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Saturday, 20 December 2008 (the poor girl is taken away) 11:40am In bed at half past four, and up again at half past eleven. Sooner than I'd like, but the giraffe is running laps while dribbling a bowling ball, so no more sleep for me. Both shows were good last night. Christmas Sucks was underattended—we had competition in the same building in the form of a rope suspension demonstration in one room and Golden Girls drag show in another, so a literary event wasn't likely to draw in the crowds—but I'm happy with how the story turned out, and the people who were there enjoyed it. Bunny says she would have been there if she didn't already have plans, and I believe her. Even moreso than Raphaela, she's the closest thing I have to a steady fan. Got to The Dark Room in plenty of time for SNOWMISER, which had a much bigger audience. For not having rehearsed in a week, the show went quite smoothly. Puzzling Evidence videotaped it, which is good, because I'm rather proud of my work. Sean and I were both riffing right off the rails (in a good way), and while I know better than to think that I can top him in the improv department, that I can hold my own with him and get laughs from the audience is no small feat. My song went pretty good, too. A few of my coworkers were in the audience, which is the first time that particular phenomenon has happened. Sadie was in the audience, and after the show we joined the rest of the cast at Sean's place, which is why I didn't get to bed until so late. I'd originally planned on going to Tyrol's spin class this afternoon, but, yeah, not gonna happen, not with the final performance of SNOWMISER at ten. I'm going to err on the side of rest. | ||
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Friday, 19 December 2008 (just the motion) 4:08pm Fine. I'm on Facebook now. Whee. | ||
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Thursday, 18 December 2008 (smiling so kind) 8:15pm Went to the gym this afternoon, for the first time since Tuesday. I didn't make it to Tyrol's spin class yesterday because of working the door at The Dark Room, nor did I got yesterday morning or this morning because I got to bed late and decided to err on the side of rest. Besides, brrrr! It's been, like, really super cold in the mornings. I'm a morning person, but I have my limits. A gay boy who attended the show at The Dark Room last night told me he recognized me from Sadie's birthday party at the Center for Sex and Culture in October. He was in David Stein's recent production of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, in fact. Anyway, seems I'd left my copy of "Will the Night" behind—he referred to it as my script, which isn't wholly inaccurate—and he said he took it home and put it in his scrapbook. I find that incredibly flattering. 9:24pm There. The story's done. I think. | ||
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Wednesday, 17 December 2008 (the summer is hell) 7:31am Oh, seriously? Frost on my windshield? What is this, The Dark Ages? 9:04am I hate it when I get the viscous blob in the first few sips of kombucha. That's supposed to be the treat at the bottom! 3:41pm Back at it, finally. 4:20pm It snowed in New Orleans a week ago. Yay irony. 7:14pm Working the door at The Dark Room while hand-editing "Snowstorm." Multitasking! | ||
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Tuesday, 16 December 2008 (back where we live) 2:11pm All kinds of paperwork today, including my health insurance for next year. I decided to keep my life insurance beneficiary the same as last time. And why shouldn't it go to her? Unless I misheard, our new insurance provider partially covers both Lasik and dermatology. And I'm positive I misheard the part about liposuction. 6:10pm SNOWMISER is up and running and AIRspace is done for now, so I can officially turn my brain to writing my story for Christmas Sucks. The working title is "The Last Snowstorm of the Year," which is both thematically appropriate and a reference to Low, making it the second Low-titled story I've written this year after "Will the Night." I like that. 8:19pm Sixteen hundred words into "Snowstorm" (a ten minute piece for me is about seventeen hundred words, and I'm nowhere near the actual end of the story) and twelve hours at the office—yeah, it's time to go home. Besides, it's getting cold. | ||
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Monday, 15 December 2008 (your little horror) 4:53pm In addition to reading, I was drafted into service as host of AIRspace last night. My reputation for being able to wing it precedes me. It was also announced that everyone in the show—myself, Meliza, Sadie, and a few others—would be doing a residency in March. So I guess I'm doing a residency in March. Meanwhile, pictures from Saturday night's SNOWMISER are up on Laughing Squid. | ||
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Sunday, 14 December 2008 (just so typically me) 4:53pm Wow. The office gets really chilly on cold days. It's not too surprising, since the building is basically a big concrete box. Still, though. Brrr. I almost stopped after a half an hour at the gym this morning, but pushed through to a full hour, because that's the only way it works. Both AIRspace and Snowmiser were splendid last night. Great audience response during the performances as well as after, including some specific compliments from other performers whose opinions I respect highly. They were at both shows, though they weren't there to see me in either case, which made their praise afterward all the nicer. I'd be lying if I said I didn't crave the respect of my peers. Even getting to consider them peers is a great start. | ||
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Saturday, 13 December 2008 (like some cool river) 4:10pm Opening night of SNOWMISER went great. I didn't mess anything up, other than coming in a half a beat too early on the final verse of "Island of Misfit Toys" (and I was hardly the only one to fux0r timing throughout the show), and the audience laughed at some of my jokes. Not all of them—some of my jokes are too obscure and inside, such as the reference to Woody Allen's Love and Death I use to open the show—but when you're playing the straight man to Christopher Walken, getting laughs is at all is no mean feat. Rapahela was in the audience. She's pretty much the only friend of mine whom I can rely on to come to my shows. Which is one more than I usually have. Returned to the gym this morning for an hour of cardio. My current book is Swallow The Ocean: A Memoir by Laura M. Flynn. Before that it was Metallica: This Monster Lives by Joe Berlinger, which is mostly about the making of the documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster but also has some fascinating insight into Berlinger's Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, a movie reviled by everyone in the universe except me. Before that was Still Alive: A Temporary Condition by Herbert Gold, and I'm pretty sure before that was Suzanne Finnamore's Split: A Memoir of Divorce. I'm probably forgetting a few. I know Spalding Gray's Life Interrupted: The Unfinished Monologue was in there somewhere. Speaking of books, the table of contents for Visible: A Femmethology has been released. It's going to be two volumes, sold separately. Vol. 1 Yep. That's right about where I expected to be. I submitted a story to Instant City back in August, for their sixth issue. I never heard back beyond an automated response, but I saw on their site that the issue is coming out this month, so I wrote to confirm that I didn't get in. They said that while it came in too late for the sixth issue, they're considering it for the seventh. Fair enough. Tonight is the second evening of SNOWMISER, and the first of AIRspace. Meanwhile, I can see my ribs. It's been a while. | ||
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Friday, 12 December 2008 (too many people) 3:37pm The business lunch yesterday was okay. It was nice to hang out with the clients, especially since they represent cat food funds for the foreseeable future. The food itself wasn't so great, though. We ended up at the horribly named Grand Pu Bah (really, guys?), a Thai/Asian Fusion restaurant, which evidently means that they can't make their Pad Thai vegan. (Unlike Basil, which is a plain ol' Thai restaurant.) There was a tiny commotion at the table when the v-word came up, which is why I try not to bring it up unless absolutely necessary. I just don't need the static from other people. Last night's SNOWMISER dress rehearsal went swimmingly. There weren't any dead moments between Sean and I, always a danger when you're improvising off a script rather than following it directly (and when you lack proper improv training, as I do), and as for my singing, I hit my cues. That's the best I can do. Worked with Raphael today, a Pilates-heavy hour. It's the first exercise I've gotten since Tuesday, having taken Thursday off to let my head adjust to the retightened-squid. (Some people like that dull pain, but I don't, and I'm always happier when it's grown out a couple days later.) Back on the wagon now. Thomas Roche has sent out the blurb for Christmas Sucks. It's easily the most low-key of the three events I'm involved with this month, and as far as promos go I'm not nearly as prominent as on the AIRspace page (where Sadie and I take up entirely too much real estate), but this one makes me the happiest: Have the holiday blues got you down? Are you sick of network news It's probably the "top-notch writer" part, and being included in that lineup at all. I still don't take these things for granted, and I hope I never do. | ||
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Thursday, 11 December 2008 (the old country waltz) 9:38am The squid has been tightened, and purple tentacles have been added. Just in time not only for SNOWMISER and AIRspace, but also for this afternoon—the executive director of the Free Speech Coalition is town, the client who compromises the majority of my work, and I've been informed that I'm be joining them and Tim for lunch. I'm going on a business lunch, like a grown-up webmonkey! Of course, I'd rather not be pulled away from my desk because I have a ton of work to do, both business and personal, but hey. Before the squidtightening last night, Sean and I got together to tighten the SNOWMISER script. I had no idea that collaborating on comedy writing could be so much fun, and it does my ego good to make San Francisco's Best Comic Playwright laugh. That's what the SF Weekly calls him, anyway, and they love Bad Movie Night, so I'm inclined to believe them. | ||
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