Holidays And Weekends

SPLIT SCREEN -  INTERIOR – Fred’s Dance Studio/Ginger’s Restaurant – EVENING.

Two attractive forty-something’s, Fred and Ginger, each on their cell phones.

Fred: “How was your weekend?”

Ginger:  “Weekend? What’s a weekend?”

Fred: (chuckles knowingly) “Join me for a drink? What day works for you?”

If you’re in the entertainment, journalism, restaurant, hospitality, service, or retail industry, Mondays and Saturdays have no difference except that Mondays are more relaxed. When at events, looking like we’re having a blast, smiling on the “step and repeat” for the cameras, and shaking hands, it’s part of showing face to maintain visibility. Just like those shoes you bought that you didn’t know you needed until you saw them in the window, people can’t buy what they can’t see.  So we step out all shiny to say “Here we are!” There are shows, rehearsals, clients, guests, bookings and customers for us on the weekends. We work all the time!

Holidays used to be a time when we would all work like crazy but the holidays themselves were sacred. We could see family and maybe rest a little. Now, so many of us work Thanksgiving, we might as well trash the notion that holidays are special.

Sometimes, working on holidays and weekends distracts us from the pain of being alone, away from family. The days of the week blurring together and feeling the same. We tell ourselves it’s just another day.

We develop an extended family, filled with friends, lovers, associates and partners. We spend all our time working at what we love, with like-minded people who we also come to love.  Over the years these people become the family we built for ourselves since coming here, to this sparkling yet impossible place.

Home of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall, we live here because we came to do something. We left our families behind and sacrificed having a normal life to live in this crazy town and work around the clock because our drive consumes us. If that was not the case we would hang up our tap shoes, go back to where we’re from and “get a life.”

New York City is a magical place. Though it’s lost its edge, it has an energy, gravitational pull and time vortex all its own. You can be on top with glitter, bubbles and a view, surrounded by pretty people one moment and in the street at bedrock bottom all in the same day.

So our manager, agent, photographer, director, trainer, publicist, producer, fellow cast member, writing partner, editor, gym buddy, trainer, doctor, hairdresser, makeup artist, boutique manager, dress designer, or whoever it is we spend our time with, become part of our ‘family.’ All of them, talented amazing people. People we never would’ve met had we stayed back home.

Some people are fair weather friends, when fame, fortune and cameras are gone, they too disappear. Part of what we learn from living here is being able to figure out who is who. There are also the “lifers,” the people who are in your orbit forever, no matter what. Even when months go by without seeing each other, they’re there when the chips are down. They know and share our secrets, goals, dreams and accomplishments. These people make this town home for us. We are so trained to “Smile when we are low…and go on with the show!” We forget these are the people we need to reach out to when we feel alone.

This holiday season, if you’re in town, call your friends. Invite some strays over. Have a potluck! If you are alone, don’t stew, make some instead and pick up the phone!

Happy Holidays!