Do I wake or sleep?

Had a cute, cinematic experience last night. I was entering the building, and was walking behind a security guard who started to sing I know you want to leave me... and I piped up But I refuuuuse to let you go...He turned around and we started singing together until I reached the Tower C elevator bank. At this point we were in the chorus anyway--he was singing Ain't too proud to beg... and I was vocalizing the instrumental doo doo, doodoo, doo doo, doodoo... He said to me, "The Temptations..." and I said "I love the Temps!" As I turned into the door to my elevator bank, he said "Take care of yourself, sweetheart."

It was like something out of a movie!

Yes, it's getting hot out there. No, I will not take off all my clothes.

I had an audition today where I was called in to read for the part of a first-grader, so I was dressed in a short-ish black schoolgirl skirt, a white tee-shirt, white ankles socks, black Mary Janes and my hair in ponytails. I got there, did my thing, and as I was leaving, I took my hair out of the ponytails. I was in Chelsea, walking toward 6th Avenue to get to Bed, Bath & Beyond. I was getting a couple of sidelong looks, and then a guy on a bike passed me and said "soooo sexay!" to me. I'm not sure what that says, when someone who's deliberately trying to evoke "first grader" gets whistled at.

I got home and there were two little girls posted outside the door leading into my next-door neighbor's apartment. They were sitting there with the door open, and I said hello and asked if they lived there. They said yes and I said "Do you like cats?" They said yes, and I said "Well, I have two of them and if you want to visit them, just knock on the door." I went in and picked up Tibby and tried to take him into the doorway so they could pet him--they reached out and tried to pet him but he was having *none* of it and kicked and did StrugglePuss and finally I let him go. He really is much shyer than Tatia. Except when it COMES to Tatia!

I have a new air conditioner. AND a new mattress--a big beautiful new mattress, not a futon mattress, that feels fantastic. My apartment is soooooo pimped out.

So I went up to the new building this morning to pick up my copy of the executed lease. I thought I would also be able to get the keys, but they're still working on the apartment. The manager, Doryne, insisted on showing me the progress so far, however. It looks beautiful, even still in medias res. The hardwood floor has been laid down and there's molding where the floor meets the walls. The cabinets are all NEW NEW NEW, with lovely blond wood panels. They haven't yet installed the appliances--that will happen today--but the super, Andre, showed me my stove (black with a digital instrument panel) and my refrigerator (also black and HUGE--the biggest fridge I ever had, half again as big as the one I have now. When I compare to the tiny one I had in the apartment I had on 47th Street...). I also saw the new vanity sink which has lots of countertop space--my current one is a pedestal sink which looks lovely but has no room at the inn for my tons of makeup.

Doryne so far has been awesome, very proactive and informative. It's great because a big reason I'm moving is my disgust with my current management company. I had a chat with my (soon to be ex-) neighbor across the way--she's moving out next spring for the same reason. We commiserated about the dangling hallway light that blows out at least once a month--every time I call to report it, I tell them they overwired that section of the building, because the lights above my kitchen also blow out regularly, as did my toaster oven (which is now...toast). They don't care. They used to be great--when I lived in the other apartment on 47th Street they tackled problems right away--but they've really declined since then, and I think it was probably for a purpose--to drive out the rent-stabilized tenants so they can improve the apartments and jack up the rent. That's what they've done with several other apartments in the building. I must say, Doryne's aggressive approach in this new place allays my nervousness about being essentially a gentrification pioneer.

When I left the subway this morning on my way to the building, I was checking out the neighborhood. There's a laundry and a dry cleaner close by, plus a couple of cheap grocery stores (and I know the Harlem Fairway is on 134th). I did NOT see any nail places--MUST remember to map those out. Saw a couple of delis, and a $.99 store--woo hoo for cheap housewares! I only saw one restaurant, a Chinese place, in the two blocks from the subway to the bulding, but when I get more time I'm sure I'll find other places (I'm thinking about dinner for my movers tomorrow night). I know the Sugar Hill Bistro is not far away--I definitely want to try that. Oh, and I did see a few other pale-faces like myself but we definitely stand out--as I passed by, one guy called (but nicely, not familiarly/sleazily) "Hola! Rubia!" I almost turned around to smile and say "Si, yo soy una rubia, hola tu mismo!" but I needed to hurry. I'm sure we'll cross paths again.

I was so insanely hot last night that I woke up at 6:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. I got as close as I could to the fan but nothing helped, so I finally tossed a pillow and a sheet down to the floor of the bedroom and crawled down from the left, to sleep on the floor of the living room in the blessed COOL. Aaauugh...I will be doing that again tonight.

The bifurcated layout of my apartment, combined with the location of the loft, means that where I sleep is by design the warmest spot in the apartment. I can take or leave A/C a lot of the time (I get cold so easily) but I MUST have it at night during the summer--I cannot sleep in the heat.

Update on the Terrible Tabbies: Tatiana has been on the Zoloft-for-cats medication for almost a month. It's gotten MUCH easier administering it to her, thank God--no more epic struggles to get her to open her clenched and growly jaws to drop down the tiny tablet. She knows by now she'll get lots of headskritches afterward. And the medications seems to be working--she is less hissy, a little more mellow around her little brother, although she still does give him attitude. But thank goodness she's at least a little calmer! It was terrible before, very stressful.

I ventured into the wilds of Hoboken last night to have a drink with Mike and Holly. They are planning another sailing trip this winter, and invited me along--they're going to Belize this time, rather than the BVI. It sounds like a fantastic time--I can't imagine anything I'd rather do than lie on the deck of a boat, soaking up sun in a lil' bikini with a drink in my hand, hanging out with cool people. My grandmother had a yacht when we lived in Fort Lauderdale and I used to go out on that when I was a little kid--many pictures of me at that age on the yacht. I miss it--I love being on the water (heck, I was born on the water--Coronado, California!). I am seriously tempted.

My apartment complaints have been addressed, to some extent. After my last entry on the subject, wherein I stopped by the office in person to show them pictures of the Cabrini-Green mess into which my apartment was rapidly devolving, the property manager promised to send someone the next day (that is, Thursday) to take care of it. This didn't happen. I called them up Thursday evening and left a sharply worded message involving phrases like "I expect this to be taken care of" and "I pay a lot of money to live here." I gave them explicit instructions on where to go in the apartment (I think, re: the leaks, they've just been patching them up on the roof, which doesn't take care of the internal degradation. And it doesn't seem to help the leaks anyway--they're still dripping when it rains) and I left them signs on the door to the apartment, and up in the loft. Explicit, hard-to-miss sign, with arrows and highlight headers. It seems to have worked--they came on Friday and the loft looks much better. The other two problems were that the light in the foyer was out (after last fall, with that terrible rain, that has happened a lot--every time it rains for any length of time, lots of plaster comes fluttering down from the ceiling, and then it starts dripping, and of course the light shorts out). Sigh. This was fixed on the Friday visit. The third problem was that there was very low water pressure in the bathtub faucet, making showers a problem--this was not fixed, but they did promise to return on Monday.

I woke up this morning to the sounds of them stomping around on top of the roof. (I'd actually slept through the alarm so this was a good thing.) Poor Tibby was terrified; he was cowering between the futon mattress and the wall, shivering from the big clompy sounds. Precious baby, he's so fewocious around horrible feather toys but when it's outside his comfort zone he reverts to the kitten he still is. Tatia of course was all blase about the sounds, cleaning her paws demurely. I woke up, realized it was almost 10 am, and called the person for whom I'm working today who was supercool about it. She actually said to take my time, and I could even shower if I needed to (I did). I have such a hard time sleeping at this time of year, and last night it took me over an hour to fall asleep.

Speaking of--I had the most vivid nightmare Saturday night, about a plane crash right in front of me. I remember I was on a wide open space, like a tarmac, and it was dark and cloudy as though it were about to storm. Looking to the left I saw in the sky a jet streaking across the sky, and then it suddenly was plunging toward the earth, although at a diagonal and cutting this way and that, the way a flat object will fall underwater, but still moving very fast. It hit the tarmac very hard and was skidding very fast toward this building. I remember watching it, my eyes wide open and all around me people were saying "Oh my God!" and I was thinking "this is really happening--I am watching people die, I am watching a major disaster." I was shocked but not immobilized--I realized immediately what was happening (which is par for the ocurse--the few times I've been in emergencies I do not panic but am pretty calm). I remember running away because the plane hit the tarmac so hard, bits of the plane broke off, hit the building and rebounded and flew over the tarmac, and I thought it might hit me. Very, very vivid dream--I can still feel it. It would make a great image for a movie.

I entered my building last night right behind another resident, Fran, who lives on the second floor. She was telling me about the weird lady on the first floor who yells at people through the door. Apparently she really IS weird and has been in the hospital a couple of times already this month. Fran also said she's had problems with alcohol. My latest annoyance with her (besides the screaming through the door when the door slams and we don't struggle to make sure it closes quietly--it's heavy as hell and slams on its own) is her constantly leaving SHIT out in the hallway. There is always something out there--right now it's a chair and a metal grocery cart. For a couple of days her fucking mattress was sticking most of the way out of her door, blocking the hallway. I called the landlord about that.

So, Fran filled me in, and I complained about the lady. I mentioned Duncan and Doug's encounter with her, and complained that my friends shouldn't have to be harassed. She said she'd witnessed that, and had nothing but good things to say about you guys--said you were very polite and tactful. Which really wasn't my point (of course you were polite) but was nice to hear. She said I should complain to Milt, although I'm not sure what he can do. She's not really breaking the law, and if she's sort of crazy, I don't think anything Milt says will make a difference. Fran mentioned her cat so I had to meet the kitty, who looks like a mixture of Calico and Russian blue. She was all ducking her head under my hand for head skritches, and then dancing away. Quite the head skritch tease.

I bought a camp chair and set it out on my fire escape this evening. I made myself a margarita, popped in a Peggy Lee CD and just...felt it, out on my fire escape. I sipped my drink, and looked up at the sky, listened to the sounds of the city (an ambulance, cries in the night, mostly silence) and enjoyed the beautiful Peggy Lee. Never knew how mu-uch I loved you/Never knew how mu-uch I cared... Dreaminess...wonderfulness...embracing the outside, the air, the sounds...it was so, so lovely. There are no words.

I love my horrible feline creature, HIH Tatiana Clarovna Greenskaia, but I have a complaint: she is such a bed hog. I woke up this morning kind of twisted around, and realized she was sprawled in the middle of the space I usually occupy, taking up absolutely as much space as possible, dead to the world. Sometimes she'll sleep above my head on a pillow but usually it's manifest destiny for cats.

I just pay the rent--this is her apartment.

Yay for Chris! We don't know what he did but somehow I have internet access again. Yay!

I'm curled up at home, knitting, decorating, watching TV and making ice cream. I'm scalding the milk right now--in a bit, I'll have to bundle up and trudge down to the corner to get some ice (you pack it around the ice cream canister when you're churning the mixture).

Heavy snowfall is a different experience here in the city. We don't have to worry about getting around--the subway still runs. The landlord is responsible for shoveling the sidewalk. And the closest grocery store is on the corner, so no frantic bread and milk runs. It's all just fun.

Saturday I was able to sleep late, until 12:30. I slugged around the apartment for awhile, struggling to wake up, and then I scrubbedscrubbedscrubbed the place. It is clean. Finally around 5:30 I left to get a manicure and pedicure. The thing is, when I sleep so late my day is cut in half and I can't do most of the things I want to. I couldn't tan, or make the ice cream, or update my resume. Annoying!

I feel a deep sense of relief that my evenings are relatively free, and soon my days will be as well. Sleeping in Tomorrow was not what I'd hoped--I really don't think my vision was realized on stage and it's incredibly frustrating. Yes, a chunk of that was due to Ehud the Unprofessional Shmactor but sadly, L___ and W___ were not what I'd hoped either. W___ was doing an okay--not great but serviceable--job until the run started and then he started overmotivating every line. Dude, we worked on this. Remember? We had several rehearsals where I talked about how things were supposed to sound. Extremely frustrating. L_____ was even more frustrating, because she's genuinely talented, but a flake. She simply cannot remember direction, or rather it takes more time to drill it into her than I had.

But. The bulk of the disappointment must be reserved for that unprofessional piece of shit, Ehud Segev. He showed up late, as in 2 minutes before curtain late. (And he showed up 25 minutes late for a rehearsal, munching on pizza nonchalantly.) He changed blocking and lines at will. He consistently tried to pull focus. His line readings suck. "She DIDN'T choke on ONE of mah TOFU-balls, did SHE?" "Still, you should never, NEVER speak of fame disparagingly." He never did his homework--didn't learn either his lines or his notes. Nor did he ever bother to learn the correct pronunciation for his children's names. He talked loudly enough on his cell phone backstage to be heard by actors onstage (unspeakably inconsiderate). He thinks he's the shit as an actor, and therefore argued with every goddamn thing I told him to do. And worst of all, his attitude sucks ass. He doesn't care about the craft, about creating art or even a workable performance piece. He just cares about how he looks, and promoting his stupid show. Ehud Segev, get out of the business. You don't belong here. Stick to pulling pencils out of your nose.

I hope his name is Googled by potential directors, and this comes up. I thought I was resigned to how shitty his work had been, and how much he'd tainted the experience for me, until yesterday, talking to Susan about it. I was literally shaking, I was getting so angry. I gave everyone in the cast my traditional duckling gift (this time, they were duckling bathtub stickers) and for the first time I left out a cast member. I didn't make a big ceremony of it, I simply pulled people aside and gave them their duckling, so I didn't embarrass him--oh wait, since he didn't show up until 5 minutes to curtain, I'm sure it didn't matter. But I simply cannot be a hypocrite and pretend "Hey, no hard feelings," even to be polite. I can't do it. There are hard feelings.

Anyway. Breathe in, breathe out. Let the anger go.

The Shakespeare showcase is gonna be awesome.