kerouac says

i'm often on the look-out for small behavioral traits that might be emblematic of a person's entire person, and once in a while i notice one in myself.

i am the kind of person who:

can completely forget that the phone is ringing in the silent spots between the ring tones.

at the audition, this terrible and completely innocent woman was saying, "i do shakespeare. but i do it like a new york broad. you know? that way, it sounds real. it sounds real. i do it with all the emotion and everything. just like modern day."

it was awful. and the awfulness didn't quite move me to tears in front of the auditor, though i'm embarassed to say i hoped it would. it moved me to, like, ennui and moderate discomfiture.

the good news is that the monkey's interview with the agent went well. in fact, it sounds like he's in. which is precious good news, indeed. i only wish i didn't feel like we'll forever be on separate golf courses. i'm afraid, maybe prematurely, that it's the same as it ever was: he's on his way to the country club while i fear in my heart what the next ten years will be like on the municipal green.

i'm trying to be nice. i'd have to be a monster not to be pleased. i feel kind of cold, though. between all this and the argument we had this morning about the freaking state of popcorn in the kitchen, of all things, it's been a longer day than you'd think.

grrrah.

off to some awful garage for another open call at another off-off-broadway theatre. i swear to god. maybe i won't even go.

the quebecois version of american idol is entirely superior.

hmm. a small bird is telling me that no one has read this blog since october 16th. i wonder if that's true.

i had a naptime dream about sonya last week. she had taken out a space in a shopping mall and called it "the hideout," and it was a place where girls could go to play with makeup and make clothes out of blankets. there was also a weird spinning maypole with lots of white strings on it.

i went out with the best one last night. the best one pretends to be an ingenue, but she is actually a longshoreman. if you have ever seen her light a cigarette from a bar candle, you know what i mean. she drank me under the table. she's also responsible for our conversation with a man in a black turtleneck who told us he was retired at thirtysomething, owned five clubs, produces films, just came back alone from a two hundred dollar dinner, and is flying to eastern europe in december to pick out a wife. i find all of this hard to believe, because the man smoked newport menthols.

this reminds me of when i lived in a carriage house apartment in florida and was visited by my first ever census-taker, who introduced himself as "dogfish" and didn't blink when i told him i identified ethnically as uruguyan.

i was called back for a showcase this week. it was a small tingle of recognition, although i'm almost ashamed to feel that way about a second audition at a theatre that shares its space with a geriatric day care facility in brooklyn. it's a good play, but the call-back lasted over four hours. worse, due to a mid-evening switch to a new plan when we started running really behind, i got seen less and in fewer scenes than most of the other young women auditioning. after looking at the evening as objectively as i can, i think i was the most able actor they saw, but what with my being on the short end of the stick schedule-wise, i'm not sure that came across. i left pretty dejected. i phoned the monkey from the train platform at eleven and told him i wasn't sure what was worse, that the only opportunity i had to speak of was a tiered showcase in park slope, or that i couldn't even say with confidence i'd auditioned well enough to get *that*.

then i left my gloves on the train.

that part was okay, though, because the monkey, with surprise and perfect timing showed up on the corner to walk me home from the train, and he took my books and gave me his own hat and gloves and let me sniffle about how hard i have it.

winston churchill says, "never never never give up."

yesterday, on the train, two unacquainted babies were parked next to each other in large prams. their mothers were making conversation, and the babies were eyeing each other. one was more outgoing, and eventually stretched out a hand to the other. and then kind of bopped him with it, but not in a mean way, just to say, hey. i'm here. you can touch me. and then the other one touched him back.

they grinned and mugged at each other, and the more outgoing one started phonating all sorts of baby communique, and then he noticed that his shyer companion had a well in the front tray of his stroller filled with dry cereal. he slowly dipped index and thumb pincers into the cheerio reservoir, watching to see if it was okay. no reaction from shyer baby. mister congeniality did it again. and a third time. and then took his whole and and smashed it down inside the well to grab as much cereal as possible. shy baby did not let this pass, and jammed his own tiny potato hand in there as well. there was a tense moment--their screwed up little faces!--but when it passed, both babies emerged with fists of cereal, triumphant and pleased with each other.

after a low key day of cleaning and lounging, the monkey said, "want to go to the cute bar on the corner we've never been to?" so we did, and within minutes of being served our five dollar guiness and three-fifty draft heineken, the waitress offered us free hotdogs from the stockpot on the hot plate, and the couple next to us, who'd won "the pool" this week, bought us drinks. it was like the geary club all over again.

the geary club was this tiny closet of a bar that the asshole and i went to when i was still underage and living with him in the tenderloin, in san francisco. he and his friends had sort of colonized the bar, and because they were the only non-homeless people under fifty there, they were immediately lionized and beloved by the clientele and staff alike. the nicest beer they had there was beck's, and we all drank bud with lime, little slices sticking out of the bottles. no one ever asked for my driver's license. i always felt like we were making fun of the place, a little bit, but i also sort of legitimately enjoyed it, since i could be taken at face value there. it was the first time i felt the pleasure of taking tips home in your pocket and then buying your boy a beer with them on the corner.

what was i saying? i think, just: i remember things about living in the poor neighborhood all the time. never the dastardly, dangerous poor neighborhood, but the one where the beer at the corner bar doesn't get better than heineken and only costs three fifty. i cooked beans from a can for dinner and was glad to have them. this maybe light years away from my software job, but i won't lie and say it wasn't what i was looking for.

my boyfriend is in the kitchen making me a steak. i'm drinking cheap but adequate moltepulciano. we had an argument but then had semi-dirty sex and fixed up the apartment. we went shopping and spent money wisely and still had fun. i live in the same town where blossom dearie
performs--what is she, eighty? i can't believe

--and this goes for the whole list--

i can't believe i'm this lucky.

it should have been enough warning that the show was named after a communicable disease.

some of the worst theatre gets accomplished in the name of edgy-ness. edginess? as if being shocked (by depravity, by volume, by number of swears, by boob-juggling, which happened tonight) were the same as the catharsis of genuine surprise. this play was also occasionally harrassing to audience members, under the guise of being genre-bustingly "interactive." insulting people who paid you money to hear what you had to say may be legal, but it's really a sucky thing to do, at least when it's absent of innovation or an interesting vehicle.

maybe nearing thirty is softening me, but oh, i'd love to see some shaw with crisp accents and pretty clothes and quick actors and smart, smart words. i've seen ] four shows, i think, since i came to new york a month ago--broadway, off, and fringe, and except for half of one of them, they have been uniformly bad.

maybe i should just watch more law and order.

this morning, on the train, as i was remembering that i'd forgotten my notes about where i was going--and, to be fair, it was six thirty in the morning--i noticed somebody reading an "Hoy" paper with the giant headline:

"FERRY DEL MUERTO!"

i started to laugh, and then i remembered the accident and felt pretty shitty.

two of my favorite things. robot arms, and monkeys.

again with the leaving the house at six thirty to stand on line for three hours. this time i got to read a paragraph. the monkey asked how it went. i said, it wasn't even an audition. it was three sentences. it's like walking into that cruddy linoleum studio and saying to the casting director, hi, my name is louella and today i'm going to do fifteen feet of verse from romeo and juliet and the note B flat. my mother said on the phone, how can anyone know what you can do from that?

oh, they don't. whatever.

after boasting aloud and just before bedtime about my quick and able transition to city life, i had a dream that i dropped by kay's apartment and was welcomed the way i always am, and she kept up a steady chatter ("and my dad had to admit he worked for duracell, you know, but he had a hoodie covering his tan") and told me about the very floppy christmas tree on her table ("this year, i bought an easy tree." "please tell me it's spelled EZ." "it is!") and pottered about with her hair pasted up in some sort of deep conditioning masque, which was being weighted down to her head with antique spoons. and i woke up crying a little bit, because even though this is the land of opportunity and no one gets to be on _law and order_ by staying home, there isn't everything here. there isn't driving in your car on a whim to your friends' house and picking up some hard lemonade and walking to the park to play touch football. i remember when something like that wasn't a major effort; it was just saturday. and there's a small rebel yell in my chest (one that sounds suspiciously like a four year old) that cries foul about that being over and done.

i'm off to go stand in a rejection line. bringing: book, compact, extra lipstick, large photo of face and a magic energy shield that keeps damaging rays out of my sphere. pzing! pzow!

it's time to get busy.

i'm sure this apartment is full of reasons i can't get three things done before close of business, but i'm not going to hear it. i'm going to be a model citizen today.

the hot water is supposedly getting fixed today, too. zap!

(yeah, you got zapped.)

when something bad happens to someone you love, you can pick up the phone, and you can open your arms, and you can take off of work early or buy the drinks or buy the plane ticket or do the couch sitting, quietly, in the dark, but . . . sometimes i'm quackified that at the very inside of it, the badness is currently happening to someone else. not that i'd want it to happen to me, but it's such a binary issue: happened to you, did not happen to you--that i'm sometimes afraid that any words of sympathy i offer will sound hollow, coming as they do from the garden of someone who didn't have the badness strike.

there isn't much i wouldn't do for the best one, i'll tell you that. and i know better than to think she'd ever judge my attempts to be a pal in times of need. i'm just struck by how clear the divide is in times of stress and terror: it's happening to you, or it's not. like my mom's lung spot. i guess you just stand by with a toolbox full of warm drinks and good thoughts and wait and wait and wait.

it's late! and i watched the daily show on our stolen cable. and i got off the train yesterday and found that all the stops were different, re-named (this is something i could make up, but it's real, godtellin', ) and i thought i was on a phantom train. and now, i made popcorn. and he's waiting tables near union square. and i'm about to put the welcome home note on the front door, and i could not love him more if it were, like, my *religion.*

it got to me this morning, the having nothing to do. i may have projects, and i may sort of work on them day to day, but moving to new york isn't so much about my house projects, even the best ones. the monkey left for is six thousandth audition this morning (this is not true, and he is also disconcerted by not having work, but in my grass-is-greener brattiness i somehow believe i am the greater martyr because i don't belong to the effing union and can't go to the early morning EPAs he kills himself to get to), and i was envious. also, i looked at his resume while it was printing and suddenly felt like mine was made out of macaroni and yarn. i can't do much about the lack of auditions--and let me speak of this a moment: who would have guessed? i know i'm new here and like anywhere, the really good stuff happens under the covers in a bed you have to charm and prove your way into, but . . . i guess i thought new york would be different. it's the land of opportunity! the streets are paved with cheese! i pore over the audition listings in every periodical i can find, and i swear to god once you've eliminated the musicals and the folks who only need black and latino men, there are not a lot of parts for the non-union ingenue. at all.

anyway. i was going to say, so maybe i'll go to the zoo today. been wanting to. and i'm starting to get scared of what will happen if i continue to stay in the apartment so much.



lemme also tell you that we hung out at the dog park yesterday, and there was a great dane, three or so medium sized retrievers, a pug and a chihuahua. they were racing around in a pack--the pug most seriously of all--and then, another great dane came in. they looked like dinosaurs next to the other dogs. and you could tell they were so happy not to be alone in the world, to have found a friend who saw eye-to-eye with them, ten hands high.

and then one dog humped *everybody.* he was, like, the designated humper.

um, the end.

well. i'm going to be published. in a new anthology of monologues written by women, for women. small overall success, maybe, but it's a welcome message that someone wants my work. and there will be paper in libraries with my words on them.

and, possibly, college girls in black or flowered or velvet dresses learning the words for their heartbreaking acting classes. sigh. life is a circle, man.

but first: welcome to the world, cosmo davis.

(also, if you know bianca and know about the ear thing, you should look at this picture..)



i was sick yesterday. and i have to admit, that even though i genuinely did not feel good--you know the first day a cold really hits? how gross it is?--i was not really, technically, extremely sick. i knew i could afford a day in bed and i had a magical boyfriend to tend to me, and i just gave in.

it was marvellous. i slept all day. the monkey made me soup from scratch with an actual chicken. he bought ritz crackers and seltzer. he didn't mind when i didn't go to the laundromat with him. and most of all, most of all, he was warm and perfect and dear and everything i want to be around. there isn't any heaven like having the right people with you. i missed a date with the best one, and i'm sorry about that, but: it was maybe worth it to find out that the monkey is such a nurse.

i almost forgot. the best one sent this along, after receiving it from the misguided capitalists at Evite:

"Dear Evite Newsletter Subscriber,

Yesterday we mailed a newsletter to our subscribers with incorrect dates for three important Holidays. Please accept our sincerest apologies for these errors and note the following corrections:

Labor Day, September 1st
Rosh Hashanah, September 27th
Yom Kippur, October 6th

In addition, we also wish to apologize for having listed Yom Kippur as one of our "Reasons To Party". We understand and respect that Yom Kippur is a Day of Atonement, a day to be taken seriously to reflect and fast, and as such, one of the most important Jewish Holidays in the year.

Again we deeply apologize for the error and thank you for allowing us to make this correction.

Very Best,
The Evite Team"

just came back from hearing Z play in a bar with all our old cronies from the bad year at grad school. i guess i was surprised that i had missed them, that i cared how they had been. one in particular, the boyman i got along the worst with at first back then, i saw him and my little heart lept up. i'm surprised i missed them, but i did. isn't that funny.

well. apparently the russians aren't in the mood.