12.31.01 - no one to kiss but the cat

well, goodbye 2001. since i can't be in california, and i couldn't afford a last-minute plane ticket to boston, i'm spending new years eve working in the scene shop at the theatre....it's sad that i can make more than half a week's salary on my day off working over-hire in the shop. i need to join a union so my industry will stop exploiting me. so much for a new year's party plans...but it's okay, really, b/c i don't have anyone to kiss at midnight this year, and besides, i hate new year's eve like most single women hate valentine's day.

12.30.01 - when hell freezes over...

digging out my car didn't turn out to be as much fun as i'd expected. partly because i put the task off until early sunday morning, and partly because six feet is really a fuckload of snow and i scratched my car with the snow shovel like ten times. plus the snow is really light and fluffy, which makes it nearly impossible to shovel - it just rolls back down to the bottom of the pile again. i felt a little like sisyphus, condemned to a winter in buffalo instead of a fiery burning hell. but at long last the car emerged, and now i really have no excuse for not returning my severely-overdue dvd to blockbuster. i am going make a serious case for not paying late fees because my car was buried in six feet of snow and driving was against the law all weekend.

yay! phone call from an old friend just now...weird, i had this premonition that callie was going to call just before the phone rang, even tho i haven't talk to her in months. once again, my psychic powers are wasted on little coincidences like this, never anything useful like lottery numbers or whether i should take my umbrella with me when i go out for the day.

12.29.01 - uh, where's my car?

12.28.01 - guess you already know.

Record snow paralyzes Buffalo, N.Y.

another snow day! the city is at a stand-still - stores are closed, driving is banned and k-mart sold it's last snow shovel last night. apparently it's a new record for buffalo. more than six feet of snow have fallen in the past four days. it's been snowing all morning - i can barely see across the street right now. the city has run out of places to pile all the plowed snow, so now the national guard has come in to help truck away some of the snow, and the state prisons are sending prisoners out to dig out fire hydrants and get the snow off roofs threatening to collapse. the only movie we have here to watch is It's a Wonderful Life (due back yesterday, but I can't find my car under the six feet of snow, so Blockbuster will just have to wait), but Seth has some sort of personal vendetta against the film, and now he's dragging Hannah down with him, so we're stuck making popcorn and watching the snow fall for this afternoon.

i received the following email from an old friend:

oye, my dearest jenny, i was hoping your alumni account wasn't up-to-date when it listed buffalo as your current residence...i just looked up the weather on cnn.com/weather, and the site's cover story is: buffalo's fucked. guess you already know.

12.27.01 - snow day!

it just keeps snowing! another 18 inches fell last night. everything is beautiful and white and the city is completely shut down. i got up and slogged in to work just in time for the theatre to decide to cancel the shows and rehearsal for today. i looked like a snowman when i got home. there's a driving ban in effect and everything is closed. i meant to go buy a shovel and some boots, again, but whoops my car is buried in another two feet of snow now. i'll have to borrow one from the neighbors when i want to dig my car out, but at this point, i'm not driving anywhere. the snow is deeper than my honda's clearance is high. they're expecting as much as another 18 inches tonight and tomorrow. good thing we have lots of turkey leftovers.

12.26.01 - the weather outside is frightful

whoa, nelly, is there a lot of snow out there! flew to boise on christmas eve, came back to buffalo late on christmas day to find that 2 and a half feet of snow had fallen while i was gone. holy shit is that a lot of snow. when i went to find my car in the parking lot, i just walked to the place where i thought i'd parked it and started digging till i could confirm that it was the right car. okay, so i didn't really heed all of those safety instructions that told me to keep a shovel and boots in my car, so i ended up spending more than an hour digging my car out of the snow with a long-handled ice scraper, wearing my wool dress coat and little leather sneakers. i made it home safely at least and sat
down to a second christmas dinner with hannah and seth around midnight.

my trip to boise was much too brief but fun; i had approximately 25 hours to spend with my family before i had to turn around and fly back to buffalo. christmas was characterized by the usual happy chaos that accompanies all of our family gatherings; christmas carols are on the stereo (the family is firmly divided into pro- and anti-manheim steamroller factions), gifts are frantically purchased and wrapped at the last possible moment before dinner, the dog runs around shredding all the christmas wrap she can find into 2-inch squares, we have a birthday party for my twin uncles, my brothers run in and out of the house working on their home-made snow-making machine, the outdoor cat streaks in the open door and has to be tracked down, everyone talks at once and there is much laughter, good-natured teasing and absurd arguments.

12.23.01 - jen who?

went to dinner tonight with one of the actors, our director and her husband, who is the artistic director of the theatre. the restaurant turned out to be this super nice candle-lit affair, with yummy food that i couldn't really afford but fortunately jane treated us. dinner conversation was a little lopsided, since much of it consisted of discussing people in The Biz that i don't know, seeing as how i've never even been to NYC and these guys all work there most of the time. i attempted to keep up my end of polite conversation, but mostly i ended up feeling like the poor baby intern, country bumpkin who didn't have anything interesting to contribute besides comments about the weather, terrorist attacks, and well, that was about it. it wasn't until i got home that it occurred to me how thoroughly tired i am of trying to be someone else. i don't know exactly who that someone else is, but i suddenly felt like i've been keeping up this complicated charade any time i leave the house. i like stage managing, and i love theatre, but i'm starting to hate this job because of the way that my stage manager treats me like something that got stuck to her shoe, and everyone else is so bloody pretentious and condescending. i'm determined not to let my boss drag me down to her level, so i've pasted on this permanently cheerful persona. i feel like Small Talk Barbie. i can make polite conversation until i barf, but what i wouldn't give to have a real conversation with just one of my co-workers. fuck, i'm tired.

thank god for my roommate hannah, who is cool and sweet and unpretentious and understands what a bitch my boss can be, and so that when we're at home i can actually chill out. i'd trade all my fancy dinners out for a night of drinking beer with the old gang.

12.21.01 standing still sun

happy winter solstice to all you pagans. i love the solstices, because they fall at the beginning of a season, yet they mark the approach of the opposite season. winter has just begun to settle on buffalo, but now the days are growing longer, moving us toward summer. seasons and phases of the moon seem to mark the passage of time for me better than calendar dates do. i have trouble knowing what day it is, but i can almost always tell you whether the moon is waxing or waning.

i pass the corner of delaware and allen streets on my way to work every day. in front of the apartment building on the corner, there are rows of bushes all wrapped up in burlap sacks, presumably in order to protect them from the harsh weather. each bush is about 3 feet tall and maybe a foot in diameter. the burlap is tied at the middle and near the top, making them look like lines of little old monks in rough brown robes, their heads bent against the winter wind and the skiff of snow that fell last night. they make me think of this Korean mountain-top temple, Haeinsa Temple, that i visited several years ago. the temple buildings are nestled into the hillside, accessible via a network of footpaths which lead up to the temple and into the forests beyond. david and i climbed up there on a cool, sunny december afternoon. as we hiked on the hillside above the temple, monks would occasionally shuffle out of the forest and across our path . none of them seemed to register our presence, even when we spoke to them. their eyes seemed to look right through us, as if they were on a totally different plane of existence. they reminded me somehow of deer, the way that they would silently appear and then disappear just as suddenly, leaving us to wonder whether they had been real, or just a spirit wandering past.

12.19.01 - minty fresh eyeballs

today's personal hygiene tip:

- don't floss with mint dental floss and then take out your contacts without washing hands between tasks. my eyeballs have this minty fresh menthol feeling right now.

12.18.01 - free money!

went with hannah to buy lottery tickets for tomorrow's gift exchange party. we were forced to buy $20 worth because the machine stole our money and wouldn't give change, but that's okay b/c hannah scratched one off and won 40 bucks and after paying for the lottery tickets she's going to buy us a treat.

12/16/01 - act 1, scene 1

here's a small sample of what my days with my charming new boss are like:

The Scene: we're in rehearsal, taking a 10 minute break between running several scenes. scattered haphazardly on the kitchen table in the center of the stage is: a drinking glass, a silver flask, a vase of flowers, a candle and a sugar bowl. when the next scene begins, i know that the flask and glass are supposed to be gone, and the other items back in the center of the table, but the director hasn't assigned the task to an actor yet. the options are 1) leave the items on the stage so that the director is aware of the problem, or 2) remove the items so that we can move smoothly into the next scene and deal with transition at a more appropriate time.

me: "n--, the glass and silver flask (props) need to be offstage for the next scene, but we haven't blocked who takes them off yet. should i just make them magically disappear?"
n--: "they need to be struck."
me: (strikes said glass and flask, begins to straighten up the other items on the table)
n--: "those items need to be left for an actor to deal with. leave everything on stage as is."
me: (hesitating with glass and flask in hand) "okay, so i just strike the glass and flask?"
n--: "no, I said they need to be left for an actor to deal with."
me : (confused) "oh, sorry i thought you said they could be struck."
n--: "no, i said that everything needs to be left as it was at the end of the scene." (stalks off)
me (inside my thought bubble) "are you on crack? no you didn't. you told me to strike the props like 10 seconds ago." (spoken out loud) "okay, sorry, i must have misheard you."

Postscript: the director walks into the room and asks me to please remove the offending props.

for the first couple of days her abuse really got under my skin, but at this point she's so ridiculously mean to me that i just can't get upset over it anymore. this is a battle that i won't be able to win, so i'm not wasting any more energy trying to. hannah's friend theorizes that this is all because i have better legs than she does. i just think she hates me.

12.15.01 - this is an essay question.

a question to ponder: what's the Greatest Love Story of All Time? a friend and i were discussing this recently; he was making a case for romeo and Juliet. i recall reading R&J for the first time in 9th grade and feeling completely cheated when we got to the end – there no way that that was all the Greatest Love Story of All Time had to offer (remember, i was 14). Okay, years later i will concede that it is a perfectly crafted play, but i still don't think it's the GLSOAT. my friend asked me what i thought the GLSOAT was. i realized that i didn't have an answer. over the next few weeks i began to think that the Greatest Love Story of All Time was a cheesy cliché and that thinking that meant that i am destined to become a bitter lonely Cat Lady. then, while i was eating mediocre sushi alone in the fluorescently-lit Osaka and reading the buffalo rag ArtVoice, it came to me: O. Henry's Gift of the Magi is the greatest love story of all time. it's beautifully crafted, simple, sweetly old-fashioned, pretentious and yet at the same time apologetic for its pretension in the face of such a pure emotion. we had a beautifully illustrated edition of it when i was a kid and i used to weep over the ending every time i read it.

12.12.01

another 14 hour day with the stage manager from hell. and now hannah needs the phone line. i'd resent her, but she made me dinner and even garnished the plate with a slice of lemon.

12.11.01 - dr. jekyll & ms. hyde

that's my new boss, in a nutshell. it was a rough first day of rehearsal. it was tempting to come home and decompress with a pint of ben & jerry's triple caramel chunk & a couple of friends episodes, but unfortunately my roommate hannah & i are keeping each other on a health-eating kick right now, plus we don't have a tv. so much for drowning my sorrows in buffy reruns and chocolate. instead i did paperwork (bleh) but then mari called me and i procrastinated (yay!). i like this job, really i do. but i like it better when my boss doesn't work out her anxieties by berating and humiliating me. i grit my teeth, smile, and remind myself that these are lessons in 1) how not to let stupid people get under my skin and 2) what sort of stage manager i'm not going to become.

zeke has really chunked up in the past two weeks since we got here. i suspect he's putting on a layer of winter blubber because we keep the house around 60 degrees (we can't afford to turn on the heat all the time, so we just wear scarves indoors). alas, someday i will earn enough money that my cat doesn't have to get fat just to stay warm inside. maybe i should rethink that no-eating ice cream thing. i could save a lot on the heating bill if i acquired a layer of winter blubber, too.

12.9.01 - home sweet buffalo

ooh, hot competition for the phone line after 11pm in this apartment - hannah's got a long distance boy and i have an internet habit (just a cover for the fact that i have no friends in buffalo). once again my social life consists of drinking with the actors after midnight.

we have a home! we've finally acquired enough furniture that we have something to unpack the boxes into. a lot of the furniture was filched from the theatre's prop shop: it still has glow tape on all the sharp corners, which gives it some sort of charm, i think, in addition to making it easier for me to navigate the house in the dark.

the loot: two twin beds, a futon, a dresser, a desk, a card table, a giant rubber crate-turned coffee table, a kitchen table, four chairs and a bathroom cabinet
grand total: $29.89 plus the cost of the brownies i promised to the prop guys.

i've moved 11 times in the past five years. it's a slow process, but i actually am getting better at refining the list of things that have to go. i'm not down to fits-in-my-honda-in-one-trip quite yet, but i am down to fits-in-the-car and costs less than $100 to ship the rest. the key is disposable furniture. i'm thinking maybe hannah & i can sell all this stuff to our landlord when we move out and then he can rent the place as a furnished apartment. the hardest thing to leave behind is the books. i think i've finally disciplined myself into only taking 3 or 4 on the been-meaning-to-read list and keeping the library at my parents' house. thank god for parents that never move and have excess attic space.

i can (reluctantly) leave the books behind, but there are a few seemingly-frivolous things that i have to go. they are: zeke. the oriental rug i inherited from my grandmother. the wall hangings from korea, japan, vietnam and ecuador. a poster of SF. the lamp paul's mother gave me. the chinese paper lantern lauren gave me. my red paper parasol from japan. a couple of tapestries to throw over the ugly furniture. a few photos to tape on the wall next above my desk and bed. it's not more than one extra box of stuff, (well, except zeke doesn't like riding in the box much) but it enables me able to feel at home given four hours and a box of thumb tacks. and when you move as often as i do, i guess you have to find some sort of trick to keep the constant sensation of alienation at bay.

12.7.01 - back to the days of madam jenjen & her crystal ball

two more points for buffalo: 1) ani difranco lives here, and 2) people are really nice in a small-town say-hi-when-you-pass-on-the-street sort of way. i tend to have my big-city hackles up when i'm in a strange place; it took me few days to realize that there were no dark alternative motives behind the pleasantries the way there are in, say, the tenderloin.

went to have my picture taken for a company ID card today. karen aims the digital camera at me. "i'm a blinker," i warn her. *click!* karen frowns. "yup, your eyes are closed. try again." *click!* "my eyes were closed again," i tell her. she consults the camera and indeed i look half asleep. *click!* click click click! when we reach 8 pictures, we have one blurry shot and seven lovely shots of my eyelids. "i told you," i say. karen doesn't look amused anymore. i try to explain to her that i actually have a psychic ability to know when the photographer is going to press the shutter button and something makes me blink at just that moment. she prints the blurry photo onto my ID card and hands it over without comment. the number of eyes-closed photos i've taken is uncanny. too bad i can't apply those psychic powers to something slightly more useful.

speaking of closed-eye photos, paul and lauren are circulating a most unpleasant one of me on their blogs (no, i'm not putting up a link). ever had one of those pictures that just keeps resurfacing to embarrass you over again? this is one of those. it was on paul's mother's fridge the entire time we were dating. later paul named the picture after my breasts.

12.5.01 - buffalo gal, won't you come out tonight?

well, here i am in upstate new york. the bizarre weather persists: it was 65 degrees today. the theatre i'm working for (studio arena) is currently running a play about the blizzard of '77 that buried buffalo in like 8 feet of snow. inside, the crew shovels several feet of fake snow into plastic bags, and then steps out the stage door into a balmy december evening. its actually colder inside my apartment than it is outside.

good things about buffalo:
-my new roommate, hannah. even zeke approves of her
-the apartment, like most of downtown buffalo, is a neat old turn-of-the-century building, with high ceilings, hardwood floors and wide white decorative molding
-spot coffee, a coffee house with lots of squishy couches that invite one to sit and drink and read the paper
-economic depression = low cost of living
-living with in walking distance of 1) the theatre, 2) the gym, and 3) spot coffee
-ready accessibility of the New York Times.
-canadian radio stations

bad things about buffalo:
-i'm disappointed in the lack of snow
-parking is still an irritating hassle, although it hardly compares to that of SF, of course
-one bedroom apartment + roommate with a boyfriend = i have to sleep in the living room
-lots of scary leering men loitering around main street at night when i walk home
-a significant lack of furniture means that i'm still surrounded by boxes and boxes that can't be unpacked
-buffalo radio stations

12.4.01 - the turkey has landed

the apartment is small but lovely and i think i'll like the theatre. so much for everything i've heard about buffalo winters - it's 60 degrees out there today. still no internet access - hopefully soon.