i volunteered to write two seminar papers back-to-back because, frankly, what else do i have to do? i’m not bitter though. the weather’s getting warmer which is totally what i was counting on to lure me out of a post-adventure funk. perhaps i should be outside frolicking in it instead of inside listening to Company and watching my flowers die.

scw needs a bio for me. last semester it was “if you rearrange the letters in [my name], you get TREES BLOOM, which makes a lot more sense.” at the moment i have no ideas and little inspiration. suggestions are most welcome.

it’s virtually snowing outside. that’s not right. but glory and sunshine are fleeting, i guess. the play, c’est fini. the glory too. so much in one week! one poetry contest, three performances … a little clot of ecstacy.

to delay the comedown, i went over to felicia’s, still in pajamas and recovery from the cast party last night. we watched almost famous and i cried at beautiful kate hudson. she looks about 12. beautiful blond women in movies have this bizarre effect on me: for a while i couldn’t watch shakespeare in love because it hurt too much. it’s deeper than jealousy. i even wrote a poem about it once. anyway.

cast party was fun. nothing extraordinary or untoward happened. nobody is incapable of doing a foolish thing; nobody is incapable of doing a wrong thing; but nobody did anything visibly foolish or wrong last night. people drank a lot, and told stories, and in some cases rolled on the floor or belted out showtunes. all to be expected. people did reach the lovey stage. harmless, earnest declarations were as prevalent and necessary for the occasion as paper cups.

there are no words for how much i’ll miss this cast and this show. it could not have turned out better than it did. at the same time it feels like something i achieved, something at first i wasn’t sure i could do, and something i can only take a smidgen of the credit for. regardless, i am so glad to have been a part of it.

one of my actors demanded that i direct noises off next semester. i only know it vaguely. applause is addictive: i’m torn about trying again. pragmatically, i don’t know if i’ll have time. but we’ll see.

i shouldn’t post now; i should wait til i’m up again. the combination of getting 9 hours of sleep total over two nights; 2 plays at which i often, watching, forget to breathe; & the arrival and departure of 5 family members has affected me. maybe the weather too. maybe i could deal if the sun came back. i don’t feel like thinking or making decisions: not good: i have an appointment to get my hair chopped in an hour. when i’m depressed i overpunctuate. comma comma,, semicolon: period.

the plays have been good. the plays have been fantastic, even. last night i was as happy with it as i ever desired to be. i spent the half-hour after the show ended, dazed and glowing, collecting compliments. in addition to forgetting how funny the show is, i hadn’t realized it could also be moving. but the audience got really into it. that’s really the best, when the audience doesn’t laugh, it makes those other group noises — gasps! oh nos! — as tho it isn’t obvious that everything will be straightened out by the end.

… okay, totally couldn’t leave the entry on that note. i didn’t mean to initially, i just had to dash out and meet my family for breakfast. as i feel better now, i may as well add that. lots of good food today. at breakfast, once i finished half a belgian waffle, some scrambled eggs, and part of my little brother’s bagel with lox, people finally stopped ragging me about not eating. then for lunch stef,eliz,brig and i hit up bertucci’s in bryn mawr. bertucci pizza = gucci pizza.

brig and i both got short haircuts. mine’s flouncy. oh it feels so light. i’ve been told it’s flirtatious and sophisticated. that cracks me up.

it happened last night

debut = over.

my arms = full of flowers. what a dream.

still two shows to go.

the message my brother left me this afternoon said, “i heard you got voted the coolest poet ever by a gaggle of hippies.” not exactly true, sadly. i did win first prize though at the yearly swarthmore poetry contest. i’d never entered before but winning certainly made me think i should have tried. first place! $500! i’ve never won anything before. swat brought a poet in from the outside to judge the contest: beth ann fennely. she spoke with a cute southern accent and gave a reading for about half an hour after announcing the winners. her poetry is energetic and engaging, and even more so outloud. my class was supposed to buy her book. now i suppose i certainly should.

it was tremendously encouraging, and it meant i didn’t have to be depressed going into our final dress rehearsal. the leading article in the paper about the show gets several key details wrong. nothing too awful though and nothing that would discourage people from coming (thurs – sat, 8 8 8, free!).

buoyed by my energy maybe, or just because, the dress actually went smoothly. various individuals who were sitting in laughed. you forget how crucial laughter is to a comedy when you prepare it — in rehearsals, you don’t have that luxury.

tonight, everyone looked good under the lights, no one fell off the stage … who could ask for anything more? i gave notes and everything but really, it doesn’t have to be any better than it was tonight. if we manage stasis, i’ll be thrilled.

my fingers still smell from the smoked salmon stef fed me (when vegans fall, they fall hard). she ran into me this morning as i tried to juggle hot chai and lengthy seminar papers. we did the only sensible thing, splayed on the grass in the beautiful stunshine until we decided to move on to her apt for lunch. fish, crackers, tomato soup, red wine. we are classy mofos.

rehearsal went well last night. increasingly however we’re approaching the point past which there’s nothing i can do about the show. it makes me very nervous. i have been existing in a state of vague nausea. it only registers a 5 on the ester scale of gastratory dysfunction, like out of 100. so not terrible, not as bad as the patch, but occasionally distracting. as in, damn, i can’t finish this aluminum cup of cheesecake. i need more sleep than i’m getting. luckily i think i have enough perspective to get me through.

can’t tell how ironic this article is supposed to be:

Imad Mohammed, who saw in the storm divine intervention, seemed marveled by its force. “The only time I saw a storm like this was in the American movie ‘Twister’ and in the words of the holy Koran,” he said.

wouldn’t a sandstorm affect both sides? is god’s point that the violence should simply stop? i’d approve of that. i do wish god would be a little less vague though. smacking a region with a natural-enough event, even at a signficant time, frankly isn’t specific enough to send an effective message. neither is putting hebrew words into the mouth of a fish in brooklyn. if the sandstorm carved out STOP FIGHTING, YOU MANIACS in rockface in both english and arabic, or a carp stood up during a white house dinner, bitchslapped george w., grabbed rumsfeld by the jowls and screamed DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND GOD WANTS YOU TO STOP, that’d be worth writing articles about. people are so starved for miracles these days.

first thoughts on the oscars …

much more political than i expected. in a good way. no saccharine patriotism. generally i admired the way people addressed the issue from the podium (with the exception of nicole kidman. poor nicole, honey, just stick it to tom and sit down. altho the thing about russel crowe telling her not to cry was funny). michael moore went a little overboard. i may be wrong but it seemed like that woman was up there for winning too? you know, that woman who just stood there smiling while he yelled fuck you at the president instead of letting her speak?

jack nicholson looked like strom thurmond. what was up with that? his jaw hung open until three-quarters of the way through, when he remembered to close it, or daniel day-lewis reached over and shut it for him. i’m so glad adrien brody won instead.

really though the awards for the pianist should have stopped there. adapted screenplay, over adaptation? come on. half the film was just bombs dropping. it’s a visual experience. it’s moving, it’s gripping. but adaptation is where it’s at, word-wise.

nicole kidman didn’t thank virginia woolf or michael cunningham. at least we got to see that hot guy from y tu mama tambien, and at least steve martin was funny. except his “gee, these women are hot!” thing — that got old pretty quick. meryl should have won but i’m glad chicago did. gangs was shut out. it’s a sign. come on, swarthmore, give me the grant, and i’ll make a movie that’ll blow scorcese out of the water.

someone is drumming outside my window, repetitively. pointless! no building, no progressing. it could be trance-inducing if it weren’t irritating. is that the point of drumming? of course i shouldn’t ask such questions; i have several friends who are very earnest on the subject. i guess when you have a lot of drums that make a lot of sounds it’s different. this fellow seems to be approaching it like dribbling a basketball. — oh wait, no, he just changed his pace and it sounded cool for a bit. clearly there is something to be said for the instrument after all.

i’m antsy. it’s lovely out again and again i’m in. writing a theater paper. i get so focused on one thing that having to deal with other things that pop up feels like a supreme nuisance. why can’t i have a cadre of servants who handle trivialities for me? i think last time i requested a robot to follow me around. perhaps monkey butlers could handle both sets of responsiblities. yes, monkey butlers. that’s the ticket.

i wish i were a genius. if i were a genius, i’d warrant monkey butlers, wouldn’t i? or at least lots and lots of time to watch reruns of the simpsons. i wouldn’t have to explain how they were inspiratory, either, because i’d be a genius, and you wouldn’t understand.

this show is warping my brain. i think in lilting, british rich-speak. i say “quite.” i dream of cast members. i enter trance-like states where i mumble whole scenes of dialogue (the drumming, please, make it stop, he’s gone back to dribbling now). it will all be over soon and then i’ll miss it. some quotes in the meanwhile (you know, to entice you):

“there is only one real tragedy in a woman’s life: that her past is always her lover and her future invariably her husband”

“women represent the irrational?”

“well-dressed women do”

“other people are quite dreadful. the only possible society is oneself. to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance”

“i should make you a very bad husband”

“i don’t mind bad husbands. i’ve had two”

“geniuses talk so much, don’t they? and they’re always thinking of themselves when i want them to be thinking of me.”

laundry is terrific procrastination. once it’s done, though, the professional’s trick is to go through old computer files and reorganize them and in the process, come across something so engrossing or funny it requires your full attention and at least twenty minutes of your time (twenty more if you decide to blog about it). really i should be reading history or working on my theater paper due monday. instead i’ll exclaim over what i found:

a quote list compiled over two years. some from famous people, some from my friends. unlike other people’s dreams, the things other people’s friends say can be found interesting. i swear. and to prove it, here’s a sampling:

rick: �when I grow up, I�ll just get people to lie on. that�ll be my bed. I�ll be wealthy; I�ll pay them�

ester: �yeah, I like this. rick is healthier than geoff.�

geoff (behind me): �thank you, ester.�

liz: �I wish you could eat landscapes without them tasting like dirt�

ari: �don�t do anything I wouldn�t do drunk�

kate, a nomad: “my mother always had trouble connecting with people”

me: “what does she do?”

kate: “she builds fences”

marc: “i’m comfortable with my sexuality. i don’t know what it is, but i’m comfortable with it”

ross: �I saw her naked. the trouble was, she was only the 2nd or 3rd most beautiful thing I�d seen all day�

david: �I�m not any kind of artist. unless you count math as art�

my mother: �jesus! it�s no wonder my kids can�t form relationships�

me, to jeff, the only black kid in his skool: �was that hard for you?�

jeff: �only when things were missing”

rebecca: �I want to live in a box. with a lot of money in the box. and a j. crew.�

ben: �if eve had hair, it�d be like yours�

one pothead: �your hair matches your eyes�

the other: �what, my hair is bloodshot?�

matt rubin: “black people like me. it’s white people think i’m a racist”

tamar: �it�s not multiple personalities. I�m just developing a strong relationship w/ myself�

ben: �I wish I had some money�

me: �so you could fly over here?�

ben: �so I could rent a movie�

johnny: �if anything scares me, it�s the colony of Roanoke. that and the music on the weather channel�

this cracked me up. actually it seems like a viable decision-making process. if the academy really does give the statue to that awful nicholson man again, it will be for the reasons stated there. some of the humor’s crude so beware, mom.

speaking of my mother, she sent me an email today to the effect that someone stole her credit card number and to it charged several phone-sex calls, at $28 a pop.

speaking of phone sex … no.

speaking of oscars, they’re sunday! isn’t it exciting? i’ve spent 17 hours over the past 5 days in rehearsal; more to come this weekend. i will throw myself in front of the oscars on sunday night and bask for the entirety in the mindless, spineless, petty, pretty entertainment. o i can’t wait.

speaking of the oscars, it always perplexes me when i like things that aren’t generally liked. it’s not even a CoolDifferent thing. i feel far more left out or dorky than the bastion of enlightenment, confident in my own judgement and willing to stand by my beliefs until others rush to join me. why don’t people like the hours? was the score really that bad? i didn’t notice it. it certainly didn’t do a hack-away-at-you job worthy of john williams. i understand why people don’t agree with me about adaptation. but … the hours! meryl streep! women! water! virginia woolf! surely those elements compensate for big eyed little children and hackneyed AIDS-ridden gay poets.

this year comes down to the battle of the sexes. chicago and the hours are estrogen-soaked weepy/exuberant 1st 2nd and 3rd wave feminist tracts about women as victims and agents. gangs and pianist are testosterone-y (rhymes with “rice-a-roni”) violent/meditative wartime masculinist tracts with token female characters/sex objects. LOTR:TTT would join the latter category if it weren’t preoccupied with swiping at orcs and if half the men didn’t look so girly. yes that’s you, leggy-lass. however, they are all good films, and i almost don’t care who’ll win. chicago will.

i handed in my grant proposal and ate stolen pizza for dinner. my mind is certainly not all in one place. but i think the show’s going to be good. i haven’t done homework in ages, or seen roomie brigid. i really need an awful lot of luck.