Another Reason NOT to Read the News

I'm currently reading John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hitman. It's an interesting and fairly addictive tale of Mr. Perkins' role in screwing a bunch of underdeveloped countries in Latin America and the Middle East by inflating economic growth projections and saddling them with debt to American contractors (the kind of shit that made Dick Cheney rich and also made him the devil).

I dropped out of the world of Real Estate (long story), so this week I'm doing a little temp work-- it's been over seven years since I sat behind a desk with little to nothing to do, getting paid to... well, write this.

It's a great time to catch up on the news. When I'm busy, I cut to the chase and get my "news" from here, here and here (and a little "business" info here). Call me shallow if you must, but seriously. I'm angry enough at the state of the world without immersing myself in the serious truth everyday.

But I thought I'd come down off of my dreamy candy-colored cloud and catch up on the Jill Carroll story, the US Journalist who was kidnapped in Iraq. Apparently, Al-Jazeera has released a video,without sound, of her covered hair, neck and shoulders in a scarf, weeping for the release of female Iraqi prisoners.

I came across this in a little gem from MSNBC:

A senior State Department official told NBC News that “prisoner reviews are on-going; we do them every couple of days.” A senior Pentagon official said the U.S. holds “less than 5” Iraqi women now.

Don't you think they might see fit to do these "prisoner reviews", oh, I don't know... as they come in?!

And what's still topping the news? An apology to the Cheney family.

Ooh, Pretty Colors!

What are all these pretty colors, you ask?

They speak to my apparently dark soul, trust and empathy-free. That's right! It's yet another internet personality test. This one is fun, all filled with charts and graphs and such.

It tells me that I am open, confident and extroverted, slightly more masculine than feminine. I don't, apparently, trust others very much (save for a small few) and I'm not very empathetic. Oh, and this might come as a surprise, but I prefer asthetics over function. Shocker, huh?

Funny how much we like to label ourselves... According to Meyers-Briggs, I am an ESFP. Figures.

You too can take the test here.

How I Almost Set Fire to a LOT of Money

Fireplaces. Aren't they romantic?

Well, today I almost had an accident with Will's fireplace... you see, he's closing on the apartment tomorrow. That means he hands this guy his keys and the guy hands him a big fat check. Today, in a huge effort to help out, I went down to clean up the last remaining bits. I swept and whtanot, and whatever paper I came across, I just threw in the fireplace.

It's like growing up in New England-- you rake the leaves into a pile, jump in said pile a few times, and then burn it. Ease of disposal.

I thought I'd do that with the last few papers. Only snag was that the flue, unbeknownst to me, was closed.

Next thing I knew, the apartment was flooded with smoke. Thank goodness for high ceilings! I tried to continue cleaning and pretending that nothing was wrong, but the smoke started to billow and a neighbor rang the bell, asking if I smelled smoke.

"Uh, yeah. I just had a little problem with the fireplace. All under control now."

"It happens to all of us," she said. "It actually smells like my Thanksgiving Dinner." (thankfully, Will has moved out before befriending her to the extent that we'd have to spend holidays at her place!)

Thanks to the cylindricality of an old ice cream container that happened to be lying around and the fact that Will has yet to turn off the water in the place, I was able to put the bitch out without a visit from our friendly firefighters.

Not exactly romance...

See This Show!!!

Last night I saw Les Freres Corbusier's Heddatron at here. It is very VERY good, very sharp, clever and pee-in-your-pants funny.

Basically, robots capture this unhappy pregnant Midwestern mom and force her to do Ibsen's Hedda Gabler over and over again. Real "live" robots. It's good stuff. I highly recommend you see it.

You can read my nytheatre.com review here.

*a more "what Ibsen might have intended" version will play at BAM in March.

Ladies, Who's With Me?!!?

I was glancing over Gawker this morning and came across this blurb:

The perfect singles mixer: Girls meet, get wasted, bitch about dating and men. Men show up 2 hours later and are promptly torn to shreds.

The event is a wine tasting. Women arrive at 6pm and "discuss" dating while sipping wine. "Gentlemen" arrive at 8.

I seem to remember every time I end up discussing dating with my girlfriends and there is even the slightest bit of booze involved, somebody ends up crying. I can't imagine it will be a good thing for either party that these gentlemen bear witness. The men just aren't ready for it-- it's not like anything you've ever seen on TV. No, sir, it's not pretty. Ladies, I recommend waterproof mascara.

Sounds like a hot steamy pit of tension and animosity. And it just so happens that I'm free on Friday! Who's with me?

Sign up here.

BLIZZARD!!!!

This was some serious storm!














I think there are cars under there...












Apparently, if your car is very tall, vertical and expensive, it is nearly impervious to a measly snowstorm!

Many Hats, Only One Head

Back when I was a bartender, people used to ask me what I "really" did. After a while, I perfected the answer of "I'm a cliche". You know, like everyone who serves you dinner probably has a very large stack of headshots at their tiny apartment.

So now that we're gearing up to be going full blast on Caveman Robot, I've realized that:

1. scheduling is a bitch
   
2. restaurant work was really great when it was flexible
   
3. I do a lot of different things that might clash more than actually go together...
   

goofy character actor (seen here in Carolyn Raship's Antarctica at the San Francisco Fringe Festival with Maggie Cino).

commercial gal and writer/theater reviewer here and here.

NYC real estate schlepper.

If I'm not dead by May 13th, I'm going to take a big fat vacation. Check back for updates.

Living in Style

Will and I are camping out in his now nearly empty apartment. Everything went to storage the other day. We debated about whether or not to keep one of the couches, just to have someplace comfy to sit in all this vast emptiness. We decided against it, feeling that moving it into storage in a couple of weeks would just defeat the purpose of hiring the movers in the first place.

So where the hell are we sitting?

Let me introduce to you, our inflatable couch! ***Lovely "sidetables" courtesy of Manhattan Mini Storage, and yes, we cracked open a little champagne to celebrate the new arrival.






That's right, we booked us a Zipcar (we got the Eduardo-- if you don't know Zipcar, you should-- it's great!) and headed on out to sweet ass Elizabeth, New Jersey to the shining blue and yellow functional yet fashionable furniture beacon that is IKEA!

Done and DONE!

Will, seen here on the move.

We moved all of his stuff (save for a couple pairs of socks and about fourteen computer (actually, they come virtually free with six months or more at Manhattan Mini Storage-- what a deal!). We have individually learned through too many awful moves that one should never move one's own things. One should pay what some people earn in a whole week to have two men move all of your worldly possessions into a truck that sits illegally parked in front of your building manned by another guy you hardly see (because he's watching the truck). After watching these dudes breeze in and not bat an eyelash at what took us an entire weekend to box up, we realized that is was, indeed, money well spent.

Packing

Jeez, packing really sucks.

We're getting Will's whole life into boxes and heading to Storage. We have tackled the big bookshelf, and it seemed like a lot of work. Now we've got about 20 boxes full of books, but it looks like we've made nary a dent. It's gonna be a long night.

What I Do in My Spare Time

Everyone and my mother keeps asking if I'm doing another show.

The answer, my friends, is a resounding YES!

My next project, if you can believe it, is a *gasp* a musical! Seriously. I don't think I will actually be, um, singing or anything, but I'm excited about it all the same.

I am proud to announce: The Adventures of Caveman Robot! (Apparently, the whole cast and crew will be posting on the blog. In character. One of the many characters I play is a Nazi-obsessed Penguin. You might not recognize my writing. I'll be writing under the guise of a Nazi-obsessed penguin. And god. Yep, playing god too. Must be seen to be believed)

Oh, holy crap is this one gonna be a doozy! It's a big collaboration, with
Piper McKenzie Productions, Jason Robert Bell and a bunch of other really fun people. And it's all slated to go down at The Brick in April and May 2006 (exact dates TBA).

This is going to be one of the biggest projects I've been part of in a while. The Bizarre Science Fantasy Series were loads of fun. We've done so many and are so familiar with each other and the style, that by the time we got around to making The Perfect Girl it seemed nearly efforless. For those of you who didn't have a chance to catch any of them, don't fret. They'll be back. For now, you can peep some great photos (courtesy of Brian Diaz) here.


And yes, I wore a tutu and deelyboppers. Together. But come on, it was only like one of the most genious and inspired moments on stage EVER!

What Will Does in his Spare Time

So while I sit and put apartment ads on craigslist, or practice making soup (I'm getting very good), Young William goes and makes fancy things like this. I keep wondering if I didn't spend too much time rolling around on the floor in college and not enough time on a computer.

But let's remember, when I was in college I wrote papers on a Smith Corona Typewriter.

Basically, he's taken two websites that are crucial to the everyday lives of New Yorkers, Google Maps and Menu Pages and created somewhat of a bastard love child that can let you find out what and where you can eat all on one map. It's one-stop shopping. It's what the computer kids are calling a "mashup". I think it's pretty cool. And, he got something like 7000 more hits than usual on his website from sending it to just ten friends!

Nyquil: Friend or Foe?

So I lost my voice a few days ago.

Two to be exact.

Two long gruelling days of near silence. Of watching others wince as I tried to eek out sentences. Of feebly trying to communicate over the phone. Never before have I realized the absolute genius that is text messaging.

Last night, after a monstrous game of Cough-Your-Brains-Out, I chugged a little Nyquil and hit the sack. As I began to drift dreamily into my syrup-induced sleep, I got the sweet/sick feeling that I was going to sleep through the night no matter what.

And sleep I did.

I woke up (if you can call it that), played another exciting round of Coughing Monster, and slunk out of bed to start my day.

Now I'm here at the end of the day, but I don't really feel like I ever started. I did have a lovely conversation with my friend Rachel in Seattle, who suggested I start a blog (which reminded me that I had set this thing up and forgot about it) and the blog resurfaced. I did manage to make it out in the morning and then again for an early evening movie and some noodles.

But can I fall asleep? It remains to be seen. If there is a post within the next six hours, we'll know the answer, now, won't we?

Determination: Nyquil. Friend and foe.

(by the way, we saw Good Night and Good Luck, a new film about Edward R. Murrow, specifically his later years at CBS and his hand in shining light on what came to be known McCarthyism. I highly recommend it.)

it's been a while, baby

Anyone forget to make their New Year's Resolutions?

I did.

Well, it's not so much that I forgot to make them exactly. More like I just forgot to make them happen.

It started with the best of intentions:

***Go to the gym
***Be generally better than last year

Honestly, I remember when I used to go to the gym regularly. Once a day as opposed to once every other month. The beginning of January was the most annoying time of the year. All these people were there, out of breath, sweaty and dripping all over everything, hogging all the machines. A gym regular, I scoffed and knew that within the week they'd all be gone. And they were. By the time January rolled into double digits, the gym was a near-ghost town, a mere skeleton of what it was January 1-9.

Well, that was a few years and maybe a dress size or ... ago. I am now what I once scorned! Well, except for the part about showing up to the gym in the first place.

It's January 14th, folks.

Number of Gym Visits: 0
Number of French Fries Consumed: many

A little Bridget Jones, perhaps... sad but true.

familiar image way out of place

what's grosser than gross?

last night a bird flew into my apartment.

will and kelly and i were all sitting in the TV room looking through old videos. this apartment is absolutely tropical in the winter, heat pipes and radiators a-blazin'. to keep it liveable, we cracked the window open a little for a burst of the frigid outdoor winds. apparently, we cracked it open too much.

it was surreal. he was little. he was not a pigeon, nor was he a sparrow (or whatever those little brown "regular" birds are). he was black and round and had a long thin sharp beak. he didn't fly around, even when approached. he must have been hurt. or just determined to stay inside.

so i'm flipping out and i'm on hold with 311 (in a mad rush to get nyc animal control over at 9pm to remove our uninvited guest) while kelly is steering will, who has ingeniously grabbed a blanket my grandmother made (apparently intending to suffocate the poor fucker) to nudge the little vermin back out from whence it came. will thought better of the blanket and instead chose a dirty dishtowel, which we later discarded.

all the while the kitties could not figure out the wave of instinct that washed over them and remained mainly still.

all in all, i think the whole ordeal lasted under three minutes, but it seemed like ages. birds should not be indoors. period. i never understand why people take them as pets.

like i need something else in my apartment that doesn't pay rent... sheesh!

Continental Airlines-- Absent Minded Professors of the Not So Friendly Skies

So Will and I went to Oaxaca Mexico for Matt and Fany's wedding last weekend. All in all it was a beautiful and fun-filled weekend extravaganza... only snag is that my bag didn't arrive when I did and it decided to extend it's vacation four days beyond mine, all courtesy of the doofuses at Continental Airlines.

Ok, I understand that every suitcase can't make it on time to every destination. Fine. And having my bag not show up in Oaxaca gave me the perfect opportunity to practice my Spanish (which I knew more of than I expected...) We were staying at a charming little hotel in town and, although it got a little warm wearing jeans and a sweater in the noontime blazing sun, it wasn't so bad getting my suitcase the next afternoon.

My frustration subsided as the festivites got underway. When a whole town gathers in honor of your friends' wedding, it's pretty hard to stay upset over a little delay in luggage. The return trip, however, proved to me that Continental Airlines has put a ton of money into a hip new ad campaign, but not a dime into customer-employee communication training.

We landed in Newark surprisingly early, especially considering that most of the Northeast was attacked by a blizzard while we were traipsing around on Tequila. Sounds like a boon, no? Get home a little early, unwind from vacation... sounded good to me. That is, until the Captain got on the mic and told us that another aircraft was in our gate and we weren't going to be able to "deplane" (i HATE that word for some reason) for at least 30 minutes.

Ok... I'm tapping my fingers on my armrest and my temper is shortwiring, but I figure it's just going to be over before I knew it. It got a little more trying when the flight attendent flipped out on this guy who tried to get up to pee, screaming that the Captain had not turned off the fasten seatbelt sign!!! I thought that was just a little bit odd, but whatever-- it was almost over. Then Captain Asshole takes hold of the Airwaves one more time and tells us that on top of the 30 minutes we've already been waiting, we're going to now have to wait another 30-45 minutes.

I'm sure you can see where this is headed.

I push my signal button to get the attention of Stewardess Ratchett. She comes over and I suggest that maybe the Captain find another gate for us to pull into. I mean, come on. We were slated to roll into #139. Are you seriously trying to tell me that there isn't one empty gate in the whole of Newark Liberty International? She talks to me like I'm four, asking me if I heard what the captain just said. I can hear the internal monologue of the woman next to me. She's cheering me on in silence for fear of the wrath of the polyester-clad waitress in the sky.

And then my bag didn't show up. Grrrrr. The line at Continental Baggage Services was out the door. Now that place is, in fact, the angriest place on earth. I figure, though, that I'd been through it before and my bag would be delivered to me sometime around midday Tuesday. It is now Friday night and Will just said that they guy is ringing his buzzer with my suitcase. Four days late.

Continental Airlines, I shake an angry, angry fist at you.

that's me (from the side)