BLOGZILLA Part Deux!

Don't blame me!! Another quiz via Joshie:

What is your favorite word to insert 'fucking' into the middle of?
Gazpacho – as in Ga-fucking-zpacho – cold soups fill me with a rage…

Also, vichyssoise, as in vichy-fucking-ssoisse

What is your favorite subsitute curse word?
"Jesus emm-effing Christ!” I don’t like the original, because it makes My Personal Lord and Savior into a practitioner of incest. And thought we all know Jesus dearly loved his Virgin Mother Mary before he croaked on that cross, I don’t really think He loved her in THAT way… But my made up word is a good thing.

When you really lose it, what vileness pours out of your mouth?
Holymothuhfuckingshit, what sort of shittymotherfuckingsuckasscrap is that!?!?!?!

When was the last time you raged at the Heavens in frustration?
Ugh, me an’ Heaven are on good terms these days. I sent out diplomats, they were hiding weapons of mass damnation, so we had a small war to bring democracy to the celestial layer, and now God and all the angels are having open elections.

Actually during the third hurricane and after the third cancer death of 2004…

Okay, let's calm down for a second.
As a Bart Simpson, my new chalkboard mantra is

I promise to be less sacrilegious.
I promise to be less sacrilegious.
I promise to be less sacrilegious.
I promise to be less sacrilegious.
I promise to be less sacrilegious.
I promise to be less sacrilegious.
I promise to be less sacrilegious.
I promise to be less sacrilegious.

The Ties That Blind

Well.

I was supposed to take my friend Larry to his eye surgeon for a check-up on his eye on Friday morning, but… Larry had a scare with his dialysis port, so he called 911 and an ambulance took him to the emergency room. So I joined him there.

People , if you want any encouragement to stay healthy, go to the emergency room ONCE. All emergency rooms make you scared shitless of ever getting sick! This is Florida South Hospital, too, which is supposedly the best in the area. And yet the damn place runs like an Italian bureaucracy! I mean, you put your name in, and then you wait for the length of several eternities with some of the loonies, craziest hypochondriacs you’ve ever seen outside of a family reunion. I swear, unless you are spouting gallons of blood and expiring right there on the spot, they’ll make you wait until you ARE dying. You’d have better luck bribing a doctor.

Which is why it’s like living in Italy. When I lived in Venice as an internship for college, I spent $128 trying to get a phone hooked up. It never happened. Weeks and weeks we waited. Finally, frustrated about not being able to call anyone in the US to tell them I was still alive, I finally talked to someone who knew someone whose brother worked for the phone company in Venice (owned by the government, by the way). We had to go find this guy at his favorite bar and get him so effing drunk he could barely see, and then drag him by the arms to our place to hook up our phone before we rolled him home. I mean he was blind drunk. But I swear the guy was so good with phone equipment, he could’ve probably been drunk and in complete dark and still hooked us up.

Here, at the hospital, I flirted with the cute and not-so-cute administrative staff until they helped us. We called the nurses in dialysis (whom Larry knows from his thrice-weekly visits) to come down to Emergency and check poor Larry’s port. An admin staff (the very cute Sebastian) canceled and rescheduled Larry’s public transport after I was on hold with the Access Lynx bastards for 22 minutes! Finally, I later schmoozed this guy Ray at Lighthouse (a service for blind people) to give us deep discounts on a voice-activated phone dialer and a talking wristwatch for Larry.

Larry said the ambulance ride was provided by two lesbians from Kissimmee – who knew they had carpet munchers in Kissimmee??? Apparently, they didn’t know the mee-tropolis too well. So Larry (who is basically blind) is giving them directions to Florida South Hospital from the gurney in the back. “Pair o’ Dykes Lost,” Larry said (say the title fast, you’ll get it. Hehe.)

So after that fiasco, I went to Scott Hodge’s good-bye party on Friday night. I don’t even want to think about not ever seeing Scott again. It makes me very very sad. His party is waaaaaay up in Sanford on a side street of a side street of a blind alley, so I might as well have been blindfolded getting there! It’s not like I’m any good at following directions and driving at the same time anyway. I am basically handicapped, really, when it comes to directions. I had to stop and buy a map.

The party was all over the map thematically but very fun, just like Scott. We made S’Mores and roasted hot dogs. We had an arts-and crafts table where we made our “demons” out of paper and paint and pipe cleaners and paper plates and stuff. We took their pictures and then sprayed them with flammable stuff before we threw our demons into the fire. I singed off my eyebrows, I think. My retinas melted, so I can’t look into a mirror to tell.

At one point, people were blind-folded and spun around to swing at a piñata. LOL!

We all had to group together for a picture. I was in front on my knees. There were so many pictures taken I got epilepsy from the flashes. My legs started to cramp. I said, really loud, “Usually, when I’m on my knees this long, my mouth is full!”

Without missing a beat, Scott cried, “Steve, have you met my mother?”

Oops. Didn’t see her there… But people laughed.

It was the nicest party that I’d been to in forever. And I wish Scott and his charming friend Kyle the best of luck in Colorado raising funds for Kyle’s treatments. (Also, did you know Scott does some very interesting computer graphics work? I want to ask him for a piece before he skips town.)

By the way, who was the handsome but very quiet new guy at Saturday morning brunch??? I raped him with my eyes. (Don’t worry; I wore condoms over each eyelid.)

I went to The Zora Neale Hurston Festival on Saturday with Jeff Henderson, Michael Slaymaker, and Michael's two lesbian mommies. It was up in Eatonville. We pretended that it wasn’t white guilt that brought us all the way up there. We were color blind! (Michael actually is, literally.) I personally love Ms. Hurston’s writing, so much so that when I saw her crappy little, under-funded “museum” I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream at all of the people at the festival! I swear that in the crowd of 12,000 there were only five people that had ever read one of her books. Interesting, there were also exactly five white people there! Coincidence?

Oh well. They’ll see “Their Eyes Were Watching God” when Oprah and Halle whip out their version. Thank God these people are only illiterate and not sight-impaired or they’d never know Ms. Zora’s great work. God bless the American entertainment conglomeration.

Then I gathered with Marcie and Larry Stallings and Matty (I love Matty) and David Almeida (yeah…hmmm…David) to celebrate straight Ryan Cimino’s straight 21st birthday. I bought the sensitive and pretty and musical-obsessed and Parliament-House-visiting-but-still-dating-a-girl straight Ryan enough alcohol as a gift to get him pass-out blind drunk. Of course, straight Ryan was 45 minutes late, I guess he was operating on Gay Standard Time (except he’s straight)… And then we sang “Happy Birthday” like we were tone-deaf (bringing in another impairment to this article and avoiding getting sued for copyright infringement; did y’all know that song is copyrighted?) Then I went home and passed out into that dark night.

We’re all blind to something, aren’t we? Me, I’m blind to good taste.

Don’t you love theme writings? Now go wash the dirty out of your poor suffering eyes…

LOVE This Survey!!!

Thanks Joshie!

Love This Survey

MAKE MINE (FAKE) MUSIC

1) What is the name of your imaginary band?
The Screwdaisies

2)What is the name of your imaginary band's first album?
Sit N’ Spin

3) What is the name of your imaginary band's hit single?
"Daddy, Don’t Touch Me There!"

4) What instrument do you play in your imaginary band?
Keyboards and Random Found Objects

5) Your imaginary band is like a cross between....?
Simon & Garfunkel and Nine Inch Nails with a Gospel group doing back-up

6) What is your imaginary side project called?
Feed The Children to The Whales

7) What imaginary juicy dirt will we discover about your imaginary band on VH1's Behind The Music?
We met at Lakewood Center as residents

8) Give us a sample lyric?
And God said, “Boys, Boys, boys, don’t ya sleep with the boys.
Rubbing two sticks to make a fire, and treating nipples like toys.
There are some little holes you just shouldn’t breach
There’s a reason that prostrate gland stands slightly out of reach.”

9) What song does your imaginary band cover?
Joe Cocker’s “With a Little Help From My Friends”

10) What real band joins your on tour?
Oh, definitely the Scissor Sisters

Pete and Re-Pete were in a Boat…

For those of you who care, my first review of the class I’m redesigning for Lockheed went exceptionally well.

There were lots and lot and lots of small edits. That threw me off at first. I wanted the client to fall down and worship at the altar of my course-development brilliance. That didn’t happen… BUT! Not one single presentation that goes through a review process in Corporate America ends up the way it started. Nature of the beast.

I call it the “Crayola Theory.” Just like whenever a play is in workshop:

If you give people the opportunity to color in your coloring book, they will.

So, now, we go through the long, dark time called “Night of a Thousand Editors.”

Thank God we have a deadline.

By the way, most of the edgy forward-thinking things I was taking a risk including are still in there. Wow!

And now I steal myself for review after review after review after review after review after review after review after review after review after review after review after review after review after review after review….

BM-ous Interruptus

One more Bitter Moment about my ongoing war with Lockheed bathrooms...

Because the bathroom supports hundreds and hundreds of people spread over the entire second floor of the Main Plant here, the cleaning crew has to clean the bathroom for 15 minutes every two hours.

Well, somehow the cleaning crew have perfectly timed their cleaning schedule to the activities of my lower colon and bladder! So, every time I have the urge and trek all the way there, some woman is scrubbing the urinals and I have to walk (cramping) another several miles to the next nearest bathroom.

Now, here's my issue. I've seen several male janitorial workers: why can't they clean the Men's Room, saving the place from being blocked off for 15 minutes every couple of hours!?!?!?!

And ... making a grody segue, David Almeida and I had dinner at Boston Market last night. And the corn left my body exactly 16 hours after I ate it. Isn't this a little quick?

Speaking of last night (and changing the subject to something infinitely more pleasant), Joshie came over to David's and we watched SNL and MadTV.

"Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick!!! I'll let my voice be my instrument!" Whatever the name of this annoying girl character, Amy Poehler makes me giggle uncontrollably.

"Take me to Taco Bell!!! I wanna go to TACO BELLLL!!!!"

Speaking of BMs...

And...scene.

U N ABCs (You in ABCs)

An alphabetical quiz an online friend sent me:

Accent- American Midwestern flavored with a few Irish phrases and pronunciations

Bra size- dunno - don't wear one. Manzierre anyone?

Chore I hate- Ironing

Dad's name- James Richard Miller

Essential make-up- None (I'm a dude)

Favorite perfume- Champ-Elysees on women, for cologne for me, right now Diesel Zero Plus or Givenchy Pi

Gold or silver?-I like both mixed, or better yet, platinum

Hometown- Creston, Iowa

Interesting fact-I can't whistle, I cheat, but it's not really a true whistle

Job title- Consultant Liaison

Kids-are my intellectual superiors

Living arrangements- With my dry wife, my Grace Adler, Cathy

Mom's birthplace- Outside of Cardiff, Wales

Number of Apples eaten in last week- 3

Overnight hospital stays- Yep, plenty – well, maybe 4 times, but once was for two weeks after my brother's best friend got drunk and drove his car into me on my first day of 7th grade

Phobia-Monkey toys, monkeys, children's toys made out of dead animals

Question you ask yourself alot - How is the consistency of these small choices going to finally affect the big picture of my life?

Religious affiliation-Combination of Humanism, Buddhism, & Christianity heavily flavored with Psychology, Modern Popular Culture, and an undying love of Joseph Campbell’s mythology studies

Siblings- LOTS!

Time I wake up- 6:30am

Unnatural hair color- Before but not now, at one time it was several colors

Vegetable I refuse to eat- Cooked cauliflower

Worst habit- Saying the first thing that comes to mind without filtering

X-rays?- Had em, mostly on my teeth, except for that 2-week hospital stay where I had so many X-Rays I started growing extra toes.

Yummy food I make- I’m a fantastic cook, but I’ll just say Carrot cake

Zodiac sign- Virgo

Answers to All Your Pressing Questions

1) Describe yourself in 20 words or less.
Hmm, others haven’t put a lot of physical description… Thinning, overweight, white... Intelligent, quick-witted, humorous, sardonic, unflinchingly opinionated, olfactorily bionic, audio-sensitive, optimistic, immature, fiercely individualistic, loyal, loud

2) Handguns. What do you think?
Hmmm... I don’t think they are automatically evil. But I do think that there are two sides in America – the side that thinks they’re evil and the side that thinks they are a necessary accessory. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of dialogue on HOW handguns affect our personal and national psyche, how owning one makes you think differently, etc. Where does that put me? I think if someone is extremely conscientious and careful and sensitive to why and how they need a handgun (including going through licensing and continued training), then let them have it, but also force them to take full responsibility for it. That being said, the only one I own (and it’s in Indiana) is so beyond repair (in a house fire) that it will never ever work. It’s basically scrap metal. I'd never personally own one that actually shoots.

3) Tell me about a film that you love that you want to share with others.
Hmmmm.... There are either too many or I feel like I’ve previously talked this one to death…

4) Do you wake up in the middle of the night thinking about your past?
Hmmmmm.... Yep. But not in a negative way. I have both pleasant dreams and nightmares about things that happened. It could be worse.

5) What were you doing ten years ago?
Hmmmmmm... I was just starting work for Lockheed as a Corporate Biotch. I’d just flown to Bethesda to live for two weeks so they could train me. My job when I returned was to work with VPs to gather metrics for Corporate reports. I didn’t have any staff at the time. I was renting a room on Princeton Street from a sexy Christian bachelor. I was still reeling from having failed so many times straight out of college – 5 jobs in two years, etc, etc.

6) What kind of girl/guy do you like?
Hmmmmmmmmm.... I’m actually reading in Blink by Malcolm Gladwell that even though you can describe the person in words, that is seldom the person you end up with in life. I think there’s something that just happens when you’re attracted to someone.

7) Pitch me a horror film set in New Orleans in the 1940s.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm... The Chicago mob comes into take over the Big Easy’s voodoo medicine drug trade. But they soon find that the whole organized crime ring is run by vampires who long ago started intermingling with werewolves to make themselves almost completely invincible.

8) Tell me something sappy.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... Syrup straight form the tree.

9) The alternative music of the late 80's and early 90's was great. What did you like back then?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......... New Order, Depeche Mode, Guadalcanal Diary, The Cure, The Stone Roses, Thrill Kill Kult, Barenaked Ladies, REM, Indigo Girls, Nine Inch Nails, Dead Can Dance

10) I want to throw a party. My theme will be Italian horror and film noir. I want topless bartenders as well. Give me some ideas.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... Make sure the topless men have nice, big Disco titties.

Thus concludes this quiz.

An Almost Happy Fella

OK, this last week at work was BAAAAD, but for some reason it didn’t depress me like the week before. Maybe my skin is thickening, like a big callous. Maria Callous – wait till she hits the high notes, folks!

Actually, the pain in the butt this last week is that I HAD to be at Lockheed all week because the VP of Training took all of his full-time employees to Dallas for an All-Staff offsite, Ummm. Leaving me and the secretary here all alone to oversee your entire department? Ummm. Not a good idea, removing a department of 11 and leaving a secretary and a consultant to answer questions. Hehe.

On Monday, I had – no kidding – 40 people stop by our offices and ask Monna and me questions. We felt so stupid. “Duhhhh, we dunno…” We said this so many times, I was thinking of making t-shirts.

I actually had those people from Communications – you know, the people who SHOULD be working on Mentoring assignments I give them – make a sign.

Basically it said:

"IMPORTANT

Almost everyone in Training is either on Vacation or Travel this week. If you have a question about anything that is not Leadership 21, it is best to send them an email.

If you have a Leadership 21 question, please knock.”

Cuz we dunno nuttin’, basically!!! LOL.

A little unprofessional, but that seemed to fix it. And my graphics designers did a nice job (all lime green and hot pink with dark teal lettering. A blind person couldn’t miss it!) Maybe that’s why I didn’t get too sore about last week.

And then I got a lot done on the book for the class. Now I’m kinda at the point where I need the customer to look at it to make sure we are not any off-mark. Because reworking after the graphics people got a hold of it would be baaaad. They’d be sore.

I spent my lovely Friday night staying late at Lockheed. Suzanne Prose, the computer-based-education person, came back from Dallas upset. The Curriculum Development Director job was offered to someone in Dallas (whom, I would agree, seems not up to the task – but what do I know? I may be surprised…) Suzanne seemed to have wanted the job. But after doing my Career Coach thingy with her, I found that she had never really openly talked about the position with Doug , her boss, the guy who took them all to Dallas for the week. Oh, Suzanne and Doug talked about vague, plausibe growth possibilities years and year and years ago in a galaxy far, far away… And Suzanne hasn’t sat down with Doug and gotten performance feedback or career planning or anything for years! Ummm.

“He didn’t give you this new job, honey, because he’s probably forgetting that you exist. You just sit there in the cubicle with your bitter, little head down.”

GAH! Why do people think they don’t have to do anything but show up to get promoted!?!?!

She took it well, understood. I felt like I helped her.

Then Mike Yaroma came over. He’s a very conservative ex-Marine, and we both enjoy arguing immensely. But I had a class to redesign, so I did some work while chatting with him. Got out at 8:30p.m. Still, because I like my work, I didn’t feel like I’ve wasted a Friday night.

Went and met the gym teacher for salads at Wendy’s (shwank!) and then walked around Super Target (shwanker) for a while with him. He bought some sort of small, plastic house item - I forget what it was, but it was small and plastic and sort of pearl-colored (shwankest!)

I personally bought a copy of Time magazine and found out what I already know, which is that I’m a fairly happy person in a fairly happy nation.

Saturday, I finally got to the gym. Did an HOUR on the elliptical and had my spleen throbbing for the rest of the day!

Later that morning, I met Front Runners for brunch at the Parliament House. That afternoon I went and saw A Very Long Engagement with Michael Slaymaker and Jeff Henderson (who still is missing his roof from Hurrlycane Charie - eeks). French film. Very French. There was a point when the plot was so well-complicated that I lost why the movie couldn’t end just then and right there! But it went on. And on. I figure it’s my lack of knowledge of the language. It’s a cute, charming film. And I always like that foreign films have a better sense of showing fascinating, even nonsensical visuals. BUT! I believe that if anyone openly admitted to doing all the Magical Thinking that the main character does in the film, they’d be locked up at the Lakewood Facility for the Certifiably Schizophrenic, Mildly Paranoid, and Extremely Socially Challenged (where Michael works, and Utmost Productions rehearses our plays, ironically or not.)

That’s a term, people – Magical Thinking. Look it up.

Saturday night I went over to Dan Kilponen’s to have chili dinner with David Almeida and Jaime Cox. Lovely chili and corn bread and brownies, but we basically shoveled in the food and ran.

CUZ WE JUST HAD TO! Grrr. We HAD TO go to the Helen Stairs Theatre in Beautiful Hysteric Downtrodden Sanford. Double-Grrrrr!!! "Theatre" is such a strong word...

David and I HAD TO race there to see The Most Crappy Fella. You can read more at David’s blog (http://mediocrityatitsbest.blogspot.com/), but in short:

Bad community theatre
Cheap sets
No choreography
Fairly dull music staged badly
No movement in the blocking whatsoever
Sets falling on actors (a VERY funny moment by the way)
A trombone player who should, for the sake of all good people, be summarily executed
Fairly good performances by Andre Provencher and the leading lady
Great performances by the comic lady and man (Anna Kay was the lady)
A pretty man to look at – Gerrett Koester – in the role of Joe

When the lights went down for the second of three acts, I said “I’m going blind!!! Now if I go deaf, it’ll be a perfect evening!!!”

Why is bad theatre so enjoyable?

Later, we met Joshie and his sister Amber for some Mark and Lorna, lounge singers extraordinaire. I simply love and worship Joshie, I do – especially when he pounds on the table during “All That Jazz” like an angry drunk. (Don’t take this as an insult, Joshie, I do truly adore it! It takes chutzpah! Moxie even!)

Marcie and Kevin were there - Marcie hates when I post sarcastic and mildly teasing things on her blog - she forgets that I love her. I have to remind her every so often before I spit some more venom.

Sunday morning I worked out for a more sensible 40 minutes. Then I sat around, drank copious amounts of hot tea, and read a lot in that Malcolm Gladwell book Blink, that I’m currently in love with. Gladwell mentions Kenna, a singer I really enjoy. Kenna’s first album is like Duran Duran and Seal got together and cut rough demos, with a mentally unstable computer geek producing. That’s as close as I can get to describing Kenna’s music. And I love it! I dug it out and have been listening to it some more.

All the music I have that no one else listens to… Sigh...

Oh, and I had a dream that proves to me that – at least unconsciously – I truly and whole-heartedly believe that my swimming pool musical can work. I have it all plotted out in my head now, with:

Jeff Lindberg as the protagonist, a community college professor of Human Behavior
Marcie Schwalm as his slightly shrewish, but also wise, religious older sister
Kimberly Grey as Jeff’s young, artistic wife
Josh Geoghagen as Kim’s once-reckless brother trying to straighten up his life
David Almeida as Jeff’s best friend – a gay lawyer who is also a little too entertaining
Matty McDermid as David's foreign parner, trying to maintain his Visa
Sarah French as Josh’s date, kind of an outsider to this small party, and a bit too wild for anyone’s good

Anyway, that’s the teaser. My dream had Dustin Hoffman in a dress coming to see our opening night at a shwank theatre. It was such a wonderful, positive experience and image (Dustin in a dress) that I believe now I can pull off this terribly dark, comic music about morals versus self-protection.

Speaking of Magical Thinking.

At any rate, it’d HAVE to be better than that barf we saw up in Sanford. But I also know I have my work cut out for me.

Let the magic begin…

(Oh, and I did some shopping and I had lunch at Smokey Bones with David, Mikey and David Dean. They just came from church to remind me that God is still expecting me to return there. For dinner, I had some good Bikkurri Sushi with Cathy. The end. "GAH, this is a long one!" And I ain't said those words in many, many years. snif.)

Self-Defecating Humor

Well, David is at it again, slandering our work and NOT printing my name in his blog. Biotch!. This is what he says:

"Still no word from PRT regarding their choice of play for their full production in April - as you pray for Matty's Seussical to get chosen for State, pray for Sons Of The Revolution. It ain't dead yet. Nicole Carson tells me that the Studio Theatre is a consideration for the venue. Um...ew? That would be horrible. We couldn't fit 8 actors on that stinking stage for Wonker - how could they do SOTR? Well, worry about that later. Maybe the work will dictate venue.

Interesting Fact #14332308: The Soldier character in SOTR is named William Wayne Westfall. We wanted all W's so you get kind of a WWIII sort of implication with his initials. When it came time to write Wonker and I wanted the Candy Man to formally introduce himself on the witness stand, there was no hesitation as to what his middle name would be: Wallace Westfall Wonker. Are you seeing the "threads" now? The things that connect our work and make all of our plays into one unified "whole" body of work? Precisely. Name copying. Us write gooder plays every time."

This is what I wrote as a response:

"You know how we're always making up new ways to insult our plays? Well, here's another.

'Some writers cannot string words together to make coherent sentences; these people cannot string letters together to make coherent words. One suspects they may even have trouble making simple, rudimentary lines into the actual letters of the alphabet, their incompetence is so great.'"

Hehe. Why are our imagined critics so nasty? Earlier we were going to write a bio that said.

"Stephen Miller writes plays to conceal the fact that he is totally and completely illiterate. In fact he is amazed that actors and directors interpret his chicken scratches as an actual script. He is also deathly afraid of actors, as people pretending to be other people give him a severe case of the willies. Stephen owns the world's largest collection of unused toilet seat protectors. (The person who collects used ones actually has a slightly larger collection.) David Almeida is just like Stephen Miller, except stupider. By the way, David is the collector of the used ones."

A New Term

Well, tomorrow starts a new term for Bush the Evil Bible-Monkey.

Blegh

Well, here are two new terms of my own:

Oblogatory - adjective. What your blog posts become when you feel the need to post every day, though you have nothing new to say.

E-solation - noun. The feeling you get that no one really reads your long-winded blogs but you still do it, because it brings you some sort of Siberia-like solace.

BLOGZILLA!

I was a blogging fiend today!


Perhaps I'm under a bit of stress!

Like any obsessive writer, I take it out with my drug of choice. The written form on blathering...


LONG LIVE BLOGZILLA!

A Long and Painful Labor

It is day three of my new affair with the elliptical machine at the gym. Gotta birth this baby somehow. I’m in my 60th trimester, I think.

On top of that, work just basically sucks. I am working so hard now and so fast, that all I do is: “That’s done, now this. This is done, now that. That’s done, now this. This is done, now that. That’s done, now this. This is done, now that.”

My head’s constantly down working. It gives me no time to think or to plan or to breathe or to see what's coming at me. And I’ve been deathly afraid I’ll drop the ball on something important. To the point that it affects my sleep. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking, “OK, what am I missing?”

Insomnia...

And of course, then the next day at work I’m tired, which raises my chances that I will definitely drop something.

On top of that, absolutely everyone but Monna and I are in Dallas for a four-day meeting. This means that people come over and ask us about things which have absolutely nothing to do with our jobs.

I want to scream, “LEAVE US THE FUCK ALONE!!!!!!! I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THEIR JOB; MY JOB KEEPS ME TOO BUSY AS IT IS!!! AND ON TOP OF THAT, YOU’RE INTERRUPTING ME!!!!!!!!”

But I have to appear to be the Helpful Consultant, so I take deep breaths and lock myself into my office and pray to Buddha (who also had a long-term pregnancy) that I can stay calm and collected and organized and that that these supreme dipshits won’t knock on my closed office door to ask another inane question I couldn't possibly know the answer to. (And they do, of course.)

So, this morning at 7am I get a call on my cell phone.

“Steve, this is Rebecca. I cannot reach Euline or Monna (who comes in late) or Dianne or Doris. I’m here for the class….”

So, I say, “Well, just come to Gate One. I’ll meet you there.”

“I don’t know where Gate One is.”

“Oh, you’ve never been to the facility before? Are you from Ocala or where?”

“Dallas.”

And I’m thinking; why is this woman flying all the way from Dallas to take a course we also offer in Dallas?

So I meet her and say, “Well, you’re a bit early.”

She says, “You said 7:00 at the Visitor’s Center.”

And I’m thinking OH GOD, I FINALLY DROPPED THE BALL ON SOMETHING HERE AT WORK! Because I cannot remember this at all. I mean, my vaunted memory and I have NO recollection of this!!! I said, “Wow, that’s surprising, because Effective Communication starts at 8:30…”

“No, I’m here from Pritchett to teach the Business as Unusual class.”

THUD!

“Oh, you’re the Pritchett instructor I talked to on the phone last week…. Ummmmm, I thought we were doing that February 18th, not today, January 18th…”

Oh, God, did I drop a ball this HUGE!!!! All the way back to my office, my stomach is doing flip-flops. I have an instant migraine. I mean, this woman flew all the way in from Dallas, stayed in a hotel room, and rented a car! And I cannot even make the trip worthwhile. I mean, I cannot get a class together this quick. No one in the Lockheed Training Department is here to help me. Her company hasn’t sent the supplies or books even! No Lockheed training person is here for her to have meetings with! They’re all – ironically, in Dallas, where this lady came from!!!

I AM DEAD…

Then, we get back to my office. Monna has just showed up, and I explain to her what’s up. Eeek. Monna has this deer-in-headlights look. …this is baaaad!

I bring the lady into my office. Monna brings her coffee. What the Hell and I going to do???

Then I check my email and the class is February 18th. I was right.

YAY!

It’s her fuck-up, not mine!

DOUBLE YAY!!!

Her company will have to eat the cost, I didn’t drop the ball, and I’m safe!!!!

TRIPLE YAY!!!!!

Except now I am distinctly aware that it is possible I could screw something up this big. Which has given me a massive stomach cramp and a perma-migraine.

But I cannot tell anyone here at work how concerned I am with being overworked and that I’ll pull a major SNAFU, because I have to be HAPPY CONSULTANT!

Where does it end?


Tick tick tick

Death of a Snowman

Some very charming young man from Scotland (who is also named Stephen) wrote me a charming reply to one of my less-than-charming blogs. So, I have been reading his.

Okay, get this. He built a snowman in the middle of the road and then set a stopwatch to see how long it would take someone to kill "Snowy."

LMAO!

I needed this.

Go and read and see the pictures of the life and the carnage. But better yet, let me post the conversation he had with The Old Man, his upstairs neighbor who saw him out playing in the snow and wanted to know what he was up to:

Old man - "Whats going on out here"
Me - "Im building a snowman"
OM - "Ok.........where, i dont see it"
Me - "Thats because its in the middle of the road"
OM - "Why (starting to sound angry)
Me - "So a car will run into it"
OM - "Oh (starting to sound lost for words)
OM - "We have a neighbourhood watch you know"
Me - "Yes and your doing a Fantastic job..."

Funny schtuff!

http://lifeofsteev.blogspot.com/

If anyone knows of anything else that’ll make me laugh like this, please send it!

REM Sings a Song About It

Blegh!

I still feel sort of overwhelmed. I'm also tired.

And I feel like my ability to relate and have normal, engaging conversations with the human race has left me. What the Hell is that!?!?!?

It'll pass, I guess. It's either The End of the World As We Know It or I'm just having a Bad Day. Pick the REM song you think best fits the situation.

By the way, new music:
Powter has a song Bad Day - the song is ho hum, but the video is very good. It's at Launch.com.

REM's song Bad Day is much better, and come to think of it, so is the video, available here:
http://www.remhq.com/flash/videography/videography.html

And speaking of the end of the world, here's a new video about it by Snow Patrol. The song, for some reason, is called Chocolate, and it's a cool video:
http://snowpatrol.amrecords.com/av/av.html

There. Something to watch while I figure out what's currently wrong...

I Lost My Lunch Lady

I was teaching a class today, when my cell phone rang. It was my sister Laura, and she never calls me. Eeeks, feels like bad news. The class was close to a break, so I called Laura back.

She told me what her twin sister Lisa told me Saturday. Rosie Malone, our lunch lady from junior high, had passed away from hemorrhaging of an inoperable brain tumor.

I know this sort of sounds like the start of a sick, dark joke. Dead Lunch Lady jokes, if there is such a category... I wish I were kidding. The thing is; if you’re from a small Midwestern town, you end up knowing people pretty well. Even your Lunch Lady. Rosie watched out for all of us kids. She knew the names and ages of all 11 of us. Rosie baked healthy breakfast cookies she’d sell for a quarter each, so that kids wouldn’t go without breakfast. She smoked like a chimney and drank a lot, but she did love the kids she served lunch to.

Rosie had a son, Cameron, who was a couple of years older than me and best friends with my older brother Chris. When they were sophomores in high school, Cameron told Chris he was gay. Chris beat him up. Cameron ran away…away from his mom and from Chris and his little hometown. “Cam” ran away to another town to live with his dad, finish school, and hide from the secret he’d told Chris until he could move somewhere “safer.” Somewhere safer to be gay.

Chris later apologized to a lot of people for beating Cameron up, though his feelings on homosexuality haven’t changed a whole lot, I’ve found recently, even with having me as a brother. He says homosexuality ain’t Christian. (Apparently, Chris’ judgment, hatred, binge drinking, cussing, fist-fighting, and lack of general charity are Christian. Nice.)

Rosie later worked with me at the gummy bear factory (insert joke here), and I think she knew about me back then before I was out. She and I would laugh about people we both knew, kids I went to school with. Rosie once, out of the blue, called me a “real trooper, a survivor,” and I never forgot it.

These last few years, my sister Laura would see Rosie at church or at ballgames or elsewhere, and again, Rosie remembered all 11 of us.

Laura told me these facts this morning and started crying. Laura said, “She was always, always asking when she was going to get to see you again, Steve. She never got to.” And Laura just sobbed. And I had a class waiting, so I had to promise to call Laura back later...

Laura knows. Because, like Cameron, I don’t go back to that shit-box town (the few nice people like Rosie aside) unless I absolutely have to.

And now Cameron is going back to bury his mom. Chris told me Cameron died of AIDS some time ago, but Cameron is quite alive. I don’t know if Cam is HIV-positive or why Chris lied.

And I don’t want to find out. I don’t need a second helping of that, thank you. I’ll just grieve the loss of Rosie the Lunch Lady safely from here.

Another Joshie Quiz!!!

THE FIRST QUIZ OF THE REST OF YOUR YEAR.

1) Tell me about your mother:
I pass…I love my mom, but I sincerely pass.

2) Describe 2005 in one word.
Better

3)If you were hosting Saturday Night Live, who would you want the musical guest to be?
Agree with Jeff Lindberg – Scissor Sisters

4) Tell us about something that's popular right now that you 'just don't get'.
The kids and that damn Japan-imation Yu Gi Oh! Dragon-Ball shit! I believe it creates attention deficit disorder in children.

5)When was the last argument you were in?
Can’t remember at all.

6)What is you Mantra?
"The power and glory of life derive from what one does with what one is given. It doesn’t matter where you start; it only matters where you are going.” - Arthur Oakman

7) A good nap or a good shit...?
Both, actually, at the same time... (Because everyone else was so upset by this question. Schmacko's First Rule of Inappropriate Social Interaction: If you cross the line, kids, make sure you take big strides!)

8)Who is your Mentor?
My college professor Susan Maroldo

9) Who, of all your friends, would you want to get into a physical fight with?
None of them – yuck! I am still recovering from my brothers fist-fighting each other at reunion!!!

10) Elphaba or Glinda?
Elphaba – anyone who knows me knows that I stand by my damn, flawed principle to the point of damage.

11) Make a sandwich.
Pioneer bread, a little mayonnaise, spicy mustard, thin-sliced vine-ripe tomatoes, thin sliced havarti dill cheese. Buttered on the outside and then toasted on the griddle until the bread is golden and the cheese starts to melt. I am such a tomato sandwich fan.

12)Do you believe in psychics?
I saw this question coming.

13) Favorite Ancient Empire.
Those whacky Mesopotamians!

14) What's a Question you want to see on one of these Quizzes?
If you were to play a character in a new Steve Miller play, what sort of character would you like to perform?

15) These are a few of my favorite things.
By far Schweetie my cat!!! Tazo Chai Tea (I know it’s becoming passe, but I still love it), the “On My Way” song and the “Card Game” song from the musical Violet, my new bedding, the new book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, the elliptical machine at the gym, incredibly charming knuckle-draggers who look like they would be fun in bed without at lot of emotional baggage (that is the God’s-honest truth, people!)

16) Quick! Staring contest: you and me.
You would win, Joshie – I’d get a chubby and have to stop. Hehe

17) What is the most romantic thing you would want someone to say to you?
"I want to be there for you. I am willing to stand up to your bullshit in a kind, generous, constructive way. And I will always let you be there for me. Because you are and always will be worth every minute of it.” Why am I so honest with this stuff!?!?!?

18) Who is your Arch Enemy?
Anyone who says they can read minds (“I don’t need you to tell me, I already know what you think, and it’s the worst!”) Anyone who is a sociopath (i.e., thinks that laws and rules are only there to apply to others, and it is his job to find ways around them.) And I met both of these qualities in one person once!

19) Miss Scarlet, in The Study,
with...the candlestick AND the lead pipe, doing something dirty.

20) Now there's a fetish I could really get into...
Fantasy night (I’ll write the scripts!)

21) If it happens within our lifetime, would you want to help colonize Mars?
Yep.

22) Do you kiss hello?
No. Not on the first meet. After you have a close personal relationship, yes. But most gays do this a little too much for my comfort. I don’t want to even think about where their mouth has been!

23) So, what makes you so special...?
I have a freakish memory, especially toward stuff I read. I feel like I think like a playwright. I am quick-witted (too bad I never keep it to myself) I always have an opinion. I am kinda somewhat thick-skinned. I'm a bit of a survivor.

24) Would you rather be eaten by a crocodile or a shark?
Shark

25) Who are you really proud of right now?
Cathy is doing some cleaning, both physically and mentally, and I am the start of being proud (as long as she keeps it up). David is working with Anne Hering again, and so is Joshie. And The Orlando Theatre Project just did a stunning production of Coyote on a Fence with a stellar performance by Robbie Pigot and solid direction by Chris Jorie, which was so all good it makes me smug about having season tickets. (And that, people, is is a recommendation from Mr. "I-Can-Find Something-I-Hate-About-Everything!" - aka - me)

BM Update

More Bitter Moments...

You know how the nearest bathroom here is a sled-dog race away?

Well, now the door has a big sign that says:

"Exhaust fan replacement

on RUSH order."

Now, imagine what the bathroom currently smells like...

It just keeps getting better and better...

Death of a Consultant

By that playwright named Miller…

I should be happy. I have so many wonderful possibilities here. It’s just that right now the Lockheed workload is so severe, I am feeling supremely overwhelmed. Like I’m so far down in a lake of mud I can’t tell which way is sunlight.

It’s like what I said earlier, I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I do perceive I am in a tunnel.

Oh, well, we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it…

It just that, truthfully, working overtime over a long period of time makes me feel…extremely lonely.

Like I don’t have friends or family or loved ones. I only have work. Which is good and rewarding work, but it shouldn’t be all I have. Ya know?

Does this make any sense?

A while back, other teachers at Lockheed were getting lousy feedback on their Mentoring classes. So, when they looked at the class-evaluation scores, they found my scores were stratospherically higher. Good news, right? So, I had a bunch of people sit in on one of my classes. They were very impressed. So impressed they hired me to redesign the class to make it more like how I teach it. More money!!!!!

Yawn, right?

Sorry.

So, I get a LOT of money to redesign the class, and I’m seen at the Subject Matter Expert (SME!) Whoo hoo!

Then Training and Development Magazine (T&D Magazine) announces that Lockheed is in the top ten companies for employee training for the third year in a row! Great! Then they tell me that my mentoring program was a great part of it! Wow! Then Galeynn tells me that they’re sending people down from Corporate to sit in on my class to see why I’m so spectacular…

I’m still redesigning the class. But the magazine and Corporate are here February 4th…

So, they give me a graphics designer and a communications person for a while to help me finish it. Wow. Wonderful… Except that I am now so underwater, I cannot even tell these people how I need help.

And then...my consulting firm calls me. Now, I've been telling them that what I've been doing with Mentoring is pretty incredible. But it took National Recognition to make them wake up! CONGRATULATIONS!!! And now they have to, just absolutely have to, learn about this before the article so the can be "experts" too. So that the comapny isn't caught with their pants down on what one of their best Consultant Liaisons have been dedicating his lonley life to. Great. And when is there time!?!?!!?

On top of that, I have to help justify hiring more people in Lockheed’s training department. I also have to provide evaluations and audits on two other classes (where I have to sit for 3 whole days). And I am currently assessing 153 people at Lockheed!

Oh, and I’m teaching at CNL tomorrow. And I’m meeting a vendor for lunch tomorrow, because neither she nor I have any other time to meet. Tomorrow was supposed to be “a day off…” Right...

And I’m extremely lonely.

I haven’t exercised in two weeks, and I feel fat and sluggish.

Because I don’t have time to fix food, I’ve eaten way too much junk food.

I should be helping Joshie more.

I miss David and Michael and David & Mikey and Sarah and and and...

As if that weren't enough, Larry is in the hospital in bad condition. I got to Floriduh South last night at 8:00 right after a 12 hour day at work, and right in front of him and Mark McGee, I started to cry. Then I realized that it wasn’t fair to Larry or Mark, so I bucked up and shut up. Put on my cheery face.

And I personally think it is not going to get better for Larry (I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t say this…maybe it’s just me…)

And I still feel extremely out of touch with the people I love.

At least the house is clean. But Cathy is overworked too, so we’ve had to keep Schweetie, the poor cat, indoors all day so she doesn’t get beat up after dark. Because I haven’t seen the sun outside of a gray sunrise in the last four days. Because when I leave work it’s already pitch dark and I’ve just been eating fast food shit and crawling into bed…

And I realized I really need to combine two of my play ideas into one. But who has time to write, or even think about writing?

And I would kill or die to do something fun with people I love and for them to tell me they understand and I’m not a total clueless shithead who is wasting valuable QT on work.

But I should be happy, right?

Nihilist Minimalism

Everything I'd like to talk about today has no place in a public forum like this.

8 Pages

Yesterday, while waiting for a meeting I literally finished 8 pages of my new play (and because I overwrite, expect about 3 of those pages to see the light of day!)

I "heard" a character "say" something and all of the sudden I had a whole scene built around it.

I still don't have a great title, but I now have a better title than what I started with...

There Will be a Quiz...

This sounds like fun, so from Matty to all of yous peoples who read my blog, I would love you to respond to this:

A) First, recommend to me:
1. a movie:
2. a book:
3. a musical artist, song, or album:

(B) I want everyone who reads this to ask me three questions, no more, no less. Ask me anything you want.

(C) Then I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends to ask you anything. Do that! it will make me happy!....... (This is just a suggestion from me - Matty insists, I suggest. eh feh....)

A Serious BM (Bitter Moment)

Okay, I’m bitter about my Trans-Continental Hike to the nearest bathroom, so I just did some calculations based on the fact that the columns here are placed 30 feet apart…

Here at Lockheed, it is 330 feet to the nearest bathroom from my office. That’s a goddamn football field, people!!!

So, I get there (winded and cramping), and five of the seven stalls are occupied. One of the two empty stalls is filled to the brim with urine and TP, and the other was recently used by someone with some serious depth perception problems!!!

GREAT! Now I have to trek another fucking football field to the clean ones downstairs…

Except these bathrooms bother me to no end, because the room is tiny. Even the Thinnest Person in the World cannot open or close the stall door without stepping to the side of the toilet first. And who knows what you’re stepping in!?!?!? After I was done, I checked. That damn door swings within an inch of the toilet bowl!

I’m going to end up with bladder problems, and then I’m gonna sue this place!!!

15 Universal Truths I Done Lurnt This Weekend!

So I crashed the PRT Launch cast party out in Metro West, and these were the blinding epiphanies that repeatedly smashed like bricks into my skull. (I'm a poet!)


1. The lovely John Hill has the exact same job Mark March had.

2. Even though I started going to the PRT activities to schmooze, because so many cool people were there, I ended up enjoying myself immensely.

3. Chuck Dent really impresses me as someone who communicates well and presents himself in a professional yet casual manner. (For organizations looking for a good mouthpiece, ya might want to notice this. Hint hint.)

4. Scott Hodges and I have the same tertiary erogenous zone – could this mean we are soul mates?!?!?!

5. Although monkeys and monkey-like things give me the creeps (thanks Edgar Allen Poe!), if the thing is made of metal, sits by a fire, and shoots lighter fluid out of its penis, I’m less scared for some illogical reason. (Thank you, Avis Marie Barnes, both for a lovely party and for Dan the Fire Monkey.)

6. S’Mores are a hundred times better if made over an open fire…as long as your skewer is long enough that your fingernails don’t melt.

7. There’s no good way to tell someone you think they are a marginally talented playwright at best. This isn’t aimed at anyone in particular; it just struck me sometime this weekend as a Universal Truth I should capture.

8. Certain people make one feel as if one were just humped by one of those obscure Japan-imation characters – it’s kinda meta-human behavior, but it’s very scary, and the whole time it seems their mouths don’t move with the words they're saying. Sometimes, sadly, these people are the ones judging your play. It’s nobody’s fault, really – it just makes one feel that one’s play has the same chance of surviving as that proverbial snowball in Hades.

9. Nikki Darden is a bit of a sicko, in a good way!

10. You look psychotic if you routinely wear a ski cap indoors (Avis’ neighbor does; we were peeping into his window almost the entire party. We Peeping Toms aren’t the psychos; the ski-cap guy is!!!)

11. Some people, like Ashley (Don’t-Know-His-Last-Name), inspire me to pick on them mercilessly.

12. John Hill is also annoyingly straight, which means the surname “lovely” is slowly fading from the front of his name.

13. Al Pergande listens to King’s Missile, which explains a lot!

14. You know you’ve met a good party friend, when you’re at a fairly great party and you still think, “This would be even better if Matty or Joshie were here.”

15. You can not make up for weeks of lack of sleep by one super-long power nap.

The Play What We Wrote

Here is the synopsis for Sons of the Revolution, the play David and I sweated blood over...


"It’s the mid-1990s and public defender Daniel Kinderland is fighting to save his client, an American soldier, from the death penalty.

Defendant William Westfall is a highly decorated Marine found guilty of domestic terrorism. After being honorably discharged from the Persian Gulf War, Westfall comes home to mysterious medical illnesses. He also finds the US Veteran’s Administration unable or unwilling to provide answers. A year after Westfall’s tour of duty, his wife gives birth to a severely deformed child. As Westfall’s marriage falls apart and his daughter’s health slowly fails, the soldier’s frustration, rage, and sense of powerlessness culminates in an act of terrorism against his country.

Sons of the Revolution opens after Westfall has been found guilty. Attorney Kinderland is making a last plea for Westfall’s life before the sentencing phase. Kinderland praises the Marine’s service and appeals to the hearts and minds of an unseen jury. Slowly an expansive odyssey emerges that traces defendant Westfall’s own ancestry through every major US war or conflict since the beginning of the nation. The “ghosts” of Westfall’s family tree emerge to complete a tale of American military service, US history, and its accompanying violence.

Simultaneously, lawyer Kinderland is guided by the spirit of his dead great-grandfather, a rabbi who fled the violent shtetls of Russia for the relative peace and hope of America. Kinderland’s beliefs in pacifisms and the sanctity of human life are challenged by Westfall and his crimes.

Thirdly, we see the media coverage, political machinations, and strong personal emotions that surround the court case and create a miasma that precludes objectivity and understanding.

Sons of the Revolution is an epic play achieved with just thirteen actors. Many performers are given the chance to play two or more strong, varying roles. Characters encompass two centuries in the Unites States’ past. Overlapping scenes and non-linear structure combine with brisk storytelling to create a unique theatrical experience. A very successful workshop at the Maitland Jewish Community Center was roundly praised for its complexity, wit, and balanced insight.

Sons of the Revolution is an absorbing script about domestic terrorism, American history, and the agendizing of violence into national and personal ideologies. It is not a play that offers easy answers, but instead provides challenging questions in an entertaining and dynamic drama.


It's a bit thick, I know, but the plot and theatricality of the piece are pretty complicated. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pick it!

You know, I'm Just Jealous!!!

Aww, it only took five days of blogging but I did it. I pished 'em off! My dear friends. So I will erase the offending blog and pretend it never happened, because I am enjoying this process and don't want to sour it just yet.


If you let me be a sexy elfen mage, I'll be good from now on. Promise.

Love
~Schmacko

Schmoozing Peeps and Losing Sleeps

So as I was leaving work last night, I told Galeynn that I would be lighting the other end of my proverbial candle to see how far I could burn it.

I mean, the cold is gone, replaced by a mild sinus infection (par for the course, really.) But I still haven’t caught up on my sleep from being sick and supporting roommates in slightly dysfunctional relationships. And here I was, going to see Playwrights’ Roundtable’s (PRT) 2005 Launch.

It was not the type of activity I ever look forward to. I’m dead tired. And again, this “event” is a bunch of short pieces on a small, bare stage. And every blackout makes me want to curl up and take a nap. There were about 12 other people there, so my snoring wasn’t bothering a lot of people.

And by the way, “What a launch!”

BUT

But I do believe that PRT is the strongest possibility to get Sons of The Revolution produced. (Barring some local college giving the play a tumble for the money, there aren’t a lot of possibilities to produce our mammoth epic…) So, there at Theatre Downtown was David Womble and John Goring and Amy Brackel and Chuck Dent, and there I was painting my nose brown and singing “You Are My Sunshine.”

David Almeida was NOT in attendance, because he hates this stuff. I -- on the other very sleepy hand -- really want to support other local playwrights to the best ability of my busy schedule. I don’t want to just spring in, say “produce my play,” and then not be there for others struggling to get the same opportunity.

So, I’ll lose a little shut-eye to be a gracious, supporting fellow author.

Of course, none of them are nearly as talented as I am. And that’s with one droopy eyelid tied behind my back.

I talked to Frank Hilgenberg as I downed seventeen Diet Cokes. And I started to hear that old glint in Frank’s voice that said if I had a money-making play and a guaranteed audience, he’d sure like to talk further. Hehe – what bringing money in will do for artistic relationships! The bad news is I didn’t really talk with his wife, Fran, whom I think is cooler than The World’s Fair.

Also, acting were Scott Hodges (whom I simply adore), Nikki Darden (whom I want to work with), the Carsons, Marilyn McGinnis (whom really wants to be in one of my plays – she’s gone past being subtle about it, which is supremely flattering), and the lovely John Hill, (whom, sadly, I barely know.)

I mean John Hill is so pretty, he makes ME tongue-tied. That’s a feat, especially since my tongue was dead asleep in my slack-jawed, drooling mouth!

And then I sat around and chatted with Scott. I still would love to see him as the soldier in Sons (note to self: send Scott a copy of the script. Or better yet, drop it off at the theatre tonight so I can get another glimpse of John and choke up and sweat a lot). Scott also said of my directing in Whipping Wally Wonker that I could be more of a puppet master.

Wow, and I thought I was a complete ass during the process!

Finally, in the middle of the performance and my little mini-naps, I got a voice mail from my personal Hebrew scholar, Tracey Ritter, asking a lot of questions about the lines I quoted from the Bible for Sons. Shyeah, like I know… So, as I passed from merely sleep-deprived to downright punch-drunk, there I was at midnight at home reading God’s Bestseller!

And that tome of wisdom, people, put me right to sleep until morning!

Oy Gevalt!

My best friend and co-writer David Almeida wrote today of me:

"EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE

Steve just called me to tell me that Playwright's Round Table has requested a full-length copy of our play, Sons of the Revolution. That means it is in the final rounds for consideration for a full production in March -- Woo hoo! He then pointed out that we never got around to fixing up two scenes we wanted to clarify, shortening a monologue, and locating some Hebrew translations of the Bible that are needed for some of the dialogue. D'Oh! He is working on it already, Lord love him. This play had a staged reading in 2002, and we really never knew quite where it would go from there. We thought of producing it ourselves, but WOW that would be a major undertaking for Utmost. Cross everything you have two of, kids, this would be a really wonderful thing for us."


Yes, and I have Tracey Ritter, a Hebrew teacher here at work doing us a BIG FAVOR to get the Hebrew fixed.

And on the scenes that need some work: Several things happen on stage at the same time. SEVERAL THINGS!!! Usually, as a spectacle, this works wonderfully in a play. It's dynamic and exciting. But in a play where the story has to be followed carefully and people require certain facts, it's like trying to read fine print in a tornado. In other words, three rings of continuous action may work for Barnum & Bailey, but it doesn't work in theatre.

So we have two short scenes in the play that need "pulled apart and reconstructed in a less confusing manner."

This little problem is another example of why we should always follow Lesser Rule #1 from my Manifesto for Playwrighting:

Lesser Rule #1 states:

"Nudity overrules all – never have something important being said when people are naked onstage. No one will hear your fabulous dialogue over the bare butts. "

Apparently, chaos is as powerful as a bare butt for pulling focus. (I wonder on stage, whcih would win in a battle...)

Again, kids, light candles, say prayers, cross everything you have two of, until David and I are told we are brilliant writers and our play is life-changing in a way that would make the Russians proud. (Or something like that...).

And this little hurdle ain't the mountain, but it does decide if we get to take that trip over the mountain in the first place.

For one of the best plays I've ever written - a play whose 13 actors and 29 characters and serious theme made it for a long time seem completely unproduce-able - someone just lit a small candle.

Stealing From Others for My Own Amusement

David and Joshie did this one, so here's mine:

10 YEARS AGO I:
1. Was 25 years old.
2. Was having casual sex with a married man who had two little girls, though his wife was very comfortable with his gay relationships…
3. Lived on Princeton in a very sad, little rented room in the house of a 35-year old Christian bachelor whom I thought was kinda sexy.
4. Just started working for Lockheed Martin for 4 months – I started as a temp “Kelly Girl” and went full-time in less than a month.
5. Was trying to end a friendship with an intelligent, generous sociopath who was later convicted of several accounts of fraud and identity theft.

FIVE YEARS AGO I:
1. Was just starting to get sick of my supervisory job at Lockheed Martin, though I loved my seven employees. I was just bored with the work, because it was too easy for us.
2. Had just completed the first production of the first Almeida-Miller full length collaboration Leaving Neverland at Theater Downtown. (It had also played successfully earlier in the year in Tallahassee).
4. Had just moved from house-sitting my adopted mom’s house to Chateau Crevasse (French for “crack house”), a place I stayed in until Cathy and I found a place in July.
5. Just quit my second job an online movie reviewer.
6. Was pulling music for Jerry & Mark to pick for their wedding in March.

TWO YEARS AGO I:
1. Was almost two years into my current job as a consultant for De La Porte and expanding my possibilities as much as I could.
2. Was excited because Almeida-Miller's second play Sons of the Revolution had been picked for a PRT staged reading.
3. Was starting to push David and my comic strip “Pockets of Evil”, which didn’t go anywhere.
4. Was the fattest I’ve ever been.
5. Was starting to plan my vacation with my friends who agreed to go to Iowa.

ONE YEAR AGO I:
1. Was absolutely pumped that I was meeting with Russ Blackwell, Sarah French, and Marty Stonerock this next weekend to read through Intermission, a play that PRT picked for their entry into Fringe. (Later, the local legend Chris Jorie would direct other local lengends Anne Hering, Robyn Scrivener and David Lee Bass).
2. Just finished Assassins, where I’d made some great friends.
3. Was recovering from Matty’s birthday party.
4. Was doing pre-production on Whipping Wally Wonker, another play David and I scribbled for Fringe
5. Was starting to miss David, because he was in back-to-back plays.

YESTERDAY I:
1. Spent a day at the office with a cold, patiently awaiting to see what my raise would look like after taxes.
2. Helped a friend.
3. Avoided exercising “because of my cold.”
4. Met an ex – see other post.
5. Lost sleep listening to Cathy, who had just gotten off of YET AGAIN ANOTHER REDUNDANT fight with her boyfriend.

TODAY I:
1. Purposely slept late, but my cold is worse because I didn’t get to sleep until midnight – see #5 above.
2. Went to my doctor to get a shot for my cold and have my shoulder checked (we’re doing super).
3. At work (today at Bombs-R-Us), I planned out the sessions I am leading this afternoon to get people started on their confidential performance assessments.
4. Took a Sucrets and a decongestant – I believe that drugs can relieve any human suffering.
5. Read Joshie’s post about work and said a little prayer that everything would work out.
6. Realized my raise wouldn't come until next paycheck, and was frustrated that they still haven't reimbursed me for my business travel to Dallas in early December.

TOMORROW I WILL:
1. Go to work and try to concentrate on some things I hadn’t gotten done.
2. Do some more blogging.
3. Have a net-meeting with Ocala Bombs-R-Us folks on their assessments.
4. Hope I’m over this cold so I can exercise.
5. Bake something for work, maybe… Cheesecake?

The Past Creeps Up to Backhand Me

Last night, I went to Barnes & Nobles to do some fun stuff – stuff I love. I’m an addicted Barnes & Noble shopper, but this time I didn’t spend money! I spent Cathy’s Christmas gift card to me on the Lemony Snicket soundtrack and a big book on cat behavior… (No editorial comments please…)

I love that Cathy gives me a gift card to help support my nasty habit.

Anyway, I am sitting in the “café” wondering if I should indulge my chemical dependency on overpriced coffee or expensive tea, when I see a man I know at a table nearby. Here was a guy I had “dated” for a few months a while back. How long…? FIVE YEARS AGO!!! Ack! Time is sure flying by!

Well, our “loving, committed relationship” didn’t work out for several reasons, obviously, but… I had a habit of always saying exactly what I was thinking, and he was a smoker and had some other vices I could not keep my big mouth shut about.

Now, five years later? A lot of things have changed for the better in his life; he looks really healthy and happy. He’s taking care of himself; he’s stopped smoking, and he seems less self-destructive from my critical but skewed POV.

I found myself so glad for him, I got choked up a bit, because from what I could see five years ago, I only saw things getting steadily worse for this guy. And yet here he is, in good shape, improving health-wise, out to people, and fairly contented.

I know part of the reason we didn’t work out is because I couldn’t keep my opinions to myself about his “path” and where I saw it leading. How “nice” of me… My Unsolicited Opinion Monkey attacks again!

Anyway, he’s been with the same man for four years. He’s finally come out to his ex-wife and her family and his son and his family and some stranger named Agnes he met near the donuts at Publix. I mean, the man was IN IN IN when I saw him and now is so far OUT, you’d need binoculars to see him. This change alone astounds me – because five years ago, I felt like a one-man Pride Parade compared to him.

And then he tells me his four-year relationship with Dr. Gay is an open one: “Wouldn’t it be cool if you and I got together sometime?”

Long pause while I figure out how to kick the Unsolicited Opinion Monkey off my back, and utilize that graciousness I’ve been trying to twelve-step into existence.

Ummm, no…

“I’m really happy for you, and I am really in a good place about how things worked out.”

That’s the absolute best I could muster, people. That's as good as it gets, folks. That’s how I choose to “Just Say No.”

It was that Blinding Flash of the Obvious (BFO) that said, even if I kept my mouth shut and (waving hands indistinctly) “other things hadn’t happened…” We would’ve never worked out. Never.

Two different people wanting different thing. And then I realize that, five years ago, my evil mouth might have saved me a lot of later pain.

Wow.

Isn’t it cool that I can justify my bad habits this way?

And the Lemony Snicket CD is fun!

A Series of Unfortunate Events, indeed!

Close Your Mouth, Dear

How stupid do mouth-breathers look?

A young female employee came to ask me for help today, and she was pretty, except that she kept breathing through her mouth like a wheezy Hoover.

Trying to to create some sympathy (or at least hand her a subtle clue) I asked if she had allergies or, like me, a cold.

Nope.

She went on about her business, and I watched several IQ points fall out of her mouth and crash to the floor every time the poor thing exhaled.

Viruses and Other Social Pariahs

Ugh, this warm weather! It’s either throwing my allergies for a serious loop, or I am coming down with a Godzilla-like cold. I went out to weather.com to check the allergy levels, but that’s telling me nada.

I’m thinking I may have been cursed with a cold, as I pop another zinc tablet – dammit!

Well, yesterday was Stephen B’s birthday (which David so “kindly” reminded me of at 2:30pm, so I didn’t have time to pick up a small gift or card or disgusting sex toy…) Mr. B. – what a mess! I feel like every time David, Stephen B., and I get together we could conceivably land ourselves in jail. We’re like an open tank of gasoline and a lit match and even more gasoline. We’re loud and sick and dangerous, and we break several social mores and pass perilously close to breaking laws.

(Side note: We wanted to capture this wackiness in our show “My Big Fat Gay Wedding,” but Stephen couldn’t do it.)

So, we the Gay Huns (or Gay Vikings or whatever would imply a bunch of homos who act like savage tards) sat at Olive Garden at 8:45pm – Stephen B. ate a meal, David a healthy salad (slap!), and Cathy and I had desserts. We all stared longingly at the thick, fat, long, tumescent bread sticks, their tan flesh glistening with just applied butter…

We were loud and obnoxious (just short of tossing pasta), and David laughed so hard he quit breathing twice and we had to throw him up on the table and pound on his bony little bird-like chest to get his heart beating again. Cathy laughed till she cried and her entire head turned a lovely shade of mauve. We were – and I love this word – incorrigible!

The waiter Jose was grossly ineffectual, and a lovely server named Justin kept coming over to save the meal. If we could have left our tip for sexy Justin, we would have. As it was, we tipped “Hide and Seek Jose” about 2 dollars between us. Cathy was a server for years, and she tends to be fairly lenient. So when she thinks we got bad service, you better believe we got bad service.

Cathy gave Stephen B. homemade jelly for his birthday, which Stephen in his fashion kept making fun of. I kept trying to curb him and help her not take it personally. Everything improved when Stephen suggested he’d use the jelly for sex. Okay, sure.

Favorite conversation (and this is all the detail you’re getting, people!): How to make sex toys out of common household objects. Thank God Hose…I mean, Jose…never got around to bringing over the pepper mill, or we might have just landed ourselves in the pokey for the night (do read the sexual double entendre in “pokey.”)

Homemade sex toys are not something you would’ve seen on the old Martha Stewart show! Though now she’s been incarcerated, we may be seeing this on the upcoming new show.

And that’s a good thing.

Stolen from Joshie's blog

Ten people you enjoy the company of, in no particular order:
1. David Almeida (together we are masters at conversations that alienate entire parties)
2. Susan Maroldo (my college prof. because she’s so mentally engaging)
3. Cathy Thompson (especially when we’re both punch drunk)
4. Sarah French (we knew each other in a past life)
5. Larry Tackett (when he’s in a good mood)
6. Tommy Mangieri
7. Jimmy Crescitelli (no one gossips better)
8. My sis Lisa (we have always been good friends)
9. My cat Cleo (a.k.a. “Schweetie Schweetie” – I know this sounds gay; go fuck yourselves!)
10. Joshie (he doesn’t know how much his enthusiasm and empathy makes my day)

Nine words/phrases/sentences you like to say:
1. Schweetie
2. Pweh – as in “it puts a bad taste in my mouth!”
3. Chuh! – as in “Of course, you flaming idiot!!!”
4. Eeeks – as in “The Royal We didn’t see that one coming!”
5. My clever little euphemisms for disgusting sex acts – anyone who knows me has heard them, like “kissing the chocolate starfish”
6. C*** (lovely word I think women should be proud of!)
7. “I hate to be judgmental, but…”
8. “You know, they say the Russians go to theatre to have their lives changed…”
9. “Let me think about thatNO!”

Eight things you are wearing right now:
1. Black Claiborne pants
2. Kenneth Cole shoes I stole from my neighbor after he skipped out on his rent
3. Loud striped button-down shirt
4. Purple ribbed tee
5. My Einstein watch
6. Diesel Zero Plus cologne
7. A yellow LiveStrong bracelet
8. Glasses

Seven things on your mind:
1. The apple I just ate
2. How fat I feel
3. How I want to exercise after work
4. How I should call Larry and check up on him but he’s in dialysis right now
5. Steven Bate’s birthday today
6. I get to leave soon
7. My cat is waiting for me at home

Six items you touch everyday:
1. My cat Schweetie
2. My bad parts
3. My wallet
4. This damn cellphone
5. My glasses
6. The shower curtain

Five things you do everyday:
1. Shower
2. See number 2 just above
3. Pet Schweetie, except when I am on business travel
4. Listen to music
5. Sleep

Four songs on your mind:
1. The Alex Corsten mix of Duran Duran’s “Sunrise”
2. “Such Great Heights” by the Postal Service
3. “Trying to Keep the Customer Satisfied” by Simon & Garfunkel
4. The cool music at the end of Lemony Snicket

Three things you think of when you wake up:
1. glasses, glasses, glasses
2. What do I have to do today?
3. What the hell was that dream?!?!?!?!

Two of your favorite foods:
1. Grilled Salmon
2. Asparagus

One person love more than any other:
I have a lot of people I love, thank god I never have to do a Sophie’s Choice sort of thing.

What Would Miss Post Say?

I am allergic to this building, I swear. Back from my Christmas break, I notice that the minute I step in here my nose starts to drip.

So, short one tissue, I do the thumb-tip thing that keeps the right nostril from becoming that start of a mighty river. You know, where you secretly try to quickly wipe the drip away with your thumb until you can get to a Kleenex? I trek to the bathroom several miles away (why is it so far away? I'm going to get bladder damage holding my pee until the trip is "worth it.")

So, of course in the hall, I meet a man I admire and who is one of my greatest cheerleaders.

So, I have to say, "Oh, I'd shake your hand, but I think I may be coming down with a cold."

Lovely. My first lie of 2005. I just didn't feel right saying, "Your moldy building makes my sinuses drip like a glacier under an ozone hole." It just didn't feel good, though it's closer to the truth.

And I think Emily Post would actually support me for my little social fib. And this conviction is what makes me a sociopath, right?