People are hilarious.

I know I've already posted today's crock of nonsense, but two silly things happened in such rapid succession that I had to post about them.

This guy just called La MaMa to ask about the content of this Saturday's "Coffeehouse Chronicles." This series is usually people coming in and talking about the work that they did at La MaMa in the good old days, or what they're doing now, or whatever. Sometimes a Q&A. Stuff like that. So this guy calls and says 'What's going on in this Coffeehouse Chronicles this Saturday? Will there be a performance or something?' And I told him no, it's just one of the founders of Mabou Mines coming in to talk about her work, etc.

And he's like "Well, I thought it might be a good thing for me to go to...because I thought it might put me in the mood. I'm going to see "Happy Days" that night and I thought it might be good before that. You know "Happy Days"? The Beckett play? Yeah, I guess you work at La MaMa, you must know Beckett. Well, then I wanna ask your opinion on something. So I'm going to "Happy Days" and then afterwards I'm invited to this dance party. And I thought maybe it's a good idea to go to both because one is so contracting and the other is so expansive. What's your opinion? Do you think it's a good idea to go to both?"

I had no idea if he was for real or not so I said "What exactly is it that you were invited to?" And he says "Oh, it's some sort of trance-dancing party. Very nouveau-hippieish kinda thing, you know?" I told him maybe it'd be a good thing to do and he said "Thanks for that tip. It's a good idea, don't you think?"

Then, this funny couple in the lobby asked me if I was cold and I said that it's warmer here than in my apt., so I wasn't going to complain. The woman was HORRIFIED and said "You have to call 311. That's against the law. Where do you live?" When I said Brooklyn, the guy was like "Oh! Well, then, there's nothing to do." And she said "No, come on, she can't afford to live in New York City! She moves all the way to Brooklyn AND she can't have heat? That's just not fair!" She was a little bit Cher in Moonstruck. Pre-makeover.

ugh.

I'm feeling a new depth of unmotivated-ness. It's beginning to freak me out a little bit. It ain't good, to say the least.

It's more than an unwillingness to work. It's a lack of pride in what I'm doing and a lack of desire to do things well. That's scary.

Hopefully it's just a mood.

Hopefully.


And you know what? It's all within me. No outside forces are oppressing me or keeping me from doing what I want to do. Sure, it'd be "easier" if I had a little more money or something, but come on. It's not about that. It's about me and being lazy and not really doing anything and certainly not doing anything that's gonna get me anywhere...and spending my time feeling sorry for myself. It's so much easier to be depressed than to be not depressed these days. I must resist the urge to be lazy! Laziness is tantamount (catamount, Megs) to depression. No laziness. No depression.

Wait.

This means no laying in bed watching HBO DVDs for twenty-three hours of the day?

Fuck.


On a less self-indulgent note, Alan at work just told me: "I can smell your eggs. Whoa. What a fucked-up thing to say to a girl." He was talking about the hardboiled one I had in my dinner bag.

Oh, also! IN an effort to stave off boredom, depression, and at least nominally, poverty, Erin and I are opening an Etsy.com store to sell crafts and other shit. We want to cater specifically to hipsters....we plan to hoodwink them by doing things like putting a pog and some beads on a chain and calling it a necklace. Erin and I have both fallen for Etsy hook, line, and sinker.

Finally: I miss my friends a lot. I am getting falsely nostalgic for this time last year, even though I KNOW I was pretty unhappy back then. I was in the middle of Antigone, doing a terrible job, ruining relationships left and right, not sleeping enough, not eating enough, not getting my work done.... But the other night Karl texted me a picture of us from last Valentine's Day where we were wearing Craig's clothes because we'd all been caught in a terrible sleet/snow/rain storm on the way of of school. It was the only day I've ever tried to look nice for school by wearing a dress, and of course I paid for it dearly.

Anyway, in this picture, Karl's wearing a Third Eye Blind t-shirt and I'm wearing a sparkly, puffy Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles shirt and we're both grinning in a hangdog sort of way. Perhaps we know what's about to occur! (Kings, a LOT of broken glass, drunkenness by five o'clock, etc.) I think the feeling that I am so nostalgic for and sentimental about is the feeling that I was actually DOING something. I felt like we were doing something vital and important with BUSTAMFOP, and my revolutionary fervor was always at at least, oh, 89%. We were all going like gangbusters, whether for each other or against each other (I feel like it was mostly the latter).... and I'd like to feel like that again.

I thought the two parts of this post were unrelated, but obviously, they aren't.


The lesson I've learned today can best be summed up in the words of Brian Wilson:

Sleep a lot
Eat a lot
Brush 'em like crazy.
Run a lot
Do a lot
Never be lazy.

Two notes:

1) I'll never be one of the three sisters.

2) I like Daniel Day-Lewis' posthumous man-crush on Heath Ledger. (Really, I do. I think it's very sweet.)

And...1,000 Words Worth of Pictures!

The Christiana Train Depot, site of the Keystone Convention.




The master builders, at work.



The boys, getting frisky in the $240 air mattress fort.(Disturbing on many, many levels. That's Aldo [my roomie] on the left, Grego' in the middle, and Jesse on the right.)


Lauren and I wonder how and why we wound up wearing opposite outfits.


We just aren't sure how to handle it!


IN CASE YOU DIDN'T HEAR IT WHEN LAURA TOLD YOU THE FIRST, SECOND, OR FIFTEENTH TIME....


Under the influence of a two-day convention... not a pretty sight.


It's affecting them, too:


Terrifying.

$23,000 Worth of Fun in Sunny Pennsylvania!

I am arrived! I made it back from the wilds of Christiana, Pennsylvania after doing more singing in two days than I've ever done in my whole life put together. That isn't a mathematically (I just typed "mametically" and "methamatically" before getting it right. That is very indicative of my current mental and physical state.) sound statement, but that's what it feels like.

I left on Friday after work and met up with Jesse, Lauren, and Rachel to depart in Jesse's resurrected car for PA. The journey was swift and painless, accompanied by a bag of tortilla chips and a half-eaten box of "Pop'ems," a variety of wax-covered donut balls brought by Lauren. We meowed all the way through Easter Anthem...probably some of the best five minutes of my life. It was obviously super dark by the time we got to PA, but the stars were bright and the sky was clear and everyone suddenly looked more healthy and hale and hearty. We got to the Densmore residence, our hotel for the weekend, around 9:00 or something to find a huge crowd of people singing in the living room. We feasted on weird things like, well, tongue, and reunited with part two of the NYC contingent, Greg, Jen, Meredith, and Zeke. After the singers departed, Greg, Zeke and Lauren broke out their banjo, guitar, and autoharp, respectively, and played some old-time stuff that they're hoping to play at some gig they've gotten themselves. They sounded really great and I stepped in to sing when it got too high for Jesse. ;) Zeke has a beautiful steel guitar and he plays it really wonderfully. Lauren's autoharp was suffering from lack of strings but sounded good nonetheless. And obviously I'm a big fan of Greg and his banjo-playing prowess.

It seems an appropriate time to introduce you, faithful reader, to the character of the Densmore house itself. I t was obviously built semi-recently, and is modern in shape, but was built with one eye ooking backwards-- exposed beams, brick or hardwood, wide-plank floors, etc. And the decor is all antique or faux-antique, ranging from colonial to Restoration HArdware. BUt it's realy cool-- and every inch is decked out in tchotchkes the like of which you have never seen: about 50 jaw harps nailed the wall; a program, framed, from a 1900- something medium gathering in Lily Dale, NY; and ancient beaver top hat; sins from defunct mills in Oswego; daguerreotypes; corn husk dolls; canteens; bugles....you get the idea. Basically, my eyes couldn't expand wide enough to take it all in. I just kept walking like a woman possessed from corner to corner, looking at all the great junk everywhere.

The downside of all of this is that, as one would be, Laura is very, very, VERY protective of her home and wants to make sure that no on is doing anything-- and I mean anything-- that could in any way harm it. And cost her money.

This is certainly a feeling that makes sense. I don't want anyone fucking my stuff up, either. But I also don't invite seventeen people, most of them under thirty, to stay in my house, and I don't spend tons of my own money to do so. Because I'm not that generous-- but she IS. Her generosity manifests itself in a very, very anal way, though, where it seems like she'd rather not be doing it. WEIRD.

Anyway, the catalyst for all of this behavior, apaprently, was that a few years ago a singer who-shall-not-be-named (ok, it was Voldemort) stayed over and flushed a tampon down the toilet. And, as several computer-printed, framed, signs in each bathroom reminded us, "It caused $23,000.00 worth of damage."

So.

Not only did we read those manifold signs, but Laura reminded us, oh, about three times a day. She told the men. She told the women. She told the whole group.

There was also a sign in the upstairs bathroom to this effect: "When you take a shower, you must use BOTH FANS. All six light toggles MUST BE UP. If they are not, mildew will collect on the skylight. The skylight has ALREADY BEEN REPLACED ONCE."

A later incident involving air mattresses resulted in Laura telling us "You know, those mattresses cost eighty dollars. Each." So we really, because we're very mature, took this and ran with it. We started putting a price on everything in the house AND wondering if we were allowed to flush THAT down the toilet. It doesn't really translate very well. We considered modeling our thank-you note on the MasterCard ads, something like: "Air Mattresses for Seventeen: $1,360. Replacing Mildewed Skylight: $2,500. Rebuilding Septic System Post-Tampon: $23,000. Hosting a Gang of Rambunctious, Immature Singers: Priceless." We're not sure yet if she'd find it funny or if we'd be banned forever. (People HAVE been banned. All I'm saying.)

Anyway, on to the singing. We were woken up around, oh, dawn, by Sacred Harp music blaring down at us. We feasted on bagels and coffee and chatted with the weird hippies and Mainiacs also staying at the house and then we all hightailed it to the Christiana Train Depot. This involved driving over a LOT of hills, and me and Lauren going "oh god" a lot. The building was a cute refurbished train depot with nice wood floors and a huge kitchen (of course important.) Singing was upstairs, everything else was downstairs. We were reunited with our Boston brethren, and I was so excited to see all of those people-- I haven't seen them since September! I sat with Justin all day in the tenor section. We front-benched for the last two sessions of the day, not caring if we were being rude by not moving. I led Exhortation (key words: Behold, the months come hastening on when you shall say 'My joys are gone!') and, of course, because I can NEVER resist, Schenectady. Good fun. Lunch was spectacular, as always, and I ate way too many bread products. As always. There were lots of familiar faces in the crowd and we sounded good and things moved pretty quickly and smoothly. All in all, very nice.

After the sing we headed to the Hoyt's for the social. They, too, live in an unbelievable house-- theirs is ACTUALLY old, built sometime in the late 18th century, and is just beautiful. Drama abounded, drinks flowed, banjos were played quite a bit, and I ate more. And more. As usual. Joanna pretended to slit my throat six times while I sat in an antique barber chair...Grego and I crab-walked on the heated-brick floor...Jen and Greg danced to the fiddle player and I taught Crystal my famous dance move....wonderful.

We headed back late to the Densmore's and proceeded to further erode her goodwill by building a fort out of blankets, sheets, and air mattresses. I wasn't directly involved in this, though I did take pictures. So I'm complicit. Everyone stayed up way too late, so it was particularly brutal to be woken up by the recording of the previous day's singing at around seven AM. We hurriedly restored the basement to order, ate, threw our gear in the car, and were off, once more, the to train depot. The crowd was smaller, but much was the same. The memorial lesson was very nice. I led Sweet Morning and The Great Day, pulling an Allison Schofield and stomping with my high heels. Which brings me to the fact that Lauren and I were wearing outfits that were essentially the opposite of each other, color-wise. Very sharp. Justin wore a wool jacket that, oh, he made himself, paired with a scarf that, yeah whatever, he wove himself. PLEAE. Steve Hoyt told me and Crystal and we personified something his mom told him, that "Fashion goes out of style, but style never goes out of fashion." Cute.

J and I sand treble for a few sessions, which was well and good. Lunch was delish, cleanup painless, goodbyes sad but brief and temporary. Greg and I rode home with Terry instead of going to the late-night Exeter sing....we couldn't take it anymore. As a divine reward, we saw fifteen cowboys waiting in line for Burger King at the James Fenimore Cooper rest station in Jersey. Terry dropped us off practically at our doorsteps, which was amazing. No L train for me.

Then I got an unexpected call from Ben, who happened to be down the block. I walked around Williamsburg with him for a little bit, then came home and absolutely crashed. I had no fewer than four distinct singing dreams (forgotten now, of course).

And now, I'm up. I sound like a chain smoker when I speak and my shoulder carriage aches from beating time and holding that heavy-ass book all weekend.

And you deserve a prize if you read this far.

Phew.

#$&%@*!!!

Ah, Guardian blogs! Letting me down, at last! Today's batch featured this just-plain-insane entry from a man whose last name is "Pulver," which puts me in mind of a verb describing what I'd gladly do to him if I saw him onl the street. (Alright, not really, but please. Pulver? There's a divorce lawyer near Erin's apt. whose name is"Tracey Bloodsaw." How can that be her real name?! Every time I walk by the sign, I say to myself "Blooooodsawww" in a Vincent Price voice.)

Anyway, here are some key sentences from the entry entitled : 'Should Tim Burton Have Cut Sweeney Todd's Songs?'

"It wasn't what I was expecting. I'm no Sondheim maven, nor am I much of a fan of musicals in general. In fact, the only Sondheim tune I know I've heard is Send in the Clowns. But I really wasn't prepared for the cavalcade of horribleness that was the Sweeney Todd music. (I'm presuming, rightly or wrongly, that it's been lifted pretty much intact from the stage show.) Sweeney Todd the film pretty much grinds to a halt whenever the music starts swelling; the plodding melodies and uninspiring lyrics seeing to that."

"Personally speaking, I still enjoyed Sweeney Todd the movie a great deal. Edit out the songs and there's plenty to get excited about."

And finally...

"The Todd story is colourful and gory enough, you'd have thought, without the need for such pedestrian warbling. (Once again, I stress this is not the fault of the performers, who acquit themselves perfectly well. It's the songs themselves.)"


Oh, dear.


In happier news, I leave today for the Keystone Convention in Christiana, PA! (My mom said "At least it's an appropriately-named town.") Jesse, Lauren, Rachel and I are leaving at prime rush-hour-out-of-NYC and who knows when we'll arrive at our destination. (We've got all four parts in the car. Dorks dork dorks!)

Speaking of dorks, Lauren summed up the theme of the Time Mag article in this succinct statement: "Jesus Christ is a Superstar. He got that way thanks to punks, Jews, Buddhists, freaks....and geeks." You have to say it in a Poindexter voice for it to work. (I use that word at least once a day. My cousin used to have a cat named Poindexter-- they called it 'Pointy.')

The downside of Keystone is that I have to wear clothing there, and since it's a convention, #1, it theoretically should be nice clothing, AND , since it's a convention, #2, I have to have two DAYS worth. I don't really own any nice clothing, per se, so I spent the better part of an hour last night ripping everything out of my closet and throwing it around the room. Then trying it on. I settled on a dour, dour black skirt and shirt outfit which I'll pair with black stocking. But so no one mistakes me for a witch (it's literally what I wore for my "Halloween costume" at temp-work this year, minus the striped knee-socks) or a Quaker I'll wear red high heels. And I'll smile.

Anyway, I'm so excited to go away and to see my friends and to eat very-unhealthy Sacred Harp food and see people from everywhere else. And sleep in a a farmhouse basement. And be inappropriately dressed. And try out three of the four parts. And get anxious about what song I'm gonna call. Etc etc etc. Fun and games.

Finally: a guy who works here brought in some junk from his apt. that he's welcoming people to pick over. One of the things is a beautifully-embossed book from teh late 1800s called "Conscience Tales," or "Flemish Life: Four Stories." It's by a man who is going by the name "Hendrick Conscience." Certainly not one of MY forbears!
Non sequiturs galore!

Superstitions galore.

So, I'm actually finding myself feeling very sad about Heath Ledger. The more I think about it, the sadder I get. I keep thinking about Ms. Lohmann and how she used to talk about shutting herself in a room for a week after James Dean died and how heartbroken she was. I called my mom and she hadn't heard yet and she said 'That's so sad. He was so lovely.' Sometimes I think about how much of a mess I could legitimately be when a certain of my favorite actors dies. I don't even want to say his name! Lord knows I'm a very superstitious person, and also a very dramatic and emotional person...so it's a recipe for disaster. I guess the hope is that his death will not be untimely-- if any death can be called 'untimely' (because who knows?)--or shocking or terrible in any way. And Rinnz and I were just watching Brokeback last week! This combined with the fact that we saw Paul Rudd on the street yesterday just as H.L.'s body was being found makes us believe that we are somehow responsible for his death. Of course we aren't. Neither of us are quite sure why or how we think Paul Rudd is linked to this in any way....but we're sure it is. (We know it isn't.)

We bought dishes at Fishs Eddy yesterday. Are we getting old? Buying dishes? Don't most twentysomethings buy shoes? Or something?

Work was quiet as a lightbulb (credit that bon mot to Dan Iskhakov circa 2003 German class) last night. No show, nothing to do. I sold about four tickets in five hours. Two friends came to visit, both lovely surprises. When it was through I went to Queens (which took the better part of an hour, thank you MTA) to watch Law and Order with Erin and Jimmy and Rory Calhoun while eating Krasdale ice cream sandwiches. They were like manna from heaven.

There's a chance that some form of The Civil Wargasm, one of my old class plays, could be performed next month. So I've hauled its dusty carcass out and have been looking at it. It's a woolly mammoth. It's some species that's been dead for millions of years. It's ancient and doddering and I have to get some purchase on it so I can hope to shape it up in some, ANY way. (Why is it that I WANT to do this with my life, again? What? Acting? Theatre? What?)

Sigh.

Shadows of dissent on the fasola mailing list:

Although this may best be a message left to the Discussions list, it involves a recent press article that will doubtless be at the center of attention among singers at upcoming singings since it is one of the first nationally distributed articles in awhile. For that reason, and to get us thinking yet again about what our music is and isn't, I offer this note to the Singings list.

For those with heartfelt desire to preserve the tradition of Sacred Harp singing, regardless of whether they are motivated by religious or secular considerations, it is important to recognize the central message contained in most of the music. Contrary to the primary themes of the Time article, the music was not written and sung to create a trendy art form, generate a place for "hip advocates" to gather, or necessarily even do it merely for "the sound." Many - I would hope most - of the early singer/composers were writing and singing as a form of worship of our savior, Jesus Christ the Son of God. Whether a portion of the singers, even a majority of the singers, now sing the music for other reasons (such as is their right), we must faithfully recognize the centrality of the spiritual roots of Sacred Harp. To do otherwise is to risk that Sacred Harp singing will go the way of all trends and fads; a flash in the pan rather than a continuing tradition.

Tom Mitchell

Oh.

I am reminded lately of one of my favorite parts from bobrauschenbergamerica. It's repeated by two couples- Allen & Carl, and later, Susan & Wilson. It keeps drifting through my brain.


Blah blah blah. Let Charles Mee say it:


ALLEN
And I think
if you think a person's agreeable and warmhearted
then I think there's something there you can't explain
that gives you real
delight.

CARL
Oh.

ALLEN
I find
you give delight to me.

CARL
Oh. Well.
That's what I'd hope for more than anything.

ALLEN
So would I.

CARL
And you're not sorry about it?

ALLEN
How do you mean?

CARL
That you find delight in someone
who doesn't seem to you in any other way
desirable
who doesn't perhaps have those qualities
that you can count on
for, you know, the solid, long-term kind of thing.

ALLEN
I would just take delight long-term.

CARL
Oh.
So would I.

When I try to make eye contact, my face pays no attention. It just turns and looks the other way!

At any given second lately, here's what you'd find if my forehead had a ticket-tape printer of the thoughts behind it:

LONDON LONDON LONDON LONDON LONDON  (repeat on and on and on and....)

Yeah. Uh, I'd like to go back to Jolly Olde. Anyone want to help the cause?

I've been thinking about it a lot lately.  I think it's because of the season-- this is the time of the year that I was away and sometimes I like to crack open the old journal and see what I was doing, then.  I said the other day that maybe I'm so nostalgic for that time because right now my life is so uncertain, with nothing as a given, and no real clear direction-- and the semester that I was in London, I barely had to worry about ANYTHING. Other than 'How am I getting to Ireland next weekend?' I didn't have to worry about school, because there was so much time for that after I got home, and I didn't have to worry about graduating because I had a whole year left, and I didn't really have to worry about a job or anything because that's how it was.  So maybe I'm so nostalgic not only for England as a thing itself but for the feeling of not-panic that I felt for my semester over there.  I could use some of that now.  I could also use a weekend getaway to Dublin.  Or anywhere else.

But! I'm going to exotic and glamorous Christiana, Pennsylvania, next weekend for the Keystone Convention. I am thrilled.  I will see so many of my singing friends from Boston that I haven't seen since god-knows-when....the NYC All-Day? Really?! And I haven't been to PA since, I think, the days of Music in the Parks and Dorney Park.  And that brown limo with the giant stuffed animals in it. (Did I make that up? Rinnz?)

Anyway....misdirected nostalgia.  Leah had a line in her play the other day that went something like: "Memory and fantasy are the Viet Cong of the mind." I laughed.

In Addendum...

I totally forgot to write about the most exciting part of my day yesterday, which was going to my cousin Leah's reading at New Dramatists. First of all, I've never been there, but I hold it in such high regard that it was thrilling to even go inside. It was full of scruffy-looking people holed up on couches and at tables, surrounded by papers and books and things. Ideal fulfilled, obviously. It was really nice to see Leah-- and my uncle Bill and his former wife (my ex-aunt? who knows) Barbara came which was a surprise to me, albeit a good one. The actor reading the lead was a senior at CFA when I was a freshman-- I saw him in many a show including Marat/Sade and Romeo and Juliet and of course it's only natural that he should wind in a reading of my cousin's play. Of course. I couldn't stay to talk-- I had to get to work-- but it was a really nice afternoon and I'm so glad that I got to go. And I congratulate Leah heartily. Maybe someday she will come see a reading of something I write. In a shack somewhere.

I've been using up some Starbucks gift certificates that I got for Christmas on frivolous, foamy drinks. I have a love-hate relationship with Starbucks which is too stupid to talk about, but I will say-- I absolutely hate their inane "The Way I See It"s. Today I got one that really took the cake:

"Music is what I always turn to when I'm feeling a certain way. It's my reason for everything."

Credit that gem to Josh Groban, asinine musician extradaordinaire. I felt stupider after reading it.


Anyway, what do I expect?

My sheets are tearing from sleeping in too long, sleeping in too long...

So I would be remiss if I didn't address my newfound stardom; yes, that's right, I AM in Time Magazine. I know. No, I won't come entertain at your kid's  birthday party or speak at your next corporate function. I am basically super-renowned now, for saying things about Jude Law and posing with my cellphone in my back pocket.  If you'd like to see it for yourself, check it out here:

Give Me That Old-Time Singing

Really though, it's fun. If you listen to the audio, Aldo does everyone proud in his role as "antiquarian and musician."  Silliness.

I tried to swim at Met Pool today, but in my haste to avoid the Hasidim, I went when there was no swimming at all. Lame.  Instead I ate a big old bagel and strolled around in the strange sunshine.  I saw a guy wearing and Old School NY 'Albany is Eggciting!' shirt in the Bagel Store, and I had just been talking to the counter guy about Schenectady (he asked, he asked), and I turn around and see this shirt-- so of course I blow up and the guy was notttttttttt interested.  His girlfriend, who was sitting with him and apparently lives in Albany, was also nottttttttt interested.  Whatever.

I got my lost wallet back today.  Thank god for my student ID being back in my sweaty paws.  Let the scamming resume.

So, Bobby Fischer died.  This completes the celebrity dead triangle and I can calm down wondering who's next, at least for a little bit.  What do Vampira, Brad Renfro, and Bobby Fischer have in common?  What a strange combination.

I'm still at work.  Still. Chriz is drinking cognac out of a snifter.  There is a gang of guys chatting about doing drugs. I'd like to be in bed.

Whatsa matter, baby? Somebody made you mad?

I'm constantly getting harangued by homeless people. Mostly it's about my smile. If I'm smiling (if the day is so rare...oh, drama dram drama), they like it and sometimes tell me I'm pretty. If I'm not smiling, they ask me why I'm not. Karl talks about getting upset when people ask him why he isn't smiling, or when they tell him to smile. I don't feel exactly the same way, but.... I don't know. If it's the second situation, 99% of the time, I'll nervously smile in response. If I have a sense of humor that day.

Anyway, the title of this post was said to me last night and it made me...smile. It's nice when I can be reminded not to take myself and everything else so seriously.

A text I got today:

I think that at the conclusion of the Inspector Gadget series, Gadget should have captured Doctor Claw's cat, taken him to the vet, and had him de-clawed. That would have taught kids not only how to be clever, resourceful and ironic, but also the heart-warming rewards of stick-to-it-iveness.

From Craig. My friends. My friends.

I woke up late today. Then I spent over two hours watching the first few episodes of Carnivale, the HBO series from a few years back. I'm in love already. And I want Clea DuVall's haircut.

I'm not sure what's going to change in my life--or when-- but something has to. Because I can't go on with such a low level of productivity/motivation/inclination to do ANYTHING. I'll just stop being alive if I expend any less energy on a daily basis than I am now. Like a slug, or a sloth.

Hey, at least I have a phrenology head t-shirt.

Sigh.

Too hip. Gotta go.

Brad Renfro is dead.

RENT is closing.



What is happening to the nineties?! I don't like this at all.



In what is becoming a pattern, I spent the evening in Astoria last night. After having lunch with Katy in Williamsburg, I met Erin by NYU, and we snuck into Tisch ("I'm so sorry! I just don't have my ID with me!") to deliver a present to her friend, went shopping (ridiculous, as usual), and headed back to her apartment to kill some time by....watching Brokeback Mountain. I'm not sure what possessed us to this, and we had very bad attitudes about the proceedings. we mainly spent the time yelling "BOOBS!" and asking each other questions like "Do we get to see any penis in this movie?" Stupid.

Later, I met up with Misters Cowart and Klein at a bar and proceeded to drink a fair amount. It was great to see them and catch up...they're certainly wilder outside the theatre than they are in in. Were were joined eventually by three of their friends, all guys. As Lauren would say- sausagefest. (Motif to this post? Christ.) I stayed out late and had a wonderful time. Then it was back to Erin's the watch SVU (terrifying) and The Simpsons and to terrorize the cat.

Today's greatest hits include shopping at Trader Joe's, buying an amazing t-shirt with a picture of a phrenology head on it, and wandering around Williamsburg muttering to myself, as I am wont to do.


And I turn to the Stray Cats to keep me going.


Oh! This is intersting-- Jane called me this morning to tell me that a weird package came to the house, missing $1.62 in postage, which contained....MY WALLET! The missing one! Weird, right? The return address is something like "Brooklyn Undeliverable Property" and/or the post office. I don't get it. My bank cards are missing (but of course they were canceled immediately), but it seems like most if not all of my other stuff is in there- including my Girl Scouts of America Lifetime Membership card (phew!) AND my student ID. Which I am overjoyed about.

Who ran the iron horse?

insert fire pun HERE.

An eventful day!

1) I am now the "Certificate of Fitness Holder" for FDNY exams F-90, F-94, and F-33! But you can just call me Fire Guard. Or Fire Drill Conductor. Or person in charge of visually mainting fire alarm systems. (That one isn't as catchy.) I took my tests this morning at 9 MetroTech Plaza in downtown Brooklyn-- which looks strangely like downtown Albany. I was there for about three hours, all told- an unimaginably complex shuffle-dance of getting a number, filling forms out, sitting, going to a window, getting a new number, going across the hall, sitting, waiting....over and over and over. All that matters is that I got my stinkin' certifications. And now I can stop worrying about it.

2) Nitz came over in the afternoon. We kvetched and went to Peter Pan for donuts. Delicious.

3) I worked my first legal shift as House Manager tonight.

4) Aldo gave me a bunch of books yesterday, including an amazing copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice. It was meant to be-- I am seriously in love. It's the pulpiest pulp I've ever read- if Clifford Odets had a lovechild with whoever it is that James Ellroy modeled himself after. It really is coming at the right time- I've been thinking about reading some James Ellroy lately-- it's always a process (wow, this is interesting for other people)-- but this is better. I mean, I KNOW I'm a sucker for stuff like this, where people talk in sentences that sound like machine-gun fire, and everyone's always punching each other. Here's an part that made me grin:


"That's what we're going to do. Kiss me, Frank. On the mouth."
I kissed her. Her eyes were shining up at me like two blue stars. It was like being in church.



And that, folks....is that. Now, excuse me while I go snuggle up with my electric blanket and the aforementioned book.

Well HELLO, dolly!

Got the above from a homeless guy with a cellphone on First Ave. this morning.

In a sad piece of news, Maila Nurmi, otherwise known as Vampira, died a few days ago. She was 86. Here's a little article about it.

Yesterday turned out to be quite the eventful day. After my sluggish morning as a waste of space, I met up with Ariel and Erin in Union Square. We walked, at my request, over to Gramercy Park so I could press my face up to the bars and look at the statue of Edwin Booth. This was after telling Ariel I'd meet her "in front of the statue of George Washington," and having her respond "What statue of George Washington?" Statues were a minor theme of the day. From there, we all wandered over to Eisenberg's and enjoyed some unhealthy food, too much coffee, and the erratic service of our flashily-dressed, Eastern European waitress. She was very cute.

At work, I wasted hours of time and did some studying for my fire guard tests that I have to take tomorrow. I am secretly terrified that I am going to fail. When's the last time I took a multiple-choice test?! Oh god. We'll see.

Annnnnd then I met up with Katy, Molly, and a bunch of people I didn't know at the Hope Lounge, in Williamsburg, to belatedly celebrate Katy's birthday. It was nice to see people-- I hadn't seen Molly since before she went on tour. Came home, watched Extras, crashed. Woke up too late this morning....and now I'm at work. And later hopefully singing. And studying.

Ugh.

Is she having a laugh?!

Who knew doing nothing could be so tiring?

I worked from 2.30-midnight yesterday. I managed to do 1/10th of the stuff I wanted to, which is an improvement from this past week. Pathetic.

It took me about 45 minutes to get home-- the L train is going to be screwed up after midnight for, oh, about two months. Which is wonderful.

Came home, hunkered down to do some work, did a fair amount (this is a totally relative measurement), "rewarded" myself by watching a little bit of Extras....fell asleep and then woke with a start at 5 in the morning, groaning. I'm forever doing things like that. For some reason, I thought this was an appropriate time to go back to my desk and try to work-- obviously I could barely even see clearly and it was a futile attempt. Went back to sleep until ELEVEN. Decadence! Undeserved decadence!

On the bright side, I became the owner of a sleek silver umbrella last night. I can't reveal my sources, but it has something to do with Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar. I think it could act quite literally as a lightning rod in a thunderstorm-- important to remember, unless I'm feeling really dangerous that day.

Work today until midnight again, probably, and then party for Katy and her birthday.

One of these days....

Oh, and I sold a ticket to someone named Rathbone last night.

Break it, John!

The Guardian has a hip and oftentimes very interesting arts blog that Google Reader gloriously brings to me every day. Here's part of an article about a recent production (at the Menier Chocolate Factory) of La Cage aux Folles and their use of audience participation:

"It can be refreshing when a production breaks down the barriers between audience and performers in this way, puncturing the fourth wall and encouraging interaction...But it needs to be managed imaginatively for it to really work, and there is a tepid quality to the way it is done in La Cage. These interludes felt a little too rehearsed - ironic in a production that otherwise has a distinctly rough-around-the-edges appeal. There was no danger, it all felt a bit forced and half-hearted. They'd tweaked the rules, but only superficially. You got the feeling that any genuine interaction with the performances would be unwelcome. It is understandable why they'd want to minimise the uncertainty that comes with audience involvement... I just wish they'd been a bit more daring and pushed this aspect of the show a little further."

Breaking the fourth wall has come up a few times for me over the past week.

I saw a show last night at La MaMa- "Fountain of Youth," a music/dance/poetry/fusion thing by Akim Funk Buddha, a (this is from his bio) "Director/Composer/Performer/old-school B-boy MC." Um, right. Fellow Box Office Gal Emma and I went, and as we ascended the stairs, we whispered to each other...."I hope there's no audience participation in this." Of course that meant there were, and for silly reasons we wound up in the front row. Withing five minutes the audience had been semi-gently reprimanded (some would say "encouraged") for not vocally responding loud enough. During a freestyle something-or-other, Akim approached Emma with the mic for a sound and she shook her head no. (I would have done the same.) In short, it was an hour of the worst, absolutely worst kind of audience participation-- the kind that is so forced that it detracts from the show and makes people, or at least me, really uncomfortable.

I was telling a recent reader of WTTAN (people write me just begging to read it, don't you know. Oh, wait. This is real life?) about how Rigg's fourth-wall-breaking came about and started thinking about the huge can of worms Craig and I repeatedly opened for ourselves during that show -- the enduring question of WHO IS THE AUDIENCE TO YOU? once you've addressed them directly. Obviously in Akim's show, we were us. In La Cage, I'd probably be someone at La Cage. So that works. While talking about it, I struggled to properly voice the eventual answer Craig and I worked out for Riggs and WTTAN-- the specters of the house, the people Riggs thinks he sees, figments of his alcoholic imagination...I don't even remember what the final answer was. And certainly no one ever agreed with our interpretation exactly-- which is of course fine. It's something I think about when I wonder what I'll do with the script and whether I'll revise it (I'd like to), whether it'll get done again (I sure hope so), and within that, how much it'll change (I don't know).

I know direct address is definitely different that audience participation, and some people might say that there is ALWAYS audience participation, even in shows where the fourth wall isn't broken. I guess that's the hope, if I'm going to be hippy-dippy about it.

Hmm.


Unrelated, here are two things I overheard the other day:


"I don't care where they're coming from, but I think they're going to hell."


"Take a walk, enjoy the weather, enjoy the girls and their sexy asses."

In-DEED.

INTRUDER, INTRUDER.

I woke up this morning to the sounds of some crazy alarm system blaring the above message. The whole thing was something like "Intruder. Intruder. Leave now." I swear to god. It was hellishly loud and went on for a good....twenty-five minutes? Half an hour?

Ahh....the best way to wake up.


And really- what alarm literally says 'Intruder'? Who are they hoping to alert?

Adlai, Adlai, what did you say?

Lonny Price emailed me!


Nothing too exciting to report. This new year is a strange one already. There's no food in the house (curse of the starving class and all that), I blow my money on yoga and coffee, and I can't seem to do anything creative, no matter how hard I try.


But Lonny Price emailed me! And thanked me for my hard work! So that's something.


Work is fine. Uneventful. Pretty easy, though I manage to mess something up at least once a day.


Ach, this blog isn't worth writing right now. Send me bottles of champagne and crates of books to bolster my spirits.

Apartment House Blues

In an interesting turn of events, my Polish neighbors keep pounding on my door and saying "Close water! Close water!" when the sink is on.

Huh.

You're the leader of the galaxy! Show a little taste!

Despite an okay morning of doing nothing and cuddling in bed with Lucifer (I don't mean the cat, either), today quickly turned into the kind of day that only Elvis Costello can make worth it. I think about the following quote on days like this-- this is from a piece by Patton Oswalt about doing yoga and shooting guns in the same day:

"[It] was the biggest “You got chocolate in my peanut butter!” moment I’ve had so far in my life. Guns and yoga are French fries dipped in a milkshake. Scotch and ginger ale. Elvis Costello’s “This Year’s Model” after a bad breakup. Reruns of “Law and Order” and having no life: they’re good together."

It made me laugh when I read it (bus to showcase, incidentally....very, VERY incidentally), and now whenever I'm in a mood and turn to E.C. for help, I think about it. Anyway, some of the aforementioned album and I was pretty okay again. It's so angry and when I listen to it, I think I feel worse about whatever I'm upset about for a little...but then feel wholly better. As if I needed to get really pissed to be okay. I don't know. All I know is that happiness is Elvis shrieking in my ear at a too-high volume.

Last night on the way home from work I had a silly encounter with these two slighty-drunk guys. I was walking to the train and I yawned, and as I was doing so I made accidental eye contact with this guy in a very Slavs! outfit. He wove his way over to me and said "You've got four cavities. I could see them when you yawned." I told him "I've only got two" and they apparently took this as feistiness, which they liked. This guy sort of shook my hand and laughed and then kissed me on the cheek, saying "A kiss because you're beatiful. You're really beautiful. You look like Nicole Kidman, did anyone ever tell you that?" I said that yes, people had. Who knew there were so many people who don't actually know what Nicole Kidman looks like? Right. Anyway, things got sillier from here with his friend trying to get in on the action but not being half as stupidly charming. Cossack-chic (yeah, he can't really be a Cossack AND from Slavs! but I don't give a shit) told me "You've got knockout beauty. I bet guys are going crazy for you." On my negative, he said "Okay, maybe you just don't know it."

Now, call me anything you want, but...I am told I am pretty almost exclusively by drunks or crazies on the street. Do I worry? Nah. I've always liked it, and I always will. Probably.

Anyway, this went on for some time, him asking me if I like "Those guys with the tight jeans and the stringy hair, those hipsters" or if I was more into "Guidos. Or brothers." (His friend was black.)

I came away from the encounter with a momentary lift in self-whatever, AND, best of all....two wrinkled photocopies of this joker's headshot and resume. Don't get me started. This life.

Work is work. I read and sit around. What do I have to complain about? I talked astrology and cards and whatnot with Valois and watched SVU. Please.

New Presidential obsession: Franklin Pierce in general. Second New Presidential Obsession: Zachary Taylor's death. Third: James Buchanan's bachelor status and the way that Bunny Breckinridge is distantly involved with him.

Ain't that peculiar.

far from the 192 i love!

Alright.

So my life has taken a turn for the better in that I seem to be working sort-of steadily at La MaMa.  Which is good. Though of course I resent having to work, especially on the weekend. Who do I think I am? I'm not sure what I think I'm entitled to or where that entitlement came from, but JESUS.  I think I actually just resent myself because if I work during the day, I will go out at night. But if I know I'm working at night, I seem to be prone to laying around in the daytime, feeling dread and reluctance in regards to the work I know I'll eventually have to be doing.

Anyway, fun things have been happening, too.  Apparently Time magazine is doing some sort of story on shape-note singing and a reporter came to our home sing on New Year's Eve.  Maybe I wrote about that before.  God knows, all I do is repeat myself. Loudly.  The Lower East Side sing was a bit of a zoo today-- the bartender forgot his keys or something so we couldn't get into the space for about 45 minutes.  And, of course, the turnout was massive compared to what it's been recently.  So to the horror of everyone on Ludlow street (well, just between Stanton and Rivington), we sang outside. And the reporter, David, was there, and so was a photographer. As much as I didn't want to....I was posing. A little. Oh, please. Please, Anna.  Evenutally we got inside and there were just SO many people and everyone was really in a great mood, pitching in to help set up, rig the lights, etc.  A nice feeling of camaraderie.  A lovely time, all-around. Really nice. 

In his despair over Aldo not being here for a week, Lucifer has taken to sleeping on my bed.  Which is pretty cute.  (Though of course....he's no Slinky.)


Story to Illustrate the Answer to the Question "Who Am I Becoming?", # 174:
Looking for a place to have coffee this morning, in my neighborhood, I heard myself reject a place with the following:
"No...they have sports on TV."

 I think that speaks for itself.



Pretentiotron....reporting for duty.

do i worry?

you can bet your life i do!

Task: Look up "resistentialism."

A good source tipped me off to the above word. It's a gem. Look it up.

The second day of the new year was more productive than the first for me. I slept at Rinnz's last night, where I binged on The Office and Arrested Development and Scrabulous and finally reclaimed my stolen beer garden stein. And battled the cat, of course.

This morning I finally went to the bank, became a member of the Metropolitan Pool and Rec. Center (ID card and everything), and volunteered (for a measly half-an-hour) at an animal shelter. I thought I was just going to sign up to be a "cat-petter" in the future but they put me to work right away. Basically I was cleaning out cages and refilling water and food dishes with a funny guy named Oscar. My heart was a little bit in tatters at the sight of all those cats in their cages, but they seemed sort of content and at least they are well cared-for. There was one guy who only had one eye-the other socket was just empty. One cat arrived at the shelter with four kittens- none of them her own! She's nursing them and everything....and she's pregnant herself. Call me a crazy cat lady, but....that gets me. I'll go back in a week or so, probably. I got the sense that they can use all the help they can get.

Then I took a stroll around Greenpoint, found an errant apostrophe on a statue, passed a lovely hour or so at the charmingly contrived or contrivedly charming Roebling Tea Room (I'll be going back), and then fought the good fight to stay warm in this meat locker I call an apartment. Today, I won. Tomorrow? You might find me frozen solid.

Tomorrow, really.....back to work. Finally. About time, too-- I'm jesssssssst about to have no money. (The skin of my teeth, the skin of my teeth.)

Goodbye, blue Monday!

So after moping a little last night, I decided I'd had my fill and that I wasn't going to do that any more.

This morning I had a wonderful breakfast of grapefruit, banana bread with peanut butter, hot chocolate, orange juice...certainly the nicest morning meal I've had since moving here. (If this seems an insignificant conversational jaunt to you, just imagine how delicious all of those things are. Really think about it. Then, wonder if it was worth mentioning. Right?)

Then I took what turned into a three-hour walk-- over the W-burg bridge, through the Lower East Side (excuse me, the "bargain district"), into Chinatown to make some frivolous purchases (orange pear earings? new wallet? wastes of money? hello!), then back over the bridge and to home. It was lovely because on the way over, it was light, and on the way back, all the lights had come on- including a "SAVE DOMINO" on a building on this side of the river. I got a really good look at all of the Domino complex on the way over, including the famous sign. Ever since reading "Sweet and Low," I've been obsessed. I think Megs is the only one who is as enthusiastic as I am. :)

No work tomorrow, so Erin and I are having a lazy night tonight, including sleepover in Queens, and then I might do something fun like go to the Nat'l History Museum tomorrow afternoon. I also have to go to the animal shelter a few blocks down to sign up to be a CAT PETTER. Yes. That is actually what they call it. Too. Good. To. Be. True.