The degree to which

my respiratory stamina has deteriorated is astounding.

I wondered for a hot second

today or yesterday about whether there were any seniors in the building that needed checking on that I know. I believe this was at the behest of some mention of ol' folk who might need help after the storm.

There are many seniors in the building, but only a couple I come across.

But it did not occur to me in that moment that there are 3 on my floor.

One elderly couple lives right across from me. The other elderlady is down the hall. I know her best, though I have never taken time to introduce myself. She lives by herself and relies on an electric scooter to get around. I've always assumed she's diabetic.

At this moment she is presumably being taken to a care unit of some sort by emergency services. She is talking and it doesn't seem to be an emergency, I am glad that is the case.

The people next door have loud rambunctuous children. The noise, shakes, bangs and bumps they produce get to me...I allow them to get to me.

I allow myself to become self-conscious and self-centered,

I am currently heating water

for a sitz bath. Country upbringing strikes again.

There is

An eastern grey squirrel outside right now making the rest of us look mighty...pitiful.

Where in the world does a squirrel stay during a hurricane anyway?

I hate cellphone lag.

That is all.

"Bothersome" - Lackluster

(mothermix)

Having missed the

orientation meeting at the Actors Work Fund AGAIN (last week due to a canceled audition that I didn't know about), I'm sitting watching the rest of the Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee series and wondering if I've been misinterpreting what people have been trying to tell me when they said I should be a writer.

I'm hungry

and I don't feel like going to get rice.


how lazy is that?


VERY.

It is 10:30am

and I am already tired of myself for the day.

Today on the boat into the city

I woke somebody up on arrival.

On the way home, somebody woke me up.

Maybe, just maybe, not everybody friggin' sucks.

Currently standing around

waiting to follow the second line through Chinatown...in low 50 degree
weather...in shorts.

I just realized...

...I just took my laundry downstairs whole wearing my scoffer cap. Which, given the size of my ego, is a standard-sized plastic shopping bag.

Lesson in Hard Blogging

In case you are wondering.

This is how you blog hard.

Bleed or get of the damn stage.

"Shift, Smash, Surge, Swell" - Static

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=Mfh_3BqQB4s&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DMfh_3BqQB4s

I was just thrown off

by the every-else-but-NY-pronunciation of "Houston" while giving directions.

I repeat: I have been here too long.

While the reading ’’World Set Free’’

it just occurred to me the possible effect of exchanging the words "race" and "ethnicity" for "community".

The Wall

This past summer, I did summer theater for the first time. Outside.

Lesson learned: outside theater sux, mostly.

I also had a dominating lead part....the vast majority of the words in a short piece. I felt unsuccessful in the process for many reasons I won't document here. The sense of failure has lingered since and colored just about all the work I've done since. As I've felt unsuccessful, I haven't been productive. As I've been unproductive, I've dwelled on cloud of un-success.

Just now however, I think it has finally occurred to me what is to be learned from the experience: intense work as a group as I have had the inkling to work, only may work in small groups. The larger the group, the more likely the interference of ego. Ego kills work. The more personalities there are to deal with, the more one has to sit back. With fewer people, there can exist a dialectic.

And, even if it proves wrong, at least I am again interested in working. I look forward, humbly and hopefully, to the chance to do so again.

That said, I still anticipate a change of focus in the near future. 

At this particular moment,

I think I wish I had someone to tell the truth to.

It's roughly 11:30p CT.

hbd2m.

I wonder what it means

that I've developed a fledgling mythology/belief system and altar-space (with expansion plans) for my Bug Village colony.

Sunday I tasted yolk

Not boiled into a breadiness or scrambled into relative discernibility for the first time. It wasn't unpleasant. Still tasted like yolk. 


I tasted other other meat for the first time that seemed much like exactly what it is, as well.


We really are all the same humans. Chewing different cud and drinking different water just changes the color of the pelts and the smell of the musk.

-- Sent from my HP Touchpad running WebOS which represents another great resource squandered by the poor management of the company now called "HP"

I am in Bryant park

Watching a man reading a zodiac of some sort while shaking a cowrie shells in a clear Starbucks cup. Now he is speaking into his fist held just in front of his face...and back to the cup.

Maybe he just asked for that cloud that covered the sun .

-- Sent from my HP Touchpad running WebOS which represents another great resource squandered by the poor management of the company now called "HP"

XX

As I walked the bike up the hill, in front of the St. George theater, I noticed a young girl leaned over, checking a shoelace perhaps.

She was wearing grey stretch pants and, in the way pre-adolescents do, absent-minedly exposing her seat in my direction. I was likely about to chuckle and look elsewhere when I noticed something on her britches. Habitually, I looked again thinking she sat on candy or something when it occurred to me that it was red, on either side and near her crotch. As I passed, I tapped an adult and suggested she have her check her pants, hoping that this woman was close enough to the child to know that she'd started her period/would be able to considerately handle the situation.

Two things:

1) This child appeared to be at most 11 years old. I am fairly certain she was around the high single digits. I will admittedly take the flying leap to the conclusion that we really must stop giving our children hormone laced dairy products.

2) I wonder what it means that, as a hetero male the mere thought of a girlchild's mentral period didn't frighten me into fear and sprinting. It's probably go something to do with my already well-progressed transition into maiden spinsterhood.

NY State Pavilion 2012

The current state of the NYS Pavilion from the 1964 World's fair. I can't see any sign of the inlaid floor mosaic of the Texaco NY map. A bit sad.

Interesting

Tan, freckled, wrapped-red-hair, "urban" mother with one young child
and one toddler watching Good Morning America on her phone on Sunday
afternoon on the SB15.

Elder child sits in window seat across the aisle from her. china town
beauty with blue/white belted white-straw bucket hat sits between
them.

Back length hair, tinted with brown, periodic individual grey strands.

The sun doesn't seem to be missing anything today.

Accessorize

I'm getting on the 5:30a boat and just saw a female construction (?)
worker with a pink tool belt.

I went to the market...

...(as in "farmer's") today. While there, I saw the owner's son playing
with his toddler - just big enough to walk well, still small enough to
melt anything breathing within a 300ft radius.

Then owner grandpa saw him. Then owner/cashier grandma saw him. Then
just people in the store saw him.

All were melted.

I continued shopping and another grandma and her older toddler followed
me into the root vegetable section. She actively discussed what they
should be getting.

(more melting)

I finished my usual u0shaped route around the stock and toward the
registers. Son Toddler was now there and began playing with the
watermelons. Grandpa rushes over and I notice how small a child can
appear to an average-sized (well, small by the southern standards I'm
used to) version of this particular fruit.

I think about that I must have been that compared similarly to a water
melon at some point in my life.

I watch the young cashier laff as she directs only as much attention to
my selections as necessary, the remainder to the child.

I get wistful.


I have one of those moments when I wish I were normal sometimes.

I rode my bicycle to the library,

which about a mile and change away, this past Monday. It's mostly down hill going, creative routing avoids much of the uphill on the way back.

It hurt a little bit.

I'm fat.

That is all.

Texture

On the 3 train, I just saw toddler give the most thought perusal and
considersative nibbling to a cashew that, I believe, I have ever seen.

Watching daddy

Gingerly, carefully prepare beadheaded smallperson's hotdog with a side of fries from his burger plate at ferry. Just noticed smaller roundheaded smallperson to daddy's left.

Children's Hospital - The 70s Episode.

Yes.

dreams

Amazing how much fantasizing and wishing you can do with but a hint of sleep.

To opportunities lost...

Gun control

Today, in Staten Island, I saw the perfect way to change the direction of "conservative" support of the gun lobby:

a woman in a burka driving a late model black minivan with a 2011 NRA membership sticker in the window.


problem solved.

Praise

A couple days ago, I was told by someone that every time they watch my work in 
rehearsal, it's like being in a class.


I've decided that may be the greatest compliment I've ever been given 
for said work, and further validates the approach I've elected to take.


Thank you. 

(addendum: which is interesting since I seem to have a perpetual headache while doing this show...which I mentioned to the maternal unit and was told to get blood pressure checked...and then reminded that it runs in the family...at which point I asked momunit to stop rubbing it in.)

Praise

Today I was told by someone that every time they watch my work in
rehearsal, it's like being in a class.


I've decided that may be the greatest compliment I've ever been given
for said work, and further validates the approach I've elected to take.


Thank you.

Bike Path Revelations

I just had three revelatory moments while on the west side bike path:

1) an electronic sign informing riders of expected congestion on the
path due to an upcoming event

2) a slight bird collision soon after the previous - it darted across
the path and bump-brushed my elbow. I think it was a finch. I'm pretty
sure it's ok.

3) being thanked for saying ''on your left'' - I've made a decision to be
vocal, particularly on the bike paths because people here are,
strangley, not. There's also a high occurrence of traffic
(particularly of the foot nature) that doesn't stay to the right. When
I started riding the paths in Austin, I was introduced to announcing a
pass. This season I decided to introduce it to NYC.
   One of the problems associated with the practice is that it is often
perceived as being rude. It certainly seemed that way a couple times
in Austin, but things can sound that way coming from a person imbibing
double their usual amount of oxygen. To deal with the perception, I
always try to make certain it's given with plenty of notice (instead
of while passing) and I make it sound a little crazy. Just for laffs.
People don't mind surprises so much when they come in sing-song form.
In fact I've actually been complimented on it by another rider (ironic
since I had just been cursing him out for not riding to the right).
So, down around the tow yard, three of we riders wanted to pass a
rollerblader. As the first one passed, I came up and gave the 'blader
the audible signal and thanked him (which the final important step of
The Left Side Holler) for shifting over as I passed at which point he
thanked me.

good stuff.

small stuff.

but good stuff.

Instruction

It seems me:

that one can learn without being skilled in teaching;

one cannot teach without being skilled in learning.

Redundance

Today I went to my preferred local farmers market and got some produce including a last second purchase of some dark cherries.

(my first EVER time buying fresh cherries EVER)

Later I went to my preferred packaged foods retailer and purchased some packaged things including vanilla soymilk and a small pack of dark chocolate bars.

While there I saw dark chocolate/cherry vanilla soycream and grabbed it nearly without thinking.

bam.

Dhafer Youssef - Un Soupir Eternel

About a month ago

I found out the person I swapped virginity with several eons ago is several months into the journey of procreation.


I'm still not sure what to do with that.


I'm not certain I have to do anything with it.


About two years ago, I was trying to figure out if someone from a past relationship was trying to tell me I had a biological child. I've wondered withing the past couple months again if that is the case; whether the truth was being kept from me.

I still wonder what would I do if it were true,

Or it I thought about it so much because I want it to be true.


I was hopeful about this lifetime relationship business for a couple of the months that have constituted the past year...but I think that's subsided.

Perhaps The Universe was just presenting me with an opposite-end dose of what I've been prone to dispensing.

still don't know what to do with that either.

there's been a great deal of humbling over the course of this past year-and-more.

I suppose that's what I get for asking to be humbled.




God, make me a healer.

Multiplication of the Arcs - Darshan Ambient

word.

Mr. Bike Man

I just got hollahd at by 4our chix by the ferry while on the ol' Mesa GS.

Which is interesting to have happen to you while you're trying to not get hit.

Thunder

I'm currently sitting in the tree I was sitting in a few weeks ago in
Central park that caused me to notice that it's limbs bear a
remarkable resemblance to those of the dinosaurs it's likely composed
of (which were largely composed of this tree's ancestors.


funny how that works.

Adult Theme Warning

Just over-read on the train a very not hidden love letter held by
gentleman (salt and pepper, close cropped hair, not appearing middle
aged) on 3 train "loved the feel of your d!ck at the bus
station....would love the feel as you come inside me".

Or somesuch.

Signed with a love and kisses sticker.

p.s.: please, if imperative to read them in public, hold your intimate missives
in a manner that I can't clearly make it out from 5ft away. Sitting
down on public trans tends to put others above you...

Oh, how I feel

for this young, shivering Yorkshire Terrier dressed in a 2 yr old
humanchild's outfit.

I just had a wave

moment with a tinymale lightsbrownperson on the train. Mother decided
it was over apparently. She sat down and faced the stroller away.
Maybe she thought she was doing me a favor. Or maybe he turns into a
gremlin if he waves after 2:05pm.

That would have been interesting.

Off-Road

Remind me why you need that Expedition with the 20 again...

Today rather sucked

on at least three different occasions.

My teeth feel big.

Arian Foster on going vegan

"People feel so strong about meat and milk. I wish they felt this strong about peace."


Agreed.


(if you don't know, he's an elite NFL running back who's decided to remove meat from his diet)

I Love Acid - Wagon Christ

the old 3D.

The above

is an oil painting.

Deal

with that.

comments

bored. Comments turned back on for first time in several seasons.


we'll see how it goes.

And then there's the native stupidity

Not long after previous entry, man gets on with his two girls. There
are no two adjacent seats, so one sits farther back near me. There is
a wondow seat next to a woman who is sitting in the aisle.

Presumed Daddy motions for 2nd girl to take the available seat.
Instead of just sliding over into the window seat, Woman does The New
Yorker Window Seat Mambo: picks up all her things and spins knees
outward to make the child move past her to take the window seat.

I can understand this in certain situations, say if one is about to
get off soon, but this movement is universal in this town. It gone
past any roots in safety and is a tiny, pitiful power play that takes
place daily on the transit here. When I saw it, I regretted not moving
sooner so the girl could sit nearer her sister, but The Amazing
Falling European Girl got off the bus soon after, so I moved and all 3
of them were able to sit together.

End 'o story.

Tourism

I was just tripped over by a tourist and slightly fallen on by a
tourist on the bus. She tipped into the seat right next to me despite
there being one closer to her presumed compatriot. There should be a
class for these people.

Lati

 I was spending quality time with Lati in Central Park and she attracted the attention of Allow who seemed a bit compelled to dance. It didn't take her long (RocketPop tinted mouth and all) to give in.

She passed by at a moment when we were resting, looking back expectantly. I felt a bit disappointed that I was not in the midst of something for her to move to, her reluctance to leave apparent in her father having to beckon authoritatively.

Interesting.

Perhaps the next visit will result in enough courage to go sit in the drum circle.

I was just prepared

to lunge and keep someone from jumping overboard...to the point of
flinching when he seemed he might be moving to kick a leg over the
side.

I think I finally get

why my father planted peas despite owning an insurance office and
mother continues to need to pull weeds and sow seeds to this day.

"Lawyers...

...live on dead rights disinterred."

"...now the king in everyone...

...must rule the world."

H. G. Wells
'The World Set Free"

Angry

Last Tuesday/Wed, I spent all night preparing and audition video for a theater in a certain large, midwestern city. This included having to learn a couple rap songs (not something I generally do).

When I say all night, I mean no sleep - despite having a callback and a rehearsal later that day.

I was tempted to give up and submit what I had without putting something more polished together, but I really wanted a shot at this job.

So, it was submitted and I tried to go on the rest of the day not thinking about it. Before the day was even over, I'd gotten word of the callback.

Word.

This meant learning two additional songs - one of which was to be sung. This is REALLY something I don't do. This seemed challenging at first, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed working on it.

At about 6:30p Friday, I get an e-mail from said theater that there has a been a "development in the process" that may affect them having the callback.

Over the weekend, I try not to think about it. I did, however, not work on it with the same fervor.

On yesterday afternoon I got the confirmation that, though theyenjoyed my video and the effort put into it was appreciated, callbacks had been canceled.

I was fine with that. Things happen. Plans change. I don't even believe it when I'm hired until the first day of rehearsal.

The message went on that a local actor had been found for the job.

Hm.

This didn't bother me too much. In what was supposed to be a bit of making light of the situation, I went back and forth over email with the agent that submitted me.  I and this agent have had a period of not getting along. He has a certain way of expressing himself that can be taken as, well, antagonistic. I'd decided to just not take it personally, but that I also should remember to limit my converation with him to amiable professionalism (as such with all in the biz, actually). I made the mistake, in this instance, of not letting the issue rest. Though we didn't disagree, he was more upset with the reason for cancellation than me. Thinking about the valid points he made (and making the mistake of mixing myself up in the bitter), I agreed.

Then, having gone to a rehearsal for a show that I should have bowed out of, I began to think about it more.

And I got angry.

Angry that so much of my time had been dedicated to just trying to be seen, only for them to decide on someone they knew. They should have just gone with that person to begin with or, at least, give me chance to compete for the job in person.

At the end of the theater's message, it was mentioned that I'd be kept in mind for future productions at the theater by this plays writer.

Not other productions? Just those by this writer?

(sigh)

you know what?

just..

#### it.

Latest theory

We have a finite amount of energy....we must choose what we will expend
that energy on.

(there was something more concrete about this yesterday....what I get for not typing then)


Truth is a state of energetic productivity. To function one needs
energy. Being in a state of truth (expression, facilitation) creates
energy.

Untruth is a consumptive state. Propagating untruth, participating in a
circumstance stemming from lies or some state of untruth uses energy.

Give

It's interesting to have someone appreciate your expression to the
degree that are compelled to want to share theirs with you in the same
moment - like something that they are actively trying to sell, that
they feel is worthy of paying for and indignant at the prospect of
someone being of the opinion that it isn't.

I am hilarity.

I think I'm going to tape myself rehearsing for auditions from now on.
My futility is hilarious.

Com Truise - Fairlight

Intense. Delicious.

intense delicious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en&client=mv-google&v=KCPGQX9rU1s&nomobile=1

Time.

So, I'm watching "Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman". On the wrap for the time travel episode,he says that "life is short and time is precious".

I continue to disagree with this assertion.

Life is precious. Time is the result of mankind's realization when it's been wasted.

I was told

this past Wed night, after having done some silly thing or another that I sound somewhere between Monty Python and Bill Cosby.

My response:

"Genetics".

No one here gets my miscegenation jokes.

Dread Van Winkle

I'm currently walking behind a man whose hair has mat-locked into a so
perfect a flat trapezoidal across his back that it looks like he laid
perfectly flat, facing up for a score or so of weeks/years.

He's also having a very strident disagreemwnt with someone who doesn't
appear to exist...at least not at/in this space/time.

Currently have a lump in my throat

because I just found out I lost a major role to someone I
find...."trying". It is likely worse that I was asked to do a minor
role.

New Beetle

This just in: VW engineers think different.

Or maybe they just think putting the reverse gear to the left of 1st and requiring a downward press on the shifter to be really, really funny.

And one wonders if the fact that the trans will only shift back out of 5th if the wheels are turned all the way to the right (maybe?) is another fun Farfeg-feature.

 Which is only helped by the marketing customization on it that block the rear-view and left the power mirros un-adjustable.

(power locks, power mirrors.....manual windows?)

In other news: I now have personal witness of the chirping chicken KFC sign....which is really more of a focal point of the architecture.


(picture to follow if possible)

I am anxious

and cranky
and mopey
and irritable
and janky
 and can't think

 because there's a job I really want to get that I've been waiting for a week for the final interviews to finish so I can get a response because I really want a POSITIVE response because I really want to get to work near home because I'd really like to get to be an actor for a change.

There.

I said it.

Vision

I just noticed that my left eye seems to perceive color more intensely
than the right.

Or maybe it's just got something to do with this polarized filter.

One wonders how common this; that it migt be the result of adaptation.

So, I just took my first trip

across the asphalt at speed (likely 15mph or so).

All my fault. Pics and details to come.

ScaryMonsterMan

Instance of fear and terror 1:

Last week, I went onto the roof to do some calesthenics thinking I'd be less likely to disturb the people below. The roof, however, is made of the same thinly sliced cheese as the rest of the building. Therefore, a lady with he infant child heard walking and heavy breathing on the roof. She accosted me just as I'd finished an interval, asking twice if I lived in the building. It seems to me if she was so scared of whoever was above her, she probably shouldn't have come up to check it herself.

Instance of fear and terror 2:

On the way home on the bus, I noticed a young woman who I recognize from the route, but forget that she lives in the same building. We got off the bus at the same stop and took the same path through the grounds of a church on the block. This is a common instance. During this, I started thinking about some vocal and breathing pointers I gave a younger actor recently and start practicing some diaphragmatic breathing up the hill while listening to some experimental Euro jazz. It occurred that it might sounds probably sounded strange, but she didn't seem to take much notice, so I didn't worry about it. When we got to the door, she suddenly turned around and spoke. I had to take out my headphones and ask her to repeat.

"Are you ok?"

I let her know that I was merely doing breathing exercises and apologized for what I then realized must have sounded like a literal version of a colloquial heavy breather.

"Ignorance is a powerful

 tool if applied at the right time, even usually surpassing knowledge. Lots of times a guy will jump into a project without knowing how far he is into something way over his head until it's almost too late to back off. This is a situation that I frequently wake up to in the middle of another adventure."

E.J. Potter

"For these fellows

of infinite tongue who can rhyme themselves into ladies' favors, they do
always reason themselves out again."


Henry V, ln. 156-159

Maturity

is wisdom in action.

So went a pondering of about a week ago.

Dream 4/27

Interesting...

Roommate comes over to my side of the mountain and I'm expecting him to ask me to clean up the workshop - which I'm always suspicious he wants to ask. Instead asks me to come out, take look, and my opinion.

It seems that, while I'd been asleep. There was a great redecoration undertaken. And the room was now decidedly dark.

I'm like "uh....". He tells me it was all his girlfriend's idea. She seems proud of herself. I'm pretty sure I spent the rest of the dream trying to find a nice way to say, "please, put it back".


In other waking life news - I was told I'm too short to play a character debuted by an actors that is my height.

Producers & casting people, by and large, are clueless people enjoying a small sampling of power they've managed to alot.

Therefore: they're a pretty much like everyone else.

Lockturnal

Dream from a few nightmornings ago:

I'm in a barber chair, seemingly getting a line. When I get out I feel like there was more hair removed than was necessary for just a line. I frantically begin searching for a mirror, knowing that I told the barber to just line and not remembering him going any further.

So, frantically searching, finally find one, see that all is as it was.

Conclusion?

This is not the first hair dream I've had, but it seems the most definite:

I don't want to cut my hair.

Which likely means life is going to present me with an option based on doing just that. I suspect this will take place sometime between May and June.

Einstein Flies the Bird

So, ever since a trip out the Flushing Meadows a few weeks ago, I've been periodically websearching (which is a word that should be entered into the modern English lexicon) the two world's fairs that occurred there trying to get a picture of what it was like.

In doing so today, I found myself back at this website which, by 2012 standards, is quite quaint and unsophisticated in its presentation of information, but is probably the single best repository of it for the 1964 fair on the web. In fact it was just today that I figured out its design enough to go deeper into the attractions from the fair it documents.

I've been browsing for a few hours, trying to find out where the various exhibit spaces that were removed and re-purposed (yes, people moved whole, huge buildings from this thing - such was the excess greatness of the US mid-century and pre-Vietnam backlash). While doing so I came across the Westinghouse Pavilion section and started reading about the two Time Capsule buried after each fair. The NYWF64.com even has a downloadable pdf of the 1939 book of record that was sealed in the '39 capsule.

I started looking through it, curious how it would explain to people 5000 years in the future to decipher it (paradox, conundrum, effed-up situation, fruitless endeavour - you decide) and came across a section dedicated to "great minds" of the time. Assuming this would lead to some fine self-revelatory western civilization praise, I looked through a few. The third turned out to be my good friend whom I've never actually met Albert Einstein. It was in German. This was disappointing at first - particularly since great pains are taken in the section of the book before to explain English to future readers (??). I've read some of his writings on war and society and was piqued at what he would have decided to include in a capsule intended to be open 5000 years in the future. Fortunately and sensibly, the following page was a translation. Below is the scan of the actual page from the book of record. Peep it:



And now I am left to wonder....am I the only one who sees this as a delightfully bold exercise of subversion?

hm...

At the moment I'm thinking

that expression is the act of saying.

Communication is the act of saying to.

I was just in bed

feeling some obligation to read the Bible...not a burden, but some freeing responsibility.

I rose and walked to the bathroom, a mysterious vertical power lofting me up from below - stepping in front of the mirror, the familiar, already known source made visually evident, emphasized by the cotton legs of unders pushed incrementally up by the activity of dormancy.

I sit here aware of some power. I am wondering if it is from reading about modern mythic heroes while feeling the urge to sleep, to dream.

I dreamed that I returned Home to find an overnight renovation that also made the inside of my family home vast and manoral. In evening there was a party of due size, at which I discovered that someone had published these thought contained here as "journalism". This was somehow connected to suger-glittered gumdrop figures which I gathered held some value. At the discovering, indignant, I reclaimed my right to my words and noticed that all the trappings seemed to be leaving as well..at which point, like freed children, the vast space began to be used not for the things we'd always wanted to, but for the things we HAD used them. The last thing I saw was kneeling to the floor and releasing through tears the pressure built up in claiming one's own self.

I do not know how much connected this was to hearing of my sister's similar waking-life reclamation of self and my verdant hope that this time it sticks, but knowing that it takes a few tugs on the rope to get out of a really deep hole.

The Sun is out. Today I will stand uP.

I am currently considering the validity of sitting outside this casting

for no reason other than listening to this tawny euro chile and her
brownolive hybrid comrade go back and forth in Japanese.

--
Peace:
cW

"Will Make Itself"

by Michael Maricle

Me vs. Cust. Serv.

c Walker: I show that I have $6 balance remaining and I'm currently on a daily plan. Can I get a refund back to the card charged for that $6?

~Julie G: Welcome to T-Mobile Chat service. My name is Julie and for your reference my rep ID is 1320032. First, please allow me one moment to review your question.

c Walker: ok

~Julie G: Hello C Walker. I will be glad to assist you concerning your $6 balance.

~Julie G: Just to clarify, you would like us to credit back your credit card $6.00, is this correct?

c Walker: yes

~Julie G: May I ask why you want us to credit back the $6 to your credit card?

c Walker: Because I am trying a different carrier.

~Julie G: I am sorry to hear that you are trying another carrrier.

~Julie G: I regret, refills are non refundable.

c Walker: despite the fact that is daily and I am only charged per day to use it?

~Julie G: Yes that is correct.


~Julie G: All refills are non refundable.

c Walker: Then why did you not say that at first instead of asking me why I want to be credited for the $6?

c Walker: thereby saving me the time of sitting here on chat?

~Julie G: So I could clarify the reason why you were requesting the refund.

~Julie G: I apologize for the inconvenience.

~Julie G: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?

~Julie G: Are you there ?

I just realized that the dream I had earlier

was of my receiving a letter announcing my individual nomination for A&C for some awards that I imagine were representative of the AUDELCOS.

THE TRUTH

Crack Kills. So does Sugar. Crack is Sugar.

(copied from here)

Regulating Our Sugar Habit

By MARK BITTMAN

Mark Bittman on food and all things related.

When Ronda Storms, a Republican state senator in Florida, is accused of nanny-state-ism for her efforts on behalf of a sane diet, it’s worth noting. When she introduced a bill to prevent people in Florida from spending food stamps on unhealthy items like candy, chips and soda, she broke ranks: few of her party have taken on Big Food. And as someone who has called for the defunding of an educational Planned Parenthood program and banning library book displays supporting Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, she is hardly in her party’s left wing. Not surprisingly, she’s faced criticism from every corner: Democrats think she’s attacking poor people, and Republicans see Michelle Obama. Soon after Storms proposed the bill, she told me, “Coca-Cola and Kraft were in my office” hating it.

Yet she makes sense. “It’s just bad public policy to allow unfettered access to all kinds of food,” she told me over the phone. “Why should we cut all of these programs and continue to pay for people to use food stamps to buy potato chips, Oreos and Mountain Dew? The goal is to feed good food to hungry people.”
To some, dictating what recipients of benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program can eat seems unfair. But when the program began in 1939 it aimed both to feed the unemployed and to aid farm recovery. Participants received $1.50 in stamps for every cash dollar spent, 50 cents of which was designated for purchase of agricultural surplus. That’s already a directive on spending, but perhaps more important is that nearly three-quarters of a century ago almost the only thing you could buy — with or without regulation — was real food. Since then Big Food has moved our diet in the wrong direction, and now we have a surplus of empty calories.
The argument for limiting the use of food stamps to actual food is consistent with established policy. They’re already disallowed for tobacco, alcohol,vitamins, pet foods, household supplies and (with some exceptions) food meant to be eaten on premises. Payments have been based on the cost of a “nutritionally adequate diet.”
Let me state the obvious: there is no nutritional need for foods with added sugar.
All of this is part of the bigger question: How do we regulate the consumption of dangerous foods? As a nation, we’ve accepted the need to limit the marketing and availability of tobacco and alcohol. The first is dangerous in any quantity, and the second becomes dangerous when overconsumed.
And added sweeteners, experts increasingly argue, have more in common with these substances than with fruit. In a recent paper in Nature, Robert H. Lustig, Laura A. Schmidt and Claire D. Brindis remind us that for the first time, chronic diseases pose a greater health threat than infectious ones, and of the three main risk factors for chronic diseases — alcohol, tobacco and diet — two are regulated and one is not.
The authors specifically target “any sweetener containing the molecule fructose (which makes sugar sweet) that is added to food in processing” as the key problem in our current diet, and correlate the rise in consumption of sugar with a rise in disease, listing the many ways in which sugar’s effects on the body are similar to those of alcohol. Their contention is that sugar is hardly “an empty calorie,” but rather an actively harmful one: “Fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic metabolic diseases.”
Added sugar is not the only dangerous food. But unlike animal products, for example, which we also overconsume, it has no benefits. Yet we down it at the rate of 150 pounds per person per year, and while scientists argue whether it is addictive in humans (it meets the criteria for addiction in animals), it is most certainly habit-forming. Lustig and his co-authors suggest that actions like imposing taxes on added sugar or establishing a minimum age for purchase of sodas (they mention 17 in their paper) would reduce consumption.
The question “Is this necessary?” is unavoidable. But as obesity and its consequences ravage our health care system, we struggle not only with our own diets but also with preventing our children from falling into the same traps. Last year a brigade of parents stood watch outside a corner store in North Philadelphia in an attempt to prevent their kids from buying junk food.
They’ve been called foot soldiers, but you might call them vigilantes. Vigilantism occurs when people believe the government isn’t doing its job. We need the government on our side. It must acknowledge the dangers caused by the most unhealthy aspects of our diet and figure out how to help us cope with them, because this is the biggest public health challenge facing the developed world.

---

Please visit my blog

Appreciation

I did my next-to-last day on SVU today. We were in the "precinct" and the background actors I remember most from a couple weeks ago when I did bg were there today. One in particular I was hoping to see was there. We greeted each other as he was about to head into bg holding while I was heading to the principle dressing room area. I saw in his eyes the recognition of what had taken place. We parted at that moment, each with our own wry smile.

"Wry" because two Thursday nights prior, we left together and talked about the life and doing the bg thing for a bit as we made our way to our respective forms of public transit. He's a pretty gregarious guy, sharing pictures of his dog and aspects of his life during the 11 hr day. I gathered from the day before that he was a bit of an OG in the room. He eventually revealed that he was one of the original core BG people for a few years until about 2006 when the decision was made to "refresh" the squad room (with new faces in the background....as in younger faces). He's in his 50s; looks 10 solar rotations less. One of the last things we discussed before parting ways was about people who say that they'll never do another bg job if they get a principal role (featured, speaking). We both agreed that this wouldn't stop either of us from doing background.

So, today, after that first interaction, I saw him as talking to another group as I walked to the snack table. On my way back, I stopped and leaned into him and said, "remember the conversation we had about going from bg to principal..." Bryce (sp?) is his name.

The other gentleman stuck out to me because I caught him with the cWj comedy act. The first day I was in the holding room, I walked in not knowing anybody and sat at a table by myself feeling very first-day-of-school-lunch-room.  Bryce was one of the people that sat at the table with me. Another was a woman called Mazzy who was THE most talkative person in the room*. Well, I was fairly quiet and tried to read as much as I could. She began chatting with some other guy in the room and said something that left me an opening to crack on her a little bit (as she had been on other people), so I did my thing that exploded the little shell I was in. She was taken aback (amiably), and the other gentleman - Big Dude I'll call him since I never got his name - thought it was particularly funny, and so I broke the ice with a few people in the room.  Part of the reason I call him Big Dude is because they had him sitting at the sign-in desk (so I guess he was supposed to be the desk sergeant) and he and I took turns trying to make each other crack as we performed our background magic. He as the officer and me as the perp getting ushered along by another lovely bg'er named Debra.

Today I say him and greeted him without saying anything. My preference was to let people figure it out. They've been there much longer than me and I figured they'd be able to tell anyway. When we first spoke, he asked me if I'd been there all day; I told him that I'd just gotten there. I started to say something then, but let it be. I'm suspicious he heard something from Bryce, because the next time I saw him, it was understood. He congratulated me several times with heartfeeling.

That is what I took away from today (well, yesterday now). Both of these men were genuinely happy to see that I'd gotten a shot. Bryce was actually my stand-in, so he was around longer and we got to chat a few more times.

It's times like this that start to trick you into thinking that it's not quite so much a horrid existence, this acting thing.


* edit 3/2: whereas Bryce was gregarious, Mazzy was bodacious.....if I ever see her again I may offer that as a stage name: Mazzy Bodacious. Very 70s British glamrock.

Yeah. But you won't get out of that car will you.

This past Monday at around 5:15, I was riding back from picking up my laptop. I'd just finished talking to a bike messenger I shot a few scenes with last summer from 14th to around 12th. We were in the right most lane, I left and he right (closest to the sidewalk). We rode slowly next to each other while we talked, then he turned off. As I rode on Broadway, I looked over to my left and noticed a rider coming from the opposite side of the street. He stood out to me for being an older gentleman of similar decent to me, though darker. His bike was a different brand, but similar in color. He had chrome fenders, however. I thought about how much the must weigh, that I still need to get some.

About a block or so further up, a cab charged up against toward the curb cutting me off. At first I assumed he was trying to get a fare (as they tend to do - have little regard for anything around them when trying to pick up), but the driver stops and starts yelling at me to through a seemingly Eastern European accent about never touching his car again. Before I can ascertain exactly what it is he's risked my personal well-being to say, he pulls off. I think for a second, then decide to catch him at the next light to ask exactly what his issue is - since I haven't touched anybody's car. I get there and babbles more, thought he "knows what he saw" and makes like he's going to spit on me. He pulls off again - and I am now....energized shall we say. I ride past him as he sits at the next light and try to talk to him again as he passes through the light making a left turn onto Houston. He continues to make the same claim except now managing to dismiss me at the same time (which is interesting since HE brought this up) and pedestrians see the exchange. After he's passed through, I tell a couple of them what happened, one of the remarking that perhaps the his passenger will see this and not tip him.

I continue south on Broadway. As I'm riding, I'm trying to remember the sequence of events, and begin to think that there must have been someone on his side that he's mistaken me for. I decide to go back to Houston and see if I can catch him. I see cabs ahead, but don't recognize the plate. I decide to continue through the Bowery as I've now amassed a large enough concentration of energy that it needs to dissipate. I keep riding and decide to try one last group of cabs ahead. One is not, it pulls off left...then I see him and go for it. I catch him near 1st to see ask if it was the driver side. I get there and get the first sign that he might have calmed down enough to deal with logic when he rolls down his window and says, "you are having good fitness". I ask if he was hit on the driver side; he responds yes. I try to tell him that I was on the RIGHT side of the street and could not have done it, that he (if this actually happened) has mistaken me for another rider - that I think must be the much older, darker-skinned, grey-bearded, rider wearing a jacket of a completely different color. He continues to insist he "knows what he saw". I let him pass again, first riding off south again, then AGAIN reconsidering and catch him in a long left turn line (that included concrete barriers on one side due to construction) and took a picture of his license plate, determined to report him to the T&LC, Transportation Alternatives or SOMETHING for having threatened/endangered a cyclist with his car.

And he better be glad that feigned, dramatic Euro-spit thing was only feigned. Because he would have caught a loogie then a fist.

I'm careful, I try to respect other people's space, I ask that mine be respected as well, I am tired of going about the world in fear.

Wanna be stupid? Fine. I'll just be making sure to bring it to you attention in the event you make that choice.

Last night:

Had a dream that I was fired from my current major tv acting job...perhaps because, on my first day, I heard that an actor had been replaced last week  - as in they actually had to re-shoot with a new actor. Which is kind of major....

Added to this is that we seemed to have been on some kind of abandoned factory set where, the next day, Grambling would be playing. So, on my way leaving it seemed that the day was turned into that day. So I got fired and then I was there to see Grambling.


I'll take half of that in real life.

bicycle -> redemption

Today while on the boat, I talked to a fellow cyclist about an electric bike, which turned into a conversation about why it can make sense to spend three grand on a bike in a city like nyc, which turned into a conversation about his crazy spoiled girlfriend's tickets, which brought up motorcycle licenses and whether you can one if your license was suspended in another state for driving several miles/hour past 100 on a public thoroughfare, which caused me to ask if he'd been drinking...

which led to a detailing of his recovery from chemical abuse and the pain involved in telling loved ones still addicted that they were cut off until better.



And you wonder why I believe in the bike?

unalien.

currently on the boat glancing over olive-toned, dark haired, almond eyed ma'am give a quite hot cold soldier to young male of similar description of a decidedly more (subsomething), supplicating nature


she, seeming to wipe remnants or expectations of tears.

and i'm wondering if Asian men and women of some certain specificity have the samesimilar strangestrained relation to each other as african-american men/women seem to.

(Let Tyler Perry, Wendy Williams and empowerment workshops tellit)
Connected by MOTOBLUR™

"See? See what you can do?

"Never mind can't tell one letter from another, never mind you born a
slave, never mind you lose your name, never mind your daddy dead, never
mind nothing. Here, this here, is what a man can do if he puts his mind
to it and his back in it. Stop sniveling."

Song of Solomon, Morrison, ch. 10

"So it was hard for me to latch onto a woman."

"Because I thought if I loved anything it would die.

But I did latch on once.

But I guess once is all you can manage".


Song of Solomon, Ch. 13, T Morrison

Education

I sent my family some books I thought they might find interesting. My mother finished one I sent for her and sent to my sister and asked me why I had.

Back yonder (aka: a few months ago), it felt like a way to contribute back to the family after all my time away.

Thinking about it now...it just occurred to me that I am at the place where I can challenge my parents academically...which may be at the core of sending them the books....or is apart of the contribution. I've thought about asking her to write..

Giving them "assignments"...

My nephew asked my what were some books I thought he should read a few years ago and I sent him a few.

But, I think this idea of challenge is about a few things....like, giving them..my mother something to do...to keep her going.

Or, maybe, help her pick up somewhere she may have left off due to circumstance. I still think she can do a lot. I keep hearing her say it's too late.

That has a lot to do with why I want to go back home so much - I feel like I can be an instigator.

But maybe that's more about finding something for me to do in a place that's easy..?

I find interesting that I want her to write, my dad (as she told me the other night) wants her to write, but she doesn't want to share it with anybody else -- even the thoughts on a book she read that I sent her. She'll share it with me, but not with anybody else.

...

RollerCoaster

Tuesday: Did background as perp on SVU despite previous position against playing people handcuffed on the ground. No handcuffing took place, met some really nice people in holding. Educated them regarding Tracy Morrow's video acting.

Wednesday: Arrived back at Pier 62 by 9a (zzzz) for very first match doing background. Wished that I'd done as I'd promised the day before and brought dominoes. What I DID bring were two other outfits....and then didn't even shoot, although I was there for 11 hours (bonus!). Second interaction with Tracy Morrow. You wish you were me.

Thursday: Didn't get called back for 3rd day on SVU as hoped....looked around at buying a PD uni in order that I might have a shot at becoming BG core. Which would be a cool way to make some eat money.

Friday: Got email about TV casting from manager for SVU. Wondered whether it mattered that I'd just done BG, decided to keep that to myself; thought about irony of booking a principal role one week after doing bg on same set. Feel like I have an ok shot at it...despite that it is AGAIN playing a perp.

Saturday: Asked actor whom I knew as a "worker" if she was available to help with audition, received a msg from her that ended in "You WILL book this!" Her confidence seemed strange; struck me for some reason.

Sunday: got stood up by somebody I bought tickets to a Broadway show for - ironic because I'd already decided this was the last time I'd do this (edit 3/2 - supposedly due to his incarceration). Didn't catch previously mentioned actor by phone or otherwise. Spent remainder of night and plenty of succeeding day salty. Decide that instead of telling self that I'm leaving if I don't book, I'm leaving if I DO book. Irony has a way hovering it's old self around me and would love giving me a nice case of self-conflict to deal with.

Monday: Go to audition, felt like I did what I'd intended. Spent much of day checking for call or e-mails from manager. Finally told self "next" and began sifting through bg calls to submit for and whatever else distracted me on the internet. A couple hours later looked and saw that I had an e-mail from him informing me of a callback the following Wednesday. Spent rest of evening NOT looking at lines.

Tuesday: Distracted by all the things the internet distracts me with. Finally looked at sides again that night.

Wednesday: Put off getting out of bed as usual, thought I heard roommate get up and decided to let him have the bathroom so he could get to work, heard emergency responders come to door, found out roommate was having some sort of medical-possibly-emergency situation. Was shaken, still had to get to callback. Got there in the very nick of time. Do audition for producers. Am given an adjustment. Done. Leave feeling very unsure. Now waiting to hear from manager AND roommate. Milled about ruminating and worrying more. Decide that I have got to find something else to do with myself because I simply can't eat myself alive like this anymore. At home, decide to play with recently acquired video camera, after which I notice that manager has sent inquiry about my availability for next few weeks. Relieved of some of that part of the worry, decide to go inquire about roommate. Find him; he seems ok for the time being. Go driving/shopping.

Thursday (today): Procrastinate about going to print casting. Expecting a post-work crowd, get there and am able to get in and out almost immediately, chat amicably with auditioner following me. Leave a stack of photog cards with rest of cards advertising actor services and shows. Head toward NYPL Midtown branch when I get a call from a private number, thinking it is The Package Lady letting me know that somebody has a package and if she can bring it down. In fact, it is MANAGER - and I know what it means because he wouldn't have called otherwise:


he tells me that I've booked SVU (which I'd figured out) for 5 to 6 days of work (WHICH I HAD NOT!!!).

Hung up phone, leaned against building on 40th between 6th and Broadway and proclaimed quite loudly that I'd been cast on Law & Order SVU.

Now just going to pay rent and wait and see what's going on with roommate.

(train, having careened down it final drop, pulls into station readying itself for the next trip back up that first long rise)

Confidence

does nothing for me. I need a motivating fear of looking like a complete ass to get me to work.

(or something like that)

"Like vanity."

"Can't nobody fly with all that sh!t. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that's weighing you down."


(from Song of Solomon by Morrison)

I'm pretty sure I wish this audition was Tuesday.

Remind me to talk about my stand on playing "perps", criminals.

"The fact that no one understands you

doesn't make you an artist."

Gem gleaned from playing Zuma.

(sigh)

I really hate having these headaches.

bad posture sucks.

(zzzzzzzZZZZZSSSSSr

I am a Jr.

Which means somewhere (supposedly somewhere in the south Atlantic on a bigg-ass white boat at the moment) I have a Sr.

I'm currently going through one of my strange sleep patterns. Probably this is the strangest because it's not even nocturnal - I go to sleep around seven and am up in the wee hours. I've been having headaches that I think I due to fatigue from being sleepy while out exposed to bright sunlight (and it has been quite sunny this week). However, if I can manage to stay in the bed until about 3a-4a, I usually do ok.

In the past I have absolutely HATED sleeping like this. I think it doesn't bother me now because I read (I am behind but trying to get through a huge biography at the moment), search purposely around the internet or mess around with photos. So, I've been waking up during what many think of as the middle of the night, but I'm not having that groggy, pissed-off, disjointed,woke-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night feeling.

I'm sort of liking my sleep sched at the moment (at THIS moment, anyway).

I say all that to say this:

one of my fathers peculiarities was going to sleep by 9p and waking up at 4a;

I despite all the protestations to the contrary during my youth, I am turning into my Sr.

This is not a new realization, but there are still times when you chillin and it just sort of (!)s across the face.

.....