BOO!

Sicky status: Feeling somewhat better.
Weather: Springier than spring.
Thusly: Jill got to relax outside.
Conclusion: YAY!

Random thing that my brother got to mock at our weekly dinner:
I ate a chocolate-covered ice cream bar. I was in the back seat of the car. It was dark. I dropped chocolate on my shirt. I didn't realize it. It smudged. It looked like I pooped on my boobs.

Really: Not a cool fashion statement.
Sometimes: Jill's just a mess.

Also sometimes: Sentences just appear.



I don't know where they come from.
I occasionally know where they are going.
I might not know what they mean.
It doesn't mean they don't have the right to be there.
It just means inspiration comes when you least expect it.

And: Lately, it doesn't only come with words.

I'm liking the visual experimentation; I'm enjoying the process. It's something I've wanted to get back to for a while.

Also: It's fun to get messy with pastels.

Because, remember:
Sometimes: Jill's just a mess.

And: That's not always a bad thing.

So: How are you today, my darlings?

P.S. Ides, March, beware, et al.

YCD, this is yours, wherever the heck you are.

january 1995. tokyo, japan.
on a layover from bangkok, we wait in narita airport. our return flight is delayed; no reasons are provided the passengers. we are traveling in a large group. we tie our backpacks together, take turns walking around the terminal in pairs and threes, kill time by playing a card game whose rules i can't remember. gazing out our glass enclosure, we spy mount fuji in the distance. moments before exhausted by three weeks climbing pagodas and trawling the red-light district, we're now edgy, restless, taunted by the thought of being stranded in a world we won't get the opportunity to explore.

five hours later, maybe more, all our liquids are confiscated as we get one step closer to boarding. due to an apartment fire in manila two weeks earlier, authorities have uncovered a plot that would have resulted in the explosion of up to eleven u.s. aircraft departing narita on this day--an early phase of ramzi yousef's project bojinka. we get home in one piece, and i've still not been any closer to mount fuji.

august 1995. new york city, usa.
at midnight when we close the theater, we change our clothes and meet in the parking lot at midland beach. so many of us, in concentric circles of cliquedom, all but few loyalties shifting with the sand. but keri wants to dance tonight, and i'm with her. if we leave now, we'll hit the dance floor just as things get interesting. then we can lose everyone else in the crowd, and the darkness, and the trance.

july 1996. new york city, usa.
at work. again. i've stopped counting the hours, but i continue to think. if i have to change one more tank of CO2, count out one more cash register, or inventory one more case of straws, i just. might. kill someone. i can't believe they let barely-post-adolescents run this place. yet every major tenet of management that i will find valuable in the next decade, i learn here.

the next day.
lollapalooza music festival, randall's island arena. thousands upon thousands upon thousands stream in. a humid new york city summer day. metallica. the ramones. and some good younger bands, like rancid and the screaming trees, as a bonus. baggy pants and ripped jeans, goths and ravers and hip-hop kids. i wonder which locales of which multi-billion-dollar conglomerates they'd been running yesterday--whose doors they will unlock tomorrow morning without having slept.

april 1998. london, england.
i climb the steps on the monument in trafalgar square. marble beneath me, i mentally commune with the inanimate admiral nelson. then i gaze at big ben and think, "it's big ben. do i really need to get any closer?" just now, i'd rather watch the pigeons, and the people relaxing or strolling under the momentarily clear sky. i wonder how many of their paths might have crossed mine elsewhere, or might yet again, on some ordinary day in the future.

july 2001. key west, usa.
there's a tremendous, gnarled willow near the hemingway house. i run my fingers over one of the knots on its trunk, wondering how long the tree has lived before me, for how long it might continue after me, and how soon it will be before i see it again.

june 2004. fiesole, italy.
seated high in an ancient amphitheater, i look down upon the outdoor stage installed for the summer festival. its modernity--sleek and black and minimalist--contrasts starkly with the curves of the cypresses and the richness of color in the small valley harboring the etruscan and roman ruins. paradoxically, the presence of the stage, the curtains--the lights, even--doesn't seem paradoxical at all. this amphitheater is what spectacle was; and that stage is what spectacle is; and i want both their spirits in my work. i survey the performance area, imagining all i could do with a theater like this, all i could bring to life on that stage.

july 2004. bayonne, usa.
a native new yorker never can head south without seeing a familiar face. i board a caribbean-bound cruise ship expecting to encounter at least a dozen people i know. it turns out that two people at my dinner table share my zip code, yet not a face on board do i recognize. certainly, someone aboard this ship must have crossed my path at least once before. but who?

and who else might have missed such a crossing by moments or minutes, days or decades; treading the same steps, yet never at the same time; harboring the same spirit, yet never in the same hemisphere?

Freakish, or miraculous, or something.

I know where you want to be right now. And I know how it feels.

I have often wanted to be where I am not. I am occasionally not where I want to be.

Sometimes, you want things so fiercely, you think you might bleed for wanting. Don't stop. When you stop wanting, you stop achieving. Hold the feeling close, as evidence of your extraordinary humanity.

Then, let it go.

Because where you are is just as important as where you are headed.

And wherever you are is special because you are there.

I have reason to believe that we are psychically connected.

I had just typed up my indifference, tendered my resignation as to the position of your amanuensis. (Even if it was perhaps temporary.) I'd even hit send.

The recipient, of course, is not one with the authority to accept such a statement, nor make it official. But she is a secret-keeper, and that for the moment was good enough for me.

I'd been on hiatus, few words (if any) clicking onto my keyboard--beginning to wonder how long I could go without it, and whether I would miss it at all.

I should have known.

We are never on the same schedule. Our Outlooks never synch. That is the problem, and that is the solution. And by solution, I mean inspiration. Timing conflicts yield writing. Correlating itineraries would mean we'd have better things to do. In relation to each other.

I wouldn't have to write.

And you wouldn't have to lurk.

Which would be synergistic. Considering if I weren't writing you'd have nothing to read. And you wouldn't have the time nor inclination to read if we were actually doing what I'd been previously writing about.

We should try that sometime.

Have your people call my people. Maybe someday we'll actually end up with some face time.

Freakish Friday

Do I really have to be coherent on Fridays? I think not. Especially after the two weeks I've had. So Babbling Jill says, "Deliver me from Swedish furniture!" And this is for you, every guy I didn't actually say any of the following things to. You know who you are. Some of you.

*******************

Yes, I noticed the way you just looked at me, and I'm going to pretend like I didn't, and just continue with this group conversation, and once you get out of the doorway so that I don't have to pass you, you're going to go into your office and I'm going to go into my office and we are going to pretend like I didn't see that, okay? Great.

*******************

Remember when we first spoke, and we both tried to speak at the same time? I knew from then that you were a worthy adversary.

*******************

I don't want your souvenirs, you selfish self-loathing coward. Give them to your girlfriend.

*******************

Yes, I've heard your voice.

*******************

Don't hold my hand, you narcissistic sonofabitch.

*******************

Yes, I know that you put it into your pocket. And then took it out again. And then you put it someplace safe. Where it still lives. And you take it out now and then, when you've been drinking wine. To wind down.

*******************

The neck thing? Brownie points. But no more tequila.

*******************

You say you like intelligent women. You think you do. But what you mean is, as long as they're not more intelligent than you. And if they are, then they shouldn't be attractive.

*******************

You are not impressing me. You will impress me even less by trying to intimidate the hot scuba instructor. And by the way, it won't work. That guy could take you any day of the week. But he won't bother.

*******************

Truly, I wasn't expecting that to be there. But what a lovely surprise.

*******************

Feel free to borrow this idea as well. You are welcome to all my words.

*******************

Boy, I can only hope you will think fondly upon the chick that taught you those dance moves. You will soon be very dangerous. Go forth and get some.

*******************

And to a certain gal, who would be able to direct all thse messages to their appropriate recipients: I know you won't. But I hope I entertained you.

Tune in tomorrow. When I make sense again. Maybe.

A Long December

...and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last...

Happy New Year to all! And when I say that, I mean the actual year, coming up, not just this arbitrary pseudo-holiday that everyone makes a big deal over even though no one really wants to go out on a night when every place is more expensive than usual, and more over-crowded than usual, and everyone is drunker than usual, and therefore more idiotic than usual, so very few people actually have a good time, because most people are ruminating on the big symbolic gesture of the calendar change, or trying not to ruminate upon it so they're...uh...getting drunker and more idiotic than usual. Forget that. I mean, here's to 2006!

Go out if you want to, stay in if you want to, shut the tv off it you want to. Don't think everyone else out there is having more fun than you are. They're not. Really. I've been to Times Square on New Year's and got nothing but vomited upon by some Canadian kids. The most exciting part of it is going through the subway turnstile without having to pay. Can you imagine trying to sell Metrocards to the drunken masses after the ball drops? Good plan with the free subways, boys.

So I say, do whatever you damn well please on New Year's Eve. Just be safe about it.

And now we interrupt this regularly scheduled post for a personal message.

Happy Birthday to an old friend, Tim (aka the YTK) . And by old, I don't mean, "ha ha ha, tell me how 31 turns out for ya", I mean, "known him a long time".

In fact, here's a picture of the two of us from the year we met. Obviously this was taken on Halloween (one would hope), but I'll let you guess the year. (It's not "guessing" if you know us IRL and actually know the answer.)

Hey Tim, remember how we went to Times Square on, like, the coldest New Year's Eve in New York in, like, recorded history, and those Canadians were vomiting all over the place? Wasn't it, like, so not fun?

By the way, Timmy, this comic strip is for you. I ripped it out of a newspaper ages ago, and it's been on my magnetic wall of insanity ever since, just waiting to be sent to you...

And now back to my rant...

Forget this December 31 into January 1 poop. As said earlier: arbitrary. Every day is a chance to make your life better and go out and get what you want.

Except today. Because there are all those amateur drunks on the road. So stay safe. See you in 2006.

Borrowed Words

It is as if I’ve always known you. The way the details fall into place—the tilt of your head, the line of your back, the crisscross of your arms folded in front of you. I watch you walk and know it is you. "Oh, THERE you are," I think. But I have never seen you walk before this day.

I think I am imagining things, the way I am imagining history to fill in the crevices—places you’ve been, places you’ve loved, the things you love to do. Songs you sing when no one’s listening, songs you sing in your sleep. Until they turn out to be true. This is more than imagining. “I know exactly who you are,” you tell me. I don't doubt it.

I have always known you. I know it, but somehow don’t believe it. Without you. I don’t believe it without you. With you, there is no question; without you, it is lost. Because I am afraid. What I don’t admit: I want someone to tell me it is more than just imagining. No one else can. The hints between two people who have known each other all their lives but only just recently met seem obvious to only them. No one else can really know this. No one speaks that language they share.

You’d tell me, if I’d ask. But I don’t. It’s not something I know how to ask. The words aren’t there. And in those moments when I could try, when you're listening, there's no need.

A heartfelt thank you to the insightful people from whom I borrowed the italicized lines. Cupcake and Brandon, if only I could sing on key, I'd serenade you both.

Sexy Geeks: The Great Chain of Blogdom

The first time I read Brooke's blog, it was because Brando made a reference to her lust-love-adoration for Viggo Mortensen. Viggo is the thinking woman's pin-up, a sexy geek. I knew I'd have to share him, but I wanted to find out with whom. I knew I had to virutally meet her.

As I read her posts, I began to suspect that we'd have a great deal more in common than a shared lust for the Heir to Isildur.

You see, I can't just refer to him by his name; I have to make a geeky reference. The thing is, I am a geek. A big geek. But a sexy geek, as explained so eloquently by ChickyBabe, whose blog I discovered when Steph made a luscious post about intimacy which I was totally inspired by. Steph said that it was ChickyBabe that gave her the courage to put that post out there. So I clicked, and saw my own lust of sexy geeks laid bare on the screen, and was further inspired to continue my What It's Like to Be Me musings. Which may refer to some sexy geeks I have known, who may continue to inspire me. A post which, incidentally, Brooke enjoyed very much. Which makes me think she might be interested in reading about my continued inspiration. In a story I would tell if...

Just if.

Does she have some similar stories? The kind of stories that I desperately want to hear?

The things we want to hear most are the things that most consume our own brains.

My brain is consumed. There are things that I've been trying to express. Things I will write about some day, perhaps with Names...Changed to Protect the Innocent. Or perhaps not.

(By the way, that link is to a lyrical description of a blogger who doesn't actually remain nameless and who may or may not be a sexy geek, by another blogger whose style of writing begs me to sit down and dish about "What It's (Really) Like to Be Me".)

And what, pray tell, is that like? I'm sure you've all figured out that "I am deeply fascinated with what it is like to be a man." And I am especially fascinated by a man like ChickyBabe would be if she could be A Man For a Day, which is something similar to what Brooke brought up when she commented on my "deeply fascinated" post. (Completely inspired by--you guessed it--sexy geek lust.)

I daresay these gals have been there.

Where?

You know, there.

In a place that makes you write something like: "The hints between two people who have known each other all their lives but only just recently met seem obvious to only them. "

A sentence I covet, posted a few days ago by Brando, from whose blog I linked to Cupcake Central, where my computer froze before I could be sure my comment posted to the blog's author, Cupcake Grrl, who I discovered to have left me a message in Brando's comments soon after, to which I responded in tandem with mentioning that I'd been reminded of Brando while listening to Journey songs on my ride home, which was apparently eerie for Brando, who told me that he may someday explain it to me if not beat to it by Cupcake Grrl, who wrote so eloquently about her love for Casey, who is now in puppy heaven with my beloved Sydney,

who incidentally was named, in part, after the city in which Steph and ChickyBabe reside. And in which Brooke apparently had an adventure or two.

Coincidence? I think not.

Of course Brando's sentence wants to live in that post that I would write about that story I would tell.

And this whole post began because Brooke did the "3 Things" meme, and I commented that we seem to have so much in common--so she suggested that I do it as well.

Brooke, there are other things I'd rather tell you about. I'll tell my napkins until I get the words just right.

Why should it stop there? Update. Cupcake Grrl just posted the most beautiful thing about loving with "sincere inherent tenderness", a phrase that also wants to live in the post that I have not yet written. "Oh, THERE you are." All of you.

And it should go without saying that all the women of whom I write are rightfully called sexy geeks themselves. As are all of my readers, of course!

A Jimmy Buffett-Themed Circular Stream of Consciousness

Next week, I plan to jump on the bandwagon of a meme created by Amy that I found at the blog of Chief Slacker. It's called "Wist Wednesday." The idea is this: you put your digital music player of choice onto random/shuffle and listen to the first five songs that come up. You write the memories that you associate with each song, or (if you've never heard the song before) your first impressions. Be wistful.

You may or may not know that I am obsessed with my mp3s. So I immediately had to try this. Of course, it's not yet Wednesday--but that's okay, because the seventh song that came up was a Jimmy Buffett. I have a mighty eclectic music collection, and I would not say that Buffet is one of those artists who really defines my tastes, but for some reason, his music always elicits a rich stream of impressions from my subconscious. So today, rather than jump ahead and do a WW entry on Friday, I'm going to share A Jimmy Buffett-Themed Circular Stream of Consciousness.

Earlier this year. Weather is nasty in New York. My friend Brian picks me up. "I sure could go for a margarita," he says. "This weather sucks." Indeed, the weather sucks. But as I am supposed to be helping Brian revise a chapter from a book he is writing, and we are on a deadline, the whole idea of stopping at the crappy local pseudo-Mexican food chain in the mall to guzzle margaritas gets nixed by my more responsible side. Or Catholic guilt. We sing "Margaritaville" as we drive to the bookstore instead.

"Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, but I know it's nobody's fault."

Eerily similar to the theme of Brian's writing. By the last chapter, he should realize "it's [his] own damn fault."

His friend Brian calls from L.A. We walk into the bookstore as N.Y. Brian picks up his cell.
L.A. Brian: What are you doing?
N.Y. Brian: Not drinking margaritas, I'll tell you that.
L.A. Brian: Holy crap, I'm listening to Jimmy Buffett right now.
N.Y. Brian: (walking directly into a big publicity stand filled with copies of Buffet's recent book, A Salty Piece of Land) No kidding.

"The gods," NY Brian tells me, "are telling us to get some fucking tequila."

This is not the first man to have said this to me. Perhaps in those exact words.

Cinco de Mayo, 1997. My last semester of college. I commuted to NYU, so I remained in my hometown for college. Most of the partying I did during this period of my life was with my co-workers at a local movie theater. We mostly went to undergound clubs and unknown parties, and danced to house and techno until sunrise. But for some reason, I was living the typical college life this semester--as in, drinking incessantly with a bunch of people from school. During the month of April, we were drunk at least 20 out of 30 days. (Let me state most emphatically that this was not my typical lifestyle.)

"The gods," Insane Designer tells me, "are telling us to get some fucking tequila."

The Insane Designer is nine years older than I am. He is living with his girlfriend. He is in a position of authority. I think, "Why the fuck not! I'm 21! I'm graduating college! Screw it!"

Note: If the first thought that comes into your mind is "Why the fuck not!" that's generally a good sign that there are quite a few good reasons NOT to embark on whatever the hell type of stupidity you are about to embark upon.

Later that week, I graduate college. The ceremony is in the morning. I am still drunk from the night before. We have a few more drinks to pre-celebrate. I meet up with my parents, who want to go out for a late lunch.

"So," my father says, "let's celebrate. How about a few margaritas?"

(Notice he did not say "The gods are telling us to get some fucking tequila." Though if you know my father, you know he was probably thinking that.)

So we go to the actually-good Mexican place a little further from my house whose only drawback is that they don't serve dessert. Oh, and there's usually an hour wait. But, it's 2pm on Thursday afternoon. And we celebrate my graduation.

Three weeks or so later, ID and I and several other people who may not want me to mention their names are still drinking tequila. We celebrate ID's 31st birthday with seven rounds of margaritas. Then, we go to another bar, play pool, mix three rounds of stuff that should NOT be mixed with tequila. I never drink more than 2 margaritas in a row again...(well, until recently.)

Not even when I actually go to Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffett's restaurant chain.

Summer 2001. BF and I go to Key West. As I am still anti-tequila, I owe most of my drunken quality time to the Hemingway Hammer, a sweet slushy special of Sloppy Joe's, which contains none of the cursed liquor. Or none that I could taste, anyway. We do eat in Margaritaville, where I buy a bumper sticker...

"We are the people they couldn't figure out / We are the people our parents warned us about."

I buy an extra for a dear friend who also survived the margarita binge of '97. (Not ID, who by this time was no longer a fixture in my life.) My bumper sticker hangs on one of the Ikea-purchased magnetic boards that I lined my home office wall with.

That Jimmy Buffett, so freakin' quotable.

And you know who really enjoys quoting Jimmy Buffett songs? People who are obsessed with cruising the Caribbean. There is a whole subculture of people who haunt message boards, discuss how many days until their next cruise, and quote Jimmy Buffett songs.

I am so not kidding right now.

How did I discover this cyber-cult, you ask? Good question.

July 2004. BF and I go on a Caribbean cruise. I drink no margaritas. (Why bother? Royal Caribbean makes some sort of ambrosial slushy concoction that definitely involves coconut milk. I have no need of tequila.) Jimmy Buffett songs waft through the air--a capella, acoustic, steel drums, actual recordings...

For reasons that have nothing to do with Jimmy Buffett, I decide to write an essay about my cruise experience. When I go home, I start Googling the cruise industry. I come across these websites of cruise-addicted Jimmy Buffett-quoters. It's like a car wreck; I can't tear my eyes away. Freakily fascinating. Everone thinks they're "a son of a sailor," yearns for "one particular harbor" and simply cannot wait until they are "wasting away again in Margaritaville." I mock, but damn if I don't want to join them there.

I send a few emails, make a few phone calls, and end up interviewing a cruise line employee. I am on the phone, sitting by my computer. Thirty minutes or so into the discussion, I take a shot in the dark: "So do you have an iPod?"

Silence.

"Uh..right here."

He sounds a bit weirded out, as if for a second he thought I might have been peering through the phone line at him fiddling with his buttons.

This is promising. There's nothing I love more than getting my hands on the iPods of intriguing new friends. I glance up at the bumper sticker over my desk and mouth a silent prayer to Neptune. "So it's not just filled with Jimmy Buffett songs, is it?"

Actually, I might have brought up disco first, considering this is a guy who gets paid to promote kitsch. (And let me cover my butt and say he does a damn fine job of it!) But I tried to say it in the most charming way possible. I swear.

"I listen to all sorts of music," he says. "Except 50 Cent. I'd really rather be listening to Van Halen."

I thank Neptune for men with good musical tastes and fascinating iPods to match.

A few months later. Brian and I are supposed to be revising a play I am working on. A play based on my essay. Which was based on my cruise. I meet him at his house. It is Monday afternoon. We get into his car.

"The gods, " he says, "are telling us to get some fucking tequila."

"Ya think?" Revising that play was kicking my butt. "Why the fuck not!"

So we go to the crappy Mexican place in the mall. Order a few Monster-itas (or whatever they called them.) Then we wander around the mall. Stupidly buzzed. Acting like idiots. Teenagers even.

We are the people our parents warned us about.

(Slackers with no health insurance and nothing to do but wander a mall drunk on a Monday afternoon.*)

*We've each managed to arrange some health insurance since then.

Incubate Myself. Forswear Nothing.

I'm not exactly sure what that means, but that's what came out when I started rearranging the magnetic poetry on Kim's refrigerator. If I were more motivated, I could get out the rest of her magnetic poetry set and see what else comes out, but what I probably should do is track down some food, prepare lessons (considering I resume teaching on Monday), and write at least a scene from one of the plays that I am working on so that when I go to the writing group meeting tonight, everyone else won't think I've spent the past few weeks staring at walls.

Actually I've been working hard, just not on the plays. I've been working at the Fringe Festival, and whenever I'm not at FringeCENTRAL, I'm trying to see as much theater as I possibly can, and talk to as many other theater-obsessed people as I can, and just trying to get myself into the proper mindset to get through drafts of these two plays. Especially the one that I am avoiding. About Richie and Jude and being a kid back on 11th avenue and 9/11 and how painfully blue the sky is in New York at this time of year. Am I avoiding it because it's not ready to be written or am I avoiding it because it's a really emotional subject and it's just much easier and more enjoyable to write comedy?

I suppose I am getting ready to Incubate Myself.

As far as the Forswear Nothing part...well, let's just say I'm going to try to keep an open mind to the messages that the universe seems to be slapping me in the face with recently. Otherwise, I have a few friends who would be only too happy to do some literal slapping of my face.

Someone Else Who Answers to Lally

Lally is my new friend. Most of my family calls me Lally. (How's that for Jill trivia?) Lally is the only other person I've ever met who answers to "Lally." This is only one of the ways that this may be the strangest connection I've made with a perfect stranger since Kim didn't even blink when I announced a burning desire to chop up one of the other members of our Drama Since WWII class. If you knew my life, you'd know that for this to be the "strangest connection...", well...it's going to have to be really, really strange. The condition of someone being a complete stranger does nothing to stop me from saying exactly what I'm thinking. Except in really, really, really strange cases. But that's a story for another time. For me to self-censor, you know it's gotta be a winner. And now I fear I have over-used the word strange, and perhaps been too lazy to find a better candidate.

Lally comes to FringeCENTRAL, and I am helping her take care of administrative ticket-buying stuff for the performances of her play, The Eisteddfod. We discuss real estate. We feel we should own some. Other people, younger than we are, are making us look bad. Playwriting isn't immediately the most lucrative of professions.

Yesterday, I go see the show's first performance. I'm in the lobby, rifling through my bag, looking for my staff access badge. "I love your necklaces," she says, "or is it one?"

"It's one," I tell her. "I actually wrote about it in one of my essays."

"Can I read it?" she asks.

I watch the play. I love the play. It's absurd and dark and wickedly funny and true while still retaining the air of the imaginary. "Your writing style," I tell her, "it's spare, and the characters have this intriguing darkness to them."

"Come out for dinner with us," she invites, and later answers my thought, "We think we we're attracted to people for their light, but it's their dark side that keeps us intrigued." We giggle wickedly and I tell her that that's exactly what I'm writing about right now. "I have to read it," she says.

Lally is a waitress. "Hospitality and theater," she believes, "are really so much the same. You're putting on a show whether you're accomodating guests or on stage." I marvel that that's almost word for word what I wrote in one of my essays. She's up for reading that as well. Oddly enough, it's the same essay that prominently features the necklace she loves so much. This is getting freakier by the second. It's not like she's reading my mind; it's like all the stuff in my head is in hers as well. What the heck else is in there? What the hell else is in this essay, she wants to know.

Eventually, I have to leave to meet Kim and go to the egg-breaking show. Lally and I exchange all sorts of contact information and plan to do lunch or dinner or whatever before she goes home. "You really ought to come to Melbourne," she tells me, "You would love it." It's always been on my to-do list, I tell her. We part ways on 9th Street. "This is so funny," she says, "I feel like I have a new friend."


Ok, so besides the fact that I've just befriended the playwright, you all should go see The Eisteddfod. First of all, you know that I can't be friends with someone if I don't really respect their work. But also, the direction is superb, the visual design is striking and spare, the lighting is used creatively to perfect effect, the soundscape is unnervingly haunting, and the acting is phenomenal. The cast of two, Jessamy and Luke--it's impossible to take your eyes off them. She evokes such a wounded vulnerability with this character, it was surreal to be discussing silliness and shoe-shopping with her only an hour later. And he is an absolute chameleon, shifting with seeming effortlessness from puppy-dog passiveness to abject humiliation to raw masculine command. The theater company is Stuck Pigs Squealing. They have six more shows during the festival, then are remaining in NYC for an August 31-September 10 run at Ontological-Hysteric Theatre.

The Other Six Halves of My Brain--well, one of them, at least

Brian is one of my best friends. We met at rehearsal for some lame musical that he was performing in and I was painting sets for. It was 1992. We were sixteen. Going on seventeen. The show was NOT The Sound of Music.

We somehow discovered that we both had a fondness for classic rock, clear gummi bears, and the theme song to The Great Space Coaster. We also had a knack for predicting people’s defining personality traits based on their answers to a few seemingly random questions, one of which involved gummi bear color preference. It was like a Rorshach test for the new millennium. We were frighteningly accurate in our deductions. It freaked people out. This was clearly a match made in heaven.

When such a relationship comes along, the random things that you have in common are just the shorthand way to express a connection that you really have no other words to define. Occasionally I get even lazier and just say that he has the other half of my brain. If scientifically possible, though, this would be mathematically inaccurate, because I have had the great fortune to have encountered about half a dozen people who could have been dealt the other half of my brain. Luckily, sharing my brain means they don't mind if I write about them.

Our brain-sharing provoked gossip. On more than one occasion, I was followed into the girls’ bathroom by some moony-eyed member of the Brian Fan Club wanting to know what exactly I did to earn his unwavering affection. Then I nearly got kicked out of school for some bullshit that involved a rumor about us that was not true.

Trust me. I would have known if this one was true.

The principal backed down once I told her that I wasn’t going to respond any further unless she called in my mother, my guidance counselor, and my lawyer. Next time I got called into the principal’s office, it was because she needed help changing the film in her 35mm camera.

If we provoked this kind of gossip within only weeks of meeting, what the hell kind of trouble could we get each other into if we remained friends? In the thirteen years of research known as our friendship…well…we haven’t been arrested together yet. And we haven’t gone bungee jumping. Yet. Mostly our friendship is based on the mutual support of getting ourselves into situations that other people would counsel us to avoid. I rather recall several people counseling me to avoid him. Clearly, trying to talk me out of places, people, or things that I feel drawn to doesn't work so well.

Brian doesn’t get me into trouble. I do it myself. I pick up and go places other people don’t, geographically and/or mentally. I look at the line in the sand and say, “hey, I wonder what it looks like from the other side.” Then I step over. So does he. Then we just sort of magically appear when the other wakes up face down in the sand. At high tide.

I never liked making mistakes. Despite the fact that I often got myself into trouble, people always thought it seemed out of character because I was “such a good student.” I believed them. They were wrong. Making mistakes is not out of character for me. Getting into trouble is not out of character for me. Your messes define you, more than your successes ever could.

A lot of people back in high school would have enjoyed the thought of one of us stabbing the other in the back with a rusty fork. I was always rather upfront about my conviction that such a thing wouldn’t happen. Forget all that "giving part of yourself" bullshit. Some people just show up with it already in their pocket. And you never really doubt that it’s safe there.

A Prose Ode to Keri and Mind-Melding

Just got back from sushi with the long-lost Keri. (Okay, she wasn’t really “lost,” but I couldn’t find her.) Keri and I spent about 80 hours a week together for several years back in the mid 90s: working together in the UA, commuting to NYU, and getting into all sorts of after-hours scrapes that usually involved:

* our cars—the Ick and Keri's Cherry, aka the No Fear Cavalier (renegade steer clear…)
* compulsive playing of CDs by a random assortment of bands.
* mixed tapes of our own and cassettes made by DJs no one else had ever heard of. Yes, people were still making mixed tapes then. My God, we’re absolutely archaic. We went from grunge to house to punk to rock to disco and back again. Eclectic, yes; boring, never.
* girls who hated us (there were a lot of them)
and
* boys we’d just met (uh, them too. I use the word "boys" purposefully.)

Which brings up a few thoughts…

You know you’ve finally healed the wounds of the jobs you resented when you can think about the uniforms (purple & teal???) and really, truly laugh. I know there’s a million of you out there who can relate to this. So if you think it’s been long enough to have healed all those post-adolescent soap opera hurts, I urge you—find someone that “knew you when” and take a trip down memory lane.

Mind-melding: Some people, from the first day you have a conversation, can read your mind and finish your sentences. When you’re talking to each other, you both get ideas at the same instant and blurt them out, but then you have to go back and start again because you each missed what the other was saying. And usually, when you repeat it…well, you were both saying the same thing anyway. It’s scary, but it’s fun-scary. You only get a handful of these people in your lifetime. They don’t flinch when you tell them how many gigs of mp3s you have on your external hard drive or how many CDs or DVDs are sitting alphabetized in the corner of your room. Keep these people around. Don’t let them fall out of your life no matter how far away they may be.

Although, if they do fall out of your life, when they drop back in, it’s as if they were never gone. But you knew that’s how it would be, didn’t you?

Sometimes they give you presents and sometimes they give you scars. They’re equally valuable. Even that scar that you have on your hand from the night you carried her from your friend’s backyard down into the basement bathroom because she drank too much, and she fell onto you and you both fell into the stucco wall, but you were able to hold both of you up and get out of it with only a squiggly bloody scratch on the knuckle of your right ring finger. And in the lyrics of the ONE quotable Goo Goo Dolls song, "Scars are souvenirs you never lose." As far as the psychological scars from holding someone’s hair back all night while she’s vomiting…well, no one asks you about those because they can’t see them. But they’re just as valuable as a snapshot would be.

Oh, you did take a picture? Well, don’t put it out there on the internet, ok?

And back up those tapes digitally (the bootleg ones of things you can’t get in mp3). You know you’ve still got them somewhere. Analog degenerates, you know.