It Follows

When I was younger I entertained the notion that I wasn’t successful because I had nothing to overcome. It seemed that every time you heard of a successful person, the commentary dwelled on all the obstacles they had to overcome: blindness, cancer, loss of limbs, poverty, etc. I was far too normal for success. Of course there were those at the other end of the spectrum, the entitled, who had no obstacles at all. They had a parent who made a fortune and handed it to them. I hate them. I get physically ill when I hear that Ivanka Trump is going to tell people how to make it in business. “Rule 1: Have a father who is filthy rich.” It helps even more if he was handed the basis for his empire by his father before him. So, as I neared my third year of unemployment with no one to hand me a fortune, I came to the conclusion that I needed to do something. Perhaps chronic unemployment was enough of an obstacle to overcome. Hence, the Stray Kats Theatre Company was born. Now here’s the weird part: no sooner did I take this step than the phone rang with a part-time job. Keeping to my new philosophy of always saying “Yes”, I said “Yes” and joined the ranks at the New Meadowlands Stadium as a Suites Supervisor. No sooner did I complete the training when a director I auditioned for last September offered me a role in a short film. No sooner did I accept the role when a friend asked me to do a staged reading of his play in New York. I’ve had the busiest few weeks of the last several years and I love it. And when you love what you’re doing, I’m told the money will follow.

The New Stadium

It is 11:30 on a Sunday morning and I am contemplating the new meaning of “Things to Do When You’re Dead”; dead tired, that is. I started a job at the New Meadowlands Stadium where I am a Suites Supervisor in the luxury suites. My husband has been doing this sort of work for about 20 years now so, with unemployment insurance about to expire and all my part time jobs coming to an end for the season at the same time, when his former boss called me late one night to offer me the job, I seized it. I had no idea what it entailed; only that it was a job. My husband thought I was nuts. I realize now that he was just trying to shield me. But it’s okay. I completed my training, such as it was, and was literally thrown into the chaos of managing the needs of guests who had spent a shitload of money, chefs and assistant chefs who had been preparing for weeks, cooking for days, and on their feet for 14 hours per shift, managers who had no clear idea of how this massive ship of commerce was actually going to sail, suite attendants who were running around looking for missing this and that, cashiers who’d had enough training to open but needed someone else to close their registers…there’s more, but my brain is only able to track the number of dinner napkins, beverage napkins, plates, forks, knives, spoons, cups, condiments, etc. that I need in my pantry for the next event… assuming I’m sent to the same pantry, which is a serious question! Some pantries have kitchens and liquor; some have kitchens but no liquor; some have liquor but no kitchens, some have nothing but share space with those other people who crank out hot dogs, pretzels and sodas for the masses, waiting sometimes very impatiently for all their food to be delivered by runners who sometimes get lost negotiating the twists and turns of the massive stadium to bring them their carts of cold food, hot food, rolls, chips, pretzels, etc. etc.

All this is probably far more than you expected or need to know, but in the dawn of my waking this morning, I still found myself cataloguing and organizing in my mind as another portion of my brain kept silently screaming, “Stop it!”
Oh, and all this is capped off by a massive exodus of employees from a single parking lot with just two lanes out, adding at least an hour of unpaid work to the 12 hour day. I got home at three a.m.

Still, I don’t mind it! In fact, if I am to be honest, it was kind of fun. In my life, I have had occasion to work at a wide variety of “bread and butter” jobs, and I am always okay while I am learning how to do them. My mind always seeks to find new and streamlined ways to accomplish tasks and make things run more smoothly. It’s only when something becomes routine that I get bored and irritable and then it’s usually time to go. So right now, with my legs throbbing and my head stuffed full of unnecessary information, I’m okay. Jets and Giants start in August. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Letting go

Antidepressants are good. If you have to take a pill, taking an antidepressant seems to be the pill to take at a time when getting out of bed is the highlight of your day. And those warnings that antidepressants might lead to thoughts of suicide…? Hogwash. That feeling isn’t a suicidal tendency; it is the clear formulation of the idea that in sleep there is respite. Quite often these days, my husband and I look at each other around dinner time with the understanding that it really is too early to go to sleep. This morning we said it at around 11, after the plumber left, having installed our new water tank. The old tank died, leaving in its wake several inches of water in the basement. The new one is quite spectacular, in a shade of blue that makes it seem like a giant Easter egg nestled in the corner and cozying up to the metallic grey hot water heater which was our old ‘new’ thing. The old water tank was also blue but, covered as it was with dust and rust, you didn’t notice it very much. The new water tank is big and shiny and very, very blue, like the sky on a clear day seen through your sun glasses and the tint at the top of the windshield; an impossible, vibrant blue. Your eye goes to it as you walk down the basement steps like “Boinnngggg, look at the new water tank”! And it should! For what this cost, it should have artistic value!

We are off now to look at a new car, the old one having died a few weeks ago but we were in too much shock to do anything about it so my husband and I have been doing EVERYTHING together. Although my stomach is tied in a knot, there is hope in the act we are about to perform: the act of letting go. I have been holding on to whatever we have so tightly I haven’t been able to breathe in weeks. It felt good to buy the water tank; to let our sinks and toilets, washers of dishes and clothes once again function as God and Maytag intended. Perhaps I’ll feel even better when we say “yes” to a new or used car and get on with the business of getting on.

Fi-yuh!!!

With the weather being so nice this spring, my husband and I have gotten a good jump on cleaning up the grounds around the house in preparation for a summer of cooking on the grill, having friends over and just hanging out on the deck on cool summer eves. This is a very good thing because, with things as they are, hiring the local illegal immigrants to blow the leaves away and lift the many branches and acorns that have covered what is left of our grass is out of the question. And it’s not like we have a lot of property – just over half an acre – but we are surrounded by trees. Not little trees. Big, mother trees! Old trees. With limbs that break and crash down on things like our deck, our car, our friends… Consequently, we have amassed an inordinate amount of dry leaves and firewood. The leaves get blown into the woods and the firewood is designated for either the fireplace in the living room or the copper cook stove near the deck that keeps us warm and entertained after a hard day’s work. We built such a fire yesterday afternoon, enjoyed a well-earned cocktail, and left the embers safely smoldering in the cook stove until the last of the twigs and logs had disintegrated into ash. Then we had dinner, watched TV, went to bed, woke up, went to the gym, and came home. I worked on the computer while my husband called the insurance company, found a new eye doctor, made an appointment and THEN headed outside to do more yard work. It didn’t strike me as unusual when I smelled the smoke. And, engrossed as I was in watching a video of a very odd production of a high school play, it just seemed like the usual minor annoyance when I heard my husband calling my name. Well, he wasn’t actually “calling” my name. He was screaming it… several times. “Kate!” “What?” “Kate!!” What?!” “Kate!!!!!!” I finally got the computer to pause, set it aside, and turned to scream “What?” out the bedroom window, when I noticed the 10 foot flames shooting from the ravine behind the house where he had assiduously blown a lot of the leaves and then dumped the ashes from yesterday’s fire. “Call the fire department!!!!” I didn’t see my husband but his voice seemed to be coming in from every window and door as he ran around the outside of the house trying to figure out how to turn on the garden hose. 911 answered immediately and the volunteer fire department was instantly dispatched. We could hear the trucks driving past our house because Mapquest and the GPS maps of this neighborhood are all wrong. I ran out on the road while my husband continued to struggle with the water supply, flagged down the town truck that had noticed the smoke even though it was where the map said it wouldn’t be, and then he directed the others to our house via his walkie-talkie. The flames were now consuming an area about 30 feet wide and were licking at interesting trees along the ravine. Long story short, about a dozen fire-fighters and several trucks with much better equipment than our gnarly garden hose put the fire out and graciously acknowledged that it could have happened to anyone. Who could suppose that an ember in a cold cook-stove could survive 18 hours, overnight, in 40 degree weather, to spark a conflagration that could have consumed the entire neighborhood had we dumped it anywhere but into that ditch? The fire-fighters left. I returned to my computer and my husband blew more leaves from the front of the house back into the woods. Still, when the work day was done, we had our cocktail without a fire in the cook stove tonight. The weather forecast is for three days of rain. Good.

Post script: Before dinner, we ran out to the supermarket for a few items, returning to discover that I had left a pot of water boiling on the stove. Luckily, there was enough water in the pot that it didn't burn the house down. Still, how embarrassing would THAT have been?! Duh...

Open Letter to Clay Smith

Dear Clay Smith,
Have you ever been presented with a moment in which the one thing you did NOT want to do is make a fool of yourself, and then you do precisely that? In a room full of crazy people, at the very least you want to be perceived of as sane. But the demon grabs you and you babble like a fool anyway. I am done. I know, I’ve said that before. But this time I mean it! I will never attend another seminar to meet a casting director or agent. Unless you are so unique as to be a freak of nature, it is a complete waste of time. Unless you do “something special”, like… you are fluent in Swahili, or you are a sword swallower, or you can speak Swahili WHILE swallowing a sword… you have a better chance of winning the Powerball than getting representation or an audition from a casting director in New York. So I am sorry, Clay Smith. I wanted to impress you. I wanted you to see me at the seminar tonight and say to yourself, “I remember her! Her audition monologue was wonderful. Why didn’t I call her in? Why haven’t I signed her? I saw her video, the one I ASKED her to send me, and I loved it!” But I balked… and I babbled like a fool.

Epiphany

Well, it’s official. I’ve turned into one of those geeks who can’t stop playing computer games. Hours come and go and here I sit, playing backgammon with “Intermediate Arabic”, that faceless person across the globe who, I have a sneaking suspicion, has all this time on his hands because he’s sitting in a cave in Tora Bora, playing on a laptop. It could be. They have modern things; guns, bombs, Timex watches. I however do not have such time. I have things to do. My fate is not quite so cut and dry. I almost envy that son of a bitch. At least he knows what he’ll be doing for the next few years… if he’s not dead. And even if he is dead, he’s pretty certain he’ll be in heaven surrounded by 70 virgins. He’s wrong, but he’s certain. I however have no such delusions. No time and no delusions. I know, as I click and roll and chat in pre-selected language bytes: Nice role; It was luck; It’s your turn; Are you still there? … I know, as player after player quits the game the moment he or she starts to lose… I know that I am wasting my life!

My eyelids flutter and grow heavy and yet here I sit, mindlessly clicking on “new game”, “new game”, “new game”. When I get bored with backgammon, I switch. “Word Whomp” is a personal favorite. I own all the best times on Minesweeper. I mollify my saner self with the thought that this type of brain exercise will help me live longer and stave off Alzheimer’s. My saner self says, “Yes, you’re brain will go on… long after your body fails from disuse. They will keep it in a jar, on view as a cautionary tale. Would you like to ask it a question?” “It was luck; Good role; Are you still there?” Which conjures up ancient fears of being buried alive… Which compounds the problem because, even if I should tear myself away and climb the stairs to my bed, I am now too afraid to close my eyes… There’s a game where little bugs pop up in a bowl of soup and you get to hit them over the head with a spoon. This, while not being of the brain enhancement variety, gives me tremendous satisfaction.

It occurs to me that my house is getting dirty, and so I rebel against my fixation, click my way back to the desktop, and clean something; the floor, the bathroom, the kitchen counter. (I know it’s under these stacks of old mail somewhere). Then, with a great feeling of accomplishment, I tell myself I am entitled to a break. So I rush back to the computer and find someone to play with. Perhaps that’s it! I don’t remember it ever being easy to find people to play with. Imagine how wonderful it would have been as a child to be able to click and find a playmate, with none of the attendant risk involved of having to approach a stranger-child on the street and ask, “Can I play?” It’s more like coming upon a playground full of children starving for someone to play with and all you have to do is show up and they get in line to wait for a turn. Janie has to go home for dinner? That’s okay, Susie’s here.

Reunion

I’m a little nervous this morning. I’m about to travel into the city to meet three high school friends who I haven’t seen in over 40 years. What’s so scary about that you ask? Well, in thinking about it, I realized I hadn’t really been “friends” with them in the first place. I can’t recall a single social instance, beyond attending classes, perhaps sharing a lunchroom table. I can’t recall a single thing we had in common. Oddly enough, I recently connected with another classmate who I also had nothing in common with, only to discover that, now, we have a lot in common! But then? We barely knew each other. I was in the drama club. And I had a boyfriend. Those two things consumed every my every thought. I hadn’t even realized that this person actually did a show with me. I never saw beyond my own small circle. Of course I remember these people and the memories aren’t unpleasant. But I have no idea how I felt about them and, even more to the point, how they felt about me. How high the defenses I built around myself must have been; still are! I moved through my life as if each chapter was a separate room and I firmly closed the door on each one. I took no high school friends with me to college. I took no college friends with me to work. It wasn’t until years later that I reconnected with one college friend who hadn’t really been my friend while I was IN college, so I’m not even quite sure how we got together. And now, 25 years have gone by since I’ve seen her! So I ask, what’s wrong with me? Last weekend, my cousins went to a massive reunion of people who grew up in East New York. Where is my past? Perhaps I’ll get a glimpse today.