Well, each day I feel a little better, but this thing is tenacious, and it's hanging on more aggressively than I like. Really all that's left is the sore throat and the earache, but my mouth and gums still feel like war-torn El Salvador.
Wait a minute... I think I'm dating myself... is El Salvador still war-torn?
Anyway, I'm feeling better. I guess.
One nice thing is that last night I got out and had dinner with Janet Dickinson. You remember Janet: She's Doug Rees' girlfriend, who was a wonderful and integral part of our Thanksgiving and New Year celebrations. We had a wonderful time. She cooked up some cheese tortellini and vodka sauce that was just wonderful, and then we sat down to watch a video-tape of Traffic. How, you're asking yourself, did we manage to get a video tape of Traffic? Well, it turns out that one of Janet's friends was a SAG awards nominator, and those folks are sent complimentary copies of films and performances under consideration. I can't remember if Traffic won anything this year (I haven't been paying attention to the awards season very much), but I can sure tell you it was a hell of a lot more award-worthy than Gladiator.
I had an interesting experience last night, though. It hasn't happened to me in a long time, but I got that old feeling of being alone in a room with other people. James, a friend of Janet's stopped by on his way home from a rehearsal and was chatting with us (coincidentally, James is working on a George M. Cohen play that I harassed Gavan about auditioning for lo these many months ago... James is playing Cohen - the role I tried to get Gavan to go up to NYC to audition for!). Anyway, James and Janet started doing a little catching up, as they hadn't seen each other in a while, and I sat there listening and realizing that they're part of a world (namely New York Musical Theater) of which I have absolutely no experience. And for some reason, in the middle of all this, I started feeling really lonely. It reminded me a lot of my days before therapy, where that same feeling would just wash over me in the middle of crowded parties. I must remain ever vigilant against the return of those days when I allowed myself to be so unhappy. At least for any length of time. Unhappiness, like happiness, is a part of life. It's when you wallow in it for too long that it's a problem. I think mostly it's that I miss Gavan and Buster and all my friends back in Pittsburgh. It's not that I don't have friends here, I just haven't been as aggressive as I might have been, with being sick and all, at reestablishing the contacts with friends in NYC, and not letting that homesickness take hold.
So the other day I posted a picture from my balcony at night, and a couple friends have written me to tell me that it was too dark and they couldn't make out much of anything. So here's the same view in daylight:
So you can see, web friends, that I'm pretty frickin' far up town. So far I don't mind it, but I have a feeling that after any extended time here, I'd begin to feel like my friend Morgan, who worked on Key West but lived several keys over. The commute got old quickly and he moved to Key West after a year. Depending on how things work out, I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened to me.
And, my, but New York City is a fickle bitch. Sits there like a jewel in the crown, beckoning to you across miles and worlds, inviting you to come live there and take your stab at success, and then when you arrive, she promptly kicks you in the nuts and foils you at ever turn.
Actually, I don't really feel that way, but between being sick and what the city's construction crews have going on, I'm beginning to wonder!
As you know, I've been sick this week, and the tendency has been to want to stay in bed. Well, big shock, staying in bed during the day tends to make you insomniatic at night. And since I'm such a night person anyway, it didn't take a lot of encouragement for me to stay up 'til 3 or 4 a.m. several nights this week. There's only one problem: New York may be the city that never sleeps, but moreover, it's the city that Really Wakes Up Early. At, like, 7 a.m. all this week, a city work crew has been digging up the street in front of my building, jackhammers akimbo and noise aplenty. But that's okay, it's part of the world of living in the big city, right? And anyway, I'm notorious for being able to sleep through the discharge of thermonuclear weapons, and that damn jackhammer, since it is 15 stories below me, is kinda rhythmic and lulling, in it's own gritty, urban way.
Here's the problem, though. The work crew is digging up a city intersection through which much of the traffic coming up Fort George Hill has to pass, and it's slowing those people down. New Yorkers don't like to be slowed down any more than the natural traffic patterns of their fair city force them already. So, from those New Yorker's points of view, what's the only reasonable thing to do?
Honk their horns. A lot. From the moment the work starts to the moment it ends for the day. Right before I sat down to write this entry, I went out on the balcony and snapped a few shots of the proceedings. Click on 'em:
Now, imagine if you will, every one of those drivers in the pictures above laying on their horns out of frustration at how slow traffic is moving. Now imagine that happening like clockwork every three or four minutes from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Imagine on top of that having to listen to all this crap while you feel like crap.
It's no wonder people go postal.
Wait a minute... I think I'm dating myself... is El Salvador still war-torn?
Anyway, I'm feeling better. I guess.
One nice thing is that last night I got out and had dinner with Janet Dickinson. You remember Janet: She's Doug Rees' girlfriend, who was a wonderful and integral part of our Thanksgiving and New Year celebrations. We had a wonderful time. She cooked up some cheese tortellini and vodka sauce that was just wonderful, and then we sat down to watch a video-tape of Traffic. How, you're asking yourself, did we manage to get a video tape of Traffic? Well, it turns out that one of Janet's friends was a SAG awards nominator, and those folks are sent complimentary copies of films and performances under consideration. I can't remember if Traffic won anything this year (I haven't been paying attention to the awards season very much), but I can sure tell you it was a hell of a lot more award-worthy than Gladiator.I had an interesting experience last night, though. It hasn't happened to me in a long time, but I got that old feeling of being alone in a room with other people. James, a friend of Janet's stopped by on his way home from a rehearsal and was chatting with us (coincidentally, James is working on a George M. Cohen play that I harassed Gavan about auditioning for lo these many months ago... James is playing Cohen - the role I tried to get Gavan to go up to NYC to audition for!). Anyway, James and Janet started doing a little catching up, as they hadn't seen each other in a while, and I sat there listening and realizing that they're part of a world (namely New York Musical Theater) of which I have absolutely no experience. And for some reason, in the middle of all this, I started feeling really lonely. It reminded me a lot of my days before therapy, where that same feeling would just wash over me in the middle of crowded parties. I must remain ever vigilant against the return of those days when I allowed myself to be so unhappy. At least for any length of time. Unhappiness, like happiness, is a part of life. It's when you wallow in it for too long that it's a problem. I think mostly it's that I miss Gavan and Buster and all my friends back in Pittsburgh. It's not that I don't have friends here, I just haven't been as aggressive as I might have been, with being sick and all, at reestablishing the contacts with friends in NYC, and not letting that homesickness take hold.
So the other day I posted a picture from my balcony at night, and a couple friends have written me to tell me that it was too dark and they couldn't make out much of anything. So here's the same view in daylight:
So you can see, web friends, that I'm pretty frickin' far up town. So far I don't mind it, but I have a feeling that after any extended time here, I'd begin to feel like my friend Morgan, who worked on Key West but lived several keys over. The commute got old quickly and he moved to Key West after a year. Depending on how things work out, I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened to me.
And, my, but New York City is a fickle bitch. Sits there like a jewel in the crown, beckoning to you across miles and worlds, inviting you to come live there and take your stab at success, and then when you arrive, she promptly kicks you in the nuts and foils you at ever turn.
Actually, I don't really feel that way, but between being sick and what the city's construction crews have going on, I'm beginning to wonder!
As you know, I've been sick this week, and the tendency has been to want to stay in bed. Well, big shock, staying in bed during the day tends to make you insomniatic at night. And since I'm such a night person anyway, it didn't take a lot of encouragement for me to stay up 'til 3 or 4 a.m. several nights this week. There's only one problem: New York may be the city that never sleeps, but moreover, it's the city that Really Wakes Up Early. At, like, 7 a.m. all this week, a city work crew has been digging up the street in front of my building, jackhammers akimbo and noise aplenty. But that's okay, it's part of the world of living in the big city, right? And anyway, I'm notorious for being able to sleep through the discharge of thermonuclear weapons, and that damn jackhammer, since it is 15 stories below me, is kinda rhythmic and lulling, in it's own gritty, urban way.
Here's the problem, though. The work crew is digging up a city intersection through which much of the traffic coming up Fort George Hill has to pass, and it's slowing those people down. New Yorkers don't like to be slowed down any more than the natural traffic patterns of their fair city force them already. So, from those New Yorker's points of view, what's the only reasonable thing to do?
Honk their horns. A lot. From the moment the work starts to the moment it ends for the day. Right before I sat down to write this entry, I went out on the balcony and snapped a few shots of the proceedings. Click on 'em:
Now, imagine if you will, every one of those drivers in the pictures above laying on their horns out of frustration at how slow traffic is moving. Now imagine that happening like clockwork every three or four minutes from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Imagine on top of that having to listen to all this crap while you feel like crap.
It's no wonder people go postal.
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