira acosta's interboro tale of success. lucky me.

first of all, it's both amusing and awful, that whole "if i can do this, you can" angle they take. no, really, i'm absolutely worthless, i can barely read or write, okay, fine, who am i kidding? i can't read or write, i dropped out of school in the second grade, i've been dealing drugs and selling my body to pay my rent for the last five years, i have attention deficit disorder and can't sit still long enough to have a coherent conversation, let alone follow a lecture, i already have 3 kids and a boyfriend who beats me, especially when i make any attempt to better myself, and perhaps some of the beatings i took from my stepdad as a kid have left me with some mental incapacities, but i can get a degree from interboro, so that leaves you no excuse.

and i love that part in their little about me section of their testimonial when they claim "i'm just like you." i'm sorry, actually, no, you're not. you're telling me you didn't graduate high school and haven't gotten your GED and are finding it hard to get a job without one. you're working 60 hours a week and finding it hard to get ahead? indira, honey, get in line. but, you know what? i did graduate from high school. and college. summa cum laude, as a matter of fact. my problem is that i have a degree in theatre and live in a society where it doesn't pay to be artistic and art is undervalued and underfunded, so it forces young artists like myself to also take on other jobs in order to feed, clothe and house ourselves, all the while trying to find time, opportunity, money and energy enough to pursue our art. on the side. as though it is a hobby and not a way of life. all of which causes a constant battle to retain sanity and inspiration and hope and pushes us to the brink of burnout and desperation. so, no, indira, you're not just like me, as it turns out. but good luck at interboro, i think i'll pass.

so bad it's good.

pIaNo mAn. i have a love for things that are so horrendous that they are both funny and brilliant. like wesley willis, for instance. on the L train tonight i found such a talent. i did not catch his name, unforunately, so, for now, he will remain anonymous. but he was equipped with a keyboard and filled the time between songs aimlessly wandering around the train car in a half-hearted attempt to collect money, supposedly for therapy, cracking terrible jokes in a sequence of poorly rehearsed non-sequitors. his singing defies description, so blatantly bad that it had most of the passengers in hysterics, and at one point in a billy joel song he literally howled like a dog. when he disembarked the train at bedford, he announced, "this is my stop. now don't you go talking about me when i get off the train." seriously, this man was the most entertaining thing i have seen in months and i can only hope our paths cross again.

waiting to exhale.

fAsHiOn fRenZy. to all the ladies and manorexics of new york, you can finally take a deep breath, stop sucking it in, and eat dinner - fashion week is coming to a close. if you paid attention and are blessed with long term memory, then you will know what to expect paris hilton to be wearing next spring. if not, then you're lucky.

fashion week in general seemed a little uneventful this year. the list of spotted celebrities seemed a bit lame. paris and nicky. paris and nicky. paris and nicky. posh spice. are you kidding me? posh spice shouldn't be making headlines. making a rare public appearance, winona ryder attended the marc jacobs show, no doubt doing a little homework before her next "help yourself" shopping spree at saks. i mean, a girl's gotta know what's worth stealing. and good for her for going right to the source.

wait. i missed it...

sUdDenLy sEpTeMbEr. is halfway over. how did this happen? seriously, how has the passage of time been eluding me so much this past year? i feel as though i blink and months go by. which only serves to add to my constant sense that i am behind or falling behind or will never catch up (depending on how pessimistic i am on a particular day).

for me, this past year and the passage of time is marked in terms of yoga. assuming things keep going as they have been and the next time i think about what day it is we will be into the month of october, on october 8th i will find myself having practiced bikram yoga 361 out of 365 days. which is an accomplishment that i don't really see as an accomplishment or give enough thought to, it has just become a way of life and i tend to brush it off as such. people, mostly other students or workstudy at the studio, like to check in and ask "are you still coming every day?" yes. "since when again?" since october. and then i clam up and shut off and let their reaction bounce right off of me. i don't want attention for it. i don't want praise. i just want to be better. and healthier. and stronger. and the fact of the matter is that i am striving towards those goals every time i walk into that room and do the series and it is a practice and those are goals and they are always something ahead of me that i am reaching for yet never quite grasping. because if i got them why would i need to pursue them any longer? and, i'll be honest, many days they seem so unbelievably far away and i feel like such a clumsy, weak, inflexible novice who should be ashamed that stepping into that room and doing all of those postures (i have yet to allow myself to sit out for a set of anything) day in and day out has not made me a better yogi with a more impressive practice.

but, anyway, i digress...yoga and the passage of time this year. yes, i remember where i was headed. for a while, time went by in months for me, each time i hit the end of another 30 days was a marker. then i hit my 4th and 5th consecutive months of practice and it started getting blurry, thoughts like "wow i think i really will do 6 months of bikram every day" and "can you imagine if i kept this up all year? ha! that would be impossible" started entering my head and i think my perception of time started shifting to embrace them. it had to stop being about taking it 30 days at a time. and next thing you know it had been longer than 6 months. and next thing you know it is almost a year. and clearly i just have no perception of time any more. things are moving too quickly or i am not paying attention, or maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. on sunday we will have our final performance of the deepest play ever. summer is essentially over and it already feels like autumn around the city. and i am totally blown away by these things.

it doesn't matter what you call it.

cAmeL tOe. in describing their curved relaxed short, lululemon athletica has come up with the most creative way i have seen to avoid saying "buy our shorts, they won't give you a camel toe":

"crotch gusseted to avoid cutting the body in 1/2"

you lost me at the line that reached all the way back to the door.

tRaItoR jOe. i understand that what i am about to say is tantamount to blasphemy to many new yorkers, some of my best friends included, but, seriously, i don't understand the hype about trader joes. i actually don't care how cheap anything is because at some point your time and sanity starts to factor into the value equation and all of a sudden 40 cents doesn't seem like a whole hell of a lot. honestly, i went in there today at 1:00pm with two castmates and let's just say 2/3 of us didn't even make it to the check out line. it is that crowded. people everywhere. everyone confused or angry or both. lines inexplicably wrapping around the store, down the aisles, crossing one another, blocking paths, making the items on the shelves inaccessible to the other shoppers. no piece of food or slight discount is worth that aggravation. within moments i felt myself near a panic attack. i haven't witnessed that much frenzy in a grocery store since the championships on supermarket sweep. and those people went home with big prize money. we foolish new yorkers are just going home with some trail mix and organic cereal. and their meager produce department where you can only buy in bulk - what the f*** is that about? i want an apple, thank you, not an entire tote bag of them. i am one person, i don't need a few pounds of them, just a single apple, a simple single apple, how is that so much to ask? i don't know, even if they brought in some designers and figured out a way to lay out their space so their checkout lines didn't overwhelm the entire store and every other shopper in it, i don't know that i could shop at a place where you have to buy your apples by the bag.

does this post make me look fat?

sLim pIcKinGs. between the influx of nyu undergrads and all the models, celebrities, and fashionistas descending on the city for fashion week, new york is like one giant eating disorder. to barf or to starve, that is the question.

the deepest play ever: the catharsis of pathos re-opens on saturday.

4 mOrE sHoWs. the deepest play ever starts its 4 show extension on saturday. have you gotten your tickets yet?

collaborationtown, a theatre company and fringenyc encores present
the deepest play ever: the catharsis of pathos
the hypothetical theatre at the 14th street y
344 east 14th street

saturday, september 8th @ 4:00pm
saturday, september 8th @ 9:30pm
monday, september 11th @ 8:30pm
sunday, september 17th @ 9:30pm

for tickets: www.ticketcentral.com
for info: www.deepestplayever.blogspot.com or www.fringenyc-encores.com

a bitch on wheels.

sChWiNn bReEzE. i got a bike yesterday. i love my bike. if you want to find me, i'll be on my bike.