Thursday In the Park

I'm not sure how much of this I've told you all, but I've come to the decision to go back to Pittsburgh this weekend and try to find some temp work there, until I have to go to Philadelphia for The Pavilion. I'm going to pawn my laptop, and although that's going to break my heart, it should solve the most immediate and pressing of my money problems. And I'm going to use up my Dividend Miles to catch a flight back to Pittsburgh. Not the solution to my problems I'd like to have found, but ultimately, I think it'll be best.

So in a sort of "last fling" here in New York, I got up early today and sat on queue for tickets to see Measure for Measure at the Dellacorte Theater in Central Park... my first experience in ages with the Public Theatre's free Shakespeare in the Park series. Dana Steer - not sure if you all know him, but he's an actor I know from Pittsburgh who I met when he was doing shows at Pittsburgh Musical Theatre (nee Gargaro) with Gavan - is joining me and we're going to have a bit of dinner and then see the show. I'm looking forward to it, since it features Joe Morton, who I admire a great deal, and Billy Crudup, who I've like in a number of independent films.

That's Joe Morton to the left, and Billy Crudup to the right.

I got up at 6:30 a.m. to shower and get out of the house before 7:00. I did get a gentle reminder from the universe that I need to remember humility and grace. As I entered the subway station this morning, congratulating myself on just how clever I was getting up so early to get a good place in line, a pigeon crapped on me. And I do mean crapped. In my hair. On my forehead. All over my shirt and down the front of my pants. Even on my shoes... and just for good measure a streak of it down my sunglasses and in the Miami Vice Beard Growth® I've got going on. It wasn't just a crap. It was a Projectile Crap™. I actually heard him let loose, and had just enough time to think, "I wonder what -" before it hit me. Needless to say, I had to go back to the apartment and delouse myself, delaying the arrival at the Dellacorte Theater. So instead of being right up front, I ended up about 100 people back in the line. I still managed to get tickets, but boy, did I learn my lesson. Don't ignore the Universe. Even if you have no fucking idea what it's telling you. Check out this photo of the people in line in front of me... some of them had to have gotten there at 7 a.m., I think. Oy!

After I picked up the tickets, I retreated to my favorite Central Park hangout for an hour of sweating in the sun. Sheep Meadow had a nice breeze going across it intermittently, so as the sweat pooled on me, I would occasionally get a quick cooling from the breeze. It was nice, but as I had still not remembered a towel to sit on, I couldn't lay there for very long. I did, however, stay long enough to scope out the place and realize that the guy sunning himself next to me was one of the guys I snapped a picture of for my last entry. Small world, huh?

Cute, but even I could tell he was straight. I always fall for the straight ones. Yet another issue that I'm sure a therapist would have a field day with: Unavailable = No Risk!

It takes a big man to admit he's a freak. I only say that to make you admire my candor and honesty in the face of the realization I've just made about myself. I'm a bit of a voyeur, I think. I've noticed that it's become my modus operandi of a sort to snap clandestine pictures of the cute men I see here at Sheep Meadow, and I'm a little alarmed that I'm allowing that to take the place of actual interaction with real people. I mean, that shit can't be healthy, can it? I don't know the last time I've actually taken a chance and tried to engage someone who's interested me in conversation. In my defense, of course, it must be admitted that for a long time I had the excuse of having a boyfriend to stop me... when all's said and done, it's not all that kosher to go around flirting with people when you're involved with a partner of four years, now is it?

But now that that's over, and I find myself free to do so, I'm discovering that I'm reluctant. Granted, too, I'm in a public place and don't have even the tiniest inkling of gaydar, so there's the fear that I might be flirting with a straight guy to stay my tongue. But I think it goes much deeper than that, and that the four years of being in a relationship with Gavan allowed me to not deal with the deeper issues.

I've always had self-esteem issues. To be honest, I think it's a built-in feature of my family. It's not something I try to explain, it's just something that I accept. I think explaining it would require years of therapy and more money than I could ever muster (and that's not really meant as a comment on my current situation - just an observation of the life I've chosen). But at the end of the day, the fact remains that I have serious doubts about my attractiveness to others of my kind, and though I'm pretty good at hiding that, and I'm a bit of a charmer when it comes to meeting other people, when it comes to those one-on-one interactions with other gay men, I'm hopelessly backward. And I'm not stupid. It's all about fear. Fear of rejection, failure, humiliation. All that shit that countless people do to themselves. 'Cuz I don't have any illusions that somehow I'm special (at least in that respect). There are tons of messed-up people in the world, and on the WackoMeter®, I think I score (thankfully) rather low. I'm whacked-out, but my issues are nothing compared to some peoples. Even, frankly, some people I know!

But I'm not really talking about them, am I? I can only deal with me.

Which brings me back to my own little weirdness. I like snapping covert pictures of sunbathing beauties. Thankfully, I have neither the technology or the inclination to make these pictures clear or close enough in which my subjects are identifiable. There'd no doubt be lawsuits akimbo were that the case. But just so I don't go away from today thinking that I'm a total freak, maybe a little rationalization wouldn't hurt. If they weren't proud of their bodies, these guys wouldn't be sunbathing half-naked in public, right? So in a way, they're kinda being exhibitionists, giving tacit permission to me to snap away.

I know. It's thin. Very thin.

Still, the fact remains that I did it again today (I didn't have this earth shattering realization about myself until after I snapped away, and then really thought about how many of my recent entries included images I'd snapped). So there you go. I'm just thinking that it's a good thing that I've never been able to afford the wide angle/zoom lens kit that I've wanted to get for my digital camera. Thank heaven, web friends, for small favors. Otherwise, extreme close-ups of you might end up here.

So anyway, back to my own foibles. I know I'm really big on bitching about people who do a little too much navel-gazing, but I have a feeling that this is a kind of important subject, and I shouldn't be allowing myself to deflect away from it just because it's uncomfortable. My problem is, of course, that I'm good at allowing myself to be deflected, and I'm good at rationalization, and I'm good at avoidance. It's one of the things that killed my relationship. God knows there were plenty of things that I wanted from Gavan - emotionally - but that I was afraid to ask for. There's a wonderful line from Lips Together, Teeth Apart by, I believe, Terrance McNally, in which a character says of his own insecurities and needs and fears, "How can I say these things and there still be love?" I thought something along those lines when there were needs and demands I wanted to make of Gavan. "How can I say these things I'm thinking and have him still love me?" Well, the truth is that the not saying those things is what caused our relationship to die. I (maybe we, for I surely can't speak for what's going on in Gavan's head) didn't understand that the love didn't die, but that the relationship could, for want of proper care and feeding.

Much of the failure and pain in my life comes from fear and feelings of inadequacy. As I've mentioned, I don't think I'm particularly unusual in that sense. My big problem - and it is a big one, especially given the professional life I love so well - is that I allow that fear to rule me. I think I may have journaled about this before, sometime last year, maybe. It is, after all, a recurring theme in my life. I've written often about how I sympathized with the character of Jim in Lord Jim. I was the only one in my high school English class who actually loved that book, and at the time I had no idea why. It was because I identified so clearly with a guy who allows his fear to overcome him in the single most important moment of his young life, and allows that failure to haunt him for the rest of his life.

So, of course, all this begs the question: How does one get beyond the past? How does one face the fear? Is it really as easy, as some would have us believe, as just saying "fuck it" and getting on with life? There's a part of me that wishes that were so, and there's another part of me that's gonna be really, and I mean really fucking pissed off if it is. 'Cuz if it is true, and the fear really is an emotion that can be easily ruled, then I've wasted too much of my life, and I'm never gonna get that time back. And that, more than my fears or my failures or the things I haven't done, is what would make me well and truly pathetic.

I've mentioned on more than one occasion how much I love being in Central Park, and particularly Sheep Meadow. There's something about being there that brings me great comfort. The escape from the apartment, perhaps, or being around other people, and allowing my mind to dwell on the sound of the birds or the people playing games, or the smell of the hyacinth. It's comforting.

This tiny little boy wandered by me earlier today and we had a conversation about how he was climbing on the rock. I should probably explain that, because the city had been hit with so much rain lately, much of Sheep Meadow was unfit for sitting on unless you had a blanket or something, and as I was without, I chose to sit on one of the large boulders that are strewn at the corners of the meadow. Then he went off and discovered a big (well, to him anyway) puddle in a depression on the boulder. He felt the need to stomp in it, which of course led him to every other puddle he could find. After a while he came back to proudly show me how soaked he'd gotten. During all this, I was sitting there wondering where his family was... why they were letting him hang around a complete stranger. None of the groups of people around me were obviously watching him. Eventually, though, a guy from a small group a good 30 or so yards away came after him.

Eventually the little boy's family came over to the boulder and started playing with him, so I picked up and moved on. I'd decided that I wanted to go and find the Dellacorte Theater so that I'd know precisely where I was going when I went to catch Measure for Measure at Shakespeare in the Park. But first I decided I wanted to stop and hang out by the John Lennon memorial at 72nd Street. I was looking for a little comfort and peace and instead I found a large crowd of people, with a candle burning on the memorial and gay pride rememberances arranged around it.

There was a woman on a bench near me on a diatribe about the injustices of the world. She was going on and on at this nice elderly eastern European couple who were just trying to be pleasant to her. She started telling this story about how some guy had called her Asian husband gay, and the man made the mistake of asking her if he was actually gay. This woman just went off on him and stormed off, then came back and went off a little more. If I were in a less generous mood, I'd just say she was flat-out unhinged. But all I could think about was this program I was watching on PBS yesterday, in which a Dr. Wayne Dyer was talking to people about getting what you really want... inevitably, his conversation turned to how getting what you want has a lot to do with knowing what's important. He used this great metaphor for people: What, he asked, comes out of an orange when you squeeze it? Orange juice, of course. Why? Because that's what's inside an orange. And what, he then asked, comes out of you when people squeeze you? Whatever's inside you. If you have anger (as this woman clearly did), or fear or shame or whatever inside you, then clearly that's what's going to come out. His point was that no one can hurt you with their words, or humiliate you, without your permission. If you cultivate peace within yourself, that's what's going to come out when you're squeezed. I really liked that sentiment.

He also said something very interesting that I had never realized before; that every major religion has the mechanism within it for us to get beyond the sins of our past, or the wrongs done to us, and let us live for now, and get on with our lives.

I like that thought. I wish that certain members of my family had discovered it earlier in their lives.

Daydreaming might actually come in handy today. I'm doing a one-day temp assignment for a high-rent consulting firm, providing support for the company's chief actuary. The man's really nice, but doesn't really need the support. He could have easily gotten along without me. But he's got a big project due this afternoon and wanted someone around just in case. No skin, as they say, off my nose. The interesting thing is that he's already got a person in the company's word-processing center dedicated to the project, so I'm just so much eye-candy, sitting here outside his office trying to look efficient and busy.

Again, though, no complaints from me. I'm being paid pretty well to sit here like a lump.

I've been kinda debating the merits of these one-day temp assignments. I suspect that if I continued doing them, my life would never ever be dull (well, at least the morning commute to work would never become routine - dull is another matter; witness the fact that I'm writing this in the middle of the work day 'cuz my boss is off at a meeting and even he admits there's nothing for me to do), but that the constant uncertainty of having a job from day to day would be maddening. I'll see, I guess. All depends on whether or not the folks at the temp agency can find me continuing gigs.

It's not exactly shaping up to be a lovely weekend here in the city. They're calling for more rain... it was supposed to clear by Sunday but now, according to accuweather.com, it's going to rain on Sunday as well. I was hoping to see Measure for Measure at the Dellacorte Theater this weekend, but if it's going to rain, there's probably not too much chance of that.

My other project for the weekend is quick cash... I happen to have a number of old DVDs with me here in NYC, so I'm thinking about finding a place that buys used DVDs and selling them off for cash to tie me over 'til payday next week. Not that I'm trying to wish my life away or anything, but I'm looking forward to when the current lean times are over. Should be in a couple weeks, if everything works out. Once it's all over, I'm considering writing a book called New York on a Dime a Day. It'll feature a combination of a lot of free stuff and a lot of staying in, believe you me. Anyone know the details of selling blood? Wouldn't work. I've lost so much weight recently that I don't doubt the loss of one pint of blood would make me pass out. That would be attractive, wouldn't it?

By the way, check out the picture of the building to the right. I can see it from my desk on the 30th floor of the 6th Avenue building I'm working in. The detail's not great, but I love the roof and cupola on top. Looks like a bell tower. For some reason, I'm thinking this is a famous building, but I just can't place it. Anyone recognize it?

The Dreamer

I'm an inveterate dreamer, and sometimes I think it's been both my salvation and my curse. Things have been tough lately. Tougher than I'm able to admit in this journal - mostly out of embarrassment - and I have turned, as I have so often in the past, to my rather rich fantasy life for comfort. Sometimes dreaming about what could be makes what is bearable. To a point, I think.

But there are times when it's a hindrance. I was thinking that as I was sitting at my computer a few moments ago. I was listening to some music and rather mindlessly playing solitaire on the computer, dreaming about fame and glory and financial security and other sorts of idiocy. Amy said something rather interesting to me today, and though I don't remember the exact quote, it had something to do with instead of living day by day, living hour by hour. We were talking about my money woes, and whether I would be coming back to Pittsburgh to temp (since it's apparently infinitely easier to get temp work there) until I have to go to Philadelphia in August. And she after having joked about how my current situation really teaches you to live day by day, she also mentioned that when she was in similar straits, that's exactly what she did... instead of wasting time worrying about how powerless she felt in a situation, she would force herself to go out and do something, even if it was a free day at the museum, or a walk in Central Park, or whatever.

And I just realized that as I sat here that I'd suddenly woken up from an afternoon of fantasizing myself away from my poverty and (what seems to me) my desperate situation. And aren't I the one who's always talking about staying awake through my life? Isn't it important to remember that I may be in dire straits, but I'm alive? And since I'm alive, shouldn't I live? Sometimes it embarrasses me and shames me to think about how I wallow in self-pity when there are people out here so much worse off than I am.

There was I guy on the subway a few weeks ago begging for money. He was, he claimed, desperate to raise enough money to get a room at some half-way house or another where they'd evicted him 'cuz he couldn't pay his $6 a day rent. So he was on this campaign to raise the overdue money he owed them. And there I sat, with my last three dollars in my wallet, wondering how I was going to afford my next metrocard, staring at the floor as this man pleaded with me (well, with the car at large, but I'm an actor, so of course I thought it was directed at me) to help him out. And and I couldn't, of course. Certainly if I hadn't been petrified about how I was going to make it through the next week, I'd have gladly given him some spare change, but I was scared myself. Scared that I wasn't too far from being that guy.

But I saw the same guy yesterday on my way to my one-day temp gig. He'd had a chance to clean up. His long, greasy hair had been washed. The filth had been washed from his hands and under his nails, and best of all, he was eating from a Styrofoam container full of Chinese food. I was happy for him and bitter at the same time. I wanted some damn Chinese food, damnit. Or at least I wanted the spare cash in my pocket to go and get Chinese food if I wanted. I've been so paranoid lately about husbanding my remaining money that I've turned into a hermit.

So instead of taking Amy's advice and going out and finding something to engage me instead of dwelling on what I'm powerless to change right now, I did what I typically do. I sat alone in my apartment and fantasized about getting everything I want. And therein lies my conflict. Did I do myself no good by "going away" for a while, or was it the best thing for me - indulging in a little dreaming to pass the time that couldn't be used to change my situation? I mean, I've spent so many years deriding people who go home from work and spend their free time watching television, but is what I'm doing the equivalent of watching the television in my head?

I do have another temp assignment tomorrow, so I'm hoping that those'll keep coming. And though I'm going to strive to not waste my life by sleep-walking through it, I'm not going to give up dreaming of things that can be, okay?

A Wonder

What a remarkable place New York City is. I know I've said this before, but it never ceases to amaze me. I'm sitting in my favorite spot - Sheep's Meadow in Central Park - and Justin Lazard just walked past me munching on a sandwich, shirt open, catching some rays. For those of you who don't know who he is, he's a B-Movie actor (and I do mean B-Movie... I think the most famous thing he's ever done is Species II), but the fact that I can sit here and have movie actors of small fame walk past me, or go out to dinner and sit next to Treat Williams, or be walking down the street and jog right to avoid bumping into Charlie Rose just blows my mind.

Feeling pretty well today, even though the money situation continues to suck snot. Still no temp work, still having bank problems, but the day is extraordinarily beautiful, and there are hundreds of people enjoying Sheep's Meadow with me. Most of them profoundly beautiful. That's one of the things that makes this town so intimidating, I think. As if it weren't bad enough that there are cultural and economic social strata to deal with, there's also a very rigid beauty stratus. The beautiful people don't hang out with regular folks like me. I've never been in the least insecure about my normalness - in fact it's usually been an asset, when it came to working on the stage. My "every-guy-next-store" plainness, which is, in all honesty, never going to be considered anything more than "cute" (hey, I'll take it!), has served me really, really well over the years. I get the chance to do things really beautiful people never do, 'cuz the perception is that they can't ever be anything but pretty, so I get to morph into all sorts of things... pretty guy, evil guy, funny guy. Lately, I've had fewer chances to do the morphing in any direction but the funny guy. My work over the last few years has definitely tended toward the comedic.

That's what has made the chance to do The Seagull for PICT such a thrill, even if it's on a painfully lame contract that I'm not going to be able to afford working on.

I got the call today from the Arden Theatre. They've offered me a contract to do The Pavilion, and it's a long one. It runs from August 14 through October 28. Eleven weeks at a LORT D salary, which is roughly twice what I'd be making per week, and for nearly half-again as long as I'd be working at PICT. Such a shame that the two of them conflict. If I take the Arden gig, the folks at PICT are never gonna hire me again, that's for sure. Something to really think about.

So here's what I love best about New York City. It surprises you. People as American-looking as apple pie walk past you and they're speaking some un-decipherable eastern European language. Then a couple of people of obviously Asian origin walk past, and they're talking like they're from the deep suburbs of New Jersey. I love that. Everyone I know hates the tourists, myself included - though only when I'm stuck in Times Square with them. But where else in the US, or for that matter, the world, do you get so many bloody different kinds of people all jammed together? Nowhere, I think. Not even L.A. And I can't help but stare at them all. It's gonna get me punched out for sure someday.

But here's what I hate most about New York: It's a hard place. Hard if you're not rich. If you're not well-bred. If you're not pretty. I mean, I don't have illusions... people who are those things have troubles of their own, and I wouldn't trade mine for theirs for all the tea in China. But being here is, in many ways, made easier for those people. How's that for sour grapes? I guess it's just my mood, but it does make me happier to know that I'll be earning everything I'm taking from this place.

Now that I'm single again - which believe me, is pretty damn weird - I keep finding myself strangely unable to go beyond the flirt-point at which I'd have stopped while I was still ball-and-chained to Gavan. Maybe it's the freshness of having just ended the relationship, but I find that I can't go beyond surface level flirting with the guys who keep checking me out. I guess I'm still learning to deal with being single again. Which, of course, doesn't stop me from looking. Never did, really. Neither Gavan nor I ever really stopped checking out the other pastures, even though we never really had the desire to graze there. There was an incredibly cute guy at Sheep's Meadow earlier. No doubt straight, since I found him attractive. It's my curse.

Randomness

One: Wasting Away

Two: The Storm

Three: Further Thoughts

All Good Things.

They say that all good things come to and end, and I guess that it's true. Funny how much they have to hurt to do it, isn't it?

Gavan and I ended our relationship this weekend - it was a mutual thing and completely amicable (though we haven't gotten to the divvying up the stuff stage yet... and I'm not particularly looking forward to that), and it's not like we and our close friends didn't see it coming, but it's still hard. It hurts to remember how much I loved him and how perfect things were when we first met. During "the talk," he made a very salient point; that being that we were absolutely perfect for each other when we met, and he was exactly what I needed at that moment, and I was exactly what he needed, and it was a miracle and kismet that we came together then. But things change, as they must, and we've grown apart. We've grown to want different things.

I don't think he ever thought otherwise, but it was important for me to make sure he knows that, regardless of the other stuff, I still love him, and probably always will.

That having been said, it's hard to put into words exactly how raw and torn up I feel inside. I've been jokingly telling my friends that my biorhythms must be seriously off recently... I've been sick with that awful summer cold and I've been emotionally down, trying to come to terms with the ending of this relationship. But I can never remember the third biorhythm... what is it? Intellect? Well, I can tell you that I haven't exactly been on top of my game there, either.

Some stuff has happened over the weekend - completely separately from the troubles Gavan and I have been having - that has got my head spinning. I'll write more about it, I suppose, when I can think about it more clearly... or at least without wanting to hurl the contents of my stomach everywhere. I'm just doing my best to hold on and maintain a steady keel.

And on top of all this, I had an audition for The City Theater's new artistic director, Tracy Brigden today. Not exactly something I was looking forward to, feeling as exposed and raw as I do. The last thing an actor wants to do when he's not feeling great about himself is audition and lay his heart bare for someone to judge him. Thankfully Tracy seems like a pretty nice lady, and she was very welcoming & made the experience as painless as possible. But boy, just once, I'd like to be a fly on the wall once an actor leaves an audition room... or be psychic, and have some idea of what they're thinking after I've left. What, I wonder, did they see? What did they think of the work I did? Sometimes I think it's just better that we can't know, or we'd probably never try to audition again. I'll tell you folks, I count myself a fairly accomplished actor, but I don't think all that much of my auditioning skills - so I'm totally a ball of insecurity after I come out of an audition. I need to be a whole lot less self-involved, probably, but it comes with the territory, I think.

I keep reminding myself that things are actually pretty good - they could be a hell of a lot worse; I'm not, after all, a refugee from ethnic violence in Balkan nation, or someone running from rebels and famine in sub-Saharan Africa. But at the end of the day, everyone's problems, no matter how small they seem to others, are still their own, aren't they?

So here I sit, and I'll hope you'll forgive me the self-pity. If you won't, well... fuck you. I'll survive without your compassion and empathy, but it would be nice to have. I'll get on without it, mind you, but I'm lucky enough to have a raft of friends who're thinking of me at this moment. I'd like to think that if our positions were reversed, I'd at least make the attempt to be sympathetic to your plight.

The kind of thing that's happened has a tendency to make you look really carefully at yourself - at least when it goes down the way it did, I think. I mean, had I done one horrible thing to Gavan or had he done something horrible to me - like cheating, for instance - then the tendency would be to focus all the energy and anger on the other person. But look, we both agreed that it's a mutual thing, and though I know there was a whole raft of niggling little things about Gavan that drove me toward my decision, and an equal number of things about me that made him come to his, it just seems to me that there's more of a tendency to look at yourself for blame. I wasn't up to the challenge. I didn't love him enough, or in the right way. I mean, I'm not an idiot, nor am I pathetically low in the self esteem department (but I am an actor, mind, so it's kinda built in that I need some kinda reinforcement - I mean, we come to the stage looking for something, right?), but I'm smart enough to know that it takes two to tango. It's just that I'm the sort of person (blame it on my upbringing - Roman Catholic) who, while perfectly willing to share the blame, first thinks about ladling out my portion of it.

So there you have it. That's where I'm standing. I'm a little scattered, and I've the feeling that I've got to put my ducks in a row before heading back to New York City tomorrow. The scary thing is that I don't feel as though that's going to happen (not that you can order the affairs of your heart in a couple of days), but I'm a little scared that it's never going to happen.

How do you leave the person you thought you'd spend forever with? How do you do the things necessary to end it succinctly without burning bridges and avoiding hurt when you so want to believe that it's not completely your fault? How do you get angry enough to end it without being angry enough to say hurtful things? How do you be an adult?

Anyone have a manual they can loan me?

Oy

It's been a while since I've written here, and there's definitely been a reason. So much is going on in my head these days that I just don't seem to be able to sort things out, let alone order them and put them down on paper... or, I suppose, more correctly, to type them into cyber-world.

Ever have one of those days (or weeks, or in my case ½ months) where you're just sure that your biorhythms are way off? I've been feeling that way lately. Just really down.

The big thing is that Gavan and I are really re-assessing our relationship. He's got some very valid concerns about my being in New York City - essentially turning it into a long-distance one. Since I've been gone from Pittsburgh, he's been going through some pretty rough times, and he's felt like he's had to go through them alone. I guess he's feeling like he needs to have someone in his life who's there for him all the time, but at the same time he understands, I think, how important it is to me to do this New York experience. He knows that it's something he's had the chance to do and I haven't, and that I'd likely be resentful of him if he stood in my way. So we're in a difficult position. He wants to support me, but he wants to be in a relationship full time.

I'm on my way home this morning so that we can talk about these things - his needs and mine - and try to determine where our relationship stands.

I've been rather down lately for other reasons. Principally money. When I told people that I would be coming to New York, everyone seemed to think that I'd have no trouble finding temp jobs that would pay well enough to make the transition as painless as possible, and to date, I haven't been very lucky. When I first started looking at temp agencies, I had trouble finding some that would pay me what I think I'm worth, and my very first temp job only paid about $11 an hour. It didn't last all that long, either, 'cuz I had to cut it short for a trip to Pittsburgh. And when I got back from Pittsburgh, none of the four agencies I'd registered with called. So my money has slowly dwindled away, and there are bills coming due - and I need to get money to Gavan too, for the bills/mortgage at the Pittsburgh homestead.

Out of desperation, I went on a mission to hit more temp agencies... there are, after all, a million of them in New York City. And the good news is that I think I found one that is not only anxious to use me, but also says they're going to get me money more in line with what my skills are worth. The only problem is, this agency - called The Supporting Cast - was the last one I visited during the Temp Blitzkreig of 01®, and they won't be able to put me to work 'til I get back from Pittsburgh. So I'm gonna have to endure at least another week of ulcer-inducingly low bank account balances.

But still, it's good news to have work (I hope!) to look forward to when I get back. And the news isn't all bad, thankfully. On Tuesday, the same day that I was on the blitzkreig, I got a call from Roy Yokelson, a friend of Jeff's who I met last time Jeff was in town. Roy's an engineer at Sound Track, a recording studio downtown. Roy called me to come in for an audition. For the English dubbing of a Japanese anime series, of all things! So I went in and did my thing, and had a great time. In addition, I got to meet Sondra James, who's a casting director. The audition seemed to go pretty well, and even if nothing comes of it, I can't tell you how good it felt to be back in a booth, doing what I'm meant to be doing. It boosted my spirits immeasurably.

It's only now, as I'm heading home to face the music - all those things that have been waiting for me to deal with them (or him!) - that I've grown a little more melancholy. I just hope this depression isn't a sign of something bigger... I'm remembering the bad old days before I discovered therapy, and though it's not always so, sometimes I wonder if I haven't returned there. I guess just the fact that I'm so aware of it, and so often take steps to shake it off, is proof enough that I haven't sunk as far as the old days.

It took me a while, but I'm forcing myself back into this journal, too. Trying to be faithful to my promise to record my thoughts - even when they're not the brightest things out there.

That's another thing I've been wrestling with a lot, lately - exactly how much of what I'm really thinking should be going into this journal. How truthful can you be about your thoughts when it's possible that thousands of people are reading them - especially the people that you're writing about? I don't delude myself into thinking that hundreds or thousands of people are reading the thoughts I'm posting here, but I do know that people who are featured in these entries are reading them. For instance, one of the problems that Gavan and I have been working through is Buster, and how Gavan let me get a dog because he wanted me to be happy, but didn't really want a dog at all - and was in fact really opposed to the idea. Some of my comments about having to come home during my Philadelphia stay and find a care-giver for Buster actually hurt Gavan's feelings (and probably his pride, too; I mean, who wants to look like a bad guy when it comes to not being able to take care of a dog?). But this illustrates the point perfectly... the things I wrote hurt his feelings and made him feel as though he weren't being fairly portrayed, and you know what? He wasn't. I mean, everything that I wrote was the truth, but the things that I wrote weren't nearly as harsh as the things I wanted to write, because I was genuinely hurt and angry at that time, too. I censor myself to spare other people (not just Gavan), and it seems to me that it makes the whole thing a pointless exercise if I do that. Isn't the point of a journal or diary to record what you're thinking? The point isn't that you've always got to justify what you're feeling or prove that your side of things is right, but that you record what you're feeling; either to get them down for later consideration, or just to vent the feelings so they don't fester.

Kind of a sketchy time to be dealing with this issue, when I don't know where I stand with Gavan, and I'm surely gonna have a lot of thoughts to vent or evaluate in the coming weeks. So we'll see where this leads.

Oh, do you remember a couple of entries back when I talked about flying into New York City and lamented the fact that I didn't have my digital camera locked and loaded? Well, when I returned to the city after my last trip home, I was prepared.

These pictures are okay, but they aren't all I would like them to be - there's a lens kit that I'd like to get for my Kodak DC280 that would have allowed more close-up shots, but that's gonna have to wait until I'm a lot more settled and have a lot more money in the bank. So anyway, these aren't all the shots, but they're some of my favorites. Take a look at this first one (you'll need to click on these thumbnails to get the bigger versions)... that area in the center of the picture is the Statue of Liberty from above... this is the one I most wish I'd been able to zoom in on.

The next shot is, probably, my favorite... it shows the southern part of Manhattan from the air. I just love this view... but seeing it from above really makes you wonder how the hell they managed to fit all those people on that little island - and makes you appreciate all the public services that somehow manage to be coordinated everyday, even if it's not always as well coordinated as you'd like. I think twice now before bitching about the subway trains. The next one on the right is more of Lower Manhattan, and the one after that is roughly the same shot... in both of them, you can see the expanse of Central Park right under the wing. It's amazing to me just how much I love seeing the city from above. I guess it's 'cuz you have a chance to feel as though, somehow, being above it all, you've mastered it, or you're in control of it.

When I see it from above, the sheer mass of Manhattan doesn't intimidate me - not in the way that it can when you feel like one tiny person in an island of three million, swallowed by the gaping maws of canyons of concrete and scrambling, clawing people. Seeing Manhattan from above, I don't feel like a wild animal competing with all the other wild animals for the few scraps of food to be had. It energizes me and makes me want to be a part of it, to plunge back in and try again.

The truest words I ever heard spoken were by the person who said to me, "To thrive in Manhattan you have to leave it and come back as often as you can."