My Blog

The Incredible Difficulty of Standing Still

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:31:02 -0400

Every night and every matinee - without fail - I carry on a narration in my head as if I was the voiceover in my own sitcom. Now, I will - in a matter of speaking - crack open my head so you, too, can listen to the semi-crazed chatter I have heretofore voiced only to myself.

Every night, I must freeze on stage. This is a frequently-used device in my current show, The Drowsy Chaperone. The shortest “freeze” lasts about twelve seconds. The longest about 3 years. I’m kidding, of course. It only feels like three years. It’s probably closer to 3 minutes. These could very well be the three longest-feeling minutes of my life.

I began developing a strategy in rehearsal. At first, the strategy involved standing as still as possible, not blinking, and letting hot tears roll down my face as my eyes burned in a hellfire brought on by a combination of hot stage lights and cold air blasting directly into my eyes at the same time.

This would not do. So I developed a “Freeze Squint” which allows my eyes to avoid the burning tears and blink almost imperceptibly if absolutely necessary.

Problem solved! Until I realize that my body Will. Not. Freeze.

Night One. I’m frozen, my mind wanders off somewhere, and when I come to, I realize my gaze wandered from the Exit sign to the other end of the theatre. Wandering eyes BAD. Must freeze eyeballs.

The Next Night. I have proudly frozen my eyeballs. I’m fully concentrated on keeping my face perfectly still. What!? What was that?! While I was focused on my face, my right pinky and ring finger twitched and moved the bouquet I’m holding. What the....?!?!

Another Night. I’ve willed my arms, wrists, and assorted culpable fingers into submission, but somehow managed to stand in such a way that my Feet are KILLING Me. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Must move right foot slightly....

Yet Another Performance. OK, I will never stand THAT way again. I’ve accomplished the correct foot stance, the frozen face, even managed to freeze my arms in a comfortable position that doesn’t make my shoulders want to spasm. I’ve done it! Suddenly, my entire body is SWAYING! OH MY GOD. Am I about to completely lose my balance and fall on stage at a point where EVERYONE IS LOOKING AT ME?!!!

This Afternoon. Why do I produce so much drool when I stand with a frozen smile? I’m always horrified the drool will leak out of the corners of my frozen smile. At least I’ve glued my twitchy fingers to the stage airplane, thinking that will solve the hands problem until the plane decides to spend the next 3 minutes swaying back and forth, taking my hands with it. As I ponder this moving plane dilemma while trying to swallow my saliva without exterior movement, my eyeballs wander from left to right and one tooth touches my lip... Here we go again.

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Got twitchy fingers and wandering eyes? Feel free to wander over to Eileen’s entire blog: www.eileenfaxas.com/EF/Blog/Blog.html

The Drowsy Chaperone: The Reviews

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:04:13 -0400

Critical praise for Drowsy! These are excerpts from the reviews...

Talkin’ Broadway | Theatre Review by John Lariviere
Having seen two national tours of the same show, this one shines for some extraordinarily good directing.

Eileen Faxas is tops as the drunken diva, the Drowsy Chaperone. This is a great role for her to showcase her comedic ability. It is very important that the Drowsy Chaperone takes the stage in her given moments, such as on "As We Stumble Along", and Faxas really delivers.

South Florida Gay News | Review by Mary Damiano
The scene in which Aldolpho (Matt Ban) seduces the titular chaperone (Eileen Faxas) is one of the best in the show. Faxas also shows she can belt with the best of them on her anthematic “As We Stumble Along.”

EVN Magazine | Theatre Review by Ron Levitt
After you’ve seen a musical on Broadway and given it a “10,” you often expect a regional production to be awarded hopefully somewhere between a “5” and “8.” Wrong!!!! Broward Stage Door’s production of The Drowsy Chaperone definitely has earned a “10.” It is outstanding.

The Chaperone is drowsy because she doesn’t believe in Prohibition and likes to imbibe (a simply show-stopping, wonderful Eileen Faxas).

Curtain Call (live show) on WRPBITV.com
Eileen Faxas did an incredible performance as the Chaperone!

Sun Sentinel | Theatre Review by Comi Zervalis
Incredibly so, this fun-loving musical stretches its thinking cap through romantic fabric. It weaves itself between the antics of courtships to portray that the pairings of kindred souls can be ritual art.

Of particular note is the final coupling of the black-caped and matador-vested Aldolpho: a swaggering, boastful Vaudevillian boob sent by a show-biz pro to seduce former star Janet Van De Graaf (Laura Oldham) in hopes of fouling her upcoming wedding and winning her back to her career. Instead, however, Aldolpho mistakes the Drowsy Chaperone (three-time Emmy Award-winning television journalist Eileen Faxas) for Miss Van De Graaf.

But Aldolpho and Drowsy, both over-the-top exaggerations of themselves, are perfectly matched and ultimately fall in love.

Faxas fascinates with a portrayal of the Drowsy Chaperone as a character teetering between poise and debauchery...

Curtain Calls | Theatre Review by Jerry Layton
"The Drowsy Chaperone," the latest tenant at the Broward Stage Door Theatre, is an all-out, laugh yourself silly, clap yourself crazy funfest from beginning to end.

The show is written and presented in the most extreme manner for maximum hokum, mayhem and non-stop toe-tapping delight.

To round this out, there is the chaperone herself, not the least bit drowsy, but sharp, smooth and sexy.

The Chaperone (Eileen Faxas) whose job it is to see to it that he groom doesn't see the bride, has the commanding, sultry, powerful voice of the former stars who delivered anthems in shows....

MiamiArtZine.com | Theatre Review by James Cubby
This happens to be one of my favorite shows and this production was as impressive and polished as the Broadway National Tour.

Sun Sentinel | by Theatre Reviewer Bill Hirschman
When you're especially fond of an effervescent big-budget musical like "The Drowsy Chaperone," you sit in local productions holding your breath.

But you can exhale at the Broward Stage Door the moment you hear Dan Kelley's wry delivery of the line "I hate theater" and the full-throated tap-dancing cast crooning the opening numbers.

Other than last season's "A Little Night Music," this easily ranks as the best work that Stage Door has produced in years...

MiamiArtZine.com | Theatre Review by Roger Martin
There's a lot of good theatre going on around here this year, and this show is right up there at the top with its excellent direction and strong, talented cast...

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Feel free to review Eileen’s entire blog, happily living here: www.eileenfaxas.com/EF/Blog/Blog.html

A Funny Thing Happened On My Way To Grant’s Tomb

Thu, 20 May 2010 01:12:51 -0400

I am riding the 2 Train for the first time, going farther than I’ve ever gone before.

I have an entire afternoon to do with what I will, and what I will is soul food. And not just soul food. Soul food in Harlem.

Day after day, my New York Actor Life circulates around 34 blocks of Manhattan...”Audition Row”, if you will. There’s Chelsea and Pearl, Ripley-Grier and Telsey, the Equity Audition Center and that place by the old Studio 54... all the places where performers flock daily in search of The Dream in well-lit mirrored rooms.

But I want to see more than the same bright rooms and gray blocks today. I want to feed my soul. No. First, I want to feed my stomach. And I will feed it with soul food from Sylvia’s, Harlem’s soul food mecca as featured in The Food Network, assorted guidebooks, news and magazine articles, websites, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

My travel/life partner and I select a table for two of the most soulful food we can stomach: ribs, fried chicken and waffles, with a side of collard greens and baked mac and cheese. I’ve always wondered about this whole chicken and waffles business. Now I can say: I know. And what I know is good. The rib sauce is too tangy for my taste, but the chicken is juicy and the waffle is perfection. Collard greens, however, earn a permanent place on my Unacceptable Vegetable List.

Sylvia’s is good, and the service is a delight from the jovial doorman to the multi-lingual waiter, but I can’t help but think... there must be better places in the neighborhood not benefitting from the all the repeated press Sylvia’s enjoys. Or maybe I’m suspicious of groupthink. Or praise that gets too easily recycled from one medium to another by lazy researchers. Grimaldi’s Pizza in Brooklyn comes to mind. But that is another story.

The waffles make dessert unnecessary, and I plot our course to St. John the Divine, a spectacular church in a permanent state of construction for more than a hundred years.

But first, it’s Malcolm X’s birthday. And I need to cross Malcolm X Boulevard. Which happens to be occupied at the moment with Malcolm X Marchers. They are chanting “Africa!” and “Freedom!” And they’re blocking traffic and - more specifically - the bus I need.

Cut to the same scene 10 seconds later and there I am, marching the Malcolm X March (which has an excellent beat, by the way). Some may call it crossing the street in the same direction as the marchers. Others may call it marching. But really - who can tell the difference? I am marching....and suddenly, I realize I must look like a scene out of a comedy. But in all their earnest, vociferous marching, my fellow marchers take no notice. I reach the bus stop, the marchers march on, and the bus eventually breaks on through to the other side....

So after all this waffle-eating and Malcolm-marching and bus-riding, I spot our Destination (at the end of a long sidewalk...uphill.) But first - Distraction #1.

Sakura Park is this messy, vines rambling over the uneven stone wall kind of place...and it beckons to me. We postpone the church for the moment, and in the park, discover a statue of the man who wrote the famed bugle call TAPS. How about that? He is one Daniel Adams Butterfield, and besides writing that memorable little ditty, he was a General in the Union Army during the Civil War.

In a fascinating bit of artistic drama, the sculptor of his statue signed the top of the general’s head because he claimed it’s the only part of the statue the commissioning committee didn’t make him change! Da-ra-ma...!

So now we’re going to the church, but... Distraction #2! Grant’s Tomb.

Grant’s Tomb?! THE Grant’s Tomb?!?! Yes. The spectacular mausoleum/memorial honoring our nation’s 18th President and Civil War hero. The splendid structure cost $600,000 in the 1880s! It’s across the street from both Sakura Park and St. John the Divine (still awaiting my visit), and next to the Hudson River. This is some seriously prime real estate Uly scored for the afterlife.

I enter and instantly, I love this place. It is cool majesty. Regal yet modest. Grand and silent. And right now, it’s like I have it all to myself. My footsteps echo thru the lonely, marble halls. The main floor is filled with memorabilia from his life, placards detailing his accomplishments, black and photos and yellowed letters in his own hand.

I learn Ulysses S. Grant was wildly popular in his day - over a million marched in his funeral procession and the public donated the money for the memorial - but his popularity waned. (Just consider the enduring popularity of Abraham Lincoln, the president who sent Grant into battle.)

Even more fascinating? Grant lost all his money in a financial investment-turned-swindle (think 19th Century Bernie Madoff). Learning of his poor fortune, Mark Twain (Yes! THE Mark Twain!) came to the rescue, offering to publish Grant’s memoirs.

Those memoirs are now considered among the finest of their kind ever written. More poignantly, they are credited with keeping Grant alive as he suffered with throat cancer. Despite the pain of his dying days, he completed the memoirs that would secure his family’s financial future. One week later, he died.

I descend the rounded stairs into the darker lower level where Grant’s Tomb lies in a circular room. The General isn’t alone... His wife Julia lies next to him in an equally huge coffin. Busts of his best generals surround him.

But beyond what you see, there’s a feeling. You can tell the people who raised the money, the architects of the structure, the donors of the riverside land...all who made the memorial possible...loved and respected the man who lead them to victory in the Civil War, lead the Reconstruction, then lead the country. The sentiment shows. It’s in the details, like all the best proof of love.

I can linger and pore over every detail, my thirst for history awakened, but my time in Harlem grows short. And I’ve kept St. John waiting long enough.

But to be perfectly honest (as I strive to be in my writing) St. John gets shorted. By the time we pass through its spectacular doorway into its hallowed halls, we are tired, and my mind has already wandered back to my usual 34 blocks of Manhattan, focusing on an audition class I’m taking that night.

My Harlem adventure concludes, my soul fed, my stomach fed.

Train 2 takes me back to the place where I hope to go farther than I’ve ever gone before... ===========================================

This was Eileen’s final blog on this trip to New York. She’s currently back in South Florida and starring in The Drowsy Chaperone, which is also a soul-feeding adventure. Read all her adventurous writings at: ww.eileenfaxas.com/EF/Blog/Blog.html

I’m a model! --or-- How I landed a book cover and had nary a clue

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 00:35:23 -0400

I get a call a few weeks ago from a new friend of mine here in New York.
“Are you on a book cover?”
“Uh, No!”
“There’s a girl on the cover of a book here in Borders that I could swear is you!”
“I think I’d know if I was on a book cover.”

Silly, silly me.

So tonight, I run into this aforementioned friend, who promptly pulls out his phone to show me the cover of this book featuring some Faux Faxas.

Well, how about that... It. Is. ME.

There I am, on the cover of the book FOR YOUR HEART ONLY, an anthology “by amazing women with character and grace” now selling at fine booksellers everywhere in the World and on Amazon. There I am, smiling with an impish gleam in my eye, being nuzzled by some fellow who goes by the title of My Husband.

How did I unknowingly become a famous model, you ask? A Miami friend, photographer and fellow actor took my headshot. In exchange, he used the photos for his stock photography business. Anyone can buy his photos and use them for ads, magazines, websites....or Book Covers.

Despite my newfound worldwide fame, I vow to work hard to keep my customary humility and “remember the little people”. I will say “Hi” to Heidi Klum for you. And I’ll regale you with stories of my fabulous, high-flying life and the crazy things that happen behind the scenes at book cover photo shoots. This is how I roll. I am “The People’s Model”.
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Do you want to read all the blogs by supermodel Eileen Faxas? Or perhaps subscribe so as to never miss an intriguing entry? Let your fingers do the catwalking over to: www.eileenfaxas.com/EF/Blog/Blog.html

The Commute --or-- People walk like they drive

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:16:36 -0400

I am on the death march to the audition. I am trying to make my legs walk a block per minute, dodging tourists and slow walkers at every stretch. It’s ballet, you know. This stretching and tilting and quick-stepping process through the crowded morning streets of Manhattan. Usually, it’s the “death march” because of the sheer speed I try to attain without actually breaking out into a run. Today, it’s because my legs are heavy with the ache of two consecutive days of dance class... my first dance classes since... well... Let’s just say we all still thought George Michael was straight.

So I’m trying to squeeze past the slow walkers who - by some bad miracle - always manage to place themselves in such a position that makes it nearly impossible to get around them unless you are the width of a closed umbrella. How do they do that? But these people are not as bad as the weavers. They’re the ones who manage to walk diagonally on the sidewalk. These are the people I imagine do the same thing on the street. There you are - rushed - trying to drive around a slower car - and as you attempt to pass, Diagonal Driver decides he’s also going to move into the next lane....verrry slooooowly. And somehow, through the gift of telepathy, this same driver manages to guess your next maneuver and slowwwly diagonals himself in that direction as well. Then, there are the utterly clueless. Or as “we in New York” (and by that, I mean “we who’ve been here for five whole weeks”) call them: Tourists. There’s an unspoken rule here “in the big city” (a phrase no one actually uses), where you can cross the street until there’s a car/cab/truck hurtling midway through the intersection and straight towards you with no intention of stopping. But not until that near-death experience do you stop at a street to stare at the other side. So here I come, The Speedy Walker, to an intersection where the the white walking man sign has just turned into a flashing red hand sign. This is the equivalent of The Yellow Light for pedestrians. It means walk faster. But not to the four white-blonde haired tourists from... Norway? The Swedish Alps? Blondlandia? They stop. For a flashing hand! AND they block the entire sidewalk, shoulder-to-shoulder, as if they’re shooting the open to a Friends-style sitcom. The Corvette in me will have none of that, and with a take-no-prisoners-toned “Excuse me”, the wall of blondeness slightly opens and I rev past. All of which inspires the thought as I will my thighs to keep moving forward: People walk like they drive. They either speed around the slower walkers, or they walk in such a fashion that indicates they have zero awareness of their surroundings and fellow walkers, or they walk at their chosen pace, thoughtfully remaining in their imaginary lane....

Meantime, between the walking and the philosophical musings, I am becoming more and more aware of the pain in my legs. This routine 12-block walk feels about three times as long, and my thighs now feel like they weigh 40 pounds. Apiece. I seriously question my decision to bypass the subway on this post-dance morning. Then I remind myself it takes approximately three weeks to develop a habit. I pray to get past day three of my dance commitment.

I arrive at Destination Audition. This is an audition for extra credit so to speak because I’ve already attended two auditions in the last two weeks for the same show. So when they announce they won’t be seeing non-Equity members (that means me), I am not terribly disappointed. Well.... I would’ve liked an extra two hours of sleep or for someone to at least see me sing in the cute new outfit I somehow put together from the same suitcase of clothes I’ve been wearing for the last five weeks. But no.

So I head out. Only I’m not making the same mistake twice. I’m taking the subway. Me and my now-90 pound thighs. Thanks to that decision, I learn that people start envisioning themselves as younger than they actually are starting at age 25. This comes courtesy of the magazine being read by the woman two seats down from me. See how riding the subway can be educational? I remember feeling much older than I actually was from my mid-teens through my late twenties. I think I started to feel my actual age - or younger if the magazine is right - around age 29. But what am I saying? I’m only 28 now....

Time to exit the subway, and face another commuting challenge: a broken elevator. I make an increasingly anguished death climb to the sixth floor. Yes, I walk like I drive. But I climb a like a wounded moose.
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Wanna traipse at your own pace through Eileen’s eccentric blog? Maybe even subscribe? Or see the funny quote that you can’t see on Facebook? Let your fingers do the walking to: www.eileenfaxas.com/EF/Blog/Blog.html

Sometimes, I wake up heavy with my loss

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:40:13 -0500

Sometimes it’s because I have dreamt of my father, and the first feeling of the day is the intense, sorrowful and implacable sensation of missing him.
Today, it is Twotone, my little cat, the closest thing I have felt to having a baby.
And he died in my arms 4 ½ months ago. This morning, I awake with that ball of stone in my throat, weight pressing on my chest, that deep and hopeless sorrow from knowing he is completely gone from me even though I felt him in my dreams just a moment ago.
I wonder where he is.
I wonder if he is with my father.
And all over again, I wonder why my little one of the squeaky meow and the sweetness had to die.

I did not sleep well last night, whether out of anxiety over my current New York trip or because I got a headache in the middle of the night, I do not know. But I awoke at 6am after only 4 hours of sleep. I took two Excederin and climbed back in bed, hoping for more sleep, placing my stuffed cat over my eyes to block out the light. My stuffed toy cat – a Valentine’s gift from my mom – looks like my Twotone. He is the size Twotone was when I brought him home.

I love this stuffed animal.

Naturally, he is now in New York with me. Yes, I forgot to put my shampoo bottle in the suitcase, but I didn’t forget him. And the second I put him on my head, I was flooded with memories of Twotone and how he tried to sleep on my head. And across my neck. As close to me as he could possibly get. I lingered over the images of him nuzzling my face, purring in my ear, and how he woke me every morning by delicately tiptoeing up my body until he reached my face then lay there, intently looking down at me, waiting for my eyes to open. That face was my first every morning for months.

Now I have his toy doppelganger to hold. And it is bittersweet because it reminds me so of him but is not him. Nothing can replace the delightful creature that blessed my home for eight unforgettable months.

Not even his real-life doppelganger.

In January, on the day I’ve long assumed my father died, there he was…. This small, black and white kitten, so similar in appearance to Twotone I was stunned silent. Where he came from, I’ve no idea. But there he was, in my yard, and never left. He is not my Twotone of the sweetness and squeaks and midnight song, but is so like him in appearance that I remind myself daily of whom he is NOT. I do this, I suppose, because I am shielding myself. From what? From falling in love again, I guess. Or perhaps from dishonoring my one and only by emotionally replacing him with a clone. But there he is, the little impostor, living in the yard where we buried Twotone. There he is, snuggling up against my other cat, eating alongside my dog. There he is. And I know in my heart of hearts that nothing is ever a coincidence. That Twotone was born on my birthday and died precisely one year later on our birthday. That my father left Twotone for me. That a Twotone clone has appeared on the anniversary of my father’s death. That I miss Twotone and my father so deeply in my soul that sometimes, I can see them in my dreams and wake up heavy with my loss.

Just long enough

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:03:26 -0400

I am making my morning coffee and looking down at the floor where he would’ve been, tiny paws stretching up my leg, meows like squeaks, begging me to hold him. Interrupting my coffee-making routine.
I knew our time together was precious. If anything, I was hyper-aware, never able to forget our moments would be cut short someday. So, despite my impatient nature, my perma-hurry, and my primal need for caffeine, I welcomed his interruptions. In truth, I loved them.
And today, I look down at the floor and see…the floor.

Twotone was the cat who was more than a cat. He was tenderness. Consolation. Happiness. He was perplexing to me in the depth and range of emotion he touched inside of me.

I first wrote about this quivering handful of black and white fur when I brought him home from my father’s house, one week after my dad died. I wrote about Twotone when I learned he had fatal feline leukemia. I wrote of him again when he took a turn for the worse while I was away from him. But all the words didn’t capture all the thoughts. In New York, I swallowed a spoonful of panic every day, knowing Twotone was descending into his illness and that I was not with him.

But he held on. Just long enough.

I got home on Sunday, October 4th. And on Monday, October 5th, Twotone had his first birthday and his last. It was poetry. Sad a thousand times over yet beautiful and poetic. One perfect year.

As we sat in the veterinarian’s office, my throat constricting, Twotone’s throat constricting from some virulent mystery infection, a narrative began running through my head. My own voice – as if coming from the outside – telling me what I was seeing with my own eyes, as if to confirm what I did not want my brain and my heart to know.

TwoTone could not eat. Twotone could not drink. Twotone could not fight the infection. All he could do was muster every ounce of strength in his 6.5-pound body to breathe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in…

Jagged, harsh breaths, painful to hear.

He waited for me. Did he know how much I needed to see him again? Did he need to see me?

One day not long after I brought him home, I opened the door after a long day of rehearsals to find Twotone playing with a red velvet rose. This was a gift from my father from years ago. But the rose was …. open? Why was the rose open, like a box? I was confused. The rose…was a jewelry box? My mind was muddy, trying to compute. I bent down to pick up this open rose/box and inside…. a gold and diamond ring. I never saw the ring before. I saw only a rose. My father gave me this long-stemmed red velvet rose years and years ago, and never told me it held a ring inside for me. Twotone found it.

Twotone also watched television and lunged at the screen when Animal Planet was on, circling it when he couldn’t catch the antelope. He never tired of hunting the mouse on the computer screen, either. At midnight every night without fail, he sang for 15 seconds in the living room alone in the dark. He routinely slid off the bed and piano bench, rivaling Lucille Ball for physical comedy. He placed his paw on my eyes and face and I never felt a claw. He had a silent soulful meow where he lifted his head, closed his eyes and only mouthed the meow, as if feeling his words so deeply that actual sound was rendered unnecessary. He fell asleep at my husband’s feet and awoke on my chest. And he never, ever let me work alone.

Twotone was my father’s final gift to me, of unexpected joy and unspeakable comfort when I held him in my arms during days of deep grieving. And he turned into my father’s final lesson, in cherishing what he used to call “the precious present”, in that whole circle of life thing, in learning to let go when all you want to do is hold on tight. I did, however, pray for just a little more time before having to learn that last lesson. And I got it. I got just enough.

TwoTone died in my arms on October 5th, our shared birthday. He held on as long as he could, and I could not ask him for more.

Now, I make coffee and look down at the floor where he would’ve been. I go to bed, knowing he won’t wake me with a paw caressing my face. I wake up and he’s not draped over me. His eyes aren’t searching out mine. But I am grateful for the time we got. The joy of having him is greater than the sorrow of losing him. It will never feel like it was enough, and it never does, does it? But it was.
It was exactly as it was meant to be.
Just long enough.

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Thank you for reading Eileen’s blog, which lives on at EileenFaxas.com

A Very Long Walk To Be Bad

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:18:37 -0400

I have spent the day walking...
And walking.
And walking.
All day, I have walked, with a constant narrative going through my head.
Like when I walked past a sign that said I was in the People With Aids Plaza. And I wonder if Cancer Court might be near. Or Autistic Avenue. Or Lepers Lane.
This, I confess, is how I think.

I am now on some mad dash to behave like a tourist & see the essential New York City before it is time to go.
This is how I run into the People with Aids Plaza, the Pagan Pride Day Harvest Festival, and the guy playing Guantanamera on the steel drums in Battery Park.

Guantanamera. I heard it played once in Washington DC at a war monument and was moved. I am surprised to hear it here, and stop to listen until its final notes echo across the Hudson towards the Statue of Liberty. My Cuban anthem follows me wherever I roam.

I’ve yet to realize how long today’s particular roam is going to be. By noon, I’ve already had breakfast with a friend in SoHo, taken tours of not one but TWO Broadway theatres, and feel like that Army commercial where I do more before noon than most people do all day.

But the day is young, and I have one goal in mind on this day. A Sinful Goal.

On a previous trip, I’d had a slice of Ray’s Pizza. So what else is culinarily unique to this city that I should have before leaving?
Bagel? Check! And not just any bagel: An H&H Bagel.
Hot Dog? Check! From a street vendor and from Gray’s Papaya Hot Dogs. (I’m a wiener overachiever)

What else? Well, according to my research at the world-renowned institution known as “The Food Network,” there exists a Toasted Marshmallow Milkshake from an establishment called The Stand that is reportedly what your life needs in order to be truly complete.

I am about to take a very long walk to be bad.

But first, I am very very good.

I go to church. Trinity Church on Wall Street, to be precise, and I give my condolences to the spirit of Alexander Hamilton, in case he’s still hovering around his gravesite. Next to Alex, I spot a splendid monument for Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat, erected by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. A financial visionary and an engineering wizard, side by side. What would that eternal conversation sound like?

This isn’t the last of my churching. There’s a visit to St. Paul’s Chapel, which signs inform me has survived the Great Fire of 1776, the nation’s first presidential inauguration, and 9/11. I am surprised to find not so much a church as a shrine to September 11th and the days thereafter. I am disappointed to find the cemeteries around both churches closed for the day. Reading the tombs from afar, I am struck at how many babies are buried here...at how short lives could be in early America.

I run across the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and spend two hours looking at elaborate tribal dresses and art that ranges from painful and simplistic to elaborate and difficult-to-decipher.

I take a picture of Wall Street’s Bull sculpture.
I note there is no bear sculpture. But we all know there is a bear.

I walk and walk...past cafes and trash bins and Canal Street with its almost chant-like siren song “Vuitton, Vuitton, Vuitton....”

I pass shoe stores with 70% off sales, and when I enter, find myself strangely repelled by the Made in China stickers on everything. Does anyone else make anything anymore? Are they using cheap, illegal chemicals no one knows of but will one day make our ankles melt? I walk on, buying nothing.

Ah! But I do buy something. A falafel. I am biding my time until I reach E. 12th Street...site of The Sin.

Night falls before I find this street. The Stand looks like a fine place to also enjoy a hamburger and fries, but I am not here to fool around. I order the Toasted Marshmallow shake and am forced to wait a little too long. During the wait, I ponder how my falafel only cost $3.50 while my shake is costing $6.50. Cow should cost more than cow milk, in the normal order of things. Then again, I didn’t walk miles for cow. And I am not normal.

So when my cup of sin is brought to me, I do not bring it to my lips. I pull out my camera and take a picture. As the punchline goes, it’ll last longer. THEN I drink.

Oh.

My.

God.

Is that an angelic choir singing above me, or am I a guest star in an Eli Stone hallucination? (If you missed the show, you may now skip that reference and suffice it to say I’m having a religious experience.)

The damn thing actually has TWO giant toasted marshmallows (marshmalli?) glopped on top. By now, eight hours into my walk, my legs are aching, begging for rest. But GUILT has now joined the saunter. I can’t suck on this God-knows-how-many-calories-per-cup thing and sit my (widening) posterior in a subway seat. I bet Broadway stars do not eat Toasted Marshmallow shakes and their lives seem to be working out pretty nicely.

Sin and I walk on.

Past Grace Church. Past a street festival shutting down. Past closed stores and increasingly thinning crowds made up of increasingly questionable looking men.

After 15 minutes, I am reminded there is no such thing as Heaven on Earth. Because half-way through the Shake Experience - this thing I’ve lusted for since learning of its existence - I am Over It. This does not mean I stop drinking it. But I could. But I don’t. But I could.

And let’s just say eating giant toasted marshmallows isn’t exactly a graceful endeavor.... Par exemple, you never would’ve caught Grace Kelly trying to eat one, unless Grace Kelly decided to do screwball comedies. Lucille Ball! Now SHE would’ve eaten giant toasted marshmallows. Lucille Ball and Eileen Faxas, more in common than just Red #3.

As fate would have it, Guilt outlasts the Sin (and doesn’t it always) so I walk on...into the elbow-to-elbow crowds of Times Square, past the marquees of shows I long to see from their stages. I’ve auditioned for seven shows in 3 weeks. I am not successful. I am not a failure. I am, I remind myself, again, laying a foundation. I am making myself heard. I am reaching for more than I have. That I do not have it after a mere three weeks is a surprise only to my impatient nature which politely pretends to listen to reason. The adult me has to cover her up in front of company like an embarrassed parent with an unruly, sticky, marshmallow-wielding toddler.

So I walk. Past the shows going on inside and the people passing outside. I will walk into an audition tomorrow, and I will walk onto a plane a week from today. I will step into my home and back into my life, knowing the Impatient One will refuse to go. Knowing she will still be walking... up and down the streets of marquees, throwing a tantrum, yelling for me to come back.

I have walked 12 hours, a narrative running through my head. I have walked to see, to be bad, to feel good. I have walked alone, with Sin, with Guilt, with unanswered questions.

I have a way to go.

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You’ve now officially heard some of the voices in Eileen’s head. If you haven’t been scared off, feel free to let your fingers do the walking over to EileenFaxas.com & see the photos that accompany this wandering essay. Au Revoir!

NYC Day Three -OR- When is a cat more than a cat?

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 21:51:57 -0400

IIt is late afternoon on my third day in New York, and It Happens.

I spot my first high heels on the subway! One wedge, one chunky, still no stilettos, but the women get their props. Latin, I think. Of course, I think.

The beginning of Day Three finds me on the go, commuting some 45 minutes via subway and foot-power (flats for me) to my voice teacher’s apartment for preparation in anticipation of My First Broadway Audition. After all, that’s why I’m here...to audition. And I want to be über-prepared on Tuesday morning for Mary Poppins.

However, it requires a lot of focus to walk in Manhattan without slowing down for all the distractions. On the way to virtually anywhere, you inadvertently run into some famous landmark....like Carnegie Hall. And oh! There’s the Russian Tea Room, which made me question...do they really serve tea? And if so, is it different in any significant way from, say, British tea? Despite the weight of these profound questions, I make a punctual arrival at my teacher’s place.

I emerge an hour and a half later...fully prepared for next week’s auditions. I am moving and shaking on schedule. I am full of positive anticipation of the days to come. I am ready to make things happen.

Then...WHAM.

Bad news from the homefront. At home in Miami, my cat Twotone has taken a bad turn. He is suddenly ill...very ill. And for a cat already suffering with Kitty Leukemia a.k.a. “F-I-V”, his immune system is terrible, his life span a fraction of what it could have been.

Instantly, I am agonized. I’ve been gone just three days, and my cat is at death’s door? How can this be? The questions jumble through my head, one atop the other. Do I go home? Do I stay and risk never seeing my little cat again? I knew his illness would take him one day, but I’m not ready. He’s not even a year old... Cats with F-I-V can live for years. I know. I did the research.

At this point, I understand I may be losing some of you. I get that. But there is more to this story. There usually is. Any old reporter will confirm this essential truth.

To understand my inexplicably strong connection to Twotone is to know how he came to me. What he has done for me. It’s a story I never saw coming.

I am not a cat person. I am in Dog Camp. We only got our first cat (Tiggy Droubi) because our dog (Collie Crockett) wanted her. But Tiggy has always been more tolerated than beloved. Tiggy is Collie’s choice.

I did not want another. But for some reason, my father kept asking me to take Twotone. A crazy request if ever I heard one for a person sharing a one-bedroom apartment with a husband and two animals.

Over the years, my father became the Patron Saint of Hialeah’s Stray Cats. Whether he adopted them or they adopted him is a matter of debate. Whatever the truth, my formerly Dog Person patriarch had evolved into a Cat Person.

Never had he asked me to take one of his cats home. Until Twotone.

Twotone was born on my birthday. An only child born of a mother who was also born in my father’s patio. I met him as a tiny, quivering, handful of black and white fur with an eye infection. He had that adorable baby meow/squeal that’s served to conquer humanity into willing servitude for centuries. He was adorable. But I was NOT bringing him home with me and was perplexed my dad would ask. It’s not like he hasn’t seen where I live, ground zero in the epic battle over floating animal hair the size of Texas tumbleweeds.

It became a ritual. Every visit, he asked. I declined.

“Why don’t you take him home?”

“Papi, I don’t have room. Besides, Tiggy would eat him.”

Four months after Twotone was born, my father died.

Cut to the condo scene: Where I am trying to keep Tiggy from shredding Twotone to pieces, trying to keep my grief from shredding me to pieces. And this little cat does something to me. He comes to me, asking me to hold him, and I am strangely comforted. I cannot explain.

He does not behave the way I expect a cat to behave. He constantly seeks me out. Sits with me where I sit. Asks me to carry him. Embraces me in the morning and gently touches my face with his paw, gazing into my eyes. I am comforted by him, and I cannot explain.

Can a cat heal? Can he be an instrument of God? Can he teach you what you need to learn? For crying out loud, this is a relative of Garfield. Have I lost it?

Two months later, we discover Twotone has a fatal illness, passed on to him at birth by his mother. For a long moment, I am devastated. Then, something strange begins to happen inside me. I begin to see Twotone as a gift...a gift given for a limited time. I appreciate every small moment. I stop worrying when he delays my morning coffee-making ritual by requesting holding time. I know he needs me now and won’t always.

Then, I begin to understand that all of life is that: A gift for a limited time. We just choose to live life mostly unaware of its expiration date.

I conclude that, yes, Twotone is a lesson. Perhaps the last lesson my father has left me... teaching me how to let go. Teaching me to enjoy the now. That life has a beginning and an end, and this - no matter how much it tears you to shreds - is how it is supposed to be.

I understand this. I am trying to learn. But I am still not ready to let him go. Either of them.

My tears meet mercy, and we get what I need: more time. Veterinarians and medicine and constant care from my husband pull my fragile little cat back from the brink. I am grateful - perhaps a bit ashamed that I am not done learning - but grateful.

He is still with me.
And I’m learning as fast as I can.
Just not too fast.
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Thanks for reading my blog...which is living on borrowed time (and existentially, isn’t everything?) at EileenFaxas.com. Drop by anytime. Life is too short to ask for permission....

NYC Day Two: Hunting and Gathering

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 01:34:39 -0400

I am grateful for my strange, small eating habits. But that part of the story comes later. Best to start at the start.

I am hunting for TV & Film Work. So, with crumpled paper in hand listing the location of a New York talent agent, I go underground and take the 4 (relative of JLo’s famous “on the 6”) and head down to Broadway. Well, I almost take it to Broadway. The train mysteriously breaks down due to “smoke” that I can neither see nor smell, leaving me to hoof it for a few extra blocks to the office of one Stanley Kaplan. This necessitates a hurried trip to the bathroom to: dry off, reapply makeup, remove flats, insert heels, let down the hair. Girl’s gotta make a fabulous first impression, n’est pas?

I make my grand entrance and am greeted by ginormous stacks of unopened mail. The office is no bigger than an average hotel room, yet five people manage to manage hundreds of individuals (the industry term is “talent”). I’ve been invited to come in, but am still surprised at how warm and welcoming everyone is. Resumes and photos are reviewed and complimented, I give an impromptu singing audition in the middle of the office, and voila! I have hunted and gathered a TV and Film agent! Woo-Hoo! Mission accomplished. Still, I will hold off on full fledged celebrations until I book an actual TV or film gig. Law & Order. A Scorsese film. Whatever. I’m not picky.

The day is young, and I am not done hunting and gathering. I need to buy sustenance for home use, or risk quickly spending roughly the gross national product of, say, Belgium, on New York eateries. This necessitated a trip to Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s is, according to my friend Gisela who has lived here for all of three months and is allegedly “in the know”, the closest thing to a cheap supermarket in the city. It’s also like Disney World in that the lines are long and the employees are amazingly helpful and of sweet disposition.

Anyone who’s eaten with me more than once will tell you I eat rather small amounts of food and have a sizable reputation for finickiness. This meant my big shopping trip of the week would consist of peanut butter, ham, cheese, salami, oatmeal, bananas, kiwi, a bag of lettuce and one can of tuna. Oh! And I admit to one splurge item: a 5-berry cobbler pie that I brought home to devour with my friend and temporary home host.

Well, this underwhelming mother-load of food fit into one paper bag which I then had to haul a few thousand blocks by sidewalk and subway. Along with my purse. And my laptop backpack. By the time I got home, I had burned off the future calories I would ingest from the pie. At least I like to hope I did. I also like to think I developed new muscle tone, but only on the right side. The next episode of Hunting and Gathering will have to utilize my left.

So that’s how they roll here in the Big Apple. Buy no more groceries than your arm strength can bear. Make do with the small amount of space your finances can bear. Five-berry pie is better than One-berry pie. My brain is heavy with the weight of all this new knowledge gathered....

*THE FAXAS BLOG ONLY LEASES SPACE ON FACEBOOK TO BE WITH THE COOL KIDS...BUT REALLY LIVES AT ITS MOM’S PLACE: EILEENFAXAS.COM