Good for Halloween.

I read a thing on Boing Boing about two guys who built a 'haunted' room-- a room that included certain environmental factors that have been reported to exist in places where hauntings have also been occurred-- things like electromagnetic fields and infrasound (whatever that is).  I really liked this conclusion:

Overall, despite the results, Chris French and his team feel the experiment was worthwhile. Given that most participants did report unusual sensations they felt that "we can indeed claim some success in building a haunted room." Just the haunting didn't come from EMF or infrasound, but instead from suggestion and a quiet, round, dimly lit and featureless white room which "may have constituted a form of mild perceptual deprivation"). 

DON'T COUGH ON ME, YOU BITCH!

The other day, I was walking up Second Avenue after work. As I crossed St. Mark's, I got a tickle in my throat and coughed a little bit. I covered my mouth. Not that that's the point. An old lady in front of me, as I coughed, turned around and yelled at me, really loudly: 'DON'T COUGH ON ME, YOU BITCH!' I was so shocked that I started laughing and said, hand still over mouth, 'I didn't--' But she didn't want to hear it, and responded by yelling 'YOU BITCH, GET AWAY FROM ME.' The most awesome response from me would have been to cough directly in her haggy face (yeah, I'm a bitch, what about it?), but unfortunately, that didn't occur to me until I was on the phone with my cousin Maddy, two blocks away, relating the story.

I've been doing a lot of fun but somewhat-misguided things lately. Last Saturday, I went with Erin and Jimmy to Coney Island in the late afternoon to see the "Creepshow at the Freakshow." Tempted with the promise of Presidents, spookiness, and freaks, how could I resist? By the time we got off the train, it was raining hard and the wind was blowing sideways. My umbrella flipped inside out more times than I bothered to count, and we were all freezing cold and wet in that really indisious, clammy way within minutes. It was kind of awesome. It was definitely ridiculous. We strolled down the boardwalk, fighting the wind, avoiding a sheet-metal sign that had ripped off the front of a concession stand. We watched as some moron trolled the raging beach with a metal detector. Seriously, dude, you could die out there. What could you find that would make it worth it? We (I) ate a hotdog at Nathan's. We went to the Creepshow. Which was exceptionally strange and actually legitimately terrifying. My favorite part were some terrific glow-in-the-dark paintings of the Presidents, in a rickety stairwell. I couldn't get a really good look at most of them, since we were being hounded by an 'animatronic' Richard Nixon who declared every one of them a different variety of Commie and had to hustle. Along the way, I was menaced by Laura Bush, Erin got touched by Nixon, and Jimmy assassinated JFK. All in all, it was sort of great, sort a mess, and I felt about it the same way that I feel about the normal Freakshow-- I admire their enthusiasm and their creativity a whole lot, and I really like how much they love Coney Island. I just wish there was an outside eye with a little more attention to detail to make everything go a little bit smoother. (I really hope they don't Google themselves and then write excoriating comments on my blog....like they did to Erin's dad. Eekerz! Leave me alone, freaks! I like you!)

Another foolish thing I did recently was walk the thirteen-something miles comprising this fair island of Manhattan. Jason and I took the train to 207th Street yesterday, walked up to 218th, and didn't stop (save for a terrific half-an-hour at Grant's Tomb and a horrible fifteen-minute lunch crouched against some planters at the Time Square Sheraton) until we reached Battery Park. Somewhere around Union Square, it became apparent that if we stopped, even for a light, it was really, really hard to get started. So we did a lot of jaywalking or pained, Frankenstein-ish lurching in place on corners to prevent our bodies from shutting down like they wanted to. Jason felt bad the whole time, saying "People run this far! On a daily basis! This is a half-marathon! What's wrong with us?" I felt bad, but in a different way. Mainly in a way that is a direct result of never exercising and wearing Converse on a thirteen-mile walk. Let's just say that I'm sort of walking like Quasimodo today. It isn't charming.

I didn't really expect this to happen, but I'm getting super nervous about the election. Not necessarily worried, just really nervous. I can't wait for next week.

I also can't wait for Thanksgiving. Pumpkin pie? Sign me up.

But Halloween is another story. Though I am very happy with my costume (thus far)....only the people at work will get to see it. :( Bummer. On the bright side, I'm sure the East Village will be overflowing with freaks for me to watch while work is slow. Good.

What's all this I'm reading about snow?

And this is where--

Last week, I went to the Connelly Theatre to see The Talking Band's latest show, which is called "Flipside." They had a show at La Mama in February called "Imminence" which I saw and really, really enjoyed. Their work feels really exuberant to me, and they do new stuff constantly, and have been working that way together for decades. I find them to be an inspiring gang.

Anyway, my favorite and I think the loveliest part of 'Flipside' found two of the characters playing one of my favorites games. All it consists of is remembering things that happened in certain physical spots, out in the world. I can't walk for more than ten feet without playing this game. Sometimes, it's the worst thing ever, if the memories are sad, or worse, if they're nice but for some reason I can't enjoy them any more. But sometimes it's the best thing ever.

zany.

Sometimes, I feel uncontrollably zany. And then I do weird things and say weird things and feel, basically, weird. Now is maybe one of those times.

I've been hard at work for the past few days on 1) making a paper (papier if you want to be pedantic) mache log for my Log Lady Halloween costume, and 2) revamping my play. I had a nightmare about my upcoming reading the other day, and I have to say that that's a first. It was like the classic actor's nightmare, only I was the writer, and when I gave the actors their scripts, they ridiculed me for not having finished any of the scenes. It was horrifying.

I've also been trying to go to sleep a little earlier and wake up a little earlier, with the goal of being more productive. I'm not sure it's working at all. In fact, I know it isn't.

My weekend was pretty darn good. Saw The All-For-Nots play in the Lower East Side on Friday night, went from there to a party where I was a little too much of a party monster, but I didn't lose any of my belongings, so I think I came out on top. This weekend, Rinnzor and I are going to take a trip to Coney Island for their Halloween/Election-themed special freakshow extravaganza...it seems like it might be overwhelmingly strange and wonderful. That's all I can hope for, at least. I hope it isn't filled with weird carny types. There's a very good chance of that happening.

I'm going to try to put this zaniness into something productive. I could be worse things, I suppose.

I can't get enough of these.

So stupid. So hilarious.

What a wonderful day. Some of the components that built a veritable (metaphorical) robot of delight for me today were, in alphabetical order:

Arepas
Auditions (2; we shall see)
Banksy's pet store
'Boogie Knights'
Coffee
Comrades
Dog wearing sunglasses
Old photos
Peter Pan donuts
Presidential kitsch
McCarren Park
Sunshine!
The Talking Band
Three-legged cat
Yoyos


You know I must be going crazy when I count the sun among the GOOD things that happened to me. :)

More noise and fuss.

Something I don't talk about nearly as much as I could: how fucking shitty my apartment is, and how the building is falling down around me, and how angry this makes me. To give credit where it is nominally due, the 'landlord/super/asshole who comes into my apartment without warning, whenever the hell he wants' has fixed some things around here recently. Things that should have been fixed literally years ago.

I just got home to find that our door was playing one of its favorite games: The Don't Unlock Game, followed by a round of The Doorknob is Falling Off! That's the only way I can describe it. I cursed and muttered, kicked the door, finally FINALLY got it open after five minutes of fucking around...only to have the woman across the hall open the door and yell at me. YELL AT ME. IN POLISH. I said "Yeah, sorry, sorry, like you never make any noise" and then slammed my door. I'm really mature, I know, but JESUS CHRIST, YOUR DOG COMES INTO MY KITCHEN AND YOU SMOKE CIGARETTES ON THE STAIRS! Don't yell at me.

This is a rant, and rants get boring, so I'll stop her. Broken door. Irascible me. Hypocritical Polish neighbor. Sometimes I hate this place.

Come on.

I woke up at 4:15 this morning to the sound of screaming. There was a woman outside my building, yelling over and over again :"CALL THE COPS! CALL 911! I'M SERIOUS! CALL 911!" It took me about five minutes to wake up the whole way, put my glasses on, and look out the window, and when I did, I saw a woman staggering down the street, picking stuff up off the sidewalk, crying and heaving. Oh, lord. I didn't know if anything was really wrong with her and I figured that it wouldn't be helpful for me to yell out the window asking if she was ok, so I didn't. She wandered down the street, in the direction of the river...but then this guy, wearing a menacing trenchcoat, I swear to god, turned the corner and started walking right for her. He caught up to her, pushed her, started cursing at her and saying all kinds of awful things...and she was crying and screaming again. So I called the cops. Ten minutes later, a car pulled onto the street and I heard one of the cops asking some girls that were talking on the corner where the fighting couple had gone. I don't know what happened; I sort of can't believe I actually called the cops. None of it was pleasant, that's for sure.

Then I spent about an hour, awake, heart pounding, convinced that there was someone in my apartment who was going to try to kill me. This might have something to do with the terrifying true-life scary stories we were telling backstage at the show last night. Just a thought.

Speaking of the show-- last performance today! And then work, work, work. I'm a busy gal lately and I both really like it and am really bewildered by it. Though last night I had a mini "I've-lived-here-for-a-year" crisis where I decided that I need to quit my job. It wasn't pleasant. I don't know how I feel about it in the light of day.

"I just keep thinking about Joe DiMaggio."

In this month's Vanity Fair, there is an excerpt from Tony Curtis' memoir. The section printed deals exclusively with Tony Curtis, Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis "fondling her breasts," vivid descriptions of said breasts....etc etc. But! He mentions that Marilyn dated/married a lot of guys who looked like Abe Lincoln: Arthur Miller, Joe DiMaggio (I don't really see it, but hey, alright), some other dudes I forget...

Then, unrelated, elsewhere in the magazine, there is a picture of Marilyn in a convertible... holding a portrait of Lincoln!

COINCIDENCE!?! Methinks Marilyn and I would have had something to talk about.


Incidentally, my friend Greg moved away recently, and drove cross-county to his new home in Seattle. He's been sending great postcards to our apartment: the first was the Lincoln House in Illinois, and the second was the Lincoln Monument in Wyoming. ALMOST better than what was on the front of that one was Greg's message:

"Let me tell you that there's nothing rootin'-tootin' about I-80 through Wyoming. It's a boring stretch of road. But I saw a big-ass offroading pickup with a bumper sticker: "Salmon: The Other Pink Meat." Almost as memorable as "Snatch a Kiss, or Vice Versa."

Indeed.

Funny funny.

Yesterday, I walked by the uptown Jekyll & Hyde Club, the esteemed, themed restaurant, and there was a family with two young boys standing outside. The bigger boy was coolly surveying the skeletons and gargoyles outside the building, and reported: "I've seen scary. And this is not scary."

I didn't think it was a good idea to tell this six year-old that I had been to J&H mere weeks ago.

I'll mention this a million more times over the next two months, but...

A date has been set for my reading!

Come see (or hear):

We Things That Are Now
by Yours Truly
dir. Craigy Mungavin
Monday, December 8th, 7:30 pm
La Mama Experimental Theatre Club
74 East 4th Street b/w 2nd and Bowery
Free! Free! Free!

And then come party for my birthday afterward.

Happy Anniversary...

...to me! I moved to Williamsburg a year ago today.



Mmm, wow.