New York is cold, but I like where I'm living

Joni/365

2011-10-28T15:46:00.005-04:00

I have spent 2011 doing a 365 Photography Project. The way it works is I take a picture to represent each day (give or take). The project has gone well, given that it’s October 28^th, and I’m still at it. At the end of the year, I’ll figure out what to do with all of the pictures.

For 2012, I might do the same thing, but a “365 Sentences Project” or a “365 Observations Project” or just a written list of things that happened that day. Yesterday, Joe and I found out that Joni is 15 weeks pregnant. We left the house pretty late to meet her in Carroll Gardens. Beth and Joslyn were there, as well. Joni is going to see the Ts this weekend, to meet their baby girl, Edna, in North Carolina. We talked about Josh and Amanda’s show and how The Taco Party was the funniest thing we’d ever seen. Jos and I talked about “Sleep No More.” Joni mentioned how she had the “Inking” procedure and how it was really painful for her. (It wasn’t for me, but I realized they told me to take IBU first; they didn’t tell her to take it).

At the end of the night (not too late – maybe 10:45 or so), Joe and I reached our block, and I realized that when we had been home earlier, cozy, eating black bean burgers, watching “Revenge,” I had been totally present. Then, when we were meeting with Joni, Jos, and Beth, I was also totally present. I wish we had more of Joni in our lives. She glows. She shines. She is one of those people.

-d

If I Could Spin Around the World

2006-07-10T14:12:00.000-04:00

I'm recording Superman I onto DVD from HBO. Shhhh... Don't tell the authorities. (Authorities: If you're reading, don't worry. I do not intend to show or sell this recording.) (Shit. Now, I feel like I should change all of that to say I'm "watchin" Superman to avoid the whole thing, but then I think it's funny to keep all of this here. Shit.)

I have really been recording more than watching. I've been reading about Saussure for my class which meets tonight.

I'm also making lunch.

While I'm reading/making lunch/half-watching, Superman sees that Lois has died. He clenches his fist and looks so utterly defeated. He flies to space, spins the world around, reverses time, and of course, saves her.

Joe wrote a song about a year after Jeff died that has the lyric, "If I could spin around the world or say the proper word/If I could come and save your day or somehow raise the dead, I would."

The song used to make me cry, largely because it pushed a button that hurt, like pushing on a bruise; largely because it touched me, like showing me that someone really cared/cares about what happened, and shows that Joe was affected by Jeff's death and my grief even though he didn't know my brother; largely because it expresses a sentiment I share (the desire to reverse the past and make everything better).

I understood the Superman reference immediately even though I hadn't seen the movie for a long time. Seeing the scene today reminds me of the song.

Time to eat tacos. :)

-d

Been a Long Time, Been a Long Time...

2006-07-08T12:20:00.000-04:00

What a freaking year. Yes, I am still here even though I haven't written in over a year. I am teaching high school now, and I finally reached summer vacay about 1 1/2 weeks ago. What a crazy year. I discovered so much, mainly how much my organizational abilities must improve in order to make this job doable and how crazy teenagers can be.

There is so much to write that I do not know what to choose.

This morning, I have been reading a book by Mel Levine called The Myth of Laziness. It's about how learning disabilities add to "output failure" in kids and then they are labelled "lazy" by teachers, parents, peers, and that labelling is not a productive way to help these kids. Ok, ok, ok. My red flag goes up: "output failure" i.e. "not doing anything"?!?!? Sounds like a euphemism, an excuse, perhaps, an obvious description. How does it help to call it "output failure" instead of "not doing something"? Not sure.

Then, I read on about the first case, a obese 11 year old who told his highly-educated parents over dinner one night that he was thinking of killing himself because he was sad and just didn't know why he should live. This caught my attention, of course, because of my brother, but also because I felt so lucky for those parents. I think I even said, "You are SO lucky he told you this" out loud, here on the couch, with my kitty sleeping and Joe (fiance) at rehearsal. Suddenly, I was attached. Would this story have a happy ending?

Dr. Levine broke down all of these motor functions that are involved with sports and writing, which were two areas of "output" (I, finding myself more willing to use Levine's terms now) that the kid was struggling with -- little details like being able to tell by touch (instead of the more tedious/less accurate by sight) where you are in the formation of a letter. He tested this kid and found where his psycho-motor breakdowns were occuring. He "demystified" these breakdowns to the kid so that the kid had some perspective, some hard data stating his strengths and weaknesses. The kid's shrink put him on anti-anxiety meds. The PE teacher gave him tasks that he was more likely to succeed at. The physical therapist worked with him on his writing troubles. The parents, doctors, teachers, therapists, etc., designed this major program of treatment for our 11 year old and "Voila!". A lot of close observation, testing, conversation, strategic planning later, this kid has techniques to help improve the areas of his life at which he was failing.

He is no longer a "lazy failure," or a "disappointment to those he loves" -- reasons why one would want to kill oneself at age 11 or 16 or 24 or any age, I suppose.

As I read this book, I thought of a few things. I thought of this kid named AN to whom I grew quite attached even though he was an enormous pain in the butt the whole year. He would not work. He came to class almost every day. He was extremely social. About halfway through the year, I finally discovered that he read and wrote on a very low level, despite sounding very bright in conversation. He stuck with me because I had no idea whatsoever what to do about him and failed him miserably. Of course, I am not the only adult in his life, so it's not all on me, but I certainly did not help him solve his reading and writing problems.

Another thing I thought of was how I really should make individual anecdotes on a weekly or bi-weekly basis about each kid next year. Since I tend to think on paper much better than in my head or in conversation, having the discipline to write about each kid (even 3 sentences) will help me focus on what each kid needs and make a plan to help.

Another thing I thought of was how much more rewarding it might be to be a person who works with kids on a personal basis than it is to be a teacher who tries to juggle so many kids, often all at once. I think that the hardest skill to master is playing the whole game/team/class at once and knowing what's going on with each piece simultaneously and actually being able to tend to each kid. I think that on a one-on-one or two-on-one basis, I can help almost any kid at least somewhat. But, I am not a professional tutor. Tutors do not make enough to live on and it's probably hard to fnd that gig. I am a teacher.

more later...

-d

2005-04-04T10:13:00.000-04:00

"Well, I love that man, Pope John Paul III.I love him, probably more than he deserves. Okay, so he persecutes homosexuals,does not believe in abortion, vists with Kurt Waldheimand tells us not to take the Pill,there's still a certain je ne sais quoi...Some peace, some love some goodwill Yeah, the Pope, Pope, Pope, Pope Pope." -Meryn Cadell

Obviously, it's John Paul II, but I guess she needed the rhyme.

-d

2005-02-15T14:19:00.000-05:00

The Gates

Maybe it's because they're ephemeral like spring flowers. Maybe it's because it's so warm and sunny today it feels like spring. Maybe it's because they make you see the park differently. Maybe it's because there are so many of them. Maybe it's because the dogs in the park don't know what to do -- to sniff, to pee, to bark, to jump. Maybe it's because so many people are taking pictures and video of them. Maybe it's because the artists say they mean nothing. Maybe it's the composition -- how they are arranged in the park. Maybe it's because they blow in the wind. Maybe it's because they are heavier than I thought they'd be. Maybe it's because there are millions of people flocking to see them. Maybe it's because they are easy to be cynical about. Maybe it's because it's ok to be cynical about them if that's your reaction. Maybe it's because "On the Street Where You Live" started going through my head when I saw them. Maybe it's because they make people who work in this area go to the park. Maybe it's because it rained yesterday. Maybe it's because I'm in love. Maybe it's because they're orange.

-d

Rock the Boat, Don't Rock the Boat Baby

2005-01-31T14:23:00.000-05:00

I just found out I was born the same year the word "disco" was coined.

-d

Mind the Gap

2005-01-24T11:08:00.000-05:00

Some 18 inches of snow on Saturday. It started around noon & ended after I'd already gone to bed. Sunday, there were heaps. People were shoveling their little plots of the sidewalk & their steps & digging out cars. The kids two doors down built a little snowman in the yard & one of them, a small girl, was rolling around in the snow in her white & silver down jacket. Her dad & mom were just out there watching as the kids had the time of their lives.

A few years ago, a roommate I had took me sledding. I got up early (8:00 or 8:30) to feed the cat & she was dressed & ready. She asked if I was up & if I wanted to go sledding. We walked down to the park, threw a few snowballs at some kids, and slid down the little hill by the swimming pool a half-dozen times. Time of my life.

Joe & I talked about sledding on Sunday when the snow had stopped but so much was on the ground. But, we didn't wake up until 10 & then my sister called & I talked to her for awhile & then we watched a little of "Parenthood" & made lunch & before we knew it, it was 4:00 & would have been dark soon. Plus, maybe all the plastic sleds were sold out at the drugstore.

I would like to be the "type of person" who gets up & gets to the park on time to slide down a hill. I think the difference between being "youthful & energetic" and "adult & boring" is the difference between playing in the snow & staying snowed in. I also know the difference between the two is just getting your butt out the door.

But, it's hard to be motivated & to have the energy. I really do not have as much energy as I used to. There's still the grey cloud, which I've never really emerged from & maybe never will completely, but maybe that's not all of it. Maybe it's also that I'm older now too, don't exercise enough, have the comfort of a warm home & boyfriend who lives there with me.

I feel like I need to fight this feeling of lethargy more than I do. I just don't enjoy everything I used to enjoy. Theoretically, I want to be the girl playing in the snow, & when I can get out there, I think I like it; it's just so damn hard to get out there & do it.

But, I am trying.

-d

2005-01-05T13:25:00.000-05:00

DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO

I hate it when my mom & sister tell me the following: you have to pick a dress (bridesmaids - even though I ultimately had NO SAY SO in the dress); you have to call so-and-so about the shower; you have to call so-and-so's mother; you have to come down her to PA this weekend; you have to go to Michael's with me to look at stupid little trinkets for the tables.

I hate wedding planning. I hate organizing wedding-type things. I hate that I might have to spend all this money to rent a space for the shower because my sister doesn't want to have it at A or B's house. I hate that I have to figure out where my mom & stepmom (who don't like each other) will stay when they fly up here for the shower.

I hate that my sister said Joe was going to read at the wedding & then "forgot" she said that.

I am the worst maid of honor in the world. I hate traditional weddings. This is going to be a long 4 months.

-d

How to Change Your Life in One Day

2005-01-04T15:46:00.000-05:00

Today, I have applied for one tutoring position; one high school English teacher position at a private, arts-based school; and one position for a non-profit organization.

Wish me luck!

-d

2004-12-29T10:54:00.000-05:00

A quote I like:

"Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Today seems to be a day of quotes...so far, at least.

-d

2004-12-24T14:06:00.000-05:00

Last night, Joe & I rented on pay-per-view a double-feature of "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunrise." I have to admit that when I saw the ad for "Before Sunrise" many years ago, I thought it looked like the stupidest movie ever made and had no desire whatsoever to see it. When I saw the ad for "Before Sunset" fairly recently, I thought the same & even laughed at the absurdity of making a sequel to the first. (Do they think ANYONE is going to see this?) Also, ever since "Hamlet 2000," I have been pretty anti-Ethan.

But, last night, Joe was sick (his digestive system got into a wrestling match -- with some bad chicken, we think), and we were home & we watched them back to back.

How interesting to watch these films, especially since they are roughly the same format (two people talking & talking & talking, but doing very little else), with the same two actors, who have aged so dramatically in nine years - and changed yet sort of stayed the same. Ethan is way too thin in the second one, but he's such a sweet, young baby in the first. Julie Delpy, my new idol, looks totally different at age 32 (her character's age & approximately her real age, I assume). She is less cute & more beautiful. She seems more sure of herself, less awkward. Both actors do a great job in both films. They have a great chemistry. The dialogue is so natural that I really do not believe it was written dialogue, but of course it had to be. The shots are so long, so a lot of it passes in real time. And, it's pretty smart stuff -- not life-altering or particularly meaningful in a "larger sense," but in terms of human interaction & feelings you have in your early 20's versus early 30's.

I do think I like the second film better because the ending is so lovely. Go, Julie Delpy!

This afternoon (I have to get on the horse, actually), I am heading to Port Authority, a place I hate, to get on a bus to go to my sister's for Christmas. I always spend Christmas with her. By this time next year, she'll be married. But, since they've been together for so long, it seems like she already is. The only hard part (for me) will be getting through the stress of the wedding...hopefully lots of dancing...

Happy Christmas to All!

-d

2004-12-22T16:05:00.000-05:00

Important and Interesting Information

Three names you go by:
Sissy
Natasha
Madeleine

Three screennames you have:
madeleine (not really anymore)
Debbie
d

Three things you like about yourself:
I'm active
I'm an optimist
I'm smart

Three things you hate/dislike about yourself:
I'm lazy
I'm disorganized
I smoke

Three parts of your heritage:
Polish
Dutch
French Canadian

Three things that scare you:
debt
my family
parties

Three of your everyday essentials:
cigarettes
metrocard
bottle of Poland Spring I keep refilling and refilling

Three things you are wearing right now:
ring from Grandma 2 years ago
glasses
dorky sneakers

Three of your favorite bands/artists (at the moment):
Ahab Seamus
Patsy Cline
Johnny Cash

Three things you want to try in the next 12 months:
more acting/maybe in Shakespeare
new job
more writing

Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given):
humor
respect
open conversation/emotion

Two truths and a lie (random order):
i hate chinese food
i believe in god
i have never been to california

Three physical things about the opposite (or same) sex that appeals to you:
height
hairy arms
low voice

Three things you just can't do:
eat jello
be athletically competitive
climb

Three of your favorite hobbies:
walking around the city streets
sitting quietly and doing nothing
acting

Three things you want to do really badly right now:
get a new job
take classes
drink coffee

Three careers you're considering:
journalism
teaching
writing (as in book)

Three places you want to go on vacation:
paris
montreal
san francisco

Three kids names you like:
samantha
molly
christopher

Three things you want to do before you die:
speak fluent french
play fluent guitar
have a baby or two

2004-12-13T13:06:00.000-05:00

I'm home sick from work today. Stomach thing, but I'm ok. Funny how you can feel terrible in the morning but ok enough that you could have gone to work by the afternoon. Anyway, it's good to have the time off & alone & at home. I watched "Hero" on HBO this morning. Dustin Hoffman saves Geena Davis from a burning plane, but Andy Garcia gets the credit. Interesting movie. Andy Garcia's character actually likes to do good deeds & does several after he lies & tells everyone he was the hero. Dustin Hoffman's character hates to do good deeds & is generally pretty rotten, but he always steps up to the plate in dangerous situations & sticks out his own neck.

So, I am starting another blog of open letters. I believe everyone "here" got the email asking for a submission. I hope you are all submissive to my request. Heh heh.

I guess I'm less paranoid about my parents Googling & mysteriously finding this site than I used to be. How would they have found it? By Googling "Debbie"? Silly. That name Madeleine is lovely, though, isn't it?

-m

I mean -d

2004-11-03T13:23:00.000-05:00

My life for the next four years:

Bartender: Yes?

Me: another [margarita], please

Bartender: same?

Me: LET'S try it (burp) on the rockssss with no SSSALT this time

Bartender: ok

variation

Bartender: Yes?

Me: another [whiskey], please

Bartender: same?

Me: LET'S try it (burp) on the rockssss with WATER this time

Bartender: ok

-m

2004-11-02T13:01:00.000-05:00

VOTER DRAMA

I never received my yellow card in the mail & I confess that a part of me worried that my name wouldn't be in the book when I arrived at the elementary school that is my polling place this morning. I have voted there before, though, so I knew where to go. And, there was no voter drama for me today. The poll workers were not incompetent. I didn't feel like anything "suspicious" was happening around me -- except for the strange, small men dressed in black scuba suits taking photos of the voters, but that could just have been fifth graders rehearsing for the morning assembly, or something.

On the radio, I heard a few accounts of voter weirdness. One polling place in New Jersey had a poll worker that didn't know voters had to sign the book. So, the first few hundred people who voted didn't sign & they sent a police officer to this guy's house to get him to return to the polling place. Another place is missing the registration forms of several thousand students who registered. They will be able to vote, but their registration will have to be verified for their votes to count & if they have never voted in New Jersey before, their ballots will not (or is it "may not"?) be validated.

There was a documentary on HBO last night about the 2000 election. I only saw the last 10 minutes, but it was enough to get the idea. Supposedly, the governor of Georgia, elected by electronic voting machines, won in a landslide that contradicted the polls. Also, he is the first Republican in GA since...the Civil War? Is it all a conspiracy? Could it be true that the electronic voting machines are rigged? In our country? In 2004? Is it possible, or is it equally possible we never landed on the moon? (I once went to a party where there was someone who tried to convince everyone there that we never landed on the moon. He offered the fact that we've never returned as evidence. In the end, I told him, "Stephen, I choose to believe we landed -- even if it's naive from your point of view. It's just a better reality for me." He looked at me with pity & went to "get a drink" on the other side of the room. Now, he writes a funny blog & a column for a magazine & will probably vehemently deny the whole moon incident.)

With every part of myself, I would like to think we are just paranoid & that there is a corruption cap that keeps things from really getting "that bad." I like to think that's the pragmatic point of view. But, really, I don't know what I believe. I feel like I know it won't go smoothly, but I hope there's at least a freekin' winner...and please let it be the tall guy with the big chin.

-m

2004-09-30T13:18:00.000-04:00

THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

You will never do what you want to do. You are too old. You are not smart enough. You cannot get into graduate school because none of your professors would even remember you at this point. How would you get letters of recommendation? How would you write a personal statement? What if your GPA isn't high enough? You'll have to retake the GRE, and that's a hard test. You won't score well. You've been out of school too long.

And, say you do go to grad school for journalism: What if it's a waste of time? It could be that you could learn everything you need to know with just a few classes & much less money. You'll go into terrible debt you won't be able to climb out of. You'll get old. You'll work where you work forever. What if you hate being a reporter? What if you don't make enough money as a journalist? What if you can't find a job? What if you hate school?

It's a stupid idea, anyway. It's dangerous. It's time to face the truth: You've failed at adult life. Just accept that. You will never do what you want to do. Just start adjusting to year after year, month after month, week after week, hour after agonizing, dull, tedious hour at this cubicle where you currently sit. You wanted to do so many things when you were younger, but what have you accomplished? Nothing, huh? Well, isn't that the most telling thing of all?

You have no talent. You have no creativity. You have no focus. You are not the least bit interesting or capable. You are just going to have to face the facts. You have no courage. You don't have what it takes. You never follow through with things. You are going nowhere.

-m (God help us all to laugh at this voice)

2004-09-16T15:48:00.000-04:00

"You are here, so am I
maybe millions of people go by
but they all disappear from view
'cause I only have eyes for you"

Very simple, very cool.

So, the new play started rehearsal. It's a food show. Long time readers (ha ha) will recall that I was working on a food show when I first started this blog & I ended up dropping out b/c I was (1) freaking out about the one year anniversary coming up and felt like I was losing my mind and (2) working a lot.

This year, I don't feel like I'm freaking out as much as I did last year (as soon as the weather changed), though it did hit me last Friday when I read an article in the Times about suicide. This year, I can't imagine I'll have the same reaction as last year. The first of everything (first New Year, first birthday, first Christmas, first Thanksgiving, first time someone asks how many siblings you have, etc.) seems to have been the hardest. I still can't think about it, though. What a stupid boy.

So, tomorrow night, I am going to see Debbie Gibson at a club with my friend John. This is probably a mistake. (Who knows? She might be more than a gay icon.) I did sort of see her when I was 13 at a theme park in Virginia. We couldn't get tickets (sold out), but we could hear her in the distance & we got a glance of her standing & singing in the center of the stage wearing one of those layered, poofy skirts once we reached the apex of the hill on the wooden rollercoaster.
We are rehearsing the food show in this abandoned food court. It's cheap rehearsal space & extremely weird. We seem to be outside of what used to be, say, a Ruby Tuesday's or a Friday's. I hope the show is good. I'm concerned about the script since there's too much exposition.

Happy Rosh Hashannah!

--m

2004-09-10T17:19:00.000-04:00

I want:

To take a "basics of reporting" journalism class that doesn't cost a fortune ($580 at NYU!)
To actually get some exercise this weekend
To see my dad, who has tuberculosis
To get a new job (5 resumes sent so far with no hits so far)

-m

2004-09-10T17:11:00.000-04:00

I hate Enya

So, I'm listening to the Audra McDonald fan radio station on internet radio & every other song is freekin' Enya. They play a lot of easy listening. A typical list (by artist): Billy Joel, Enya, Sarah Brightman, Enya, Michael Crawford, Enya, Elton John. They never play Audra McDonald herself. I never thought that Enya & Audra McDonald fans had such an overlap. So, I am taking an unofficial survey here.

I realize only 4 people read this blog (I know who you are), but please tell me, if you are an Audra McDonald fan, how you would rate Enya on a scale from one to five (rate her according to how much you enjoy listening to her music, not necessarily whether you think she's good or bad or whatever). I rate her a one -- above Avril Lavigne & Evanesence(?), but not above much.

-m

2004-08-24T14:42:00.000-04:00

Only When I'm Dancing Can I Feel This Free

My new favorite hobby is dancing with actors. At the cast party for "Julius Caesar" the weekend before last, there was a small dance floor at the Bowery Bar (i.e. the worst place on earth) & some of the cast members (since I had a teany part, including me) started dancing. There was Keith, a very fun, loose, weird dancer; William, a more self-conscious, "I am cool" dancer; Jordan, a dorky "I make a funny face when I dance but I'm having a good time" dancer; and me, more funny than cool & definitely striving to be loose.

This guy Brian, who played Caesar & who is about 6 foot 4, started dancing & he was all over the place -- flailing his arms about, moving his hips. His size alone is enough to make him a freak, but then he really showed his stuff on the dance floor and made everyone happy just watching him.

What I miss the most about "Julius Caesar" is actually the warm-up. The play was performed outside, so we warmed up outside & sometimes people would walk by & stop & watch. Actors warming up do funny things. Part of my vocal warmup was grabbing my belly and moving it up & down. Once, I sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" as a vocal warm-up (and also as a joke in response to something Brian said). I bent down & swung my arms back & forth like an elephant swings his trunk. I sighed a deep sigh, letting out all tension. I rubbed my jaw & cheeks & loosened my mouth.

All of these exercises make actors the loosest, silliest, and probably calmest people on earth. After a warm-up or after dancing with actors, I feel like I'm -- as actors would say -- in my body and out of my head. And, that's the happiest place to be. My head is a wreck.

-m

2004-07-16T14:55:00.000-04:00

Holdin' onto 29 - Sort of a Random List...

Graduated from college
Made friends with some amazing people
Moved to New York City
Lost my brother
Met Joe
Stopped dyeing my hair
Made a fool out of myself quite a bit
Woke up in the middle of the night due to anxiety for the first time(s)
Drank for the first time (I mean really drank)
Started smoking cigarettes regularly
Tried to quit smoking cigarettes regularly (still not successfully - damn those things!)
Learned to run (& to actually appreciate exercise)
Went to a shrink
Stopped going to a shrink
Got contacts
Bought all my clothes second hand & then stopped that when I moved to NYC
Wrote a lot
Got some things published, but it probably averages to about 1 a year
Got a tattoo
Wore a nosering & then decided it was silly & took it out
Went on two vacations with my family -- huge, vacations, I mean
Chased after a certain man for close to two years
Stopped chasing him
Saw a lot of theatre
Saw some live music, mostly in my early twenties
Read a ton of books
Sang karaoke
Started learning to play guitar
Got some plants for the first time ever
Developed a much better relationship with my mom
Got a job I hate that I've had for close to 5 years
Taught for 2 years
Learned to draw (sort of)
Remained an "almost vegetarian" the whole time
Remained cluttered, in general
Moved in with Joe (well, vice versa)
Walked a lot
Went on the AIDS ride (worked on the crew)
Tried Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, Afghani, Japanese, Ethiopian, Korean, food for the first time
Became a better cook
Ran around too much & didn't stay still for one instant
Ate a lot of sweets
Started listening to Public Radio
Started actually liking the news (dang!)

2004-07-14T14:53:00.000-04:00

Right of Way

If you see (& hear) an ambulance with its siren blaring about a block away, do not cross the street in front of the ambulance even if the sign says "Walk," even if you jog. Let the ambulance pass & then you can go. I know this is unfair, but that's just life.

Conversely, if a vehicle tries to run a red light or turn in front of a group of pedestrians crossing on a "Walk" sign, if it is safe for you to do so, walk in front of the vehicle & give the driver a nasty look. This is especially satisfying if the driver uses his or her horn to try to deter the pedestrians.

-m

2004-07-06T17:37:00.000-04:00

The Post

On the front page of the New York Post today, the headline reads "Kerry's Choice: Dem picks Gephardt as VP Candidate." There's also a picture of Kerry & Gephardt looking like they're about to kiss (you'll have to find it somewhere because I don't know how to post photos here).. The red line below the headline reads "Exclusive," the story being exclusive, of course, because the Post is the only paper that knows Gephardt is Kerry's running mate. Everyone else has been falsly informed that it's John Edwards (not the psychic).

My friend Jim pointed out that in October 2003, the Post also reported that the Yankees had lost to the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championships. The Yankees then went on to play in the World Series.

I love the Post. I mean, of course, I hate the Post. But, I love the Post.

-m

2004-06-30T17:11:00.000-04:00

Steps

As everyone, well, on earth is aware, McDonald's has a new item on its menu, the "Go Active! Adult Happy Meal": A salad, a bottle of water, and a step-counter, which they call a stepometer. At the same time, there's been word -- maybe by a PR firm hired by McDonald's, who knows? -- that people who walk more than 10,000 steps per day have healthier hearts & lower body fat (or something nice-sounding like that). Being a little soft around the middle, I have had my little heart set on obtaining one of those step-counters since I found out about the promotion. And, since I walk a lot anyway, I would like to finally receive the credit I am due for the number of steps I walk without even trying.

I do own a pedometer, but I never could set it up right. You have to walk 10 steps, measure that in centimeters, divide by 10 & then enter your average step-length into the machine. It then calculates the distance you have walked by multiplying that average by the number of steps you have taken. Fine. Simple enough, right?

Oh, but, when I tried it, the stakes seemed too high: Am I walking at a normal pace? Are my steps really that long? Should I err on the side of saying my steps are longer than they are so that I know I am always walking a little further than the machine says I am, or is it the other way around?

Plus, my apartment is too small to take 10 steps in a straight line & I found myself curbing my step size so that I would stop just when I got to the end of my living room. I could walk the same distance in 8 steps, but was I forcing? I couldn't tell. Walking fewer steps & dividing by that number is obviously not as accurate & I don't have centimeters on my yard stick, I discovered, anyway.

But, counting. Counting steps. It's simple. It's objective. No need to rely on the law of averages. No need to worry about overall distance; knowing the number of steps is enough. And, a step-counter is available at McDonald's. And, there are at least 35,482 McDonald's (how do you pluralize that?) in Manhattan alone.

Now, let me make an admission: I tried counting my own steps once while walking to 59th & Lex to meet a friend, just to get an idea of how many steps are on a block. I then figured I could roughly calculate my steps based on the number of blocks I walked. It doesn't work.

So, last night, I found myself at the food court of the Queens Mall & there was a McDonald's right there in the corner next to Sarku, where I had already ordered a plate full of what turned out to be the worst Japanese food in the world. I watched the people in line at McDonald's. I saw the promotional posters with bright-colored pictures of the spring water, the premium salad, the stepometer.

I wanted that stepometer, that counter, that simple, beautiful machine that would put my curiosity to rest, that would motivate me to lose 10 pounds and one dress size before my sister's wedding. Could I, I asked the cashier, purchase a stepometer & forgoe the salad & water? For $3.25, it turned out I could.

The McDonald's stepometer is a small, blue plastic device with the arches etched onto the front & the words "Go Active" in red italics on the cover. It comes with a pocket-sized fitness book, "Step With It" by Bob Greene, apparently Oprah's personal trainer, which does indeed promote walking 10,000 steps per day for better health.

The instructions for using the stepometer are simple: You clip it on your belt buckle or waistband, reset the counter to zero & get moving.

A short walk from the garbage can where I threw out the plastic bag which came with the stepometer to the escalator yielded 358 steps. Closing the protective cover of the stepometer after resetting it to zero yielded five. From what I can tell there are little balls inside the stepometer that are propelled forward every time you take a step, causing the counter to advance...by tens or fives or hundreds. I tried wearing it backwards with the same results.

Simply put, the thing is a piece of garbage. But, at least my appetite has been assuaged & my lesson has been learned.

Now, I'm going to check to see if my tape measure measures in centimeters.

--m

2004-06-29T14:49:00.000-04:00

Let's dance.

2004-06-20T23:12:00.000-04:00

From my father, I inherited my facial bone structure, first of all. I also have his corporal bone structure -- the female version. There is also this thing my dad does with his mouth. He sort of hangs his mouth open, and I've seen myself do it in pictures.

He was a surfer when he was a teenager. He used to go to the beach & put peroxide in his hair until it turned orange. He didn't tell his parents; he said they probably just thought it was from the sun.

When we were small, he sometimes took us for a drive, especially in Ft. Pierce when we visited our grandparents. He would drive us down to the jetty & we would either go fishing or we would ask the fisherman about their catches. We would walk all the way to the end of the jetty & I always imagined that there were sharks and even whales out there. It was probably not that far out. I'd love to see it now.

Sometimes, he took us to the beach to swim. He would rinse his feet off in the little shower on the boardwalk.

Sometimes, he would swim with us in the pool in the apartment (we called it the "department" to be funny) where he lived after my parents' separation. He kept his contact lenses in when he swam even as he told us he wasn't supposed to.

One quality of my dad's is that he is a bit of a rebel. He used to drive really fast over this bump in Ft. Pierce so that our stomachs would jump up & drop & we would all scream. Sometimes, he would drive over it more than once if we could convince him.

He also likes to eat raw beef. I know it's gross, but he does it because he knows he's not supposed to. It's that rebel quality. He's been told not to eat raw beef, but nothing bad has ever happened to him because of it, so he eats it to prove the rules wrong.

My father also loves to be alone, well, not alone, but in the safety of only those closest to him. He clings to his wife & his immediate family -- especially his wife. He doesn't like to let others in. He doesn't like to keep the blinds open in the house. He likes privacy because it makes him feel safe.

He also fights this urge. His wife is very out-going, one of the most extroverted people I have ever met, and she has many, many friends. I think he likes having people around even though they scare him. I think I inherited both the need for security & the fight against that tendency to close off from him.

My father can also be very racist & anti-semitic. Sometimes, I can't believe he really is that way, but then he'll say or do something over-the-top, like making fun of people in Central Park for not speaking English, and I will be reminded. He has also always been very right wing, except for gay rights. Because of his wife, whose uncle is gay & whose family accepts him, he is pro-gay. In the 20 years they've been together, she has turned him around on that issue. (Also, of course, all of "mainstream America" has turned around to some extent, ever since Clinton).

I sometimes wonder if I am so "left" as a reaction to my father being so "right." I actually don't know why I am the way I am politically & why he is how he is. Sometimes, I think it's his generation, but a lot of people from his generation are much more progressive than he is. I don't feel like I'm a product of my family when it comes to politics, but I might be, right? Either way, it seems like my father & I are the only ones who have strong political views at all -- or maybe we're just the only ones who express them.

My father has a tendency to be overly critical & harsh. He can be a perfectionist & a control freak. I can also have these tendencies, as proven by my relationship with my last roommate.

Let's see. What else? My father has a very dark tan because he's always spent a lot of time in the sun. He loves to play word games & always thinks of different names for my friends -- names that rhyme or sound similar, or something. Maybe it's his sarcastic sense of humor.

He is smart & knows a lot about history, facts, geography, sports trivia (don't a lot of men?), etc. He gets up very early (5?) every morning & reads the newspaper while drinking his cup of instant coffee & smoking his morning cigarettes. He has been a smoker since he was a teenager. He likes to drink Miller Light beer.

My father is very meticulous about the condition of things. His home is always in very good repair. If so much as a light bulb burns out, it will be replaced immediately. His lawn is always mown, raked, trimmed, etc. He keeps up with things very well, probably pays all his bills on time & has excellent credit.

My father can come off as being very rude to people -- strangers & family members alike. He hates his mother. Well, he doesn't hate her but he can't stand to be around her & has to force himself to be nice to her. He reads a lot, mostly if not solely, popular fiction. He likes to fish. I don't think he believes in God or religion.

His children are his life, as he has been a father for almost 32 years.

-m

2004-06-08T16:03:00.000-04:00

Hail the Control Freak

I think my boss is, over all, a swell human being. She's smart, kind, reliable, competant, etc. She's an interesting person with things going on in her life. She reads interesting books. She hangs out with her nieces and nephews. She sees shows. She travels.

What's the trouble, then?

She NEVER STOPS WORKING. For example, right now, she is supposedly in Arizona enjoying the dry air and sunshine with friends & she is checking her e-mails and replying to them. She is doing this even though she told me to check her e-mails and reply to them & even though I have been doing that.

Why doesn't she just go swimming?

I have always had this problem with her. She tells you to do something and then either does it herself 5 minutes later or asks you 13 times to do it (not whether it has been done already but to do it).

Very annoying.

--m

2004-06-04T14:52:00.000-04:00

Benjamin, my friend Dan's son, was born last night at 11:30 pm. He weighs 10 pounds. He is 21 inches long.

I forgot to ask if he has hair, who he looks like, etc.

But, I might meet him tomorrow.

Dan said as soon as he was born (c-section since he's so big), they cleaned him off & handed him to Dan to hold. Dan said he felt bad because Benjamin was shivering. I guess, if you think about it, there would be quite a temperature drop.

Dan's son. I love saying that. Dan's son. His son.

-m

2004-06-03T13:47:00.000-04:00

Now That Stephen is 30

Stephen is 1 1/2 months older than I am. So, every year when it hits his birthday, mine is just around the corner.

Except, this year, I forgot. I didn't remember it was June 1st until I checked his blog on June 2nd & saw that he mentioned his birthday celebration the night before.

Ever since my last birthday, I have been slowly adjusting to the fact that I am turning 30. Me! I am 30. I have started to make the mental shift of thinking of myself as "30ish" or "30-something-ish" instead of thinking of myself as being in my 20's.

When I told my mom Joe was moving in (which he did last weekend), she said, "Well, you're 30, so you can do whatever you want now."

30.

Like everyone else, I always thought that by 30 I would be mature & wise & if not wealthy then financially comfortable. I thought I would have graduated from grad school by now, travelled, published at least one piece of fiction (even a short story). I thought maybe I'd own a home or have a baby or all those other things people do by the time they're 30.

I thought I'd feel like a woman, but I still feel like a girl in so many ways. I still don't quite feel like what I thought an "adult" feels like.

But, then again, I do feel like an adult.

Anyway, I have 6 weeks and 2 days to do everything I thought I'd do before 30.

-m

2004-05-17T15:17:00.000-04:00

WMD

This dude at work is so victorious, so happy about the sarin nerve gas bomb in Iraq. No. I take that back. He's NOT happy about the bomb. He's happy that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. So, he, a war supporter, is justified. And, the guy has called, like, 9 people to tell them, saying, "I guess we found our weapons of mass destruction."
My automatic response is to feel defensive. Because, I have to honestly admit, I was happy they hadn't found any in a "see! I told you so!" kind of way. (Now, there is a "point" against "my side." We were wrong about Bush being wrong.)

This is all so ridiculous, isn't it? I can't think with all these party politics, with all this side-taking. I don't know what to think. My knee-jerk response is to say, "Well, we still went about it wrong. We shouldn't have gone in without the support of the UN" etc., but I don't really know what I'm talking about. I have to process it more.

The thing is, this dude, who is the same dude I wrote about last time (unfortunately my last entry), reminds me so much of my father because of his "right wing" beliefs. He was speaking earlier about how McDonald's isn't really so bad & people should get over criticizing them & a burger cooked at home is the same thing. (Um...yeah.)

Because I have such a pugnacious relationship with my father, I feel defensive or combative whenever I talk to or listen to this guy (when it comes to politics). But, I want to be the kind of person who thinks objectively about things, who makes up her own mind about things, not someone who stands behing a prescribed set of beliefs because of a political inclination. If I believe in something, I want it to be because I have questioned it, processed it, thought it through, explored other points of view.

I don't follow through with this 99% of the time, though. I don't spend enough time getting information about things to really know what I think. At least I'm being honest by admitting that.
But, aaaaargh! The last entry I had was a soapbox entry & now this. I need to write about something else. My show opens this Thursday. We have a beautiful hand puppet. Tech load in is tonight. Cue to cue is tomorrow.

And, I admit it: I want someone to be right. Can't a specific "side" be "right" so that I can just pick a side & be done with it? The reality, that we are all wrong about some things & right about others (remembering, of course, that my side is right about most things, ha ha); that there are no easy answers; that taking a side & sticking to it, unless you're taking a side for something arbitray like a sports team, is just stupid, is harder to deal with.

Damn!

-m

2004-04-26T16:40:00.000-04:00

A Note from the Soap Box

Just overheard at work: "Everybody gets a break. If you're poor, you get all these breaks. If you're middle class, screw you."

What about the "breaks" that I, as a middle class child, grew up with:
We didn't get food stamps, but we had all the food we could eat. We didn't go away to the country via the Fresh Air Fund, but we went on vacations as a family. We didn't have a landlord because we lived in a house that my family owns. We didn't go to any health clinics & stand in line for hours or go without important medical treatment because we had health insurance. I didn't HAVE to work after school, so I was on the Swim team. When I wanted to be in the Band, my mom rented a musical instrument. When I bought my first car, my parents helped me. I also got a decent education (though not top notch by any means). I also lived in a fairly decent, fairly safe neighborhood (though not the greatest or safest neighborhood) to grow up in. I also went to college -- not for free because my parents could afford to help me! Some other random things we had: Christmas presents; Birthday presents; Dinner out every once in awhile; Parents that worked at stable jobs where they made a decent living; A car; A washer & dryer. Fairly decent (though also fairly cheap) clothes. And, we're white, so we didn't have to deal with any racial discrimination!

We didn't have everything. We weren't rich, but I certainly wouldn't say I had a "screw you" kind of childhood. Things are much worse for many people. And, because I didn't grow up in an affluent or upper-middle class home/neighborhood, I knew people who didn't have everything I had. So, I know that I had some stuff -- some opportunities & some comfort & some things. And, I'm glad I had these things. I think everyone should have these things, more or less, though I know that some people have more & some people have less.

Some people, i.e. people who sit near me at work & talk loudly on the phone during the day, have this attitude of scarcity. If a person from a less-privileged background gets a job because a big law firm has decided to recruit summer help from, say, a public high school in NYC instead of just accepting applications from whomever or instead of just hiring their friends' sons & daughters or nephews & nieces, then the person who called to get his friend's son top bid for a summer job at a big law firm sits there & complains that the middle class get screwed.

But, isn't it a "screw you" situation, too, for someone to only be able to get those jobs through connections? I guess in that case, they're just screwing the wrong person?

One second later, this guy is talking about how our generation (meaning my generation or younger, not his; he's in his 50s) thinks the world owes us something, that we get out of college & we immediately think, "What are you going to do for me?"

But, wasn't he just then feeling like this law firm owes him something by "owing" his friend's son a summer job (or at least an interview) instead of -- as he perceives it & I doubt it's the case -- "giving" the job to some kid from the "inner city"?

The playing field will never be level. You will always have competition, if not from the applicant interviewing next, who studied harder than you, then from the applicant after you whose parents could afford a fancy private school that feeds into the Ivy leagues, or, less often, from the kid who would never have the chance to apply for this job if the company didn't go to his high school to recruit people. Why do you only lash out at the third type of applicant listed above, Mr. Screwed Middle Class? Is it, perhaps, because that is the only person listed above that you have power over?

The playing field will never be level. People will like or want you more (or less) because you're white or Jewish or Asian or male or tall or their friend's son or from the same hometown or WHATEVER. Get on with your life. But, DON'T try to make it even harder for people who have fewer advamtages than you to make it. It's very unlikely that your friend's son won't get a job. He just isn't automatically going to be given the job because he knows someone -- and he's not used to this, just like most middle class people (including me, to some extent, I admit). What people in the middle class don't understand (myself included sometimes) is that people aspire to be middle class. That doesn't mean it's easy & there's no more hard work & everything's given to you.

God, I hate people!

-m

2004-04-23T13:51:00.000-04:00

Jack

I'm the first one to complain about how people get so caught up in media & celebrity culture that they don't pay attention to issues that really matter.

That said, I have to tell you something very important: I saw Jack Nicholson in Borders on Park & 57th yesterday afternoon.

woo-hoo! Jackie Jack!

-m

2004-04-21T10:20:00.000-04:00

J Lo Hot

I have it all figured out. On the outside, I have always been this girl who looks like her dad, speaks from one side of her mouth, draws comparisons to James Spader. But, on the inside, in my soul, in my heart, I really feel like I look like Debra Winger. I mean, on the inside, if my inside were to reflect my outside, I would be Debra. If I were self-actualized, I mean, I would look like Debra. I am Debra!

Now, back to the real world.

Last night, I caught just the shortest bit of this MTV show where this guy (transexual) had plastic surgery on his face to supposedly look more like Jennifer Lopez. He had facial reconstructive surgery to look like J Lo?!?!?

How can she sleep at night knowing someone had SURGERY to look like her & he did it on TELEVISION? Isn't his obsession only going to grow? How can she feel safe that this dude isn't going to come knocking on her door inviting her to lunch?

Anyway, he didn't really look like her in the end. So, NAH!

-m

2004-04-16T10:55:00.000-04:00

Warning

I am listening to the Love Songs station (yeah, I know) on Launch radio right now at work. "Glory of Love" by Peter Cetera is playing. This song, as you may recall, comes from "Karate Kid II," the film in which Daniel-son travels to Okinawa & learns to fight like one of those handheld drums. Daniel-son also learns that the crane move he learned in Karate Kid I is not, in fact, undefeatable if done right despite what he was told. And, he meets a nice Okinawan girl because things obviously didn't work out with Ali with an "i."

-m

2004-04-08T10:36:00.000-04:00

In My Solitude

Sometimes, I crave the solitude I experienced when I first moved to the city. In about the first year I lived here, I went to the New Yorker Festival poetry reading by myself in Bryant Park. I saw "The Misanthrope" in Central Park & the entire 1999-2000 Public Theatre season by myself. I went to the Met & attempted to draw one of the statues. I sat in the library reading room on 5th Ave & read under one of the green lamps. I saw "American Beauty," "Being John Malkovich," and many French films by myself. I ate at restaurants with only a book as my company. I was almost recruited for a cult (long story). I sat in the park & read "Anna K." I went to the New Museum in SoHo & saw these strange, free videos. I went to the Guggenheim SoHo & saw Andy Warhol's "Last Supper." I ushered "Cabaret." All this -- but mostly, I wasted time simply walking along the streets or sitting somewhere & reading or writing in my journal.

I was so lonely the summer I moved here that I cried almost every night, thinking about my friends at home, my quiet block, my porch, the theatre where I'd worked, the students I'd taught. After a few months, I cried less frequently -- once every couple of weeks, on the phone with my friends. I thought less & less about my porch, the brick street where I had lived, the fresh air in Florida. I went out & did things.

My first birthday here, when I turned 26 (!!!), I went to my sister's about 2 hours away because I didn't want to spend it alone. I helped her move into a new apartment & then we went to a park & played catch & ate grilled swordfish & ice cream cake.

Then, by the next year, I was so fortunate. I had made some close friends, some wonderful friends, and we ate at Yaffa Cafe. I went to Shakespeare in the Park with Stephen & his friends (though it was rained out). I saw "The Graduate" in Bryant Park with a group of people. I considered it a sign that I'd made the city my home.

Now, I feel like I want to do some of the things I used to do. I want to see French films by myself. I want to spend a Saturday alone. But, somehow, it's harder.

My schedule is fuller. I have a boyfriend. I am pulled from here to there, invited to go places I want to go with people I want to spend time with.

I love my life. I love working on theatre projects. I loved going to Dan & Dena's baby shower last Sunday. I loved ushering for "Assasins" with Erin. I love playing softball on Saturdays. I love Joe.

But, I feel like I've lost a part of myself and that centered feeling that comes from spending a lot of time gloriously alone, even if the price is sometimes loneliness & crying on the phone. I miss my solitude.

-m

2004-04-06T12:06:00.000-04:00

Kate's Joint

Last night, Joe & I went to Kate's for dinner. I had a McKate: 2 non-meat patties, special sauce (not mayo & ketchup), lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions (grilled), on a whole wheat bun. I also had collard greens & some mashed potatoes with vegetarian gravy.

Not long after I moved to New York, my friend Stephen introduced me to the joy that is Kate's Joint on 4th St and Avenue B in the East Village. Kate's is a diner for vegetarians. They don't serve health food but comfort food. Their menu varies from huevos rancheros with home fries & a screwdriver for Sunday brunch to Shepard's pie to fried tofu with "Buffalo wing" sauce to vegetarian Jamacian meat patties to burritos to pasta. Everything is homemade. Everything is vegetarian, & most things can be made without dairy (not that I personally get anything without dairy). They also have a full bar & sometimes a d.j. in case you're looking for that sort of thing.

Kate's is like Heaven.

Joe, who lives exactly one block from Kate's, has been dragged there several times in the past year & a half. He doesn't hate eating at Kate's, but he doesn't love it there. He prefers their breakfast/brunch menu to their dinner & he usually orders the least adventurous item on the menu, whole wheat pizza.

I have stolen so many cooking ideas from Kate's. I rarely make vegetarian gravy at home because it's a pain in the butt, but the first time I made it, it was because I wanted to go to Kate's but couldn't afford it & didn't want to travel (about a 45 minute commute door to door). I modified my grandma's Shepard's pie, making it with either fake beef or grilled veggies at the bottom, after having Kate's Shepard's pie. I dream about their fake beef au poive.

Last night, I had Kate's french fries for the very first time. They are so thin, so crispy, so salty, so perfect.

Aaaaah, Kate, Kate, Kate. What you do to me!

--m

2004-04-05T16:51:00.000-04:00

Band Plugging

Go to www.ahabseamus.com & listen to the mp3s of their live cd, recorded at the living room in feb, I believe. I was there!

And, I love this band & want you to listen to them.

--m

2004-04-01T10:10:00.000-05:00

April's Fool

Joe & I bought a Kickboxing exercise video the other night. We watched/tried to participate in about 7 minutes of it & then put it on pause. That was Tuesday. It is still on pause.

BUT, I am going to get fit, gosh darnit! I'm way too poor to join a gym, but I am going to learn to kickbox & Denise Austin's going to be my guru.

Today, Jeffrey would have been 26. It is/(was?) his birthday. A friend of mine at work gave me yellow flowers. I'm so touched. I cannot explain how touched I am.

Last night, I went to Target on Queens Blvd to go "baby-crazy" for Dan & Dena's baby, tentatively named Benjamin Joseph, scheduled to be born on June 6th (yes, that's D-Day). I bought a 3-pack of little outfits* for 0-3 months, another little outfit for 9 months, a green cow rattle, and some socks. I didn't realize baby clothes were so cheap. I could have kept going.

The baby shower is this Sunday in New Jersey. I hate it when people kvetch about commuting to Queens to see me, but I also HATE going to New Jersey. Maybe this is a little bit hypocritical, but at least Queens is one of the 5 boroughs & at least I am near a subway. And, at least I know where the fuck I am when I'm in Queens. And, I am not that far out in Queens, so NAAAAAH.

Tonight, I am going to go home after work & probably speak to my entire family on the phone. It won't be easy. I think I am going to write my brother a letter & mail it, sort of symbolically sending it out into the world, knowing it won't reach him but it won't reach anyone else either.

I'm at work, so I can't write about this. Too easy to cry today.

-m

*Little Outfit = those one-piece things that snap

2004-03-25T15:35:00.000-05:00

Starbucks

Me: Grande soy latte

Barista: You're a movie star, aren't you?

Me: (thinking he's kidding) Yes. I am.

Barista: I've seen you in something. What have I seen you in?

Me: I'm not really a movie star. Just in my imagination.

Barista: Awwww! I'll keep your secret.

Questions:

(1) What secret?
(2) Who did he think I was?

--m

2004-03-23T12:42:00.000-05:00

The Worst Actor

Ooooh! I love getting comments. I've finally had my first few comments & I feel so happy. Whenever I write this, I always assume that nobody reads it. In a sense, that helps me be more candid. But, like everyone else, I like to hear what others have to say & I want people to read. Yay!

This past Saturday, I was a reader for people who were auditioning for a play I'll be working on in April/May. It was my first time ever doing that, so I was really nervous at first.

Do I stand or sit? Do I move? Will I mess the actors up by being bad? Will they judge me? I'm not the greatest actor in the world. Am I the worst actor in the world?

Joe gave me two bits of advice: Work off the other person & have FUN.

I'm so serious all the time.

But, then I got into it & it was fun. It was fun to see the different ways that people read. The first few were females & they were reading the female lead. I was reading the male lead. I felt a lot of emotion from both of them, a lot of anger. And, as advised by Joe, I let myself feel the anger & responded to that anger.

Then, this girl came in & she was very light & so I was very light.

Then, I got to read the female part for a few males. If they gave me love, I gave them love. If they were joking, I responded to that. It ended up being really fun, but I never felt at ease. Maybe I'd have to do it more in order to feel at ease.

I just finished taking a class that made me feel like I'm the worst actor in the world.

Maybe I'm not the worst actor in the world.

-m

2004-03-22T10:30:00.000-05:00

The Face

I was talking to my mom this Sunday. We talked for 3 hours about all kinds of things -- my sister's wedding plans, getting rid of furniture, credit card debt, etc. My mom & I generally don't talk for 2 weeks or so & then we stay on the phone for hours & can't get off. And, I can tell her pretty much anything. I love this about our relationship.

The conversation turned to movies & she asked me if I've seen "that 'Passion of Christ' thing." I said I had decided not to see it (at least not in the theatre) because I don't think it was made for me. I read an editorial in this free NYC daily paper called amNY that talked about how the movie was made for Christians/believers not for agnostics/atheists/Jews/other religions. I definitely fall into the "agnostic" or at least not traditionally "gnostic" category as far as my faith/belief goes, so I figure the movie is not something I may find moving. I may see it on video. People have said it's anti-semitic, and I have no idea if that's true. (Joe said it was violent & pointless but that the acting wasn't bad.) My mom hasn't seen it but she says that it's a work of art by Mel Gibson & nobody should get all freaked out by it. Anyway, I digress -- because I'm going somewhere else with this story.

My mom said she'd read somewhere on the Internet that when Mel Gibson was a little boy he was an orphan and he was in a terrible accident and somehow he lost half his face...

I stopped her right there. "It's not true. It's a well-known urban legend."

She said, "I didn't know if it was true or not, but I thought if it was true it might explain to me some of the reasons he made this film."

"It's not true. You can look up urban legends on the urban legends page on About.com. Some e-mails that go around are neither confirmed nor denied, but this one has been absolutely denied."

"Well, I just thought that if it were true, it would explain..."

I should have let her tell me the explanation.

He had a hard life, lost his face, and so now he...what? makes movies about religion & pain & violence?

What is my mom's perception of Mel Gibson's decision to make this movie? What was she trying to explain?

I'm so curious.

I focused so much on the fact that the rumor isn't true because I think it's so interesting & weird that people e-mail these legends about celebrities & they stay in circulation for years & people -- like my mother -- ponder their relevance to the celebrity's decisions/films/etc. & come to conclusions without first checking that they are true!

Now, I want to hear her explanation because I want to know what she thinks about the film/story/Mel Gibson.

I'm not criticizing my mom. I love my mom. She is one of a kind & one of many.

-m

2004-03-19T14:49:00.000-05:00

The Demon Barber

Tonight, I am going to see "Sweeney Todd" at NY City Opera tonight with Joe & my friend John. I saw the show when I was in high school with my best friend Nova. He was a geeky kid who transferred to our high school when I was in 10th & he was in 9th. He had terrible, light brown, thick, wavy hair & he wore tie-dyed jeans (well, it was 1989-1990, so that was still acceptable). He was in my drama class & he quickly became everyone's favorite actor because he could sing & he was sweet & he was cute.

In the summer between his 10th & 11th grade years, he became cool and cut his hair and made other friends and we stopped hanging out so much. I could no longer count on him to eat lunch at Arby's with me every day & go to the movies with me on the weekends. He started dating my friend Gina, to whom I had introduced him.

But, his cool, hippie mother did dye my hair red the first time. They had a little lake/canal in their backyard & we went for a row in a little canoe while we waited for the henna to set in.

And, he took me to see "Point Break" with Keanu Reeves movie on my birthday when I turned 17. We took pictures in one of those machines & -- believe it or not -- I still have one of the pictures.

I don't really know whether I had a crush on him in high school or whether we really were just friends. I know I loved him, but I don't know if I liked him in "that way." We didn't talk about it.

He was up here in the city about a year ago & he's still an actor & still cute & funny & still sings. He's basically the same beautiful boy he was when he was in high school, both before & after he turned cool.

When we got home from seeing "Sweeney Todd," I put the ticket & the playbill in my notebook where I kept all playbills of shows I saw because I wanted to have a complete record of everything. Above it, I wrote "Sweeney Todd...a very 'sick' comedy."

Now, I'm going to see it again, probably 14 or 15 years later! I'm so excited!

-m

2004-03-19T10:19:00.000-05:00

Read This:

My friend Daphne's blog:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/dr_pangloss/

-m

2004-03-11T13:35:00.000-05:00

Today's Thoughts

Lately, it seems like I can't get anything done unless I'm procrastinating something else. So, I go grocery shopping to avoid scooping the litter. I file the millions of papers on my desk to avoid calling the authors of this book I'm working on to bug them for their chapters. I vacuum the living room to avoid practicing guitar. It's a strange way to organize my life, but at least I'm getting some things done.

I just finished reading "Lucky" by Alice Sebold during my lunch hour. I read "The Lovely Bones" a couple of months ago. She's a good writer. "Lucky" is her memoir of being raped as a freshman in college (including the trial after & her becoming a teacher & eventually a writer) & "The Lovely Bones" is a novel about a 14 year old girl who was murdered & raped & about how she & the family get through the grief. In "The Lovely Bones," the girl grows up while watching her family & friends from heaven.

So much of what I write here on the blog (when I write, which is rare, but I am currently procrastinating riding the elevator to the 26th floor to drop off some documents) is about grief. I've accepted that. This is an outlet for me & maybe some people appreciate reading about it. Hopefully, my accounts are at least readable. Or, maybe nobody reads this...need that "comments" field...

So, last Saturday, a 19 year old NYU student committed suicide by jumping from a building. The New York Post, which I understand is one step (if that) above a tabloid anyway, ran a photo of the girl jumping (!!!) in yesterday's paper on the front page! I was so shocked & so offended by the photo that I told Joe & he wrote an amazing, angry letter to the editor. So did I. They printed 3 letters (not our letters) expressing outrage in today's paper (I checked the online edition; I would never spend a penny to buy the print edition.) & that made me feel, I must admit, pretty good. Vindicated! The letters were strong. They expressed disapproval. I'm glad to see that my fellow New Yorkers were as offended as I by the Post's terrible "journalism" and lack of respect.

I must say I'm very affected by these suicides at NYU. There have been 4 since October (I believe), but one was ruled an accident due to drugs -- which I don't necessarily agree with but I understand that it must provide some comfort to the grieving friends & family members to see it that way. Plus, I acknowledge that I do not know all the facts. I am very affected by these suicides. I feel raw, like "it" is all around me. Spalding Gray's body was found earlier this week. He is believed to have committed suicide as well.

When my brother first died, I didn't like the phrase "committed suicide." I heard someone say "died by suicide" & I felt less of a pang. Now, I say both. I think I have become accustomed to the pangs, the many pangs. Maybe I'm not accustomed at all. Alice Sebold said she remembered the details of what happened more clearly 5-10 years after than she had in the first 3 or 4 years. She also said she recorded the exact details in her journal at the time, which I've done/started to do. I have always felt like I want a record of how I've felt, maybe to get it out or maybe so that I can go back with a greater understanding later or maybe just to put it down & try to realize it's real.

Anyway, to the 26th floor I go...

-m

2004-03-03T14:59:00.000-05:00

3 March 2004

When Joe & I stayed at the Doubletree Hotel in Philadelphia about a month ago, we were on a high floor & there was a window. I became obsessed with whether the window opened all the way. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack, and because I was afraid it did open all the way, I was afraid to try.

I also had a similar experience when we went to the Guggenheim a few months ago. On the top level of the museum, there is just a short, white wall, which could easily be climbed over. The fall would be several stories onto cement. Once I saw this, I again felt like I was going to have a panic attack. I pointed it out to Joe.

Eventually, I tried the hotel window in Philadelphia, and it only opened a crack. Joe pointed out that this was probably as much because of the danger of small children falling out as it was for the "other" situation.

Joe & I talked about this last night. There was an article in a recent Rolling Stone Magazine about Stephen Bohler, the NYU student who jumped from the 10th floor balcony of the library atrium in October 2003, and he brought it to my house to read. The student was 18 years old & his death was ruled an "accident" because he had been on drugs at the time. There were two other suicides at NYU this past fall.

I did a Google search today for his name & found some comment boards & articles about what happened. One site has a link to a photo of the atrium. It's indoors & quite beautiful but it gives me the creeps to look at it because it's clearly a long way down. Another article stated that NYU has put up glass barriers on the balconies. This makes me very happy. It makes me feel better.

What I realized when Joe & I were talking last night is that my fear -- why I felt so freaked out by the hotel window & the Guggenheim "balcony" -- was that I am afraid someone is going to commit suicide. Especially in the Guggenheim, I felt this panic, like someone could jump while I was there or the same day or the next day. And, in the hotel, I felt like anyone who rents that room can just open up the window & that's that.

I feel like I would like to be the patrolwoman on all the bridges, on all the balconies. I would like to check all the windows & make sure they don't open. I would like to put up barriers on all high structures. Me personally.

It's a terrible thing. I think this fear/anxiety will subside eventually, though. It hasn't been even a year & a half yet.

m

2003-12-09T16:19:00.000-05:00

100 Things About Me
1. I smoke cigarettes.
2. But I hate them.
3. I drink whiskey sometimes.
4. I once had a crush on an actor who was playing Tom in “The Glass Menagerie.” He was one of the most charming, charismatic people I’ve ever met, and I found that fascinating.
5. I wish I were more charismatic.
6. I also wonder if there’s something wrong with people who are charming & charismatic, like maybe they aren’t too smart or sensitive so I hope there’s a trade off.
7. I tend to start projects but not finish them.
8. I was a very well behaved child.
9. My sister recently told me I’m too sensitive.
10. I have big feet.
11. I have enormous hands, which I really like.
12. I felt self-conscious about them when I was a kid.
13. I don’t feel like I work up to my potential.
14. I would like to try stand up comedy someday.
15. My mother is a terrible housekeeper.
16. I have a cat & 5 or 6 plants.
17. I name my plants.
18. I love riding the bus.
19. I love walking.
20. I love cross word puzzles.
21. I hate airplanes, but not because I’m afraid of flying. I hate being squished in with people.
22. I believe in God.
23. I once went to a Quaker meeting, where you sit for an hour and listen for the “still small voice” & I found it very appealing.
24. I almost joined a cult once…well sort of…
25. I used to play violin when I was a kid.
26. I love math.
27. I feel guilty that I no longer do any math.
28. I have been studying for the GRE for over a year but I haven’t taken the test.
29. I put off applying to graduate school right after graduating & am finding it very difficult to go back.
30. I don’t know if I believe in the death penalty or not.
31. I should read the newspaper more often.
32. I am a registered Democrat, but I don’t necessarily like the Democratic party.
33. I live in Queens, NY.
34. My uncle is in town right now, and we are going to have dinner after I get off work.
35. I am nervous that I won’t have anything to say to him.
36. I love theater.
37. I want to see “Rent.”
38. More than anything, I wish I had an amazing singing voice.
39. I love writing.
40. I wish I could face all my fears.
41. I want to learn to play chess.
42. I am afraid I’m not as smart as I used to be.
43. I think my sister is a more pure-hearted person than I (meaning less selfish).
44. I used to run, but I have terrible knees & had to stop.
45. I’m sorry if this is the most boring thing to read.
46. My room is always cluttered.
47. I am a very harsh movie critic.
48. I was very shy in high school.
49. I used to be a fairly active environmentalist, but I haven’t done anything in that capacity for awhile.
50. I am a quick & accurate typist.
51. I used to write letters to this guy in the army when I was a kid. My sister & I met him on the beach because he & his friend were trying to pick her up (I imagine). We wrote letters for 5 years but then he came back & I thought he was too impassive & cynical & I didn’t want to be his friend.
52. I’m a quasi-vegetarian (fish only).
53. I have been thinking about eating chicken lately.
54. I am very sad.
55. But, I’m not afraid of that.
56. I am an optimist.
57. I want to go to France.
58. I want to be a mother someday.
59. I want to be a poet.
60. I used to dye my hair red.
61. I love traveling alone, especially on trains.
62. I once took a trip to New Haven & fantasized that I went to Yale.
63. I would love to go to Yale.
64. But, I’m afraid I’d never get in.
65. I don’t know how smart I am. Am I smart enough for that, or am I delusional?
66. When I drink too much, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety & insomnia.
67. I am strong.
68. I love to laugh.
69. I once went to a nudist beach (when I was 19).
70. I am very private.
71. I look good in black.
72. I love seafood.
73. My uncle (the one I’m meeting tonight) has a trampoline in his back yard that I love to jump on.
74. I love theatre games.
75. I love little children, but only in very small groups (like one or two).
76. I hate noise.
77. I love noise.
78. I hate the summer.
79. I love the fall.
80. I have lived in the same apartment for almost 4 years now.
81. My boyfriend Joe might be moving in soon.
82. I’m afraid of him moving in.
83. I’m afraid of what my parents will think.
84. I’m afraid my parents will pressure me to get married if he moves in.
85. I’m afraid my grandmother will pressure me to get married if he moves in.
86. I need a lot of space.
87. I saw “The Last Samurai” last night & fell asleep.
88. I am afraid I’m too self-centered, especially after seeing all these “I, I , I…sentences”
89. I’m afraid this is boring to read.
90. I love show tunes.
91. I love “Victor/Victoria”
92. My favorite friends (right now) are Joe, Meredith, Dina, and Tiffany.
93. I love Georgia.
94. I think I’m smarter than Joe & that freaks me out a bit. I mean, I wonder if it’s ok to be smarter than him. Somebody has to be smarter, right?
95. I grew up very close to the beach in Florida.
96. I once went to the beach alone & went swimming by myself with my regular clothes on because it was evening and the water was very warm.
97. I once had a roommate who could impersonate Elvis Presley.
98. I once saw a female Elvis impersonator named Elvis Herselvis.
99. I’m a funny dancer.
100. I’m a terrible bowler.

2003-11-26T15:42:00.000-05:00

Thankful

I am leaving in just a minute or two to go to visit my sister in PA. Joe is meeting me downstairs & we're going to take the bus down there, spend 2 nights, and come back. I went down to FL for the one year anniversary, last week. A lot of my brother's friends came over to the house, and it was helpful to have everyone there.

I am thankful that I'll be taking an acting class starting next week, that I am healthy, that I am optimistic, that my mother is here visiting, and that I'm relatively healthy and happy.

I'm finding it very difficult to write right now, actually. I feel quite stiff.

So, I'll just leave off with a Happy Thanksgiving wish to anyone who might end up reading this. And, I'll catch y'all later.

--m

2003-11-03T12:41:00.000-05:00

Paint

Last Thursday night/Friday morning, the phone rang in the middle of the night. At first, the sound was incorporated into my dream (suddenly, she encounters a phone booth...), but then I woke up, looked at the clock, & realized I should answer it because nobody calls at 5:30 a.m. unless it's important. But, I didn't get to the phone on time. I missed the call. I went into a panic.

Who could it be? It was clearly someone telling me someone had died. I thought it must be my dad or step-mother calling. My father died. My mother died. My step-mother, my grandma, my sister, one of my broth...

I felt my heart racing, my breath shortening. My mind (naturally) reached back to that horrible night almost a year ago when my father called to tell me what had happened. That was not a middle-of-the-night call, but ever since then, I have been expecting another call like that, another horrible, life-changing call, another haunting call. I think this feeling of panic will go away in time, but it has only intensified recently.

I pressed * 69. The number was untraceable. I reached into my coat pocket & got out my cell phone, which I realized was turned off. I thought about calling my parents. I almost did call them, but then I thought they would surely call back or call my cell phone if something had happened. What happened? Or, rather, to whom did it happen? God. I thought of Joe or someone in Joe's family.

Then, I got the idea to check my messages, so I turned on the light, called voicemail, and listened. "You have 4 unheard messages." One was from a friend of mine, basically stating, "I'll try your cell." One was from my landlord telling me to get in touch with this painter, Peter, because he is going to paint the kitchen. Then, there were two messages from Peter himself, asking when I was available, asking if he could paint either Saturday the 24th or November 1st. Yes, that's right. He called on Wednesday the 21st to make an appointment for Saturday the 24th & I got this message at 5:30-something on Friday, the 31st. You see, I never check my voicemail. I mostly use my cell phone. I don't even know the number to call to check voicemail from a remote location (note to self: check that out).

So, I felt humiliated. This guy is trying to reach me to schedule a time to paint my apartment, and I don't even have the courtesy to call him back after a week & a half. I decide I'll call him in the morning & apologize. I also decide that if someone had died, someone would be calling my cell phone or calling my home number again. It must have been a wrong number or a prank call. My panic (thank God!) runs its course & then I feel calmer. I turn off the light.

The next evening, I call Peter & he asks if he can paint on Saturday. I tell him yes. I have no plans for Saturday. He comes over to look at the kitchen & tell us what we have to move & says he'll be there around 10:30. I tell my roommate.

Oy! It was the funniest thing when I told my roommate. She instantly became very upset. "Does he have to paint tomorrow? I have plans tomorrow? I can't get up early! I'm not going to get any sleep!"

She was sitting on the living room floor, hot-glue-gunning plastic leaves to a skirt & tube top for her Halloween costume, Eve. Good costume, by the way.

"Did he randomly pick the day after Halloween to paint? Are we going to have paint fumes in the house? When are we going to be able to use the kitchen?"

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

I do not like my roommate. I understand her irritation at being told at the last minute that the kitchen was being painted the next day, but I was not asking very much of her, just a little help in the morning, moving stuff from the kitchen to the living room. I was willing to stay in the whole day, and I told her that. It was my fault that it was so last minute, and I told her that. I felt I had an obligation to be graceful and allow Peter to do his job, especially since he'd tried to schedule the painting in advance and because I didn't have plans the next day.

She was so upset about it! It was amazing to watch her level of resistance to a situation that really is so much more beneficial than inconvenient in the long run. "Yes," I told her, "You will have to get up a little early & it will be a pain in the butt, but the inconvenience will only last a day & we will have a beautiful kitchen!"

She's so undomestic. She has no interest in the household. She has no desire to live in a clean apartment or to make the apartment more pleasant. She doesn't care if there are dirty dishes in the sink. She doesn't care if there is dust. She would never think about using a vacuum. And, because I do care about these things, I feel like her mother. Why? Because the only way she will help is if I tell her to. Luckily, she usually does do something when I ask her to do it.

So, Saturday, our kitchen (and bathroom, it turns out) was painted. I spent the day finishing "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides (i.e. the best book I've read in a long time), starting my novel for NaNoWriMo, and relaxing. I locked my cat in my bedroom & hung out with him for awhile. I could hear Peter and his brother talking in Greek.

It was a gorgeous day, and I sat on the porch for a good amount of time, just breathing in the breeze (& smoking a couple of cigarettes; let's not paint a too-pretty picture here). I went for a short walk around my neighborhood.

That evening, after Peter left (at 8:00!), Joe & I used some extra paint to paint a shelf I have had sitting around for awhile.

The best part about having the kitchen painted this past weekend was that I was forced to stay home for most of the time. I never stay home. I love staying home. And, the two rooms look gorgeous.

--m

2003-10-27T15:34:00.000-05:00

Monsters

I ordered a very cheap laptop off e-bay. It may turn out to be a disaster because the laptop may not work or may not be usable or may not have all the necessary parts. I'm quite afraid. But, if it works, I will be very happy because I will be able to take part in the National Novel Writers' Month (nanowrimo.org), which I heard about while reading about somebody else's writer's block on the Internet.

I've already started to think about themes & characters for the novel, but I probably shoudl not mention any specifics here since the mentioning may interfere with my writing. I will say, though, that I'm very excited about this project.

The idea of the project is to get as much writing down as is humanly possible in a very short time so that the writers have a rough draft finished by the end of the month. It may turn out to be completely incoherent, and I may have to spend 5 years revising it (or I may want to throw the whole thing away at the end), but that is sort of part of the beauty of the thing.

Right now, I know my main character will be a male & that the story will somehow deal with obsession. I'm thinking that he may be obsessed with a stranger or someone he knows but doesn't know well. So, as I ride the subway or talk to people, I take notes. I try to notice things. I listen to conversations. It will be fun to write a "male."

On a different note, I feel very odd and depressed lately. I've noticed that I'm having a hard time getting along with people or even wanting to be around people, especially when people are so happy. I remember when this first happened, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to come stay with her in North Carolina to get away from it all for awhile. I didn't think I'd want to do such a thing, but now I understand. It would be nice to just get to rest for, like, a month or two. I'd like to not have to be around people (especially people who seem to have forgotten that my brother died almost a year ago -- something that makes me very angry!) & try to act "normal" with the holidays coming up & everything. I'd like to be able to take long, quiet walks & breathe. I'd like to be free from stress & pressure, even knowing that stress can be good for moving life along.

I'm afraid that I've aged a lot in this past year. I wonder if that's true, if the toll this has taken is physical. The thing is, it's difficult to write about it. It's slow. Maybe I'll write my "novel" about it (although I'd sort of hoped to avoid that, it may be all that's there to write about).

For the one year memorial, we're going to have an open house at my father's house. My brother's friends will be there. My sister is flying down. We'll just have people over & try to be as comforted as we can be just by being together. Right now, though, it's getting tougher all the time. Hopefully, focusing on writing will help.

--m

2003-10-24T16:28:00.000-04:00

A Good Fight

It's been way too long since I've had a good fight, a raging, screaming battle. I can't remember the last time I really let someone have it. I can't even remember the last time I yelled at someone.

Of course, the best fights can only be had with someone you really care deeply about, someone you know & love so deeply & take so for granted (like a sibling or a parent) that you can say anything to them, bring out your biggest weapon, let out your rage, your truest, deepest fury.

I'm sure everyone out there (all my readers -- ha ha) have heard that, in general, women cry more easily than men and men are angrier more easily than women. Is this true, and if so, does it mean that men should cry more to compensate & women, similarly, should fight more? I don't really know, and I don't really care.

I just know that I want to get into the ring with someone soon. I want to throw a punch, verbal or physical. I want to burn something. I want to yell at someone. I want to tell someone I love, like I told my sister so many times when we were kids, that I HATE THEM. I want to use my voice, my body, my eyes, my hands, even my nose to even the score.

I want to be Rocky. I want to be the Karate Kid. I want to be a puppy wrestling. I want to be a cat pouncing at a mouse -- or, better yet, a lion pouncing at another lion, an alligator fighting for some territory.

But, I'll probably end up either belting out a show tune or swinging a bat to get out this energy because I really have no one to fight with right now.

--m

2003-10-17T17:21:00.000-04:00

Tiffany

I have a crush on someone from work. I was somewhat distraught about this. I love Joe, and I understand that it's normal to have occasional crushes on people who are not your significant other, but I still find the idea of having this crush a little scary. He speaks Italian, and he's very smart. What does it mean?

Last night, I called my friend Tiffany to "confess." Tiffany's reaction: "That's great! Cool! I love work crushes! Have fun with it!"

I felt instantly better.

Tiffany has a son, Alexander, who is in second grade. I remember sitting in the car with him once when she ran into the store to buy something. We were talking about different planets, and I told him that Mars is called the "red planet." Months later, on a whim, we asked Alex which planet is the red planet, and he said, "Marrrrs." We went nuts because he was only 3 & we didn't expect him to remember something like that.

Ahhhhhh...Tiffany. I met her at the Hippodrome when we both worked in the box office, but we didn't really become friends until she no longer worked there. Once, I babysat Alex while she went out on a date. We sat on her porch before she left for the date & smoked cigarettes by candlelight. She looked very pretty all dressed up with her curly hair & there was something charming about her being nervous about her date. I've known two men Tiffany has dated, and neither of them has been worthy of her charm, her humor, her spark.

Last night, she told me she's looking for a job & has been looking for 3 months (!!!). She's applied everywhere in Austin, TX -- even McDonald's (but they would never hire her because she's so overqualified). She said there are 50 people applying for each position, and they sometimes have "cattle call" interviews where 10 people sit in a room & get interviewed together or where everyone stands in line & hands in his or her resume & has to answer one or two questions. "We'll call you if you have the position," they say. Why don't they just have the applicants do a 2 minute monologue or read from sides or learn a dance combination?

So, Tiffany told me that she volunteered to reorganize the books in Alex's second grade classroom because she thought it would be fun & because the teacher hasn't had time. She figured it would take about 15 minutes, but she spent 3 hours organizing. She looked through all the books, re-read some of them, put them into a logical order. And, she said she found this book she read and remembered when she was 7, but she never knew the title. The book has a scene in which one child bites another child's cheek because she (or he?) thinks it looks delicious.

Tiffany, if you read this, e-mail me the title of the book.

--m

2003-10-10T17:38:00.000-04:00

Update

So, I didn't quit. I talked to Erin about my work schedule & about wigging out about conflicts, etc., and she told me to think about it over the weekend & she & Katherine would also think about their options & we'll talk about it on Sunday.

I'm definitely not going to be as involved as I'd hoped, but I feel much better having talked to Erin about my level of stress & about my level of involvement. Being there at rehearsals while knowing I wasn't fully committed made me feel detached from the project. And, I've never felt detached from a theater project. Even the lamest, stupidest, most frustrating theater projects always get my full attention.

Why? Because theater infuses me with life.

I know that sounds like the cheesiest thing anyone's ever written & if anyone reads this, it's probably the stupidest thing you've ever read. And, your opinion of me is spoiled, etc. But, I don't care.

So, I'm having a difficult time right now. The time of year has hit me. Fall. I hate fall. And, I used to love fall. Fall was ALWAYS my favorite season. But, now, the weather has changed, and that just reminds me of what's to come. And, it reminds me of what has happened. And, it drives me crazy.

Has it almost been a YEAR? Is that possible? Is it really true, then? Seriously, I think about it & I think that I feel like if a year can pass, then it's really true that my brother died.

I feel very weird writing about "that topic" here because it's so personal & it's...I don't know how to explain. I feel like I'm making something very personal public by writing about it here. At the same time, that was kind of the point of having this--so that I can share what's on my mind. I have mixed feelings about it.

In The NewYorker this month, there's an article about the Golden Gate Bridge and all the suicides on that bridge since it opened & how the government won't build a guard rail because of several excuses that the writer of the article refutes. I read the article on the subway on Tuesday night on the way to meet Joe for dinner & by the time I saw him, I was INFURIATED by the whole thing, especially because the article said there was a follow-up study done & something like 90% of the people who were prevented from jumping were still alive 25 years later. It said that the crisis of suicide is usually about 3 months and if a person gets through those critical 3 months, he or she has a very good chance of never trying it again or of finding other options.

I don't know. San Francisco is not my city, but I want to write a letter to the government there to tell them to build the rail. And, I'm going to research bridges in New York to see if there are any suicides on our bridges (how many?) & to see if I can write to see if they can be prevented.

I think the problem--one of the problems--with dealing with this kind of thing is you feel so powerless. And, the whole thing is so stupid. And, it was such a mistake.

Now, I feel uncomfortable about this entire entry. But, I'm going to leave it up just to see how I feel about it later.

--m

2003-10-09T18:04:00.000-04:00

Quits

So, after just two rehearsals, I have realized I am going to have to quit the play. This is a very big deal for me because I've never quit a play or any creative project involving others before.

But, my heart is not in it.

And, I am so stressed right now because of work & the upcoming holidays & the upcoming one year anniversary, which I've really started to feel.

Plus, my mother is coming to visit me for a week in November.

And, rehearsals are 5 days a week.

I love the people in the play, and I love the director, but I am going to have to quit. Tonight, we have rehearsal at 7:00 & I'm going to either meet with the director beforehand or talk to her after.

I feel terrible about this.

--m

2003-10-07T16:24:00.000-04:00

It's Like Taking a Movement Class

Last night, we had the first real rehearsal for the new play, which will be a theater piece about masculinity & femininity developed through improv, using Viewpoints (Anne Bogart), which I know very little about. The cast, which was 8, is down to 6: Nikki, Ben, Seku, Alex, Joey, and Katherine. I will see these people, plus the director, Erin, five days a week for the next 3 months. Weird.

Erin asked me to bring clothes to move in last night, so I wore my one & only pair of cool workout pants & my favorite tee, which says "DANCE" in sparkly letters across the front. We started out by stretching on our own, and then we played "slow motion tag," which was a lot more fun than regular tag as I remember it from when I was a kid because I always had trouble catching someone in regular tag, but it's easier in slow motion. It's actually easier both to never be tagged & to tag someone, & it's more fun when you're tagged.

Then, we played with time by walking on a grid at different tempos, 0 being stillness, 1 being almost stillness, and 5 being as fast as humanly & safely possible. We also played with the length of time we kept each tempo & with how other people affected our desire to change tempo. For instance, if you are almost completely still and someone comes racing past you & just barely misses you, you may have a desire to speed up. Or, you may keep a certain tempo longer than it's comfortable.

We then took different shapes with our bodies as individuals & then as a group, using the entire space, interacting with one another, using different levels (the floor, standing level, and even climbing). Then, we had to do gestures & expressions. A gesture would be a position found in normal life & an expression is a blown-up version of that same gesture, perhaps of the emotion behind that gesture.

Then, we did Alexander Technique massages. Then, we talked about what we got out of it as a group.

I have no idea how my participation in these activities makes me an assistant director or a stage manager (except for Nikki talking to me about scheduling conflicts after rehearsal), but I certainly do feel like I bonded with the group. Today, I'm so sore I can barely walk.

--m

2003-10-03T17:35:00.000-04:00

The Charm of the Earnest

Right now at work, I'm working on this computer project, so I'm in this conference room with about 6 other people most of the day. It's the kind of thing that lends itself easily to satire because we have all the doors closed & all these computers set up on the conference table & we have scheduled times to go down to different rooms & almost all communication/instruction from "above" comes by e-mail.

Anyway, today one woman was sent to another room on another floor and this guy Fady was transferred into our room to sit at her place.

The boys in Room 26 (where I am "stationed") are all around 25 years old, and they are a lot of fun, though mischievous & sometimes annoying. Today, someone sent an e-mail with a joke on the bottom, and this guy Alex read it out loud: "Why was Jesus born in a stable?"

After a pause, Fady answered, "I don't know. It has something to do with modesty." And then, Alex said the punchline: "Because Joseph was on an HMO." (Very lame joke.) I then heard Fady say, kind of softly, "Oh. It has nothing to do with that at all." And, right there, I felt like I really, really liked him. I love people who are too serious sometimes, people whose awkwardness comes from taking things to heart that people are not "supposed to" take to heart.

I have worked very hard to become "lighter," and I wonder sometimes if this journal, for example, is too serious, if I'm too serious in general. There's a part of me that loves people who are too serious, though.

Cheers to Fady for thinking the question through & for not knowing he shouldn't have thought it through.

I understand.

--m

2003-09-29T15:25:00.000-04:00

WISH LIST
I'm making a wish list & posting it here because I read on someone's blog that, "Everyone should make one, and check it from time to time, and see if you're living your life, or just existing." I'll try to write things that are in the long-run as well as the short-run, things that are "possible," as well as "impossible."

I WANT TO:

1. Play guitar and sing at an open mic. [SANG AT AN OPEN MIC IN FEB; STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH AT GUITAR]
2. Write a non-fiction article & have it published.
3. Apply to graduate school.
4. Take that newspaper reporting class at NYU.
5. Have a child (not for at least a few years from now).
6. Go to California.
7. Drive across the country.
8. Have a better relationship with my father.
9. Learn to make Indian food that doesn't suck. [HEH HEH]
10. Go to Memphis.
11. Speak fluent French.
12. Teach again.
13. Go to France.
14. Quit smoking for good.
15. Take a dance or movement class.
16. Invite my brother Tommy (15) to stay with me for a month this summer.
17. Ride the Cyclone at Coney Island before it gets too cold.
18. Go skiing this winter.
19. Visit my family.
20. Face the fact that I have to figure out what to do with the ashes. (Haven't even thought about this).
21. Eat dinner in Chinatown.
22. See Tara.
23. Go to the beach.
24. Get a new tattoo on my shoulder to cover up or complement the one I don't like.
25. Memorize "The Raven"
26. Be in a play (substantial role).
27. Have a "roast" when I turn 30.
28. Go to Maine & interview the lobstermen & write about it.
29. Go to the batting cages.
30. See Sandra.
31. Learn to play chess.
32. Have a toned stomach.
33. Run 5 miles.
34. Videotape the ducks in the park. [DONE]
35. Make a short film.
36. Record a song with S.
37. Be a very happy person when I'm 41.
38. Remain open to new ideas throughout my life.
39. Buy a computer.
40. Get a job I love.
41. Refinish my dining room table with my mother's assistance.
42. Go on a boat.
43. Review more plays.
44. See Laura.
45. Buy some new clothes.
46. Get a new cell phone.
47. Put curtains up in the living room. [DONE]
48. Talk to my grandma. [ONGOING]
49. Write descriptions of the people who are important to me.
50. Go to a Quaker meeting.
51. Be fearlessly honest.
52. Read more plays out loud.
53. Add a "comments" field to this so that I will know if anyone has ever read it

2003-09-29T11:41:00.000-04:00

A Monday Morning Love List

I love scalding hot showers, so hot that it takes time to get used to the water, so hot that all the oil on your skin melts away. I love how scalding hot showers make you so sleepy you want to go to sleep while you're still in the shower. I think scalding hot showers are my way of returning to the womb.

I also love how my old roommate put her arm around Joe at the appetizers table at her housewarming party in Hoboken, which we went to Saturday night. She just walked over to him & put her arm around his shoulder so casually, like he is her buddy, and said, "What's up, Joe? Are you enjoying yourself?" I love seeing my friends embrace him casually like that. So many times, a friend's boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife is just a barrier between you and the friend. (I feel that way about my friends' sig others 99% of the time; I don't know about most people.) I love that Joe is friends with my friends & that they really love him. They don't just tolerate him because he's there with me.

Speaking of Joe, he played at an open mic last night at this place called the C Note on Avenue C and 10th Street (I think). We had to wait 3 1/2 hours for him to go on! We got there at 5:15 & he didn't play until about 8:45. Sucked! We should have gone home earlier. But, I loved this one girl named Grace. She seemed so shy & looked so dorky because she was wearing a skirt & a pretty nice blouse with sneakers--and not cool sneakers, but white walking shoes, with socks that were folded. And, she was very anxious to get up there & she looked really young. I thought she would be bad because of her outfit & her enthusiasm. What does that say about me? Anyway, she played two beautiful, fairly mellow songs & the joke was definitely on me because she was probably the best person I've seen at any open mic ever. She has an angelic and slightly jazzy and slightly gospely voice & she is quiet but powerful, kind of like Jeff Buckley. I want her to record her songs. I want this for selfish reasons because I want to be able to listen to her whenever I want.

I also love: Prince; giving up my seat on the subway; corny jokes; The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (no joke; I'm reading it!); karaoke; my new, bulky shoes; when my cat runs laps from one side of the apt to the other in the middle of the night; that it was 57 degrees this morning; that I am having Easy Mac for lunch; that I get paid tomorrow; the ring my grandma gave me last Thanksgiving; the pilsner glasses Joe & I gave to Jenifer & Chris as a housewarming present.

--m

2003-09-26T11:15:00.000-04:00

I love Jane Hirshfield, but I'm probably not allowed to publish these without permission, so I'll take them off after a couple of days & just leave the titles:

OPTIMISM (Jane Hirshfield)
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs--all this resinous, unretractable earth.

POEM WITH TWO ENDINGS (Jane Hirshfield)
Say "death" and the whole room freezes--
even the couches stop moving,
even the lamps.
Like a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at.

Say the word continuously,
and things begin to go forward.
Your life takes on
the jerky texture of an old film strip.

Continue saying it,
hold it moment after moment inside the mouth,
it becomes another syllable.
A shopping mall swirls around the corpse of a beetle.

Death is voracious, it swallows all the living.
Life is voracious, it swallows all the dead.
neither is ever satisfied, neither is ever filled,
each swallows and swallows the world.

The grip of life is as strong as the grip of death.

(but the vanished, the vanished beloved, o where?)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2003-09-26T11:12:00.000-04:00

BABYSITTERS:

Wendy had long, blonde hair, and was really pretty. Her younger brother had a cast on his arm. I asked him what happened, and he said, "I broke it." She used to watch MTV all day. She brought her portable radio over to the house and put it on top of the t.v. so that she could record the songs onto cassette tape.

Ruth had cerebral palsy, and she walked with metal crutches. She was obsessed with The Who and taught us how to play rummy. She told us that, by law, every restaurant has to give you a cup of water if you ask for it, so we often went into McDonald's to ask for water if we were thirsty. She once told me I should be a janitor because I liked to sweep the carport.

Jane had frizzy red hair. Her brother, J.P., was a big time skateboarder. He had a small ramp in front of their house, which had a locked, metal fence around it, and which I never saw the inside of. Everyone in the neighborhood thought they were rich.

Stephanie, my older sister, left the house to go meet her friends as soon as my mom's car turned the corner.

2003-09-22T12:08:00.000-04:00

Dialogue

I'm AD/SM-ing (that sounds so naughty) a show that's going to be produced in December. The director's boyfriend is a chef, and he's going to make food that complements the content of the show, which is about exploring masculinity and femininity in a certain way at different stages of life & related to sex/sexuality. The director is developing the show based on Viewpoints, which is a way of developing a show through improvisation from the performers. For the first 3 weeks of rehearsal, we will be "collecting data" as the actors play/improvise/research/explore & the director will use that material to shape the show into something with form that makes sense.

So, yesterday afternoon, I went to call-backs. The actors were given a list of elements to include in a 5-minute theatre piece on the topic of masculinity/femininity. The director, the choreographer, and I left the room for 25 minutes while the actors developed their piece, and then we came in to watch. The elements: using one object in 3 different ways, a simultaneous action, 3 stereotypes rebuked, 3 stereotypes affirmed, repetition, 2 exits, a game, a moment of silence, and a song.

It was amazing to watch what they came up with.

The first group did this very sexy movement piece based on a game of tag. The second group did a very talky piece using 7 minute dating as its format. The third group did a disturbing piece with kids on the playground. The second piece was definitely the least interesting because they were sitting in chairs talking the entire time. The first piece was probably the most interesting because it made the least "sense" in a linear way but said the most.

I think what I'm most interested in is the idea of stereotypes. I want to make a list of all the stereotypes I know of just to look at them, just to play with them, just to explore that idea. There are stereotypes based on nationality, ethnicity, age, geographical region, sexual orientation, race, gender, etc.

Some of my favorites: Asian women can't drive. Women love babies. Lesbians like folk music & hate men. French people hate Americans. Black men are criminals. Black women are promiscuous. Poor people are lazy. White men can't dance. Black people can sing. Gay men have great fashion sense. White women are princesses. Jewish people are stingy. Old people are senile.

The list can go on and on. And, it's an interesting thing. I love just throwing all these stereotypes out there because, somewhere inside, each of us feels like some of these stereotypes are true, depending on our individual experiences.

The only way to work through our relationships with one another in this country is to talk about these things. I feel like racism exists on deeper, institutional levels, but it needs to be dealt with on personal levels as well.

Anyway, it was amazing to watch the actors play, and I would like to do a theatre piece based on racial stereotypes because I'm so interested in opening that dialogue. Where is that dialogue in our society?

--m

2003-09-08T15:11:00.000-04:00

"New York is cold, but I like where I'm living.." (L. Cohen)

Joe & I went down to Chinatown yesterday afternoon. It was a beautiful, perfect September afternoon. To get there, we walked through the Lower East Side, down by the Williamsburg Bridge, down streets I don't walk down very often: Elizabeth, Clinton, Ludlow, Rivington.

There's this AIDS hospital on Rivington, a little further west from where we were walking yesterday. I've been there twice with this chorus I sometimes sing with. I remember that the first time I went, I expected the patients to be like AIDS patients are in the movies & in theater: upper class, flamboyently gay, mostly white, with an appreciation for show tunes and artistic talent. Seriously. I thought they would be like the cast for a musical, or something. But, they are very sickly looking & very thin men. They are, of course, of all colors, mostly middle-aged, and they mostly seem poor.

It's funny that I didn't even realize what I expected until I got there. It's like that Gwendolyn Brooks poem, "The Lovers of the Poor" (http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?45442B7C000C070C0E75) where she criticizes the ladies who want to donate money to the poor for being repulsed by (or at least afraid of) the people they are trying to help. It's a very interesting poem, and I admit there's something of that in me -- probably in everyone. I want to help people by donating my time & energy, but I don't want to have see any of the ugliness. I don't want to be uncomfortable. I don't say this out of guilt, just honesty.

So, anyway, we walked through the LES & down toward the Manhattan Bridge, which has these amazing marble sculptures on its entrance and benches to sit on cut into the marble. It's really, really lovely -- statues of Greek or Roman-looking figures, gorgoyles, flowers that look like they are floating on a pond. We sat down on one of the benches and discussed the wedding we'd been to the night before, which we'd been discussing the entire day. His cousin Mindy got really wasted drunk at the wedding and peed on herself on the way home. His other cousin Scott had a fit but then proceeded to get completely wasted himself in the hotel afterward.

Oh, Mindy! She's only 23 (almost 24) and she has this beautiful brown mole on her face, right to the left of her nose. And, she was carrying this sheer black scarf, which she wrapped around her neck and then around her arms, and which she used to keep herself warm when it got a little chilly. Mindy had so much fun on the dance floor. She just danced & danced. She requested "Shoop" by Salt 'n Pepper. She smoked a hundred cigarettes. She has this great, gleeful laugh.

Mindy & Joe's sister are one month apart. Apparently, their mothers had a contest of who could get pregnant first. The four kids grew up together. Their moms are twin sisters, and their dads used to be friends. Now, Mindy & Scott's parents are divorced, and Joe's father is no longer friends with their father. Scott is an obnoxious, disrespectful, loud, inconsiderate drunk. Mindy is a troubled, sad, charming, beautiful drunk. It's very sad. They're both in danger of destroying themselves. Apparently, Mindy has attempted suicide, and Scott is just verbally violent. Everytime he opens his mouth, he shouts obscenities and puts people down. He's so angry. The closest thing I've heard to anything nice coming out of his mouth is when he quotes from movies. And, he thinks in extremes. I asked him to move the bottles of beer from the sink to the ice bucket so that I could brush my teeth, and he said, "I know I'm a total loser. There are too many beers in there right now, but I'll move them soon. I know where you're coming from," but he didn't move them!

Oh, but I'm not doing a good job describing all this. I'm not giving enough information to make it interesting and complex. I really do want to write about it, though.

So, yes, yesterday... I want to get to the part about Chinatown, which is right off the Manhattan Bridge. We found the bus ticket booth, where you can get a ticket to Boston for $10 each way (!!!), so Joe & I are going to go up there sometime on a Saturday for the day. There's also a bus to Washington, D.C. for about the same price. We walked past these wholesale restaurant supply stores, and I went into one because, well, I get really excited about kitchen supplies. This 9 or 10 year old girl (or boy?) approached me as soon as I entered the store & asked me if she could help me. Isn't she too young to be a clerk? She was quite androgynous, but I think her haircut gave her away. It was one of those just-past-the-ear, cute, pixie cuts, which looked pretty girly.

Further into the more congested section of Chinatown, we found that there were these restaurants with big fishtanks in the window, and we spent, like, 15 minutes staring at the fish at one of them. There was this enormous lobster with claws the thickness of my arms. And, there was this huge crab with barnacles growing on its shell. This guy walked by & looked at the fish & he said he wouldn't want to eat the crab because of the barnacles. He said the crab must have lived at the bottom of the ocean for a very long time for those barnacles to grow, so the meat must be very tough & that maybe the crab was just for show. In the upper left corner tank, there were these fish that were almost completely flat, but very tall from bottom to top, and pretty long (maybe 8-10 inches). They would sometimes get pushed onto their sides by a current, even in that small tank. And, they more or less stared out from the glass. If you put your finger to the glass, they would gravitate towards it, and they would follow your finger if you moved it. The weirdest thing, though, was their lips. They had almost human lips, very thick, and tiny little teeth, two at the bottom, and two at the top. It was such a strange feeling to stare at their faces like that. You couldn't help but be attracted to how alive they were. It made me happy to watch them. It sort of calmed me, and it made me feel better because I was very emotionally "zapped" from the weekend with Scott and with all the drama.

Oh, and on the way out of Chinatown, we saw these boys hitting baseballs in a cement yard. We watched one of the boys pitch several pitches that were too high or just clearly out of the strike zone. This one boy was swinging at balls pitched to his shoulder, and Joe said the pitcher needed to release the ball later. I asked if he wanted to tell the kid, and he said it was like a fever or an itch. He wanted so badly to coach the boys, to just give them a few pointers, because baseball is one of his realms. But, he didn't. That would have been breaking a taboo.

Right now, I am at work listening to "The Joshua Tree" by U2. I remember listening to this on tape on the walk from the bus stop when I was in middle school. I remember walking past the manicured lawns down to my street, which wasn't so nice, to my house, where the lawn always needed to be cut. I was very paranoid about our lawn because my grandma made a comment once when she rode in the car with my father to drop us off after we spent the weekend with him. She probably wanted to see what the house looked like since the divorce. She said, "It's a shame how people just don't take care of their homes anymore like they used to." I was devastated & embarrassed & I designated myself as the household groundskeeper. I mowed the lawn and trimmed the bushes in the planter, and I resented the fact that if I didn't do it, nobody would.

2003-07-29T14:43:00.000-04:00

I Wish I Could Write Them All Down

I remember Jeffrey had these bottles of liquid fluoride that the dentist prescribed him and he had to put the fluoride on his teeth twice a day for weeks. He told me about it and showed me how to do it. It sort of stung and tasted foamy and dry and spicy because it was cinnamon flavored. He gave me one of his bottles to use.

I also remember when he got contact lenses. He was 15 or 16 and had worn glasses since he was seven. Since he was so cute in glasses, I gave him a hard time about getting contacts, but he insisted. When he brought them home, I made him show me how to take them out & put them in & I tried to put one in my eye, but it didn't fit. Then, when I got contacts, he showed me how to tell if they were inside out (the doctor's explanation didn't make any sense to me, but his did) and how to clean them and how to rinse the case with very hot water and store it with the little round covers on the bottom and the case propped up onto them upside down so that it could dry.

When I moved into my father's house, where he had lived for a couple of years at that point, we were in his room one night & he said I had to see something. There was a book my dad had lent him, some kind of detective novel, and he started flipping through the pages and showing me all the "bad words" in there. He'd never seen a book with bad words before, and he wondered whether my father didn't know they were in there or whether he gave him the book by mistake.

When the Bulls won the championship in 1993 (or was it 1994?) and it was the third championship in a row, the "three-peat," we watched all the games leading up to the final game together and I learned all the names of the players on the Bulls and the Arizona Suns. Jeffrey explained all the rules of the game to me. He loved Michael Jordan because nobody could touch him. And, he liked that other player, can't remember his name right now, because he was short and Jeffrey was short--until he was 19 and sprouted up to almost 6 feet in about 6 months. The last game, the championship game, we were at our grandma's house for dinner and Jeff & I stayed there late to see the end of the game. When the winning shot was shot, we both jumped up, smacked hands, shouted, hugged, the works. And, on the way home, in my little car, we drove through a drive-thru at McDonald's (or was it Taco Bell?). The lady came on the speaker & said, "Can I take your order?" and I said, "No. There's no order. I just wanted to let you know that the BULLS JUST WON! THREE-PEAT! THREE-PEAT!" And, we roared with laughter.

These are the "little" moments, like when we went to dinner that Friday night and he told me that I should never order beer from the tap because, unless I can be sure the tap is cleaned often, there will be yeast in the beer. He said if you hold a mug of beer up to the light & see things floating in it, that's yeast. He told me he's seen big sheets of yeast in the beer where he works (worked) and he held his hands out to show me the size of the sheets.

These are the small things, the moments, the insignificant times. These are the conversations about things that are relatively unimportant. If I could, I would record all of them.

2003-07-02T11:49:00.000-04:00

I officially admit that my hair has become wavy.

When I was 18, I used to blowdry my hair upsidedown with mousse applied at the roots to make it look thicker & to prevent it from hanging flat and limp. But, I could let it air dry & it would be straight as a pin--straight as it had been my entire life.

About the time I started to need a bra (age 21), my hair also started to get body. I noticed it was just slightly thicker, slightly more interesting. But, then, I went through a "very short hair" phase for a couple of years, and it didn't matter.

Straight hair becomes part of your identity, like being tall or wearing glasses. Because of my resistance to the possibility, I didn't even notice the wave in my hair until I was 25 & I had a bob haircut & realized that if I blew it straight, it didn't have that weird "crease."

I also noticed that there was frizz where there had never been frizz before. I tried pommade, glossy gel stuff, hair repair cream, leave-on conditioner. I stopped dyeing my hair red after 10 years, thinking my hair was "damaged" from the dye.

But, it is not damaged. It is wavy. It flips out & it flips in. It needs anti-curl gel. It needs a round brush and a blow-dryer. It needs to be tied back in humid weather. Or, it needs to be let loose to dance its wavy-hair dance, its disorderly, flingy dance.

It is no longer hair for small, plastic barrettes that the six, seven, eight, fourteen, twenty-year-old wore just to pull her bangs out of her face.

It is wavy. It is substantial. It is not tame.

2003-06-20T17:16:00.000-04:00

"But most of the time, death for poets is what it is for the rest of us -- the beginning of that slow, inexorable process of being forgotten."

In an article about the poet Robert Lowell in The New York Times, I found the sentence above. So sharp, so cruel. When I look at pictures of my brother, he seems like he's 80, 000 miles away. I really can barely handle looking at photos of him, so when I can, I do.

It's strange beyond explanation or belief.

He's such a familiar part of my life. To know he's alive and around is second nature. To realize/believe that he isn't will take me years.

The thought that he will be forgotten torments me.

Anyway, I cannot write about him, so I'll stop trying for now.

-mk

2003-06-18T09:34:00.000-04:00

I'm looking for a new roommate because my current roommate is moving in with her boyfriend. She is/was great. She's a native New Yorker (which I am not) & very upbeat, active, cool, nice, responsible, considerate -- all the things I'm looking for now. It's a daunting task. I am asking everyone I know, and I put an ad up on Craig's list. Based on the Craig's list responses, I think I will find someone who isn't psycho, but I really, really, really just don't want to deal with it. I would rather just have it just fall together. I hate dealing with things like this. I hate the thought of having people over to my mostly unfurnished apartment to look around. I hate having to interview people.

Joe says we should look at it as a casting call for my new play, "The Roommate." He is very funny sometimes. And, he has offered to be there at my apt when I have people over so that I am "safe" if someone weird comes by.

I kind of like the apartment with no furniture. I have so much stuff that it's nice to see everything so empty. The room is huge with just a couple of end tables and some shelves. I need to buy a couch.

On another note, I am in the process of memorizing "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. You really don't know something closely until you memorize it. The poem is so musical. From the third stanza: "And the silken, still uncertain rustle of each purple curtain/thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before." It's so specific. So vivid. My plan is to use it as an acting exercise, like a monologue, but not really. Also, it's long, so it's good for the mind to memorize.

In the book I'm reading (for the book club, which will meet at my nearly empty apartment tonight), we are reading "Life & Death in Shanghai" by Nien Cheng. There's one part of the book where she decides to memorize passages from Mao's Book of Quotations and to remember poems she memorized when she was a small child, just to keep her mind sharp. I am slightly obsessed with keeping my mind sharp. Work is so intellectually unstimulating. I feel like I'm getting dumber every year since college.

--m

2003-06-12T08:31:00.000-04:00

went to see amy's one-woman show the other night. she's a frickin' star. she's fearless. she's funny. she transforms herself completely. i usually hate one-person shows because they are usually so self-indulgent and BORING, but this one was different. almost the entire show consisted of other characters talking to her, not of her narrating. the best part was this man standing outside on the street who yelled after her, "hey, fat ass!" he was amazing. he told her to "own it" & got her to smile & she told him her name was "fuck you." very good.

today, i am fully feeling inadequate. i'm inadequate as an employee and as a daughter. i'm inadequate as a girlfriend. i'm certainly inadequate as a guitar player. my french is pretty bad. i don't read enough. i have too much paper. i forgot to bring my lunch. my clothes are too old--and i have too many of them. and, i don't feel like using capital letters. at least my hair looks good. it's turning grey.

more later...

i'm going to do one of those "100 things about me" thingies that i've seen on pages like this. i wish i had a comment section so that i could see if anyone has ever read this page (except for mfgm, who says she does).

--mk

2003-06-04T14:55:00.000-04:00

New York:

1. In front of the building where I work, the red, double-decker tourist buses stop to pick people up. Once when I was out there for an extended period, waiting for my friend Darrell so that we could have lunch, there was a fairly long line of people waiting to get on the bus and a large group of people sitting on the upper level of the bus, which is uncovered. Every time someone would give the driver his or her ticket and climb up the stairs to get to the top, everyone sitting up there would cheer & yell & clap, like the person had just made a strike in bowling, or something. And, they did this over and over again for, like, 5 minutes.

2. The other night when my boyfriend Joe & I were riding home on the subway, there was a lady on the train cursing and yelling at the top of her lungs at another passenger. It was hard to understand what had happened, but Joe said he saw them have some kind of altercation before they got onto the train. She was calling him "bitch" & saying she "knows all of his secrets" and all kinds of things, slurring her words pretty badly. It was very uncomfortable. They both got off after one stop.

3. My friend James, who is a drama teacher, was invited to attend a songwriting workshop in conjunction with the Broadway show, "Thoroughly Modern Milie," which won the Tony award for best musical last year or the year before. The intention was to show teachers the workshop so that they would, perhaps, hire the teacher, who was a songwriter for "Millie," to come give the workshop to their students. He said she started out by asking the group to think of a phrase that describes how they felt when they first moved to the city. For instance, she said, when she moved there, she felt like "the smallest building on the block." The group of people shouted out lots of things, and someone came up with the phrase, "I wish I had a better pair of shoes." Everyone in the group liked that phrase, but the teacher insisted that it wasn't the best phrase, but that they should use "the smallest building on the block" instead. So, they wrote a song using that phrase. And, through the process of "writing the song," James realized that it was a scam, that the teacher always uses the same phrase with every group of students, that she has it set up so that the activity cannot "fail," that they are not really taking any risk or doing anything creative in the workshop. He then went to see the show & found that all the songs in the show were "formula songs," and that there was nothing really risky or creative in the show.

4. Similarly, I recently worked sound on a play festival. The last performance of the first play was completely different from all the other performances. Every performance of the play had been EXACTLY the same before that point. It was like watching a videotape. Then, for some reason, this last performance was different, especially the lead actress. She "played" more. She got angrier. She sort of lost control. She awakened her scene partner & so he was more aware and better. It was, of course, their best performance.

At intermission, I overheard her talking to the director, who had come to the last show. He said, "You see? Wasn't it better to not know what was going to happen?" She was beeming. She said, "It was dangerous."

I love acting because it is so dangerous. Your instinct to look for the safety net, the crutch, the "way to say the line" is the instinct you have to avoid. There is no "final answer." You know your lines. You know your blocking. You have to be there, in the moment, telling the story, playing it out. You have to trust. To trust is the most dangerous thing in the world.

I want to be in a play again soon.

--mk

2003-06-02T14:57:00.000-04:00

I watched the season finale of "Six Feet Under" last night. It was a particularly graphic and disturbing episode, but in general, I think the show is important because it explores issues of death like no other popular culture vessel. In the show, the mother remarried. After her wedding, she walked into the kitchen to find her ex-husband (deceased) crying. Before the wedding, the daughter, Claire, went to the cemetery to visit her father's grave, and her father was there among all the deceased, who were having a sort of carnival or picnic. There were balloons & crowds of people who looked like they were having a great time. She ran into her ex-boyfriend who she didn't know had died (& it isn't clear if he did die since the entire thing was in her mind, in a way) & her sister-in-law, who had been missing for some 8 weeks or so (I estimate). (Later in the episode it was revealed that the sister-in-law had in fact died, but I digress.)

At the "cemetery picnic," the deceased all seemed to be completely at peace. The ex-boyfriend was playing frisbee with his little brother who died in a gun accident in the first season of the show. He looked completely loving, completely happy. He told Claire that he was too selfish when he was alive and that it is better now. He told her he enjoys taking care of his little brother. Likewise, the sister-in-law was completely aglow with joy.

So, the show has made me think about my own best guess of what it means to be dead. I am trying to come to terms with what it means from the point of view of the living -- the sadness of knowing you are never going to see the person again, and the wondering what life really means, what is important, etc. These questions (& more) will probably take me years to sort out.

It has only been 6 months since I lost one of the closest people to me, my brother. It is the first time I have ever lost an immediate family member. In a weird way, it helps me to know that death is universal, that a lot of people die everyday (just as a lot of people are born everyday). It lessens the despair, just to know that it is a shared despair, that it is "normal" to feel the despair, that it is "part of life" (don't say these things to me, though; I hate it when people try to "talk it away" or make sense of it).

Sometimes, I feel like we are truly just insects on the planet's face (to paraphrase that song from "Rocky Horror"). What does it mean? Connection with other humans is important, yes, but other than that, what does it mean? We are just animals. We are nothing, really. When someone dies, he really just vanishes into thin air (or so I feel). There are a zillion other people around, and he is only missed by those who knew him personally. Everyone else couldn't give a damn. Time marches forward.

That issue was explored in the show, as well, when the daughter asked the father if he was angry at the mother remarrying. He said, "He's alive and I'm not, so that pretty much seals it up for him, doesn't it?" (not an exact quote, despite punctuation).

It's a cruel truth. Death is a cruel, cruel truth. They say that in time it seems less so, but I think you have to go through the terrible part of it to get to the other side of it. Anyway, that's my hope speaking. Hi, Hope.

--mk

2003-05-29T17:51:00.000-04:00

Why is it that I usually get more work done in the last 30 minutes before I leave the office than in all of the last 2 or 3 hours of the day? It's something about being able to focus, something about urgency. For some reason, the "fog" or "lack of motivation" is always pretty non-existent from 5:00 - 5:30.

Anyway, last night in Washington Square Park, there was this dude playing guitar. He had a small amp, into which he plugged his acoustic. He had a vocal range from, like, early Joni Mitchell to Johnny Cash, and he played up and down the neck. I love watching guitarists' hands. His buddy, Jeff, asked me if I would sing a song. I sang, "Landslide" which the dude played even though he doesn't know the song very well. Then, I went home & made pierogies.

The best way to eat pierogies: boil them; meanwhile, fry onions in butter; add the pierogies to the hot onions & butter & keep them on the stove until the pierogies get slightly brown on each side (about 5 minutes each side). This is the way my grandma makes them. The pierogies sort of "absorb" the butter into their crispiness & the onions get very sweet. Nothing is better.

--mk

2003-05-28T15:53:00.000-04:00

People I once "knew" & their corresponding "Rocky Horror" characters:

1. Sandra -- Brad
2. Cameron -- Rocky
3. Neil -- RiffRaff
4. Ben -- Janet
5. Ashley -- RiffRaff

--m

P.S. - I don't plan on writing this often. It's just all so new right now.

2003-05-28T11:26:00.000-04:00

There's this Sharon Olds poem about a mother & a small child. The mother grabs the child's arm with force, probably for the first time, and she sees in her daughter's eyes utter surprise that her mother could hurt her like that. And, Olds uses the phrase "the source of all love." The line is something about the daughter realizing that pain can come from the source of all love. (I admit I am not doing it justice.)

I wonder if belief in God comes from "belief in" (the love of) parents -- parents being, as Olds says, the source of all love. I wonder if, because when we are born we experience the phenomenon of having "all powerful beings" that we don't & can't understand take care of our needs, look out for us, etc., some of us come to feel that there is a God because that feeling of there being things beyond what we can understand/of someone being in control/of someone who loves us is part of our psyche. So, maybe the human need to believe in God comes from the human need to be/experience of being cared for when we were vulnerable infants. And, our disenchantment with God comes from our disillusionment with our parents. We realize they are not perfect & that they cannot fully take care of us so that we are safe all the time & so we become angry. Then, our acceptance of God or our faith comes once we have accepted our parents' imperfections.

All of this sort of assumes that the parents did take care of the infant & that the infant did experience this "God." And, I guess that has to be true for everyone to some extent because infants are so utterly dependant that they have to be cared for to survive. But, what if just having the need for care, even if it was unfulfilled, created the belief in it? The infant, by nature, by necessity, by instinct believes he or she will be cared for. The infant cries out to the universe: FEED ME! HOLD ME! MAKE ME COMFORTABLE!

There are people who don't believe in God at all & there are people who are absolutely sure they believe in God. I would guess that most of us exist somewhere under the heading of "conflicted." It's a complicated thing.

The reason I bring this up today is that I spoke to my father on the phone last night. And, we had very little to talk about. Our conversations are "hit & miss." Sometimes, we are able to have these lovely, honest talks, and sometimes we just rush to get off the phone. Last night, we rushed to get off the phone & I felt that the "source of all love" had fallen short of my expectations, had "failed me."

Am I just a baby to still believe that my father will feed me, care for me, make me comfortable?

2003-05-27T15:11:00.000-04:00

More to come. I just wanted to start this off by saying I saw the movie "A Mighty Wind" last night & Eugene Levy's character reminded me of my ex-boyfriend from a long time ago, someone very intelligent who has a hard time following the correct "rules" of conversation, who follows his own rhythm, who observes things closely.

I remember once we were walking down his father's street & "Jack" stopped to look at a tree. It was just a common tree, but he said, "Wow! That's a beautiful tree." So, we looked at the tree for, I don't know, 5 or 10 minutes, and after a short time, I started to really see what he was talking about, how the tree was beautiful even though it looked like nothing special if you didn't really look at it.

It reminds me of an Andy Warhol quote (which I'm probably slightly messing up here): "If everyone isn't a beauty, then no one is."

Anyway, that's it for now.

-mk