Coming home...

I lost my shit when I walked in the door.

It was quiet. I was alone. There wasn't anyone hopping down off the bed upstairs to see if it was time to be fed, or to see if he could escape into the great outdoors. There wasn't anyone perched on the back of the sofa in the den glancing at my imperiously as I reached for a beer in the little fridge. There wasn't anyone peering guiltily from a burrowed spot between the piles of clean laundry, or yawning languidly in a sunbeam on the laundry room floor.

I sat down on the steps leading into the den and loudly, with big, wracking sobs, lost my shit. I'd been holding it together loosely all day, when I told folks at work what had happened, when I called my sister, who I knew would understand better than anyone, when I talked to Suzy on the phone. But alone, on the stairs where I would sit every morning to put my shoes on so that he would come rub up against me before I went off to work, I didn't hold anything back. I wept like a baby, with no shame and no regrets.

I didn't really feel any better when I was done, but it was one of those things that had to be done regardless.

Neat and new

Did you know you can download video from Amazon? Me neither, but using this thing they call Unbox Video downloads, you can download TV shows, movies and other coolness to watch on your computer. And some of their prices are cheap! I saw Little Miss Sunshine there for $3.99. And a bunch of this stuff isn't even out on video yet. I never woulda known, but somebody clicked through my Amazon.com banner and bought one. I guess they're gonna make a run at iTunes.

Tags: Amazon, video downloads, Unbox Video

People at work are funny

So I walk into a co-worker's office a few minutes ago and comment on her new yo-yo.

"I told you I've been spending money."

"Yeah, me too, and I'm wearing it on my belt."

"Your new phone?"

"Yeah."

"Does the text-messaging work yet?"

" Yeah, but the web browser's not up yet. It should work by Monday."

"You're such a geek, blog-boy."

"Yeah, I know. 3 blogs and a smartphone, I can't even try. But I don't have a Wii, doesn't that de-geek me a little?"

"..."

"huh?"

"I just bought a Wii."

"I gotta go blog that."

Tags: Wii

Marriage is fun

No, really. I just spent two hours arguing with my sife about what we're going to fix in our house next, and how we're going to afford it. It's an odd thing, that money. We always have enough to do the things we want to do, like buy a new phone, or go to Vegas, or buy movies. But when it comes to those things that we really need to do, like rebrick our front stoop - that's the shit that seems to get pushed off and pushed off.

Well, I decided that this year's the year to change some of that and be more like responsible people. I've managed over 2006 to get our money more or less straightened out. We've got a little bit in savings now, and I've upped the contribution to my 401(k) each week. I'm still paying off a 401(k) loan for another three years, but that's not such a terrible state to be in. We've got a little back taxes to take care of as well, but the IRS is actually way more understanding about that kind of thing than you would think. Basically, they're only interested in getting their money, so as long as you're willing to give them some of it every now and then, they pretty much stay off your back.

Suzy's working more, which is good. I just don't make enough to support us both in the manner we would like to grow accustomed to. I'm getting more writing work, and need to buckle down and hammer out some pages. Once I can get that rolling, I think the extra revenue will cover my summer and winter trips. We're trying to save up enough to take her dad with us to Vegas this winter, so I need to tuck a little extra aside for that as well. Looks like maybe I'll still be lighting everything in sight for the foreseeable future - the money right now is too good to pass up.

I'm looking at almost an extra $4,000 coming into the house over the next eight weeks, and that will go a looong way towards dealing with some of this house repairs and shit like that. I think if I tuck away a grand to cover Vegas this summer, then I just need to save up writing money to pay for our surprise trip in September and Vegas this winter. Hopefully by then I'll have enough frequent flyer miles to have two free tickets, and hopefully I'll be able to get the tickets when we want to fly. That's the main reason I flew in so early last winter - frequent flyer mile restrictions.

I'm rambling - and hungry. Later.

New toy

I just got a new smartphone, a Treo 650, used from my buddy Alan. It came in the mail today, and since it does indeed work on the SunCom network, I'll be adding a data plan and now I have a coolio geek phone with calendar, web browser and all that jazz built in.

My hope is that I can use the Palm platform in it to keep my inherently unorganized self a little more on track and on task. On task is probably hopeless, but maybe I can avoid missing anymore production meetings for upcoming shows.

Helpless

They say that smell is the most visceral trigger for memory. For me it's music. A song can take me back to exactly where I was when it was played. Usually not the first time I heard it, but a pivotal moment when it was played. That's why this blog was named after two songs - Verdi Cries by 10,000 Maniacs and Gypsy by Suzanne Vega. I have a ton of memories wrapped up in those songs.

So Neil Young just took me back to last year. It was fall, or maybe spring. It was warm enough to sit outside, but cool enough to have sleeves on, which in North Carolina narrows it down to about 4 months, or random days in January. Irrelevant.

Matty was in town for work, and we had just finished dinner at Lone Star. Me, Matty, Suzy and a buddy of Matty's from work. The SoCo was flowing, and the dial-a-shots were dialing. We caught Wes in his office, and in a John Grisham moment if I've ever seen one, he pulled down a bottle of 18-year-old scotch that a client had given him in trade for attorney's fees to do a sot with us. We caught Maudie at the computer, and she said "oh, sure. I keep a bottle of Cuervo by the monitor for dial-a-shots."

Yeah, my friends and I drink a little. My street cred with Matty went through the roof last week when he called me for a dial-a-shot and my response was "alright, lemme grab the moonshine my dad gave me last time I visited." I grabbed a quart jar of corn likker (and yes, dammit, that is how you spell it) and did a shot with Matty and Garth as the were partying in DC.

But this particular evening was colored not just with the amber haze of SoCo and Yuengling (which Speaker still can't pronounce), but the setting sun as we sat on the porch telling stories about growing up in the boonies, talking about music and telling the infamous donkey-fucking story. At some point I think we may have mentioned poker, but only for about a minute anda half. Matty got off on telling me about The Last Waltz, Scorsese's documentary of The Band's farewell concert (which I still have to rent at some point), and we got to talking about Neil Young.

Then we got to the next joint, a pool hall, and as we pulled up, Neil's "Helpless" comes on the iPod and me and Matty sing (if you could really call it that) along to my car stereo in the parking lot before we go inside to continue getting bachelor party drunk. It was a great night in a rough year for both Matty and me, and points out the true depth of some of these formerly invisible internet friendships that I've developed over the last two years. We're tied together with far more than poker and blogging. We're music lovers, artists, writers, philosophers, drunks, partiers and true friends.

Tags: The Last Waltz, Neil Young

State of the Onion

Tonight is the state of the union address and one the days of the year that I am happiest I don't watch TV. Aside from the fact that Dubya is a lying suckbag, and I have no interest in having whatver I would normally watch interrupted by a lying suckbag, I have a poker game to attend, which is much more important.

Suzy's mostly done with the opera, so she was actually home last night. We watched My Fair Lady, I'm a sucker for Audrey Hepburn, and she's a sucker for any old musical. Honestly, I love the songs in My Fair Lady myself. I gave Suzy a book on movie costumes and costumers for Christmas, so she looked up the guy that did My Fair Lady and compared the still to the movie as we were watching. I half-watched, half-read while it was going on. A nice relaxing evening.

I know, boring as shit, but I'm trying to find the voice for this blog and a more consisten posting style. Get over it, we'll all figure it out soon enough.

Opera?

Yeah, I went. It was kinda cute, but not really my thing. Let's face it, singers should sing, and by and large leave the acting to actors. I know some folks think opera is supposed to be the grandest form of theatre, but it just doesn't cut it to me. It all seems overblown, with no sense of real emotion anywhere.

Give me a small black box theatre with a half-dozen actors working for peanuts that really care about the show any day. Suzy's costumes were good, but there was obviously no communication between costuming. lighting and scenic designers, otherwise no one would have been wearing a pink dress under pink and blue lights against a teal wall. Just not good, folks. And how about a little light upstage? Maybe?

I stuck around for the first two acts, running time 2:30. Just didn't have enough gas in the tank for Act III, so we came home.

Long Week

This has been kind of a killer week. Suzy's in tech for the opera Die Fleidermaus, which opens tonight, so we haven't really seen each other for two weeks. It's interesting, because usually it's me working until godawful late while she is at home asleep when I get home. This role reversal over the last couple weeks had been weird. It's almost like we're roommates more than spousal units, the little tiny time we've spent together. Good thing is, this puppy opens tonight and things can get back to normal after that.

You know, normal, me working a day joband coming home to either sit on the computer and write all night or go to a rehearsal or MTA or NCTC meeting and we still never see each other. It feels different when she's the one out being busy and I'm the one sitting at home waiting, though.
Traffic is starting slowly to pick up on my Charlotte Theatre website, and hopefully as we get into a more heavily-produced part of the season, that site will begin to take off. The more traffic it sees, the more chance I have for some decent Adsense revenue from it.

I have my first web design client, not really anything I ever looked for, but it kinda found me. Emily's cousin Mitch is opening a nursery and garden center, and needed someone to build a website. I need a little extra cash to fund my trip to Atlantic City in February, so I took the gig. Hopefully I'll actually be able to design a website that shows off what he wants to punch up about his nursery.

Tags: charlotte theatre, web design

Next Show

So I just finished reading the script for The Guys, the next show I'm designing, and I realized why I've been putting it off for a couple of months, until the absolute last minute.

I don't want to watch, read or do this show. It's not that it's a bad show, or a bad cast, or a bad company. It's purely subject matter. The Guys is a play about a fire captain eulogizing his men lost in the 9/11 attacks. It's pretty well-written, not shamelessly manipulative, generally a decent play.

I just don't want to go there. The attacks on New York and Washington rocked my sense of the world enough that I still am affected by the memories. I knew no one that died, but that makes me no less saddened by the losses or guilt-ridden by the fact that I was relatively unscathed.

I went through several months of depression and sleeplessness after the attacks, largely because it has tweaked my world view just a little off-axis. I'm fairly certain it's a permanent shift, because nothing has shown any inclination towards going back nearly six years after the fact. The play dredges up all those sad and vulnerable feelings that aren't ever really that far from the surface, and I don't really enjoy wallowing in that.

So I get to do a play about one of the singular events in my lifetime, one that sent me into a half-year's worth of depression, and hope that I get through everything on a fairly even keel. At least I'm not directing. As designer, I'm pretty much limited to two rehearsals and one performance, and then I'm outta there.

But of course the play is being performed at the firefighter's union hall, so that makes it all the more poignant. Maybe I just felt a kinship with the firefighters who died because working in the volunteer fire department where I grew up was such a pivotal part of my life as a youth, and that sense of being a firefighter never really leaves. Because you know every time you get into the truck that there's a chance, no matter how slim (and in rural South Carolina, it's exceedingly slim), that you won't come back. But you accept that fact when you put the boots on.

So I didn't know anyone represented in this play, but in some sense I knew them all. I've ridden with them, laughed with them, and sat on the end of the truck after the call with them. But I don't really want to go back and revisit their sacrifice. Maybe that's selfish. No, I know it's selfish. But I don't care. I'll be selfish, and hard-hearted, and try not to let this project touch me at all. Because I'm very afraid if it touches me at all it will take me weeks to get over it again.

But maybe I'm just being a melodramatic pussy, too. Yeah, that's probably it.

Courage

Epitomized here. Follow the link.

When I see you in dance class, I see you looking at me. I see you stare past my crazy hair, my strength, my grace, my skill. I see you looking at my chair, and I recognise in your eyes the fear of what might happen to you. If I am "lucky" that flash of hostility will mellow as you take pity on me -- it's so nice that I come and try hard. If I am not "lucky," the repulsion in your eyes and recoil in your body will stick with me throughout class. You won't meet my eyes again; you will push past me in the changing room and talk above me in the elevator (get your lazy ass out of my elevator -- you're a dancer, dammit. If you can stick your leg above your head, you can certainly manage a flight of stairs).

I am what you may become. It becomes me.

Tags: wheelchair dancer

For travel plans

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You get rebates based on the number of nights you book, so that on top of their other deals, makes for a pretty penny in savings.

Working to stop working

For The Man, that is...

Lemme preface by saying that I like my job. Barbizon is a great company, my boss is easy to get along with, I'm head of my department so I get all the responsibility I want AND I'm left alone to run it my way. Sounds perfect, right?

Well, nothing's perfect and the grass is always greener. So I'm picking up more side work. I just got hired as the editor of the Gambling Weblog. They don't pay much right now, but we'll see if we can't either squeeze more money out of them later or parlay that gig into something different that pays more.

I've also started up a bunch of different websites, all geared towards affiliate marketing and generating revenue. So far, they're not really generating anything, but I have high hopes. The way this affiliate marketing works is like this - I build a website about bluegrass music. People who are googling bluegrass artists or terms find my website. While they're on my site, they follow a link to Amazon and buy something. I get a 4% commission. Or they click on one of the google ads or use the google search bar. I get a few cents per click every time someone does that, whether they buy anything anywhere or not.

So I'm spending a lot of the time I used to spend playing poker on the internet writing web content and developing websites instead, all in the hopes of someday being able to leave my killer job for an even more killer job - working for myself as a professional writer. I'm not holding my breath, but for now these little side gigs do a good job of paying for trips to Vegas and other sundry places that we like to go, not to mention padding my bankroll.

Tags: writing, affiliate marketing, bluegrass

Retrospective

So this is the time of year when folks put on their magic glasses and peer into the future to see who and what the year will bring them. I'm not much into that reflective bullshit, but here goes.

I need, not want but need for 2007 to bring a slimmer Falstaff. Suzy and I have a weight loss bet going - whoever loses the most weight in '07 gets to pick our vacation destination for '08. If the winner loses more than 60 lbs, they can pick someplace outside the continental US. Since I don't really care to go to Paris, but would like to go tot Australia, I need to win this bet.

I'd like for 2007 to bring more writing work. I've found a few people willing to pay for my scribblings in '06, and I'm actively looking to expand that field this year. In addition to that, I'm following the tips of Scrurvydog over at Gadooney on affiliate marketing and trying to scare up a few nickels that way. It would be nice to see the light at the end of the debt tunnel through freelance design and writing work. Maybe then we could look at the possibility of job changes. I like my gig at Barbizon, but after 11 years, there's not much new under the sun here for me anymore, so it's time to be looking for the next thing. It would be nice if the next thing were writing for a living, but that's gonna take a stretch.

I don't know what '07 will bring theatrically, but it's not likely to be anything that I produce. There aren't any projects out there that are screaming for me to throw my heart and soul into them, so for now at least I'm just gonna whore myself out for design money. Not a bad gig, since that pays for a couple trips to Vegas every year.

I plan to be in Vegas at least twice this year, once for the blogger summer get-together and again for the winter gathering. I'd like to make it to Oklahoma for Gary's thing if it happens, and if there's a Bash at the Boathouse, then I'll be in Malvern. Otherwise my travel is pretty open. Let's just see what comes of it.

It's gotta be better than 2006.