Can’t sleep.

Wish I wasn’t sleeping alone tonight. Don’t know if I am lonely, or just growing, or just used to being up really friggin late now. Either way, lately I have just been wishing for consistency, for settling down a bit.

Let’s speak a little more coherently.

Ok. Wow, well a lot has happened this summer. I began the summer by graduating UMBC, I mean walking across the stage and making it all official. I mean, mentally, I graduated that place about 16 months ago. Actually, I just got my degree in the mail a couple of weeks ago in a little white tube. It still doesn’t have a frame. Following graduation, I blew most of my graduation money on a camera (which I ended up breaking), and a trip to Seattle for a week and a half to visit Anthony. I had an amazing time, one tough day, but a wonderful time and a much needed break. Being there, hanging with Ant, exploring the city alone, gave me a renewed sense of purpose and clarity.

But unfortunately I had to come home. Luckily I had plenty to do when I got here. I began rehearsals for OM, my upcoming puppetry show, and quit two jobs in the course of like a month. I headed to the NAACP Convention in DC, got to lead over 700 young black people to the halls of Capitol Hill to demand protection of their rights, met the President of the United States, introduced Dick Gregory and met a number of other celebrities (including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Lisa Raye, Hill Harper, Mario, etc etc etc), presided over a convention of 3,000 or more people (more than one time), and experienced celebrity status as random passersby recognized me and wanted to know all about me. A week or so later I managed a trip to the White House lawn to watch the signing of a bill into law. The following week I got ready for the next thing.

The next thing was more than just a footnote in the summer I had been having. The next thing was having my play performed in the first annual Capital Fringe Festival in Washington DC. It made (I found out today) almost 1700 dollars in 5 performances (mostly weekdays). It got some great audience feedback, a couple of serious groupies, a weird not-so-hot review, and one really great shout out from someone who actually read the press release I wrote. I took everyday of my fringe festival week to go to DC, out my blood sweat and tears into getting people to see my show. If nothing else, the fringe festival for me was the test of my endurance as an artist. It said to me, “No matter what it takes, if you love it enough, you can make it happen”. That is inspiring.

After the fringe, I had to get a new job (which I did), get a new thing to keep me busy (the upcoming show and a dance team coaching job), and take a nap (which I did). In between all that, I got a tittle drunk (a tittle which is between a tad and a little), spoiled at least one friendship, and tried to make at least one new friend (which didn’t really happen, I don’t think).

So anyway, it’s a surprise I can’t sleep. Just hashing all that out made me hella tired. But still there is this feeling that there is much left yet undone (which there definitely is). For example, I already said it: I don’t want to sleep alone tonight. However, really the issue is that I don’t want to sleep alone for many more nights ever. I know that there is much undone in that department. And yea, I put blood sweat and tears into getting people to see a show I wrote, but what about a show I am in? I want to perform, I always have, I still do. I will. Much undone. I did sign up for this class at the Shakespeare Theatre I am definitely looking forward to....

Anyway it all boils down to this. I know now what I love. I do not know exactly how to get it. I do know I want it and I can see it and feel it all around me and down inside and behind me propelling me forward. Welcome to life as a twenty something, Welcome to life after easy.

Now to bed.

Hey! I started this new blog so I could save some of my favorite writing and pictures, and to share some of my adventures recently. I backdated some of the entries, you could take a peek at what brought us to this point. Enjoy!

She dances. She sings. She entertains you, whateveryou want. The rest is shadows. The rest is secret.

Tonight, I watched Memoirs of a Geisha.

What an enchanting piece of film. I mean, just completely spellbinding. I did not cry my usual, I’m-alone-watching-some-movie-that-sadly-reflects-my-life tears, I simply sat up straight and watched. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. It was so interesting when I began to watch the special features and I saw that the man, Arthur Golden, who wrote the original story in his novel. I just thought to myself, “What the f---?” (Yes, in my head I am allowed to swear, not in real life) I mean I guess my first response was, “How does he know?”

Then I thought about it for a minute and reflected on the story someone might tell if they had encountered me at the height of one of my—let’s call them performances. Wait, let’s go back for our viewers who have just joined the Erica McLaughlin Show. I can be a little... oh while we are about the business of naming things let us call it....dramatic. I once told a tall handsome man as I cried into his chest I was surely in “the right profession”. I am studying to be an actress. Well, I have completely as much formal study as I can get at the moment, but everyday, each moment is a study. Like the movie, the thing I found the most compelling is that as Sayuri pursues her quest to become Geisha, the definition of what she is longing to become is constantly changing, and is being defined for her in a unique way as a product of her own pursuit. So as I think about a man sitting down to study me, to write the story of me and my “pursuit” (if you can even recognize it as that these days) of becoming an actress.... What I am saying is I think this man did a pretty good job.

Pursuit is such an evasive thing. I mean for one, your desire to pursue hides and reappears and often buries itself in your heart. I wanted badly to go to graduate school to study acting this fall, though I may have waited too late to want it badly enough. I used to want very much to be a starving artist and to do whatever it takes to make this thing happen, and now coming close to starving the desire has changed to just wanting to make enough to pay the rent every month. The past few months have been made up of these interesting, life threatening experiences. No, no one has tried to kill me, but by life threatening I feel that what has happened to me has forced me to change. Yet still I have been resisting, because it is hard to remain true to the art of pursuing your dream, if you are forced to change, to give up things. This is a difficult task because change is inevitable, or so someone said, but dreams are also everlasting. This is the trouble with blind, everlasting pursuit.

Can't you see? Every step I have taken, since I was that child on the bridge, has been to bring myself closer to you.

Back to my portrait. Paint me, Mr. Novelist. Tell the story of the saddest girl in the world because she is so in love with life and people and dreams. Just from looking outside in, you can see me. You can see how I am willing to risk it all only in the most irresponsible ways. I dance. I sing. I entertain you, whatever you want.

Someone very important said this to me recently, “it’s like you are expecting something to happen.” It made me very angry at first, I supposed because it got through, it broke through the white painted face, permanent expression and layers of kimono. (ok, I know I am not a Geisha, and it’s a little heavy on the symbolism, but roll with me here.) Pretty much since I “finished” school last May (which is not when I actually graduated by the way which was May 25, 2006), I have been expecting something. Waiting. (Quite literally actually, think Waiting the movie, now there’s something that makes me wanna cry... cause it’s true life!) Alright, alright let me focus. I have been expecting something magical to happen, but not really taking any steps, since that day on the bridge. Sure, I have done dramatic things—most recently quitting my job in a hysterical way I can’t even explain anymore—but nothing daring that will truly get me closer to what I want.

It’s also different now. It helps now that I have had my moment on the bridge, staring at the life I once had and becoming the woman I will be until the next pursuit begins. It helps now that I know what I am chasing, that I can see the things I want more than anything else in the world. I better spell them out just in case you can help me get them:
Applause
Love
Family
Prosperity
Peace
And the rest... is secret.