Candle Party!

Happy All Hallow's Eve, webfriends. Yet another holiday based on an even older pagan holiday. Legend says that this was the one night of the year when the dead could cross over from the other side and wander the earth, so the people of ancient times used to dress in wild and outrageous costumes and parade around in an effort to catch the attention of the dead and lead them away from their villages and towns. Hence our custom of dressing in costumes and parading ourselves around to our neighbors. The roots of cultural tradition really fascinate me in the extreme. I love this crap.

Last night - my first full night back in Pittsburgh, I was invited to a party at Patti Kelly's house: A candle party. Patti was the hostess, and Brian Czarniecki was the representative of Party Lights Candles. It was a lot of fun, and in a way kind of weird. It was delightful to see Patti, Doug Rees, Brian, Jarrod Fry and his girlfriend Holly and David Crawford, too. And It was especially nice to see Cary Spear, who I've not seen since I came back from New York in July. And much to everyone's surprise, Patti's boss, Tracy Brigden accepted her invitation at the last minute and showed up at the party.

Here's a picture of Patti & Brian, near one of Brian's displays. Jeez, do you think there are enough candles around this room? I was really surprised to hear the Brian had taken up the candle party business, but as it turns out he's having a fabulous time at it, and there's the potential to make a lot of money doing this stuff - and not in a pyramid scheme sorta way, either. And on top of it all, he pretty much makes his own schedule!

I kinda felt a little sorry for him, 'cuz there's a script that he has to follow, and part of the presentation is a pitch to recruit new candle company representatives. He was playing to a pretty tough audience in that regard. And it didn't help that we were all heckling him mercilessly. We're evil that way.


So it wasn't long 'til he was deep into his schtick and the lot of us were sucked in like rubes at a traveling carnival. It was a combination of the fact that (a) we wanted Patti's party to be a success, (b) we wanted Brian's efforts not to go unrewarded, and (c) this was some pretty cool shit that he was selling. I learned more about the manufacture of candles and the difference between cheap and well made candles than I ever wanted to, or thought I could remember. (Truth be told, I think I've forgotten most of it - but I sure was spellbound at the time.)


Here's (from left) Tracy Brigden, the top of Doug Rees' head, and Liz Atkinson, who's the sound designer at City Theatre, where I've worked with most of these folks at one time or another. Doug turned out to be a fiend for the whole deal - he went candle crazy. All of us did, really, spending more than we'd expected. But what the hell, it was for a good cause, right? The beautification of our living spaces is a good cause, right? Or are we just pathetic, sheep-like consumers? Ah well, in either case, at least our sheep-pens will smell good.

To the right, of course, is the impossibly wonderful Cary Spear - from whom, you'll remember, I "subletted" the NYC apartment in which I was staying.
Next down, there's Jarrod and Holly. I snuck up on them with the camera. I'm, as I've mentioned, evil like that.

The party wasn't exclusively about candles, of course. This group being what it was, it was a chance for friends who don't see each other to catch up and share gossip and figure out where we've all been for the last six months. Doug's planning on moving to NYC by Thanksgiving, and I'm not going to be far behind him. I found out that Holly came in to Philadelphia to audition for the reading of Stinkin' Rich that I did (I think they ultimately didn't choose her 'cuz they'd have had to house her, and there was precious little money to be spent on the reading, what with Baby Case and the enormous drain it represented on the Arden's budget - but I have pretty high hopes that she'd be called back for the actual production... she'd be perfect for it), and that Jarrod had ended up taking my place in PICT's production of The Seagull when I had to pull out to do The Pavilion. And Brian, of course, has joined the candle cult. So here's one last photo - one I insisted on taking 'cuz I'm never in any of my own photos; I have this thing about (a) thinking that it's narcissistic to have snapshots of yourself, and (b) hating pictures of myself. To me, those extra five pounds are screaming out from this picture... Vanity, thy name is Schulz. Anyway, here's the gang: From left - Tracy, Cary, Doug, Brian, Patti, David Crawford, Holly (with me in front of her) and Jarrod. All in all a rather fabulous evening.

The Fat Lady Sang

I'm having a difficult time believing that I'm actually sitting down to write this entry. My time in Philadelphia is over - The Pavilion has closed and I'm on a train back to Pittsburgh. We just passed Altoona, PA - About 2½ hours out from Pittsburgh. I'm returning to a different place than the one I left - at least in my heart it's different. I don't really feel as though it's my home anymore; not that, at this point, I feel like I really have a home. Home is where your heart is, right? These days, mine's adrift.

It'll be good to see family and friends, that's for sure. They, at least, feel to me like an anchor. Most of the pain and hollowed out feeling I've carried through much of this past summer is gone. What's left is a combination of dread at having to deal with the final details of parting from Gavan, and excitement at the world of possibilities that are opened to me. The closest analogy that I have in my life is the time at which I'd made the decision to quit my job and take up acting full time.

I kinda had a strange revelation while I was out with the gang for our closing night celebration last night. I've spent so much time allowing myself to be glum over breaking up with Gavan and obsessed that he might already be moving on to a new relationship that I've misdirected my focus in the mistaken belief that I need to do the same thing: find someone new. Nothing, I think, could be further from the truth. What I really need to do is get myself organized, get happy with myself again, and then let those things flow as they will.

I've forgotten what it's like to be totally comfortable with being alone, and what wonderful company I can be for myself. Cliches are cliches for a reason - they're true - and I've known for years (but temporarily forgotten, apparently) that the only way some one else can love me is if I love myself. It's time I recognized that I haven't really been very loving to myself for a while.

Much to my chagrin, I gained back five pounds while I was in Philadelphia. Back up to 152 pounds. Not something to get overly upset about, but I sure did enjoy being under 150 for the first time since I was just outta high school! Toni will be glad I don't look so thin and anemic anymore.

I'm staying with her in Pittsburgh, by the way. She's a godsend (and I know she reads this journal, so it's a pointed suck-up). I'm usually one of those people who can't stand to ask for things, and it was like pulling teeth for me to ask if I could stay with her - which is kinda ridiculous, since she (and almost all of my other friends) would give me the shirts of their backs. If I dressed like them.

How about that picture above? It's one of the last ones I took in Philadelphia - from my favorite bench in the boneyard at Christ Church, in Old City Philadelphia. This church is right next door to the Arden, and was a great hangout ('specially during the Indian summer) for peace & quiet while trying to learn lines.

Time to sign off, before the battery runs down. Until the next update, friends, here's hoping you're well and life is treating you the way you deserve!

Here's Hoping

We all reach a point, I think, where we get a little sick of inaction, and melacholy, and depression, and we find that it's time to move on. I'm not entirely sure I've reached that point yet, but I think I'm getting close. Here's hoping, huh?

What's Next?

Jesus, but I have so much stuff to do that keeps slipping past me. It's the way of life, I suppose, but boy it's annoying and I'm a little over it. "Ah," but you're saying to yourself (as you must be, since I' m so in touch with the world around me and I'm thinking it), "your little troubles are rather paltry compared to those of people around the world." And it's true, too. But it's not helping me catch up with my paltry little problems. Or tasks.

Sometimes I wonder if seeing challenges as problems and not challenges is something that's hard wired into me - a little gift from my family. I'm sure to a behavioral psychologist this is all old hat... obvious, maybe. But it's something I'm struggling through, working out for myself. I read a book a few years ago called Learned Optimism, the point of which is that optimism and pessimism are learned behaviors, and that if you find that you're naturally a pessimist, you can change that if you like. I was delighted to find out that it wasn't that I was a pessimist, but that I was an optimist who didn't have a whole lot of faith in himself. That's kinda beside the point of my story... I'd read Learned Optimism on the recommendation of Nick Ruggeri, who had read the book himself, and the situation I find myself reminds me of a story that Nick had told me once about the difference between optimists and pessimists. He'd had a friend growing up who crystallized the whole for him by telling him the she came from a family where they looked at the future and said, "What next?!?" As though they were looking forward to the next adventure life would bring, and Nick got to thinking about how he'd come from a family that said exactly the same thing: "What next?" But in his family, it was said with dread of the next disaster.

And, God love 'em, I think I came from the same sort of family. They're wonderful, loving people, but the fact of the matter is that my parents and their parents before them all lived through the most devastating economic period out country's ever gone through - the Great Depression - and had to live hand to mouth, and didn't learn the brightest outlook on life. And my grandparents were poor before the depression, so you can imagine all the shit that goes around in my parents' heads. And they're Roman Catholic, too. Talk about the Burgeoning Optimist Inside getting an ass-kicking. And I think that the fatalism that comes of struggling through the Great Depression, and knowing that you're in a constant struggle to save your pitiable, insignificant soul from eternal hellfire in a world where the forces of darkness are arrayed against you just doesn't inspire a sunny outlook.

Just kinda sucks that I inheirited the outlook.

I guess it shouldn't be such a surprise that pessimists are more likely to be depressives than optimists. Fuckers. As if all that hope and excitement wasn't enough of a prize, they get to be less depressed than the rest of us. Somehow that's not what I call equal distribution of resources. But then again, no one ever asks my opinion about that kinda shit.

So anyway, I've got a lot of shit to do, and I haven't made a lot of progress in the last couple weeks. 'Nuff said.