12.30.02 - job hunting

December 30, 2002 Boise Weekly ATTN: "Search for the Perfect Receptionist" 109 S. 4th St. Boise, ID 83702 Dear Boise Weekly,

Once upon a time there was a young princess named Jennifer (hereafter referred to as “our princess”). Long long ago, when our princess was a wee high school senior, she interned with the Boise Weekly for a semester. Although her American Government teacher believed that she was prowling the legislature looking for breaking news, she really spent most of her time hanging around the BW office helping out with the top10 music lists and developing a taste for journalism. After high school, our princess went on to Stanford University, where, during a brief stint as a computer science major, she increased her typing speed to 70 WPM and became familiar with both PC and Mac platforms as well as a wide variety of word processing, spreadsheet and database software. Upon graduating, our princess went to work for a dot.com during the tech boom in Silicon Valley. The money was good, but our princess just wasn’t happy. Why not? She discovered that she preferred working with non-profit organizations over money-grubbing Big Business-types. Her search for co-workers who loved their jobs, not their paychecks, led her to the American Conservatory Theatre, where she became the assistant to the Producing Director. This job helped her refine her skills as a receptionist: doing battle over the phone with difficult agents, sorting mail, running interference for her boss when he didn’t want to take a call, and filing headshots until her eyes bled. For the past few years, our princess has worked as a stage manager in a variety of theatrical contexts, from outdoor festivals to touring educational companies. This has made her adaptable, responsible, and cool under pressure. She’s a meticulous record-keeper and is comfortable managing multiple projects at a time. She responded to the needs of her cast and crew, while remaining unruffled in the presence of the most difficult personalities and challenging situations. A perfect receptionist, of course has a British accent. Although our princess in is a native Boisean, she spent a year perfecting her faux British accent in the pubs of Oxford. Additional travel abroad in Europe and Asia made her self-reliant, resourceful, and good at sleeping in train stations. Today our princess has just returned to Boise after traveling the eastern United States with an educational theatre company. She’s thrilled to be back in Boise, and, a devoted reader of the Boise Weekly, was thrilled to discover that BW was looking for her: the perfect receptionist. The End. The moral of this story is that our princess would be the perfect receptionist for the Boise Weekly: she’s smart, computer literate, loves working with people, and can fake a British accent over the phone. Sincerely, JCG

12.29.02 - Boise, ID

apartment shopping with A this week. the most beautiful apartment in the world is going to slip through my fingers later this afternoon, and i'm beside myself with grief. our choices are:

3 bedroom house
university neighborhood
frumpy brick exterior
$500/mo, utilities inc.

2 bedroom apartment
north end (hip, liberal neighborhood)
victorian attic apartment
$650/mo + electric heat

the house is cheap, and it is the fiscally responsible thing to do, plus A really really wants the house. i want the apartment so bad i can taste it - upstairs in a victorian house, sloping ceilings, white-washed walls, little nooks and shelves molded into the plaster walls, black-and-white checked tile floor in the bathroom and in the sunny yellow kitchen. equidistance between the co-op (wonderful hippy natural foods grocery store), and the ymca (happy family-style gym where i work out), in the hippest, liberal-est neighborhood in the city - shady, elm-tree lined streets in the summers, a 45 minute drive to the ski hill in the winters. the house has a dishwasher and a fireplace, hardwood floors and a garage, but that doesn't change the fact that it feels like a beige living box with a new coat of paint. i love rooms with character, with life, with history.

i will give up the apartment, but i'm not ashamed to shed tears over the loss of a place in which i have already mentally lived, loved, laughed, thrown dinner parties and watched the seasons change in the trees outside the bedroom window. i will do all of these things in the house, and i will get over the apartment once we move in and start picking thru yard sales for furniture, ripping out the ugly fixtures in the bathrooms, and begin the process of living in the house. when i saw it, it was full of someone else's stuff; it didn't look like a clean slate where i could imagine our life together there.

my older brother can live for months in a new apartment amid half-unpacked boxes, with framed pictures leaning against the walls and clothes still in the suitcases. i've seen him do this in nearly every apartment he's moved to. i guess housing simply isn't as important to some people as it is me. maybe it's some sort of flip side of the wanderlust that keeps me moving; when i come home, i want to have a home to come into, that's cozy and welcoming comfortably cluttered. i want lighting that's gentle and flattering, soft furniture, high ceilings and deep colors. i resist the apartment-complex style beige-living-box most of all; i seek out the funky, oddly shaped apartments with narrow hallways, uneven floors and doors that lead nowhere. i am most comfortable in a house that feels as if it has been lived in for many years, by many people. it's a space that has absorbed a sense of purpose, the walls have drunk up laughter and tears and the need for shelter and protection.

12.25.02 - Boston, MA; San Francisco, CA; Boise, ID; McCall, ID

(wonky retroactive posting still happening, as i find hand-written entries and things saved on my computer and other lost entries)

happy christmas, everyone. i've survived the tour, done my time, completed that particular rite of passage. i have strong biceps, callused hands, and a much better knowledge of technical theatre. i've eaten out so many times that i never ever want to see another road-side diner again, and i'm very good at navigating thru strange cities using fancifully-illustrated maps. i'm tougher, mentally and physically, than i was four months ago, and i've gained a stronger sense of what i want out of life: that is, understanding the difference between things that actually make me happy, and things that i think should make me happy (but don't, necessarily).

12.17.02 - Providence, RI

traveling in american teaches one to love franchises. they're familiarity in a strange town - the home depots and starbucks, chilis and walmarts - big neon signs that beckon from alongside the freeway. franchises are comforting because you know what exactly what you're going to get - it might be mediocre, but it won't be a surprise. starbucks will always be over-priced and highly caffeinated, the waitress at chilis is the same regardless of what city you're in. home depot won't have the hospitality of a mom-and-pop hardware store, but it sells exactly the same products all across the country. consistency is the secret to the success of the franchise. life on the road is plenty unpredictable - i don't need any more surprises when i go for coffee.

the above rules go for hotels, too. based on my large sample pool, i've arranged the following budge motels into a sort of hierarchy.

Days Inn falls at the bottom of the heap. their idea of continental breakfast is usually a box of Ho-Hos and some Sunny D. worse yet, they're dirty, poorly equipped, in bad locations and poorly staffed. avoid at all cost.

Econolodge crawls in next. they skip breakfast and the in-room coffee altogether, but they're usually clean, if short on amenities and small.

Harvard Johnsons usually leave something to be desired in terms of room maintenance, are stingy with the towel allowance. breakfast should be approached with a higher-than-average level of suspicion as to the freshness - beware of sour milk or rancid apple juice. sanitation level is average.

Best Westerns are the wild-card of the budget motel. they run from really grotty to fairly posh, and you never know which it’ll be till you arrive. chances are, the sanitation will be passing but not exemplary, hotel soaps and coffee are basic but included, and breakfast is something more than a stale Danish. some days you’ll score an indoor pool, but on the other hand, there was the place in Memphis that was running a pawn shop out of the conference room.

Comfort, Quality, and Clarion Inns are all varying levels of the same franchise: Comfort will be the plainest, followed by Quality, and in Clarion Inns you might even expect a hot breakfast or an indoor pool, and certainly hallways. Comfort Inns will usually be the sort of motel where the room doors open directly to the parking lot, Quality might have hallways, and you’ll probably score an in-room microwave and fridge.

Ramada Inns will be basic but very clean and in good working order. i’m partial to the geometric design on the complimentary soaps and shampoo bottles. guess what you’ll all getting for Christmas this year....

Holiday Inn is the jackpot of the cheap hotel lottery. rooms will be clean and in good repair. extra towels and in-room coffee, included a packet of decaf, are a standard, and the desk clerks always speak English, have a good working knowledge of the city, and are willing to give directions (not a grantee in any of the other motels listed here). Holiday Inn Expresses have the best continental breakfast out there, plus perks like free cookies in the afternoons. The full holiday inn will have a hot breakfast, but they make you pay for it. There’s the possibility of scoring a HoliDome if you stay in the Holiday Inn, and that’s when you’ve really hit the jackpot.

this might seem petty, or at least excessive, to those who haven’t lived in motels for a significant period of time. the other day i was complaining about some hotel to my mother and she said, “oh, i figure if the door locks and the sheets are clean, the place is fine.” “yeah, but you don’t live in motels full-time,” i told her. “my standard have gone dramatically UP.” when you’re staying in a motel that doubles as a brothel, it’s too much to assume that the sheets are clean and that the door locks – better double check.

12.16.02 - Trenton, NJ

(retroactive posting due to connectivity problems...)

so i had dinner with an ex-boyfriend last night. there are few things as gratifying as reaching that state of mutual healing such that both people can genuinely wish the other well. we're far enough down the emotional/relationship/life events that it just doesn't sting anymore. it takes years to get there, and it's not a state that you can will yourself into. you grow accustomed to the hole in your heart, and then one day you wake up and it's gone. the heart has regenerated, long after you ever stopped believing it could.

the following might seem to contradict the above claim of complete healing, but i can't resist:

ex-boy: wow! your hair looks great! the whole way down here i was thinking, short or long, short or long? i like it a lot.

ex-boy: 0, jen: 1

jen: here's a picture of my boyfriend.
ex-boy: neat. here's a picture of my fiancee.

ex-boy: 1, jen 1

jen: you know why we were never meant to be? you never took me seriously as an intellectual.
ex-boy: really? this isn't just the wine talking?
jen: no! you never listened to what i had to say about books.
ex-boy: wow. i'm sorry i was such an asshole.

ex-boy: 1, jen: 2

ex-boy: i was shattered when you told me you were dating someone new.
jen: you dumped me! it was my right to start dating first.
ex-boy: i know, but that doesn't mean that i wasn't completely traumatized.

ex-boy: 1, jen 3

jen: that girl you dated in japan, after we broke up? the bossa nova singer?
ex-boy: oh, that was just because i found out you were seeing someone, and i needed to be, like, "see, i have sex too!"

ex-boy: 1, jen 4

dinner was a rousing success, i have to say. pat, pat the ego. it took a pretty serious beating over this boy, even though it was a long time ago.

12.15.02 - Fairfax, VA; Wilmington, DE; Engelwood, NJ; Brooklyn, NY; Baltimore, MD

internet access continues to be pricey and difficult to obtain; but we've made it to the countdown: five shows, four cities, 450 miles, eight nights. just breathe.

12.5.02 - Binghampton, NY

it's a SNOW DAY! as much as i sat up late praying for the slightest skiff of snow to soften the hearts of school administrators as a kid, i have to say that snow days from work are even more gratifying (possibly because i still get paid?). last year in buffalo when it snowed seven feet the theatre closed down for three days, and hannah and i sat home watching the snow drifts gently blot out the lower part of our windows and cars turn into giant white volkswagon-shaped domes. there was so much snow that the city didn't have anywhere left to plow it to, so the national guard had to come in with trucks and take it away.

this morning in harrisburg it's only snowed an inch or so, but more is predicted for the afternoon and it was enough for all our schools to cancel. hotel toaster waffles for breakfast, a few emails to write, and i'm going back to bed on this lovely snowy morning.

12.4.02 - Harrisburg, PA

internet access is somewhat limited these days, so i'll continue to sponge off other people's material. here, my mom waxes poetic about my cat:

He sits on the chair and stares and chitters endlessly as long as the junkos, wrens and sparrows are dining. His tail switches with great purpose and energy while he hunkers low on the chair and makes his primeval hunting sounds.

[grin] i miss my cat.

12.3.02 - Philadelphia, PA

i love him because, part II (see 11.11.02):

I love him because he buys me jewelry out of gumball machines and asks me for advice.

I love him because when he brushes his teeth, he says 'I'm gonna throw a scrub on these pearly yellows.'

I love him because when i ask him to tell me a bedtime story, he tilts his head, is silent for a moment, and then begins: 'all his life, the old man had never seen the other side of the mountain...'

[i love him because] he has nice arms and makes the perfect cup of tea.

From Oil Notes by Rick Bass: She laughs when she skates. I think I feel too strongly for her but do not know what to do about it.

...you live with someone for long enough and your nose magically fits in their shoulder. their foot behind your knees, your arm on their back. add two cats who twine together in their sleep, and you have a monkey's fist for a bed.

thanks for sharing.

12.1.02 - NYC, Hawthorn, NY, New London, CT

and we're back, folks. feels like we hardly missed a beat. roadside motel, take out chinese for dinner, 7am call for a show tomorrow.

air travel is funny. there's this distorted sense of distance. i'm on the west coast, and i get on a crowded, claustrophobic little tube full of people, and four hours later it's the next morning and i'm in new york city. travel this weekend was predictably awful: mechanical delays led to missed flights led to additional connections led to missing luggage that took a side journey to portland without me, but in the end, all of the delayed connections in the world couldn't have kept me away. the weekend was sleeping in late and going out to breakfast, walks in sunny, lithia park and falling sleep watching movies, tangled up on the sofa like a litter of sleepy kittens. time with andy gives me a reprieve from my type-A need to constantly need to justify (to myself, my own worst critic) my time as well spent: self-improvement thru reading or organized socks or earning money or whatever. i don't feel like i have to justify what i've done with the hours i spend with him. something sets me free to just be.