everyone wants to know

…what I do all day, so, I've decided to write a bunch of words to describe how my day goes. Hi, do you have my money? Thanks! Hi it's me again, oh I thought you said it was in the mail. That sounds great. Hi I'm looking for such and such and I'm willing to pay you money for it. Oh yes, but I'd like to be treated with respect. Ok I'll go fuck myself. Thank you. Hi in this contract it says such and such but you never mentioned such and such. So that's my option? Pay it or go fuck myself. OK I'll get back to you on that one. Hi, I was wondering if that was the best you could do? OK great thanks. Hi it's me, I can't contact you anymore, I need to be treated with respect. OK I got your message and you're forgiven and I'll give it another try. Hi the same thing is happening. You came back and said that you would respect me, but you haven"t returned my calls again. Hi what's your name? Hi so and so how are you? I need such and such can you help? OK can I speak to your supervisor? OK I'll go fuck myself, thanks again. Hi I need such and such and I can give you such and such. Great thanks that sounds awesome I'm looking forward to it. Hi this is Sue yes I have a show, no you can't own it, bye. No I 'm not interested, thanks again. Hi it's Sue yes that sounds like a very respectable deal for both of us. Hi it's Sue you need to do that thing that you said you were going to do so we can make some money. OK I'll go fuck myself. Hi yes, have you calmed down? I'm sorry that that made you regress to a memory of your mother but I'm not your mother and I need to make a living. OK? Hi did you just say those guys are gonna want to fuck me if we do business together, please tell them to get in line. No I will not take my shirt off for my check. Thanks.

Life is nuthin but an improv

The way to becoming successful at the art of improv is that you always have to build on what the last person gave you. If you take away from it you stop the flow. The same goes with acting, you cannot play a negative emotion — you have to play an action.

You can't play depressed, you play an action that would make you depressed. You can’t play drunk, you have to play trying to be sober in order for you to be alive inside.

I was thinking about this a lot yesterday while I was sweating my ass off at a Bikram Yoga class.

I was thinking about athletes as well.

I was thinking about with all of these things, your body needs to be open and loose.

Yoga teaches you to be strong and flexible at the same time.

You have to be ready for anything in life, because anything can happen at any time and it's the way that you respond to it that dictates how you feel inside.

You need to be open and ready for a fight, a hug, sex, peace, confusion, success. It seems scary, but the truth is that it can be invigorating if you are solid inside. Yoga also teaches you to pause and to push through uncomfortable feelings.

The theory is, if you can do it on your mat, you can take it into the rest of the world.

You can do it with meditation as well. If you can sit still and let all the self destructive impulses pass, the truth will come to you. The negative will pass and the right action will come.

Thus you will be adding to the Improv of life instead of depleting it.

But man, sometimes it's hard to sit through those feelings.

For me, sometimes I get triggered and it's so hard for me to remember that first of all, it's not reality, and secondly, the feelings will not last forever.

The feelings are so acute at times that I feel like I could die.

But I don't die and by holding on to myself I don't hurt anyone else either. In fact I used my words and let people know how I feel.

They don't always care and that's OK too. I wish they wanted to play Improv with me and build on it and keep communicating because I know it would free them but therein lies the key to life.

Acceptance that the only thing I can control is myself.

And who's to say that I know that everyone wants to be free? Sometimes danger and pain feel very safe.

Happy Jan 4th!

Good mornin y’all! K so I have so much to do today to start getting ready to bring Minus 32 Million Words to Boston, then figure out where to do it here in NYC beforehand to get it warmed up, but who's complaining?

I am so happy to be working and pulling all this off my own self.

I am really finding this whole world of doing business fascinating.

I loved it when I had my sitcom, i just didn't trust myself enough so it was painful instead of pleasurable.

Because of where I come from and the fact that they told me I was retarded, I thought anyone in a suit knew more than me.

I would see things so quickly, point them out and then have to fight with dummies for days until they saw my point.

Now I just do it myself and if they want to catch up they can.

I remember being on a conference call pitching a TV show to two guys in LA and one of the guys said, "Sue, slow down, and (to the other guy) I told you how smart she was.”

That was one of the first times I realized it. The other time was when I met with an agent and he said, "So let me get this straight: you want to be respected for the way you think not the way you look?"

I was like, Is this guy f'in kidding me?

So rather than try to take care of these nincompoops so that they can take care of me, I have cut out the middle man, put my big girl pants on and am trusting my gut.

No one is coming to save me. It was a very sad thing to realize but once I did what freedom I felt.

Talk about a rebirth!!!!!

happy grateful happy and grateful...

So it's Jan 3rd and the holidays are over and 2010 is full speed ahead and I wanted to write down some words of gratitude. The check is in the mail for Minus 32 Million Words. I should sign the contract for the theater this week and I'm happy and healthy. I can't ask for much more than that.

Oh wait I forgot about the meeting with the book agent about my book this week. Yay!

I went to the MOMA today to look at some art and overheard a woman talking about her child and how in school they are teaching the kids how to freely express themselves and it made me cry.

I thought about how long it has taken me to be able to say what I think and feel. But most importantly I've learned how to do it without taking someone else down. How long it's taken me to put words to it all then to make those words and action then to make it all my life.

I have learned what my boundaries are and how to stick to them, without needing the whole world to agree with them or even understand them

I thought about how I finally value myself and what I have to offer someone and the unspoken agreement that is made when someone gets to benefit from being around me.

And because I understand and respect myself I have much more compassion for others. I can have compassion from far away, if a person does not respect me.

I mean think about it: if I don't have compassion I will just walk around depleted and angry all the time. But the key to all of this is, compassion does not mean you let someone walk all over you.

I was talking to one of my friends today and she reminded me of the first time we met. I was sitting on a stoop doing business and she needed someone to talk to so I told her that I could listen to her for 10 minutes but then I had to get back to work. She talked, I comforted and went back to business. She later told me that she was so mad at me when I first said it to her but once she took time to reflect she thought to herself, the whole reason she wanted to talk to me was because she thought I was cool and part of my coolness was my dignity. And she said that day she would have spewed for hours if someone had not given her a time limit and in the long run she felt more love from me than if someone had just let her talk and suck the life out of them and then never spoken to her again.

I have many friends that tell me that when I first set boundaries with them they were so mad at me but in the end that was what actually made them love me more.

I've also had people who thought my boundaries were for the birds and ran very far from me.

It has helped me to have richer relationships with people and not to take things so personally sometimes. Now when someone gets mad I give them space. Sometimes they come back and sometimes they don't but at least its not because of a lack of love on my part. Because sometimes the best way you can show someone that you love them is to leave them alone.

Peace and Happy 2010 to you all!

Christmas is over…

This year I spent Christmas with my most favorite person in the whole wide world: me. I went to breakfast in my PJ's and took very good care of myself. So much so that when I saw my friends last night they were like, "Sue you look so well rested!"

I spent a lot of time thinking about how any action I take in my life should be life-affirming, as opposed to life-depleting.

I spent many many years shopping or going to boyfriend's (who I never really loved) parents house. It would take me weeks to recover.

I would buy things for people instead of being authentically loving. I have found that sometimes it feels more exhausting to be authentically generous, but the truth is that it's actually life affirming.

For me, when I first started doing it, it was like a muscle that I hadn't used in a very long time. It took all my energy and usually I had to sleep for a while after I did it. But, eventually it became easier and almost second nature.

As opposed to the other way, which was like a dull pain that never added to my life, but slowly  depleted it.

Two stories come to mind as I write this. The first is the night of the Last Comic Standing finals. We were in Las Vegas and the show had just finished. The show where Brett Butler freaked out because the whole show was fixed. It was awful. Everyone felt bad. I went to my hotel room and cried really really hard. I cried for like 20 minutes. After that 20 minutes, I stood up and felt energized and the first thought that came to me was, I had a boyfriend for 8 years who was practically a dead body just so I didn't have to feel 20 minutes of acute pain.

The second story is about Laurence Fishburne. I did a movie with him way back when. The day I wrapped he looked me in the eyes and said, "Sue don't ever stop doing what you're doing, they just don't get you yet."

I remember walking away feeling both flattered and frustrated. I thought what does that mean? And how do I keep going if no one gets me and why doesn't he help me?

Well after that day I sat down and began to write my show. 10 years later Laurence was on Broadway. I went to his show. I was terrified to ask if I could see him after. And of course I had to go through 8 really condescending people.

I was already so scared that he wouldn't remember me, so to fight through all these people made it even harder.

Well he poked his head out of his dressing room and said, “Get in here Costello.”

He hugged me so tight as I told him, "If no one has ever told you that you changed their life, you changed mine."

He cried. My friend was with me and she said she almost stepped out the room because it was such an intimate moment.

I have his number in my phone now and he helps me when I need help. He helps me find strength within myself to keep going.

So instead of looking for something from him I gave him something and in return he gives back.

How can something so easy be so hard?

laughter its contageous

I have always been amazed at the power of laughter, but lately it's been hitting me in a way that it never has. I have always loved the fact that I could spontaneously make a room full of people laugh. I mean, its so universal and guttural.

I've been able to make the grumpiest of people turn that frown around in a second.

When I was a kid, there was a guy at the Savin Hill train station who worked the booth.

He looked so miserable, so every time I went to take the train I would set my mind to make him smile.

He never would, until one day, out of nowhere, it happened! He smiled and I went to pay and he clicked the turnstyle and let me through.

I remember he let me ride for free from that day on. I was too young to make the connection between kindness and currency back then and as a teenager my anger caught up with me and I learned about sarcasm and began to use this power in a bad way.

It hurt others but mostly it hurt me. It was like a depleting life force.

There is something so powerful now about the fact that I use my ability as a life-giving force. I have control over it. I don't just react out fear and hurt others with it.

I remember sitting with an Italian chef who spoke only a tiny bit of English, and telling him stories about growing up and he was laughing uncontrollably.

I was fascinated with the fact that the connection was deeper than words — it was an energy.

The only way I can describe it is that I used to do it for attention, make people laugh I mean, but now I do it to make people feel good. I want people to feel better. I want them to stop worrying. I want them to turn that frown upside down.

I do it as life-affirming and life-giving. I have a child's heart and a grown woman's self-restraint.

sawry I haven’t been wrting

I'm in Florida, heading home today! Needed a little break but I'm all re-energized and I'll be back to the blogging tomorrow! Also, If you're in Boston New Year's Eve, come see me at Tommy's Comedy Lounge! 7:30 show!

I can see cleary now...

What I think matches what I feel, which matches with what see, which matches with what I say then do. It's taken a long time and I am by no means finished with my journey. I'm actually excited to find out how much more I can learn. One of my favorite things lately is getting back in touch with my tough side. I grew up in the streets of Boston and like anything, there was a lot of both good and bad that came along with it. I had to let go of a lot of it in order to rebuild and I have to say I'm psyched to be rebuilding my tough side. I used to have no impulse control. So in reality my so-called tough side was really just a dumb weak side because it usually got me into a lot of trouble and took away from my life instead of adding to it. I would have so much misdirected anger because of my past that I would screw up my future. I can honestly say that now I get mad at the appropriate things and I'm able to express it in a healthy way and sometimes that means thinking enough of myself to remove myself from a situation. Now self-preservation is my tough side. I'm tough enough to be alone and stand in with my own convictions. I need people, but only people who help me move forward. Move forward — that's an action; that is where true love for one's self lives. It's not a thought or a feeling or a something you see, it's what you do.