Terrorism is Bad

This weekend…well, I didn’t clean my house as much as I thought I should, but I did make a dent.

Sarah and I went shopping at Cheap Charlie’s – which was scary. (It’s the place for all the repossessed crap from poor people who died.) We also went to Tuesday Morning and smelled the bad candles again. People, the official name of that candle that smells like a drunk frat boy puked on a radiator? Chesapeake Bay Peanut Butter Cookie. We decided the smell was making me nostalgic for college days…

Another product smelled, according to Sarah, like “Noxema and poverty.” And I found a candle that smells distinctly like apricots that someone tinkled on a little. Good times…

We went to Design on a Dime. Ehhh…feh… Nice stuff, though, and good prices – I am just not sure what my current need is.

We also went to Park Avenue CDs, and then we went and got snow cones at the shop down the way. I got blueberry with cream, and Sarah got Sweet Tart. (My problem is that my poo was blue or blue-ish green from Saturday afternoon until Sunday morning, which was disturbing. Hi, Jeff Lindberg!)

Rehearsal is good. Working with Joshie is so much fun; it feels kind of wonderfully unpredictable, because I figure either one of us can throw a curveball up there. That boy’s got a squirrelly look in his eyes! Marcie did something at the end that I tried correcting, although she and David ended up doing something very funny. (This falls in the “keep your damn mouth shut, Steve” category…)

I’m a gonna say it here; I never thought I’d be in a play where the person farthest behind in line-learnin’ is David Almeida! What the?!?!?!

I still hope that the fun I’ve had – that we’ve had – really comes across on stage.

Saturday, I went with Cathy Thompson yard-saling. I got forty dollars worth of Pyrex for $10. I also got an annoying little kids electronic keyboard for a dollar – (YAY, things that make noise!!!!) Then, we picked up John and went to Crack-ass Barrel for a HUGE UNHEALTHY lunch.

Then, Sarah and I saw United 93, which was nerve-wracking. I thought I would be more emotional, but instead the main feeling I had was DREAD. It was a TENSE movie, lovely, and well-acted with hand-held cameras and a strong cinema verite style. Small complaint – the music was downright manipulative at points; I think silence and live sound would have been more effective, but perhaps a little too real. Then it would have been REALLY REALLY REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE, instead of just REALLLY REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE.

It was a cinema version of a good pelvic exam – the fact that it is very necessary and professionally executed doesn’t erase that fact that it’s still damn uncomfortable.

It also cannot help but remind us all of where we were when we got the news.

Then we went to The Cheesecake Factory for a long meal and long conversations. Mostly, we talked about how stupid I can be; how I am glad that forgiveness is possible or I’d have no friends. Part of me wants to always have thick skin, so that I am never as self-hating and self-conscious as I was before I left home. Anther part of me realizes this thick skin and “plow-on, BULLDOZER” mentality means I do a lot of asshole things. So, it’s important to be intrepid while being there for others. I have to remind myself that I love them and can just keep my big effing mouth shut.

I’m starting to feel sad at Sarah leaving. I’m steeling myself up for it, really. I just feel we sorta clicked, and without her, I wouldn’t have met Joshie, Jeff Lindberg, and lots of other wonderful people.

The thing is – gaps. They’re these things in your life that feel empty, and I can already tell that there’s going to be one. You can’t really fill them, but God knows I’ll need lots of distraction to call my attention away from it. It IS a gap, because if you get too caught up, you “fall in” and be depressed for a very long time.

We also had a long talk about distance; what it feels like when it starts happening between you and anther person, what you can do, and how you decide. Sometimes, you decide to not do anything, and the distance just grows. Sometimes (like with David) there are always these small distances (his rejoining Sleuths and never having a night free, us not sitting in the same car as much any more) that I’ve always admired him correcting. He’s very good at it (like our trip tot the coast last weekend, which was lovely.)

Cathy said that I was replacing her with Sarah and Dahly, sort of as a joke. Wow, I felt that she necessarily had to replace me a bit with her fiancé, John. Necessary evil. We did some stuff this weekend.

The thing is, distance and change are hard to tell apart. Everything has to change, and sometimes it feels like distance. I figure Cathy and my relationship will change as she moves out and she and John get married. But we’ll survive. I take a lesson in self-correction from David and make sure.

Sarah goes out to LA, and I’ll grieve a little. But I’ll visit her, we’ll talk on the phone, she’ll visit (maybe even stay) and I’ll find other things to distract me.

Even thought I only see my college professor Susan once every couple of years, we are still close, talking on the phone quite regularly. Our relationship has changed, and we’re a different kind of close.

A Different Kind of Close. Distance. Maybe there’s a play in there.

So…

Sunday morning I did several loads of laundry and a little cleaning, and Cathy and I went to Ba Le for lunch. Then, David, Sarah, and I met to go see Mission Impossible III, which was stupid and brainless, and I should have liked it, but now I’m getting bored with the corny premise and the moments of supposedly-deep-felt BAD acting that makes up these films. Sarah and David liked it more.

Then, Sarah and I went grocery shopping and then back to my place to clean and wash our cars. Then, we went back to Ba Le for dinner, forgot to pay, and as we’re about four blocks from my home I shout “WE DID’T PAY!” (like Bruce McCullough screaming “SOMEONE STOLE MY PEN!” in that bad Kids in the Hall skit). So, I made Sarah turn around, and we went back.

I am SO glad I realized then instead of at 11:30 at night, where I would have stayed up half the night worrying about what sort of karma this was giving me. Then, I would have had to call into work, and then wait for the place top open up at 9am so I could pay (and hope there weren’t cops there to arrest me!) My Catholic guilt is something extreme!

We laughed about it, though.

Thank God they were still open!