what's in a name?

I keep confusing Warren Buffet
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/warrenbuffet.asp

and Jimmy Buffet
http://www.margaritaville.com/

I think it would be best if they were somehow the SAME person.
Geneticists: Get to work!

He is risen

Happy Easter.

I ate not one but two(!) hot-cross-buns for breakfast, but that's the beginning and end of my Easter celebration.

This is a year during which I have become increasingly irritated with, even angered by, Christanity.

I was raised in the Presbyterian church, was confirmed, I even taught Sunday school . . .

But the Church, as far as I know it, is a huge let down. It wants money. It wants to make rules that are more about excluding people than about loving one another. It wants to be right all the time.

So this year, I'm trying to think of Jesus as just a really great guy - like Martin Luther King, Jr. - who did a lot of great stuff and had an incredible capacity to love his fellow humans and made a huge impact on our world . . . because it isn't his fault what the Church has become.

Ninja training

I'm just saying:
If they train crazy-great-warriors by making them fight blindfolded,
then somewhere, someone should get trained without a sense of smell.
Maybe without a sense of taste.
I think it would be funny.
ahem.
I mean . . . effective in honing their ninja skills . . .

the song i'm listening to over and over and over . . .

I hope that our few remaining friends give up on trying to save us
I hope we come out with a fail-safe plot to piss off the dumb few that forgave us
I hope the fences we mended fall down beneath their own weight
and I hope we hang on past the last exit
I hope it's already too late
and I hope the junkyard a few blocks from here someday burns down
and I hope the rising black smoke carries me far away
and I never come back to this town again
In my life I hope I lie and tell everyone you were a good wife
and I hope you die
I hope we both die

I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow
I hope it bleeds all day long
Our friends say it's darkest before the sun rises
We're pretty sure they're all wrong
I hope it stays dark forever
I hope the worst isn't over
and I hope you blink before I do
and I hope I never get sober
and I hope when you think of me years down the line you can't find one good thing to say
and I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out, you'd stay the hell out of my way
I am drowing
there is no sign of land
you are coming down with me - hand in unlovable hand
and I hope you die
I hope we both die

THE MOUNTAIN GOATS

ups and downs

i woke up this morning filled with stress and anxiety. a letter i needed to write and mail out to a number of people before heading off to my internship wasn't written. it didn't get written before i left.
i went to intern knowing that i had a day of drudgery if not total frustration ahead of me.
i felt the bad day coming on, and i figured the best i could do was roll with it and hope for the best.

things started looking up when i went out for lunch around 2:00.
today was a beautiful, warm, hint-of spring day and i walked a little farther and calmed down and felt better.
then i went back inside and discovered that my silly want ad got published on reallysmalltalk, which is entertaining.
and then the lady about the PBS thing called and I seem to be IN! which is fun.
and then the director friend called and offered me a part in a staged reading which is great news since, as an actor, i always think i'll never work again.

so the day was looking really good.

and then i went on the blind date.

fortunately, he wasn't offensive or unplesant.
unfortunately he was the most vanilla human being i've ever met.
fortunately, i got the perfunctory kiss on the cheek and jetting off in the other direction.
so i think he and i saw eye to eye on how the date went.

what a day.

babysitting

Last night's babysitting activities:
- playing with the doll house
- throwing the giant ball up in the air and catching it and saying "got it!"
- playing with the car park/car wash and washing all of the "muck" off of the cars
- "flying" both on the arm of the chair and on my feet up in the air
- spinning around on the floor on our bottoms
- immitating animals, the first letters of which make up the alphabet (my favorite: octopus)
- doing the hokey pokey (i had not recalled putting my shoulders or hips in or out previously)
- "fishing" for the shark i drew on the magna-doodle
- a sun salutation
- reading a book
- picking out music to fall asleep to
- saying good night

gratitude

I live in New York - a hard city.
I'm an actor - a difficult profession.
Lots of icky things happen to and around me on a regular basis.

Yet

I feel so grateful most of the time. So lucky. So blessed.
Like last week, I had the worst day ever, but at the very end, I found myself in the mixing pit at the Bowery Ballroom watching an amazing show. And I thought "am I really here? Is this MY life? How did this happen?" Or, yesterday, I had another tough day, but then I had this long and affirming and deeply enjoyable phone conversation with my friend Mike and I hung up and I thought "If I were religious, I would have to fall down and thank God for people like Mike in my life."

Every so often, I wonder if I'm too easily pleased and, Mike's awesomeness aside, if I shouldn't raise my standards . . . expect more.

I don't know . . . this seems to be working for the moment . . .

hard day

Today I want to:

• Hit my head against the wall
• Kick through some plate glass
• Vomit all over myself
• Cry uncontrollably
• Go to bed

also on death and dying

i miss my dad
and i think about him
every day
all the time
and i don't know how to talk about him
so sometimes
maybe even often
the subject comes up awkwardly
but somewhere
and so, for a start, here
it ought to be said
that he is loved
and missed
by me

on death and dying

Today, I had occasion to look up the five stages of dying.

I came across some words of Kubler-Ross's which, roughly paraphrased, were: know that everything has its purpose.

So I've been thinking about the puzzle pieces:
The mom. The dad. The brother. The grandmother.
The education.
The boys.
The good friends.
The not-so-good friends.
The job.
The apartment.
The cat.
The secrets.

What seems clear to me is that, yes, everything has its purpose, and that we can never know what that purpose truly is. To guess at the purpose of something seems as naive and facile as a child, watching television, who believes that the actors are small people in that particular box. It isn't our fault that we're infants, but it doesn't help us, either, to cling to wrong ideas and ways of thinking.

blemish

what i say to myself: it's just a pimple. it will go away. everyone gets pimples. people understand. no one is judging you for this. it isn't your fault. it's just a pimple . . .

what the boy says to me: WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HEAD!?!?!?

gah.