Cute and Paranoid

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I don’t know if I’m a Tom Waits fan, to be honest. I know my guyfriends and plenty of exes reallllly like him. I should give him another shot.

These bits of an article from last Sunday’s New York Times stuck with me and I think if you’ve ever pursued anything remotely creative, they will with you, too:

“I want you to play like you’re 7 years old at a recital. I want you to play like your mom’s in the room. I want you to play like you’re miles from home, and your legs are dangling from a boxcar. Or play like your hair’s on fire. Play like you have no pants on.”

And, on his recent album which touches upon current events:

“I’m not really qualified to discuss any of these matters on a political level. I always imagine you sit at a piano with an open window, and whatever is out there will come in, pass through you and then turn into a song.”

And, the comic/writer in me especially loved this:

“There’s truths there that spiral out of what appears to be just a word game. That’s what I find mystifying about the meanings of things: they kind of unscrew themselves from the practical words.”

Indeed.

Thanks, as always, to my dad who gives me the best pieces of the Times every Sunday at dinner after mass.

Maybe It’s Time For Plan C 

is one of those articles my dad hands me wordlessly across the dinner table at the Palm after 6:00pm Sunday mass, leaving me to draw my own conclusions not only about the piece itself but about what my dad’s motives might’ve been in giving it to me. It’s a smart piece. For those of us with dayjobs we like but passions we, well, feel passionatelyabout, it’s a tough but fair read. You quit your dayjob to do your dream and your dream is tough as all hell AND you’re suddenly worried about money. Leap and the net will appear, my ass.

I can’t afford to quit my dayjob. I only recently dug myself out of the mountain of debt I’d accrued pursuing acting in my 20s. I hopped from assistant gig to assistant gig to up my salary and get (and stay) financially stable. Even now, when I know I need new headshots and want to take a screenwriting class, I know I can’t because I have a little less than a grand in debt and I want (need, let’s be honest) to shrink that back to 0. I don’t want to count on my bonus (here’s hoping I’m still getting one, you never know) to pay off the overspending of the months before.

There is that fear, though. I don’t want to wake up an old lady and still doing someone else’s expense reports. I don’t want to potentially raise a kid or two and those kids tell their friends that I’m just a secretary. That’s not okay. Even now, I know my dad, a self-made man from the Bronx, dies a little inside when he thinks about how I graduated from a good school cum laude and am totally content not remotely pursuing a corner office.

“You’re just as smart as they are, Kad. And just as educated.”

Sigh.

The last time my dad silently handed me a bit of paper? A tear-out from his church bulletin, an ad for catholicmatch.com.

“Oh Dad, I’ve tried this one,” was all I could say.

That’s right, folks. My fella and I are having a podcast, called Step Baby Maybe. 

Single Jewish Dad meets single Catholic girl. They fall in love. Is she ready to be a stepmom to a toddler when she wasn’t planning to be a mom at all? Is he ready to declare her Mrs. Right for him and his son? He’s an organic textile salesman. She’s a stand-up comic. Two thirty-somethings find common ground in the midst of baby mama drama (his), disapproving parents (hers) and one adorable little boy (also his).

It’s awfully sweet. We’ve gotten a couple of nice reviews and would love to hear your thoughts. Find us, for brand-spanking free, on iTunes

You can follow our tweets, too, @stepbabymaybe.

I am DELIGHTED to be performing an excerpt from my solo show, “Call Me,” tonight at the Purple Rep Theater Company’s Sexed Up Stories benefit. The event is from 7:00pm – 10:00pm at Gibson Guitar, which is at 421 West 54th Street. You can read all about Purple Rep here

I’m totally psyched.