3.24.02 – iowa city, ia

today: new york, pennsylvania, ohio, indiana, illinois, iowa. 853 miles, 3 tanks of gas, 1 quart of oil. zeke slept in my lap for most of 12 hours, except when he tried to use the litter box, bouncing along at 70 miles an hour, which was hysterically funny. ate a chicken sandwich at Country Kitchen that i was convinced has poisoned me 10 minutes later, but it turned out that i was just paranoid. dido cd got stuck in my cd player for the first four hours of the trip, which was a rough start to the day, but retrieval efforts were successful in the end. i’m in a motel in iowa city tonight. i can hear the roar of the freeway though the double-pane glass, but this place 1) takes pets, 2) has a pool and 3) allows me to dial out on my laptop, all for the bargain price of $39.95 so i really can’t complain.

3.18.02 – it has begun

i have new yoga pants! from target. they are itchy. i couldn’t figure out why my roommate’s tooth-brushing noises were bugging me so much until i realized that my yoga pants! were making me irritable. i wonder if i can return them on that basis: “hello, i would like to return these yoga pants. they make me irritable.”

the packing hurricane has begun. zeke has taken to sleeping in half-full suitcases; it’s as if he knows that i’m going somewhere and is worried that i’ll leave him behind again.

3.17.02 – luck o’ th’ irish

st. patrick’s day in buffalo reminds me something of an over-grown frat party. the drinking began as early as 10 am. by the time that i walked downtown to get dinner between shows, the bars along delaware and chippewa were spilling green-clad drunken revelers out into the streets. there were fights, someone was actually run over by a SUV on chippewa street, men and women were peeing and throwing up in the streets, mardi gras beads were being tossed around to the tune of “show us your tits!”. there were parades and live bands and hot-dog stands appeared on all the corners, roving groups of bagpipers (i know, i was thinking the same thing – but maybe there are irish bagpipers as well?), and yellow school buses scooping up and spilling out drunken revelers. the coffee i ordered came topped with green whipped cream and everyone who worked at Spot Coffee seemed to have taken an oath to speak with an irish accent. while i dodging the drunks on my way up main street, for just a moment buffalo seemed like the saddest place i’d ever lived. everyone was partying but no one really seemed to be having fun, they were loud and drunk and seemed to know that they looked silly with green shamrocks painted on their cheeks. on my way back to the theatre it began to snow.

3.16.02 – brunch at hannah & jen’s place

yesterday hannah and i threw a grown-up party, as evidence by the fact that we spent friday night cleaning our apartment from top to bottom so that people could come over and munch on coffee cake and dutch babies and other we-cooked-it-ourselves-for-real breakfast goodies, and we didn’t even have to get an older friend to purchase the champagne for the mimosas. other than a disastrous attempt to cook bacon for the meat-eaters in the room, the party went well. zeke was the main attraction, so the conversation basically drifted between the show we’re all working on, and all the silly antics that our respective pets do. coree tried very hard to get zeke to show everyone his oversized fangs, but he was having none of that.

last night we watched Magnolia, which i thought was rather like reading a david foster wallace novel: it’s very long, has about twelve distinct plotlines, and just when you think that it’s going to be impossible to wrap up all the separate ends, it rains frogs and the movie is over.

3.15.02 – it’s not you, it’s me.

when someone says he thinks you’re super swell, but he’s afraid of getting too attached right now, that’s code for “i’m just not interested,” isn’t it? i thought so.

3.14.02 – this is where i work

3.13.02 – after these messages, we’ll be right back

computer problems + tech means that slithy tove may be a bit neglected for a few more days till i get Buffalo Gal open and have time to do battle with Earthlink.

3.11.02 – buffalo gal, won’t you come out tonight?

the past few days have been filled with laughter and old friends and good food, and i feel very fortunate indeed.

met sumit for dinner; we went to an indian restaurant near his office where he’s something of a regular. apparently he usually goes there after working late and brings work with him, so when he showed up at 8 o’clock on a saturday night with a girl, there was a flurry of excitement, a quiet table for two set up before we could get our coats off, free deserts and much conversing in hindi. later my stage-manager-turned-law-student friend emily called in search of a study break. we ended up drinking pints of bass in some bar in the village, yelling at one another about theatre and men and politics, and a good time was had by all.

yesterday i met amanda at penn station and we hung out; the aim was to shop but we mostly ended up chattering and walking in the wrong directions. she brought me home to randolph, nj, for a home-cooked meal with her family and a chance to finally meet winston (pronounced “WEEN-stun”, with the first syllable very high pitched, the second very low) the chocolate lab who reportedly spends 98% of his energy growing and losing fur on everyone and thing. winston didn’t seem quite as hairy as one might have expected, but he had beautiful, chocolate brown eyes and a big doggy smile.

tonight i am packing; i fly back to buffalo early tomorrow morning and plunge straight in to tech for Buffalo Gal.

i seem to be having a semicolon phase in my writing these days. i don’t know what that means.

3.10.02 – on the bathroom wall in amanda’s parents’ house:

“The plumber dug around in the pipes and saw something glitter in the muck and it turned out to be the soul of the previous tenent. He gave it to me and i wondered how we might return it and he shrugged and said he found stuff like that all the time. You’d be amazed at what people will leave behind, he said.”

3.9.02 – on the 7 train

“Hang on to your dreams. Hang on to the handrails, too. -a public safety message from new york city subway”