Yo guys I cannot believe I am still on this fuckin boat. Yes, I called it a boat. That’s how you know the koolaid has run dry. I am just under a month away from the end of my contract. The regular summer season is over and tomorrow begins 20 days of a private charter that does not require my services. I am here, under contract, getting paid, to do nothing. I’m not a passenger, I’m not crew, I am a ghost haunting the passageways of this big ass vessel with no purpose other than to continue to exist. It is weird. This business is weird. Please don’t get me wrong, my intention is not to complain. I am currently on a paid vacation traveling to some of the most beautiful places in the Mediterranean for free. I am also ready to go home. Both things are true. I remember this feeling well, the same thing happened last year. I must eat but no bite of food available to me is of interest. I must sleep but my once cozy cabin now feels like a high end prison cell. I must work but there is no job to be done.

I mentioned once before that my job here is hosting a show. There are two of us in this show, myself and Harry, my “glamorous assistant”. The show essentially turns a traditional gameshow on it’s head by having a woman as the lead and a flamboyant man as the assistant. It is written as a classic comedy double act in which I play the straight man and Harry plays the clown. The creator of this show warned me that everyone always loves the clown and forgets the straight man. She said “people will love him more than you, it’s written that way. This will bother you and when it does, call me.” She was right, it did bother me at first, and I did call her and she helped me through it. The love for Harry is scripted. Over and over I say “Don’t you just love Harry? Isn’t he great? Give it up for Harry!” Meanwhile I’m the bad guy who yells at them and takes away their points. I got used to it. I knew I was good at my job. But recently something happened that pulled at the thread of this delicate sweater (I am the sweater).

Ninety percent of the time, when people approach us to comment on the show they say “OMG look it’s HARRY! We LOVE you! You are so funny and talented and amazing!!!” Then sometimes they realize I’m there and say “You’re good too”, but mostly they say “Nice boobs.” This used to make me laugh. I do have great boobs. My stage name is a play on the word boobs because I tried early on in my burlesque career to get ahead of it. To call attention to the thing before anyone else could. It didn’t work.

After our last show, a woman approached us with tears running down her face. She wanted to hug us and tell us that she was on vacation with her husband for the first time in 20 years and that she never gets a break because she has disabled children at home. She told us she had just had the best 45 minutes of her life. She hadn’t laughed that hard or had so much fun in a very long time. Through tears she wanted to hug us and thank us for the joy and catharsis we had brought her. It was an amazing moment, a beautiful validation that artists seldom experience. Then she looked Harry right in the eyes and said “I’m obsessed with you. I want to leave my husband and marry you and have your babies”. Then she looked at me and said “and I wish I had your boobs.”

It hurt. Something about this interaction, one that should have been so special, so sweet, so affirming, it pushed me over the edge. I hone my craft for 20 years, am hand selected to take this job, am a professional, delivering a script while improvising and interacting with the audience and nailing jokes and singing and dancing for an entire year, and over and over again I am reduced to “Great Tits”. This is not the first time this has happened nor will it be the last. I know I am not alone. I know this is a tale as old as time. My anger and frustration is most certainly being fueled by the novels of greek myths told from the perspective of women that I keep reading. Surely I’m on edge due to the chaotic tipping point my country teeters on. But I do not know what to do with this rage. I have never been great at dealing with my anger. I seem incapable of ever directing it towards any individual person, so it usually turns around on me. I know that is not a healthy path. But what to do with this existential fury? The only thing I can think is to funnel it into my work. Keep creating I tell myself. Keep making art and telling stories. Maybe someday someone will see me as someone who has value beyond this female shaped meat suit I ride.

When I say there is no job to be done, that is not entirely true. I have no job duties to fulfill on board, but there is other work to do. My job as an artist is to speak the truth, my truth, no matter how small it sometimes feels. It’s why I write this blog, it’s why I press forward on my other writing and performing ventures, it’s why I stay open and present when I’m onstage. The world is wild. The American empire seems poised to fall. Things back home are precarious to say the least. One cannot live on an international floating resort for a year and not gain a different perspective on what it means to be a citizen of earth. There is a whole planet out here and no matter what they tell us, The US is not the center of it. I am untethered, so maybe it’s time for a change of setting. I have options, but whenever I think of leaving New York my heart aches. I am a New Yorker before I am an American, can I really abandon my home? My family and friends? Is there a line that could be crossed that will finally push me away? Is it Trump being reelected? Is it a nationwide abortion ban? How many more war crimes can my country finance before I decide to divest? I don’t know. NYC has been my home for 20 years and is an unending source of inspiration for me as a creator. Would I be able to replicate that somewhere else?

My best friend is moving out of the home we share together to move in with her boyfriend. I’ve given up my job and stable source of income for the past five years. I’ve been gone so long I’m not sure any of my regular gigs in New York need me anymore. My future is unclear and I don’t see the path ahead of me, it could go anywhere. I’m not scared, I don’t fear change, I have started over many times. Change is exciting and hard moments are what spur development. This is the realest senioritis I’ve had since I was an actual senior in high school. This contract is coming to an end, I am ready for it, and something completely unknown lies ahead of me. The difference now is that I am a 39 year old women with two decades of life experience under my belt instead of an invincible eighteen year old girl with twinkly stars in her eyes. At eighteen I went to the wrong university and left after one semester. At nineteen I went to the wrong conservatory and left after one month. I had to do the wrong thing to know what was right. I have repeated that process many times, I’ve always been a trial by fire kind of bitch. Back then I was listening very hard to what other people told me I was supposed to do. These days I’ve become proficient at listening to myself. Let’s see what kind of difference that makes.