Half my office has a cold and the other half is on vacation, so, it is clearly the last week of Summer as We Know It. I am not afraid; I know many are, though they try to hide it. "No," they say. "Fall is my favorite season." But you can see the lies in their twitchy mouths, their restless toes. "I mean, I am sad to lose Half-Day Summer Fridays." Of course you are. OF COURSE YOU ARE. No more movies at 2pm! No more mid-day margarita parties! And now you have a cold on top of that, plus in fact there will inevitably a two-week span in October with highs of 95.

Fall is actually my favorite season, though. Bite it.

Lately I have been wishing that the opposite of negativity was something other than positivity. Not to be negative, but "positivity" just sounds so lame and desperate. Like you're overdressing for a job interview. Fact is, though, I am trying to cure myself of My Negativity. Of which I have plenty, thank you, it is a joy and a crutch to me. I am doing that thing the books tell you to do, where you smile sometimes when you don't mean it because just the smiling part can trick your brain and then when something crap happens you already have this smile stuck to your face so in fact you greet adversity with reason-o-bility. Right? So, like band practice, I try to walk to the subway each morning with a smile nearly there. Then it is OK when there is police tape blocking my route through the park, or when the MTA has shut down my subway entrance, or when the Metro newspaper dude is stationed directly in front of five turnstiles, blocking them all in direct defiance of sanity and physics! IT IS OK. I AM SMILING. Sometimes I laugh, too, a bonus for us all.

And this summer, I have tried to be outside. As much as I can handle. Do you know, I do not have a porch, or a patio, or anything that allows me to do that thing where I am sitting reading a book basically in my home but also outdoors? Of course, because I live in a room with a single window that overlooks other single windows. But the outdoors, it turns out, can be got in other ways. People say, want to hang out? And I'm like yes, can we go outdoors? Like it is this new thing I've just discovered. Let's get bagels and go to the High Line! Let's sit in a "bar" "garden" with beverages and appreciate a sunset and our lives! Let's get our copy of Mill on the Floss and sit by the fountain! Let's see a movie projected on an inflatable screen! Let's see Ted Leo battle the rain! Let's stand under Brooklyn Bridge forever and ever! Let's take a ferry to an island where there aren't any cars and eat ice cream every night and sing Beck in a dive bar and get bit to death by mosquitoes in the dark when we are staring at the moon and get somehow stuck inside a gated community and ride bikes and did I mention the ice cream and the beach!

(That last one was genius. Also the first time I have ever stayed at a bed & breakfast. Two things I love are beds and breakfasts, so that worked out really well.)

But do you know that feeling, where you come indoors and you know you smell like the outdoors and it just instantly is as though you were really productive? Just by being outside, in different air. That is the feeling to chase. I mean it's good, living in New York, right now it is the thing for me, with its verve and vigor and friends and opportunities. But I have these pulls when I walk through Morningside in the morning and I smell cut grass, or when I stand on a roof and the air smells cold enough for football. These pulls on my gut-strings, my country-gut, the cliche hole in my heart where seeing the cliche stars should be.

Anyway, though. Today I got some fresh honeycomb in the mail. It was not melted because this is not the week for that kind of thing (sadness, or, heat). This fall I plan to do several things that freak me out. Scare me to pieces. This fall this fall autumnal awesomenox. Cleaned out the DVR. Ready to go.

I will not be going into work this week, because I am on vacation. And for this first part of my vacation I played Risk and went to a brilliant rock show and drank my weight and ate pizza and watched a comedy documentary. Now I am home, and then later in the week I'll be on Fire Island, then I'll be home again and probably also at the UCB Theater for awhile, at the very least, to see Respecto rock out the Del Close Marathon. But that's for later. Right now I have an iced tea and some packing to do and I feel pretty good about how this day has escaped me.

For lunch today I met Nathan and we got sub sandwiches and went to the south end of Morningside Park to discuss prescription medications and what happens when you define yourself (artistically, we meant, but in other ways too) so narrowly that you can't help but self-righteously lash out at everyone who doesn't snuggle up next to you on those train tracks. At everyone who doesn't see it through your slender lens. At critics who don't criticize via an in-depth reading of your mission statement, but via an agenda all their own. At other creative-sorts who produce work that contains everything you love, but in the wrong order. And the only reason you're so snappish about it is because ultimately you HAD to make that lens, that mission statement, that order, because no one else was! Right! And so you are trying to protect your own ego, protect the moat around your soul, the one you built so you could just have enough room to work. It's so hard to work with all of these questions nearby.

Mostly I don't have a problem with that kind of moat. It's hard to be a writer, for instance, and be wonderfully warm and inclusive of everything you meet. You have to make provisions for the fact that it's a vulnerable process that cannot proceed if you're just bare-skinned against the ice storm. I struggle plenty with how I often feel angriest, cruelest to those people who create something that I WANT to like that has elements I WANT to love, but I feel like they don't GET IT, ultimately, they don't get what I want got at. But. You know. Sometimes you have to admit that a thing is not for you. Criticize, fine, absolutely. Break it down and examine the parts and see, perhaps, what you would have done differently. But don't just point and complain that their work reflects badly on you. Don't just blog about it. That attitude makes you sour and mean and ultimately miserable, and: "...don't you have some [work] to do?"

Anyway, the whole time we were in the park there was a group of kids, ages maybe two through five, and they were running around playing with sticks and traffic cones. Sitting nearby was a middle-aged guy who was in charge of at least one, maybe more of them. No other adults that I could see. The guy had his own lawn chair and was drinking beer, and every time he finished a bottle he would throw it dramatically behind his head, into the brush. It was absolutely awful, for shame, and yet, kind of amazing? And the second the kids got out of his sight, he hollered at them to come back, and expertly changed a diaper at one point, and drank, and sat, at so on. We imagined that maybe every day he posted a Craigslist ad: "I will be in the park from 9am to 5pm. I will be sitting there drinking beer. If you need anything, that's where I'll be. $10 for whatever. I'll watch your kid. Your dog. If you're shopping in the neighborhood and want to leave your bags with me, fine. $10. 9-5. Beer."

I know today was beautiful, which is why I think I did the right thing by mostly staying indoors and watching Merlin and making salads and tea and inventing punches using moxie, and the depths of my liquor cabinet. It's okay because I don't have a liquor cabinet so much as a shelf in my closet where half-filled bottles lurk, but, you know, half-filled bottles can be emptied into Igloo coolers just as well as the next guy. What am I saying? Anyway I did go outside, briefly. To buy the Igloo cooler.

I'm tired, is what I'm saying. Worn down. Do you know what it is, as of tomorrow? The All-Star Break, of course. My arch nemesis. These days we don't battle so much as pass each other in the street and accidentally " " brush each other with our shoulders, but. At any point one of us could snap. I have a feeling though that it sent advance guards to make last week, I don't know, would you call it harrowing? A bit harrowing. That's why at the end of it all I could be found at Great Lakes alongside Christine, shouting our heads off about Nine Inch Nails and then, no goddamn kidding, right in the middle of that, "Closer" comes on the jukebox. You can only do that kind of thing if you've been touched by the black magic. I know because I've been watching Merlin. I may have mentioned that.

Happily though, there are happinesses. Dinners with people you just never see. Parties for departing coworkers that lead you back to bars you can't help but love. And a play, called Monstrosity, now playing. It's produced by 13P, written by Lucy Thurber, a lady of great talent whose work just gobsmacks me every time, with how good and unexpected and true it feels. Last summer I took a class with her and it was basically responsible for reminding me what I was here for, responsible for me + Final Draft rekindling our relationship, responsible for making me feel like, yes. I have a shot. So I'm sentimental. But if you know me, and you do, you know I like what I like. And sentimentality doesn't necessarily apply, and if it does I'll say so. here: it's just good.

Basically it is a big, epic story, with war and family and media. And it is stylized. And it is so big. And it is funny. And it is infused with a love and life and spirit and scenes where the stakes are just, ceiling-high, but moreso the emotions are. Moreso you are getting these windows into lives. It shouldn't succeed, it has such a sprawl, but I cried three times and after the second act (there are three) I just about wanted to high-five the stage I was so excited. I don't know how you guys feel but I personally get scared by the high-stakes, high-concept, big money games. I feel like my place is two chairs or a park bench, except how many times do I hate park benches? Big stories appeal to me, they just sometimes seem so distant, cold, out of reach. When they are successful, though--they feel like family. Raise high the stakes and then show me the people living underneath. That is what I want.

(so like, note to self, if you are going to write about windmills, fucking write about windmills.)

Go see it, if you can, it is here in New York and only playing for another week. Here are some rehearsal photos, also, what a foxy cast amirite.

Okay. Let's hold on through the rest of this. Eat a good breakfast every morning and only listen to the music you really want to listen to. These are your best defenses. Away!

Today I went to New Jersey to visit the past! The past. The past came in the form of The Full Monty at Paper Mill Playhouse. Oh my god, you guys, The Full Monty. I guess this is a recurring thing for me when I return to musicals that used to mean the world to me, but yeah, I accidentally cried a little during the not-quite-an-Overture. It's been nine years since that show opened on Broadway, seven since it closed, a day since Lindsay and I sung "Man" at karaoke. This production used the Broadway sets and the costumes were all from the Broadway mold as well--if you look at these photos, you can see, it's like looking at echoes.

I mean if you weren't around when this show was my favorite show( proof of the childlike wonder that used to live inside of me. )

So this Sunday morning I woke up, put on a nice sundress, put up my hair, put on my nice earrings and a nice necklace, too, met up with Liz and Lindsay and Andrea and we took the train out to Millburn, New Jersey for to see a matinee of one of my favorite things. Maybe we looked a little tired but that's only because we plus Chris were up until what, 2am? Just short of? Playing Risk. Losing Risk, most of us, but, just don't get involved in a ground-war in Alaska and we'll be fine from now on. Plus never let Australia go without a fight. (It's a woman's world.) Also we had deviled eggs and I made a damn good pasta primavera, because I cook. I cook, you guys. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about

The Full Monty. And it was good! I mean it can't touch the memories, c'mon, but the things were all there. Less the Jason Danieley dance. But it's just so sweet, such an infectiously affectionate show, not without its flaws but WHO AMONG US sorry who among us is. None! Among us. "Breeze Off The River," I always have and will continue to say. That's my jam. I'll sing it if you'd like. In particular I thought Wayne Wilcox was an excellent Jerry. It's a great part. He has long legs. It all works out.

Oh and--Elaine Stritch was there? In it, I mean? The show? Elaine Stritch, you remember her. Dropping lines left and right, sure, but selling it, and that's showbiz, kid. Don't rest.

Counting backwards, here's the rest of my week: sung karaoke for the second time in the week. Helped Christine paint her apartment. Ate popsicles. Saw Public Enemies. Went to a play reading. Aborted a plan to go see a coworker's softball game (rain). Sung karaoke for the first time in the week. Slept in.

And if anytime David Yazbek wants to debut a new musical, you know. I'm ready. My heart is open and I know how to spell his name.

Hey kiddos.

Today is the first day of summer. I know this for a couple of reasons. First, I passed Earth Science. Second, I am going to see Ted Leo later. I am going to see him play in the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hall at the Kearny Irish American Association. I'll let you take a moment to take that in. Huge, right? Anyway, it's fairly traditional for me to see a Ted Leo show around this time of year. Sometimes it's a touch later, but generally: a year's midpoint. Close to or on my birthday. So that is how I know that it is the first day of summer.

I am glad of it being summer because I am through with spring. I know that here on LiveJournal it is always au fait to be "done" with "things" like "seasons" and "years" but it never hurts to record these things, I think, on the day that you are most feeling it.

This week I took Fang to the vet to have a loose tooth checked out. The vet took one look at kitty's mouth and determined that kitty was (a) several years older than originally thought and (b) in need of dental surgery. Soon. So. I tearfully (yes, really) left him overnight on Surgery Day and retrieved him on Friday afternoon, his eyes wide and his mouth gummy. Apparently while he was a stray he lost quite a few teeth, and although they only removed three during the surgery (including his FANG!), he doesn't have a lot left to work with. I've hovered over him all weekend, dosing him with amoxicillin and apologizing. He spent the first night disoriented and stoned, doing circles between the bedroom and the kitchen, where he'd stare glassy-eyed at his empty bowl. Not demanding food. Just sitting. He's since graduated to long snoozes on and under the bed, but he's not himself yet. Poor Fangers.

Now that I know he's older than a year, I'm starting to suspect that his original owner was abusive. (Originally I thought he'd just been turned out of the house when he stopped being a kitten, but I wonder.) Although he hates the medication, he's not yet tried to claw or bite me, in fact, his reaction is to curl up into a tiny ball and wedge himself under my arm, ears flat and face sour. It's about the saddest goddamn thing I've ever seen, and far from the fighting words of other cats I've known.

(When I saw the vet bill, I also wanted to curl up in a tiny ball and wedge myself under someone's arm, so. I get where he's coming from. Between that bill and an Unexpected Expense At The Hands of Edison, New Jersey last month (the less said, the better), 2009 will be remembered as the year of staycations and library books. And that's not so bad, right?)

Last night I went to a wedding, my very first ever in Manhattan. I know! True, though. Dan and Kathryn treated us all to loft views in a lovely room, ridiculous cocktails and a professional photobooth in a vault. I mean. That's pretty sweet, you've got to admit, and a good way to chase out spring. It's funny, riding the subway in your evening best, clutching someone else's centerpiece and feeling like maybe iPod is inappropriate at this juncture, like you're in a particularly good position to capture what's going on around you and it's not the time to blot it out. A little more tolerant of the Saturday Blitzed. A little more okay with walking in the rain. It's public transit keeping us together, and I've got to go do battle with New Jersey's end of things right now. Later.

I want to talk to you about City History Club.

Possibly something I have told you, if we have spoken, is that I like museums. I like them a lot. I also like historical sites, and old things. As a child I liked these things to the point of preciousness--every old thing I encountered might be a secretly magic old thing! or at the very least a valuable old thing! or a historical old thing! -- so it was important to take good care. In my adult life, this adoration of museums and historical sites and whatnot has manifested itself strangely and repeatedly--like, for instance, did I ever tell you about the four months of my life during which I thought I might become an official New York City tour guide, and I even dropped a little money on a course at NYU so I could learn about what was required of official NYC guides and everything? Also how about that time I was solo in Paris and I took the opportunity to squelch some Major Impending Depression by visiting eight hundred thousand museums in four days? (OK: six museums, two churches, one graveyard. STILL.)

Not long ago I read a book by Sarah Vowell. In this book she mentions visiting Teddy Roosevelt's birthplace in Manhattan and also taking a Park Ranger-guided tour of said birthplace. The mention of this completely threw me. TR's birthplace in Manhattan? Park Rangers?? Unbelievable. Thought about it, filed it away. Then, not long after that, I happened to glance at the bulletin board in my local public library and I saw a flyer for something that sounded too amazingly good to be true: Alexander Hamilton's Birthday Party. There Would Be Cake. For some reason I did not have a pen or paper so I texted myself an email with key phrases so I would remember to Google the event once I got home.

Jan eleven five pm Hamilton birthday party nps.gov/npnh Hamilton Grange

( In which we form an organization and miss the cake. )

New Torchwood trailer, I guess? Boy does that look terrible.

So now that Toshiko and Owen have been canned, possibly Torchwood has decided to become The Shitty X-Files. Jack = Mulder. Gwen = Scully. Ianto? CLEARLY is Krycek. But, like, imaginary fanfic Krycek who is still hot but has been rehabilitated and makes out with Mulder all the time.

(Okay, no, probably Captain John Hart is Krycek. And Ianto is Pendrell.)

Fang is stressed and acting out in ways that require more laundry than I care to do. Bearing the brunt of it is my dear roommate, Eileen, who seems to come home just in time to find the incidents, while I am typically off galavanting somewhere. She kindly takes care of things and texts me and nods sympathetically when I eventually come home (DRUNK PROBABLY) and just complain for like an hour straight. So. Laurels to her, darts to me.

It's funny though how you can read a cat like you can read any person, like, when I got home last night he was just so visibly not okay with things, even though he wasn't, like, running off and hiding. He was just not happy with the world. I get it dude. So then I didn't sleep entirely last night because I kept waking up to make sure Fang was still nearby and then I would say soothing things and pet him and fall right back asleep mid-pet. Probably this did not help him, or maybe it did. What it did lead to was me dreaming about work, a lot, but not like "oh in my dream last night my boss was riding a unicorn" more like when I would wake up and be like "THE JOHNSON ACCOUNT!!!" and then remember I wasn't at work and it didn't matter.

Dreaming about work bothers me. Also: Feliway? Anyone?

Here is a link to one of my favorite television promos of all time. Is it possible that Six Feet Under was the first show I down-loaded on a regular basis? I think so.

So I have this friend. I'm not kidding. She's my friend and she's a graduate student at a school of art and design and things like that. And she's a graduate student, AND she's working on her senior thesis. The thesis, to me, sounds awesome: she wants to program an Internet-based application for writers. Something for writers to write in, both solo and collaboratively. With features. There are things out there right now that are like, you know, online word processors and Google Docs and whatnot, but this will turn up the creative a little bit, and appeal to anyone who likes to share drafts with friends or write round-robin style or I don't know just writers who like shiny things.

As she pulls together her proposal, she wants to be in touch with Actual People who Actually Write. And that's a lot of you. You! YOU! She has a list of questions to help her develop this project and I think a lot of you would be a great help to her. And in the long run, who knows. It might be the beginning of the most awesome thing you've ever used.

So if you're interested in participating (I believe the questions will be emailed and you'll just have a chance to write your long and detailed answers back), comment with your name and email address (name/email comments will be screened so the info won't be public). I promise this info will only go to her and that she won't use it for any sort of nefarious purpose; if she does I promise to go after her and drop her out of a window. I do this for you. I am that kind of person.

Also feel free to pass this on to any writerly friends of yours (non-lj folks can post as anonymous commenters, their info will still be screened). The wider the survey the more awesome the application, amirite?

Hey LiveJournal good morning to you!

Today is an exciting day. It is Friday, and above that, it is Feedback Friday. You know I've been doing this Internet fiction thing for a little while, and it's got me peering into other writing online--your serial novels, your short fiction, your fakebloggers. There's a lot of good stuff but unlike the fanfic community, there aren't a lot of instances where the people writing this stuff get together and have story-a-thons or exchanges or feedback sessions or betas or whatnot. Which is a shame because there's nothing lamer than writing something and throwing it into a pit full of people and hearing nothing back, right? Right.

So Pierce and I were talking about this and we devised Feedback Friday, a mostly-monthly meme-event where we would find a good piece of fiction online and write some substantial feedback for it. We'd email that to the writer, of course, and then post it on our own Tumblrs. We puppy-dog-eyed kfan to give it a go as well, and so today is the inagural round and we're keeping track of all of our posts on this central Feedback Friday Tumblr (side benefit: awesome way to find awesome stuff to read!).

I would really really really like it if other people joined in. Obviously it is short notice but don't be held back by our silly day of the week guideline. You can post feedback for the project at any time and we'll totally and absolutely link it (you can email us at fbfriday at gmail to let us know when/where you've done it). Or just start looking around for something you might want to talk about on the next go-round. I'll announce it here a few days before so you have more time to get ready.

Doing this kind of project on the Internet is bound to create disappointment in a way because the Internet likes to tend towards chaos, where "chaos" is "I would rather post something mean about your mother's voting habits than read online fiction" but I have to say that if nothing more comes out of this than I get myself in the habit of writing to writers, that's still a pretty successful thing. I'd be interested in hearing what you all think of the project, too, and if you have suggestions, bring 'em.