I’ve been back on the Home Coast for a few days, watching my big sister pretty much win at life. I could not be more proud. I cried when she walked across the stage at the Beacon Theater, and then I cried less than twelve hours later when she ran up the ramp to the finish line on the Coney Island Boardwalk. She is brilliant, warm, inspiring, a total weirdo, and I am so lucky to have her. Also her weekend of triumph provided fodder for a really self-depricating Venn diagram, which is the only kind of Venn diagram I like.

1. There really are only 24 hours in a day and I have to spend at least a few of them asleep.

2. I must wash shirts before I iron them.

3. My parents and older sister are brilliant.

4. It is amazing what one can achieve with a well-crafted and witty email. But keep it brief because nobody has time for anything ever.

5. Cupcakes aren’t dinner.

6. Five-second crying breaks are healthy and normal and fine and impossible to prevent and triggered by oh so many things both good and bad.

7. I love Chicago.

8. Ask for what you want. Be polite and appreciative, but just ask. People will respond positively way more often than you think they will, and being told no is SO NOT A BIG DEAL AT ALL OH MY GOD.

9. Charlie and Emmaline are brilliant.

10. I still have no idea what I’m doing with my life, but that’s become exciting rather than terrifying.

11. My go-to response when someone asks me for an interesting fact about myself is “I wear men’s deoderant.” I literally cannot think of anything else when put on the spot.

12. Coffee isn’t sleep.

13. Do not commit to something if you sense, even for an instant, that you realistically cannot do it. Seriously. You will frustrate everyone. Nobody has time for anything ever.

14. Friendly people are amazing. Cynical people are terrible.

15. Diets aren’t real.

- J.D. Salinger, Zooey

I always know I’m too busy when I start losing things. As naturally scatter-brained as I’ve always been (my mother recently asked me, while witnessing me struggle to send emails, paint my nails, eat pretzels, and watch a movie all at once, if I have ADD. That’s a great question, I thought. I feel like maybe we should have addressed this sooner.) it is very unlike me to permanently misplace important objects. Sure, my checkbook may become engulfed by a pile of floorndry (clean laundry that somehow travels straight from the dryer to the floor and is therefore not really clean anymore but I’m too lazy to wash it again), but when it comes time to pay rent, I’ll certainly be able to locate and excavate it. When my schedule is dangerously overloaded, I lose things for good. The other day, I answered the phone while getting off the bus, and ended up leaving the script and score for the musical I’m about to open on the seat. I didn’t get upset with myself or panic or even whine. I just thought, you’re officially at capacity, Sharavsky. Get it together.

 My version of Getting it Together always involves rereading all my favorite Salinger. As I mentioned, I have absolutely no time to do this. I’m doing it anyway, because though it does nothing to de-clutter my schedule, it does seem to de-clutter my mind.

That brings me to the above quote, which I think will always be, to me, one of the most beautifully apt statements about human behavior ever written.

Having read Zooey more times than I’d care to admit (now that I’m a twentysomething woman, surrounded by people who have read - for both academic purposes and pleasure - authors whose names I can only vaguely place and styles I cannot place at all, and carrying a tiny, rainbow-cornered, spine “creased with love” paperback around in my purse no longer makes me feel like the quirky girl at parties. I hate the Real World.), I still wince when someone asks me “What’s it about?” The ensuing conversation is always the same. I struggle determinedly to find an engaging way to present the events of the story, end up discussing Bessie Glass’ hairnet, and my listener cuts me off with a polite nod and a dispassionate, “Cool. I  mean, I liked Catcher, so I should probably read it sometime.”

What I desperately want to say but somehow never manage to is that in Zooey, Salinger masterfully captures human idiosyncratic behavior (especially when it involves a cigarette) and places it brilliantly and delicately within the story. His characters are never just having a conversation; they are always simultaneously fussing with snow globes, or adjusting hairnets, or unwrapping tubes of toothpaste, or petting fidgety cats. Salinger never adds information about how his characters are feeling as they perform these actions, he just simply and matter-of-factly states, between the beats of dialogue, what everyone is doing.

I LOVE that, so much, because we all understand, on such a beautifully visceral level, the need to occupy our minds and hands before having the hardest conversation. We bite our nails, take down our hair just to put it back up again, and find it terribly important to remove a stray thread from the carpet before saying what we absolutely  must say, but would rather never mention.

And BALLAST. What a perfect word. Ballast! According to Merriam Webster, “a heavy substance placed in such a way as to improve stability and control (as of the draft of a ship or the buoyancy of a balloon or submarine)” Zooey doesn’t need to smoke, he just needs to have a cigar in his hand in order to carry on living. I certainly don’t need to drink coffee. At this point, the caffeine does absolutely nothing for my constantly sleep-deprived brain. But my goodness, do I ever need that stupid to-go cup. It’s my daily anchor. Feeling my fingers around that warm, brown cardboard heat sleeve is the only way I can be sure my feet will keeping hitting the pavement as I run to catch the bus. Otherwise I’m certain I’d fly up into the air, far away from the far too many things I’ve committed myself to this month, and become very much misplaced.

The girl next to me on the plane was reading a giant, old-looking book that I naturally assumed was The Complete Works of Shakespeare, and just as I thought we were about to giddily discuss our favorite speeches and sonnets and become best friends/a two-woman classical text performance troupe, I realized she was, in fact, reading The Bible. I suppose some people do consider that to be “The Complete Works,” but I just don’t find Jesus to be a particularly romantic lover or a whimsically bawdy enough clown. It’s a matter of personal taste, I suppose.

And by that I mean Public Displays of Acoustic guitar.

As I walked past Walgreen’s today on my way to the bus, I overheard a guy sing the lyrics “When your mind is feelin’ fine, take a ride on Lakeshore Drive.” I wish I was making this up, but I’m really not that funny.

I might join him tomorrow and drum on a coffee can to “Please get off my street, You’re making my brain upset.”

The website for the show is now up!

http://www.liberalartsthemusical.com/

It’s so cool and impressive. I’m always in awe when people my age can do stuff like this with computers. All I’ve learned in my 22 years is how to make an obnoxious powerpoint and which sticky foods will make my keyboard look gross. Also, if you can’t tell, my character is the snarky loner who wears big scarves to hide her feelings. It’s been a real stretch.

Until about 5 days ago, I had never actually listened to a podcast (I know, I know, even people who live under rocks can listen to things. I have absolutely no excuse, and you can stare at me in disbelief/disgust for a full 30 seconds next time you see me). Like any good, healthy narcissist, the first podcast I ever listened to was also the first podcast I ever helped record. Three of my fellow pursuers of Chicago comedy and I were guests on the delightful Somebody and Me Podcast to plug “March Sadness: Springtime in Chicago” at Second City’s de Maat Theatre. Dylan and I are acting in the show, and Liam and Jack are two of the writers.

It was a great time. Pat and Rob are awesome, we all spent an unnecessary amount of time discussing the fact that I wear men’s deodorant (it works better! women’s deodorant is a powdery, potpourri scented joke! there are dozens of us! DOZENS!), and I still hate the sound of my own voice despite how much I ramble on about nothing. It “aired” (is that what you say? do radios even still exist? is this thing on? where am I? Is the war over? are you my nurse?) last Friday, and here’s the link:

http://somebodyandme.com/podcast/episode-56-march-sadness

Check it out! Apologies in advance for singing so loudly during our big cast finale: a rousing rendition of “Hero” by Enrique Iglesias. That was super obnoxious of me, but c’mon, it’s real hard not to get carried away with that song.

For reading and liking the completely nonsensical and inconsequential ramblings of my overtired brain. If my life were a Judy Blume book, I’d be Margaret, and you’d be God.

…

That came out pretty much just as weird as I was hoping it wouldn’t. Great.

ANYWAY, you’re a wonderful friend and human. I raise my irresponsibly full mug of Sunday night whiskey and root beer to you. Cheers.

- my father, to me, as I heated up a bowl of what I like to call “dessert oatmeal.” It’s just regular oatmeal. That you eat at 9pm. Before settling in to watch a romantic comedy.

I also took what I can only describe as a “truly lovely little walk” today. I sat on a bench and stared at a fountain. FOR AN HOUR. And I LOVED it.

Somebody please snag me a blackmarket Four Loko before I break my hip and start wearing plastic rain hats.

This opens tonight and runs every Friday in March! I like everyone involved an awful lot. They make me look cool and funny by association. Also look how many dimples are happening in this picture! Heartwarming.