"New Nurse"

I play a nurse in a movie called "The Good Doctor". Not sure when it's coming out, but I think I had a total of 7 lines. This is me in my trailer. I liked all the cool nurse toys they gave me. I was trying to look serious, not sad.

From my friend (and roommate!) Andy about having (and not ignoring) my internet presence

... besides everyone is doing it:

-It's fun, cathartic, and creative.
-If no one ever wrote down their thoughts and ideas in a forum where others could read them then there would be no thoughts and ideas for anyone to read.
-If you don't share your thoughts then they simply go to your grave with you. And graves are no places for thoughts.

Maine

I'm on Little Cranberry Island in Maine. My cellphone isn't getting reception up here. I guess I could check to see if I have messages on the landline, but I'd much rather spend my time picking blackberries, riding in the back of pickup trucks, and wanting to forsake my worldly possessions and live here forever.

I got up to 4 things.

1. Picking blackberries and eating blackberries
2. Riding in the back of pick up trucks
3. Eating lobster
4. Memorizing the presidents. I know them all! Let's see if I retain any it in a week.

Presidential names that are funny: Grover Cleveland, Zachary Taylor, and William Howard Taft. Grover Cleveland is an improv name, and Zachary Taylor and William Howard Taft sound like child stars from Home Improvement.

My picture is in New York Magazine this week. It makes me feel both nervous and grateful, and that's a new combination for me. It's kinda how I felt the first time I tried bubble tea. On Thursday, I get on a plane for Los Angeles with no return flight. I'm a mixed bag of emoticons on that, too.

Maine, you smell nice.

"Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids" - Carl Sagan

The night I found out that Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune didn't have solid surfaces, my head exploded. I had heard the term "gas giants" before, but I guess I needed Carl Sagan to spell it out for me. Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune are made of gas, not paper-mâché as scientists previously believed, and if these planets do have solid surfaces underneath all that gas, we. don't. know. about it. (Nose bleed.)

"Cosmos" quickly became all-consuming, brain paralyzing obsession. In other words, I read the book.. and watched all 13 episodes of "Cosmos" all the way through TWICE, which is huge for me since I'm one of those assholes who's never seen The Godfather or Spaceballs.

On the subject of me being an asshole, this past winter I unironically referred to Earth as "a small, rocky planet" when talking to my boyfriends father's girlfriend. She gave me a look that said 'your new space obsession isn't fooling anyone". I like her a lot. Also, on my road trip from New York to LA with Sarah and Anna, at one point we were talking about how bright and annoying the sun was as we were driving into the sunset, and I said something to the effect of, "Well it could be worse, our sun is pretty average as far as stars go and at least we don't live in a binary star system." Sarah and Anna did not like me after that.

Cosmos is Carl Sagan's personal voyage through space. It's epic, beautiful, accessible, and easy to love. Growing up, I pretended to feel indifferent about science as a way to justify my bad grades, particularly when it came to chemistry, so I made this, a Periodic Table of Elephants, as a peace offering. I also wrote a 22-page nonfiction comedy pilot about one of Jupiter's moons, but I put it away when I decided it was shitty and unfixable.

"As the ancient myth makers knew we're children equally of the earth and the sky. In our tenure on this planet we've accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage, propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. But we've also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience and a great soaring passionate intelligence, the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity. " - Elton John

Finish this sketch for me, will you?

Mom: Kids, I have something to tell you. I was lying when I said your father died in 9-11. The truth is he's alive and has been living in the attic.

Son: The attic? But the invisible ghost who coughs like dad is up there.

A random assortment of thoughts from right now

-I got rejected from SNL this week. I trust that the universe has my best intentions in mind.

- I've been seeing a lot of amazing shows at UCB and I'm finding it really inspiring.

- I have a cold. The best part of having a cold is that it makes my voice sound like I'm a grown up.

- I blindly moved into a sublet in Burbank this past winter. The walls in the room were gross, so I covered them in tissue paper that resembled wallpaper. On January 28th, 3 weeks after arriving in LA, I found out I had been cast in both a pilot and a movie. I was struck with the most profound sense of gratitude and spontaneously wrote the words "Thank you" all over the tissue paper. It looked great.

-It feels like there are 20 cats in my apartment right now for some furry, adorable reason.

Here's a list of ways in which Sue is better than me.

- Being Vegetarian. When we were around 12 and 13, we decided to be vegetarians. Or more like, Sue decided and I went along with it. She's kept with it, but I got lazy and started eating meat again when I was 15 or so. The last time Sue ate meat, she was living abroad in Edinburgh, at a restaurant, and dying of starvation. In Scotland, often times restaurants will say they offer vegetarian options but what they really mean is they have chicken or fish, so Sue settled on scallops, because "They don't have central nervous systems." I think about this literally every time I eat scallops.

- Remembering birthdays. Sue and I share this ability, but she's better at it. Sue can tell you the birthdays of kids from summer camp, distant relatives, dead pets, dead presidents, living presidents. If you have a birthday, and you've told me, there's a 75% chance I'll remember it in 5 years. But if you tell Sue, there's a 99.9% chance that she'll remember it forever.

- Reading. Sue learned to read when she was like 3 days old or something ridiculous like that. I, on the other hand, didn't start reading until I was embarrassingly old. And then it took even longer for me to actually comprehend what I was reading. I'm dyslexic, and I had the hardest time wrapping my mind around written language. It's pretty complicated when you think about it - letters compose words, words contain meaning, and if you string enough words together (in a left to right pattern), you can express a complete thought. But the written letters in the word "cat" or "airplane" look nothing like ACTUAL cats or airplanes, so why do we all agree on the meaning? And what's the deal with lower case b's and d's? They're the exact same shape, just facing different directions. And why does this matter when there are tree forts to defend?

-Arguing. I have never, in my entire life, won an argument with my sister. I've never even come close. No one has ever won an argument with my sister. One time Sue made Judge Judy run to her bedroom, sobbing.

- History. I like history, but Sue is passionate about it. She talks about history the way most people talk about "Top Chef". It's awesome actually. I like it when people can talk passionately about things.

This is a picture of her on her wedding day. One day Sue will find this list and send me an email pointing out my grammatical errors.

Sam

Thanks for leaving quarters in your jeans! I used them to get an iced coffee and it was delish.

Yay!

nope

I have no explanation for why I made this or why I'm posting it.

the Carrolls

Mom took this photo. I was a confused baby.

Faking it

I played the clarinet when I was in 4th grade. I picked it because it was the cat part in "Peter and the Wolf", and as we all know, cats are great. However, I quickly learned that it was very hard. I also got grossed out by all the spit and saliva involved in woodwind instruments.

Even though I hated it and never practiced, I was still obligated to perform at the recital. My dad dropped me off, and as I was coming out of the car, I dropped my clarinet case. It was a hard shell case, designed to withstand 4th graders, so I didn't think anything of it. I went to the band room, put my clarinet together, blew into the reed, and heard nothing. That's when I noticed that the main body of my (rented) clarinet SPLIT IN HALF! I knew my dad would be pissed because all year long I'd been hearing about how expensive the damn thing was.

Anyway, I freaked out. I was about to perform in front of the whole school, and I was certain that my dad was going to kill me. I explained all this to my band teacher, this sad middle aged man. He shrugged and said, "Get up there and fake it."

So I did. I faked playing the song in front of everyone - parents, teachers, friends. At the end of the performance, my band teacher joined us on stage. He looked at me, smiled, then got on the microphone. "Oh shit," I thought, "He's gonna tell..."

And I was right! He said, "One of my students, Elaine Carroll, broke her clarinet so she was wasn't actually playing just then, she was pretending." The whole room burst out laughing. "She's worried her dad is gonna kill her."

I saw my dad laughing the hardest out of everybody. I started laughing too. I guess it was pretty funny.

I'm sure my dad wasn't thrilled about having to pay for my broken clarinet, but he never mentioned it. He was still laughing as we drove home.

There are 2 cats in my apartment right now, but I think there are 8 cats using the litter box.

My ankle is better. I saw my physical therapist today and he was very pleased with how I'm healing. Spending a month with my foot in a cast was no fun. Sometimes I wish I had a spent it more productively, but I mostly don't mind. Watching TV is fun too.

I'm going to LA in 2 weeks. I can't wait to see my car.

Built to Spill, you're killing it.

Old rocking chair is gonna get me

Dear internet,

I could use your help. I'd like to come up with a really interesting and hilarious idea. I'm not sure what it'll be for - web, stage - some kind of script thing. If it's an awesome idea, I'll follow it forever. If I'm not passionately in love with the concept, I'll write it for a few days, start hating it, put it aside for later, and it inevitably collects dust. On the other hand, I'll give myself the whole "That's what first drafts are for!" speech and forgive the shittiest of scripts if I'm in love with the core of the thing.

I also need to fixate on one project at a time. Focus = follow through.

Big ups to Etta James.

Mad Men

A few months ago, I filmed a small part on Mad Men, and the episode is airing tonight!

My dad asked me what my experience was like, and our conversation went something like this.

ME: It was awesome! I showed up, I said my lines, I went home!
DAD: That's it?
ME: Pretty much, yeah.
DAD: Acting is kind of stupid when you think about it.
ME: I know.

This is me on set. I'm wearing a wig.

This came in the mail the other day. I know I've been writing a lot about how strangely public and unnatural blogging feels, but the reason I'm sharing this note from my mom is because I want to keep it forever.

My mom always thought I'd be a good shrink. Maybe if this acting nonsense doesn't work out, I'll give it a try.

Radiohead

Sometimes I think I'm over Radiohead and then I listen to them and I'm like this is good, what on earth was I thinking?

I hate when my computer tells me things like "All Changes Will Be Lost"

Too dramatic, computer. Way too dramatic.

However, I sort of want to write a play with that title. I like it when plays have dramatic titles.

In 2007 I wrote a play called "Michael Jackson is Dead". It takes place in the future and is about his 3 kids, Prince, Paris and Blanket. At the time I thought it was really well written, but now when I reread it, I'm like bleh, way too dramatic, Elaine.

These are both pictures of me but the difference is that in one of them I am drunk.

6 years old, in the playroom in our old house in Ridgewood, NJ. I moved to Virginia when I was 7.

I don't know why I'm on such a baby picture kick, but here's another. I think I'm 2 in this one. It was taken in spring, and I remember smelling flowers in the backyard this same day.

My dad took this picture. I'm guessing I was 5 but my mom would know for sure. That's probably chocolate on my face but really it could be anything.

1. I used to rip up my sisters playing cards because I was jealous that she knew numbers and I didn't.
2. I taught myself to play the theme song to Masterpiece Theatre on the piano that we randomly had in our basement.
3. Once I poured a SERIOUS amount of water on the living room floor because I wanted to pretend I was ice skating.

My Night With the Prostitute from Marsielle

by Beirut

is fucking great song. I like it a lot. I want all songs to be this good if not better.

Also, I just had a really interesting conversation with my mother about medical marijuana.

Sometimes when I clap, I feel a splash

I have hiperhydrosis. It makes my hands sweat a lot.

It's a genetic abnormality that started at puberty, and like all genetic abnormalities that start at puberty, it rocks. Hiperhydrosis is caused by an over stimulation in the sympathetic nervous system. It's weird to me that hiperhydrosis isn't spelled "hyperhydrosis" but I guess that's too many Y's for some people. There's no cure for it, no pill you can take. I wonder why science has been so slow in curing my debilitating affliction, but I suppose it's because there's things like AIDS and cancer and nobody ever died from sweaty palms except if you count my childhood sense of self-worth.

I first noticed something was off about my hands when I was taking a test in cursive in 3rd grade. I worked so hard, carefully crafting each letter, and when I finished, I proudly handed it to Mrs. Regis who took it out of my hands with a look of shock and disgust. She asked, "Elaine, were you nervous?" That's when I noticed that my paper was completely drenched in sweat. From then on, I kept my hands to myself.

The only time I wasn't able to avoid hand to sweaty hand contact was during the Our Father in our school's monthly Mass. St. Mary's Catholic School in Richmond, Virginia, was one of those hippy dippy Catholic schools where kids hold hands during the Our Father and instead of an organist, there's a guitarist. One time after holding hands with Alexis Yokum (Yokem? Fuck it), she asked me why my hands were so wet. I told her it was because I dipped my whole hand into the bowl of holy water. She nodded and looked away trying to make sense of that, and I looked away trying to make sense of why this girl would believe such a blatant lie. God, kids are stupid.

Here's a list of ways that I got out of holding hands during the Our Father.

1. SWEATSHIRT STRATEGY : I'd pretend to be cold and would pull the sleeves of my sweatshirt down over my hands. Then I'd hold hands, making sweatshirt to hand contact with my classmates, pressing lightly, for fear that the sweat would start soaking through.

2. LINE ORDER STRATEGY : On our way from the classroom to the church, I'd try to be 1. the line leader, 2. in the exact middle of the line, or 3. at the end of the line. And I'd try to get my friend Rebekkah to stand next to me. What does this have to do with sweaty palms? Bare with me. A class of say 20 students takes up 2 full rows of church pews. The goal was to have Rebekkah on one side and NO ONE on the other. I knew that holding hands with Rebekkah, regardless of my sweat, was no big thing.

3. THE SNEEZE : I would pretend to sneeze right before the Our Father. I am extremely good at this. I bet if you saw me do a fake sneeze, you'd be like whoa, that sounded like a real sneeze. And sneezing into my hands, seconds before praying, gave me the unspoken social permission to excuse myself from handholding.

4. BATHROOM BREAK : This one is obvious.

Sometimes when I clap, I feel a splash. And sometimes, yes, you guessed it, that splash is refreshing.

iTunes

Today I cleared out some sound effects from my iTunes. Nobody, not even me, needs to hear 'cats meowing', 'cats purring', 'cats hissing', when I play songs from my library on shuffle.

I still don't fully understand why there's a need to make this information public. The only argument for blogging is that everyone's doing it.

Also here is a picture of my cat, Mr. Hammers. I'm attaching this picture because he's cute and because I want to figure out how to attach pictures. Here goes nothing.

Things that are great? These garlic knots. Thanks Carmine's on Graham!

Things that are not so great?

The intro song to The Sopranos. The lyrics are "Woke up this morning, got yourself a gun" over and over. Too long, you guys. Way too long.

Elaine : Oh, hey blog from 3 years ago.

Blog: Long time, no see.

Elaine: I know. I'm sorry. I'm pretty terrible about... things.

Blog: Uh huh.

Elaine: It's not personal.

Blog: Right.

Elaine: I'm back now. For good. I promise.

Blog: Don't make promises you can't keep.

(Enter Elaine's Tumblr.)

Tumblr: (to Elaine) The prodigal son returns.

Elaine: Wow, hi Tumblr. Didn't expect to see you here.

Tumblr: To what do we owe this honor, Ms. Carroll?

Elaine: Oh, I -

Tumblr: That was sarcasm.