it's supposed to be a day of rest...

...but I have stuff to say. Can we just agree that I reserve the right to use a day of rest at some point through the year, at my discretion? I mean, we just started two months ago - why take a break now?

Besides, I certainly haven't rested today. I worked all day, from 9am to 10:30pm, and it pretty much sucked all around. I was falling asleep at the temp job, doing the most boring task ever. I burned my eggplant parm in the microwave. We had a crazy night at the club, which ended with me physically breaking up a girl fight and two of our security guys screaming at each other for twenty minutes.

I really need a drink.

I'm hopeful, however, that the weekend will be good. Going to see a friend sing for the first time tomorrow night, and I've got a phat audition to prepare for on Monday. But, mostly, I'm looking forward to sleeping in...

short and sweet

written on a post-it in my room

it's cold

that sucks

Myron Cope 1929-2008

If you're not a sports fan and you're not from Pittsburgh, you probably don't know who this guy is. That's too bad.

Myron Cope was one of the best journalists the sports world has ever had. And that's probably not what he was best known for.

He was the color analyst for the Steelers for over thirty years, and his voice and his sayings were...how to describe them? Distinctive would be an understatement. Shrill and high-pitched, frequently ranting and raving, mispronouncing some words and intentionally "bungling" others, he was hours of pure entertainment for me on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes we would turn down the sound of the TV and tune into the radio broadcast - he was that good. And while I was loathe to miss any part of a Steelers game as a kid, I would always be secretly excited to listen to part of the game on a car radio.

But the biggest thing, for me, is his invention of The Terrible Towel:







I'm not exactly sure how he came with the idea, but it's been embraced by Steeler fans since the mid '70s. And all of the profits go to a school in Pittsburgh that teaches the mentally disabled. How great is that gesture?

Double yoi, Myron! You will be missed.

what i do all day

written at my temp job, in an e-mail to a girl i've gone out on a few dates with

It's pretty boring, just transferring resumes from one database to another. Good times. It's an actor's lot, I suppose.

tempin' ain't easy...

(Boyz II Men song reference)

I'm spending a week temping, ironically enough, at Maxine's place of employment. It's a big company, but I'm in her former department, so that's a little weird.

I also had an audition and a reading today (felt good about both) so I'm pretty exhausted. I'm going to eat, pack my lunch for tomorrow, and go to bed. It's rare when I'm asleep before eleven, but that's a distinct possibility tonight.

Not sure about the quality of posts you're going to get this week, but you will get something every day. Even on the 29th. That's a promise.

Oscar picks

OK, I'm sure that you all really care about my picks...but I'm blogging every day here, people, so cut me some slack.

I'm just picking the big categories:

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Gotta go with Ruby Dee (American Gangster) here - she's the sentimental favorite, of the Academy and for me (she was my dad's Sunday School teacher). I could see Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There) winning, too - she played Bob Dylan!

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men), because he had to live with that haircut. And because everyone is on the bandwagon for that film (which was, admittedly, great). Close second to Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton), who is one of my favorite actors.

DIRECTOR: A lifetime achievement award for the Coen Brothers, who richly deserve it. P.T. Anderson will get his, one day.

BEST ACTOR: A lock. Have you seen There Will Be Blood? Daniel Day-Lewis is probably the best actor alive. Amazing.

BEST ACTRESS: I don't think Oscar voters will be able to deny the symmetry of giving Julie Christie an award 45 years after her first one (where I believe she beat Julie Andrews).

BEST PICTURE: The five nominees, in my order of preference, would be:

There Will Be Blood
Atonement
Juno
No Country For Old Men
Michael Clayton

I think, however, that No Country For Old Men will take the prize. All of the movies are great; I just think that There Will Be Blood is more amazing than the others. (Juno, while a fun film, doesn't really seem like a Best Picture nominee, you know?)

So there's my two cents. Let's see how I do!

a productive early morning

I've had an "adult" day so far.

I set my alarm clock for 8:30 so that I could beat the crowds at the Trader Joe's in Manhattan. (Why go later and risk standing in line for 45 minutes, as I did last Friday evening?) It was like shopping in a crowded grocery store, rather than standing in the middle of a riot. I breezed in and out of there in half an hour.

After returning home and putting my groceries away, I went back out the door and headed for Target to get toiletries, medicine, and a couple of name-brand items I couldn't get at TJ's. It was about 10:30 at this point, and the lines at Target were relatively short, too. At this stop, too, I was able to get what I needed and get out without being hassled.

I stopped off for a cup of (decaf) coffee on the way home, and I was done with all of that stuff before eleven. I called my grandma and talked to Lil' Bit for a while, took a shower, made lunch, and balanced my checkbook. Now I've got a couple of hours to kill before making dinner and going to work, and all I have to do is go over my lines for my audition on Monday.

It's days like this when I feel mature, like an adult. I feel thirty. In a positive way.

Hope everyone's having a good weekend. Oscar picks coming tomorrow.

snow is nice...

...as long as I don't have to go out in it.

It's been a great day so far - I woke up late, poked around on the internet, made breakfast and lunch for myself - dinner will be started in a few minutes. I didn't get around to watching the videos I rented for myself, but that's not surprising. This is why I don't rent videos.

But I've got to leave the house in two hours. I don't want to brave the elements. In fact, if I were just meeting a friend, I would probably cancel. Unfortunately, I'm doing a reading, so I'm screwed.

Good weekend to all.

"change you can Xerox"

Really?

This is what I hate about politics.

tax waiting room

in the waiting room of the Equity building in midtown Manhattan

I'm waiting to get my taxes done at Equity. Normally I make an appointment, but I somehow missed the sign-up day. So I had to get up early (7am) and schlep up here to sit in line. I'm number eight. We've been here three hours, and they're at number four. If I can get out of here before two, I'll be happy.

There is this elderly lady here who won't stop talking! Seriously, nonstop. We've heard two of her cell phone conversations, which have been very loud, and she has also been kind enough to give up updates on the status of coffee ("They're gonna brew a pot in an hour or so, and it will cost fifty cents!"). I have also learned that she's a Citibank customer, she has a daughter, she lives in Riverdale, and she took a car here!

Dear Lord.

I brought a couple of DVDs (the final episode of West Wing, which I couldn't bring myself to watch because I was in denial about the end of the show; and The Wire, which I've been meaning to start forever), but my laptop is low on power and I'm not near an outlet. My life's so bad...

Hope everyone is having a good Wednesday...

cash. i got none.

an e-mail message to a friend of mine

I've been looking for a job for a while, and I literally can't find anything. I suppose I could work retail for $10/hr, but that seems like such a waste of time. Still, I may have to go that route in another month or so.

i had a great day yesterday

1. Made an awesome breakfast - egg white scramble with turkey sausage, spinach, and tomato; toast with strawberry preserves; orange juice. Mmmmmmm....

2. Watched the Sunday morning political programs and PTI.

3. Cleaned up the entire apartment - StefStar and I had been working on that for a couple of days. You could have eaten off of the floors.

4. Open house. We found a great roommate (hereby called the Traveler) as well as someone to sublet when StefStar leaves for the summer. But almost all of the people were cool.

5. Dinner party. StefStar and I had her cousin over, as well as The Hot Wing and another friend. Pasta primavera; tasty salad (made by THW); lots of wine; apple pie with ice cream. Mmmmmmmm....

6. My alma mater won a HUGE basketball game against one of our arch rivals.

That's about as good as a non-football Sunday can get.

My sunday post...

...or what is left of it...

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that nice clean feeling

I just cleaned my bathroom, and it feels SO good...

I admit that I'm a bit of a neat freak. I also go on cleaning sprees. My mother is famous for them - she'll just exclaim, "I can't take this mess!" and starting picking up and mopping and vacuuming everything in sight. I am the same way.

Anyway, I cleaned the toilet and sink a couple of weeks ago when I moved upstairs, but today I actually got in the tub and started the arduous task of getting rid of mildew. Good times. Then I mopped the floor; I have no idea when that last happened.

It just makes me happy to have a clean house. Plus we're having an open house tomorrow to replace the bad roommate, and then StefStar and I are having a mini-dinner party, so I can't be havin' filth all over the place, know what I mean?

All right. Maxine (who I haven't seen in two weeks due to our travel schedules) is coming over and I'm making her dinner, so I should probably get dressed. See you tomorrow...

My new couch!

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thanks, NYS

written in a classroom at the New York State Department of Labor building in Brooklyn

I don't know why I'm here.

Look, I appreciate the state of New York helping me out, I do. And the idea of having resources to help people who lack marketable job skills is great. I really believe that.

But see, I have TWO degrees. Not to be a snob about it, but I have to have some basic marketable skills by this point. So why am I sitting in this classroom?

I wish you could see this. It's like being in detention.

Oh! Class has started! I better pay attention...

Dessert

I have been good all week...i deserve something sweet!

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Obama

I have a new habit.

Whenever there's a primary going on, I turn on MSNBC and I watch their coverage (I'm a big fan of the Olbermann/Matthews team and, strangely, Pat Buchanan). And I wait for Barack Obama to speak.

It inspires me every time. And it trips me out.

I'll be listening to his speech, and every time there's a couple of minutes where I zone out. This happens because I can't believe my eyes. I honestly never believed that I would see the day where someone who looks like me would have a legitimate shot at the presidency of the United States. I can't tell you how proud that makes me, and how good it makes me feel.

Not to get too much into it, but I've spent a lot of my life being told what I could or couldn't do (you should be good at basketball! you shouldn't be getting good grades!), and receiving backhanded compliments for "being different". I didn't have a whole lot of role models. My parents, I guess. The Huxtables. But this...I mean, if Obama can win, I really feel like a Black person could do anything in this country. It's very exciting.

And I resisted Obama for a while because of this. I read his book two years ago (and was blown away), but I had all kind of reasons for not supporting him. I wanted him to wait for Hillary. I wanted him to get more experience. And I definitely didn't want to support him just because he was Black. I think that, deep down inside, I was afraid that he would fail miserably and/or become a joke. But it hasn't worked out that way at all.

But now, I'm on board - been here for a couple of months. Fired up, ready to go, so to speak.

the first day of the rest of my life

That's what today feels like.

I really don't have anything to do. I mean, there are little tasks that I've been working on all day:

- asking people to write me recommendations for a fellowship
- setting up a meeting with my agent this evening
- trying to set up an appointment to get my taxes done
- finding a time to meet with an acting/career/life coach
- looking for a new headshot photographer

But it's all felt very languid, you know? I'm getting this stuff done, but I don't feel any pressure, or urgency. I'm just doing it. It's kind of a nice feeling.

I still have some things to knock off - notably, the area around my kitchen table is a disaster. And I have to clean the entire living room before my pretty new couch comes on Friday. But I'm hopeful that I can tackle those later in the week. I've got an hour before I have to go uptown - maybe I could do it after my shower! We'll see.

That's it for now - must shower before said meeting, and then another fun night at the club. More tomorrow.

keeping my house in order

(Thanks to the owners of "linksys", who are making this post possible from the comfort of my apartment!)

I think I'm finally starting to get my apartment where I want it. Most of the things in my room are put away, the kitchen is taking shape, and the bathroom is almost totally unpacked. The main thing I have to do right now is clean the living room in preparation for the arrival of my couch on Friday - can't tell you how excited I am about that.

(What's wrong with me? I'm excited about getting a COUCH? The Rover has become domesticated, ladies and gents. All without a girlfriend. Amazing.)

There are still some smaller things that I'd like to get for the place (new desk, desk chair, coffee table, flat screen), but all those can wait for a while. For now, I'm just glad that I've got a place for most of my stuff.

Off to do some laundry - yuck.

no internet!

Well, this is going to be a tough week.

My longtime roommate moved out last week, and her name was on a lot of the bills. We were able to switch one of them over, but we had to cancel the other two - it was just easier. It was no problem getting the power hooked up, but due to some weird rules with the company that provides us web access, we're offline at the apartment until Friday morning.

Oh, the humanity!

I'm currently writing this from my local coffee shop; I have a feeling that I'm going to be here a lot over the next week. Fortunately I can check e-mail on my phone. It's kind of a pain in the ass to read it that way, but at least I won't miss anything important. So there will probably be more than a few entries from my notebook coming in the next six days.

I've been at this spot long enough. Time to do some grocery shopping.

I don't know if this is legal or not...

...but i'm proud that i got up at the butt crack of dawn to vote, and i've got the evidence to prove it.

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d-u-n

Finished my last day here at the Alma Mater. It's a good thing, too - my diet has consisted of fried grease and sweet tea. No wonder I gained sixty pounds during my college years (that's not a misprint). I love the South.

I've actually kind of enjoyed my free time in the hotel. It's clean and comfortable, and I really don't feel like I get any quality alone time in my house, so this has been nice. My apartment situation will improve when I get my couch next Friday.

I'm back in New York for about 24 hours, and then I'm going to Pittsburgh to get some stuff out of my parents' basement. (I'm thirty - it's about time.) So you'll be getting lots of travel notes from me this weekend...

just as i suspected

And, of course, note what time I am making this post.

Belle Chanson also had another one of these on her site - again, pegging me perfectly:



Figures. It's totally true, by the way.

Alma Mater

So I'm back in the South, teaching a workshop at my Alma Mater. (I'm not putting the name of the school up here, for my usual reasons, but it's not hard to figure it out if you want to do a little detective work. Or you could just ask me in an e-mail.)

I made one trip back here two years ago, but it was a quick 36 hour job. This time I'm spending three nights here.

It's weird. I spent four years in the community, and was here nonstop from the beginning of my junior year to the end of my senior year; and yet I feel like I don't have any favorite places to go. I was trying to figure out where to eat the other day, and all I could remember were sandwich shops. It's like I've forgotten 90% of my college experience. For such a big piece of my life, there's a lot of chunks missing. Maybe it was all the booze.

It's been great working with the students, though. I'm pretty sure that teaching is in my future somewhere; this experience is just more evidence of that. I've got one more day of it tomorrow - hoping that I can explore campus and maybe talk to some of my old professors.

Right now I'm going to enjoy my Mariott accommodations. So glad I'm earning points for this hotel stay...

yes we can

It's 2:25 in the morning. I'm getting up in three and a quarter hours to go vote before I race to the airport to catch a flight. And it's all because this man has made a believer out of me. I've voted before, but I've never cared this much, or been this optimistic.



He's gonna do it. We're gonna do it. Starting in a few hours...

Big Blue!

Giants 17, Patriots 14.

Wow. What a game.

Super Bowl XLII

This is one of my favorite days of the year - Super Bowl Sunday. As a kid, I actually used to sit down and watch all the pregame and pre-pregame coverage. Even now, I still admit that I get a little excited the night before when I'm laying in bed. Kind of like Christmas.

(Now, if the Steelers are playing in the big game - which has happened twice in my conscious lifetime - it's a completely different story. I'll save that post for another time.)

Today I'm going up to my brother's to watch. I've only seen him once since Christmas, and my sister-in-law not at all, so it will be cool to hang out with their flat-screen HDTV and watch the game. I'm rooting for the Giants (my grandpa used to have season tickets, so I've always had a soft spot for them), but I have a feeling that the Patriots are going to come out uber-motivated because of all of the controversy swirling around them, and will therefore win fairly easily. Let's say 38-24.

Hope that you have a great Super Bowl Sunday!

moved!

So I spent all day yesterday moving upstairs into my new room. It was exhausting, and it wasn't helped by the fact that it was POURING in NYC yesterday - one of those storms where you know that your umbrella is basically keeping your head and shoulders dry, because the wind is whipping the rain around enough to soak the rest of you. My umbrella (ella, ella, eh, eh) turned inside-out two or three times.

ANYWAY, I've got almost everything in here - and out of the basement - and my beautiful new bed is here. I keep joking with my parents that, with the delivery of my bed and the impending arrival of my new couch, I finally feel like a real boy. It's kinda true. And it's about time.

Time to stop procrastinating and get to work; I have a workshop to plan.

Fried Fish #5

I'm busy moving upstairs today, so I gotta make this quick. One of my best friends sent this to me, and I'm scared to click on the link, because I don't think I'd leave my laptop all day. But you should check it out. Basically, this is a site that allows you to play ANY ORIGINAL NINTENDO GAME EVER MADE. It sounds like heaven.


Check it out.