two steps forward

HI guys!  Happy Friday!  I've been in a kind of weird, lethargic mood lately.  I think it's probably the combination of being jobless and Olena not being home for so long, that puts me in the state of mind where I don't feel like anyone would mind if I didn't get out of bed all day.  I actually don't have much to say this week as far as blogging goes, but I do have some photos I wanted to share!  Paul came out here for a week with Vinny, and it felt so good to see them out here.  It was like a slice of home being introduced to my new life, and it was so comforting!  They came out here at the perfect time, too, because it was such a great distraction, and I needed an excuse to get out of my house and be happy.  They rented a convertible, and we drove all around Los Angeles.  

This is my view from the backseat:

I will not-so-patiently be waiting for Paul and Vinny to get back here.  It was such a refreshing visit.  Living in California, I am in constant longing for home, but with them here home didn't feel as far away.  And to see the glimmer in one of my best friend's eyes as he explored his potential future home was amazing.  It reminded me that while Los Angeles can be quite a lonely place sometimes, it sparks something in it's visitors.  It ignites a passion and a drive previously dimmed by doubt and fear.  It reminded me that I'm in the right place, and I could use a reminder every once and a while.  Hurry back Paul.

Last weekend, I agreed to dog sit for my friend's father, and I know I'm like in my mid-twenties and my ideal night should be out dancing and drinking with friends and meeting a cute guy and having my way with him, but this is actually what my ideal night consists of.  PJs, a Netflix marathon, and couch cuddles with two pups.  I'm about ready to adopt one of these precious animals.  Anyone in the LA area, holler at me if you ever need a petsitter!

Cooper is on the left, and Emma is on the right.  Cooper is about 12 years old I believe, and Emma is around 6.  They are two of the kindest dogs who love each other so much.  My favorite photo is the close up of the two of them where Cooper looks like she's comforting Emma.  They were both upset that their dad was gone for the weekend, but they were helping each other get through it, and I was in a corner melting into a puddle.

So remember that time Olena, Lauren and I went to Joshua Tree? I don't know if I've talked about it enough, you might not remember.  Well we did.  And we took some souvenirs back with us, like this cactus that Olena took home.  The other day I was doing some admin from my home office, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the cactus had bloomed!  It was gorgeous, so of course I had to get a few shots, which of course led to the cactus falling on top of me and me pulling out pricks for the next half hour.  But look how pretty!

The last event I'm including in this weekly roundup is my trip to The Broad Museum with my friend Jen! She had purchased tickets two months in advance, so when the day came I very happily volunteered to accompany her.  I'm so glad that I did, too.  We had such a good time.  I'm not the biggest museum person in the world.  There is so much I don't understand about art, and most of the time I'm sure if I say what I'm actually feeling about a particular piece, I'll offend everyone in the room.  Museums are usually too stuffy and pretentious for me to enjoy, but for whatever reason, I really enjoyed this one.  That's not to say there wasn't a ton of art that had me feeling like the artist made a game out of how much idiots would pay for adult scribble, but there was a lot that I actually connected with, and could, at the very least, appreciate.  

So we took the metro into downtown, LA, which was a weird experience for me.  I had to keep reminding myself that I was in Los Angeles, because it automatically felt like New York or London.  I honestly completely forgot Los Angeles even had a transportation system, and I think I'm going to start using it more.  I love that feeling of burying yourself in a book for a commute, and stepping off an escalator into a part of the city that's vibrant and alive and not at all where you started.   

Jen and I stared at this painting for a good twenty minutes.  Initially we just wanted to sit for a while so we found a bench, and it was situated right in front of this painting.  After five minutes of us both staring at it, we began to try to dissect it.  I still have no idea what it's trying to showcase, but maybe the art is that it got two people to stare at it for twenty minutes and spark conversation.  Is that all art is?  Cause I could get down with that.  

Love love love love this

This masterpiece was tucked away in a corner by an elevator and was easily my favorite piece in the entire museum.  I was completely in awe.  It's a painting, not a photograph.  The detail, the color, everything about it, I could have stared at it for hours.  

And finally, we made it to the Infinity Room, which was just as magical as it looks.  Unfortunately you're only allowed 45 seconds inside, so if you're lucky enough to have more than one opportunity to go, take it.  45 seconds was not nearly enough time to truly appreciate this beauty.

Alright, well, that's all I've got for you today!  I'm gonna plan some day trips for myself, to keep busy and keep that energy level high.  I'm submitting myself for acting gigs every hour of every day, so as long as my family stays patient, I promise I'll finally have updates for you all very soon!  Keep your chin up always, and make the most of your weekend! 

xo

The Mats take SoCal

Hello peoples!  Welcome to another installment of my blabbering!  I came to my keyboard today to talk about the wonderful week that just passed that was spent with my family.  The relationship I have with my family is the best one that I have.  We never leave each other without knowing the next time we will see each other, and, if you're like me and live miles and miles away from everyone you love, that's the key to making the separation easier.  I know I'll be seeing my Jersey folk in July, so now the next few months of my life can go by feeling like a semester of college; I never feel too far from anyone I love.  

Anywho, so my parents decided to take a week and come out here to frolic through the beauty that is Southern California.  When my Uncle got wind of this trip, he decided to come out with my two cousins as well, so it was a freakin Jersey Italian family affair and it was beautiful.  

I doubt he reads this, but if you do, Ry, I want you to know how sorely we all (but mostly me) missed you on this trip.  I know how disappointed you were that you couldn't come out here, but you're where you need to be right now.  You're off at college becoming a physicist with a drivers' license, making us all so proud.  Seriously, you're putting my theatre degree to shame!  That being said, I still do wish you could have been there more than anything.  Though our childhood was messy and I wasn't the softest older sister to you, I think we've grown into a pretty solid team.  Every family function we're at together, I feel like we have this unspoken conversation going on between us, where we know exactly what annoys the other, and when to stick up for the other.  We team up against our parents when we need to (sorry Mom and Dad, but you understand) and we hold each other up, and so many times throughout this trip, I found myself saying "Wow I really wish Ryan were here right now," if I couldn't place a Friends reference, or if I made a joke no one understood, or I needed your weird specific memory for something, or if I just missed your big heart and presence and the dynamic you add to our family.  I love you bro, and I hope you don't feel for one second that this trip wouldn't have been incredibly enhanced had you been able to make it.  

Sob story: OVER.  Onto the photos!  I thought I'd take way more than I did, but that's what happens when you're with your family, enjoying every second.  The first day after they arrived, we all went to Disneyland.  Now if you're a fairly new person in my life, you may not know about my family's ties to the world that is Disney.  Let me put it this way, I literally don't know a family who has been to DisneyWorld more times.  We've literally never taken a different family vacation, with the exception of the trips we took with my dance team.  I truly believe there's nowhere happier than DisneyWorld, and it's just one of the many childish things about me, but it unites my family so we bought a time share there.  So you can deduce my level of excitement to visit Disneyland, where it all started.  So I took like four pictures, but here they are!

I took this from inside some incredibly lame submarine ride, but the bubbles went by so beautifully so I snapped a shot with my iPhone, and I quite like it! 

No, not back in Joshua Tree, just in the Cars section of California Adventure!

Ahhhh, the amazing face swap feature on Snapchat.  Making you detest your own features and realize how similar you actually look to your family members since 2016. 

UGH.  I LOVE YOU DISNEY. 

Day two we went to Universal, and if there's one thing that I love just as much as Disney, and sometimes maybe even more (don't tell Mickey), it's the entire world that is Harry Potter.  I loved the books, I loved the movies, and the first time I went to the Harry Potter World in Florida, I teared up and bought a wand, at age 21. (Wow, I'm really selling myself to anyone who was considering asking me out aren't I?)

Hogwarts and Hogsmeade match my aesthetic to a T.  And that right there, ladies and gentlemen, is the most white girl thing I've ever said.  But for real, cool blues and grey tones on a cloudy day make for a very jolly Sami.  I honestly could have spent an entire day there, but it's such a small part of the park that we eventually had to move on.  But not before we mailed a howler over to Ryan back in Jersey to send our love.  When is somebody going to make an entire park dedicated to Harry Potter?  He deserves a whole freaking park, not just a segment of a park that also has a Simpsons section.  He's better than that.  Alas, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. 

I took this photo on the backlot tour of Universal.  That's that movie magic for ya.  

Day three I had to go into work, REMEMBER WHEN I HAD A JOB?!?!?!?!?!  So, we spent the morning in Venice, exploring the canals, and hangin on the beach.  

Beautiful day, except for the small hiccup of our stinky lunch experience.  We went to this pretentious hipster restaurant in Venice called Gjelina, where they wouldn't take fennel off my salad, because they don't do modifications, and they didn't have diet coke cause they don't do soda.  When we made normal human reactions to this pompous response to our questions, our waiter transferred us to another server, he couldn't handle the Jersey.  Another instance where I got to see how truly lucky I am to have been brought up on the east coast, to the parents that I was given.  

Day four was huge!  Huge I tell you!  So I have this amazing friend, Marisa, who works for the Ellen Degeneres show, so prior to my parents coming out, I decided to try my luck at seeing if she could possibly get us tickets, and she did her magic and there we were! Aside from the mild panic attack I had trying to pick an outfit that Nick Jonas would approve of JUST INCASE he was a guest on the show that day, we had an unforgettable time.  Naturally, we had to eat lunch at my favorite spot in LA, Aroma Cafe, where we saw Roy from The Office and I eavesdropped his entire lunch instead of paying attention to my own.  

And then we went.  We couldn't take many photos, except for this one I took with my besties, but it was a great taping.  Sylvester Stallone was on, and Abbi and Ilana from Broad City (!!!!!!) and WE WON MATTRESSES!  That's right, she pulled an Oprah and gave everyone in the audience a freaking mattress! 

That night we had dinner all together in Malibu, right on the ocean.  I ate like seven courses and was delusional by the end, but we shared a bunch of laughs together.  

I don't necessarily want to talk about day five, which is the day responsible for the loss of my job.  I don't have any photos from the day because I left my phone in my apartment on accident, and if any of my managers are reading this, I wasn't freaking making that up, so I hope you feel smaller now.  It was a nice day though, regardless.  We had a brunch with our close friends, Ang and Nick, who were simultaneously visiting LA, and then we took a drive through the hills of Bel Air and Beverly Hills en route to Santa Monica.  We had a proper afternoon tea at Ye Olde King's Head, in honor of the pub theatre I worked at in London with the same name, we walked the pier, and then we had dinner at Barney's Beanery where we watched the Rangers get shat on by the Penguins, and Kobe shoot his last 60 POINTS in the NBA. 

Day six, we went to Sony Studios for a tour, and the highlight of my day was getting a photo in front of the Breaking Bad RV.  

For all the moneys: The greatest people to ever exist.  Who are THE MATARANTES?!

After the tour, we had all this time and no plans because of my low comprehension that caused the schedule mixup.  I found I did not actually have to go into work on Thursday, so we decided to drive to Santa Barbara, where I proceeded to fall in love with a geographical location.  

Day seven we hiked, had a nice healthy lunch, and went to a Dodger game! The Dodgers beat the crap out of the Giants, and then there was a firework show immediately after!  I had corn on the cob and two beers, and my parents had a helmet full of nachos.  I love America.  

The next day was our last day.  We had brunch all together in Hermosa Beach, and that was it.  The week flew by, but it was amazing.  I lost my job because I cared far more about being with my family.  That's something I wouldn't regret and wouldn't change.  I'm incredibly lucky to have the support system I have, and I'll never forget that.  Counting down the days until we're all together this summer, because my life isn't about the part time jobs I have, or the journey to becoming an actor.  Those things are what fill my day to day, but my life is being lived fullest when I'm with the people I love, so thank you for a week of living.  

<3

Downswing

The higher you fly, the harder you fall.  

So you know when you wake up and look at your phone and you overslept and your hair looks like shit but you're late for whatever you're headed to and all day things keep happening to you that make your mood worse and then at the end of the day you drink a glass or 5 of wine and think "Wow, what a terrible day"?  Well I may have just had my worst "what a terrible day" day, yet.  No one died, my health is fine, and everyone I love is okay, but I had my first bad day of 2016, and boy was it a doozy.

I had to say goodbye to my parents yesterday, which is enough for one week to leave me highly emotional and vulnerable.  But yesterday I had to leave my parents, to go into work, to get fired.  I take pride in my work ethic.  Whatever job I find for myself, I make sure that I become one of the best and hardest workers at that establishment.  I've never been fired from anything.  And today, I got fired.  Fired from a job I have worked for almost a year and a half. Fired from a job that became my second home.  Fired from a job I enjoyed.  Fired from a job I kind of felt invincible in.  Then I cut my finger on glass.

What a terrible day.

Day one of being jobless, I cried a lot and I cried HARD.  I can't remember the last time I cried like that.  Loud and ugly and uninhibited and snotty and wholly felt.  I think I'm still in shock, but day one was full of sadness and feelings of worthlessness and loneliness and embarrassment.  I don't think I deserved it.  I'll never agree with them.  

Let me head this by saying that I fucked up.  I made a mistake.  I know how to own up to my own faults.  I was aware I had made a mistake and felt completely ashamed and guilty about it.   However, I stand by my belief that my mistake was nowhere near termination-worthy.  The details aren't important.  All you need to know is that I put a year and almost four months of my life into that place.  I had trained so many people who are now on that payroll.  I made real relationships with the people I worked with and some of the regulars I had.  I could have and probably should have walked out on that restaurant so many times over the past year, but I chose to stay and stick it out and not abandon my team.  

All of this, to get fired over a completely human and not at all serious mistake.  I should also mention several people made the exact same mistake THIS WEEK and I'm the only one who got fired?  Hmmm sounds just about fucking right.  OH WAIT, NOPE, THAT'S RIDICULOUS.  Ok, so maybe I'm still bitter.  Forgive me, it's only day two.  

Day one felt like the universe shitting on me.  Olena and I talked about this because it had been my first bad day since Joshua Tree, and she had a similar experience with her first bad day post-Joshua Tree and I know you're all sick and tired of hearing about Joshua Tree but what came after was intense, radiant, positivity.  Positivity so powerful that makes it hard for the universe to give you things you can't handle.  So strong that it takes a lot more to bring you down, a lot more to make you doubt God, or the universe, or yourself, whatever it is that you choose to put your faith in.  I told Olena it's as if for this last month, the universe was like "Hmmm, wow, she's handling life so well, that's so unlike her!  There's gotta be something to get her down, what's gonna make her crack?"  And congratulations, universe, you found the formula to Sami's sadness: take away her income and stability! 

I just want you to see how pathetic I looked.  Those are boys boxers.  I'm wearing boxers, a tee, drinking a beer, and wearing sunglasses inside a complete mess of an apartment.  Stay in school, kids.  And don't let the man get you down.

Day two started out almost worse than day one.  Not so many tears, but all the worthlessness.  I'm still wearing the Ellen shirt and underwear (I'll explain how I got these items in the next post!) that I put on after I got home yesterday.  I decided to spend the day watching YouTube and eating snacks and not leaving my bed, since I now have all the time in the world for responsibilities.  And then something kind of unexpected and weird happened.  I fell into the YouTube black hole, and ended up watching a bunch of ASMR videos, (if you don't know what that is, look it up.  It's weird and seems almost fetishy, but it's so wonderful and calming and euphoric) and I feel like I'm almost on the other side of this downward spiral already.  There's something about a stranger creepily whispering in your ear "you're gonna be okay" for twenty five minutes by way of your headphones in the comfort of your own bed that makes you actually believe it?  Did I lose you all there?  It's freaky, I know.  Don't knock it til you've tried it.  

I actually truly believe this is a crossroads for me.  What I do with my life right now is what matters.  What I choose to make of this shitty predicament is what will determine my happiness.  So the big bad wolf says you're not a good fit for his establishment, you turn around and tell him he's right.  You're better than a part time job at an uptight restaurant with the shittiest pay you've ever gotten from a part time job.  You're fucking right I'm not a good fit.  I'm not meant to be a fucking waitress to people who come to a restaurant to be served and then forget to tip.  I'm not meant to be someone who serves people who get angry if you put one too many ice cubes in their drink.  I'm an actor, and you telling me I don't fit in your establishment is the highest compliment you could have given me.  So thanks, heartless humans who poorly manage the restaurant I no longer work at.  Thank you. 

I also have to extend the warmest gratitude to all of my friends who still have to work at that place for all the love and encouragement they've sent my way.  Your disappointment in my departure means more than you know, and it's you guys that I don't want to have to leave.  Thank you for wrapping me up into your little social circles and welcoming me into your lives and making Los Angeles feel like it could quite possibly become my home.  You guys did that.  Our friendships go far beyond that hotel, and just because you won't see me making any more Crisps, that doesn't mean we won't ever be drinking tequila together ever again.  

I'll get my positivity back, I already feel it peeking it's head out from behind the shadows of my mind.  I definitely got all my crying out of my system, and now it's time to give more focus to what I moved here to do.  While I collect unemployment (thanks again, heartless management), I vow to spend my time exercising the right side of my brain, diving into my art, whether it be photography, getting into an acting class, working at my guitar skillz, or singing in the shower, or ALL OF THE ABOVE!  Who knows, I have so much more room for activities, and I wouldn't be me if I didn't at least try to make something wonderful out of this pile of shit I was dealt.  

This felt good.  Gonna be okay, y'all.  Don't worry about me.  Cause I got all my life to live, and I got all my love to give, and I'll survive.  I WILL SURVIVE.  HEY HEY!  I may need to not handle glass for a while though, cause clearly I can't get that down yet.