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Monday, March 31, 2003
Find the Costochondritis
For a few weeks I've had a pain in my ribcage from all the coughing the bug I had earlier in the month had me doing. A few times in the past I've pulled the same muscle after nasty bouts with the flu or bronchitis, only it didn't seem to last this long before. I'd been toying with the idea of maybe getting an x-ray after a co-worker suggested that maybe I had cracked or bruised a rib. Then this afternoon a nurse from the clinic I went to for the cystitis I had around the same time phoned me because they are closing down and wanted to make sure I had followed up on the antibiotic they had prescribed so they could close my file. Ever the opportunist, I asked about the pulled muscle, specifically how long I could expect to be in pain, now that my cough has abated. The over-the-phone diagnosis: costochondritis. Prognosis: I can expect to be hurting for a few more weeks. Recommended treatment: anti-inflammatories. Pretty much what I've been taking already. No advice on how to keep two cats from stepping on the sore spot as I sleep, though.
P.S. No callback from yesterday's audition but that is neither a surprise nor a huge disappointment. I went only for the experience and am much richer for it.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
4:49 PM
The Early Audition
Chalk up another first. This morning I auditioned for a DC improv troupe, having been alerted to the open call by a fellow ComedySportz student. Mind you, I have never auditioned before for anything theatrical, ever. I hadn't even planned on trying out at all until a different fellow student who was auditioning asked me if I was and pooh-poohed my disclaimer of "oh, I'm not ready for that kind of thing yet." Nothing ventured nothing gained, so I signed up midweek for an 11:30 slot that would get me there and back in time for this afternoon's regularly scheduled class in Arlington. I stressed more about how to get to the non-street-parking-friendly location in DC on a Sunday morning than I did about the actual audition. Of course, the FAQs provided by the troupe said there was no way to prepare -- it's improv. I slept peacefully last night and woke up thinking only "cool, I get to do improv twice today!" I Metro'd to the theater and arrived earlier than expected. Sundays are iffy with public transport timing but it worked out. On a weather-related note, I had hoped it wouldn't be quite as warm as yesterday (mid-70s) so I wouldn't wilt during the potentially stuffy subway ride in. Be careful what you wish for -- today the temp is in the 30s and it is snowing. Snowing, I say.
But I got to the theater in one piece, having briefly panicked upon leaving the Metro station that I had left my umbrella on the train because it wasn't in my left hand where I had been carrying it, only to realize that it was in my right hand and open above me. Good, Sandra.
Since I was early I was asked if I wouldn't mind going in with the 11:00 group. Sure, why not? There were 9 of us, all perhaps nervous on some level but not really showing it, all there to above all have fun. About a dozen members of the regular troupe were there and did a warmup exercise with us then we started, first with a two-person scene and then with a 60-second monologue. I was in the first pair up for the two-person scene. As I have done in the workshop shows, I forgot about having an audience watching me and just had fun. Got some big laughs and felt immediately at home with my partner, who I had just met 10 seconds earlier. I didn't feel as good about my monologue, but I didn't feel badly about it either. Overall I felt that I held my own among the group of hopefuls, not standing out as exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. If I don't get a callback I won't cry into my pillow. It was fun and that's what it's all about.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
2:13 PM
Sit Down Young Ranger, Part Deux
As I left the office garage yesterday I saw that the guard on duty at the street entrance had upgraded from a metal folding chair to a padded office chair with wheels. As I stopped to wait for a break in traffic I rolled down the window and asked him if he was worried about rolling backwards out of control down the steep sloped driveway. He laughed politely and shook his head. And no doubt made note of my license number as I drove off.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:32 PM
Belt Up, Part Deux
Took the ol' motorcar into the shop today to get the squealing belts silenced, making a point of saying that they had been "fixed" at the same establishment some weeks ago. Result: it was not the belts themselves but a pulley of some description at fault and I have been assured that it has been put to rights. (Question: why didn't they check that last time around?) I was charged a fraction of the last bill, plus which they fixed for nothing another problem I hadn't even mentioned: a rattling sound from under the chassis that my brother had diagnosed as a loose heat shield. While "heat shield" reminds me of the plight of John Glenn aboard Friendship 7, as dramatized in The Right Stuff, my bro assured me it was nothing to worry about, so I didn't. Still, the mechanic tightened it for me and now I have a quiet car once more. This is important, as I'm sure I've miffed many neighbors with my noisy comings and goings, mostly goings. As I whispered into a parking spot just a few yards from someone's bedroom window at 10pm tonight I mentally patted myself on the back for being a Good Quiet Neighbor. Then as I was getting out I accidentally hit the horn. D'oh. My mom often used to tell me that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. At least I'll be travelling that road at a lower volume these days.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:29 PM
Ok, this should cure me of E!
As explained in a previous post, I've recently started paying closer attention than before to fluffy entertainment "news" as a means of escape. Accordingly, last night I tuned into E!'s 7pm Entertainment Update, or whatever it calls itself, as an alternative to Friends, because FOX is apparently now just showing the last 2 seasons over and over and over again instead of going back to the vintage mid-90s shows. Oh, and because I tend to be brain-dead at that hour. So reading a book, writing something clever, or interacting with my fellow human beings is right out, ok?
Anyway, the infotainment reporter guy reported with a straight face and no apparent trace of irony -- which I usually pick up on even if not implied -- said the following: "Well, as of today, CNN no longer stands for "Connie Chung Network."
Dude, your network is named after a letter; can't you be bothered to remember the rest of the alphabet?
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
2:11 PM
Stomach-churning butter
On my way to work this morning I saw an empty open-racked trailer thingy parked behind the Food Star. A sign across the top proclaimed "We Don't Sell Loose Butter." Well, thank god. I smiled the rest of the way to the office, as the sign brought to mind a Bloom County cartoon from Loose Tails, wherein a militant grocery clerk is terrorizing her customers by accusing them of squeezing their Charmin and the like. To one little old lady she bellows "You broke up a box of butter cubes didn't you?" The old lady apologizes and offers to put it back but it's too late; a be-hooded, axe-wielding executioner beckons.
Once at work I went to Manhattan Bagel for a salt toasted with butter to combat a raging sinus headache (but hey, that means it's springtime!) I've learned to order the butter on the side, as otherwise they tend to slather the same amount of butter on the bagel halves as they would cream cheese, i.e. an artery-clogging quantity that would win the approval of a Bloom County grocery clerk. Even the side-order portion is too much: they pack to the brim a plastic container about the size of the medicine cup that comes with a bottle of NyQuil, when only a fraction of that is necessary for sufficient bagel butterage, even when one spreads it on thick. Which I don't. Every time I discard the unused portion of the side tub o' butter I am haunted by visions of a beckoning executioner. But then the same would be true if I consumed it all in one sitting.
Of course I really ought to opt for jelly instead, but then one encounters the opposite problem: they only give you 2 little packets that barely cover one half of a hand-made bagel.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:09 PM
Sit down, young ranger
Ever since the war started, there has been a security guard posted at each street entrance to the parking garage at work. They are from the pool that works the inside of the building as well, checking badges by the elevators and so forth. For this new posting they don't appear to be armed with anything extra, save a metal folding chair. I'm really not sure what they would/could do in the event that whatever they're there to protect us from showed up. Car bomb? How would they know? What would they do if they did know -- throw the folding chair at it? Try to get the license number before the building collapsed on top of them? Direct the driver to the information desk to pick up a badge before entering the building?
This is not to disparage the guards themselves. They are to a man (and woman) very nice people. I rather feel sorry for the ones that have pulled garage-entrance duty, although at least the weather is warming up and it hasn't rained too much lately. I give them a friendly wave as I drive in and out so they know I'm a) sympathetic and 2) mostly harmless. Except for my car's #^&$ timing belts, which have commenced to squealing again. I wonder if one of the off-duty guards would accompany me to the garage that "fixed" the belts a few months ago. Yeah, and bring that folding chair, wouldya? I might want to apply it upside a mechanic's head.
P.S. Anyone who can correctly identify the source of this post's title wins my admiration and can revel in the knowledge that they are as much of a geek as I am.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:53 PM
Too much female stuff information
I experienced menstrual synchronization with my mother when I was a teen and with every female roommate I've had as well as with many female coworkers. One of my roommates became pregnant while we were on the same cycle and nine months later I acted as her labor coach. Interestingly or perhaps just coincidentally, the day she gave birth my period started. I remember this clearly because my friend was set up nicely with an epidural for her pains while I was reduced to begging at the nurses' station for a lousy ibuprofen tablet for mine.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:07 PM
No escape
I needed a psychological break from war coverage last night, so I watched 1991's Thelma and Louise on DVD, avec commentary by the two stars and the screenwriter. So what do I hear? Susan Sarandon talking about how she invited a group of Middle Eastern women to a private screening when the movie came out -- during what is now being called Gulf War I.
On kind of a related note, I have been following the film awards shows this season more closely than I have since I was a kid. Most years I don't even care who is up for what award and even this year I've only seen one movie in a theater, period. Still, given the times and stress I've felt, both universal and personal in nature, I suppose I can indulge in a little cinematic escapism. So while I'm tuned into CNN a bit more these days than usual I'm also flipping over to E! at least once a night, a huge increase over my usual 0% time spent watching that particular network. I even had to look it up in the cable chart to get the right channel.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:28 PM
There is no Santa Claus
Not atop Bob and Edith's Diner, anyway. Santa came down (finally) sometime before St. Patrick's Day. Good thing, as I was gonna have to recommend fitting him out with some shamrocks and a shillelagh.
And yeah, I had to look up the proper spelling of "shillelagh".
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:20 PM
Beast of Birdin'
I have a problem with a Quizno's commercial making the rounds these days, the one with the "chef" who is so intent on getting a sandwich recipe just right that he ignores everything else in his life. What bothers me tremendously is that one of the consequences of his single-mindedness is shown to be a dead parakeet, presumably starved to death by its forgetful owner. I mentioned my disdain for this cavalier depiction of supposed animal neglect to an improv classmate who countered with "Yeah, but you like the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch, don't you?" Hmmm, good point, BUT: the cause of the parrot's death is never an issue; it's already pushing up the daisies when the sketch begins. The Quizno's parakeet is similarly dead from the get-go, but the implication is clearly that his owner was too busy to care for him properly and isn't that cute? Cruelty to animals is admittedly one of my "third rail" topics, yet I am appalled with two "p"s over this. Certainly one of the motivating factors is some deep-seated guilt I feel to this day over two guinea pigs I neglected to death when I was 9 or so, but that is a confession best left for another day. Still, even though there is a Quizno's in my office building, I won't be going back there anytime soon.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
11:21 PM
VCR: RIP
Late last Saturday night I was watching a $2 video-store closeout and it made funny noises during rewind then wouldn't eject. Prior to inserting the tape I had noticed that my faithful Toshiba VCR, purchased new in 1991, was slow to respond to the "Eject" button to spit out the previous tape, so I didn't know if it was the shopworn video store video or the 12-year-old VCR at fault. Not wanting to deal with the extraction at that late hour I waited until the next morning, thinking that the tape and/or VCR would have time to cool down and think about its misbehavior. I gamely tried the "Eject" button once more and yay, the cassette came right out, but boo, some of the tape was looped around a capstan and although I got it out all in one piece, the tape is pretty much toast. I nearly ruined two other videocassettes testing the fractious "Eject" and "Play" buttons before getting the bright idea to use the head cleaner cassette as my guinea pig. Turns out that was a good idea indeed, because that's the one that was in there when the VCR got terminal lockjaw. It's still in there. So midweek I purchased a new VCR for a fraction of what I paid for the original in 1991. I'm surprised how light the new VCR is and how heavy the old one was as I somberly removed it from the video cart. It served me well. Heck, it was even Y2K compliant years before it needed to be.
I often experience a twinge of guilty regret when discarding used appliances. Even used Britta filters get a whispered "thank you" as they are tossed away. No, I don't know why. I should listen to friend Marty when he says "Don't anthropomorphize inanimate objects. They hate that."
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
6:42 PM
Laugh until it hurts
I've written in these pages of mysterious bruises that appear on my person occasionally. I've got two black and beauties right now, but their origin isn't such a mystery. They both are apparently by-products of Sunday's improv show. One, on my right upper arm, is the result of my collision with a square pillar as I jogged out of the "theater" and into the Isolation Mall for a spell and had to dodge a person seated in the aisle (SRO crowd!). Coworker Kitti says she saw me crash then wince and then said to herself "oooh, that's gonna leave a mark" but I have no recollection of it at all. I was in some kind of high energy performance zone at the time. The other bruise, left inside leg just below the knee, is unexplained, but its appearance at the same time as the other points to some sort of comedic origin.
So it's official: I suffer for my art.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:53 PM
That's Two
Time to put a second notch on my belt, for I have a second improv workshop show under my, um, belt. Yesterday's show went pretty well. We were all committed to what were were doing and interacted better with each other than last show, high-fiving or taunting each other as appropriate. Pretty much everyone got in a good line or two. Coworker Kitti reports that I got lots of big laughs but couldn't remember what for exactly; I can barely remember what all we even did let alone everything that came out of my own personal mouth. My team "won" by dint of superhuman effort during the final head-to-head round of "World's Worst", but Kitti said that overall the red team's scenes were better, which they were.
Now that the novelty of performing in front of actual people is wearing off, I'm getting a sense of what type of games I can do effortlessly (the one-liner ones like "World's Worst" and "185") and what I need to work on (characters, scene building). Next class session starts next week. I'd prefer a break before starting up again, but I'll at least go to the first class and will no doubt get hooked all over again.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
7:28 PM
Number 8 With a Number 2.
Oh, wow. This is the 10th anniversary of the Style Invitational, a Washington Post humor contest that I used to enter quite religiously but have neglected lo these last couple of years. In honor of the occasion, the Czar has listed his picks for The 10 Best Individual Entries of All Time. I was honored and a little bit horrified to find that one of mine from a few years ago is included in the list, at number 8. It was for an Ask Backwards contest, where you supply the question to the answer given.
The Answer: Lucy in the Sky with Diapers.
My Question: What song actually DOES contain the lyrics "The girl with colitis goes by"?
That potty-humor gem earned me two butt-ugly fringed pillowcase covers from Libya, proudly displayed on my office wall to this very day.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:02 PM
A Koan
How do you call in sick when you have laryngitis?
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
7:31 PM
What part of "off road" don't you understand?
I nearly rear-ended a honking big musclebound SUV on N. Glebe Road today when its driver screeched it to an abrupt halt. I figured that they had stopped to avoid hitting a daredevil pedestrian, as we were in the corridor where the locals tend to just dash across the busy divided 4-lane any old where, and within a few blocks of where this incident happened. Only when the behemouth of a vehicle had moved slowly forward enough for me to see the pavement between it and me did I realize the reason for the sudden stop: The driver of this robust ride that, according to its advertising anyway, can handle all sorts of rugged terrain, felt the need to tiptoe through a series of potholes. Not very deep ones at that.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:19 PM
Taking a toll
As a teen I often had trouble sleeping. School nights were the worst; I'd lie in bed increasingly aware of how long it had been since I had turned out the light and how little time remained before I'd have to get up for school. To make matters worse, the clock in the bell tower atop the junior high school a few blocks away chimed EVERY QUARTER HOUR. All day and all night. Of course on the hour it chimed a tune then rang once for every hour. How I hated that clock. It may have been the symbol of the entire school district, but it was the bane of my insomniac existence. I'm not sure, but it is likely that the chimes are now out of commission all these years later because when I visit my folks, who still live in the same house within easy earshot, I never hear it. Or maybe it does ring and I just don't notice now that my teen angst is long gone and sleep no longer eludes me.
I thought of that cursed clock last Sunday night/early Monday morning when I was having trouble falling asleep but for a good reason: I was jazzed over the day's successful runthrough of next Sunday's improv workshop show. As I forced myself to stop mentally re-living particularly brilliant bits I or my fellow students had pulled out of thin air and tried to clear my mind so I could get some beauty sleep, I kept hearing something that has become a symbol of a new type of angst: the fighter jet making its rounds over the Washington DC area pretty much as it has ever since September 11, 2001.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:46 PM
Just a few nuggets of wisdom
A few things I've learned through experience:
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:30 PM
Movie Posters
While doing some computer work yesterday I had the TV on in the background, tuned for a while to a commercial network broadcast of As Good As It Gets. I had seen it already and was primarily concentrating on the computer screen, not the TV screen so the commercial interruptions and edits didn't bother me overly much. (Having said that, I was surprised that Nicholson's introduction "Carol the waitress, Simon the fag" made it in intact.) At a random moment when I looked away from the PC to the TV, I saw this Theophile Steinlen print hanging in the NY restaurant where Nicholson and Hunt interact.
I hadn't noticed it when I saw the movie in the theater but then I didn't own the print myself at that time. Well, that and it's onscreen in the background for scant seconds. I bought mine directly off a Goodwill truck a few years ago when I went to drop off some old clothes. I wasn't familiar with that particular print but I recognized a Steinlen cat right away and so I had to have it.
Interesting footnote: I watched The China Syndrome on DVD later in the day and there during a party scene was yet another Steinlen poster. Didn't see enough of the poster to place it, but again, there's no mistaking those cats.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:24 PM
My-My-My Generation Gap
After work Friday I stopped by Hecht's for a new pair of jeans and to see what else was on sale in Women's Wear. As I browsed I became aware that the piped-in music system was playing a string of '60s tunes by Herman's Hermits, The Dave Clark Five, Chad and Jeremy, And Many More. They were still playing as I stood in line at the register. The 20-something clerk, already flustered because she had had to change the paper in the register while a line of customers waited, was completely thrown for a loop when a white-haired man with jet-black eyebrows (à la Martin Scorcese or Tom Snyder) who was waiting for his wife to return from the dressing room came up behind the clerk and asked somewhat gruffly, "What is this? British Invasion week or something?" She asked him to repeat the question, which he did, verbatim. She still wasn't sure what he was asking and was apparently troubled by the "invasion" part. He repeated it again -- still not using different phrasing to clarify -- and she still was at a loss. Fearing that this exchange would go on until the store closed, I jumped in and said "he means the music" to the clerk, while gesturing toward one of the ceiling-mounted speakers, and "I was wondering the same thing myself" to the snowy-haired fellow music fan. He seemed glad that someone understood, she just seemed relieved that she could go back to the known perils of her job such as dealing with a shopping bag shortage. Me, I was just glad that I didn't have to stand there much longer with 3 pairs of jeans and two tops hanging over my arm.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:21 PM