Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Why I Love New York

Yesterday was a bad day at work. Specifics are for another time.

As I got into the elevator at the end of the day, though, I was confronted with a young woman on a cell phone wearing a plain black dress and some odd animal print stockings which were kind of mesmerizing and made her look just slightly diseased. As I step to the back of the car (which, by the way, is what one is supposed to do!) the diseased woman reached out and touched my arm. Just keeping my recoil reflex under control I looked her in the eye and realized that it was LilyB! She works in my building, on 2 different floors, one of which uses the same elevator bank that I do.

All of this is a lovely coincidence but not nearly so funny if you don't know that I haven't seen LilyB for over a year and finally remedied that 2 weeks ago by going to her mom's house for dinner. We had a grand old time, discussed the fact that we both had new jobs, read some Tarot, ate & drank heartily, discussed the jobs themselves in a fair amount of depth but not once did we discuss where those jobs might be. It never occurred to her, I'm sure, and the rate of subject change between LilyB and her mom, BeBe, is so high that I never had a chance to do my typical, plodding Capricorn investigation.

Proof positive that the city of my dreams wanted to give me a bright shiny present to make up for my shitty day.

Thanks New York!

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Kids in the Hall...and Oates

My neighborhood is full of cars that throb with the beat from their million dollar stereo systems, making the neon outlines of their undercarriages pulse and flicker.

So I wasn't surprised to feel the thrum as I walked the dog this evening. Well not until I listened more closely and heard, "..guilty feet have got no rhythm..."

Saturday, April 23, 2005

A Good Relationship is All About Compromise

My best friend, ChemE, has a birthday on Monday.

In terms of present-giving occasions we are near polar opposites. She is not only happy to receive presents early but will USE them before the occasion. Unbelievable. Really not a fan of surprises my girl. Which is understandable, given her life, but I still don't get it.

I would so much rather be surprised, and it's important to me to have something to open on the day. I don't mind saying what things I might like but I don't give each person one thing to buy like SOME people.

So, ChemE has kindly agreed to surprise me on all such occasions. Well, sort of. When she comes to New York we will shop and she'll note what I like and buy it. I, in turn, have agreed to forget what I've seen her buying. Over the years I've gotten so good at it that this last trip we stood in a store and she showed me something that I loved and bought it, then not 30 minutes later, we were walking down the street tallying her purchases and who they were all for and I said, "Yeah, but the giraffe cards, you bought those too. Are they for you? Who are they for?" And she just gave me the look. Cool! Apparently I can be surprised over and over and over all by the same one present.

You may not be at all surprised to know that I have not returned the courtesy and disclosed all present information to her.

"You're mean!" you're all saying. "What kind of friend are you?" you're asking. "How do you know that your way is better?"

Well, I don't know for sure but I'm fairly certain. And I'm willing to admit that her way is better for cooking, for chemistry, for gardening, for the purchase of items large and small, for almost everything. So lay off and give me this one small thing. In this, at least, my way IS better.

The games began on Thursday. I had made arrangements to purchase something and have it shipped to arrive at her house on her birthday proper. Thursday afternoon I find that it can't be delivered on the day. Although I was pissed initially and huffily canceled my order it turned out to be the perfect Surprise Enhancement Tool. I called her from the corner by the store I wanted to order from.

"So, I promise that for once I did everything right and got things together and had a present ready for delivery to your house on your birthday. But it's perishable. And today, TODAY they called me and told me they can't deliver it on the actual birthday. So there's a choice. You can have the original present Wednesday, or possibly Thursday, or you can have an equally cool but totally different gift that I can probably get delivered to you on the day. What do you think?"

"Well, I mean, really what you think is best." And she's getting the very slightest smile in her voice, the kind everybody gets when there's a surprise brewing.

"I just want to make sure you get something to open on your birthday, I want you to have a good day."

"What do you think I'd like best?"

"They're both good, really."

"Well, do you think I'll like the perishable one?"

"Oh yeah."

"I guess you better send it to work so it doesn't sit out on my porch."

Hee! She's got to be enjoying this, right?

Tomorrow during our weekly phone call I'll have to slip in another hint or 2. And then I'll call on her birthday itself on Monday. And that should be more than enough I think.

It's my mother's fault. For a month before Christmas every conversation with my mother goes something like this:

"I bought you a present today!"

"Thank you! What is it?"

(sing song) "I'm not telling you."

By now you may be wondering what I sent to ChemE.

I'm not telling you.

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Infidelity Weekend

It's not as risque as it sounds but it had its moments.

The infidelity highlights are Orange Flower Water and A Walk on the Moon .

OFW is a shortish full length play by one of the writers from Six Feet Under , Craig Wright. 2 couples, 1 from each get together for an affair. Very soon it comes out and fancy that, there's aftermath. You can see why the people at 6 Feet like him because he's got a beautiful sense of how to build intensity and just the right point at which to break it with humor so you can do it again. The play has 3 or 4 wonderful moments of painful, perfect reality. I suspect that Wright wrote those and then had to figure out a way to string them together because the premise around which these moments revolve doesn't feel fully earned. All of it, however, is exquisitely acted.

And this is where the risque part comes in. There is a 20 minute scene of intense and important dialogue that all takes place around the foreplay, intercourse and completion between 2 characters. It's beautifully done and with very little tweaking would be an exquisite short play all on its own. We're in a modern age, we've all seen sex done and done and done in every medium, and yet, this was possibly the most disturbing theatre sex experience I've ever had...well watched at least. The theatre is very small, audience on 3 sides and the bed is the central set piece and takes up easily 2/3 of the stage space. The 2 actors start fully clothed and end up with the woman in what we're to believe is just a diaphanous nightgown, we do see her remove her underwear, and the man is full monty. I guess that the disturbing bit is because I'm an actress and couldn't help wondering how I'd feel if it were me acting it. I mean, if you're rubbing all the right parts against each other how can you not get a little rise out of the guy? Even if it's not being used. And how uncomfortable is that in a blocking rehearsal? Beyond that the smallest touches were all there from the actors, some obvious and some not. The one that stays in my head is the way he touched her feet. She is sitting astride him, rocking back and forth and talking to him and he would reach down and grab her feet around the arch, rubbing the soles. I've never come across that before but it struck me as so wonderfully intimate and indicative of the long relationship the characters were meant to have had. I can't stop thinking about it.

A Walk on the Moon is a movie endorsed wholeheartedly by Viggo Mortensen lovers everywhere. It is a stunningly accurate portrait of an upstate New York family summer campground in the late 60s. We're shown the slow beginnings of the blending of the strait-laced 1950s and the far more liberal 1960s. Diane Lane and Viggo are delicious together. How could anyone resist naked, wet Viggo making love under a waterfall? Delightful and fun and gorgeous. Sigh.

Oh yeah, and I watched a few episodes of Queer as Folk (US) , too. Lots of naked people this weekend. May next weekend be so good.

Regression Therapy

Yesterday we celebrated the birth of Miss Rebecca. She turned 30 last week. At her behest the celebration took place in the local park and involved the following:

A My Pretty Pony pinata
Hello Kitty paperware

I am rocketed back to my childhood resentment of people with birthdays in warm months. I mean, I love my bowlng birthday parties but it's not exactly the same.

Had a great time, met some new people, got some much-needed sun, hung Alita upside down and swung her round and round keeping her just the good side of puking up her junk food.

Miss Rebecca, she is well worth celebrating.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

The Zeal of the Converted

I started using Fresh Direct less than a year ago. I'm not sure where this article got people with such a high rate of complaint.

If you know me at all you know that I'm not good with the math, and yet, I'm pretty sure their equation is screwed up. Yes, the organic produce is pricey but overall, if you consider the value of your time (and it's worth at least $15 an hour people) then the time you spend wandering the cramped aisles of a grocery store, waiting in the always interminable line, fighting with the equally numerically challenged check out kid and lugging your groceries home then Fresh Direct is a bargain. Cheap at twice the price, although my cheapskate New England mentality would never have allowed me to try it at twice the price.

Have I ever been disappointed by them? Yeah, a couple of times. But you know what? When they make a mistake they own up to it and they're genuinely interested in helping to fix it. I can think of at least one other company that doesn't feel the same way. Hell I know plenty if individuals who have no interest in owning up to their own mistakes much less fixing them.

The article is right, they're never going to completely replace the walk-in grocery store. Mostly because as human beings we're always going to forget something, always going to run out of toilet paper and not be able to wait 24 to 36 hours for delivery, and for me because they still don't carry some things that are staples of my questionable diet. Still and all, not having to go to the grocery store (or 2 or three of them depending what you want to buy in my neighborhood) means that I'm eating better and cheaper every day.

Thank you Fresh Direct for discovering that the key to good services is getting a parking ticket once in a while.

(Registration may be required for that first article. But I hope not.)

No, really, I'm on the list

I want to remind you all that you should invite me to your next party. I'm an asset to any social occasion. I have impeccable manners and I'm willing to help with anything you need but most of all it's for my sparkling conversation. No matter the company, no matter the occasion I can introduce a topic that will have everyone included and bubbling with excitement. Your party will be the talk of the town for seasons afterwards.

One of my favorite informal polls when the conversation runs down is, "What do you want done with your remains when you die?"

No, I'm not kidding.

Well, I think you're a little cracked yourself.

Jeez! Some people.

I've had plenty of interesting answers, actually, and a lot of tangential conversations. Did you know that you can get paid to die? If you give your body to science, I think they give you a few hundred bucks. What book would you want to be cremated with? I've also been charged with convincing the nice people at Ziploc to make a full size body bag for someone who sang too many verses of "The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out" as a child.

It's been fun and I thought everyone I knew was pretty creative until I read this.

No fear, no loathing, just love. Thank you Mr. Thompson and godspeed.

Monday, April 04, 2005

At this point

If you're Camilla Parker Bowles how can you not be thinking, "On second thought, let's just live together."