Did I miss something?

So it's 1:30, and here I am home from work and about to put in the shortest entry ever due to my overly tired state which 30 minutes ago was very much the opposite due to some caffeine induced magic.  Tonight was the strangest deadest Thursday night ever, seriously, I made more Monday night (by a dollar) and I thought Monday was bad!  Usually Thursdays are pretty good, at least a steady amount of people coming in for drinks or whatnot, but not today.  It was strange, like I missed some huge holiday where everyone stays at home with the family or goes out of town...seriously the streets were deserted, even the ramen place that ALWAYS has a line out the door was relatively quiet, but at least I got off way earlier than expected.

Had my second audition today, again for print, and I'm not holding my breath to hear back from this one either.  Not that they took photos of my hands again or anything like that, but simply because I am not quite sure I really fit the bill for this one.  It was a Target add, and the idea was "Asian mom, real to attractive, casual" and despite my sincere efforts to embody the look of your average Asian mom...well...even I probably wouldn't pick me as a first choice in that category.  This time though, I knew how it was going to go...and it was quite a bit less of a fiasco then the last.  I did find that my posture was too good though, because the guy taking the photos was a bit annoyed at my inability to stand "less straight" which upon returning home I practiced in the mirror.  Now I know  exactly how I'll stand next time they want me to look more "casual," leg out, hand on hip, relaxed...so the audition, although perhaps not a success in the booking a job sense, was a success in the future audition, notes to self, learning department.

This was partially the cause of my current borderline delirious state of mind as it was a fairly early casting call causing me to have to get up and get ready earlier than my usual.  That mixed with a rough night's sleep and some friendly festivities with a couple pals the night before, which leads me to the next topic...

Friends.

It's funny how as we grow older things change.  I mean, it's a given that things change, that we change, but it's funny how it seems to happen so slowly and secretively so that one day you seem to wake up and think "wow, when did this happen?"  And there's no real answer either.  I used to really push against the idea of growing up, I remember at 17 thinking "this is it...this is the best year of my life, this is my youth, things will never be this good again."  Yes, I was always quite self aware, and yes, I did realize what I had when I had it.  I knew that that year, my senior year of high school, the last year before I was "officially," in legal terms at least, an adult was a year that I'd want to treasure.  I was in no real rush to grow up, leave home, I knew the bubble I lived in was a privilege and that you could never go back once you were forced out and that it was inevitable.  I loved that year, and I was right.  Things have never been the same, and rightfully so.  And now, ten years later I'm still just as introspective but it's harder now.  I forget, get caught up in life and the day to day, so every so often I take a moment to really stop and think and examine my life and the world around me as it pertains to me.  Ok, so I'm lying...I don't do it every so often, I probably do it 20x more often than most all of my peers but that doesn't lessen the shock and awe I feel every time I do it.

The last time this happened was probably a week ago now.  I was washing the dishes, looking out at my living room and it occurred to me, as if it was the first time (yet surely it was more like the 101 time), that man, I am an adult.  A full fledged, unquestionable, adult.  You're probably thinking "well no shit," I mean I'm 27, have my own apartment, pay my own bills, worry about going to the gym and my nightly regimen of night creams, I mean yeah, I know I'm an adult but theres a definite difference between knowing and really truly realizing it.  It's like knowing you have a belly button versus realizing that you have a belly button because some doctor tied a knot in the cord that used to attach you to the lining of your mom's uterus in which you received all the necessary nutrients intravenously through to create all the amazing intricate organs and systems within your body that function on their own cellular level without a single thought from you which allow you to sit there today, reading this very blog.  I think you get the point.  But being an adult is a funny thing, is it not?  I mean on the one hand you are, or at least most of us are, and all of us SHOULD be, self sufficient, self sustaining, independent and unique entities with completely complex and vastly different ways of experiencing, comprehending, and viewing the world.  On the other hand, we're all really loosing touch with what it is to be alive, what it is to be...us.

Ok, so maybe that's a bit extreme.  But I did say I was going to talk about friends, did I not?  Well last night I was blessed by the company of some of the people that somehow through the years have earned or fallen into this label and yet, I see all too rarely.  I mean these are people that I used to see or talk to on a daily basis, who I've shared countless memories with and who have been there through so many different highs and lows in my life, and I theirs.  Yet, as we get older, these are people that I never talk to or see anymore.  People who have entire different lives that I have little knowledge about, people who are really almost like strangers to me except for this shared bond formed over the years and held onto by our kindred experiences.  And here I was feeling like it was my responsibility to entertain them, to make sure they were all having a good time, that their trip out to "kick it" would be worth it, and why?  Why did I feel this self imposed pressure to show them a good time?  I mean they are my friends, the same people I used to do nothing at all important with and somehow shared the best times of my life.  It shouldn't have mattered, I shouldn't have felt like the dive bar up the street where we ended up wouldn't be fun enough because in the end, it was.  It was fun because I was there with friends, and that's the point right?  It doesn't matter what you're doing, how exciting it might look from an outside perspective, what matters is the people you surround yourself with, the ones who can turn a random trip to the neighborhood bar into a full fledged flashback to younger more carefree times...a trip to 7-11 for a beer run, board games and laughter, and end with a slumber party in the living room of my "adult" one bedroom apartment I call home.

It's funny, after how much we grow and change some things will always be the same.  Really, we haven't grown and changed as much as you think.  I mean, usually, when I'm not getting all philosophical about my life and removing myself from the moment to look at it from an outside perspective, I don't feel any different than that 17 year old who didn't want to grow up...except that I have.  But this is besides the point.  I think what I was attempting to get at is that it's too easy for us to get so caught up in our own lives and the day to day that we start loosing touch.  Loosing touch with the people around us that have meant so much to us.  Granted friendships change and friendship circles shift as we go, and it's hard to keep in touch with friends and it does take a conscious effort a lot of the times to keep those bonds strong, but it's necessary.  Every time I hang out with old friends I'm reminded of why they were so important to me in the first place and how lucky I am to have such amazing people in my life.  I've shared so much of myself with these people, memories that I will always cherish have been made with them, and they have been an instrumental part of creating who I have become.  I may miss my youth, the crazy times, the endless days of being carefree, yeah I have a lot of other things to think about now, but being around friends ensures that those times shouldn't be missed, because they are alive and well in the friendships that stay strong.

Looking around my place now I realize that it's not so different than all the other places I've called home.  I mean I'm still pretty messy...not like I was in college messy, I have grown up a little...and my friends still crash on my floor after a night out.  So here I am, at the end of a day that seems infinitely long, having written another ridiculous essay of an entry when I had promised brevity, and would you believe it, what I ended up ranting about was not really what I had initially planned on going into depth about.  But I guess that's what this blog is after all, right?  A place to pour out whatever random train of thought I decide to follow, and hopefully not confuse you in the process.  Are you still with me?  Perhaps not as I can barely keep a grasp on what it is that I want to say or have said up till now, and before the rambling becomes less and less coherent I'll end with a good night.

Life is good, and it's almost 3 am now.  Sheesh.