Leslie Marie Collins

So, I feel good that 2011 is over and 2012 is starting up.  Seems like 2011 was another year that I felt a little stalled in life.  Just sitting in idle at a traffic stop.  But I think someone nudged me through the light in late summer and now I am driving, with a little more momentum each day.  I still have the habit of sitting on my hands all day, so I never get things done, but this year… that’s gonna change!  It has to change!   I am saying that out loud.  This is the year I do what I am gonna say I do.  I’m gonna be loud about it!  

Things I did this last year that were good for me…

Teaching…

I started teaching this last year which was really eye opening for me.  Now I have to know my game because people expect me to be good at what I teach.  I had to find my confident side and actually say I know what I am talking about.  The confidence was in there, but it sure took a lot to get me to bone up and get aggressive.  I feel like maybe I got more aggressive when I was super comfortable with who I was playing with.  Now, I am still working on the aggressiveness when I don’t know my fellow players well.  It has nothing to do with who I play with, just me… so I am still fishing though how to not care and just be myself onstage all the time.  

So, I feel far more confident starting out this year, as far as improv goes.  I feel like I do know about improv.  I thought I didn’t understand it all for a long time and I just got lucky when I’d have good scenes, but I think I do know what I am doing.  Not all the time but more than I used to.  I may not always make good decisions when I play, but after all that teaching and coaching, I can definitely analyze scene work from the back line better. That’s been an amazing part of teaching… it made me a stronger player… I think… there’s the confidence thing again.  Seeing my classes graduate and be hilariously funny was icing on the cake.  They were doing it!!!  They improvised and I taught them how!  That was so cool. 

I started performing musical improv…

I starting performing on a house team at the PIT over the summer and really had no idea of how to do musical improv.  It was frustrating to not know the basics when many other people did.  I also hadn’t taken a class in anything anywhere but the PIT, so I took a class at the Magnet and LOVED it.  Musical improv was a perfect fit for me.  Still learning a ton and can’t wait to take my level two this winter.  I made some new friends too!  It puts all that musical theater career I used to have together with all this improv stuff I do now.  It’s awesome.  I think if you quit learning, you quit.  I like learning new things and this has been one of the coolest new things to learn how to do.  I am an addict now.

I started online dating…

It’s certainly not perfect and there sure are some total weirdos out there, but it was worth it.  I might be considered a weirdo to someone else too, who knows?  Someone did send me a photo of his junk which was oddly intriguing yet offensive at the same time.  He looked completely normal to start out with too, so I got past that “don’t judge a book by it’s cover/profile pic.”  But anyway, internet dating helped me meet a really nice man and gave me lots of material to write about. Dating is funny.  I also figured out that I was given the gift of gab by my mother and even if I didn’t like someone, I could always talk to them and usually have a good time… except the Italian gentleman who only wanted to talk about Fiats.  But whatever, it wasn’t horrible and in the end, I learned a lot about Fiats that I didn’t know before.   We’ll see!  

I started doing yoga…

I love it.  Love it. Love it.  I just wish I could do a class everyday.  I started talking a Vinyasa class at the LIC YMCA with this groovy teacher who always has wonderful chants and mantras to recite in the beginning and the end of class.  She plays great music and leads a pretty awesome class.  That 5 minutes at the end of class is the most relaxed I have ever felt.  I take the class for that 5 minutes of total relaxation.  Also, the quieting of my mind throughout the class is awesome.  

I started being OK with aging…

It’s happening and this year I saw it even more.  Not entirely happy about it but surprisingly, I don’t think I obsess about it.  I kind of accept the fact that beauty fades and we all can’t be 25 forever.  I got smarter with my age and I think that’s more important than beauty in the end.  Wit is way more attractive than beauty.  I know this because really gorgeous model type people I know are not usually funny. *Disclaimer, I know very few models but the ones I met are boring… pretty but boring.  Plus, I am surrounded by some friends who are my age and older who look awesome with a little gray in their hair and their beards.  These people (who are all about my age or slightly older) are so good at stuff.  Sounds vague, but it’s true.  They all have these other passions like playing the guitar, drawing, cooking or writing that they have been working on for a long time.  They also just know more about everything because they’ve been around long enough to experience it.  But I also know this pack of late 30s to 60 yr olds are all big kids at heart and that’s why I love them.  I feel like I’m in good company.  They are wearing age very well and if they can do it, so can I.

I got lucky enough to finally get a manager…

His name is Rick and he’s my personal cheerleader.  He’s awesome in many ways, but for once I had someone see me do what I do best, believe in me and then introduce me to some big players in show business.  He certainly doesn’t sugarcoat anything for me though and I guess that helped thicken my skin a little (which I needed).  But it was such a sweet moment, maybe one of the top five, to go to a meeting and have someone know who I was before I walked through the door.  I spent a lot of years walking in a room with no confidence and waiting for someone to tell me they’d heard enough of my song.  I had been beaten down by the audition process and all I ever wanted was for someone to remember me.  But most of the time, I was just a number and that’s what beat me down and I quit.  But, to do my solo show and have someone see what I wrote and performed and then believe in me enough to help take me to the next level, was one of the highlights of my career.  He believes in me and this guy is legit!

So, all in all that was 2011.  I can’t say there was much happening before the summer time, probably because I was just stalling.  But this year is different.  Mainly for one reason, and I’m saying it out loud.  I am gonna be me.  That’s it.  It’s not like I’ve been walking around as someone else or anything but I always had a wall up.  I wanted to be everything to everyone.  So, in a nutshell, I’m gonna stop that.  I realize that people get hired for just being themselves right and left.  Those people are successful because they know how to walk into a room and just be OK with themselves.  So, this year, I’m not gonna try to be perfect for everyone or be something I think someone wants to see… I’m just gonna find the real me and be it and be OK with me.  I feel that with the momentum of 2011, I’m ready for 2012!  

People always say “life is funny sometimes,” but what does it really mean?  I think today is a perfect day that describes that feeling.  Not a particularly good day, but a day nonetheless.  It wasn’t funny, it was unsettling.   Just when I think my life is going in one direction full steam ahead, I am wrong.  Life throws me a curve ball.  Well actually, I threw the curveball and it hit someone in the nuts and now I feel horrible about it.  I would give a million dollars to go back in time and correct the mistakes I made.  But, I can’t do that.  So all I can do is learn from them and hope that I don’t throw any more shitty balls at anyone’s nuts.  I hurt someone’s feelings horribly and no amount of forgiveness will rectify the situation.  It happened and the words I said can’t be erased.  I know that it isn’t easy to forgive, but I am getting better at it.  I’ve had to work on it.  Maybe through laughter, I have gotten better over the years.  Usually 5 days does it.   I wish other people would try to forgive, but I guess I can’t dictate what everyone else does.  I wish I could see that “life is funny sometimes” and maybe in a few weeks, I’ll have some perspective and see that this was all funny.  I like the phrase “time heals everything.” But today, it doesn’t feel that way.  It sucks.  Sorry for my vague and weird blog.  It’s just where I am right now… 

I needed an oil change, a very over due oil change.  I had waited about 1000 miles too long to do it.  At this point, I was just putting it off.  I fall into the category (mostly women) of people who don’t know anything about cars or motorcycles.  I know this is pathetic because I pride myself on learning new things in life.  Just going out there and learning something new every day.  And why can’t I know how to change a tire or change my oil?  I am a woman, but that won’t stop me!  Unless, I don’t care… which is the case.  I just don’t care for anything automotive related.  The Jiffy Lube guys have taken advantage of that fact for years.  I don’t know anything about filters.  So, I always just buy whatever filter they suggest… just because I don’t know better and don’t care.  I probably have more filters than my cars ever needed.  

So, I was putting it off because I knew what they would say.  I had looked at my oil and it was black.  So, it is kind of like going to the dentist and having to hear them tell you how you haven’t been flossing.   I just didn’t want to hear it or feel bad for mistreating my scooter.   I also didn’t have 2 hours to spare.  That’s how long it took last time because…

I go to a unique motorcycle shop run by a short, beefy man named “D” and his friend “Al”.  The shop is tucked away off of Northern Blvd.  Hard to find, but if you have a chinese scooter, this is the guy that will fix it.  That’s what all the bike shops say.  Last time I went to get an oil change I left 3 hours later.  I had spent my afternoon watching rodeo videos on a desktop computer and talking about Texas.  That’s where I am from and coincidentally where “D” is from.  His has pictures from all his rodeos on the wall.  Ya know, because he lives in Jersey and rodeos every weekend with “Al”.  It was kind of fun to talk with another Texan (because we are weird like that) but after hour 2, I was exhausted.  He’s a great guy but has the “gift of gab,” as my mother would say.  AND, I wasn’t sure if he would chastise me for not coming in sooner with my black oil.  

It’s a funny dynamic in there.  Al is kind of a mousey #2 man to D.  He runs the paper work part of the operation (literally, just a receipt pad with chicken scratch words scribbled on the back).  D always thinks Al is doing everything wrong though.  He’s not doing anything wrong, but that’s just their relationship.  D runs the show.  Great friends but D runs the show at the rodeo and the shop.  D rides the horses and Al saddles ‘em up, D fixes motorcycles and Al writes receipts.  Al is from New Jersey and looks like your average Jr. High band teacher.   D wears muscle shirts, tight jeans and cowboy boots.  There are a couple of other neighborhood men who hang out at the shop too.    I don’t think they ride, they just like to hang in the shop.  Last time, there was a very old guy who sat in a metal folding chair.  D had him run errands like, “go get us some bottled water Fred.”  I sense that D knows everyone in the neighborhood because he is always waving at people on the sidewalk and saying random things like “Hey, did you ever get that siding done?”   So, I think that’s how they come to just hang in the shop.  

Well anyway, I pull up to the shop and D comes running out and says, “Hey, I got a stunt job over at Kaufman Astoria studios.”  I am still sitting on my bike.  He knows I am an actress and I guess remembered my red scooter.  Apparently, he brought in his rodeo horses for the day and walked them around an arena for a shot and they paid him $500 for it.”  I congratulated him on being back in the business.  I got off my bike and he continues to tell me about the experience for another 10 minutes on the sidewalk.  I finally wedge in the reason why I am there.  And he says OK. (no judgment, I love this guy) It might take a bit, but he can do it.  Thank God for no judgment!

Well, he leads me into the shop to see more rodeo videos and new website designs.  Today though, inside the shop is a new grumpy old man.  Probably only 55 but his unpleasant attitude made him out to be about 85.  As D was left me after chatting for 1 minutes, he goes back to work on another bike before mine could be worked on. Al steps outside to talk to someone on the sidewalk about a sale of a motorcycle.  I was then left alone with the grumpy man.  His elbows were folded over his enormous belly.  I avoided eye contact as long as possible, but I knew that just two people in such a small shop couldn’t avoid conversation for too long, especially when one of the people was a woman.  He wanted to talk to me and I could sense it.  I sensed this man hadn’t talked to a woman since Vietnam.  So, I waited… I waited… waited… and then he looked at me with a sour frown and barked out, “Yeah, yeah.  You all think you are ALL healthy”.  I said, “pardon me?” He replied, “What do you eat, salads?  You think you are healthy, right?”  ”Ummm, yes.  I guess I eat what I like but I try to eat salads as much as poss-“.  He then got down right angry “YOU THINK YOU ARE EATING ORGANIC?  HA!!!!”  I was dumbfounded at this point.  ”Yeah, yeah.  You don’t know if there was DDT IN THAT SOIL BEFORE, DO YOU?”  I said, “Ummm, I guess not.  But it’s better tha-” “YOU EAT OLIVE OIL, RIGHT?”  ”Ummm, yes.” “Well watch out, because it ALL COMES FROM CHINA!!!!!”   I tried to disengage after that.  We sat in silence for a good 5 minutes after that.  I wondered, was this the first time he had talked to a woman in years?  Perhaps he just forgot how?  Perhaps he will go home later and regret it and think, “I really was trying today but it just didn’t come out the way I planned.”  I felt for him.  After that I left the shop and returned 2 hours later to find my bike not done yet.  But that was OK because I knew it wouldn’t be.  I sat there and talked to D from the other room while the grump sat there staring at me silently.  I guess it’s all worth it in the end though.  My oil is clean, the system is was flushed out, new brake pads and she’s running smooth again.  Now, if I could just give the grump some advice on smooth conversation… 

Life this week has been crazy busy.  I can hardly keep up with showering and brushing my teeth.  I always do shower and brush, but I’ll admit that brushing my teeth has always been something that I hate doing, I mean I do it… I am just annoyed at giving up those 2 minutes of my life.  I know I am in the minority on this one though.  I’ve been like that since I was an eight year old.  I would go to incredible lengths to avoid brushing my teeth.  To the point that my mother wanted to see the brush and make sure it was wet and smell my breath for proof.  I would, of course, just wet the brush and then put a dollop of toothpaste on my tongue to fool her.  It worked most times, but I still wonder “why did I fought it so hard?”  Would have been easier to just brush.  I just didn’t want to brush.  Well after a while, I figured you had to brush if you wanted to kiss boys, so I added it into my routine.  I know people who say, “I can’t get enough of brushing my teeth, so I brush 3 times daily and after all major meals.”   I am not in that camp.  I am sorry that I have disgusted you readers now.  I promise I’m not gross.  I brush my teeth 2 times a day and sometimes in-between when I have eaten onions/garlic.  And I do love getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist.  I am super regular about going to the dentist.  I love the feel of my teeth after a cleaning.  So, in a nutshell… I love clean teeth but I am just lazy and hate doing it myself.

Anyway, today I had no time to do anything.  I ran around town and did all sorts of things finding no time to do laundry.  So, I did something today that I never have before… I dropped it off.  I was nervous about it.  But today I just went ahead and did it.  My overwhelming fear of panty judgement was mostly the problem.  I always blamed it on the cost, but in actuality, it was all about my panties.  Will someone else judge me?  What state are they in?  Will the lady curse at me for making her wash such disgusting panties?  Well, today I put judgment aside and dropped it off with an apologetic face and hoped for the best.  My worst fear was that she would say, “Ya know honey, maybe it is time to retire some of those panties.”   Well, I picked up my clothes tonight and opened the bag when I got home.  It was like Christmas!  It was like unwrapping the most wonderful present!!!  All of my clothes were perfectly folded.  They were categorized.  Just perfect.  I could just pick each stack up and put it in a drawer so perfectly.  And my panties were wrapped up so cute.  Even if she judged me, she never let me know.  She took such care to perfectly fold my panties.  Ya know, made me believe that I have some more life in those panties before I throw them out.  Anyway, I think dropping off my laundry is my new drug.  I couldn’t get over how everything smelled and how beautiful the stacks of clothing were. So if you see me feeling good in my clothes, you’ll know it is because I have some clean, perfectly folded panties on!  Here’s a picture of my pretty panty stacks!  Enjoy.  Prepare to be mesmerized!!!!

Today, I woke up with a dryness in my mouth that indicated to me, “ugh… am I getting sick again?” I fought off the plague last week and I thought it was coming back.  I think in the end, it was just dry in my room.  Plus, I have also started sleeping with my eyes open apparently.  My eye doctor said, “you know, you don’t fully close your eyes when you try to close your eyes.  That probably explains why your eyes are always dry in the morning.”  So, dry throat and dry eyes make for a rough sunday morning start.  But I got up, lubed up my eyeballs, walked the dog, made some lunch (cause I usually sleep in until after normal breakfast time is over) and then headed to the internet cafe to print off something because my printer isn’t compatible with my new computer.  WHY????  I get so mad thinking about how a printer can be such a pain in the ass because it won’t work with my beautiful new mac.  I have saved this thing from all kinds of tragedies.  I found a pen, a credit card and a sand dollar all in this printer.  Nursed it back to health and she worked great until I got my new computer.  Now, she’s just being straight up bitchy.  I downloaded a new driver but I apparently that doesn’t work unless I write some new computer code and clean up my disk utility to get the new driver to work.  For someone who is computer stupid, that task is harder than throwing her out the window. So, I think I’m gonna throw her out the window and then buy a new one.  But will my next printer be as temperamental as the last?  I don’t know.  I just don’t know.  

SO, YES, I taught my Level One at the PIT today.  Such a sweet and lovable class.  I am looking forward to teaching them and can’t wait to see where these guys go.  THEN, the real fun began when I started my Level One musical improv class at the Magnet.  I had so much fun.  I have done some musical improv, but it felt so good to just beat into my brain what exactly an opening song is.  I knew what it was and could feel it, but it was awesome to just spell it out.  I have always been a slow learner (SAT/ACT scores indicate I might be dumb, like really dumb ass stupid) and sometimes you have to bash me over the head with the info. for me to get anything.  And that we did.  By the end of class, everyone was doing successful opening numbers.  It was such a long way from the beginning of class… just 3 hours later, a huge success.  It felt good.  So, in a nutshell… Sunday was good.  Sunday was fun!

Nice day for scootering around town.  Not much traffic due to the holiday which makes scootering so much more fun.  The streets were all clear and so you can just coast! Didn’t have to wear a jacket either.  Super bonus.

So I came home tonight to my main squeeze, Hugo, and after not eating much all day, we shared some chips and hummus.  Hugo mostly just gums it.  But he seems to like hummus.  He likes anything really, but something about the sound of a bag of chips brings him darting into the kitchen every time around.  Just hoping for one chip, maybe with a little hummus on it.  He behaves so well when I am eating.  Sits there like a little soldier waiting at my feet for a chip to fall.  After I finish snacking, he’s over me though.  I feel like a used woman.  But that’s just our relationship.  I’m OK with it.

Spent part of my day in tech for my show on Thursday.  My director is wonderful and if one were to picture him, I’d say he looks kind of like Santa but gay.  So a gay Santa.   He’s just been so supportive and always there for me.  It’s nice to have people just believe in you.  He’s one of them.  The other one is Beowulf, my tech guy.  He’s been running the lights and sound for my show for 5 years now.  He recently just changed his name to Beowulf.  I accidentally called him by his old name once and he didn’t like it, so now I just go with it and try as hard as I can to call him Beowulf.  He’s kind of like a disheveled, long haired, sweet young guy that (I believe) just loves my show.  He always makes a priority to work on my show and says he still gets choked up watching it.  I just imagine him up in the booth pushing buttons and crying.  Anyway, these are two people that help me do what I love to do.  Both so unique and wonderful.

I did some teaching today with an actress who is just gifted in the character department. It’s always fun to watch someone blossom into wonderful and rich characters. She just gets it and as a teacher, I love that!

After that, I shared drinks with a snarky scottish man.  Snarky in a good way.  Ya know, with a great sense of humor.  When I first walked up to him, he began sweating uncontrollably. He seemed so distressed that he was sweating profusely that we just talked about his sweating awkwardly for the first 5 to 10 minutes.  Then the sweating stopped and we were able to move on to other topics.  He apologized over and over again for his sweatiness for the next 2 hours, which I found even more charming and hilarious.  I just started doing this internet dating thing, so I have found out that some are winners, some are losers and sometimes you get a pleasant surprise.  This week seems to be my international week of dating and I have been pleasantly surprised.  I can talk to anyone anywhere ( I come by it honestly from my mother) so it is kind of fun to just sit down with someone that you have nothing in common with and then just fish your way through an evening of conversation.  It can be interesting for sure. 

Hugo’s big eyes are staring at me to come to bed or maybe that’s just his way of saying, “I want more hummus and chips bitch!” So I am off!

This is my new blog about me and my brain.  Ya know, what I think about as I commute back and forth into the city every day on my Buddy 125 from Queens.  When you don’t have any music to listen to, the brain storms and what you get is crazy stories and observations of the world.  

Today was about happiness.  I berp-sneezed after eating dinner on the couch this evening.  I laughed at myself and then thought, “I wonder if my roommate and his girlfriend heard that from the other room because I don’t know if I should pass it off as a loud weird beep or screwed up sneeze?”  I happened to be watching an old episode of Benson on Antenna TV at the time (which is a channel that just shows old sitcoms to the people of the world that decided to give up cable 2 years ago and only have 5 channels now).  This episode was a serious one.  One of the characters was dying and on her deathbed. Robert Guillaume was comforting her as she died.  Before she passed out and the heart monitor beeped, she said… “All you have is happiness.”  Meaning, that’s all you can take with you to the grave.  I don’t know if that’s true, but I like the idea of dying and living an entire life of being happy.  I like that.  Happiness is success.   

Other happy things that happened to me today…

1) It was perfect riding weather on my scooter.

2) I put one ear plug in while driving in and heard “Renegade” by Styx.  It made my commute into the city feel a little bit more bad ass today.

3) I went to the Campbell Apartment at Grand Central and had a girly cocktail and talked to an Italian man named Guido.

4) I put on my roller blades and let Hugo pull me around the neighborhood.  I’m not so good at stopping, so every time he wanted to pee on a tree I nearly fell down.  I didn’t though.  He loved the exercise!