January 2007 Archives

Dear Marc:

Thank you for your interest in the NYC Teaching Fellows program. We appreciate the time and energy you have devoted to the application process. At this time, we have completed a thorough review of your application: you have not been admitted to the Fellowship.

As you may know, the applicant pool for the Teaching Fellows program is extremely competitive. Each year we receive far more applications from qualified individuals than we have positions available.

We wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Vicki Bernstein, Director

Office of Alternative Certification

__-

This is really okay with me. I'm actually relieved. At the same time I'm very glad I engaged in the process. I put myself out there, 100%, and I no longer have to wonder if this is the path I should take.

Inevitably, of course, I wonder what went "wrong." I do remember a moment in the interview when I felt my response to a question was not quite what it was "supposed" to be, in which I took a realistic more than idealistic view of what you might face and how to assess your success or failures, but you know what? If that's what torpedoed me, than so be it. It's how I felt.

And if it was my prison record, so be it too. I am powerless over my past. But it may be that the universe, God, who/whatever, is trying to tell me this is where I need to be. Or Nashville.

My Mom will be disappointed. I'll just have to visit more often.

MCO 2007

For those lucky enough to not be afflicted with an addiction--or at least any of the obvious, traditional ones, i.e., drugs, alcohol, gambling/spending or compulsive eating--it may seem odd that the prospect of engaging in a serious program of recovery usually provokes in the addict such procrastination, reluctance and resistance. Ever watch Bravo's "Intervention?" Almost every time, the addict tries to run--literally--when he realizes what the purpose of the gathering or friends and family is. And yet the same person has just spent hours being followed by a camera, puffing on a pipe or downing beers or pills, lamenting their addiction and freely acknowledging the horrific damage it's doing to their life. They're not even in denial, but the prospect of going to rehab or even a regular regime of meetings provokes them to flee. Why?

It's not that they even enjoy the substance to which they are addicted anymore--that train left the station a long time ago. It's that the disease of addiction has taken such hold that the addict doesn't know the difference between him and it. He's been taken hostage and has succumbed to the Stockholm Syndrome just like that poor kid in Missouri. On the level where it counts--that fear center in the brain where ego supplants spirit--he equates the survival of his captor-the addiction--with his own. Stop feeding the disease, and the disease will die and so will he. The very thing that is killing him is the very thing he feels is keeping him alive. He doesn't think this--he "knows" better--but on a primal level, this is his experience.

He might admit and acknowledge that the rooms of whatever 12-step program that applies to his particular addiction has by far the best track record of any strategy as yet devised to cure his problem. He might acknowledge and celebrate your own success getting and staying sober. And yet, when it applies to him, he will come up with any excuse imaginable to delay going to more than one perfunctory meeting at which his arms stay crossed and his ears clogged with certainty that this couldn't possibly work for him.

The truth is that he is not afraid of the program not working, but of precisely the opposite. The disease digs in its heels, whispering urgently every negative objection imaginable, reassuring the addict that he is "different," that he can do it on his own. All he needs is a little course correction, some exercise, some therapy, some self-discipline. This way the disease is virtually guaranteed it will remain well-fed. Invariably, something really terrible has to happen--an arrest, a job loss, a hospitalization--and even then, so often, that is not enough. Many more die of this disease than recover from it.

More than anyone else, this describes my own trajectory. I was so afraid of dying--because, in my warped mind, starving my disease would starve me--that I had to go to prison before finally, finally, I could gain enough clarity to open myself up to the possibility that I could live a happy life without numbing myself regularly. And STILL, when I got out, I drank for a month--though thankfully, I just didn't enjoy it anymore. When my mother ordered me to a meeting, it was the final push I needed. (She had earned that authority).

What is distressing is when those you love dearly who are still "out there" are unable to benefit from your experience to avoid a similar fate to your own. They will have to get badly beat up--sometimes quite literally--before they realize the are worse fates than a few hours a week spent in church basements.

The saddest thing is the utter misperception of what awaits. Meetings--particularly in the first year, when you are learning so much and making so many friends--are not remotely the boring drudgery the addict perceives they will be. That honor belongs to the relentless merry-go-round of looking for drugs, getting high, and crashing, over and over again. Meetings are 1) great therapy 2) great theater and 3) a great spiritual adventure. And no matter how busy you are, they take up far less time than your active addiction.

But I can't talk anybody into anything, any more than I could be talked into it (although, perversely, I urged many to go 12-step when I was a dealer). My disease had me by the throat, and had no intention of allowing me to arrest it. That task was accorded the L.A.P.D. That was what my journey required, and others' journeys entail other twists and turns. They may even end up driving off a cliff.

But if you're one of those still "out there" and you keep finding yourself checking into this blog in spite of your certainty that my path to sobriety is not your own--or that you even want to get sober--may I suggest you consider that your reluctance/revulsion is in direct proportion to how differently you will feel about it if you do take the plunge. You couldn't have found someone more reluctant than I was, and my fear almost killed me. Please don't let yours kill you.

MCO 2007

So yesterday I ended up accompanying my friend Michael to Santa Monica. We took Gaza for a walk through the promenade and on the pier, and the above is what we found on the beach there. Volunteers put up crosses every weekend, one for every American death in Iraq. It is deeply moving. I also ran into a photographer I know, Mathieu Grandjean, who is doing a documentary on the crosses. (He is also doing a project photographing couples--straight, gay, whatever. If you are LA-based and interested, contact him via http://www.mathieugrandjean.com. Visit his site either way. He's very talented.)

When I see imperialistas like Lugar or Cheney imply that the resolution opposing the surge is undermining us in the eyes of the "enemy," it makes my blood boil. What could undermine us more than the escalation of this misbeggotten folly? By their reasoning, would we have taken the absence of any measurable dissent against Hitler as admirable proof of German patriotism? Herr Bush's cronies are simply trying to Swift Boat the American public, and it's nauseating.

Michael and I did have a funny moment when we were driving back to Hollywood. As we discussed the lessons of certain dreams he had that articulated themselves over morning coffee, I coined the term: "Breakfast at Epiphany's." (I daren't google it. How deflating it would be to discover some wit probably came up with it in 1963.)

Speaking of epiphanies, I had a minor one as I realized that when I think of moving to Nashville to be with Tony instead of to New York to teach, I have no dread of the hassle that would involve. Ain't that interesting? As the months fly by and our feelings for each other don't seem to be dissipating--if anything, the opposite--I am starting to think they've stood the test of time and separation enough to justify a move there. If I don't move to NY, I will await the result of two more visits and our year anniversary in July, and if we feel the same way, I may well be off to live in the volunteer state after all.

MCO 2007

I'm watching a political debate on French TV as I write this, realizing I understand 99.5% of what it said perfectly. .5% I understand imperfectly, so I look up the occasional word and inevitably it has a few different meanings (derapage: skid, escalation, slip). The only difference with English is that I need to concentrate. I can't do something else and listen with one ear and still absorb it.

I share this because I remember being in the back seat of the car in 1967 when my wonderful Aunt Francoise came to visit with her son, Dominique, and I watched, transfixed, as my mother and her sister gabbed back in forth in French. I wished with the fervor only a child can muster for one thing more than any other: that I would one day be able to communicate in that musical language like my mother and her sister. I'd need another year living there to achieve complete mastery (although I will always count in English no matter what), but to the degree I hoped for at the time, my wish has largely been fulfilled.

This involved very little effort of my own because it also happened to also be my mother's deep desire for me. I was the lucky son who spent a year in France at 17. I also did a lot of college coursework, and worked at the NYU French Department for years.

But the point is, very often in life we tend to focus on the unachieved, and forget or take for granted that which has been or is being fulfilled on a daily basis. When I look at what I really wanted in life--not what society told me I should want--I am amazed by how many wishes have come true.

This Sunday will be a veritable day of rest for me, as I worked 4 days at one theater and 2 nights at another--both fun and creative (and tiring) ways to participate in the world. I'm watching French TV and understanding it, while doing laundry--what a friggin' miracle to have an affordable washer and dryer on the premises. I can write whatever I want today, read whatever I want, see whatever I want on the TV or the movies. My communication with friends and family will be marked by love and humor and real joy in each other's presence. I have the best dog in the planet. A gorgeous man will call me and make me laugh on a phone I can afford. I need no intoxicants to be comfortable in my own skin. (That THAT was my MOST fervent desire for YEARS. To be comfortable in my own skin.)

Okay, would I like to be like David Sedaris, living with a lover in Paris and making millions laugh with his smart writing? Of course. But does David Sedaris have a greater experience, on a daily basis, of satisfaction with his life? I doubt it. (Thank Heavens for all of us, he wouldn't likely be anywhere as funny.)

That said, I am not skipping around whistling a happy tune today. I'm just noticing how much fuller than empty the glass is. What is the point of abundance if you don't SEE it? Appreciate it?

I used to think when I got high every day that it was my way of living in the present. In fact, I was always living 5 minutes in the future, when the high was going to be perfect, or anticipating when the perfect high would be lost.

Today (this may change tomorrow) I choose to be exactly where I am, doing exactly what I am doing, not judging myself for not doing what I am not doing, not thinking that I should be doing anything else. I will do nothing remarkable, but its going to be a great day.

I promise to inject some bitter sarcasm somewhere into the week's entries, if only becaue it probably makes for more compelling reading than this relentess and probably slightly obnoxious serenity of late. Take heart, I have yet to pick up the trash today, and who knows what confrontation with a stranger awaits. (Believe me, there are a few things going on with people I know that would provide for some real dramatic reporting, but it feels indiscreet to talk about it, even anonymously).

MCO 2007

P.S. I'm now watching French rugby. That I can do with one ear. And definitely eye. OH JOY!

FrenchRugby

So, this morning I'm doing my walkie-trashies, and I see my "friends" -- the two homeless drug-addicts who I encounter periodically, gathering cans from the trash bin right in front of my building. I note my judgemental tape running: "For crying out loud, why don't they just get sober," realizing, the second I think it, that it is not my business whether or not they get sober, and my judgement is just that. MY judgement. (Not to mention it's a scenario I daren't invest a sliver of hope in, realistically.) Still, I sorta dread not being able to avoid them, because one of them always seems to get the dog excited and barking, and I feel like his bark is giving voice to my judgements, and they know it.

As it happens, that very one cries out when I am a half-a-block away "Hail the local hero!" and he is just far enough away not to cause Gaza to feel threatened. I smile at the compliment and decide to lighten up, approaching with: "Hi, Gentlemen, how are you today?" The gabby one says "I won't say hi to your dog because he always barks at me!" I don't know what to say, because it's true.

But something else is true, and that is what thankfully comes to me. "He always barks at men who work for a living." Now, of course the barking at men in uniform comes from rather a different place than barking at men who project the energy of the high and marginalized, but it is nonetheless a true statement that causes am immediate outburst of genuine laughter. And more than that, I feel it is heard as an acknowledgement of the fact that even if their work is not "sexy," these men support themselves honorably, regardless of how they spend their "disposable" income.

For just a moment, the illusion that they are no different from the postman or the cable guy in the eyes of my dog, and perhaps mine, breaks through the wall that separates us, the homeful and the homeless, the sober and the intoxicated. (Of course, in the eyes of God, there is nothing that separates us at all.)

And I now no longer have to dread the dog barking at them. It's been turned into a badge of honor.

I am watching "Nanny McPhee" on HBO while I type this. I'm so relieved I didn't see it in the movies, because it is incredibly sweet and charming and has me crying like a baby. Bravo, Emma Thompson.

MCO 2008

Now I realize most blog writers don't have as intense a relationship with their blog as I do, never, for example, missing even a day's entry. This is because I started it in prison, and it literally saved my life. In retrospect, of course, I only had 4 months left in my term when my sister started it, but at the time it seemed like forever. To suddenly feel connected to people on the outside on a daily basis (even if 25 was a lot of readers any one day), to never know who might be reading, this was manna from heaven. It broke the sense of isolation I felt, which is the inmate's greatest burden. And for a writer who needed and wanted more than anything to just write every single day--this was an unhoped for and unexpected accomplishment for me. More than anything, the blog exemplifies the difference between my life pre- and post-sobriety.

This sets the stage to explain why my favorite part of every day (after the first 15 minutes of The Daily Show) is when I check my stats and I see how many visitors I had the day before. (This is more important to me than "hits" or "page views." I want to know sets of eyeballs.) After 3 years of this, I am up to between an average of 300-500 readers a day, which is completely dandy. But, sometimes, usually because it's a holiday, I dip below 300, and about as often, I surge above 500. I have learned to take it all it stride, but I generally get a little kick the higher it is.

Once or twice a month, suddenly it'll spike for no apparent reason. Yesterday it was 801! Now, I KNOW from experience that it is extremely unlikely that I doubled my average daily readers in one night. Almost certainly, it is the result of some sort of technical glitch--I think when my server goes down for clean-up or whatever, every visits are reported as doubled. And yet, what I tend to do--no surprise here--is fantasize that I am on the verge of a major breakthrough, word-of-mouth gone wild. In no time at all, I'll be the first blogger on The View etc. etc. It puts me in a great mood, even if I know the very next day my numbers are usually back down to "normal" range. (The truth is I'm lucky if I get 2 or 3 new readers a week.)

I'm sharing all this because it occurred to me today that I get this upkick from nothing more than a perception of my popularity--and one, at that, that is most probably a mistake. And not only do I do that regularly, but don't we all? Don't we withhold or indulge in joy based on a perception, a belief, sometimes an errant one? Doesn't it show that we are actually capable of experiencing that joy at will, but that we have an idea in our head that we need some sort of outside validation or stimulation to do so?

Now, knowing this does not necessarily mean snap, we get walk around on Cloud Nine all the time. But awareness helps. I'm still going to allow myself to enjoy a bump up the better my numbers are, but I am also going to try to accord myself a daily bump up by reminding myself of the sheer pleasure in just being alive every day, regardless of what activities happen to occupy me. Why not act as if I've gotten 20,000 or 30,000 visits? But ask the question: Would I be a better person if I did? If I wrote a bestseller or went on a talk show? Of course not, I would be exactly the same person. More attention is just that, more attention. We all (well most of us) love it, but it doesn't MEAN anything, as far as our worthwhileness as a human being. Ask Martha Stewart.

Here's the bottom line. There's no place I--or you--have to get to, to THEN be happy. We're already THERE. Wherever we are is THERE. Here IS there.

MCO 2007

Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything--anything--be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in. -Sam Harris, author (1967- )

This is exactly why I stopped going to church. Even though they had the most progressive interpretation of scripture imaginable, it was still considered "sacred text" (by some Reverends much more than other, I must say.) The new testament, I can deal with, but the old testament needs to be labeled "historical fiction," no more real than Star Wars. Period.

Yesterday was one of those really cool days in which I spent several hours on the phone, in person or via email with 5--count 'em 5--different friends who needed to talk. Well, more than that, they needed advice and guidance, and 4 of them asked for it specifically. (One didn't so much, but eventually softened when he realized that I knew what he was going through intimately and I could actually help. He ended up thanking me for my perserverance.)

So I went down fantasy lane wondering about Life Coaching. What a ballsy career choice, it's like hanging out a shingle that says: "I have my shit together! Let me help you get yours!"

But part of my own shit-together-getting is following through and completing the choices I've already made. So I inquired about the teaching interview, and was told I can expect to hear before the end of the month. And if teaching is not an opportunity to life coach, what is?

Although, truth be told, I would be as relieved as I would be excited if I get the job. As much as I counseled my various friends yesterday to acknowlege their fears but not operate from them, I remain borderline-overwhelmed at the prospect of the change and upheaval involved with moving back to NY.

Gotta go to work. (God I love saying that.)

MCO 2007

Call me a Gay Media Whore, but I love the men of ABC.

First there's the news division. John Muir, Terry McCarthy, Dan Berman and then, the three big guns, George Stephanapoulous, Chris Cuomo, and my all time favorite, Dan Harris. I have a giant crush on him.

And then there's the soaps. The guy who plays "Josh" on "All My Children?" He is one of the best-looking men on the planet. Christian on "One Life to Life?" So friqgin' hot. "Lucky" on General Hospital? Unbelievably handsome.

Then of course, there's Tony in "Tony in Tennessee." Stunning that one. By far he's my favorite. (He tells me his favorite is Bob Woodruff, and he's got a point.)

(I do hope this isn't the day that one of you told a friend "You've gotta read this blog, this guy's is really smart and spiritual--none of the shallow bullshit most of them write about." HA HA, FOOLED YOUR ASS! SOMETIMES I"M JUST A PUNK!)

MCO 2007

I completely forgot I'd posted the Bush photo last night, and I wonder if on what level it put trash on the brain more than usual this A.M. But whatever my motivations are in picking it up--and I freely admit they are mixed and at least partially very self-serving (look at me, look what I good person I am, yes, yes, yes, it's all true)--there are some mornings all it does is piss me off. I feel like an idiot, frankly, like Sysiphus, pushing the rock up the mountain over and over and over, muttering all the way: "what is WRONG with these people? What is wrong with ME for picking up after them?" (It's the empty bags of fast food packaging that make me craziest. People will park and just toss it all right on the curb.)

I console myself by remembering I don't have to be doing this for them, for me, for you or for karma points. I can do it for no other reason than less litter in the streets means less litter going into the sewers and then into the oceans, and I do love my whales and dolphins and Blue Planet undersea documentaries. It also can be helpful for me to take a walk down another block in my neighborhood off my route, and see how horrific it looks. Even though every friggin' morning I have to refill 4 or 5 bags to keep my blocks clean, it really does make a difference. For a few hours every day, it's actually fairly presentable.

This is all probably so boring by now, I apologize. I guess it's one of those topics that I can lay a peculiar claim too, and in the age where every single idea a writer can come up with seems to be already thought up and written about, I guess having a niche of a sort comforts me. Or maybe that's overanalyzing. The reality is that it is something I do--for whaever reason--an hour a day, and thoughts about it occupy my conciousness and therefore periodically fill up this blog.

MCO 2007

You won't be remotely surprised that I found this article from the Onion rather amusing.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bush_rushing_to_get_nation_in

MCO 2007

This morning I heard a heart-breaking story on NPR, told by a young man, Abdullah, whose father had been kidnapped from a Baghdad street corner and held for ransom. The money was paid, the father was not returned. Every day the son goes to the morgue with scores of other worried relatives of the missing in the same position, where they see photos of the dead inside flashed on the screen. Every day a gasp or a cry is heard from two or three who recognize their loved one. Every day Abdullah returns home "empty-handed," wondering how it could have come to this.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I have no problems. The people of Iraq, they have problems. American soldiers who have to make life and death decisions every day have problems. The families of the fallen and the serving have problems. The refugees of Darfur, the women of Afghanistan, the untouchables of India, the children of drug-addicted moms, the still homeless from Katrina, the sexually-trafficked worldwide, and I could--unfortunately--go on and on and on, they all have real problems.

Me, I have a dog I come home to every day whose tail will not stop thumping when he looks at me. I have food in the refrigerator, enough money in the bank to buy it, and this fabulous internet to stay connected with the world. I have a family I adore and who adores me, a man across the country I love that I don't get to see as much as I'd like but who thinks I'm the bee's knees. I am not in prison or the hospital. I have a car that works and gorgeous weather to enjoy on a daily basis. And I could go on and on and on, thank God.

Most--but not all, for sure--of you could probably make a similar list. And doing so may not immediately alleviate the suffering of the thousands of Abdullahs, but the awareness of how blessed and lucky most of us are I do think increases the likelihood that we will keep our "problems" in perspective, and hopefully be more likely to concentrate on being part of the solution worldwide. For example, we have the luxury in this country of exerting influence on the political system. We have the obligation to study our choices very carefully in this regard, and to act accordingly.

I recognize that I am probably preaching to the choir here, but make sure you read the paper, watch the news, and vote for smart, informed candidates. For those of you not afflicted by genuine ill health, depression, active addiction, poverty or grief-- do take the time to be grateful for the relative luxury of your "problems." Traffic, the boss who grates, the messy child, the extra 5 pounds, the spouse who irritates--what would Abdullah give for these to constitutes his major worries?

This is how (sometimes) I turn the awful depressing news from Baghdad and around the world into an opportunity to be joyful today. I have to believe that the energy thereby produced is ultimately more helpful to my brothers and sisters who suffer than sinking into despair and helplessness.

MCO 2007

P.S. And then I hear Tony Snow--the friggin' anti-Christ as far as I'm concerned-- lamenting the constant media reporting of the horrific Iraqi body counts, stating that this is exactly what the insurgents want. What is wrong with this man? If 1000 people a day were being killed in the U.S. (we have 10x the population of Iraq, ergo 100 x 10) would he consider this news to be minimized?

Audiences are like pool games and campfires. All of them are the same, and yet no two are alike. Sometimes it takes but 3 of the right people (gay mean are great this way) in the front row to make the night pop with electricity, sometimes no amount of effort from the cast can bridge the gap between what the audience should feel and is feeling.

Both nights of the show this weekend were a success, but last night was the "popping" night and the night before was relatively lackluster in comparison. The performances were virtually identical, but somehow last night's audience "got it" right from the beginning, and the energy flowed from the spectators to the actors and back out again. The result was the great fun it should be. I still did a minimal amount of sound mixing, but next weekend, I should be in charge of that board.

As for the three cups, they were gone today. There were three of the same type of cups strewn in various places down the block, but there is no way of knowing if one or all of them were the offending cups or newly produced by the cane man. That's okay. I consider their removal a small triumph, although I strongly suspect it will not last. But if he's going out of his way to throw his usual morning cup up or down the block to throw me off, hopefully it won't be long before even he realizes it take more effort for him to litter than to not.

As usual, I get off on knowing the last thing in the world the cane man is imagining is that hundreds of people from around the world are aware of our little melodrama.

I'm tired and am going to watch the Independent Film Channel. At least I'm earning my fatigue these days.

MCO 2007

P.S. You know what they call young Websurfers in France? "Internauts." Don't you think that should catch on here?

So this is what I've done with Citizen Cane's evil cups. I collected the three he's tossed since our little fracas and gently stacked them right in front of his gate, and will add each new one he throws out for as long as it takes for him to learn to put them in the trash. This is going to make him nuts no doubt, and hopefully draw the questions of his neighbors. (I'll make sure he doesn't see me do it, that'll drive him even crazier.) To quote Faye Dunaway quoting Joan Crawford: "Don't fuck with me boys! This isn't my first time at the rodeo!"

Last night was the premiere of "The Beastly Bombing." The composer is pretty much doing sound for the first weekend, so I can't say I had much to do, but I did suggest a joke (about FEMA) that went over pretty well. At the end of the show of course the actors mingled with the audience and drank white wine, but I just came home, walked the dog, and slept. On the one hand, I really would like to be able to get tipsy and hobnob. On the other, I'm at peace with the reality that my history has closed that door. It's very nice to wake up with no regrets or fuzzy memories--ever.

Today I miss Tony terribly. I just wanna snuggle with him on the couch and watch football or basketball or an old movie. He seems to be feeling exactly the same way. Clearly, we are both doing a pretty crappy job of being single. Well, I guess I don't know about him. I flirt plenty but there's no follow-through. What I might enjoy in the abstract pales next to what I've had this past year in the flesh, and I'm unwilling to do the work for a questionable payoff, even in the best case scenario.

MCO 2007

So this morning I head to the doc's for my weekly testosterone shot (HIV over many years destroys one's natural production) and I pull up at a meter that turns out not to be working. It may ring a vague bell that this happened to me about 6 months ago and when I was at my appointment, unbelievably enough, the meter was repaired and I got a ticket. Fearful of a repeat, I decided to go ahead and put the same amount of coins in that I would if the meter was working. This constituted a form of magical thinking, perhaps, as how would any meter repairer know those were my coins, but that didn't matter. What was important is that I did something I didn't have to do that I could have easily not done and justified not doing. Something, in the past, I would have thought anybody was an idiot for doing. I was being a goody two shoes, and it felt oddly good.

Then I checked the meters in the cars in front of me. The next was also broken, so that was reassuring. Was the whole block out? The one after that, however, was flashing "expired," and there was a car there. And I found myself putting the one quarter I had left in the meter--something we've all read about being done and I take no credit for coming up with. (It was an extremely minor expense of 25 cents--big deal.) I only share it BECAUSE I was unprepared for the instant blast of good feeling it supplied, better than any anti-depressant. To know that for a mere quarter, I may have saved someone from that sinking feeling of seeing a ticket on their windshield--wow. So I officially recommend it to any and all feeling or fighting the blues.

When I came back to my car, there was no ticket, by the way. If there had been, this woulda been a whole nother entry, you can be sure.

MCO 2007

If you're in LA, I want you to come!

Marc

You'd think that a man of the theater such as I would be so immersed in the goings-on of not one, but two separate houses of entertainment that I would have no time to be pre-occupied with whether the styrofoam cup about 15 feet up from the entrance to the gate of the evil old cane-man belongs to him or to another inconsiderate passerby or neighborhood denizen. Me suspects he's trying to outwit me by throwing it north of his building (come to think of it, there was one yesterday about 15 ft south of it), but I showed him. I simply avoided the entire stretch, and gave an entirely different block the benefit of my cleaning services. Cause frankly, that building has been a pain in my butt ever since I started this trash thing. In fact, I devoted an entire section of my play-in-progress to it. Here is a paragraph I wrote to explain why I thought that every frigging morning I had to pick up at least two packs of "Capri" --produced by a cig-puffing cabdriver--in front of that very same building:

It occurs to me that this man doesn’t litter because he doesn’t know any better or because he doesn’t care but because, very simply, he’s trying not be invisible. All that backbreaking work year after year and what does he have to show for it? Sure, maybe his kids will have a better life, his grandkids a great life, but what about him? What about him? Well what he gets to do his enjoy his cigarettes. All 60 of ‘em a day. And each time he finishes a pack, damned if he’s not going to throw it right where’s he standing. It’s his daily, petulant, personal graffiti which cries out: “I am here. I exist. I make an impact. And furthermore, you’re not the boss of me, world, and neither is that little punk who walks by picking up the trash every day.”

I truly have no idea if my explanation is on target, or if my misogyny theory of two days ago is more likely, but it does makes for fairly original artistic subject matter, doesn't it? (Don't worry, about 10 minutes in I sequeway from picking up trash to the story of how a nice white boy ended up in prison. I'm original, not stupid).

Which reminds me, my brother has seen fit to warn me that prospective employers google you, and "might not like" my blog. It gave me an opportunity to get extremely clear with myself (and him). I don't care. Why should I want to pretend to be anybody but who I am to get any job? Listen, if I had kids to feed or a mortgage to pay I might cut corners in the authenticity department, but I don't. I made a career of dissimulation, and I have changed. It is a great joy to have no secrets.

Or so I think. My sister and I have discovered we both have a recurring dream that we murdered somebody and got away with it. We're starting to wonder if we did--in a past life. It's very intense, especially when you are just waking up and competely unsure that it isn't real.

MCO 2007

So, get this scam. Bad guys get a storage unit right next to yours, then take out the wall that separates the both of you. Then they steal everything you have, and replace the wall. Pretty smart, unless you've given your real name and address when renting the storage unit. Smarter types will figure you out and track you down, and you will end up in jail.

This is what happened to the sound board for The Beastly Bombings, and the safe retrieval of this mixer allowed me my first hands-on chance to regulate the mike volumes of the actors during the show last night. For me, this is a surreal job, in the sense that I don't even recognize who that person is standing in front of a piece of equipment with 200 knobs. Now, admittedly, I only have to manipulate 10 of those knobs, but still, as the show's composer showed how to do it, I felt something akin to a surgical nurse without a day's training assisting at surgery. Thank God there were no lives at stake.

I have two friends in early recovery I have had occasion to talk to at length recently. I am reminded how the disease of addiction is marked by intense fear. Fear of getting sober, fear of looking at yourself, fear of the future, and mostly, fear that you are fundamentally unlovable.

I have grappled with all those fears and still do. Who doesn't? But the difference between me and my two friends, the difference between me now and me two years ago, is that I hear the fear, but I don't listen to it. It's just fear. An emotional response. It needs to be recognized as such, and not accorded enough weight to determine one's conduct.

That's how I can stand there and say "sure, I'll do the sound." I'm scared to death of that 200-knob sound mixer, but that's doesn't mean I can't learn it just like any other reasonably intelligent person and even enjoy doing so. If I am wrong, then I guess I'll find that out. There is no shame in recognizing one's weaknesses--Lord knows I am nothing but relieved at watching the dancers doing that number I bailed on.

I heard something very funny this morning: "Take my advice. I'm not using it." Well, take my advice, though I am using it. Hear the fear, but don't listen to it.

MCO 2007

P.S. Exhausted from the very long day yesterday, I woke up late for my morning dogwalk, and therefore, missed the old man with the cane. But there was no empty coffee cup in front of his building.

So ye old Armenian cane-wielding rat? I caught him red-handed today, seconds after he'd just thrown his cup on the sidewalk when my back was turned. (I was sort of lying in wait, about 50 feet away.)

I cried out "HEY!" charging toward him, as he swiveled around, just inside his gate. I grabbed the cup from the sidewalk with my tongs, and slammed it right through the bars of the gate, crushing the styrofoam in the process. As the pieces of it scattered against his feet, I yelled: "What the FUCK? I cannot believe you do this EVERY DAY instead of walking it in 20 GODDAMN steps to your kitchen!" He tried to yell back something in English or Armenian, I'm not sure, but he was clearly flummoxed, to say the least. "No WONDER my dog growls at you, you uncivicminded SHIT!" I added. (I was STEAMED.) Then I walked away, and when he tried to sputter something lame, I swiveled and added this postscript. "Don't argue. Just DO THE RIGHT THING!"

Oh my, how satisfying a little righteous anger can be. I felt like Jesus confronting the money-changers in the temple! (Now I know how that sounds, but think about how it must have looked back then. He wasn't "Jesus" yet--the way we think of him. I'm sure most thought he was just an eccentric firebrand--just like the old man probably thought of me.) The thing is, he oh SO waited for me to turn away before he tossed his cup, which tells you right there he knew what he is doing is wrong, wrong, wrong. The sad thing, is he has no idea why he does it anyway.

I know though. He comes from a very macho culture, in which his only experience of qualities like being considerate and putting the needs of others on par with or before your own comes from women. He has an instinctive (actually, learned) association of femininity with weakness, and strength (i.e. masculinity) with survival. Ergo, to him, not littering is weak.

Ironic, considering he doesn't have the "courage" to do it when I'm looking directly at him. He knows right from wrong. He's conflicted, for sure. My heart bleeds for him.

Tomorrow will be interesting. If he does it again, I won't say a word. I will simply deposit the cup on his side of the gate. (Even though I'm off parole, I can't afford to lose my temper in public again. But once a year? It felt great!)

Day 2 of back and forth betwee 2 theaters. So far so good.

MCO 2007

\\If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.\\

How interesting to find this particular Martin Luther King Jr. quote in my mailbox. I had just come in from my regular "route," having had a lovely conversation with "Jane." She asked me the question I thought I would have been asked many a more time by now, the question I think I would have asked anyone else if the positions were reversed. "So, what's your name?" and "what's the genesis of what you do for the neighborhood?" We exchanged frustrations and anecdotes--she's one of the blessed ones who call 311 to have the huge items dumped on the sidewalk hauled. (I'm pretty sure she's the one who's hailed her thanks to me for my unlittering from her balcony in the past.)

So that started off my morning well, which I needed as it was David's first night in his new place, and I felt lonely waking up without our usual routine. I'd always pour him coffee (black) and as I checked email he'd watch Good Morning America. Sometimes we wouldn't say a word for an hour, but still it was nice.

Happily, I'm off to one theater to work till 4 and then the other theater tonight at 6 for rehearsal. This is good. Must...stay...busy.

MCO 2007

You know that old Armenian with a cane who asked me if anyone paid me to pick up the trash? This morning I noticed he was looking at me from across the street as he returned to the gate leading to his apartment building. I wondered why, but when I turned away, suddenly heard something very much like a styrofoam cup being tossed on the ground. My view was blocked by a car, but I did cross the street to check, and sure enough, my suspicions were correct.

The old man was making sure I wasn't looking before he threw out his cup. Ah perfidy! Now I know why there's one in exactly that spot one there every morning. He can't even take it 18 steps from the front gate into his apartment! I haven't quite decided how to confront him--maybe I'll just stare at him as he approaches his gate and see if he has the nerve to toss it while I'm watching. No wonder Gaza growled at him.

Yesterday was great, notwithstanding that I couldn't quite learn my new job. The sound mixing board, it seems, had been stolen from a storage unit sometime since the show closed. Alot of expensive stuff was taken with it. It was a stressful development for the producers, but we went ahead with a lighting rehearsal and I was able to make myself useful training the new stagehands. There should be a new soundboard on Monday, so I should be there three nights in a row this week. I LOVE being part of a production.

And then last night, the coolest thing. My friend Michael got us tickets to a showing of "The Queen" at The American Cinematheque, with an-in person appearance by Helen Mirren herself. Damn that woman is hot, hot, hot, in every way imaginable. There were only a few questions allowed from the audience, and I wasn't picked, so I couldn't ask her "Any chance you wanna be in a film with you and Meryl Streep playing sisters?" but I was thrilled to see her nonetheless.

My roommate is moving out today. I guess I'm glad to have the extra room, plus no snoring, but I'm definitely already feeling lonelier. And now Tony is facing a huge tax bill and I fear he won't be able to visit. Thank God I look to be a very busy boy in the next few weeks.

MCO 2007

Wouldn't you know that this 5-day long upper respiratory "whatever" finally decides to start expectorating at 11:30 pm last night? With typical AA paranoia, I had avoided buying cough syrup, to my everlasting regret. You see, if I don't fall asleep within an hour of trying, my roommate then slips into ELS sleep, (Extremely Loud Snoring). It won't wake me up if I'm already asleep (prison taught me that little trick) but if I'm awake and trying--formula for disaster. I kept the door closed between our rooms but it wasn't enough. I finally figured out I could create white noise with a fan I never use, pointed away from me. Then I had to deal with the fear of not being able to get to sleep with a big day ahead of me--add 1/2 an hour to the insomnia.

So I face 12 hours of Beastly Bombings rehearsals on 5 hours' sleep. But at least I'll be inside and warm. Cause baby, IT"S COLD OUTSIDE! Not Minnesota cold, but for L.A., DAMN, I may have to buy some gloves. I did remember to put an old comforter outside for a homeless guy I talk to many days (oh sad that one--going blind from CMV--someone whose hyperchatter I've had to see past, who pushes another homeless guy around on a wheelchair--they often have screaming matches as empty cans spill from their shopping cart.) He didn't pick up the comforter though--hopefully it's because he took emergency shelter rather than froze to death in the park.

I'm reading a book on the early days of Dachau, about a gay black American jazz musician who found himself imprisoned there in the 30's. ("Clifford's Blues" by John A. Williams) He's relatively "lucky" -he's a houseboy under someone's "protection." But he watches the suffering of the other prisoners each winter, and I can't help thinking about them as well, 70 years later. Here I am, in comparatively balmy temperatures in the high 30's, and I can't pick up trash for more than 20 minutes before needing to come in, and those poor, benighted men, (most political prisoners, gays, Jehovah's Witnesses--the war itself hasn't started yet) standing at roll call and working in freezing temperatures without coats or adequate food, for days and nights at a time.

To get to sleep sometimes I indulge in the bizarrest fantasies of sending comforters and coats back in time to those prisoners. A magic wand which fills their soup with potatoes and pieces of chicken, which renders a guard kind or erases a fever. You know, sometimes when you read these accounts, there are--as Primo Levi called them--moments of reprieve, that are often described as inexplicable, even miraculous. What if, by modalities still misunderstood by our science, prayers, "magical thinking" sent backwards from the future are what explains such moments?

Just the remotest possibility of this keeps me sending those blankets back in time in my head. Maybe one day I'll come up with a virus to send back that makes those with it get very sick the more they hate and much better the more they love. Infect the Nazis with it circa 1933. Watch the SS drop like flies until they figure it out.

MCO 2007

I'm in that weird in-between place where the antiobiotics have started to work, but I just don't feel normal yet. That place where I tend to think I'm just lazy and have a poor attitude, otherwise I'd be chomping at the bit to work instead of staring longingly at the bed.

While typing this, I have one eye on a French documentary on Hollywood as the world's principal producer of TV series. It makes me wanna move here, which is a pretty weird sensation, as I already live here. That's how I feel, vaguely out of body. Close to my own life, but not quite in it.

I am bereft of insight, funny observations or pithy anecdotes today. All I can think to do is get my HBO back for the premiere of the second season of ROME on Sunday.

MCO 2006

Wow, look what happened across the street while I was gone. Some vehicle was rather insistent about smashing through a wrought iron gate and into the poor unfortunate blue car. Frankly, this is not terribly surprising. You have no idea how fast those testosterone-fueled Armenian boys race down these streets.

Also, the photo fairly reflects how the state of my chest. Okay, I'm being a little melodramatic, but feel decent I do not. I had to call in sick to the Highways job, if only out of consideration for others who work there. Thank God it's one of those part-time jobs where the work is decidedly not of the urgent variety. No one willl go unmedicated, or be denied financial aid, or have precious news unheard. Still, since I had to do this my first day of work a mere month ago due to illness, I am loathe to be thought of as a malingerer. I'm hoping no travel will = no sicky, but at least if this does keep happening, I will feel completely justified remaining on disability.

Another day in bed (mostly) for me

MCO 2007

Well, the doctor says my chest sounds "crackly," i.e. indicative of an atypical respiratory infection and therefore likely amenable to antibiotics. Of course, my Medicare part D did not cover what he prescribed, but a $60 co-pay later, we found an alternative. Without getting all technical about symptoms and transmissiblity, we surmised it is probably not a coincidence that two of the four colds of the past 5 months have occurred after traveling. However, he did confirm that once you have suffered from some serious damage to the immune system, you can expect to be somewhat more vulnerable to viruses and infections the rest of your life.

I guess me and my students will find out the hard way if my new chosen profession is unsustainable from a health point of view. This would majorly suck, but unless I have 2 or more colds in the next few months, I'm not going to jump the gun just yet.

I have a prediction. In the next 35 years or so, I bet technology will progress to the point that every morning, the first thing someone does is download their dreams to their computer or I-Phone or whatever. I predict it will completely replace blog writing and reading, as people will watch the dreams of others just like they peruse selected blogs. How did I get this idea? I dreamt it, of course, last night.

Please skip the following if you just can't stand to read one more word about Iraq. Otherwise, the analysis of the situation on the ground in the Open Letter to Congress is the most cogent I've read, and sent to me by an Iraq veteran (sent to him by a commander in the field.)

It's long, but worth it.

----------------------------------

The Bush-Maliki Plan, now called The Surge, to deploy an additional 20,000 US troops to Iraq is a last-ditch effort to prevent a decisive US political defeat in Iraq. The principle purpose of this “surge” is to destroy the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al Sadr , who broke his alliance with the Maliki government after Maliki met with George Bush to confirm Iraqi government submission to US forces two months ago. Sadr enjoys immense local support from almost 3 million Iraqis, and is a very popular figure through most of the Southern half of Iraq. Not only will the attempt to use this “surge” to destroy the Mehdi Army inflict massive civilian casualties in the tightly-packed warrens of Sadr City, it will ignite a popular rebellion among Shia, from Baghdad to Um Qasr, that will effectively destroy what is left of the legitimacy of the Maliki “government.”

Opposing this “surge” is not only politically smart for Democrats; it is a moral imperative because of the civilian casualties that are certain to accrue. But it is also a maneuver to dodge the larger issue of the war itself, and of the 2006 election’s implicit demand that the US withdraw from Iraq. Now is the time to put as much local pressure as possible on both parties’ Senators and Representatives in order to accelerate the inevitable US withdrawal from Iraq at the least costing lives. It is in that spirit that this Open Letter to Members of the United States Congress is offered.

Please distribute this Open Letter to Members of the United States Congress as widely as possible, with the suggestions for using it.

Suggestion 1: Sign a copy and send it by email and paper mail to your own Congressperson.

Suggestion 2: Have a group from the same Congressional district sign it and send it to your Representatives and Senators.

Suggestion 3: Circulate the letter to as many people and organizations as possible in your city, county, or state, and send copies to both Senators and all Representatives.

Suggestion 4: Set up local web sites and lists to garner signatures, and publish the letter and signatories in the local liberal entertainment weekly. Then send copies of the paper to both Senators and all Congresspersons.

Suggestion 5: Come up with more creative suggestions… and implement them, now.

***

Open Letter to Members of the United States Congress

We the undersigned are opposed to the Bush administration’s continuing war in Iraq, but we are also disappointed with much of Congress – Republican and Democrat – as well as with much of the media, for failing to explain the real situation in Iraq and refusing to take decisive steps to halt the US-led occupation.

Media and therefore Congressional representations of the situation in Iraq are not just over-simplified; they are deceptive.

(1) There is never any mention of oil in these accounts. Both the media and most members of Congress are pretending that the US government’s preoccupation with Iraq has nothing to do with fossil energy reserves; but most people in the US know that were it not for oil, the US government would have little interest in the region or its people. We do not believe that continuing the US addiction to oil (five percent of the world’s population consuming 25% of its oil) is a valid reason to bomb and invade other nations and engage in wars of aggression.

(2) Media and Congressional accounts of the war almost always suggest that the war in Iraq – however “flawed” – is part of something called the Global War on Terrorism. But there can be no such thing as a war on a tactic, so we have to ask ourselves if this is not just another one-size-fits-all pretext for future military adventures. Iraq is not now nor has it ever been a threat to the security of people in the United States.

(3) There is no such thing as an Iraqi government except inside the Green Zone. Congressional and the media accounts constantly refer to the Iraqi government as the entity that requires US military assistance to become the guarantor of Iraqi security. But the relationship of all Iraqi forces demonstrates that this is a dangerous fantasy. The Maliki government – or any other government that relies on US military protection to survive for a week – commands the loyalty of only a fraction of the armed actors in Iraq. The armed forces being trained for that “government” are themselves loyal to factions with agendas, and these forces are filled with opportunists and infiltrators. With 80% of Iraqis now asking for an end to the Anglo-American occupation, and the Iraqis themselves identified not merely as Sunni or Shia (as simplified accounts have it), but of three major armed Shia factions, two major Sunni armed factions, and a Kurdish militia of 100,000 that resides in the north itself is divided into two camps, there is no possibility of one faction gaining the acquiescence of the whole Iraqi population and the various armed expressions of populations. The Maliki-Bush “surge” plan is designed to eliminate Maliki’s Shia and Sunni opposition inside Baghdad.

(4) The various sectors of the Iraqi population share one goal: they want stability to rebuild. This goal cannot be accomplished without negotiations between the various groups. With most Iraqis now supporting armed resistance to the Anglo-American occupation, no sector that is identified with the occupation can gain legitimacy in the eyes of most Iraqis. American support for any Iraqi “government” is not preventing so-called “sectarian” violence, it is incubating it. There may be some fighting in Iraq after a US withdrawal, but the balance of forces and their geographical dispersion are more likely to produce negotiations than protracted civil war. At any rate, it is not the role of the US government to shape the future of Iraq. What our government has already done to the future of Iraqis is quite enough, thank you. Iraqis are far more qualified to figure this out than the US Departments of State and Defense.

(5) An exit is not a strategy; it is a command. Elaborate plans about how to withdraw are the responsibility of the military commanders, not Congress. Most members of Congress wouldn’t know how to run a rifle platoon for an hour, much less the en masse redeployment of 150,000 troops. Leaving is a technical and tactical exercise. What is required, and what requires the political will of Congress – by de-funding the war – is the order to withdraw. Your job is the what, not the how.

(6) Half-measures happen while people continue to die. Opposing a “surge” in troop levels, but failing to oppose the war, is a half-measure.

(7) It has been said that “cutting and running” would send the “wrong message” to the world about the US… as if being ground down in a humiliating series of daily defeats hasn’t already accomplished this. That’s what they are. Defeats. Speak plainly. Military success is not predicated on tactical outcomes; but on political outcomes. By this measure, the US has already lost the war in Iraq. We never should have gone there in the first place. If this is about preserving the “national masculinity,” then every life lost in this effort is a pure sin. This machismo is the ideology of gangsters.

(8) De-funding the war will not put troops in danger. Specific conditional allocations of funds can be made available for the sole purpose of conducting a re-deployment. Much of the money being used in Iraq is paying exorbitant prices to private contractors. The war is what is putting troops in danger, not cutting funds to continue an illegal and immoral war.

In November 2006, the majority of voting Americans expressed its opposition to the war by putting Democrats back in control of Congress. You must understand that this was a “vote against,” not a “vote for.” Many of us have been disappointed and even angered by Democratic complicity in this criminal war.

Quit reading the wind, and start reading the weather. Since this horror began, support for US aggression in Iraq has gone from 90% to 30%. Ask yourself what the pattern is here. Republicans are already breaking ranks with the war. Democratic equivocation is establishing the basis for a historical reversal on the political question of the war. Those who are reading the weather will succeed in 2008. Those who are merely reading today's winds will be caught in the storm.

We want out of Iraq. By 2008, the majority of voters will want out of Iraq, and want out immediately, as we do now. They will remember who had the courage to say this before it crossed the 50% tipping point. They will also remember those who had their eyes fixed on today’s anemometer. You have one weapon to use against this administration – the power of the purse – and you must use it.

Not one more day; not one more dime; not one more life; not one more lie.

Cut the funds for the war, and bring the troops home now.

MCO 2007

Well I slept for a couple of hours, got up and took the dog to the park, and will promptly pass out again after this.

But I wanted to share that this morning, I had one of my periodic interesting exchanges with a neighborhood denizen. This elderly Armenian man, with a cane, always goes to the corner to get his morning coffee at the same time that I am picking up trash. So this morning, instead of walking by he stops and asks: "Does anybody pay you to do this?"

Unfortunately, he raised he cane for emphasis, and so concurrently to my answer of

"Nawww" came a defensive growl from Gaza. (Either that or the man was a war criminal of some kind. I always wonder why Gaza reacts that way to some seemingly harmless old men.)

I immediately chastized Gaza, and assured the man that he really is a good dog, but he took it very personally and continued on his way in a huff. (Clearly not a dog person).

Thanks to Gaza for reminding me that I am powerless. How a dog reacts viscerally to people is truly beyond my control, although certainly I can make sure it is a quick growl and nothing more.

Secondly, I have to imagine that the man has been wondering why I pick up trash for a while. It would appear that it he found it hard to believe that I just might do it because I hate they way it looks and my life seems to work overall much better if I am of service in some regular systematic way. I got the feeling that he was ready to go "Aha, I knew it!" if I told him I got paid to do it, as if that would have been easier to reconcile with his understanding of why people do things. I think, apart from the dog, he was slightly bothered by my answer.

Also, I forget to share that "The Beastly Bombings" have asked me to work the soundboard this next run. A distinct step up from stagehand. I couldn't be more delighted. Well, yes I could, if I didn't feel like shit.

But lucky me, I don't have to work at Highways till Thursday and my first tech for BB isn't till Saturday. I suppose if I have to be sick, I can count myself lucky on the timing.

Back to bed.

MCO 2007

I don't know what I caught in New York or how (God Forbid I should stay up past midnight ONCE a year) but between getting on the plane in NY and landing in LA 5 hours later, a dust storm hatched in my chest. I slept fitfully, and halfway through my trash picking up this morning (I lost count of the bags it was so bad) my legs became leaden. I wonder if I have the flu. (Yes, got a flu shot)

If I owe you an email, please forgive me. I'm going back to bed. (Rather concerned that this is something like the 4th cold in 5 months. Teaching makes for inevitable mega-exposure to everything. I also don't begin to understand how in my using days I never got a cold. How the hell does that work?)

More Later (hopefully)

MCO 2007

So Mike and I and his lover Kevin went to see Pan's Labyrinth, which is just like the reviews said it is. Three stars for me, as it is a bit more intense than I like. Do NOT take your kids, it's a very Grim fairy tale of sorts.

Afterwards we went out to dinner, where the conversation unexpectedly veered into aspects of Kevin and Michael's relationship. I've known Michael for 25 years, and therefore my observations had a certain weight, although perhaps I should have kept my mouth shut. The purpose of this blog is not to expose the personal lives of friends (not that there was anything remotely salacious discussed), but I will say that old friendships are a kind a marriage. You end up dancing in and out of the same dynamic that originally made you friends and periodically caused distance between you. Michael and I danced all night.

For an hour or two quite literally. After Kevin decided to call it a night, Michael and I went to his art studio, a basement garret on 49th street and 10th avenue that he is willing to sublet me for the summer if I am indeed admitted to the teaching program and start my intensive training in June. Then we went barhopping (yes I drank coca-cola), ending up in one of my old haunts, the piano/bar disco called The Monster where in the 80sI danced more hours than I can remember and I picked up more men than I can count. Let's not even talk about how many cocktails were consumed. I paid more than a few bartenders' rents over the years, to put it midly.

I enjoyed being completely present for the experience. One advantage to sobriety is that being 100% there ends up being a sort of high in itself. While we shook our booties (it had been forever for both of us) I glanced up into the mirror and saw big brown eyes I hadn't seen so clear in years. (Or maybe it was that I was wearing my contacts). The nicest thing of all was that I didn't feel the slightest compulsion to try to pick somebody up. Even a conversation would have had to have been completely the result of someone else's effort. Which is not to strike a pose, just to note the difference between the me who thought a night out that didn't result in at LEAST a few major flirtations and usually more as something of a missed opportunity and the me content to dance and glance and then get on to bed at the previously ridculously early, now ridiculously late hour of 2 a.m.

Now I'm back at my Mom's. NYTime Crossword Puzzle, then French tea with some other francophones at 4. I return to LA tomorrow night.

MCO 2007

It went really, really well.

There were 6 candidates, and two "selectors" who seemed extremely dedicated to the idea of maintaining a pokerface, so it was very hard to gauge any reaction. But you know when you do well, don't you? If I might have been hesitant about the quality of my 5 minute teaching sample, it was pretty much quashed after witnessing the four who went after me. Two were mediocre, and one girl was dreadful, just dreadful. No understanding of the learning process at all, no attempt to engage the room. One guy, the physics teacher, was real cute but somewhat diffident. Still, he knew his stuff and he's a shoe-in cause they need science teachers desperately. Ditto the Math guy.

There was a discussion, an essay and the interview itself, and without going into laborious detail, I will just say I can't think of anything I would have said or done differently. If they don't extend an invitation into the program to me, then truly it was not meant to be. I gave them a very clear snapshot of the kind of teacher I would be, and if they don't want that, then I'll be a tad confused, but at peace with it.

I couldn't have asked for a better harbinger for the day then to pick up my mother's Sunday New York Times (suscribers get the bulk of it a day early) and on the front page of the Arts and Leisure is a valentine of an article on "The Beastly Bombings!" You know, the show I stagehanded (almost danced) for, and intend to again starting the 19th! The show is scheduled to run through the Spring in LA, but after this article, I'll bet you anything it comes to NY. And I have every intention of continuing with it. Congrats to Julien, Roger and Rory and the cast. Buy your New York Times tomorrow!

Now I'm at my friend Michael's and we're off the to movies in Times Square. It's in the 60's. I know it's "magical" thinking to imagine the universe revolves around you, but today is one of those days that I am secretly convinced it does. The city is calling my name. "Come Back, Mary Louise" (as my friend Michael a.k.a Mitzi, used to call me.) "I've been waiting for you!"

MCO 2007

I'm at my Mom's up in Sleepy Hollow, at her deluxe residence for Senior Citizen's (It actually landed on New York Magazine's "Best of..." List. ) I continue to try and sort out what are the geniune ill effects of the aging process on my Mom, and what are the exacerbating influences of anxiety about the genuine ill effect of the aging process. I think what is genuinely different is made much worse by her awarness whatever that change is, i.e. if you lose your glasses once a month when you used to lose them once a year, it can certainly feel like you spend your life looking for things.

My mother used to be the Queen of Multi-Tasking. She could grade papers in one room while tending to the cooking for a dinner for 7 (nightly) in the other, while carrying on several conversations at once as kids trekked home from rehearsal or swimming practice. Now, if you talk to her while she's writing a check, she tells you she cannot do two things at once. I have to remember if it's difficult for me to see the change, how much more difficult it must be for her to live it.

I keep reading about and seeing excerpts of Hilary Swank's "Freedom Writers." I noted one of the actresses who played a student saying as she was raised in New York, the racism didn't come naturally to her. I heard the same thing in prison, that while in California everything was divided by race, in New York the prisons were integrated and there was a lot of cross-racial solidarity and friendship--comparatively speaking. Isn't that a bit odd, when you think about it? Sunny, mellow, unaccented California should have been the relative oasis. Sharks-and-Jets Land should be much more riven with gangs and racial politics. While no paradise in New York, it does seem like I would be entering much more of a lion's den if I taught back in CA.

Anyway, the interview's tomorrow. I'll probably tell you about it Sunday morning. (I'll be staying over at a friend's in the city and should be able to use his computer.) I am eminently calm--the worst part, as usual, was my logistics anxiety. Getting the ticket, getting to the airport, getting on the plane, getting from the airport into the city etc. etc. Stuff I've done without a hitch for over 20 years, but makes me more and more anxious with time.

You can tell what kind of mess I'll be when I hit 80. Always yammering about which way to go and waiting for a taxi and what track is that train on and probably just staying at home because I'm afraid of it all. Clearly, I will have to get rich, and be ferried about by a very handsome driver wearing a uniform of my design and being paid alot extra to pretend he finds old men so much more interesting than his peers. (No sex necessary, just good acting.)

MCO 2007

Fear is scary.

I'm full of it today. (Fear, not "it," though maybe "it" is a form of fear.) I'm afraid of change, upheaval, hassle. I'm afraid of the unfamiliar. I'm afraid of finding out my fatigue is not psychosomatic. I'm afraid of moving to New York and missing L.A. I'm afraid of Tony and I becoming "just friends." I'm afraid of meeting someone else. I'm afraid of not meeting someone else.

I'm afraid of not moving to New York, of not changing my life, of not finishing my play or any major work. I'm afraid of picking up a drink and/or drugs again. I'm afraid of never drinking again. I'm afraid of driving across country with a dog, I'm afraid of not finding an apartment. I'm afraid of all of the EFFORT involved with change. And yet, I'm not a lazy person. Or am I?

It actually helps to vomit all of this on the page. Takes the teeth out of some of it. It's okay to have all of these fears--t