I've been pretty lax about keeping you up to date with my life. Since I got back from New York I've been keeping busy doing voice-over auditions and the like, and temping for a man named Gordon Rosenthal, who's got a consulting business in downtown Pittsburgh. Luckily, a producer and director I've worked with before, Scott DeNier offered me work in the CMU Summer New Plays Project; in a reading of a screenplay by my good friend Denise Pullen. The screenplay is based on the life story of Judy Resnik, who was the second US woman in space, and "the other woman" on the Challenger crew that died in January of 1986 - with Christa McAuliffe. I may have actually mentioned it before - this is the screenplay for which Denise won a national competition.
Anyway, I only offer all that as backstory to what follows.
I saw the most unsettling thing today. I was leaving Gordon's office and heading out to rehearsal for Riding Fire (you guessed it - the screenplay) and as I was approaching Wood Street downtown, I saw an ambulance parked at the corner. I rounded the corner and, typically for me, I was staring at my feet as I walk, so I saw a large puddle or stain on the street. At first I thought someone had spilled their "Code Red" Mountain Dew or something, this little burst of liquid on the street was that electric and red looking. Must have been the way the sun was hitting it. Because I finally looked up from the puddle and saw the reason for the stain: The EMT's from the ambulance were tending an old man who's forehead was bandaged and whose face was just a mask of dried and partially dried blood. I'm not sure if he'd fallen and hit his head on the sidewalk or what, but clearly the stain I'd just passed was his relatively fresh blood.
The unsettling thing was just how affected I was by the sight. Not so much of the little old man so banged up, but more by the image of the pool of blood that was stuck in my mind. I became, for the first time in recent memory (or long term memory, for that matter - I don't think I've been actually nauseous since I got drunk before all my friends returned to school the summer after my 21st birthday), really nauseous. I literally thought that I was going to throw up. It was a disquieting lesson in the difference between the fantasy of movies and plays, which are so much a part of my life, and the reality of the damage done to human bodies everyday. The closest I've ever come to this feeling before was watching the first 25 minutes of Saving Private Ryan... that was pretty damn unsettling too, but I've never been in such close physical proximity to so much of someone else's blood. I can't really describe the feeling.
Anyway, I only offer all that as backstory to what follows.
I saw the most unsettling thing today. I was leaving Gordon's office and heading out to rehearsal for Riding Fire (you guessed it - the screenplay) and as I was approaching Wood Street downtown, I saw an ambulance parked at the corner. I rounded the corner and, typically for me, I was staring at my feet as I walk, so I saw a large puddle or stain on the street. At first I thought someone had spilled their "Code Red" Mountain Dew or something, this little burst of liquid on the street was that electric and red looking. Must have been the way the sun was hitting it. Because I finally looked up from the puddle and saw the reason for the stain: The EMT's from the ambulance were tending an old man who's forehead was bandaged and whose face was just a mask of dried and partially dried blood. I'm not sure if he'd fallen and hit his head on the sidewalk or what, but clearly the stain I'd just passed was his relatively fresh blood.
The unsettling thing was just how affected I was by the sight. Not so much of the little old man so banged up, but more by the image of the pool of blood that was stuck in my mind. I became, for the first time in recent memory (or long term memory, for that matter - I don't think I've been actually nauseous since I got drunk before all my friends returned to school the summer after my 21st birthday), really nauseous. I literally thought that I was going to throw up. It was a disquieting lesson in the difference between the fantasy of movies and plays, which are so much a part of my life, and the reality of the damage done to human bodies everyday. The closest I've ever come to this feeling before was watching the first 25 minutes of Saving Private Ryan... that was pretty damn unsettling too, but I've never been in such close physical proximity to so much of someone else's blood. I can't really describe the feeling.
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