A Cry For Help, Right Next To the Ice Cream

I'm kind of worried about Seth, you guys.

He keeps putting stuff in the freezer.

I mean, it was fine at first, when it was just the tofu, alcohol, and coffee. Then a few weeks ago, I discovered his suit coat chilling with them during a routine snack check. He'd worn it out the night before, so I suspiciously dismissed it on grounds of drunken absentmindedness. I can't even count the amount of times I've woken up the next morning with star-shaped stickers on my face, bags of chips I didn't remember buying, only wearing one shoe, with vomit maybe not all in the toilet. Pretty tame, I know, but comparable to a frozen suit coat. He told me later that the night before, someone got gum on the sleeve and he knew that sticking it in the freezer would make the gum easier to remove. It was gone after a few days, and I forgot about the whole incident.

Until this morning, that is, when I found a stack of records snuggling next to each other by the icy wall. They were a bunch of old vinyl in their old original sleeves: Best of Sondheim, Xanadu, Sinatra in Pal Joey, Edwin Drood. He'd hung them up in his room two different ways in the two months we've lived here, and now they've been degraded to this. And the level in that Ketel One bottle hasn't gone down a millimeter.

Please, Seth. You know that you can always come to me, especially if you have a problem. I'm here for you, whatever it is. We'll figure out what to do. I just don't want to be the first to get there if we ever get a cat.

Good Job, Good Pay

They're promoting me at work to "keyholder." I began training two days ago, and there's very little difference in the actual tasks assigned to me. It means that I get there at 5:30 AM instead of 6 for the three or four mornings out of the week that I open the store. I unlock the door, set out the muffins after checking in the deliveries, occasionally do a supply order, make a dollar more an hour that I used to, and my name is listed on the company circulars of "staff," right under the assistant manager's.

I couldn't help but feel a little filthy about moving up the ladder of corporate inconsequentiality; this is probably due to residual postadolescent distrust of authority and fear of somehow losing my underdog street cred to those I now "outranked." This is probably also why I ended up listening to four different Pink Floyd albums before noon. Five if you count The Wall as two, which I don't really.

One of my friends' creative writing professors told her that he used to work at Taco Bell for several summers as a teen, but when they started talking to him about moving into upper management, he knew it was time to find another job. I used to mock my boss at TB (the second boss I had, that is), because he was a cocky little shit about being the manager of a measly link in the fast food chain. Part of me scorns the apparent injustice of having authority over someone just because of a few extra responsibilities, or a month extra seniority, or a few more kisses on the ass. I can't shake my bitterness over how arbitrary some advantages in life are, and how some people can be comparable in intelligence and work ethic, but one is given the leg up because they were born into money or had better connections--and gets an overinflated ego about something of miniscule consequence.

Part of me likes the extra responsibility even more because it caters to my inner control nut who will savor the hell out of the half hour of solitude that I'll have to make sure everything is convenient, stocked, and perfect, and the full confidence that this will be done because I will have done it myself. I'm worried that these tendencies will reveal that I'm more suited for upper management than I ever thought, or wanted to be, possible.

I Could Have Maybe Possibly Seen Paul McCartney Yesterday, In Theory, Like Hypothetically

I was having dinner with Lindsay at a Mexican restaurant, and she started telling me about the show that her roommate was in, which we were going to see afterwards.

"It's a performance piece--it's called 18/6, like eighteen-slash-six. There are projections, and people painting circles onto a canvas, and other stuff. It was done in 1959, and they're doing it again because of some anniversary thing with it. The playwright was really, really specific on how he wanted everything to be done, like he wrote out the exact movements, and dimensions of the set, and timing and audience instructions, and how many years after his death it would have to be before he would authorize it being re-released. It was this really underground thing back then, and for some reason it got really popular. They were hoping it would stay more underground, but the mainstream got word of it, and all the nights are sold out. It's kind of a really big deal." She looked a little sheepish. "Oh, yeah, and also, the guy who's painting circles on the canvas, it's going to be Paul McCartney--"

I choked on my tamale.

"--but not tonight, it's just a dress rehearsal, he'll be there another night. I guess that's how important an event this is supposed to be."

We took the subway to Queens and walked about six blocks, when we came upon a gaggle of warehouse spaces at a dead end overlooking the East River. Lindsay said to "look for one with the garage door half open," which made the event sound more eerily "underground." We entered and saw what looked like the skeleton of a really small house, with transparent plastic stapled to the frame to make walls, red and white and sometimes blue light bulbs lining the top beams, and divided with the transparent plastic into three rooms. They gave us brightly colored cards with handwritten instructions on which rooms to go for parts 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6. I was in room 2 for the first two parts.

Imagine your typical performance piece. Stereotypical, even. This was it. The actors entered, walking slowly to a beat. There was atonal music. They moved linearly and robotically, turning at right angles. They did some poses. One guy said monosyllabic words at irregular intervals. They left as they entered. Two minutes later, two actors re-entered, stood on opposite ends, and read two different speeches--on "art" and "time/perspective" that occasionally overlapped.

I switched rooms. The actors entered again. One girl stopped in front of me, grinned grotesquely, and began mechanically, rhythmically bouncing a small rubber ball. At one point she fumbled and it rolled by my feet. She held out her hand simply, her eyes imploring. I gave it back, and she resumed the bouncing. I wondered if it was part of the show. The actors came back, lined up, and screeched a few notes on some instruments--a small banjo, a kazoo, a recorder, and a violin. I switched rooms.

They re-entered. Some posed again, one stood by a projector while slides shuffled, one marched back and forth in front of a mirror, stopping every so often to brush his teeth or straighten his tie, and one squeezed oranges into juice and drank it. They exited. They re-entered. They pulled down scrolls of paper from a bar, read the different monosyllabic words on them all at once, and then marched off. It was over.

Lindsay and I left. She looked at me quizzically. "There were so many metaphors," I said wearily. We laughed. One of the girls afterwards made a remark about how it was "obviously" social commentary. I didn't get the obvious part, but I can go back in places and see where it could have been.

What I got from it was that performance art is not really my cup of tea. But I understand where it fits in the spectrum of theatre. I once visited a boyfriend when he was working at a theater in rural Indiana, where they essentially did choreographed musical revues for old people. The one I saw had a circus theme, and took 90 minutes worth of songs out of context in order to loosely wrangle them around elephants and trapeze artists. Thay even threw in "Send in the Clowns" because it had "clown" in the title. My boyfriend at the time complained about working there, saying that it wasn't what he wanted to be doing, that this wasn't art, he wasn't "creating" anything or making people think. Which was true; it was theatrical Cheez Whiz, icing, full-fat mayonnaise, purely for pleasure and stress-free entertainment, requiring no mental commitment.

Last night was the exact opposite. It forced you to not only forge connections for yourself, but decide where they would be forged, and when, and what the metaphors stood for, and if there was even any meaning at all. It was like they gave you a glass, a cow, some spices, pasturizing instructions, and then a hollow book of Les Miserables with a soggy Fig Newton inside. What I saw could have been very, very deep and over my head, or it could have been some playwright laughing his ass off at the thought of five actors walking around like robots and bleating nonsense. It reminded me of a story Rachel once told me, of a guy who one a poetry contest with a poem that consisted of one word: apple. The sponsors justified this because they said his poem made you question what a poem was, and what it meant that this was being classified as "good" or "winning" poetry, etc, etc. Or it could have been some frat guy who did it on a drunken whim.
Regardless, it suceeded in facilitating discussion and brainstorming between the two of us, even if it was only on the nature of what constitutes art and legitmacy and how we both preferred the middle ground, like Shakespeare, which I guess would be like fine Cheddar. Or Moliere, which could be Brie. Neil Simon would be American. Andrew Lloyd Webber--maybe Kraft singles.

The show is sold out for its entire run. Tickets ran around $250. I can't exactly call them suckers, though, because some of those lucky shits will actually get to see Paul McCartney.

Goodbye, Dukum Tuesday

Last night was my last Tuesday Night Karaoke With Wendy.

It passed quickly, which is either indicative of how much fun I had (the amount of which surpassed the weight of a herd of T-Rexes on Jupiter) or Wendy's reluctance to start karaoke without Ron and Randy being there right at the beginning. Both are probably true.

Clint came with two CDs full of downloaded karaoke songs, most of which I would have loved to sing. I chose "Octopus's Garden" by the Beatles because it made me the happiest. I made requests for Clint to sing "Born to Run," Jared to sing "The Lady is a Tramp," and Aaron to sing "Come to Papa." Due to the enormous volume of patrons, however, the only one that happened was the first.

I sipped two Bloody Marys full of vegetables while Randy sang "The One," Jason sang "New York State of Mind," and Max sang "Your Song."

I bought Justin a drink in exchange for him singing "Other Side," convinced Liz put in a song, and hated myself for perpetuating all that "You just have to sing!" crap which I despise.

I never had time to step outside. I never got to talk to Gina, Ron's wife, and tell her I was leaving in a week.

Jared, Aaron, and Clint collaborated on "Hey Jude." It's one of my favorite memories.

I put down "New York, New York" to be my second song despite the potential cheese factor, but due to a special request from Dereck, Wendy changed it to "Don't Stop Believing."

Karaoke in Kirksville is strange. It becomes a cultish habit. I feel particularly queasy at the moment for even devoting a post to a topic so shallow as this, even more so for actually listing the songs. I don't know why it's such a big deal other than that it's an excuse to socialize on a weekday and this condition is recognized among my immediate aquaintances; I don't know why I've gone almost every week for the past two and a half years and it's become a ritual steadfast enough to make plans around, other than that for every night that is gratingly lame, there is one that becomes a warm beery haze or laughing stumbles to my apartment afterwards. But like everything else, for better or worse, I'll miss it when it's gone.

The Opposite of Dust Bowl Blues

Oh the chlorine turned my hair green
But it can't kill me, Lord, no it can't kill me.

I did it. I touched the bottom of the twelve foot. No magic fix, no "wake-up-and suddenly-I-could; I went in yesterday and practiced over and over until, after swallowing a wading pool's worth of water, I got it. Today were the CPR, written, and skills tests. They mail me my certification in a month, even though orientation is on Monday. I actually get paid for being there.

Earrings and Shakespeare aside, I haven't felt this accomplished since I fixed JavaCo's toilet myself without having to call anyone. It gives me hope that work and effort really do make a difference, not just "raw talent" or "natural aptitude."

Next step: make it through Free Bird on Guitar Hero.