Saturday, January 31, 2004

 

all the pretty colors.

i got a cold--possibly an audition cold from the three hours in frigid pre-dawn soho. i took some stuff in orange capsules that the monkey gave me. at the end of the workshop today, i also had three coronas and a chorizo taco.

i have been feeling sort of weird. oddly elated, yet mellow, and i can't seem to stop moving. just now, i got home and felt compelled to call lots of far-away friends and tell them how much i love them.

i've been comtrex dialing people for half an hour.

let's go to bed.


Friday, January 30, 2004

 

well, that happened.

i set the alarm for five, so i could be out by 5:45, so i could be at the theatre in soho at 6:30, which was when the monkey suggested i arrive in order to be one of the first five people there.

i was one of the first five, all right. no one else showed up until seven. there weren't five of us on line until seven-thirty. by eight o'clock, there were only ten.

i misjudged how many people would show up for this audition in the blistering cold, knowing we'd have to queue outside. my feet went numb at the ankles after the first forty five minutes. it was truly miserable. the worst was at nine, when the folks running the audition showed up (hopping blithely out of a warm cab) and announced, we'll try to get you inside as soon as possible! and proceeded to keep us out there twenty more minutes while they "configured the room." since "the room" was "a costume closet," i think this was unnecessary. they also wouldn't let us in until we'd all signed the sign in sheet, which was circulated outside. it was so cold that the pen wouldn't work--the ink inside it froze. when one of the girls painfully knocked on the door and told a casting person, "we can't sign up because the pen is frozen solid," the casting person opened the door two inches and HANDED HER ANOTHER PEN.

it was so cold i started crying. i was wearing as many clothes as is humanly possible, and still had to do ice-footed jumping jacks to keep from going numb.

i got in, though, and did my thing and Casting Lady seemed to like it. the whole shebang was over in three minutes. a three hour wait in the deep freeze for a three minute audition with inanimate feet.

i'd actually be fine now if i hadn't woken myself up at three thirty this morning, sure that my alarm would fail to go off. i had six hours to sleep, and i starved myself of one-and-a-half of them with my twisted worry. now i have a headache like an ice pick in the temple and am seriously considering taking a nap on the polish intern's couch, since no one is in the office today.

on the plus side, nothing exploded on me today.

Thursday, January 29, 2004

 

pirates.

i love pirates. they come second to robots, but they're pretty great. when pirates of the caribbean came out, the monkey and i were in edinburgh and we went to see it partly because we needed a vacation from our scotland experience and partly because it's cool to see movies in other countries.

i loved that johnny depp. in a disney movie, he goes craftily apeshit in order to create this weirdo, genre-busting pirate. and today? i learned that he based the character on keith richards.

i'm slain.

 

come here often?

in case you don't understand why FBLA made me puke in high school . . .

these are sample lines--openers, mostly--from the cover letters i'm getting to fill the company's marketing intern position.

After I had looked into your company, I was sure that it was full of talent and was exactly the kind of atmosphere I was looking for.

A leader is one who turns challenges into opportunities and change into growth. They pride themselves on strength and quality, being innovative and supporting continuous improvement. I am a leader!

As a Division 1 student-athlete for the past four years, I believe my educational background, as well as my participation in intercollegiate athletics, has provided me with the requisite skills to make a positive contribution to your organization.

Advertising Graduate currently Public Affairs Officer seeks to use full skill set with broader responsibilities and impact.

I understand you are considering professionalism and strong leadership skills in pursuit of your goals; these are the characteristics I have worked on throughout my career.

If you are looking for a lazy employee who does nothing but eat doughnuts all day, then I am not the candidate for you.

If you are searching for a leader that will immediately impact your company, I would like to explore the opportunity.

I believe I will be able to manage all the duties that you are requesting.


i need to go eat a doughnut immediately.

 

speaking words of wisdom.

someone named molly has a sort of frightening story about renee zellweger on salon. at least, it frightens me. please make me not be building my own sets in five years.

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

 

also, i forgot two things.

i get a lot of resumes from abroad for the "internship program" (also known as, "the couch") here at the office, and today one arrived with this listed under "hobbies":

>>Also I like walks on nature, especially, with my dog of breed Levretka.<<

oh. he wins.

also, one year ago today was my first day without the monkey, and my first day telling you about it. there you go.

 

stop making cold.

my piece at the performance art workshop did not go well last night, and i felt like a boob. everyone was nice about, it, though. except one girl who is shaping up to be the One I Don't Like gave me all these "suggestions" for what she would have done that totally made me want to pelt her with plastic forks.

i was in a bad mood by the time i left, which was a first. my piece was underwhelming, and then i started noticing that other people, who had done better-recieved work, had not followed the rules of the assignment. call me prissy, but the text was to be found text, not more than fifty words, chosen from a random spot in a magazine. there was to be no repetition of the words. this was spelled out very clearly. lots of people paid no attention to this at all, including the One I Don't Like (whose piece was dumb and self-indulgent, I thought), and this flagrant disregard for the premise of the project was never brought up in the feedback they were given. huh.

i realize that there is possibly more to life than following the rules, and probably more to successful and fulfilling playwrighting. still, though. working within the restrictions was part of the deal. perhaps my own piece would not have sucked so much if i were a less diligent obeyer.

or maybe i'm just bitter. or maybe they're just cheaters.

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

 

speaking of rising tides.

a friend took some of my headshots into an agent's office last week, and apparently now we're freelancing. this doesn't inspire the joy that you'd think attention from an agency would normally wreak. . . it's sort of a cut-rate shop, this agency, and the things i'm likely to be submitted for are pretty low-profile. something trumps nothing, though. if nothing else, going through headshot reproductions faster will help me feel like i'm doing something.

the assignment for tomorrow's performance art is to create a two minute piece for me and a randomly assigned partner (and pardon me for being petty, but i got assigned the most annoying individual in the company, and i've had to work with her more than anyone else has already), inspired by today's new york times and having a structure dictated by one of the five senses.

ready, go.

Monday, January 26, 2004

 

say what you like,

there's life in the old pontiff yet.

 

eeep.

after a couple months of fruitless submissions, the monkey's agent got him an audition. at lincoln center. let's hope it's a rising tide that lifts all boats.

 
this callback workshop is going pretty well. like i said last week, performance art isn't really my thing, but the other actor/writers in the group are really quite charming. i can't remember the last time i was placed into a group of folks i don't know (writers and actors, no less) and found that i enjoyed such a high percentage of them.

plus, one girl got naked on like the second day. nothing says performance art like nekkid.

it's sweet to find a group springing up around me again.

and today, firstdayofparttime, i didn't have to come in 'till eleven. uh-huh.



Friday, January 23, 2004

 

thank me.

i hope going part time is really going to fix this job. i mean, fix it so i don't want to quit until something genuinely better comes along. today i got actual assignments and have had to actually DO them all day, which i wouldn't mind so much except i'm horribly tired and scratchy throated, and i have performance art to think up for tomorrow and i haven't even started.

the workshop is fine, except that the short plays are more like--well, performance art, which i'm not so good at. and having to constantly develop tiny new pieces is a great way to get to know someone's work, but it spells hell for perfectionists. this thing is like ten days in a row of 14/48.

i feel like an old dog.

also, that sales guy? he's mad at me or something. i don't know what i did (i'm scaring myself with fantasies that he saw how much web surfing i was doing early last week), but he now responds to me monosyllabically, if at all.

when i grew up, it was considered polite to say thank you when someone did your clerical errands for you, even if you were paying her.

this office is full of total chodes.

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

 

acme love.

the best thing is not someone who never messes up. the best thing is someone who always fashions a way to come through in a clutch, even when all available exits seem to be blocked. someone who's a sort of wile e. coyote of the heart, who gets smashed with anvils and pianos and runs off ledges but still shows up on the ground to paint you a highway, and then when you step on the highway it's real.

 

stop talking, chowderhead.

i hate business.

 

chew, swallow.

the train is so freaking packed, and then another person gets on. we are like the individual small tubes of meat in ground beef. being in the train is like being in meatloaf. the train slows, is approaching a stop, still moving, and two women behind me say, "excuse me."

in new york, "excuse me" is not a question, it's not an apology or even the cognate to, "hey, could you shove over?" it's a card you play. it's something you say that forces an action on someone else. you can be quizzically examining prices in front of the cheese counter at one of manhattan's overcrowded supermarkets, and hear someone say, "excuse me," behind you--and you move over. so that this other person can stand where you stood and similarly block all views of the cheese counter. you wait until she leaves and then you "excuse me" the person who took her spot and compare cheeses smugly.

in the train, the excuse me comes before the train is stopped, so i can't move. i couldn't really move anyway, because of the meatloaf effect, but i'm really not going to let go of the pole before the train stops because i know pulling a backwards bellyflop into the rest of the crowd behind me when the train jerks to a halt will probably cause a riot. i turn my head, since my torso is penned in, and say, i can't go anywhere. just hold on.

just hold on, alright?

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

 

i'm still thinking about it.

i won't be annoying and say it's keeping me from all rest, but i find myself thinking a good deal about where spalding gray is. i feel bad.

today i found his amazon wishlist, via gawker.

i would buy you a present, spalding gray.

Monday, January 19, 2004

 

the poop in our collective shrimp.

perhaps it's going around. it's certainly going around molly, and apparently kerry, too.

ooo, ooo, child. it's about to get easier.

 

who the fuck?

if someone has been assaulting stephen hawking, i'm sad.

please also note that the journalist's name is astrid zweynert.

 

part-time lovah.

i know none of you could relax all weekend without hearing the results of my take-this-job-and-shove-it routine. it ended up less dramatic than i thought . . . they actually offered to make me part-time, which could solve this whole mess. some checking is being done to see how "feasible" that is . . . so it's not a done deal. if it works out, though, it's a huge load off. i can stand almost anything for six hours; it's nine-plus-commute that's a harder sell.

Things I Did This Weekend Include:

*got a spontaneous manicure. i was twenty-five minutes early to meet the best one for brunch, and i passed bloomie nails, and . . . well, well. my nails are now #45 Wicked. i think it looks oddly like a nail disease, but that's not all bad. both best one and the monkey are fans, and the polish hasn't chipped yet, which is a new record. more importantly, i had no idea how it would feel for someone to pay that much attention to my paws for half an hour. if only i'd known about this when i was single, i thought. there were so many times i would have paid someone far more than twelve dollars to hold my hand for thirty minutes.

(also, the manicurists all had name tags with caucasian names on them. jenny, sonya, esther, cindy. their licenses were posted behind their stations with their other names on them: eun hee, kyung, shan. esther/kyung actually put me into my coat when i was done, so i wouldn't spoil the finish. she didn't like how i wrapped my scarf, so she re-did it, while confiding in a think accent, "i don't know what the hell i'm doing." then she buttoned my coat for me. twelve dollars!)

*forgot to get off my train at times square. i was sitting in a stupor in there, having achieved a magical balance with my many bags, so that none of them were stressing my tired arms but none were on the gross slushy train floor. we stopped, and some folks got off, and then this really large dark-skinned man in a big puffy coat lept up and got out. i thought for a minute, then looked out the window: 42nd, times square. i jumped out the doors (with all my bags, praise be) as they were closing, and the big guy turned around. i grinned and yelled, i forgot, too! and he roared with laughter and stuck his giant arm out and clapped me on the back. we're friends.

*saw bishop allen at the tank. there are three dollar beers at the tank. i think we were the oldest people there. the show was good, even though the monkey and i got into an inexplicable fight.

*had make-up make-out.

*went to an apartment open house. the place is in a full service building, with a concierge, a gym, live-in maintenance crew and gated entry. it had a bathroom and kitchen possibly nicer, if smaller, than the ones in my parents' house. also, while it doesn't appear to be the perfect place for us, we could actually have afforded it.

*had my first random subway sighting. on my first trip to new york, trudging through the underground walk from times square to port authority, i remember the first guy i thought i would marry saying, "did you see that? those two guys who passed and said hello? that's so rare. that never happens in new york, just seeing someone you know randomly on the street." it happened to me yesterday, for the first time, and it was one of my favorite people. this is my town.

*didn't cry about my job.

*was "warm" outside for the first time in a week.

all of this together lead to one of those great new york days on sunday, the ones where you're glad you live here and you think just maybe, if you're very good, it's all going to work out.


Friday, January 16, 2004

 

only in front of your loved ones.

the monkey: "you know that actress, liev schreiber?"

me: "liev schreiber is a man, honey."

monkey: "no, not liev schreiber . . . liv tyler."

me: "liv tyler? vaseline-lens arwen?"

monkey: "no, crap . . . she's in 'aunt dan and lemon' on broadway . . ."

me: "you mean lili taylor?"

monkey: "right. that's what i said."

 

and speaking of friday treats.

thanks to maud, gawker and jonathan ames for disseminating the answer to the best question you never had: what happened to henry james's testicles?

 

do it fast, like a band-aid.

i'm quitting the job today.

we had two good friends over for dinner last night, and while we were all eating the monkey's incredible chicken parmigiana and drinking cheap cabernet, the consensus in the room ran along the lines of, are you fucking kidding me?

they bring up a good point. it's not worth being miserable, even if quitting doesn't make water-tight sense. i don't have dependents, and i'm not in debt. and now that i've had a few days away from the trouble that caused my freakout on my first full day on the job, i'm able to say rationally that even if all dayjobs are equally tiresome, this one can't be a keeper because full-time is just not going to work. so i got get to on with the work finding something do-able.

in other news, bishop allen is going on tour. if they're playing in your town, know they come recommended.

and, a friday treat, courtesy of the one who's least afraid.

Thursday, January 15, 2004

 

woah.

the maintenance guy who's been putting up the new ceiling tiles in the office has asked me very nicely could he borrow a pencil, could i move my chair, did i know my scarf was on the floor. he also asked if i wanted a cup of coffee. just now, he came over and quietly asked for a pencil sharpener. i don't have one, but i was feeling magnanimous enough to go looking for one--except he stopped me, and said, "it's okay. i'll use my laser."

he has a laser?

 

freezing up.

man, it is cold. like i've never felt it. it is too cold to go outside.

all turbo jets are on towards finding me a part-time job i can dump this one for. i have to leave for an hour or so this afternoon (some would call it "lunch"), and because there's a big meeting that no one told me about, i have to get the polish intern to answer the phones for me. it's another job interview, for a techinical writing thing. and i may well be gone over an hour, but i'm practicing not caring.

i just asked the sales guy whose pitches i have to listen to all day while he's on the phone if i should maybe reschedule my lunch thing if everyone's out of the office. to his credit, he said not to change my plans at the last minute based on this meeting, but he wanted to know if i knew when the intern was coming in. no, i said. (i have had no contact with this young woman beyond hello. she's working on something no one's ever told me about, under the direction of someone else.) well, he said, you should build that relationship. she's your intern.

fuck.

remember when i considered showing the folks at what fresh hell, inc., this site? bwahahah.

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

 

about last night.

boo howdy. i used up half a box of tissue.

it felt good to spit it out, and be the weepy that i wanted to be after yesterday. i was suprised how comforted i felt to be at home and with the monkey, who held me and held me and sometimes told jokes and sometimes passed the kleenex box and treated me like nothing i was saying was crazy. being comforted--and i mean having it work, having someone try to comfort you and it actually making things better--is a marvellous feeling.

what made me so distressed was this terrible feeling i had at the job all day: that i wanted to get up immediately and run away and never come back. i knew getting some office job wasn't going to be a laugh a minute, but yesterday my gut kept telling me this was the wrong job, i was always going to hate it, and i needed to leave. the gut was very insistent, and i kept getting wet-eyed all day--i even emailed the one who's least afraid because i was worried i was freaking out.

after being talked down, i have to assume that much of the freakout was caused by weirdness on the train that morning. but i also wonder how much of my gut was right that i don't want to be at this particular desk in new york. it's hard to explain what's so bad about this job, but it's partly that there are only four people in the office, none of them my gender or age or general sensibility. i listen to someone make sales pitch calls all day. it's higher paying than a straight receptionist job would be, but it requires more investment than i thought--the process left behind by the last guy doesn't work, and there's a lot of information to process and reorganize.

i want down time. i want like-minded office people--at least ones who like to laugh and go get coffee and could loan me a tampon. i'm also worried there might not be a lot of flexibility. i want to be able to audition and take lunch breaks. maybe join a gym and move my body for an hour in the middle of the day. no one seems to take lunch here. there's also the mess. it's very messy, crap is everywhere--papers and stacks and mail and odd parts of computers--and the mess was not ameliorated by the pipes bursting last weekend. now everything is wet and cold and smells like old dog. also, the intern who works here? lives on the couch.

then again, maybe this job isn't so bad. i'm here this morning and i haven't freaked out yet. but yesterday, while i was feeling like MUST GET OUT, i emailed a post-production studio who was looking for a receptionist last week. they were interested in meeting me, but i'd just been offered this job. i'm going out there on my (hope i get one) lunch break to say hello. and i'll see what it feels like. they have a hip website and edit commercials with dave chapelle in them. they want someone who wears cool shoes. i would get my own brand new imac to work on. they are industry connected. it could be better.

i don't know what i'm doing. maybe wimping out, maybe contemplating trading a well-paying crap job for a lower-paying one, in the hopes it will feel better, which may or may not be true. maybe screwing over these nice people who hired me in good faith to work their crappy job. maybe proving i don't have the wherewithal to stick to something that needs doing. i'm confused. weigh in, if you care to.

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

 

drained.

also, the one who's least afraid can read my mind,

 

again.

i got self-absorbed. the story about myself was supposed to lead to my saying, but at least i'm not disappeared. poor spalding. i hope it doesn't hurt too bad, all the time.

 

bounce back.

today, the man on the train who looked like a nice man put his hand on my back and shoved me, hard, into the too-crowded train, and then when i asked him what he was doing, dressed me down for five minutes in a loud, nasty, ego-filled voice in front of a train-ful of commuters fleeing queens. he pretty much covered everything--how i was dressed, who i looked like, how stupid i was to continue staring at him (i was staring, actually, wide-eyed, trying to figure out where his off switch was), my evident overall cow-like quality, the fact that i was listening to music on little ear phones, my apparently dumb-looking hat. i wish i had known what to say or do to shut him down, but any effort i made just fanned his flames. there was nowhere to go so eventually i told him he was truly an asshole and looked away.

no one said anything. maybe no one spoke much english but us. but in any case, there was not a rally of concerned and sympathetic train riders yelling "leave her alone!" and pelting the blackguard with shoes. there were just a lot of people watching me cry standing up, clinging to a pole. when people starting getting off and there were finally seats, i didn't even really want to sit down, so i stood there dripping and defeated all the way to times square.

this job makes me unhappy, and i'm not sure what to do about it. this morning made me miserable and frightened and sort of ashamed, and i don't know what to do about that either. i kind of feel like the shittiness that's surrounding right now might be semi-permanent.

Monday, January 12, 2004

 

suck it.

the best one and i were having a long conversation about a friend of hers in a bad situation. actually, the conversation was more about the friend extricating herself from the bad situation--she was finally leaving one of those monster boyfriends, after supporting him for two years and putting up will all manner of crapola. the boyfriend then threatened suicide unless she came over to his mother's house, where he was staying, to talk to him. the friend wisely refused, but called his mother to alert her to the (really pathetic and insincere) suicide threat.

these sort of hi-jinks continued, and ended with the boyfriend coming back over to the friend's apartment to get his remaining stuff. really terrible insults were thrown at her, and the guy had brought his mom with him. somehow it's worse to me that he was defaming her in front of a responsible adult. anyhow, the very worst part of it is this: when he left, the friend discovered she could no longer find her birth control pills.

the freak took her pills. that has to be the lowest thing i've heard in a while. a sort of effective neener neener from a person who is such an asshole that he shouldn't get to come out on top in any way. the message--"i decide who you sleep with"--is so awful, and the act so violating, even if it's small stuff in terms of theft or actual damage. i can't get it out of my head.

on the other hand, someone in my home town has done this.

* * *

today would have been the beginning of my first real work week, but the boss called late last night. would you believe a pipe froze in the office above, and there's three inches of standing water? well, believe it.

i just need to work it so this happens every week. heh.

Friday, January 09, 2004

 

dick wolf? can you hear me?

it was perfectly fine, and i cried a little. it was a day of remembering how to care how the phone gets answered and the messages taken. eight hours measured in office jokes and shifting in my chair felt pretty much like it felt when i was twenty two.

if i'm upset, it's only because i remember how it felt to spend more time in the stupddesk than it does with anyone you love, or doing anything that brings blood to your brain. not having class or rehearsal or a workshop after the day job will kill, but having entire days full except for the ten-to-seven sleeping time makes me sort of weary and sad. saturday and sunday become the only respite, if there aren't rehearsals you're not getting paid for, and because it's the only window you've got for laundry, shopping, sleeping, cleaning. or maybe you can't bring yourself to do anything necessary because the week was about lots of other people and all you want to do is be irresponsible.

if it kills, i suppose i can find something else. i'm trying not to be sad that i found a job--it's not a bad thing. it's just . . . when i wasn't this "assistant," i felt like i was other things, too. and now i'm just a smart girl who turned into a secretary.

Wednesday, January 07, 2004

 

i am an assistant.

i am an assistant. it happened yesterday. after a series of essay questions, an interview, a take-home writing assignment and about three weeks of waiting. i'm making less money than i was in seattle, and the position is a little less autonomous (which i guess should be obvious since i'm an assistant), but it is a huge weight off. new york for the unemployed, at least this unemployed, is sort of a living video game. you navigate around trying to avoid anything that will make you spend money, like bars, like vintage clothing shops, like the whole foods market in chelsea. no more. i can now afford to buy organic.

it's full time, which scares me, but i can tell i'm more comfortable having to jockey for auditions/writing time with the job on the stove than i am cobbling together some kind of income from happenstance odd jobs and part-time work. health insurance is good, especially when i have a bad tooth i was about to knock out with a brick.

apparently the universe reacts well to whining. but i'm not pushing it. it's a night to be thankful, and i am. but less so for my new day job (code name: what fresh hell), sweet relief as the news is, than for my great good friend kate, who announced to me yesterday that she and her husband are reproducing.

it's early to say, but i bet in about eight months the world is going to have another really boffo person in it, and i'm glad.

Monday, January 05, 2004

 

you know what else?

my throat hurts, and i know i walked around in the rain all day, cold. i want one of those tempur-pedic mattresses that make you sleep like a baby and wake up pain-free. i want a million dollars. i want a novel to come out of my ass.

barf. barf, barf, barf. screw.

 

you pick it up.

it is possible that i am a whiner, but today each train i was on encountered some sort of difficulty--a switch was broken, the 7 couldn't get into manhattan; the N inexplicably went express to brooklyn one stop north of my destination; the N on the way back had "door trouble;" and the 7 was just so crowded no one could get in or out. also, a young man crammed next to me started yelling, "uuunnh! ooooo! aaaahhh! uuuuuuuuuuhhhhh . . . oh, yes . . . oh yes! i will fuck you! i WILL fuck you! i will fuck your body! i will fuck you all over your soul! i will fuck on your personality! i will fuck your posture! don't think i won't!"

i felt trapped, and claustrophobic, and the day was not my favorite. i was half an hour late to the first dog--i'm a dog walker, by the way. i love dogs, so i thought this would be . . . nice, but really i keep feeling like i'm waiting tables except instead of humans they're dogs and i have to pick up their poop. the first dog is a puppy, which is very cool, except the dog weighs all of one and half pounds and pretty much sits like a lump when i come in. i coo. i toss balls. i tell him he's charming. he looks at me, wheezes, and lays down. he is the size of a stick of butter.

after that, the guy whose business it is walked me through a couple other dogs' routines. it was so much hurrying, through so much of unfamiliar soho and tribeca and noho and probably some other ho, too . . . i don't know. it was raining. i was straining. i missed my date with the monkey.

he did, however, spend the last half our of his break reassuring me, watching me eat a cheese sandwhich, and telling me about having made a good call about putting an audition before his day job. which made me cry, partly because i was feeling like a cry and partly because i don't have a day job, much less a perfect one that will allow me to audition any time the way his seems to, and even if i did i couldn't go to the auditions he goes to anyway because i'm not on the inside, of unions, of companies, of community, of anything. i feel like i'm spinning my wheels, i'm not getting what i came here for, and in the meantime, i'm walking other, richer people's dogs through the rain in neighborhoods i don't know and don't like, and picking up poop like it's something i'm shopping for.

 

come out, come out wherever you are.

after the monkey and i had begun keeping company, but before any admission of feeeeelings, i googled his name. what came back, along with the requisite old show photos and programs, were a bunch of articles written for an online gaming magazine. most of them were about the, ahem, star trek customizable card game.

i've always had a penchant for the dorky. especially for the smart dorky. and not only the customizeable-card-game-players and i got teased by the same beautiful people in middle school. there's something sort of baby-animal about someone with a secret, mild soft spot for star trek. it's like finding a photograph of your lover as a pre-teen, with big eyes, long arms and bad hair. it makes me want to coo.

so i read these online articles, and i realized that the handsome, articulate man i was falling in love with was oddly conversant in the political history of the cardassian/romulan conflict, and actually spoke a few words of kling-on. i'm sure it didn't hurt that he also talked to me about john coltrane and shakespeare, but the revelation of his inner dorky made tenderness seep out my holes everytime i thought of him. the one who's least afraid and i giggled for hours planning how i'd let him know i'd found his secret. we'd scheme that i would send him off to the bar to order our drinks with the words, "Make it so!"

eventually, i just let it slip in conversation that i'd found his articles. he was mortified, although he eventually believed that i found it endearing. and it's funny now, to think he ever would have hidden it. saturday night i went out for drinks with the best one, and i left him at home relaxing on the couch, gleefully and unabashedly absorbed in a new pastime. and i felt so much love for the perfect grace note that the dorky puts on his personality that i thought i might have to burp.

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