warming over old issues

At some point everybody discovers that they are becoming their parents. I think, I don’t know, maybe I’m projecting. Anyway I had a pretty disconcerting moment the other day. I heard my dad say something I say all the time, not just a phrase, more of mannerism contained in a phrase. He asked my to wash the dishes and I hesitated before answering because, and this is absolutely accurate and not in any way an exaggeration, my mouth was full at the time and he said “you know what, forget it”. He said it with exasperation a derision and a subtext of “fuck it, you’re obviously not capable of fulfilling this simple request, I'll just do it myself”. That’s mine, I do that. I do it with more superiority, and less anger, but I do that all the time. It turns out I learned it from him, he must have used it on me a thousand times since before I could talk, and I bet I've used it on him. I wonder if he found it disturbing or disorienting. I wonder if he even noticed.
Considering how much this whole thing weirded me out you’d think that I would rebel, or reassess, or try to fight this, maybe become an independent human being. you’d think it would make me want to be less condescending, or negative, or manipulative, or depressed, or mean, or disdainful, or less like all the things I hate about him. You’d think that, wouldn’t you? You’d think but you’d be wrong. I just feel resigned.

Home Now

So, I'm home now. Now I'm home. Back at the place that I live, and come from, and where the dentist sends me postcards when he hasn't seen me in six months (dentists can get so clingy). I come here as little as possible but I'm here now. Home. God, if my heart is her I pray for coronary. I actually went to the dentist, but that was uneventful: they told me I should floss. My parents are okay, my house is nice, the place where I live is really natural and scenic and all that crap, but after I spend an hour and a half here I just pray for death. There's nothing to do and no one to talk to, there's nothing on TV and I can't focus on a book, driving can help, but driving isn't cheap and there's nowhere to go. I want to go back to school and be stressed out again. I just came from running two shows and working at another theatre and now I'm in some kind of schedule withdrawal. I'm also cold. really cold, it's much, much cooler here than it was in New York, it's also much cooler in a drafty house than it was in the rafters of an old theatre, on level with the lights, as far as possible from the AC, with a large set, metal blinds, a painted scrim, and fifteen to fifty people between me and that sweet, life giving, processed air. It turns out I got used to that, lowered my body temperature and slowed down my heart rate, adjusted in an almost reptilian way. And now I'm cold, and bored, and home.

Updating my blog

I am updating my blog for no particular reason. I am updating my blog despite months of neglect and the fact that no one knows it exists. I am updating by blog at great risk to blogspot.com and the internet as an institution. I’m updating my blog n the wake of my universe’s recent collapse. I’m updating my blog as a break from combat with the corporate dragon, as rebellion against my digital isolation, as a pathetic “fuck you” to the enemy. I’m updating my blog for the sheer thrill of typing, trying to ignore the alien surface of a desktop keyboard. I don’t know why I’m updating my blog, I haven’t been social, I haven’t been happy, I haven’t been online but I’m updating my blog anyway.

My computer crashed again. I think it’s now officially had more crashes than NASCAR, more refurbished parts than Frankenstein’s monster, and more hours of conversation logged on the corporate dime than the “dude, you’re getting a Dell” Dude’s possession charges. My computer crashed again. It can’t seem to help itself. They can’t seem to help me. I hate my computer, I don’t want it to be fixed, I want it to die and be replaced but I need it to survive. I think I know how a child feels when an abusive parent falls into a coma.

I don’t know whether I work to hard or I don’t have the proper constitution for the theatre. I opened two shows last week. I‘m currently stage managing and running tech (lights and sound) for two full scale productions. The equipment is unreliable, the air conditioning is inadequate, it’s August in New York City, two theatres are hooked up to one twenty five year old breaker box, the fringe has started and twice as many shows as usual are tapping into the grid, and on top of everything I have the electric touch of death. Since I got here my computer, Aryana’s internet, a blender, and a washing machine have all been comprised. The lights at the theatre had different and untraceable problems at each of five consecutive shows in the course of two days. It’s definitely me.

I’m sick of being incompetent.

I’m sick of being unappreciated.

I’m sick of being powerless.

I’m sick of being uninspired.

I’m sick of being jerked around.

I’m sick of being ashamed.

I’m sick of being uncomfortable.

I’m sick of being angry.

I’m sick of it.

All of it.

I’m sick of not being able to trust anything in my world.

I’m sick of blogging.

Maybe I’ll do it more often.

The New Black

I was watching The Matrix, well to be perfectly accurate I am watching The Matrix but there’s no need to be picky about temporal tenses, after all I’m already past the relevant bits. Anyway, the point is this: I hereby move that Alice and Wonderland is the most important book of the twentieth century.

Notes on the previous statement:
- I’m including Through the Looking Glass when I say “Alice in Wonderland”, firstly because I’ve never even seen them bound separately and secondly because it’s easier for me.
- I am perfectly aware that it was written and published in the nineteenth century. I am aware that its author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, pseudonym Lewis Carroll, died in 1898. I am aware of these things and I don’t care.

Alice In Wonderland became the Bible after 1950. When I say that I don’t mean what men in silk shirts with frosted hair mean when they say that pink is the new black. Or maybe I do, maybe it’s just a different timetable. See, when they say that they mean that for the next six months pink will be as ubiquitous and important as black has always been and will always be. Those people are always wrong, and, at least at the moment, I think I’m right but I might be trying to say the same thing they’re trying to say. That is: the Bible is the Bible, it’s the constant, standard base of western understanding; even right now, when I claim that Alice in Wonderland is the Bible, I know that the Bible is still the Bible, but for a little while, for its brief period, in is its own realm, Alice in Wonderland is the new black… then again, two thousand years isn’t forever so I guess the same can be said of the Bible.

Alice in Wonderland is quoted like Proverbs, its themes are mirrored like Genesis, it’s mined for lessons like the New Testament, for insight like Revelations, for truth like, well, all of it. It’s permeated the culture so completely that people don’t have to read it to except its lessons, or to know its contents, they know ‘down the rabbit hole’ and ‘through the looking glass’ as they know ‘parting the Red Sea’, they know the Hatter, the Dormouse, Queen of Hearts and the Cheshire Cat. It’ll pass out of the culture eventually, just like everything else, but something happened ninety years after it’s publication that changed it from a charming but nonsensical children’s book to a handbook for processing our world.

I’m Jewish so my first thought was, of course, the Holocaust (we’ve become a terribly predictable people) and I watch a lot of VH1 Classic do my second thought was drugs. They might both be wrong but here’s something: we became suspicious of the way things seemed, started to regard reality as feeble, or cruel, or deceptive, or impetuous, events were determined not by reason but by whim, things that were impossible became easy, things that were inconsequential became vital, children knew more then their parents or at least believed that they did, thousands of people became inhuman, a million more agreed with them. That was gibberish, I’m sorry, let me start again. The white Rabbit… Harvey… Frank… the Trix Rabbit… there’s something about rabbits and insanity or the unseen existence. I lost it, I’m sorry, if I get it back I’ll update. I knew what I was talking about forty-five minutes ago but it’s gone now. That makes me sad; it had seemed so important…

Good People Love Dogs

This is how it is:
Good people love dogs.
Bad people kick dogs.
If a person seems bad until they love a dog, you’re dealing with a flawed character.
If a person seems good until they kick a dog, you’re dealing with a maniac.

I was watching As Good As It Gets this morning. I’ve seen it several times because it’s Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt and a good solid script. If you don’t like Nicholson we can’t discuss movies, if you don’t like Helen Hunt I understand your point but politely disagree, if you don’t like well written drama we can’t be friends. Sorry. Anyway, the things I just wrote are things I already knew, things that everybody knows intuitively; they’re so true that they’ve become cliché. It’s programmed into people, even ones who don’t like or own dogs, even ones who are deathly and irrationally afraid of dogs, I bet it’s even programmed into cosmetics scientists who do horrible experiments of dogs without blinking an eye. Those people’s hearts melt when Jack Nicholson tells that little rat dog that he’s perfect just the way he is.

Introductions

I know several people, at times I suspect that every one of them despises me, some of them I know despise me but I’m ok with it because I’m not particularly fond of them either. The people I expect to read this blog and my revered professors will be referred to by name, most others will be referred to by epithets (WARNING: epithets are subject to change at a moments notice (sometimes less)). I’m setting this down now so that I will be obligated to stick to it in the future when Svengali really starts attacking my work.

Anyway, let’s meet the leads:

Me: writer of this blog, dramatic writer, voice of judgment.
Gina: friend, fellow dramatic writer, directing Carpet of Leaves, voice of reason.
Aryana: the roommate, fellow dramatic writer, keeping cokehead hours without chemical influence, voice of dissent.
Amanda: former roommate, literature major, constant presence, voice of innocence.
Alison: former quasi roommate, literature major, often absent, voice of experience.
The Junior Dramatic Writers: the height of mixed-bagery (like The Village People I tell you), voice telling me to burn things.

Professors: voice from above.
Kathleen Tolan: renowned playwright, how can I miss you if you won’t go away?
Dean Bell: Beats? Classical story design? Coherent input? Advice from an advisor? Thank fucking god for Dean Bell.
Eric Mendelbaum: softens up a bit after a mental breakdown, but seriously Mendelbaum, what do you want?
J.D. Zeik: I agree with every criticism of him but I like him anyway.
Howard Enders: poor Howard.

Parents: voice from afar
Amy, my mom, my mother, Madres, Mumsy: well-liked despite a staggering bluntness, alive despite a staggering unawareness.
Eric, my dad, my father, Fadres, Mr. Sir, data monkey: like me but bald and inexplicably proud of me.

The thing in the vent: voice of the damned.

Why me? Why now?

I have decided to start a blog. My friend Aubrey inspired me. Aubrey, who those of you who are not Aubrey will not know, had the same internship that I did, has the same birthday as I do, is in the same major as I am (albeit more sneakily), and owns the same Shakespeare anthology as I are (the pervious word is abandonment of grammar and sense in favor of style). She is effectively me with pink polka dots. This is not to say that she has a skin condition that gives her pink polka dots it simply means that if you take me subtract everything that is antithetical to pink polka dots as an institution and add a comparable amount of essence of pink polka dots you would have an extremely puzzled Aubrey. She will be puzzled because to be alchemically created by a stranger out of a person you used to know is a fundamentally puzzling experience. If you reverse the experiment and create me out of Aubrey then (a typo was edited here) you will end up with a version of me that will be angry at you for destroying Aubrey.