Grey Matters

So I just finished my audition for Mountain Playhouse, and while the audition itself went well - I read well and even got to read for a part I'd not expected to read - I had the most horrific experience, socially, that I can have. It's one that I dread in the extreme, 'cuz it happens to me so often: I reached out to shake the hand of the director (Guy Stroman, a guy I've been introduced to before - hell, we've had long conversations at parties!) and as soon as I touched his hand, his name fled from my brain like an absentee white-trash deadbeat dad. And he clearly knew that I had absolutely no idea what his name was, 'cuz he offered it to me, at which point the damn burst and I was effusively, like, "Of course, Guy! How nice to see you again." I'm a yutz, dude.

The audition went well enough - I was reading for a part in God's Favorite, one of Neil Simon's lesser works. A reinterpretation of the Book of Job, it's about a Long Island millionaire who gets caught in a pawn game between God and the Devil. Even Neil Simon doesn't think it's his greatest play. But truth be told, it has its moments, and I could surely use the job, fitting, as it would, perfectly between You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Aristocrats. But, in the spirit of my new "do the audition and then let it go" policy, I'm gonna forget it happened. Getting the job would be great, but if I don't, well, then I'll temp, won't I?

I didn't sleep very well last night. Hell, I haven't slept well all week. Actually, it's not even that I didn't sleep well - I did. It's that I didn't sleep enough; I keep going to bed at dreadfully late hours, knowing full well that I need to be up for work at 6:45 a.m. I'm just so not a morning person, and all those years of working midnight shifts have made me a night owl.

I know, you're saying: Our Joe needs to display a little damn discipline and just bite the bullet. I've tried - but I end up laying (lying? I can never remember) in bed staring at the ceiling until I get up and do something to wear myself out.

Amy and I are supposed to have another of our weekend excursions tomorrow - only this time she's brought her convertible from Pittsburgh, so we'll be driving somewhere. I think she's gonna take me to visit her childhood home and we're gonna walk in the woods. It'll be nice just to get out of the city for a while, although there's a little part of me that would like to enjoy just lying (laying? I can never remember) around, since my laundry's done. Of course, I could be doing some cleaning around the apartment, too, and there's still some organization to be done in my room.

Ah, life just never stops, does it? Well, until you die (day? I can never remember), that is.

A Revelation...Kinda

I came to the conclusion today that there's just something about a subway ride that's life-draining. Maybe it's that such a ride takes you under the ground, and away from the life-giving energy of the sun; that it entombs you in a long box that's, if not exactly, at least closely proportionate in size to a coffin; that it fills that box with people who would rather be elsewhere; that those people already have precious little reserves of energy - especially if it's the evening commute.

It never fails to amaze me just how lifeless people seem when they're crammed onto a subway train. Nary a smile to be had anywhere. Of course, there are the occasional exceptions - a couple of kids, or maybe a man and woman in love, who chatter away and smile at each other - but for the most part, it seems that, even when you're with a group of people, riding the subway train seems to be a solitary experience. And I wonder why that is?

I came to this conclusion when I was getting off the train on the way home tonight. Just the thought of climbing up the stairs and reaching street level just made me so much happier! I didn't feel drained until I realized how happy I was to get the hell out from under the ground! Granted, the train ride took extra long tonight - the train kept stopping and sitting in tunnels either because other trains were crossing its path, or just to slow down and stay on schedule, or to accommodate trains that were moving slowly ahead of it on the same track. There was this Asian kid sitting next to me on the train, and almost as soon as he sat down, he started nodding off - and I don't just mean a little occasional dip of the head... he was totally flopping forward, and to the right, and to the left (practically into my lap) depending on the motion of the train. I wanted to tell him that he wasn't allowed to sleep on me unless he at least bought me dinner, first. I kept that witticism to myself, lest he take it the wrong way.

Amy's coming back to the city tomorrow, and I've agreed to bring her car to Brooklyn and park it over here for the weekend. Am I a fool, or what?!? Not quite sure what I've gotten myself into, but I'm sure we're gonna end up with a ticket at some point... I just hope I manage not to get her towed!

By the way, I was flipping through some old journal entries yesterday and found this fabulous line by Amy Hartman: "I'm not sure I know the difference between fate and punishment."

Sometimes, I think that woman is a genius.

That Didn't Last So Long

I couldn't take it anymore, and shaved off the van dyke. Go figure.

Today I indulged in one of my favorite things about living in New York: I took my laundry to the laundromat and paid someone else to do it!

Happy VD

Watch out everyone, there's a potentially painful holiday incoming!!! Happy Valentine's eve, webfriends!

I was chatting with Gavan briefly yesterday and wished him a happy VD, and he mentioned that he'd be at rehearsal, dateless. I consoled him with the fact that he, at least, had a reason for being dateless.

But the truth of the matter is I'm okay with being unattached this Valentine's Day... I know it's been over eight months, but because the act of separating has been so drawn out, I'm still getting over Gavan and my breaking up. Don't get me wrong - I still firmly believe that it was best for both of us; but there's no way I'm ready to seriously date anyone.

Or at least, I haven't been. I'm getting to the point, I think, where I wouldn't run screaming from the room if the prospect of a long-term relationship reared its head. The good news is that there's nothing going on, dating-wise, that I think will lead to one, so I have a long time before that bridge has to be crossed.

By the way, I'm soliciting opinions: Should I keep the van dyke, or what?

Chicken

So I think if you asked Amy Hartman, she'd tell you that I'm a big-ass pussy boy.

She and I had a frankly wonderful day on Saturday, wandering Central Park in the sunshine and, and eventually finding our way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But it was in the park, when we made our way to the Delacorte Theater (where the free Shakespeare in the Park is performed) that Amy determined I should have my picture taken on the stage of the Delacorte. Unfortunately, to do this would have meant climbing the fence and sneaking onto the stage of the Delacorte in broad daylight.

I chickened out. I couldn't do it! Does that make me a pussy, or what? Alas, I'm afraid that it does. Amy Hartman, however, is no pussy. The picture to the left if of her, you guessed it, trying to convince me to follow her over the fence.

Wanna know something funny? The stage to the Delacorte is about ten rows below the top of those stairs behind the fence. We could have been in and out so fast that no one would have ever known, but in my sadly typical Lord Jim-esque existence, I couldn't drag my sorry ass over the fence to snap one little picture. Too scared of getting caught and punished. Sorry - it's the damn Catholic upbringing. Much as I've left behind, there's still a surprising amount of that shit buried in there. Who the hell would a quick trip over the fence hurt?

Ah well, hindsight's 20/20.

The rest of the day was incredible... which is not to say that the aborted assault on the Delacorte wasn't a hoot. Despite my embarrassment at being a pussy-boy, it was still hilarious, watching Amy trying to taunt me over the fence.

So after The Impossible Mission, we swung around and went up the hill to the castle above the lake just behind the Delacorte. This damn park is amazing. The picture to the left is of the "castle" (it's not really a castle, but for the life of me, I can't remember what the eff it's called) from across the lake to the east of the Delacorte. I snapped the photo before Amy had decided I needed to embark on a life of crime - or at least vefore she let me know where she was leading me. So anyway, we made our way up the stairs and ramps that are cut out of the hillside to the right, there, and ended up first at the sort of covered pavilion area there to the right, where Amy, indignant that I wasn't going to get a picture of myself standing on the stage at the Delacorte, insisted on having a picture of me at least looking out at the stage from above and behind... hence the next shot: Me gazing out at the Delacorte theater, hoping against hope to one day work there.

It's actually a pretty good picture - Amy's got a pretty good eye - if you can forgive the fact that most, but not all of the damn red has been cut out of my hair and I look like an idjit. What you can't see in this smaller version of the picture, since some of the detail was lost when I shrank (shrunk?) it for the web page, is that the back and sides of my hair are a dark brown with a lot of gray shot through, and the top is still auburn. I need to go get that crap cut out! Oh, and as if my life isn't embarassing enough, check out this little morsel - which in the interest of honesty I'm willing to proffer, but in the interests of vanity, I'm gonna make you work for... a full-size picture of my big-ass male pattern baldness spot. I'm hoping against hope that this is as big as it gets. When I get to Heaven or The Great Beyond or whatever you call it, I'm gonna have a few stern words for my maternal granddad over this whole issue, I can assure you.

So after our adventure in the park, we decided we were hungry and under-cultured, so we dropped my pack (in which I was lugging my big-ass I-call-myself-a-laptop-but-I-might-as-well-be-a-desktop computer) at her apartment, and we went to the Met. But first we stopped and got a couple of dogs and sodas from a street vendor in front of the museum, and had our lunch as we watched the world go by. We were so not alone - there were literally hundreds of people sitting around the massive facade of the Metropolitan just watching the world pass by. I forced Amy to pose for a quick photo after we'd shovelled our dogs down our throats, so she decided to give the "product-endorsement for Snapple" pose. Not to be out-done, I got my Pepsi bottle in the lower right corner of the shot. Just a measure of how weird we are, I guess.

The museum itself was amazing. I'm utterly ashamed to admit that I've never been inside before. It was everything I had thought it might be and more. I got to see one of my all-time favorite paintings, which I didn't even know the Met had: Arnold Böklen's The Island of the Dead. Or, I should say, one of the five versions he painted of it. The .jpg file I have of it must be of one of the later, lighter versions of the painting, 'cuz the version in the Met is remarkably dark. So much so, that you really have to peer into it to make out details that are more visible in the version I swiped from Mark Harden's Artchive (a fabulous website you should support, by the way, if you've got money to spare).

Anyway, there's just no damn way to see the whole place in a day, so we concentrated on the Impressionists, who we both love, and Degas, who Amy loves, and, of course, Böklen's Island . But then Amy, knowing I'm a big ol' AD&D geek from way back, dragged me off to the "Arms & Armor" exhibit, which was fascinating. What's remarkable to me about all that armor crap is (a) how tiny people were back in the 15th & 16th century, and (b) how strong they had to have been to haul themselves around in all that damn heavy armor. They could, no doubt, kick my ass, and I'm happy to keep my experience of anyone wearing armor limited to swords & sworcery fiction.

After we did the armor exhibit, we went and explored the American Wing, which is pretty damn fascinating itself, but unusual in that, unlike the rest of the museum, it's just crammed full of stuff that people have donated to the museum... the Luce Center for the Study of American Art is an amazing and overwhelming storehouse (literally - there are so many paintings, you wonder if, by the way they're all displayed, you haven't accidentally wandered into the warehouse) of American painting and craftsmanship.

The photo above is of the fountain of Pan in the courtyard before the American Wing, where Amy and I rested before tackling all that American art.

After we finished the American Wing, however, we made our way across the walkway above the courtyard over to the European Painting section - in the midst of which was the thing Amy wanted to see most: The Musical Instruments room. The photo to the right is of the courtyard seen from above. The statue of Pan you saw above would be beyond the right side of the frame in this photo.

The big disappointment for the day turned out to be that the Musical Instruments room was closed. Amy was six different kinds of disappointed about that, so were were planning on ending our day on a low note and heading off, when the strains of a string quartet drifted our way. It turned out that the impromptu bar/cafe on the Great Hall Balconey was having a live quartet and piano for happy hour, so we contented ourselves by fighting the crowd and settling in there for appetizers and a beverage. Amy was all continental with her Pellegrino Water, and I had a glass of red wine.

All in all, the day just out-and-out kicked ass, and it reminded me once again of why it is I love New York so much - because had I not insisted on kicking in the suggested donation, everything but the food & drink would have been free. It's one of the things that I love about this city... and though I've come to believe that worrying about work and money will be a perpetual part of my world-view, I'm delighted that this place is my home.

Weepie Me

Okay, I'm the kind of guy who cries at Hallmark® card commercial, so it shouldn't be a big surprise to anyone, least of all me that I got all teary-eyed as I was sitting here watching the the opening of the Olympics. Hell, they hadn't even gotten to the opening ceremony - I was tearing up at the damn opening panoramic montage!

And seeing the Andorran team waving American flags almost made me weep like a child.

You know what struck me most about watching the parade of nations, though? How young all those atheletes looked to me. I know all that crap about you're only as old as you feel, but boy oh boy did I feel old watching all those young, fit, bouyant men and women - and they were so excited to be there. Wonderful. I just looked it up... Jason Bloom, one of the skiers, was born two months before I graduated high school. How's that for feeling old?

HA!

Movie of the Week

I think I'm finally beginning to find a rhythm here in New York City. I've been lucky enough to have temped since the end of last week - though that's going to come to an end tomorrow, and I've got nothing set for next week. I'll just hope that the folks at The Laury Group come through for next week. And I've had a couple of dates with a nice man named David... different from the David I went out with before going to Pittsburgh. I'm starting, I think, to get a sense of what it's like to really live here, and meet people, and - I don't know - just relax into a place.

Of course the search continues for a more permanent living arrangement, but I knew that was going to be part of living here - the gradually working my way toward a place of my own.

Something weird happened to me this week. I got into a sort of heated e-exchange with my brother, Tim, which has got me all out of sorts. We disagreed rather vehemently about something, and in the end he sent me an e-mail which ended with "have a nice life." I haven't heard from him since. I feel just as strongly that I was right as he does that he was, I'm sure, but I was really struck by the way he handled it. I think I've mentioned our family never dealt well with conflict resolution. Anyway, I regret that we have this disagreement, but he's gotta deal with it in his way - I don't have any control over that. And frankly, Tim's been sort of like Pluto in my life since he went away to the navy twenty years ago... definitely part of the solar system, but so far away as to have little contact.

What's really gotten me off kilter is that I started having some really vivid memories from my childhood. The whole argument had me remembering things about our family dynamic that are really unsettling. I took a lot of shit as a child because my mom doted on me... I was the baby of the family, so even I knew that I was spoiled, and it, I'm sure, only got worse after my eldest brother, Bill died. But somehow I had managed to block out or forget or whatever how truly hateful some of my brothers and sisters were because of that. And while IMing with my sister Sue the other day, she casually mentioned that she thought "everyone resented your intelligence, too."

I didn't think I was that smart.

Anyway, these memories have been coming back and hitting me pretty hard. I haven't slept particularly well all week. I think the part that's disturbing me most is how I've always been the "build a bridge and get over it" guy of the family, but I can't seem to do that, right now. I find myself really, really angry.

I've always known that the funniest people are usually the angriest, but I've never been really willing to look into the wellspring of my anger - always walking the fine line between "the unexamined life is not worth living" and "what the fuck's up with all the navel-gazing?"

So there I stand. I'm fast-approaching my thirty-eighth birthday, and suddenly I'm pissed off about my childhood? It seems a little cliched, don't you think? Very "movie of the week."

All in all, a rather satisfying day. Remarkably so, considering that absolutely nothing of import happened to me today. All I did was get up early (painfully so - more on that later), and go off to work. Thankfully, I've been given a temp assignment that's gonna last through the end of next week. I'm working for an architectural firm's engineering department. They were in need of someone to help with a Microsoft Access database, it seems. Lotsa data entry, lotsa calling vendors to confirm that information's not gone out of date. A little report writing. In no way thrilling or riveting stuff, but it's a job, and it's gonna help me pay my rent this month, which is always a good thing.

As a special treat, the universe arranged for the clouds to clear away a bit and show a patch of blue sky against which the clouds glowed pink as the sun went down. It really was a stunningly beautiful day to be ejected into. I guess I should say "evening," since it was around 5 p.m.

I've been feeling under the weather lately, so I elected to come straight home and settle in for the night. I made myself a nice turkey sandwich, glass of soda, and a handful of Terra Red Bliss Olive Oil, Sun-Dried Tomatoes & Balsamic Vinegar Potato Chips™, and settled down with Jesse to watch a little TV.

Did I tell you that Jesse's back? Well, he is. He and Maya have very graciously invited me to stay on through February while I look for a new place, so I cleaned a path in the Scary Bedroom® to the loft bed and have been sacking out in there. I miss that damn TV in Jesse's room, but I'll get over it, and I'll probably get a lot more sleep nights without that damn thing to temp me.

So here's a picture of Jesse from one of the parties for Picasso at the Lapin Agile at The Arden early last year. Now that I see this picture again (I haven't looked at it in quite a while), it seems to me that he's lost a lot of weight since then. Or maybe he's really been working out. Not sure which. Anyway, thanks again Jesse!

So last night, after I'd cleared a bit of space in the Scary Bedroom®, I plugged in my clock, set the time, set the alarms (yes, my clock has two of 'em), and crawled into bed. This morning, the alarm went off (I set the first one for "wake to music," and it played for three whole minutes before I realized that it was the alarm, and my dream of Jewel serenading me was not founded in reality), and I dragged ass out of bed, showered, shaved, shat, dressed and rushed out the door. I got to the subway station just as the "Q" train was pulling up, and hopped on, all the while thinking that I should take the "Q" more often, as it was less crowded than the 1/2 or 4/5 trains. I got to the office and cheerily greeted the receptionist as she was settling in and blearily rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. I got to my desk and realized that the office seemed kinda empty... I knew that this place had flex hours, but it seemed to me that someone should be there, as close as it was to 9 a.m.

And that's when I thought to look at my watch for the first time. It wasn't approaching 9 a.m. It was approaching 8 a.m. I had accidently set my alarm clock an hour ahead, and never even noticed.

I'm totally on crack, you guys.