I’ve never felt as helpless, hopeless and emotionally distressed for a person I don’t know than I did last night, for Willy Loman.
I realize the sentence structure there is completely off, but bear with me.
I can’t get off pretending I don’t know him. He’s the everyman. I’ve known him for always. But watching his demise executed so brilliantly at Bratton last night made everything. Not to mention made me thrilled to head to the bar later.
See it.
Had to wake up for work this morning. As I do every Saturday, but this morning it was to get to the grounds EARLY for the Women’s Club flea market. The theater company needs new bikes, so we were commissioned (on breakfast at the diner) to run with the bulls and snag some used rides. Really, people starting lining up and staking claims at 8 a.m., and the ropes were finally let down at 9. We got bikes, mugs, glasses, silverware — all for restocking the company. Then I shopped books. Got a copy of Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain, because for as much as it didn’t really affect me in Intellectual Journey, I thought it may do something for me now.
I read half a chapter from somewhere in the middle of the book, and Merton talked about visited the grotto while the Bonaventure students and teachers were enjoying a movie in Alumni Hall. He meditates on the campus and the faith community, and I’m starting to think there’s a lot I failed to grasp in my four years. Read the rest of this entry »
Stressful morning. i feel like a real publicist. on my cell phone, showing credentials, acting like i know people.
Shit, I’m not a publicist, I’m Bontemps.
My brain is going nuts today. I think too much for my own good, I’m pretty sure.
So first. I’m watching Don Imus coverage on TV at the gym this morning. And I don’t think he was being a douchebag. Of course when Bain calls and tells me the comments out of context, I’m shocked (but not shocked), and wonder what the hell is wrong with Imus. But in context, when I saw for myself, I think that “sarcastic point” was made. Seriously, I won’t normally defend, but I think people are just so ready to spring this guy that they will destroy anything he says.
I return from the gym and get ready for my day. I have some extra time while I’m eating breakfast, so I read a brief analysis of Cannery Row in an old, old Steinbeck analysis book I have. And of course, while I swooned over the magic that the man paints in bums and whorehouses, I noted a definite beauty in Doc’s opening examination of the tidepool. Full of anemones and little fishies and sea plants, they love each other; they eat each other. They all live naturally together. Hello! This is Cannery Row! Mac and the bums, Dora and the whores, they all live and breathe in the same place and sometimes it works, and often it doesn’t, but the combination is always purely magical — even dreamlike — in this world where the cannery workers disrupt the Row’s normal day. The man knows. his. shit.
So I’m thinking new goal for the summer is to read everything in the Steinbeck canon. As soon as I finish The Poisonwood Bible. Then I start thinking to myself, “There will be time…” So then what comes into my head? The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, of course. And then I spend the whole time brushing my teeth trying to recall “To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.” Got all the meets and faces confused at first.
My roommate was sleeping, so I didn’t play music, thinking, ‘it’s ok, i read some great things this morning!’ And then I think, what if i had to choose between music and books?
Really, now. That perfectly organized, completely impromptu guitar riff that sends chills beyond your spine, through your whole body, so even the people around you get goosebumps? Or that elegantly constructed sentence that seamlessly combines beauty with truth (for aren’t they one and the same already) that has the exact same physical effect? Baffling, and I stopped thinking about that one nearly immediately because my heart started to hurt.
And then I get to work and check my horoscope:
Gemini: It’s hard to stay on track today for every thought that arises in your mind can turn into a string of fantasies that take you on a pleasant journey. You may be able to get quite a bit of traveling logged in your day dreams, but the real work now is back here on Earth. Enjoy a diversion or two, but don’t let an obsession with your inner world interfere with your day.
Whoops. Time to get productive.
I’m busy today, I’m busy today!
I’m stressed, and it’s brilliant. I finally feel like I’m accomplishing something. THAT’s what it means to have a journalism degree. Can’t function without pressure.
Crazy Pete talked to me at the bar last night. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
I forgot.
I spent yesterday in a dark, depressed mood. Then Jason called because I harassed him about only texting me.
In the midst of our conversation, he told me he recently got choked up while watching the end of a Yankees game.
“You know how they play ‘New York, New York?’”
“Yeah.”
“Well there’s that line that says if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”
“Yeah, Bain, I know.”
“That’s…it’s so true.”
(I erupt into spastic laughter as he tries to explain himself, only digging himself deeper into a pit of idiocy.)
I mean, I believe it. It’s true. But to hear it come from him, in that ridiculous voice, was priceless. I immediately called Novak and Charlie. And I’m still laughing now.
This afternoon we’re leaving the office early to hang posters and then have a ladies’ afternoon at the mall and out to dinner. Pedicures included. I’ve never done anything so feminine. Unless, of course, we’re counting the last female officeworkers excursion to see “Sex and the City” and drink cosmopolitans.
I guess these are the things you miss out on when you’re friends with guys for your whole life.
After three weeks of my lakeside living, it’s come to my attention that my house has an incredible personality. If my house were a person, it would be the awkward girl at the high school dance who couldn’t really find a dress that fit well, and therefore, couldn’t really find anyone to dance with. But she’s good for laughing it off because she really has a lot of charm. My house is awkward.
Let’s start in the kitchen:
We have one proper cereal bowl. High sides, low center, perfect for storing liquids and reducing spillage. Aside from that, we have a number of flat bowls with one-inch lips like you get at restaurants when they want you to think you’re getting more soup than you are. These are bowls that HAD Kenny Bania ordered just the soup, it would NOT have counted as a meal (I’m into “Seinfeld” recently). We also have tiny sherbet bowls and small glass bowls that can really only be used on cooking shows to demonstrate to the audience the exact amount of paprika to go into your chili. Three women who enjoy cereal, soup and bowls of grapes (That’s what she said) cannot properly function with bowls of this caliber.
We have three to four proper coffee mugs. That’s really enough to get us by, as long as we wash the dishes every day. And really, when we all work at least 9 hours a day, that’s not always going to happen. It’s either coffee in a mug large enough to throw off your bladder for a day, or coffee in a Japanese teacup.
Our only stock pot is large enough to be a witch’s cauldron.
My sister is in England. I’m proud and excited and fervently jealous all at once. And I’m realizing: when am I going to be able to afford a trip to Europe — or anywhere except maybe Ohio — again in my life?
You spend your whole life trying to make everything seem like a movie. Then suddenly you’re the tragic hero who withers away while trying to experience her life vicariously through the more adventurous, more lucrative lifestyle.
On the note of real life, I finished Empire Falls. Russo was somehow able to capture every perfect tiny element of human nature and adult and teenage life. So many parts are twisted, so much is hilarious, so much is utterly depressing — a perfect reflection of life itself. So, dear readers (i like saying things like that because it gives the impression that people read), put it in your queue.
Speaking of queues, I got Netflix the other day. This newfangled technology just blows my mind.
It occurred to me as I spent the greater part of my night completely alone in a lovely little lakehouse that I’ve never been this alone. Truly. I’ve always had people around, be it my family or my roommates at one of many places I’ve stayed over the past four years. In that time, I’ve spent great parts of my evenings at home chatting some, listening mostly, to the people I’m with about life and feelings in general.
So when all I have to keep me company are a few books and DVDs, who wants to listen to me?
It’s tough to have lived my college years so formidably on my own two feet, constantly swearing I didn’t need anyone to date or to take care of me, and then realize now I am missing something so huge — someone to listen.
What happens when the one who everyone talks to wants to talk to someone?
The women I live with are wonderful, and they’re enjoyable and we laugh about many things. But am I about to open my soul and discuss what I’m missing or what I need? No. Can I call the people I’ve always been able to advise and say, “You know, I know I always told you that you can do it yourself, that you have it in you, but actually I must have been bullshitting because I miss people.” No, I can’t.
So this will probably be one of a few posts on the day. Now that I have this new office computer, I’m just post-crazy.
I spent Father’s Day acting as my dad would have. Rode a bike into Mayville to sit for five hours and listen to bluegrass. Which was perfectly awesome, despite the sunburn. I even applied sunscreen this time! I returned to my dock at about 7 to read 100 more pages of Empire Falls. Looking up at the lake, I saw the Chautauqua Belle piping away, far across the lake so the ducks near me looked about the same size. Like dad, I grumbled as a jet ski sliced my perfect lake photo in half — and it didn’t go quietly.
Read one of our new play workshop shows, “Variations on a Theme” by Anna Ziegler, which said some insightful things about love and loss, but ended with no resolution. I mean, I understand not having fairytale endings. I don’t understand not having endings at all. Especially when there were things to be resolved. It just really seemed to be missing something, but I’m anxious to see how it looks on stage.
And the real reason I’m posting now? To share an entry from “Stuff White People Like,” a blog some of my whitest friends like to chuckle at. With this post, I received a note verifying how white I really am. Check it out: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/12/99-grammar/
