What A Wonderful World

So I decided to swing by and pick up my new friend Jason when he got off work, and we took a walk around the neighborhood with my new camera.

This picture is a perfect example of how you can be so caught up in your own little world that it gets easy to forget the sheer array of wonders (even of the tiniest size!) that surround us in the world today. I didn't even know this little fella was going about his business there until I'd snapped 7 or 8 photos of this flower.

The world, she is a magnificent place.

The Undiscover'd Country

I've been thinking about death a lot lately. A guy I met recently and have been slowly getting to know let slip that a friend of his had recently taken his own life, and that the suicide had his entire circle of friends and colleagues a bit at sea.

Our discussions, of course, brought to mind my brother Bill, who -- though he didn't take his own life -- did go unreasonably early, and left the family in a state of chaos that has, to some degree, persisted for nearly thirty years. Sometimes it's amazing to me to think that it's been thirty years since he died.

The funny thing about death is that it becomes about someone other than the person who's died. It becomes about the person grieving. Or the friend of the person grieving who automatically turns to recollections of his own experience of death. It isn't death itself that has power over us. It's our own self-obsession: How does this affect me.

The knowing of which, of course, doesn't equip me any better to help my friend through his grief.

By the way...

...when is someone going to explain to Duncan Sheik that I'm hopelessly in love with him and he needs to be my husband?

Perhaps I should check on his sexuality first. That pesky hetero crap seems to be a recurring theme in the neverending cascade that is my celebrity crush(es).

Has he released his new album yet? Do you even care?

Lucy, You Got Some 'Splaining To Do

Someone's gotta explain gay men to me.

What's so hard about saying, "Sorry dude, I'm not into you?" Are they worried that your feelings are going to be hurt? Like your feelings aren't going to be hurt by no return phone calls and no explanation?

Who can explain it to me?

Maybe the only explanation is that people are just plain dumb.

I Hate Insurance Companies

So here's the thing about being in the stage actors's union. It's relatively easy for members to get insurance coverage. Not as easy as it used to be; back the the halcyon days of yore, you only had to work ten weeks out of the year to get coverage for twelve months. Recently, say in the last year or two, the rules have changed -- they're trying to keep costs down -- so now you have to work twelve weeks during a given year to get six months worth of coverage, or twenty weeks during a given year to get a full year's worth of coverage.

Last year's work had given me (alas) nineteen work weeks, so I only got six months of coverage, which began on January 1 of this year. My work from this summer is going to net me a year's worth of coverage beginning October 1st. The fact that I didn't have coverage during the only time in the last, say, ten years when I actually really needed it (remember the 14-day fever, kids? The woefully nasty first-ever case of "jock itch?" The days of awful humidity when I couldn't breathe for the allergies?) is a pain, but okay, I dealt with it and survived.

Here's what bugs me. I just got a letter from my main health care provider, The Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in New York -- a place I adore and one which rescued me when my ex left me on my first apartment's doorstep with a case of strep throat and drove off -- telling me that due to contract and pricing negotiations that went south, they're ending their association with my insurance company, Cigna. If I want to continue with the doctors and the services I've been using since I moved to New York four years ago, I have to pay out of pocket and get reimbursed at, like, 80% of cost...after deductibles. I can't afford that.

So now I have to go to the trouble of finding a new provider and getting all my records switched over to some doctor with whom I'm not comfortable. I can't tell you how I'm lookin forward to this.

The silver lining in this cloud, though, is that I now have no compunction about asking my cute doctor out on a date. Watch out, Dr. Hickey. I'm coming for you.

Some Rehearsal Pics!

UPDATED

That crazy-ass big blank space was bugging me, so I moved the rehearsal pics here.

No Pain, No Gain.

One of the things you often discover in theater is that, when technical elements are added and the last of the props and set pieces have finally arrived, things don't always go according to plan.

At our tech rehearsal on Saturday, as frustrations mounted and tension increased (both accepted inevitabilities during twelve hours of rushing to get things done and then standing around waiting for things to get done), someone acted without thinking and ran over my foot with a large stair unit.

Check it out:

It's not often I jump up and down and scream curse words like a banshee, but this was one of those occasions. I curse every one and thing in my sight to the tenth generation.

I'll be fine, once the nail grows out enough for the cracked-off portion to fall off. I'm just grateful it didn't get ripped off outright. It actually doesn't look too bad... the photo was taken, of course, after the caked on blood was cleared away and it was cleaned.

All in all, it's just another reminder of the wisdom of thinking first, and acting afterward. In cases where someone's not trying to kill you, that is.

The New Camera

...kicks ass!!!!!!

Your laugh...

...for today.

How can I not love my life when this is what I do for a living? It also goes a long way toward making sure I don't ever take myself too seriously.

Everything Old...

...is new again:

"What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self defense. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect... As a result...there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world. The plain way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society become divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow."

Thucydides
"History of the Peloponnesian War"
Translated by Rex Warner (1972)

Here's some big news: You may have noticed that the "Donate to the New Camera Fund" link has disappeared.

That's because I didn't get jack outta you people.

Well, also, I ordered the new camera today. I finally decided (based on customer reviews and the deal I got) on a Canon Digital Rebel XT. It's an 8MP digital SLR camera... not, by far, the top of the line, but great for my burgeoning photography skills.

I'd originally tried to order it (for a remarkably good price) from B&H Photo, in my hometown of New York, but their policies on shipping to an address other than the billing address on the credit card are, frankly, draconian. They expect you to add the shipping address as an alternate address with your bank, and since I work with a tiny credit union and their systems can't accept more than one address, that means changing my address with my credit union until the order has been shipped.

Not, to say the least, gonna happen.

So I ended up ordering it from amazon.com. It was a little more expensive than B&H (and, frankly, a couple of the other retailers I found), but I have a history with them, and I trust them not to fuck me over when I'm spending this much money. See? You can buy peace of mind.

I've Grown Balls

Did I tell you that I've grown balls?

Yup, for the first time in something like four years I actually looked a man in the eye and asked him out for drinks. Granted, I've had plenty of dates since The Ex and I went our separate ways, but they've all been arranged either through friends or through internet dating sites or, god help me, through chat rooms. So I considered it a bit of a milestone that I met a guy who seemed very nice and I actually girded my loins and asked him out.

You'd be surprised how strong a motivator (or de-motivator) the fear of face-to-face rejection can be for me. Odd, that, given my profession.

Anyway, I grew some balls and asked this guy out. This was back on August 10th (which -- how's this for the Universe telling me to get over myself? -- just happens to be The Ex's birthday... I didn't realize that 'til later), and I called him the next day and left a message, hoping we could get together soon. No return call. Trying not to be too obviously desperate and stalker-esque, I waited a whole week before trying him again.

He never called me back. Welcome to the world of the straight woman, my friends.

I have to confess to having been a little broken-hearted. He seemed like a really sweet guy.

Well, I ran into him again at the shop where he works, and he apologized for not calling me back. And he gave me, frankly, the best excuse anyone's ever given me for not returning a phone call.

Turns out he suffers from epilepsy, and had a gran mal seizure while out with friends, fell and hit his head, wrenched his neck, and ended up carted off to the hospital. After he woke up and was discharged from the hospital, he went and spent a week recuperating with his parents back in his hometown, and only came back the day before yesterday.

I spent the afternoon hanging out at the shop and talking. When he got off work, we went and had an afternoon cocktail. I haven't had alcohol of any sort before, like, dinnertime in I-can't-tell-you how long. Having a drink in the sun in the middle of the afternoon made for a very interesting rehearsal yesterday. I'm such a lightweight.

So anyway, the nice guy's back, and I'm hoping he'll call this time and we'll actually get to have a real date. I'm trying to be practical, not pessimistic (the glass is half full, the glass is half full, the glass is half full), when I remind myself that he still hasn't called me back yet.

wifebeaters and traffic noise

Early today, I was sitting on the steps of the Stephen Foster Memorial on a break from rehearsal, and it occurred to me that more than half the people who were walking by on the street were dragging their feet, just shuffling along. The oppressive heat here of late has turned everyone I see into zombies.

I've broken a frontier, ladies and germs. I've actually taken to wearing A-shirts (I have a tough time calling anything that I'd wear a "wife beater," but I imagine that's the popular term for it). It's not often I expose my flabby (though not as flabby as they used to be) arms to the world at large, particularly in a clingy cotton shirt.

But the heat has driven me to it.

And I've discovered the thing that I like least (or, for those glass-half-empty folk out there, "the thing I hate most") about the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh (which is where my current gigs are being rehearsed and performed) is the constant and overwhelming noise of traffic, and medivac helicopters taking off or landing at one of the myriad UPMC hospitals here.

That's actually a funny stance to take for a guy who lives right on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, but the fact of the matter is that I've spent so much time living in a quite apartment building in Shadyside now, that the contrast of the noise in the area around the theater is really distracting.

I know when I get back to NYC the noise is going to overwhelm me for the first couple of days. There's always a period of readjustment when you've been away for a while and then plop yourself right back into that cacophony.

The last time I was away for a while, I couldn't use my cell phone on the streets, 'cuz I wasn't used to the noise and couldn't hear anything anyone was saying to me. Can't wait for that to happen again.

The End is in Sight

I'm either seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, or an on-rushing train. I'd hoped to have my computer back in my possession yesterday, but alas, that's not happening. Nor am I getting it back today.

As it turned out, the problem with the computer is (or, rather, was) my RAM memory, which had somehow gone bad (can you say "lightening strike?"), and in replacing it, I decided to upgrade to 1 gig from my former 512 MB. This involves, apparently, a rebate of $50, and the guy who's doing the work claims that the computer's all done, but he's waiting for the rebate paperwork. Otherwise, I have to pay the extra $50, and submit the paperwork myself. If I let him fill it out, then I get the rebate instantly and he gets to wait for the moo-lah.

I'm trying not to be suspicious.

Sadly, if this isn't all transacted by tomorrow, I have to wait 'til next week for my computer, since his shop is only open from 1-3 on Friday (damn those Orthodox Jews!), is closed over the weekend, and I have to rehearse 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. tomorrow and Friday.

Obviously, I'm gonna eat the $50 and submit the paperwork myself. There's no freakin' way I'm doing without my computer for the whole weekend!

Is That An Editorial Comment?

I'm doing my best not to take it as some sort of directed editorial comment when attractive (at least, to me) gay men look right through me when I attempt to make eye contact.

Maybe I'm starting to get desperate and my desperation is beginning to show. It's true that gay men, like dogs with fear, can smell desperation and it sends them running.

Oddly, I find myself giving the hairy eyeball to a wider assortment of men than I've ever found attractive before -- bodybuilders, even! When did that happen?

I just encountered this youngish -- maybe 25 y/o - guy who was either carrying a few extra pounds or was a gymoholic. I suspect the latter. Totally not my type, but he did have that sharp jaw I like, and had eyes of the blue that so resemble a deep strata of ice.

I tried to smile at him as we both walked into the Starbucks on Craig, but he looked right through me. Then, in line waiting for service, this Asian guy started chatting him up. Next thing I knew they were laughing it up and smiling. Just strangers connecting while stuck in a queue, but if made me wonder what it is about me that prevents me from making these easy connections. Why is it that I'm so socially awkward that I can't chat a guy up (if I may be allowed to split my infinitive) without him sensing my naked lust, even when it's not there?

I'm left wondering what happened to the easy glibness with which I dazzled people when I was desperate to be liked in the days pre-therapy? Maybe it's like a muscle that, if not used, atrophies and won't work anymore. About the only people I'm able to pull it out for these days are close friends.

Maybe I should take a Dale Carnegie course.

Another reason...

...to love Post Secret: