Back on track AND

"I am so much betterrrrrrrrrrrrr....than befoorrrrrre!!!!" (clearly singing the song from Legally Blonde, the Musical)

Perhaps not so clearly talking about the fact that

1st off: I'm back on track in terms of writing 1 extra post per month this year (if you pretend that February never happened)

And 2nd: I am SO much better than before when, in the Fall, I had what was nearly a full on panic attack when the BFF and I were killing time before a Fordham Law fundraiser and I had to try my damnedest to continue to breathe while eyeing W 56th Street from the East side of 9th Ave.

He laughed until he realized I was seriously short of having a stroke as we strolled past the laundry mat (now closed - likely because of how many batches of linens bearing bed bugs were done in their machines) where I logged a scarring amount of hours during December of 2009 and lost easily hundreds of dollars and what's more, my marbles.

But I know I am SO much better, because in the past two weeks on my long Sunday afternoon Half Marathon training runs, I've looped up 12th ave and made my way east towards 8th ave by cutting right in front of the dreaded 418 W 56th (two weeks ago on the opposite sidewalk, and this past Sunday right there on the even numbered side - of course both times with heart pounding aggressively behind my sports bra and not without staring at the ground and the various piles of trash wherein I might have been able to spot the tic sized terrorists).

So here we go, friends. Onward into April :)

Look forward to a lucky 13 entries in the four weeks to come - I have a feeling April's going to be be full of fun things to muse upon as my wall calendar's got Sister Friend Actress Writer Agent Nomad and even Princessy events noted in the days between now and May.

And what's more...I'm ending on this sunshiney singsongy note, because sure there's talk of a blizzard blowing in tomorrow and it "not being an April fool's joke," but that's nothing a little Junice can't handle. Snow (& showers & her freakish little doll hands) bring the flowers that bloom in May!

You guys wanna get some coffee?

"Sure"

"Where?"

Ohhhhh Chandler Bing....

This post is subtitled: I <3 NETFLIX.

Just cried like a kiddo at the series finale of FRIENDS.

My apartment has a purple wall in the living room and doors to the two bedrooms on either side of the wall our television is up against, so I like to think that I have effectively moved into Monica & Rachel's apartment, and I think when I next go house hunting in Manhattan it will be for a place in the Village on the corner of Bedford and Grove.

How lucky am I to have a cast of characters in my own life who are equally as humorous at those six, and how badly do I wish I got get any permutation of 6 of them to move to this city??

Maybe as I run down the side of the mid 20s hill that I'm on now I'll acquire an NYC based crew of my own that's a sitcom in the making, but if that's not in the cards I'm gonna have to go ahead and cash in on stories of yore to relive for film crews in Cali a couple years from now and call it a day...

Have I ever written about Tommy Burkley?

I tend to not use real names in the blogosphere, but I doubt that's what he goes by at his fancy finance job here in the Big Apple, and I further doubt it will get back to him that I'm sharing this story with y'all, so I think it's safe to go on.

"Go on..." says the toney voice of the impatient singular audience member I imagine I am writing for in this moment.

Tommy Burkley, in Nook Girl folklore, is notorious for being my neighbor roomie's first kiss.

Well, her first kiss on the cheek.

We told our sixth grade social studies slash homeroom teacher, Ms. Andrada, alllll about how giddifying an experince it was when he caught up to her at the busses outside of Day Middle School that fateful afternoon and planted a peck right there on her rosy cheek, causing her to smile for miles for days on end.

But before he was being all Rico Suave sixth grade playa style, and before he was the hot ticket item at the singles' table at the Nook/BC wedding we ALL went to last Summer in August (shit, I still have yet to drop off that ginormous gift I have for the now expectant newlywed couple at their 3 bedroom, 1 dog-family home in Needham, but I digress), Tommy Burkley was tormenting me weekly in our CCD class.

My Catholic nemesis from the time we first faced off for the rights to the First Reading at the Sunday Family Mass our class was going to be leading as proud/newly proficient second-grade readers, Tommy was the Mr. to my Mrs. Goody Two Shoes back in the day.

But our rivalry was all in good, clean fun until one day in the Fall of Seventh Grade when he SLAMMED me with the worst insult I'd ever received (and by this time my brother was nearing tweendom himself and lethal with taunts of his own toward me so I was fielding dastartdly digs regularly)...

"I bet you plan out the conversations you're going to have with people the night before," Tommy sassed on Sunday.

And before I could retort with an equally as dogging comeback or insult (something really good and clever like, "oh yeah, well I bet you've already started preparing homilies for when you grow up to be a Priest!!!" for example) I found myself in the worst rut I'd ever found myself...SILENCED!

I mean, I had been born with the gift of the gab, I was CONSTANTLY getting in trouble and shushed in class, at Church, during dance & singing lessons, at movie theatres, lining up for religious ed on Sundays... I talked non stop as a child. But I was speechless when he threw that one out there, because the mystery boggled my mind...

HOW DID HE KNOW???

And how humiliating.

Was it not normal to rehearse coy conversations that could come up with cute boys or ammunitional jabs with which to combat confrontational girlfriends, impressive rants to outsmart pretentious fellow students with or persistent denials of wrong doings in case probing parents came in pursuit of grounds on which to ground one on?

Didn't everyone think up things to say in potentially precarious situations? And since obviously not, was there something strange about the fact that I did loosely outline dialogue so I could carefully steer future exchanges in whatever direction best suited me?

UGH.

Shit.

Seriously he rocked my world. The nerve of him outing me in front of our class. In front of my only recent ex-bf (heartbreaking split after a field trip to the Science Museum and Planetarium...talk about puppy love, but the drama I'd felt I was living when I turned my claddah ring to face outward once more after I'd been dumped before English with Mr. Roberts one Thursday...sigh, it was rough).

Stupid Tommy saw right through me.

But.

What he saw as weirdness, I have parlayed over the years into the true skill of a productive procrastinator.

And now, as I set out to write the non-fiction book proposal that's gonna land me an agent and my lil' coming of age story told through emails a book deal in the next few months, I'm proud as anything that I've thought out the pitch I want to make for this project and slept on the way I want to converse with publishing moguls who'll need to know exactly how and to whom I want to sell this puppy.

So there Tommy Burkley.

So there.

"For people who never stop pursuing their dream, there's Mastercard"

Cue: "Speak to my heart....speak to my hear-r-r-t" (Newton North High School's Jubilee Gospell Choir's trademark song and the reaction I had to this commercial last night when I caught the final line of it on the precor machine I watched Modern Family & Mr Sunshine from at NYSC):

Look at this happy guy - breaking the mold - becoming a bonified Entrepreneur. Huzzah for him!!

And huzzah for THIS GIRL... cause who has dreams she never going to stop pursuing, ample credit on Bank of America, Chase and Capital One Mastercards of her own and two thumbs pointing excitedly at herself in this very moment??? You guessed it.

Yours truly.

Really wish my computer were more with it

Would loooooove to be listening to whatever wonderfulness this link my sorellina sent me would lead to: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/22nOme/www.8tracks.com/thegirlnamedjedrzejko/magical-disney-film-scores

And love that her promise is that it "instantly will pull you out of a funk" (she's an avid younameitnaugs.blogspot.com reader ;) obv). Magical Disney Film Scores - man, it might as well be subtitled the key to happiness.

In any case...you know when it'll be super easy for me to bounce between facebook & blog posts and to edit together listen to or watch music & videos and zipadeedoodah through my tech-loaded day???

When my new macbook gets here...

Yep. That's right.

Sercreted that ish and the boss lady's getting them for the company's reps in April.

nbd.

Muddling through March

Second day of Spring and it's dreary as the day is long mid June.

In high school March is the most brutal month to get through due to it not having any vacation days to season it, then in college February's the most treacherous stretch of schoolyear albeit succinct with its 28 (occasionally 29) days.

I've come to find that in Manhattan they're both buggers. February flies by in a New York minute but feels long due to the miserable moods everyone's in as they brave the bitter cold, and then March just drudges on. Full of hope at the onset of the month you think it will flutter by and bring Spring sooner than later, but it just doesn't.

Sigh. So my apologies for not being brighter in my March entries - which I've been called on on having failed to do two years in a row now, but I promise this Sister Friend Actress Writer Agent's spirits are high. And if I had to guess, I would say once I've filed my taxes and received my first direct deposit from a full time work schedule in over 2.5 years, I'll have reacquired the pep in my writing step.

In fact, I can even share this exciting connection made with Manhattan yesterday when I was running 8 miles around it... there's a HUGE poster on the side of the Museum of Natural History's library that reads: RENOVATIONS DONE NOVEMBER 2011 and in light of this being my priming year, I smiled for the last 2.25 mile stretch of my run at the thought of posting a similar sign on myself for the next 8 months.

Can't ya just see it?

What I learned from "Limitless"

(aka everyone's favorite Wedding Crashing Hungover douchebag Bradley Cooper's star-turn opposite the legendary DeNiro) is that given enough preparation, intelligence, time management proficiency and pill popping here in New York City, anything is possible, rising to the top is inevitable and you too can section off some of the world to own and rule.

Sweet right?

Pretty sure that makes me on track for total domination as I approach my "prime" this November, so as I sit here at my corner desk, cup of coffee in hand planning for the week ahead (which happens to be week 9 or the 18 week transformation for anyone who's wondering/following my progress as guinea pig/spokesperson for whatever mystery product it is I'll be formally endorsing come this Summer) and manifesting shit as I type if you will simply by picturing positively and with purpose the potential awesomeness in store for this Summer and beyond, I'm delighted to have opted to go downtown and braved the risk of bed bugs being brought home from the 42nd Street AMC in order to catch the 9:25 of the film when it was sold out at the Loews on the Upper East Side where I met my moviegoing buddy.

Because I didn't expect to learn anything much from my weekend, and I got that lesson from good ol' freakishly blue eyed bf of Renee Zellweiger and another one from my awesome Improv teacher.

What I learned at the post-performance dinner my class had at McMannus' Irish Pub was that if you wanna be on a sitcom, you gotta go to LA.