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A Week of Whoops: How a Clumsy Girl Fares in the Big Apple Without Her Mommy

Posted on by Emma Unedited

Hello world. So if you keep up with me on social media you might notice some pictures of me in the Big Apple. That’s probably due to the fact that I was, indeed, in New York City for Spring Break. Lit, right? Well. No.

Well, actually, yes.

It was a super fun trip and I absolutely love NYC every time I go. However, this blog isn’t about all of the things that go as planned in my life–that would be LAME and far too short… This blog is about all of the crazy and inconvenient things that happen to yours truly. So without further adieu, here are a few of the moments that epitomize why my mom made me start a blog.

1.) So if you’ve ever gone to NYC with a theater kid, you’ll know that we tend to get exceptionally excited and more often than not exit the plane like this….Sound of Music

It’s a thing.

Anyways, my friend Cassie and I get off the plane, hop onto the ever so classy NYC Airporter bus, and make our way to Grand Central Station. (If you are a basic white girl, you will know that Grand Central Station plays a large role in the FIRST EVER episode of Gossip Girl. So you can imagine we were pretty stoked.)

After a 30 minute bus ride we hopped off and busted through the doors. In our excitement, we ran to the spot where Serena first stood (because, duh) and snapped a pic while embracing the beauty and chaos constantly flowing through the building.

Then, however, disaster struck. We realized that we had made a grave mistake.

We

forgot

our

suitcase

on

the

bus. (see gif below for reaction)

nooo

Yep…

This suitcase had all of our stuff in it–clothes, toiletries, coats, and my 250 dollar pair of LaDuca character shoes (cue the theater kid gasp). We were screwed. However, in our childlike innocence, we ran around for about a half hour trying to catch the bus at its next stop. Nothing.

But then, a miracle happened.

I saw something green out of the corner of my eye.

The one.

The only.

The shimmering, beautiful….

NYC AIRPORTER BUS.

I ran as fast as I could across the busy streets of the concrete jungle and found out that it wasn’t our bus….

HAHA.

BUT THENNNNNNNN, a nice man named Brandon (shout out to you, B) told us that our bus was coming back around. He called into headquarters, located our bus and had the bus driver come back and give us our bag. Wow. Thank. You. God. (and also Brandon). Solid start to our trip….

2.) After a solid week of sightseeing, I got to the airport early for my return flight to try and avoid any unexpected mishaps (continue reading to see why this is ironic). I told myself I would get through security, grab a snack, and read my book until I boarded. And that all went according to plan! Yay! I got through security, took a quick bathroom break to avoid the yucky airport pottys, and sat down at gate B6.

Then however, I couldn’t find my phone.

Of course.

So I asked the lady next to me to call my phone number. She proceeded to say yes and convince me that New Yorkers are not mean people like everyone thinks they are. Thanks lady. I now believe you.

However, I still couldn’t find my phone. So I got up to go retrace my steps.

As I stood up to walk toward the bathroom, my foot got caught in the strap of my duffle bag and I fell for what felt like an eternity. Flat onto my face. In the middle of gate B6.

Literally why does this happen to me.

My tumble had my jacket thrown out in front of me, my foot still in my duffle bag, and my water bottle on the other side of the seating area at some poor old man’s feet.

Pure class, my friends.

I stood up as gracefully as humanly possible and looked for a ditch to hop into until Jesus returned. Unfortunately, LGA is bereft of any such thing.

Things couldn’t get any worse.

Or could they?

3.) Just when I thought losing my dignity was enough for one day, I realized that I still couldn’t find my phone. I went into the bathroom stall and it wasn’t there. I looked at the book store and it wasn’t there. I went all the way back to security and it wasn’t there either.

I decided it would probably be best to embrace defeat and go crawl in a hole and die. Before accepting my fate, however, I saw a man with cleaning supplies walk out of the men’s room. I asked him if he had cleaned the women’s restroom lately and if he had found a phone. He nodded and pulled my phone out of his back pocket.

YAS YAS YAS.

YAs

I thanked him over and over again to which he replied “bano” and laughed.

I don’t speak spanish so I was like okay, you sweet man, I don’t know what you’re saying and I can’t say that I really care because you returned my phone and for that I am eternally grateful.

I went back to the scene of the tumble from earlier and sat down. Right as my pride started to slowly repair itself, the lady next to me said “Oh are you the girl whose phone they fished out of the toilet?”

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…

Oh. no.

Oh. no.

OH. NO.

I was then informed that earlier–probably as I was falling onto my face in front of the entire airport–my phone was taking a nice bath in an LGA toilet bowl.

Yum.

She told me she was waiting in line and saw the man fish it out and put it in his pocket.

Bano means toilet in Spanish, friends–you learn something new every day.

Perfect.

In the end, when I tell people these things they think i’m exaggerating. I’m not. I’m just a girl trying to make it in this world and clearly not doing a very good job. I’m cursed with clumsiness and poor sports abilities except when the goal is a good ole’ airport bano.

So yeah.

Anyways, If you need to get ahold of me, send an email. Or a fax. Or talk to me in person. And stay tuned to see if the rice trick actually works.

Xoxo,

Emma

A Song of Weeping: When My Tears Feel Ignored

Posted on by Emma Unedited

I like to consider myself a pretty positive “glass half full” kinda gal. Aside from the occasional explosion of built up sadness resulting from an age old insecurity or the playing of the Holiday classic “Christmas Shoes,” my every day life consists of pretty level emotions. I think….

This quality of level headedness has served me well and allowed me to get through most weeks unscathed.  However, this Monday my emotions apparently felt ignored and decided to make themselves known with an extravagant entrance and absolutely no warning.

So I’m in my Monday voice lesson, working on all of my material for my Jury (a Jury is what they call our final in this class). And as I’m singing my first piece, my accompanist stops playing and says, “Could you breathe before you sing?”

My brain heard exactly that, “Could you breathe before you sing?” But APPARENTLY my emotions translated this simple statement as, “You are the worst singer in the entire world, you will never succeed in this business, and you are also fat and smelly.” 

In my mind, I knew he wanted me to breathe more visibly so that he could follow my singing accordingly.

But in my heart, he wanted me to stop breathing altogether so that I would drop dead and quit stealing air from those who are worthy of sweet sweet existence.

So I start the song over. But before I could even get to the chorus I feel something bubbling up in my throat. The emotions. The tears. The horror.

Oh. no.

And then before I knew it, one single cry escaped from my being and I was sobbing. Literally. Uncontrollably. Sobbing. Like picture the Big Bang, and then change it to a personification of tears, and you’ve got a pretty accurate description of me on Monday.

And anyone who knows me knows that once it begins, it doesn’t stop. The nature of my crying is like the thought of demon possession before going to sleep–once you invite those thoughts in you can’t get rid of them…and the more you tell yourself, This isn’t real, the more you find yourself thinking, This is it. This is the night i’m going to be possessed by the devil.

And the worst part is that both my voice coach and my accompanist are men, so they could only console me with their words. So just imagine me, standing in the middle of this room, face in my hands, sobbing, and having two grown men repeating, “It’s going to be okay” over and over again while remaining at the appropriate physical distance.

Bless it.

 

I think I made things worse because I kept telling them that I had no reason to cry. I literally didn’t. This semester has been wonderful. But all I could think was….

Why am I crying? 

Why am I wearing this outfit?

Why do they call this final a “jury” if my voice teacher keeps telling me the point isn’t to judge me? Isn’t a jury by definition designed to judge someone?

Ugh.

So anyways, I finally stopped crying. Thank God. And (surprise, surprise) my voice lesson ended early. I guess the moral of this story is to confront your emotions so they don’t hate you and make themselves known at the absolute worst of times.

Like John Lennon said, “The one thing you can’t hide is when you cripple inside.”

You speak to my soul, Mr. Lennon.

Xoxo,

Emma

Still Not Over It: The Day My Self Confidence Actually Died

Posted on by Emma Unedited

As mentioned in other blogs, I am currently pursuing a major in Musical Theater. In one of my acting classes recently, we have been doing a lot of character development work–exploring the physical and mental effects of allowing a character to truly become a part of you. One exercise we did was performing a common nursery rhyme as if we were an animal.

I was given an elephant, so my movements were large and my voice was low. My friend Cassidy was given a snail, so she curled up on the ground and spoke slowly. We discussed the essence of each animal and what distinguished characteristics allowed for development in their character.

At the end of that exercise, my teacher said that each person possesses certain qualities that make them like some type of animal. She then asked all of us to talk amongst ourselves and figure out which animal we were.

Ironically my friend Kat was labeled a cat. Like her name, she possesses a subtle mysterious and feline nature: so this made sense to me. My friend Bailey was labeled as a panther because of her  confidence and attention catching presence.

“What did my classmates label me?” You may be wondering. Well, after virtually no discussion whatsoever, my classmates decided that I was a monkey.

And not just any monkey. I guess one of my classmates must have noticed the look of genuine hopelessness on my face and tried to alleviate the situation by clarifying….

“Not just any monkey!” she said.

“One of those red monkeys you see at the zoo! (I guess she wanted me to ignore the fact that she was SAYING I LOOKED LIKE A MONKEY by bringing me back to some fond memories I had at the zoo as a child…)

So at this point I actually start to tear up because I’m hormonal  but also because IM JUST GIRL ALREADY STRUGGLING WITH WOMANHOOD AND THE MEANING OF LIFE AND THE POTENTIAL OF DYING ALONE AND NOW MY CLASSMATES TELL ME THAT I LOOK LIKE A RED MONKEY.

So naturally I google this “red monkey” and this is the first photo that pops up.


awwwwwwwwwwwdkdjkwdjjswhsjhdhhAHHHHHHHHHHHWWHHATT

Im not sure if my classmates noticed my misty eyes but I suspect that they did due to the fact that they changed their answer to a golden-doodle (which in my opinion is more accurate considering they have the smarts of a poodle and the fun-loving nature of a golden retriever).

I’m smart and fun, right?

Ugh. So that is my tragic tail.

I mean tale.

(Ew sorry I had to.)

So just remember, ladies. When you get a wicked zit or put on a few pounds, at least no one told you that you look like a monkey.

Oh sorry excuse me…a red monkey.

No one told you that you looked like a red monkey…the ugliest of all monkeys.

No one used your face as evidence for the claim that we did, in fact, descend from primates.

I hope you feel better about yourselves now.

Xoxo,

Emma