life of riley mccarthy

Hey.

2011-06-13T07:06:00.001-04:00

I'm supposed to be reading INFINITE JEST. Instead, I'm writing something.

Jug-a-rum.

2011-01-06T23:27:00.001-05:00

For some reason, I am thinking about this really cool book I read when I was a kid called THE WISH GIVER. It was part of this whole series of books about a town the Devil used to frequent called Coven Tree. The books were by a guy named Bill Brittain, and one of my gifted teachers recommended them to me. They were these weird books, full of Southern gothic-style twists and creepy dealings. I should reread them, but I think they might be out of print.

So-called fine Southern ladies and gentlemen.

2010-12-29T23:59:00.000-05:00

So my Kindle is causing me to read faster and read an assortment of things that I usually would be afraid to undertake. I think, since I bought it, I have read the thoroughly satisfying HUNGER GAMES trilogy, then the latest TALES OF THE CITY book MARY ANN IN AUTUMN got my attention, then I worked my way through some of WRITING DOWN THE BONES, then I read all of THE HELP in a rather rapid clip, then I thought I might do a classic of some sort. Since that new JANE EYRE movie is coming out, I thought I would finally finish that book - which is always really good when I start it, then it takes a turn for the dark and righteous that I find off-putting.

So then a new friend of mine started talking to me about GONE WITH THE WIND, which I didn't read in high school because most of the girls in Honors English were obsessed with it (and my senior English teacher once got in an argument with all of them about it and memorably called Scarlett O'Hara a bitch, which caused some of the Christian girls to gasp).

The last time I was tempted to consider reading GONE WITH THE WIND was, of course, when I was taking those great writing classes at the Margaret Mitchell House here in Atlanta, which is the "dump" apartment building where Peggy Mitchell first wrote the book. She hated that apartment, but it's where she wrote the book. So the city renovated it, turned it into a museum for both the book and the movie and restored Mitchell's original apartment to its decent, modest, cozy glory.

Walking through the tour of that building and taking a class in the same room where they house the door to Tara from the movie, which I watched at least a dozen times as a kid, it was tempting to pick up the Pulitzer Prize winner, but something kept me from ever doing it. Maybe because the book is damn long, amusingly melodramatic and occasionally bald-faced racist and politically backward in its depiction of loyal, happy slaves and the glorious Old South.

As a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society at UGA 14 years ago, I occasionally got an ear full of anti-Lincoln rhetoric and pro-secession politics. I didn't know that I wanted to dredge up those feelings of "Are some people still feeling this bad about the War Between the States?" dread.

But leave it to a friend shaming me, saying that it was strange of me to dare visit the Margaret Mitchell House without reading the great book, to get me to see if it was available on Kindle when Stephen King's IT couldn't grab my attention for very long.

So now I'm reading Scarlett pine for Ashley while Mammy yells at her. And I'm writing my notes on it as I go. And thus far it's a lot of fun in an antiquated, infuriating, really well-written, funny way.

I guess it was the world's second most popular book for a reason. I think I'm going to stick with it, even though all the historical markers around Atlanta pretty much tell me how it ends for the Confederacy.

Pretty Polynesian baby.

2010-12-21T02:46:00.001-05:00

Since I'm trying different methods of production in regard to my writing output, I thought this evening that I might return to a blog post just to see what happens with it. A lot of my writing practice - inspired by WRITING DOWN THE BONES on my Kindle - has taken the form of self-reflection and journal entry anyway, so why not return to the methods I used to use to see if there is any way that this feels different now than it did in, say, 2004?

Adam, this friend of mine from out of town, is going to Europe next week, and there's an off chance he might go to London. So I started raving about the Tate Modern and the Rothko room there. And just talking about it made me happy. And since Adam and I later started talking about my happiness, how I have the means for it but don't necessary apply those means, I thought about why the Rothko room made me so happy.

It was dim light. It was comforting, simple shapes. It was a vacation moment where I didn't have anywhere to be or, more importantly, anything really to worry about. I had made it my task of the week to have a good time, to try out a new place, and I accomplished that task. I don't always plan to have a good time. Usually, I don't even think about saying that out loud.

So, since I've been dealing with trust issues and trying to explore my own social awkwardness, I wonder why I don't just trust myself. Why do I ask other people if everything is all right rather than just trust for myself that things will be OK if I want them to be? Why do I go to other people for what I should provide myself? Why don't I seek out more empty rooms, more quiet moments, more chances to just be fine without spending so much damn time trying to get everyone else's fucking attention? How come it takes me so long to trust and be OK with people?

Last night, I read by myself at my desk until I felt like writing by myself at my desk. I finished reading a whole novel - THE HELP on my Kindle, which is the fifth book I've read in a month on my Kindle - and finished another three pages in the notebook I'm supposed to fill by Jan. 10. And I had fun.

Going out and seeing Adam made me happy, but worrying over what he thought of me - before I saw him - and whether he might want to be alone with me was not fun. It's not fun to worry if Wordsmiths Joe thinks I'm talking to him too much on Facebook. It's not fun to think to myself, "Maybe it's OK to kiss Bryan. Maybe it's not." It clutters my head and fills my days with too much useless nonsense. Facebook is just a new way to get rejected by people. And didn't I have too many ways before? Why do other people get to decide for me if I am happy?

I decide I'm happy.

Pleasantries.

2010-11-13T23:48:00.000-05:00

I bought myself something this week, something I've wanted for years. I bought myself a Kindle on Amazon, something I've tried to save up for. I had money left over from paying off all my tax and credit debt, from borrowing against the 401K savings they tell you to not borrow against if you can at all help it. I thought the Kindle - or, you know, the act of actually having the Kindle after wanting it for long enough and trying to save for it for long enough - might make me a little bit happy. It might make me feel a little bit fulfilled. It might remind me of what it was like to inject some levity in my life. It might introduce some new chapter of my life, some happy chapter, some chapter where I know I worry too much and thus rectify the situation by worrying less - without, of course, worrying about worrying too much. So I bought the Kindle. And I've been reading books. And it's been a fun week.

It's not been a big week. I didn't take someone home with me or make out with someone in a bar. I didn't try some sexual position that I've never tried before. The lesson I was supposed to learn from this week's therapy session was about seeing other people's boundaries before I accidentally hurdle them, and I never think I do well with these lessons. But I'm working on it.

I wish friends I haven't spoken to would call me so that they could hear that I'm not miserable. I don't think I have that tone in my voice right now. I don't have big worries. I don't have big projects right now, either, but that's cool - because I have a Kindle to read and a house to unpack.

And if I kiss a new guy this week, it'll be OK. Or if I just watch some more IN TREATMENT this week at home, while petting the dog that's there, that'll be OK, too.

If life can't be big and happy, it's OK that it's small and happy. That's how I feel about it right now anyway.

Problem solver.

2010-11-04T03:28:00.000-04:00

I suppose I shouldn't be impressed that no one's noticed that I've started regularly blogging again, for I'm trying to just sorta redevelop a voice and a habit of writing. This isn't really to be read, otherwise I would be less critical of myself because, frankly, that raw, self-loathing shit ain't attractive. And it isn't how I should be feeling. But, sometimes, it's how I've been feeling, so I'm using this blog to own it, to understand it and to deal with it.

I paid Capital One today. I'm dropping a check off with the Georgia Department of Revenue tomorrow, if everything goes according to plan. And then all these wage garnishment threats will stop. (It seems weird to me that I'm the one who had to show the state I didn't owe them $20,000, that I'm the one who got it argued down to a reasonable amount and that I'm the one who came up with a solution that wasn't wage garnishment. I mean, I'm not an accountant. I understand it was my responsibility to file on time. But shouuldn't the state notice glaring errors on a tax return before I do? Shouldn't the state think, "Oh my God, that can't be right?" Shouldn't the state be better at taxes than I am? It's like I'm in the Chinatown scene of "Chinatown." That's how messed up this got.)

Part of me wants rid of this money and all the bills paid so that I can just get the idea of "too much money" out of my head. I'm nervous having this much money all at once. I keep reminding myself, "Pay bills. Don't run off to Colorado. Don't buy a Kindle or an iMac. Pay bills."

I'm 34. I remember when my dad was 34, and we would visit on weekends. I think my dad was financially better off than I am at 34, but that might just be a trick of the light. I mean, he had child support and a girlfriend at my age. So he probably didn't have any money at 34 either.

It isn't always going to feel like this. I maybe need to start the social drinking again.

Someone on a listserve I subscribe to sent a very interesting e-mail about their troubles today. Once upon a time, such an e-mail would've set me off asking questions of the sender, thinking that everything about him was somehow my business and that I needed to know stuff to keep both of us safe. Now, though he's in my thoughts, I'm just sorta relieved that he's having troubles that aren't being caused by me and that I know it's none of my damn business.

There's relief in other people's troubles.

Life savings.

2010-11-03T02:38:00.000-04:00

I have to make a couple phone calls, have a couple meetings, and I can get myself significantly out of debt come morning. It doesn't feel real. I can't even bring myself to open the envelope and look at the savings check that's making my current finance problems go away. I'm scared - as I've been scared of a lot of things lately - that I'm going to lose everything before everything gets a chance to get better.

When nothing is wrong financially, then will I be confident? Probably not. It's not how I roll. Seriously, though, things are good. I just need to notice. And relax. And be relieved.

Falling.

2010-11-02T14:18:00.000-04:00

So, to solve a problem I'm having with the state, I'm waiting on a package from UPS, but, because I just moved into this building, I'm nervous that UPS won't be able to get the package to me. So, instead of going to lunch with my mom, I'm sitting here typing, waiting for a knock at the door (if they can get to the door). Instead of taking a shower, I decided to wait until they get here so that I don't miss them.

I think the effects of yesterday's coffee have worn off, but I'm still worrying about stuff that I'd be better served not worrying about.

I'm worried lately about a lot of things - both reasonable and unreasonable. I'm discovering that I'm still worried about wet floors in public bathrooms, for instance.

In June, the day before my birthday on Father's Day, I went with my brother, sister-in-law, nephews and father to Mall of Georgia for TOY STORY 3. It was DJ and Andrew's first movie in the theater, and I wanted to be there to have that experience with them. We were in the food court before the movie, and my father left to find the bathroom.

I used to work at that mall, saw that he was going in the wrong direction and got up to help him. I walked him toward the other bathroom, but I didn't want to follow him in there. So I used the family restroom next to the men's room while my dad made his way down the long hallway.

I like the family restroom because it's got some privacy. You can actually lock the door. You get your own stall and your own sink. On that day, I liked it because I didn't want to hear my father in the bathroom, which I know from experience can be particularly disgusting.

So I used the bathroom in the family restroom, using the dim lights without turning on the overhead flourescents, and was walking toward the sink when I slipped on this unmarked, soapy puddle in the middle of the floor. My right foot - in corrective shoes - slipped sideways, both legs gave out, and the left side of my right knee hit the floor hard. HARD.

I curled my other leg around my knee to comfort it, then laying on the floor I looked around to try and find a way up (while considering that I might slip again). And I saw my way up against the wall, so I pulled myself across the wet floor and then put my right hand in the empty dispenser slot of an old tampon machine (another amenity for the family restroom). I got myself off the floor, tried to stand and found that my knee was seriously fucked up. But I thought it would pass. So I held myself against the wall and unlocked the door and got outside to find my father leaving the men's room. And I had to lean on him to walk upstairs to the movie. (No, I didn't report it to the mall immediately - which was a point of contention for everyone.)

Anyway, it took getting my knee drained to stop the swelling and the bleeding, then I had several weeks of physical therapy (which also allowed me to work on my arthritic, displaced hip again).

But the day of the fall, I seriously thought that I had messed myself up forever. I thought that I would never walk without pain ever again. I thought that I would always be messed up, always hurting.

And I'm still afraid of the day when that will happen, either through age, through an eventual hip replacement or other surgery. I'm worried about eventual back pain, which my PT says will likely come. I'm worried about never feeling normal again.

When you're a kid, you run without worry. You fall on chubby, rubbery legs, and you get back up. You cry. Then you stop. It's done. You recover.

I'm worrying - too early, I think - about brittle bones, broken hips, canes and walkers. (I've already used canes and walkers.)

But my knee feels much better right now. I know that's what I should be OK with. But once you've fallen, you check every store bathroom floor you go into, looking for the moment and place where you'll slip.

I expect my disabled future will get kick-started on one of those slippery floors.

Fear.

2010-11-02T05:01:00.000-04:00

The only reason why I'm worrying so much today is because of my new coffee maker. You see, when I moved houses last month, I went in halfsies with Stephen on a coffee maker because I want to actually be one of those people who makes coffee everyday as a breakfast-like kickoff to a structured, mature day. Or, at least, I want to be the guy who can offer potential guests a hypothetical beverage to put on the coffee table that I've now had at three different residences and never really used for coffee before.

When we got the machine, Stephen went and bought these expensive, small packs of flavored coffee. Being economical and assuming that I'd use the damn machine more often for a more structured life if I planned for it, I bought a giant vat of Maxwell House for roughly the same price. I love Maxwell House. Some people at my old office used to despise it, wanting whoever brewed it to label the carafe "MAXWELL HOUSE" every time it was made so that unsuspecting coffee fans wouldn't accidentally find themselves with a mouth full of Maxwell. (I refused to kowtow to their ridiculous carafe-labelling demands. Now, I don't work there, so the people at my old office can go drink Folger's and fuck themselves.)

Thus, because I went into this new coffee maker endeavor with expectations, I now make approximately eight cups worth of Maxwell House every time I brew a pot at my new place, and I'm the only one who drinks it. I offer it to Stephen, but he drinks the gourmet stuff and is trying to cut back on his caffiene anyway. (He tells me I don't have to brew eight cups worth of coffee every time I make coffee, but it seems like a waste of a filter and electricity and personal effort to only brew two cups when I could just as easily grab a Coke Zero from the fridge.)

So instead, every time I make coffee at my new place, I end up with a racing heart, uncontrollable panic attacks and an overactive bladder. I drank eight cups of coffee this afternoon. And now it's 4:30 in the morning, and I decided to write this rather than watch THE BLOB through TCM On Demand because, damn it, I'm gonna be awake for a while.

So my old roommate and I had the walk-through of the old house today (or, considering the time, yesterday), and I got stuck in traffic on the way there and pretty much missed my landlord telling my old roommate that he needs to replace the carpet in her old room, that my old room needs vaccuumed again and that I'd not cleaned out the kitchen junk drawer that I swear I thought I had cleaned out. My old roommate told me this when I got there, and the messy drawer was open. So she told me to clean it out, so I did. And I had her check it to make sure. Because I felt like a jackass and a dumbass and a child and a disappointment and an asshole and a fool and a headache all at the same time. (Lately, I feel like that every time I talk to my old roommates because each conversation seems to dance around and toy with the notion that I'm an evil villain who failed them, which may in fact be true. But it's not completely true. Not in complete context, anyway. And it's probably worrying me more than it's worrying anybody else, and I'd be better served by getting over it and moving on with my life. But there's always something left to do or worry about. It's a junk drawer, it's a vaccuum job that requires three separate drives to the house, it's a phone call to the city to see that the trash gets picked up. It's a phone call to an old roommate - whose butt answers his phone in his pocket while he's talking to someone about how I moved out. And those worries put me there, in my head, the guy who's still failing them.)

You know what I'm really afraid of? That lots of people don't like me for good reason, and those people all gather and bitch about me. And they're right.

(And I'm usually not so paranoid, unreasonable or self-centered to think that these gatherings are planned, unless the eight cups of coffee hammer away at the metaphorical xylophone of my emotions.)

I've been afraid of being unliked for a while. Now knowing that it's a stupid waste of time to worry about such a thing - and that I'd be better served by working harder - doesn't stop the insecurity from coming far too often.

(I know the move and some other problems are what's REALLY bothering me. But it's manifesting in my head as this whiny "Why don't you LIKE me?" on a loop.)

I'd be better off leaving silly fears and insecurities aside. And I've known that for a while.

But I had people who loved me. And I loved them. And now they don't love me. And my feelings for them have changed. And that makes me sad. It's necessary, it's progress, it's a change for the better. But I regret the loss. I regret that people are hurt. I don't feel so good about everything myself. I made mistakes.

I moved in because I wanted to be happier. So I moved in and became happier. And I stayed while I was happy with staying. And I left when I was unhappy and saw the chance to be happy somewhere else.

And no matter how polite or liked or "on good terms" I want to be, I have to just go, leave the old house behind and move on.

Brand new life.

2010-10-30T21:12:00.000-04:00

So, considering that I've moved houses and now live in Buckhead again and that I'm not really doing improv anymore and everything (including my waistline) seems to be reverting back to a quieter time, I figured that I should start blogging again - not because I want to embrace a quieter time but because I want to remind myself that I can do more than just stay quiet and resigned to it.

So even though my schedule now requires me to work on Saturday nights until god-awful hours that don't really allow me much free time to socialize, I am not failing. I am not gaining weight. Things are not going to revert back to the way I was. Life is cumulative. You are always changing. You can't go completely home again once you've learned some new way to behave, found some new people to see, figured out how to drink lots of whiskey that you didn't have the liver for before, etc.

This blog used to even be popular. I'm taking it on faith now that no one is going to read this, though, so that should provide me with a bit more freedom and leeway in my writing, at least until I think I've produced something good enough for other people to see.

And that probably won't happen until I get a new computer. My laptop at home has no memory on it anymore, so that limits the vlogging, the at-home Facebooking, the porn watching, the distractions.

Removing some of those things might even make me creative again. And that's where I most enjoy myself.

Distracted.

2010-05-27T19:04:00.002-04:00

Dear Vic,

I can't manage to write you a letter this week - despite what feels like weeks of trying - because my mind is too scattered. Thus, I'm unable to focus on a singular, interesting topic that could provide the drive behind the narrative focus of a letter. Home's eh. Stephen's good. There have been some cool movies, some broken hearts, some great nights out, some good dates and one bad hip.

More later.

RM

New photos of me.

2010-02-18T16:37:00.004-05:00

The stolen Emily Giffin book story.

2009-12-16T01:27:00.000-05:00

In recovery.

2009-12-06T19:18:00.000-05:00

Weight Watchers. Health crisis. And now ...

2009-11-13T15:21:00.001-05:00

This is what I look like nowadays.

Wobble.

2009-08-22T01:57:00.002-04:00

My friend Wes, whom I recently met for lunch, told the story of our lunch and the problem I was having during the lunch in his latest podcast. It was very complimentary. He's a very good guy, and I've been lucky to have him as a friend for several years now.

I really appreciate all of the nice things you said, Wes.

MAD MEN me.

2009-08-17T00:21:00.002-04:00

For the third season premiere of MAD MEN, I went to a friend's house to watch it. And I dressed circa 1963 for the occasion.

This Zine Will Change Your Life.

2009-08-12T20:02:00.002-04:00

Thank you, Ben Tanzer, for publishing one of my pieces on your web-based zine.

Tree Creature.

2009-08-08T11:56:00.003-04:00

The following was transcribed from a handwritten note I wrote yesterday:

8/7/09

Vic,

I’m starting this letter in the dark, for I’m at a concert, an experimental, unclassifiable music concert at a gallery called Eyedrum. Someone just turned on a blue light, grabbed an electric guitar and is playing a growing, bouncing, changing grand wave of noise into the warm, stuffy air of the room around us. When I walked in, I smelled pot, but the friend I came to see put a stick of incense in his mouth and lit it, so that’s the soothing, beautiful smell that’s hanging in the air.

I keep stopping my sentences, closing my eyes. The vibrations of the music hit my feet and make them better. The sound hits my ears, challenges them but promises not to break them. I like where I am right now. There is beauty, safety and feeling in where I am. Overwhelming feeling. There is quiet in the crowd, a beauty in the shared experience.

I wish you could feel this.

There are paper lanterns, hanging red from the ceiling.

I’m sitting next to a guy named Wade, one of those guys whose relaxed, easy friendship and assurance I wish I could carry with me. He doesn’t make me nervous.

I’d not expected to be this happy tonight. I’m going to close my eyes and permit myself to feel it again.

I am in this room of people, alone with the effects of the sound as it soars. It contains layers, it is wide enough to find all of your emotions in it.

This is not what I was expecting.

My friend Nathan’s band is performing now. The safety of church organs devolved into a crash. I felt like I’m falling, now there’s something intimidating and mechanic about the noise, yet there’s joy in a fanfare, mixed with the sound of voices uplifted in joy, a crash of cymbals. The voice is Nathan’s. He’s on a microphone, chanting, but I didn’t notice at first that it was him. He sounded like a chorus of tribal voices, a beauty of simple melody played on piano to bring you home, the tapping of a drumstick on wood. There’s art in the building layers of sound, and my pen doesn’t travel fast enough to mark all the details in this, what I’m discovering and feeling. The writing of this makes me comforted, as though there’s something of this experience that I can take away, share and remember.

There is something beautiful here, something beautiful in someone who would choose to perform this, share it, explore it, how sound can make you feel, associate, remember.

Wow, Nathan just started playing the happiest variation, like the score of a scene of a child walking through a too-bright summer day down a suburban sidewalk, a cul-de-sac of green lawns and sprinklers, the promise of a new house and friendly neighbors, a life the child expected to have and enjoy.

Behind it, a grinding has started, a threat that such promise is fragile, calm can be taken away. But the happiness, only changing a little, remains.

This place is making me feel good. Coming here was a very good idea.

I like Nathan’s group better than the first, there’s more joy in it, more familiar places to visit. It’s still searchable, layered sound with meaning. But it’s also a song. I felt so vulnerable before. This second band is giving me structure, comfort, a place to feel safe and recognize as home.

I feel you’re here with me.

I’m in a room of pervasive good feeling, and I can’t rightly explain it.

It reminds me of who I can be, it reminds me of the Rothko Room at the Tate Gallery in London. When I remember feeling moved, I remember the low light, that room, the meditation and calm I felt with those rectangles.

Benj

PUBLIC ENEMIES made me want to wear suits.

2009-07-02T01:53:00.001-04:00

33.

2009-06-22T02:00:00.000-04:00

Ballgame.

2009-06-09T01:49:00.001-04:00

Quick video about books.

2009-06-08T00:57:00.000-04:00

The Push-Up Pro.

2009-06-04T00:51:00.001-04:00

Closet case.

2009-05-28T20:06:00.003-04:00

I don't know why I'm showing the blog so much love today. OK, maybe it's because I've barely shown it any written love in a while and didn't want those of you who care enough to come here to think that I'd stopped, you know, writing. I have not given up on the whole writing thing, even though I've become a vlogger, even though newspapers I used to read are dying slow deaths all around, even though I have a boyfriend and such a phenomenon is usually accompanied by me going blog silent.

The boyfriend and I have been dating for five months now, and I think we're in a good place. The roommate situation - warts and all - is going mostly well. I want to go back to improv, and I've made that desire known - or, at least, I think I have - to the people who can make those kinds of calls.

I thought about HOW TO WIN FRIENDS again, picking up and finishing that project. I thought about starting different projects.

For a variety of reasons, I've started reading and writing (and occasionally napping) behind the closed door of my large bathroom closet every night. The close, confined space, the time to be alone with my thoughts with a specific focus and specific goal and the throw pillow I rest my head on while I'm in there have made for a nice, writing-with-the-door-closed sort of creative space. I like it a lot.

It reminds me of when I was a kid and used to find comfort by hiding under beds or reading in closets.

My bathroom closet helps me to feel more like myself. So every night, I take a novel, a suede journal that snaps shut and a copy of WRITING DOWN THE BONES in there, and I have fun with some or all of those things until I get tired. And Stephen, if he's in the bedroom, can surf on the Internet or watch TV. (Some guys wouldn't be OK with a boyfriend who spends time in the closet - a literal closet, which is just a sign that I'm lucky to have found the person that I've found.)

Who knows what might come of the closet time, whether I'll ever write something significant or just make a dent in all the books I own but have never read?

It just feels important to have the time, the space and someone who cares enough not to mock you on the other side of the door.

I'm in the middle of this book and love it.

2009-05-28T12:09:00.003-04:00

I've recommended books some of you have liked before, so take this recommendation into consideration. Part of me just wants to have someone to talk about it with when I'm done.

Anyway, Elizabeth Strout's OLIVE KITTERIDGE won the Pulitzer for fiction this year, and it was in paperback already, so I figured I would just pick it up and read it eventually. But it's a novel written as a collection of stories about one gruff, difficult retired schoolteacher named Olive Kitteridge and her whole entire town. Sometimes she's a major character in the stories, sometimes she's on the periphery. Every time, though, she makes an impact on the larger scope. Each story has been individually satisfying, which means that I've gotten the sense of closure and relief at having finished something profound and beautiful every time I pick it up, and I'm only 100 pages in. It's really, really good.

What I want.

2009-05-28T10:32:00.003-04:00

I want one of these Kindle devices. I really, really want one. I've been trying to save up money for months in order to get one, and I've been talking and talking and talking about getting one.

Has anyone who reads this blog gotten a Kindle, seen a Kindle, used a Kindle? I want some feedback on them.

The Tate Modern shirt.

2009-05-19T14:33:00.000-04:00

Before and after.

2009-05-12T16:33:00.000-04:00

The boyfriend snores.

2009-05-11T02:51:00.001-04:00

JOB APPLICANT CHALLENGE: Riley.

2009-05-08T09:59:00.001-04:00

My friend Will sent me this challenge:

I challenge you to film a response to a job application. It can be a real one or one you make up; you may answer truthfully as yourself or create a persona.

I answered it three times.

JOB APPLICANT CHALLENGE: Daishwalla.

2009-05-08T09:57:00.002-04:00

JOB APPLICANT CHALLENGE: John.

2009-05-08T09:57:00.001-04:00

Learning from MANHATTAN.

2009-04-28T13:50:00.000-04:00

Condolences.

2009-04-25T22:47:00.000-04:00

State of relationship.

2009-04-25T21:20:00.000-04:00

Challenge me.

2009-04-24T21:19:00.000-04:00

Thank you, Zombie Sitcom.

2009-04-11T12:24:00.000-04:00

I know I've got a bad reputation, and it isn't just talk talk talk ...

2009-04-03T03:36:00.004-04:00

Stephen's in bed, and I'd not blogged in a while. I feel like I've barely written anything in a while. I've been so consumed with my webcam and making quality videos everytime I sit here at the computer - which now resides in this cute alcove in the corner of my bedroom with its own tray, lamp and photogenic bookshelves - that I forgot that the main reason I bought the computer, created the alcove and live my day-to-day existence is because I want to write. I'm good at it. I should do it more often.

(See how weak that previous paragraph is? That's how much I'm out of practice.)

So maybe I'll just take a photo of myself with the webcam everytime I sit down to write, and that'll get me out of the habit of strictly using this computer for webcamming (badly) and Facebook games.

Maybe I should revert to HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE for further inspiration, for I got a lot of good essays out of that - some of which may be published elsewhere soon. If I could return to improv a better, saner, easygoing person who was capable of keeping his emotional outbursts onstage and didn't constantly seek approval and trusting relationships, I would use that outlet to become more prolific. For a time, I even sought out details of my family's past in the hope that I would find inspiration to write stories there. In high school, I created a whole town of melodramatic, fictional characters and impossible circumstances, and I escaped into that. (The words came so easily then.) Sometimes I write for an audience, and my writing works out well for that.

So the pattern is that I seek inspiration, then I get so caught up in and obsessed with the inspiration that I forget to use it much to write about it. Or I tire of the inspiration.

But to get to the emotional core of the stories - the ones I feel most, the ones I most enjoy telling, the ones where I manage to mock myself the most - I think I need to trust myself and trust that I already know what I'm doing.

What do I have when I've been stripped of everything outside of myself that I think I need to be able to write? I have myself. And that's enough.

OK, cool. I've psyched myself into giving this writing thing a shot again. It's just me and the screen, the keyboard, the pen, the page. And it's all I need.

Bare-chested book review.

2009-03-30T02:10:00.001-04:00

McElderly.

2009-03-28T13:42:00.003-04:00

I'm watching MADE OF HONOR - don't ask - and the opening scene has Patrick Dempsey as a college senior in 1998. As in, when I was a college senior. Patrick Dempsey is A DECADE older than me in real life. So that means, in the decade that the actual movie takes place, Patrick Dempsey's aged 20 years. Or that I look as old as Patrick Dempsey in my actual life. I hate movies.

Open letter to a friend.

2009-03-19T05:16:00.001-04:00

For some reason, this is hilarious to me.

2009-03-14T20:00:00.001-04:00

Slow follicle death.

2009-03-09T06:07:00.001-04:00

How to deal.

2009-02-13T15:51:00.002-05:00

This is the tribute I read at my grandfather's funeral yesterday.

When I was 12 and generally insecure, Grandpa came to Atlanta for a visit, sat with me and my brother at the kitchen table and taught us both how to play cards, a game of Rum 500. My brother picked the game up easily, whereas I was having difficulty even shuffling the deck because of my disability. So I complained, talked about how I didn’t want to play. But Grandpa wasn’t having any of that.

He showed me how he shuffled cards. He split the deck and then put it back together. And he did it again and again. It wasn’t fancy, but it got the job done. And he taught me that I could do it the same way. And I did it. Then I didn’t think I was dealing the cards fast enough. He told me that people would wait, that you do what you can with what you have. That’s how you deal cards. And that’s how you deal with life.

A couple times, I asked him for mercy, told him that I would get the hang of the game if he just “let me win” a couple hands.

He laughed at me.

“Let you win? LET YOU WIN? I’m not going to let you win anything. You’ll win when you know how to play.”

This was a man who’d beat you at checkers and not let you forget about it for the rest of the day. He was one of the funniest people ever, a real character. He was tough. He taught me how to make a quick, sarcastic comment. He taught me how to be strong, how to be confident. It works with a deck of cards. And it works when you’re going through your day.

And he was right. Victories aren't given. You win when you know how to play.

Once, when I was a toddler, he put me on the tire swing behind his house, and I was nervous. And I think my parents were even a little scared. But he told me it’d be OK. He told me that all I had to do was hang on. I’m still hanging on.

Grandpa was great. He inspired this passion and strength in every member of his family. I will carry him with me – in every card game, in every joke, in every stubborn argument and in every accomplishment worth fighting for - for the rest of my life. Every one of us who loved him, who learned from him will do that.

Thank you, Grandpa.

Mocked by Germans.

2009-01-10T13:33:00.003-05:00

Yesterday's video about the book I read caused these guys to make this video about how boring I am. It's really, really funny.

White girls with white-girl problems, among other things.

2009-01-09T15:24:00.001-05:00

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD is sad. I am happy.

2009-01-07T04:21:00.001-05:00

New year.

2009-01-02T19:00:00.004-05:00

He told me to take what he was saying at face value and not to worry about it having anything to do with me or anything that I had done, which made me worry about what I might have done to lead him to say that.

Hours later, he said I was making things worse in the exact way he told me not to. He said that my means of trying to solve every problem was just a matter of my being a brat who always had to get their way. He said that, if people continually call you melodramatic or too fucked-up to deal with, it's probably true. He said you can't go back and call it a problem that you have if you're not willing to take steps - like therapy - to try and fix it. If you are unwilling to fix the problem, you don't get the benefit of using your personality problems as a crutch.

It's not all about you, he said. You're not as good a person as you think you are, he said. He was right. He is right.

I kept making it worse by saying stupid, obnoxious, self-involved asides. We went to sleep, and, when I woke up, I was afraid to say anything at all. So, in the living room, we tossed around a football.

Once upon a time, I didn't think I would ever see him again. Then I saw him again. Then I saw him again. Then we fought, and I thought I would never see him again. Then I saw him again. Then I saw him again.

Talking to myself.

2008-12-30T03:47:00.000-05:00

I have no idea what I'm doing.

2008-12-29T21:51:00.000-05:00

Things to do to get into the holiday mood.

2008-12-22T00:43:00.004-05:00

- Every year, I have trouble getting into the spirit of things around (I'm going to say it even though I'm an self-described agnostic) Christmastime. This year has been no different. With temperatures in Atlanta approaching and occasionally surpassing 70 degrees and with me not working at the bookstore for the first holiday season in eight years, I still feel that I have little grasp of this "most wonderful time of the year." So, since this is the year of my perpetually changing game plan, I had to try something other than the usual holiday plan of "Watch THE REF. Cuss out my bass-ackward family during a screening of HAPPY FEET." So I'm trying to psych myself up for things by, for the first time in what feels like a long time, trying to be happy it's Christmas. Not trying to be happy as a matter of some gimmick, plan or assignment. Not trying to be happy because some book tells you that it's better to be happy than sad or better to be positive than negative. I'm flying blind here at Christmastime, playing fast and loose with my writing even, and - damn it - I think I'm doing OK. Not great. But OK.
- Above is a photo of the VA Hospital on Clairmont Road in Decatur, and because I work for a great company that I love that gives me a sense of service through its contract with the military, I very happily joined a group of my co-workers to go caroling in the halls for the disabled, sick and injured veterans in the nursing home section of the hospital on Wednesday. We were grouped with other volunteers, who were distributing stockings to the servicemen. I wore a pair of reindeer antlers for the first time since I played an ailing Rudolph the Buford Middle School production of "Randy the Red-Horned Rainmoose" with my friend CJ. And, at the VA hospital, I sang and sang and sang, sometimes well and sometimes not. (Another Christmas goes by without me being able to truly nail a solo on "O Holy Night.") But I did my best. And the experience wasn't bad, even if the VA hospital felt to me like a really sad, crowded place. The songs lifted spirits for some of the vets, and my spirits were lifted, too.
- I went to the office holiday party. I wore my blue pinstripe suit. I talked with the really nice guy from HR whom I never get to see because we work opposite shifts. And it was great to talk to the CEO again. And it was great that the guy who gave me a ride to the party won "Employee of the Year." And it was great fun when the band - made up of Crawford employees - actually attempted to cover Bob Dylan's seemingly impossible "Subterranean Homesick Blues." And it was great to boogie - yes, I used the word boogie - with the CEO's assistant to "Sexual Healing." And then I went to a hookah bar with some friends of mine who had their own office's holiday party that night and had a really, really good and really, really light-headed and overly relaxed time with some apple tobacco, salsa music and a dimly lit, curtained booth filled with pillows.
- JaCKPie, my improv theater, has its own holiday tradition. Its big reunion show is on Sunday, and the original JaCKPie duo of Chris Pierce and Jim Karwisch will be performing. This is a treat, and - if I can get away from work, I really, really want to be there. I miss playing at JaCKPie, for the place and the philosophy behind the place really did change my life. (And if you want to change your life and boost your creativity and learn how to work on teamwork and positivity and attitude adjustment and trust in relationships and trust in an environment that is a safe place, you should take JaCKPie classes, too. BLATANT PROMO. BLATANT PROMO.)
- Earlier this week, I went with the roommates James and Mauree - wow, I'm living with people - to a read-through of the latest Out of Hand Theater performance, and I signed up for their weekend theater boot camp in January. I can't wait for this. It seems really different from the way I'm used to approaching theater. Mauree's been training with this group for months now, and she loves it.
- As of last week, I've lost 23 pounds since September through Weight Watchers, and I hope that saying that doesn't mean I've jinxed myself. (I mean, damn, I actually weigh what is listed on my Georgia driver's license.) Still, tonight, because I needed to get into the holiday spirit, I went to Barnes & Noble and ordered myself a grande Godiva Mint Hot Chocolate and a slice of pumpkin cheesecake. And I refuse to feel bad about it because it made me feel like it was Christmas. And it was worth it. (And I'm probably not going to eat at all tomorrow, even if I'm supposed to.)
- I love that, the week of Christmas, I'm showcasing my lack of religion by reading THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH, a rollicking, fun, violent read about building a cathedral in the 12th century, and going to the movies to see DOUBT, which was OK but I didn't really find the play to be a satisfying read a couple years ago.
- I'm working Christmas Day. A couple years ago, on Christmas Eve, I made the mistake of seeing MUNICH and SYRIANA back-to-back. They were good movies, but watching them consecutively made me feel like I was spending too much of my holiday in war-torn Lebanon. This year's movies, thankfully, are plentiful and don't seem to follow any sort of weird, unified theme. I mentioned that I've seen DOUBT. I've also recently seen THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (boring, even with FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS star Kyle Chandler and MAD MEN star Jon Hamm in IMAX), TRANSPORTER 3 (which, for the regular readers of this blog, I saw with Kacoon and still need to write about), TWILIGHT (ugh, though not as bad as that damn book - I hate Bella), SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (pretty good), MILK (made me cry), FOUR CHRISTMASES (eh), HAPPY-GO-LUCKY (won me over, and I was resisting it ...), AUSTRALIA (crazy and old-fashioned but not too bad), QUANTUM OF SOLACE (disappointing), VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA (I really liked this, particularly batshit crazy Penelope Cruz), RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (very good) and SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (great, and I could watch it about a dozen more times without figuring it all out) ... Do not talk to me about current movies with Will Smith in them or movies with dogs in them.
- Oh, and if you don't watch absolutely fantastic MAD MEN, get the DVDs for yourself this holiday. Set in the '60s, it's all about beginning of the advertising boom, operated by sexist, misogynistic adulterers who keep lots and lots of secrets and have lots and lots of sex and the women under their thumbs.

I mean, "Peggy, this isn't China. There's no money in virginity."

"Try not to be overwhelmed by all this technology ... The men who designed it made it simple enough for a woman to use."

- Movies I want to see this week, including things coming out on Christmas:

* THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
* REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
* FROST/NIXON
* THE SPIRIT
* LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
* THE TALE OF DESPERAUX
* A CHRISTMAS TALE
* I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG

- I've still got shopping to do for my nephews and the rest of my family. Living with them this year wasn't the disaster that I thought it would be. In fact, we came away from all of it seeming to understand better how to get along, when to walk away from one another, what we all seem to want and how exactly not to get in each other's way. (I hope I don't jinx it by saying anything.)
- A friend of mine sent me an e-mail with a very good holiday message in it, and - since I have grudges I should release and forgiveness I should grant and seek - I'm going to repost it - despite its sentiment and its catch-all approach to creating holiday magic in your heart - here. Hell, I need this more than anybody, even if I'm better this year than I have ever been. There is so much work left for me to do for myself.

"This Christmas mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a love letter. Share some treasure. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Find the time. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen. Apologize if you were wrong. Try to understand. Float envy. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Appreciate. Be kind, be gentle. Laugh. Deserve confidence. Decry complacency. Express your gratitude. Go to church. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love. Speak it again. Speak it still once again."

- Happy holidays, you guys. Do your best to have the best time that you can. And now I will make the yuletide gay.

He was a young American.

2008-11-28T02:43:00.002-05:00

So, of course, the day after I write something indicating my general bad feelings about myself at the moment, I want to write something else a little more hopeful, a little more encouraging to show that my head's not entirely in a bad place right now. I'm not taking down what I wrote yesterday. But I slept on it, so I feel a little less anxious. And, well, it's a holiday that I enjoy (or it was before midnight), and that's put me in a better mood.

THINGS I'M GRATEFUL FOR:

- A family that I'm getting along with better.
- A job that challenges me.
- The opportunities I've had to write for stage and perform onstage this year.
- My new house.
- The two people in my new house, who also challenge me.
- Friends who call. Friends I can call. Friends who have lunch with me. Friends who talk to me. Friends who are here. Friends who are abroad. Friends I've met in person. Friends I've not met in person but still consider friends.
- The fact that I can wake up in the morning and feel differently than I did the night before.
- I have myself. My ridiculous, messy, weird, trying-too-hard, trying-my-nerves but still trying self. And, I guess, hope should be contained in that. I'm not a perpetual optimist. I'm not an easy fella, no matter how you mean the word "easy." As long as I put myself out there and experiment with changing my life, as we all do, I continue to have all the promise that's contained in the next breath.

What I've kept with me and what I've thrown away.

2008-11-26T20:49:00.002-05:00

The last time that I decided I needed a therapist, it was because I had a really bad date that I couldn't get over. At all. The chats before the date led me to believe that I was legitimately connecting with this person. And then we went to the movies to see CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. I was nervous. And then I was awkward. And then I was stupid. And then I was uncomfortable. And then I tried to send him an e-mail the next day to explain what was going on in my head and why I wasn't behaving like the nice, lighthearted, jokey person that I'd seemed like in the e-mail. I was this odd, perpetually insecure dude who'd managed to mask all of that desperation to connect with someone through a sense of humor.

I couldn't let go of the fact that this one guy liked me, then didn't and wouldn't talk to me about it. He wouldn't talk to me about it because, you know, some people you just don't owe an explanation for that kind of thing. I understood that - the way that you understand things on paper - yet I still couldn't let it go. I maybe e-mailed too much in the beginning. Then I tried to e-mail and pretend like everything was all right with me, thinking that he might e-mail me back if I was just cool again. But he sent me one last e-mail, saying, "You have confused the hell out of me," and that was it.

What I wanted the last time that I was in therapy was to find a way to connect with people. Three years of therapy, and I had an outstanding balance due to my therapist that I still haven't completely paid off. I had a blog. I had improved confidence. I had medication - which I got through two appointments with a mean psychopharmacologist who treated me like I was responsible for my own misery and full of shit, which is probably true but not what you want to hear from someone you're asking for help. And I had a challenge in my head that led me to believe that I was once again capable of being an artist, going out and meeting people, finding a community where I fit with people who have similar goals and interests. (It was not the gay community, though I am gay. I can't find my place in the gay community. We'd talked about how I was going to connect with other gay people in therapy, but I never managed it. I just figured I could find other friends, other gays, other romances, other connections in places where I felt comfortable. And gay-centered places and large, concentrated groups of gay men, as a result, still scare the holy living fuck out of me.)

I thought I was doing so well. The therapist told me that I didn't need to come as often anymore, and I thought that I'd had the best experience with therapy I'd managed in my life. (He was my third therapist.)

This was a couple years ago.

I don't think that I've backslid into dangerous behaviors and regressed to the point that I was when I had the bad date and called the last therapist. But apparently I still had more work that I've needed to do.

But I have yet to even look beyond the occasional, non-committal web search at finding a new therapist. I don't want back on the fucking pills again. I don't want to talk about my childhood again. I don't want to do that kind of therapy again. I don't want to need therapy.

It's unfair that there's something wrong with me, my depression, my brain chemistry, my outlook and my ability to connect with people. I'm a nice person, and it's unfair that I have to go through this. It's unfair that I just can't fit in. It's unfair that my brain won't let me let things go. It's unfair that I have to deal with this shit, and I know everyone has shit to deal with. But I've worked and worked and worked, and this is unfair that I still have so much more work to do.

There are pictures on Facebook of the guy I had the bad date with. He's on a beach in Hawaii with his boyfriend. Another person I was once obsessed with got married a couple months ago in California, and I sent him well-wishes, as we have forgiven each other for the mutual emotional trauma that we inflicted upon one another. A guy I used to bug constantly in college is now someone I can say the occasional hello to on the Internet, and he doesn't seem to mind talking to me.

Other people would've been able to say goodbye to such things. Other people would've been able to let go of someone after they've been dismissed. I can let go nowadays, easier than I could when I was in high school or college, but it still takes me a hell of a long time to get over someone or some slight or some past anxiety. It keeps me up at night. Things upset me, and I explode. I get angry. I'm suspicious of people who try to be nice to me. I don't trust easily. And I try way too hard to be liked. I destroy apartments through neglect and self-punishment. Any random happening can put me on the defensive, where I feel like I'm being misunderstood and can't let that stand.

I thought that by understanding the roots of where these feelings came from - my past and my family and my disability - that I could learn to forgive, learn to cope, learn to survive and then learn to thrive.

I don't want to go back to therapy because years of therapy have only gotten me to this point, where people still say I'm ridiculously awkward, where I still have panic attacks about going to gay bars, where people are wary about being onstage with me, where I'm unable to find a man who wants to share this life with me.

I'm a good guy whose emotions betray him, whose lack of trust and desperation turn him into a villain, an outcast. I'm someone who tries too hard to do good and ends up alienating people who just want to relax and have a good time and who didn't sign on to spending time with me in order to help me cope with my baggage.

I have baggage. I need help. But I don't want to go to therapy. At least not the therapy that I'm familiar with.

Downward-facing dog.

2008-09-15T19:13:00.002-04:00

It's not that I'm at any sort of stopping point with my HOW TO WIN FRIENDS project. I've just joined a couple cults that have broadened my focus.

Today, I joined a yoga class at my office, and it hurt like holy hell. The instructor said that she'd try to find modified positions that would make me feel more comfortable, but I'm going to invest in some kneepads in the meantime.

Last week, I joined Weight Watchers because Jenipher's mom Jan - who likes me but whom Jenipher says is not allowed to like me better than her - was teaching the Monday night class near my house. Tonight, I went to my second meeting and got a sticker from Jan because I'd lost a significant amount of weight in my first week. Tonight's meeting was all about providing yourself with positive reinforcement.

I'm doing good things lately.

PRINCIPLE THREE: Arouse in the other person an eager want.

2008-08-22T00:41:00.005-04:00

"Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are." - Dale Carnegie

Taking on this principle, the last of the book's "fundamental techniques in handling people," was tough, really tough, even though I've learned about it in improv class before and can apply it in my scene work. What does this mean to those of you who don't do improv? It means I can create characters who can come to understand what someone else's character wants, and I can build a scene around either helping them gain that goal or thwarting their goal.

Of course, in improv, it creates a better scene if you create an obstacle toward someone's goal. It creates tension, and tension is more interesting onstage than an easily solved problem.

In life, blocking someone else's goal for the sole purpose of building tension just makes you an asshole. Working to understand someone else's desires and concentrating on the benefits they hope to reap over your own wants, desires, hopes and goals is what Carnegie suggests doing.

And I found it tough to do it. I'm selfish and self-centered and self-loathing and self-indulgent, and my initial reactions to situations are usually filtered through that self-interest.

But, since I'm trying to map my progress in this project on a regular basis, I did find one example today of how I've dealt with this specific principle. And it's a fucking doozy.
_______________

My mom took the day off work today so that she could go to Glamour Shots and get her casket photo taken. She went with her best friend Debbie, who also wanted a coffin-topper portrait in soft lighting.

As Mom explained to me, she and Debbie had discussed doing this photo shoot for nine years, but the plan moved from discussion to action a couple weeks ago when Mom found a two-for-one Glamour Shots coupon in the newspaper. They redeemed it today.

Debbie and Mom didn't just want updated, good photos of themselves. They wanted their going-away portraits. Mom wanted the photo that we're going to put on her casket during her wake.

Debbie and Mom devised this plan, as I said, nine years ago after Debbie's sister died. Debbie's sister - who was fine-looking but not a knockout - had a framed, filtered-lighting Glamour Shots photo of herself in heavy makeup looking her most "fashion model beautiful" atop her casket during the viewing of the body, and Debbie's family loved the photo so much that there was an actual fight over who got to keep it after the burial. And Debbie's sister's lying, cheating ex-husband apparently stole it off the coffin during the service when it looked like the photo was going to go to some other relative.

My mom said she and Debbie made a pact after that white-trash funeral photo theft incident that they should have pretty pictures taken of themselves for their coffins before, as she suggested, they became craggy, ugly, fat old women. She didn't want us to use a photo of her that was from the 1980s, and she didn't want a more recent photo that was unflattering. So she went to Glamour Shots today.

(My mom's pretty. But my mom doesn't think she's pretty. Just like I'm cute. But I don't think I'm cute.)

She told this to my stepfather and me, and our reactions were different.

My stepfather Jerry, with his Southern twang and his idea that our family funerals should be all about weeping, wailing, snake-handling and histrionic, down-on-your-knees begging for mercy from an almighty God (even though he doesn't go to church), was vehement in his disapproval of my mom's funeral photo shoot.

"THERE AIN'T NO MATERIAL THINGS LEFT AT THAT POINT! YOU AIN'T SUPPOSED TO FOCUS ON WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE! IT'S SINFUL!" Jerry roused to my mother, and she actually would laugh and argue her point, rather than just stay quiet like she usually does with Jerry, who prefers to proclaim his conclusions rather than listen to other people's points-of-view.

"We've been talking about it for years, Jerry," she explained. "And Debbie and I want to do this before we get any uglier. Have you seen some of the photos they run on the obits page?"

Jerry scoffed and said he'd just have her cremated. (I scoffed at that, for I'm betting he dies first.)

My mom's whole perspective on this photo shoot for the past couple weeks has been refreshing, actually. She's been very matter-of-fact about all the deeper ramifications of this, like that she's openly acknowledging that she's going to die eventually. She knows that the photo shoot is shrouded in this morbidity, and she's tackled it with a certain admirable, sick sense of humor.

As a result of this, my main objection to the photo shoot was not that I didn't want Mom to plan her funeral. (She's been carrying around sheet music for it in her briefcase for years. I know that. She's just being zealous about preparation.) No, my main objection was her choice of photography studios.

"Seriously, Mom, I know photographers who could do this for you," I said to her today while she ironed three outfits that she wanted to wear. "Why Glamour Shots?"

"Well, we have a coupon," Mom said. "And Debbie and I want to do this together. You know how we'll probably get there and just start laughing about it. We've wanted to do this for years."

I understood what she wanted. I understood why she wanted it. So I tried to work with that by telling her what my fears about the whole thing were.

I said, "I don't want you to wear a hat. I don't want you to wear a boa. Don't clinch your collar. I don't want you to do any shots where you rest your hand on your chin. I don't want them to light the shot so much that it looks like you've been glazed. I don't want the photo on your casket to make it look like you were the madam at some New Orleans brothel."

It was wrong of me to concern myself over how potentially tacky this whole thing might be. It's not my funeral.

My mom explained to me that Glamour Shots has changed.

"You wear your own clothes now, so I won't be wearing a hat or a boa," she said, propping up the iron. "They do your makeup while you're there, but I'll still be in my own clothes. I've got the black-pinstripe suit, the red suit and this denim one that will, you know, look more casual. Don't worry about it."

My mom hasn't worn much facial makeup in years. She abandoned lipstick when she started dating my stepfather. She's never been a Glamour Shots type of woman before. I had mixed feelings about this whole thing because I couldn't quite grasp what she was out to prove about herself.

And then, while she was going over the clothes, I thought that maybe my problem with all of this is that, because I'm her son and because I love her, I see something in her that she doesn't. It's the same thing I can't see in myself.

And so I looked at my mother and said, "You know you're pretty, right?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Oh come on," I repeated, "you've always been pretty."

She kept ironing.

"Even when you were a kid, you were pretty. You're pretty now. You dress well. You're pretty, and you know that."

She thanked me, but, unfortunately, I don't think she quite bought it.

Still, this evening, she called me up and said, "I didn't wear a hat. I didn't wear a boa. There was one shot in close-up where they told me to rest my head on my arm, and I did that. But most of them came out really good. I got several 5x10s of one where I was wearing the denim, and you can have one of the wallet-sized ones."

My mother is not dying. My mother just allowed herself this fun, silly act of vanity to fly in the face of aging and death. And I just want her to like herself and have fun. I think she wants to like herself.

Today, at that photo shoot, she did.

When I put that photo on her casket one sad day, I hope I remember this. And I hope I laugh about it.
_________________

(EDITOR'S NOTE: The lovely woman in the above photo is not my mother, just some nice person who posted her photo on the Internet.)

In appreciation.

2008-08-08T00:14:00.004-04:00

"Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare." - Dale Carnegie

My friend Zach Steele owns a bookstore in Decatur. It opened last June. Because I'd been out of touch with him, I found out about Zach's bookstore while I was hitting on this straight guy during the Armistead Maupin book signing at Outwrite Books. The heterosexual guy worked at Georgia Center for the Book, and he and I were doing this random chit-chat while I was trying to picture what he looked like naked. (I did not know he was straight at the time. I mean, jeez, it was an Armistead Maupin book signing at Outwrite. It's not my fault for jumping to the wrong conclusion. And he was cute.)

During the chit-chat, the straight guy and I were talking about self-published books, and I told him that the worst self-published book ever written was this Southern-fried, end-times novel called APOCALYPSE SOUTH by Kyle Watson. (The book has a scene that takes place in a traffic jam on I-285 during the Rapture. It's absolutely hilarious.)

And the straight guy told me that he'd seen APOCALYPSE SOUTH before and, in fact, had a friend with a marked-up copy of it with notes on the edges where an entire bookstore staff had commented on how bad it was. And I told the straight guy that I was familiar with that copy of the book, for I had once worked with the bookstore staff that created it. The straight guy told me that Zach, my one-time manager, had the copy and read it to the staff of his new bookstore at every meeting they had.

And, thus, the cute, straight guy and APOCALYPSE SOUTH led me to reacquaint myself with Zach. The day after the Maupin signing, I e-mail him and discovered Wordsmiths Books in Decatur. A few days later, I'd walked through the doors of their first location in Decatur, a pretty place with unfortunately low foot traffic. Zach wasn't there during my first trip to the store, which is why I was able to focus on the store and fall in love with its charms in my own way. It's a beautiful place with a warm vibe. It feels good to be there. It feels comfortable to read there. It was the sort of place where I wanted to know everyone's name.

I came up with my own dream for Wordsmiths that first day. I wanted to do a reading there. I wanted to sign copies of my own, as-yet-unwritten books there. I had this feeling stronger in Wordsmiths than I'd ever had in any location of the bookstore that had given me paychecks. In part, this was because it was independent. Mostly, I think I was just charmed to be standing in the middle of Zach's dream store. He had the idea. He wanted something. He went for it, and he achieved it. It made me want to tie my own ambitions to his. I envied his success, and I hoped that Wordsmiths was a place where fulfilled dreams were contagious. That was last year when I'd just begun discovering places like JaCKPie in the city, places built on optimism. I wanted a part of it.

So I e-mailed Zach the next day and told him that I'd enjoyed going to his store and was tempted to jump up on the microphone and read one of my essays. And, even though at that point he'd never read an essay of mine and had never heard me perform anything, he told me at the time that I was more than welcome to jump up on the mic whenever I was in his store. And within a month, Wordsmiths had its first Open Mic Night, and I brought "Prayer for the Waffle House Faithful" to read. When I stepped up on that stage, I'm fairly certain that Zach and his staff didn't know what to expect from me. During the reading, I noticed that I was getting a lot of laughs, particularly from Zach and his wife Alice. By the time I was done, Zach came onstage and said that I was more than welcome to perform at every Open Mic Night. It was one of the best compliments I've ever gotten in my life.

Since then, Russ Marshalek, the events coordinator for Wordsmiths, has proven to be just as supportive of my work as Zach. He's asked me to read at other events at Wordsmiths and said that my Phi Kappa brother Will Young and I are the store's favorite homegrown performers. Russ even helped me film a scene of THE AMBER NASH SHOW video in his apartment complex elevator.

I love these guys. I love Wordsmiths Books. It has shown me nothing but love, and it has supported my efforts as a writer and performer.

And now it's in trouble. Because of debt incurred at the location it has since moved from, Wordsmiths is in danger of closing, and I want to keep the place open forever. Fundraising efforts are ongoing, and I would like it very much if you could help out a place that's becoming an important part of the Decatur and Atlanta communities.

View it anyway you like. Go to their website, and read about what's going on from the owner himself. Just help them out if you can. Pick your reasons. Please help.

Do it because good people need your help. Do it because you want another place where you can buy books. Because people who've helped me out now need help. Because a local, small business needs help. Because it's a cool place. Because you remember what the cool, small bookstore in your town used to be like. Because I've not written a book yet, and I want Wordsmiths to still be there for when I do or for when any of my friends do. Because the continued existence of mom-and-pop stores suggest the basic American dream can still survive. Do it because places built on optimism are places that need to stick around.

And thank you for your attention and help.

http://www.wordsmithsbooks.com

PRINCIPLE TWO: Give honest and sincere appreciation.

2008-08-06T03:49:00.003-04:00

"I shall pass this way but once: any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." - Old saying referenced in HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

WEEK TWO PROGRESS REPORT

Trying to think up a more interesting way to blog about this than just "I tried this principle this week, and this happened ...," I tried to think of something that I'm randomly grateful for. And, for some reason that hit me when I singing along with my car stereo, I realized that I am grateful that I never got to perform a solo number in my high school's choral variety show. The people I suppose that I can thank for this are Mr. Fowler, my high school choral director, and my late Grandpa Carr.

The reason that I am grateful that I didn't perform a solo isn't because I'm scared to sing in public. I like my singing voice, actually. I'm not great, but I'm not bad. Since I grew up singing with my mother the formal choral teacher-turned-mortgage banker and two aunts who also taught high school chorus, it was sorta expected that I'd be singing my whole life - even if I never showed the sheer talent for it that my elders did. (Seriously, Aunt Carol is a very, very accomplished soprano.)

Still, because I was one of those theater kids (or would've been if I'd been at a school with a functional drama department) and because I was a former member of the Atlanta Boy Choir, I wanted to be center stage at every concert and, after it was created my junior year, the song-and-dance variety show, which is a spectacular program in Buford even now. But my moment in the high school spotlight never happened.

And I am fucking grateful. Because now I have no embarrassing "song-and-dance" moments to live down.

It's all about song choice. You'll see what I mean.

My junior year, I heard this '40s tune on television because it was the theme song from my favorite show, "Homefront," which was this really, really good post-WWII soap opera. The song was "Accentuate the Positive" by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, and my mother - ever resourceful when it came to music - bought the sheet music herself so that I could try out for Mr. Fowler. It's a great song about spreading joy and being really, really happy in the face of adversity. But, when I tried out, I'd only heard the hook of it. I didn't know about the deep, deep bass, gospel-churchy "Come to Jesus" part that opened the song, and I didn't rehearse it enough. So I ended up sounding like a fool during the tryout, which made me angry and made me throw a stupid fit where I cried in front of the teacher. (I cried a lot in my younger days before testosterone kicked in and made my voice drop. I can sing that song's deep, deep bass parts now. Not so much when I was 16.)

So when junior year didn't work out, I thought I would try extra, extra hard my senior year to really get a solo and really give a performance that would amaze people. So I picked Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman," which is a great song that I can really sing and did decently well with during first tryouts. And I was supposed to sing it, everything was set. And my grandfather died the week before the show, so my brother and I had to leave rehearsals to go to Florida. And coming back from Grandpa Carr's funeral, I really didn't feel like polishing a song-and-dance routine wherein I sang of my love for beautiful ladies to a group of dancing, dolled-up teenaged girls. The number was cut. Now, at 32, I can honestly say, "Thank you for dying, Grandpa. Your timing is excellent."

If you're reading this blog, you probably know my attitudes and preferences really, really well. Now, if I'd mentioned to you that I'd performed song-and-dance numbers to "Accentuate the Positive" and "Oh, Pretty Woman" in high school, what are the chances that my melancholy, homosexual ass would ever be able to live that down? (And you know I would have already told you this story if it had actually happened.)

I honestly and sincerely appreciate that I didn't get to perform those songs, even though I was really, really upset about losing both opportunities at the time.

Hindsight can be sweet.
______________

Tonight, after an excellent improv class where my confidence and attitude is improving, I met my friend Scott (yes, that Scott - the ex-almost-boyfriend Scott) for dinner at Steak 'n' Shake. And I tried listening to him. I tried not bringing up all the baggage and bad memories that I usually bring up. I didn't dwell on bad things. I didn't bitch at him. I was happy to see him, for - because we are comfortable with one another - I have fun with him and relax with him. And I must say that it was one of the best evenings that we've had together in a while because I tried to pay attention to him and concentrate on what he wanted. I really, really tried to apply the principles of the book, and he said he noticed a change in me.

Yes, I'm typing this from Scott's. Yes, it's his webcam. Yes, it's 5 a.m. No, we did not. Thank you.
______________

My improv teacher Jim does read this blog. I found that out last week after he e-mailed me to ask why I blogged about him not replying to my e-mails. That entry last week was me trying to reason out what I was doing wrong and how I could improve my approach with him. I applied those principles stronger this week, and I think I'm in a much better place with him and with my performances in class. Jim's an exceedingly positive, encouraging and supportive guy. As I read in this book about "recognizing and satisfying other people's wants," I'm reminded of performance lessons that he already taught my class.

As I continue to work on these things, now that he knows what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, I'm very happy to say that I have his support.
_______________

This week, I went back to my bookstore because Kurt wanted to see the new Tori Amos comic, and I got to see Daniel the Violin Guy, my friend Cheryl the Chef and James the Future Roommate. It was a really good day. I miss the bookstore and miss those people. I need to move back to town, but these things will all happen in time. I expected it to happen quickly, but patience will allow me the chance to work through some financial problems that come when you face the amount of change that I have this year.

I just keep reminding myself that the changes were positive.

Kurt's become a good friend to have around.
_______________

I really like this book. Thank you, Dale Carnegie.

PRINCIPLE ONE: Don't criticize, condemn or complain.

2008-07-27T20:57:00.007-04:00

"Do you know someone you would like to change and regulate and improve? ... Why not begin on yourself?" - Dale Carnegie, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

WEEK ONE PROGRESS REPORT

I would say that this first principle has been something of a bitch to apply to my life, but that would be a complaint. And, if I am dedicated to this process, I can't be dedicated to it halfway. Of course, Carnegie admits that he found himself backsliding in regard to this one. It's a process, and all I have to do is get better at it. I can do that.

It turns out my tattered paperback is not a copy that once belonged to my father, though my mom told me that he took the seminar when he was working for Hartford Insurance in the '70s. My copy just looks old. It turns out that my well-intentioned, oftentimes too-involved mother bought me this book to try and motivate me to get along with people and behave like a normal, undepressed kid when I was in high school, and I ignored it - except to carry it around with me from move to move to move until its pages yellowed and its cover got stained and beaten to hell. She routinely used to mention the book to me as though it could solve all my social problems and help me fit into future workplace environments. (She thinks it helped my dad with relationships and success, though would he be a divorced, twice-laid-off insurance exec if he'd really, really been good at keeping friends?)

I think I carried it from move to move because I thought it belonged to my dad, but the back cover mentions that it's been updated for life in the "complex and competitive" 1990s - and he stopped living at our house in 1982.

So, by reading this book after she told me to do so for years and years and years, my mother's arrow has reached its intended target. I'm reading the book. So the next time she tells me that I'd be better off if I'd read it, I can scoff and reply sarcastically with, "Oh yeah, well, I have ..." Except that it'd be really, really negative to say something like that, and it isn't even that funny. She means well, even if it comes off as dismissively judgmental sometimes to my ears, which have been honed to interpret everything intended as helpful with a degree of skepticism and venom.

I've been living with her for two months, and she's been good and nice and patient. I should have more in savings than I do, and I should be further along in my apartment search than I am.

There is much in my life that I need to work on. It seems too small to work on the fact that I'm a self-involved smartass. But maybe it'll be like dominoes, one thing will affect the next until a sea change comes in my attitudes and situations.

In trying to explain the backstory of how I picked this book and why this book in particular is the one I'm blogging about, though, it should be said that this was my mom's go-to suggestion of how to "fix" me whenever I had hardship or was having difficulty in friendships or work. This book was the salve she suggested I apply to my damaged psyche, and she told me that it did wonders for my father, with whom I have a sometimes connected, sometimes utterly disconnected relationship. So that's the "why" of the blog. I want to see my mother's remedy and my father's fabled "inspiration" affect my life.

So here's how I've applied the first principle this week:

_________

I was nice to my stepfather whenever I saw him, asking him his opinions of what he watched on TV and saying hello whenever we were in the same room. And, this week, when he cleaned three rooms of the house while my mother was at work, I was impressed and maintained a good opinion of him. (Of course, it leads me to wonder how much cleaning I should be doing. But, well, I'm usually only at the house awake between the hours of midnight and 4 a.m.)

So, well, my stepdad vaccuumed, and I thought it was a cool thing for him to do.
_________

In my communications with my improv teacher Jim, I've tried to be positive and encouraging, asking him - a little too bluntly and obviously after going on about myself for days before picking up the book - how I can be a better friend to him (in an e-mail that he didn't answer). And I tried to be upbeat in an e-mail reply to an announcement he sent me about an improv show he had this weekend (which he also did not reply to).

I shouldn't have made my attempts at positivity so blatant, such a 180-degree turn from the last conversation I had with him on Tuesday where I worried too much, criticized myself extensively and then asked him to hug me. When I tried talking to him this week, it came off as a desperate attempt to make amends, fix things and restore order. In short, I was a handful for him this week, and a freaked-out overreaction from me probably won't restore his faith in me that things are going to get better.

I need to chill with him, and I need to relax. In the meantime, I'm going to try a positive, smile, quieter poker face.

And I'll let you know how it goes. (He does not read this blog.)
_________

I had another good dinner with my friend Kurt, who does read this blog. At one point, I made a self-effacing comment about whether he actually thinks I'm cute - which he's said. It was just another way that I was condemning myself. It was wrong to do that, particularly in the way that it seemed like I was just digging for compliments from someone whose friendship has been a reliable, reassuring thing that I can trust.

Kurt saw the book, and he asked me how old the copy was. That's what prompted the realization that my copy was put to press in the '90s.
_________

The most significant chance I had to apply these principles this week, and the one that I've been most unsure about addressing, was my trip to a guy's apartment on Friday night. We will call him "D," even though I don't think he reads this blog (and probably won't in the future). I've not blogged about my personal life in quite some time, but, if I'm going to examine how these principles are affecting my life, I would be remiss if I didn't mention - at least in part - what happened on Friday night because HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE and this project was mentioned specifically.

Shortly after I arrived, D saw that I had the paperback in my hand and asked me how it was going. I told him that it was going pretty well, though I said I was having a difficult time remaining positive and not complaining about stuff. I mean, I was aware that I complain a lot - for I know my temperament - but, geez, so much of what I say is negative.

I mean, it's almost as though "guy who bitches about things and people in a clever way" is who I want to be known as. (OK, it's a lot like that's who I want to be.) I'd never realized so completely as I did this week that being "that guy" is a silly thing to really want to be. I've done a lot of damage to myself by being that guy. If you want to be a harsh, critical, melodramatic person, why is it a surprise that you need help winning friends?

D sorta playfully mock-criticized the book, the way I always have with my mom. When he heard the first principle, D said that much of what he says is a complaint, criticism or condemnation. (We have that in common.) And it didn't seem to be a temperament that he wanted to lose. He said that people come to him for that sort of spice. (It was yet another moment this month when I felt, with D, like I was dating someone with my exact personality, and these moments kinda horrified me.) And, when he said that, I thought about whether I wanted that in a boyfriend, someone as jaded and bitter as I have been. I know what it's like to pride yourself on your negative temperament. (I still do it.) But how can I get better if I am growing close with someone who doesn't appreciate that I'm trying to improve or thinks that it'd be a stupid thing to try? I know I've made jokes, but I want to explore this process seriously. His reaction was such a bummer.

The remainder of the evening went downhill from that. There were some good moments, some fun. I really, really wanted to connect with this guy, for we did have things in common. And I would like to connect with someone.

At one point, my mind was wandering about things that weren't working, and D asked me if everything was OK.

"I'm not supposed to condemn, criticize or complain," I said in a smart-alecky way.

It was our third and probably last date.

I saw a lot of myself in that guy. I saw a lot of what I want to change about myself in that guy.

"Ah yes, you are attempting a new way of life."

2008-07-25T23:20:00.007-04:00

By the time I was four years old, I had developed this rather in-depth conviction that I was either an alien from outer space or the savior of mankind. Or both. I'd seen Superman and Spider-Man in cartoons. I'd seen Luke Skywalker in the movies and sang songs about Jesus Christ in children's choir. My mom, without meaning to, encouraged this conviction. She told me that I was special, not just because I could walk on my wobbly legs like Bambi did when he and Thumper stepped on the frozen pond. She told me stories of my difficult birth, my surprising survival against incredible odds, my remarkable singing voice, my sweet temperament, my kindness toward all the people I met, the weird birthmark on my head and my unexpected intelligence. That was my origin story. I was supposed to be another hero. All I had to do was wait for my superpowers to show up. I knew that they were coming.

And, based upon some conclusion I drew after closing my eyes really, really tight and putting the palms of my hands against my eyes until I saw "stars," I thought my superpowers were going to come from another galaxy far, far away or, like, Heaven. (Jesus was just another guy with superpowers to me at that point. I knew all the words to "Jesus Loves Me" and the "Theme from Spider-Man.") By routinely inflicting that injury on myself, I figured that I was actually receiving some kind of message from the place that I was really from. My cerebral palsy wasn't an affliction that caused difficulty, it was something from which I would eventually derive power. My mom and dad were not my real mom and dad. My little brother would bite me and fight with me because he was merely normal and understood that a supreme being like myself didn't belong with them.

Kids want to be superheroes. Kids play pretend.

On the last day that I was in daycare at Lithia Springs High School before my family moved to Buford, I remember that it was raining and darkly stormy and that the drops were beading against the window of the daycare classroom. I was told that we were leaving Lithia Springs, but I didn't understand it. I didn't understand that someplace else was supposed to be my home, that I wasn't supposed to be "from" Lithia Springs anymore. So I put my hand against the window, acted like I could touch the raindrops, that I could freeze them in place or command them to move down the window. I imagined that I had powers, that I had control over the weather. I didn't want to go to the town with the dumb name. "Buford" just sounded like a dumb name. "Lithia Springs" sounded mythic to me in comparison, the name of a goddess or a radioactive element. I sat in the classroom, looked up into the dark sky and tried to imagine that my real life - the one where my future as a hero was set in stone - was beginning. I closed my eyes, pressed my palms against them until I saw stars and waited to receive the message telling me exactly how to become a superhero. I might've imagined voices telling me what to do, but the voice sounded to me like mine. I wanted something else, someone bigger than me, to communicate to me, to tell me that everything was OK. But the whole thing was just a game I was playing, one where a four-year-old boy had power over the universe, where it was only a matter of time until I fulfilled my destiny and all the things that I didn't understand would eventually be explained. Until it was time for us to go, I sat Indian-style against the window, concentrated on the raindrops hanging in front of me and tried to make them move.
_____

I wish I still had that sense of power, that certainty, that belief in single-minded purpose as strongly as I did when I was a child. But things happen. If that sense of myself as "special" or "a superhero" was gone completely, I don't know that I would even mourn it, but there are still elements of it within me. I still dream. I still stubbornly believe that I'm doing the right thing.

Somewhere along the way, though, the idea that I was supposed to help other people got lost, replaced by the notion that I was important and that other people were supposed to pay attention to me. And the me that I have become is not totally the me that I wanted to be when, you know, the aliens were sending me my special purpose and weather-controlling superpowers from Heaven.

Somehow I got off-course when finding my special purpose. This wasn't supposed to happen like this. I was always supposed to be able to fit in with people and talk to them. I'm not supposed to be this self-centered. I'm not supposed to be this sarcastic. I'm not supposed to EVER be a complete dick. I was never supposed to complain, and I was never supposed to have any reason to complain. My destiny was supposed to be set. I was always supposed to be the hero.

I am not always the hero. I'm not always nice. I'm not even remotely cheery or an optimist. I feel like I barely smile. In fact, I can be a self-centered, self-defeating ass. In fact, I can be a downright drag. I'm the dark one. I'm the villain sometimes. There are times when even my friends really, really, really need their space from me.

I want to get better, and this book can help me.

I want to be the hero again. And that's going to take a lot of work.

How to win friends and influence people.

2008-07-24T18:09:00.003-04:00

My mistake happened this weekend. It was the sort of error that you wouldn't notice unless you were really paying attention. Somebody said something to me while I was onstage doing a comedy show, and it threw me off my game. I kept going with the comedy show, but I stopped enjoying it. Eventually, that little seed of self-consciousness grew into a tree of insecurity. By the end of the show, I'd started struggling and was not having a good time, which is a real shame when you consider that I was doing something that I love doing and had taken time off work early to be able to do. But, at the time when I was onstage judging myself and in a panic, I'd forgotten why I was there. I was just up there, trying to get onstage, trying to get my groove back, trying to survive. It was not a total disaster, for me struggling through a show can still generate some decent comedy - and I had people onstage who weren't "in their heads" like me, people were trying to help me.

My problem was that I wasn't returning the favor. I was thinking about myself, my level of comfort, how *I* was doing, how the mistakes that were happening were not my fault.

But it was all my fault that I had a bad show. It was all my fault that I didn't have a good time. It was all my fault that my mind wasn't where it should've been and that my job as a performer wasn't done the right way.

The people who were trying to help me should've gotten an equal lift from me trying to help them, but I was not doing that. I wasn't trying to make them look good. I was out there in a panic, putting myself into a bad mood while trying unsuccessfully to save myself.

That can't happen again. And I can't keep going over it in my head. So instead, I'm going to work on my attitude.

I have a task. I'm setting it for myself and working on it alone. I'm not going to worry about what I did wrong. That's in the past. I'm going to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

I don't want to be in my head so much that I can't see the effect I have on myself or other people anymore - onstage or in my life. I need to focus my energies outside of myself and relate to people better.

When I changed jobs, had the puppet show happen and had to move back in with my mom for a couple months, there was a book at her house that I've sold to many, many people at the bookstore called WHO MOVED MY CHEESE. It was just sitting around the bathroom, and I picked it up, more to scoff at it than anything else, but reading it actually provided me with a lot of comfort in regard to the changes that I was going through at the time. And, when the changes come again, I hope I'm better able to face them.

So I've picked up a couple more self-help books from a box of my father's stuff - specifically Norman Vincent Peale's THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING and Dale Carnegie's HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE - to see if they'll help me fix my attitudes and my way of dealing with people. And, last night at Steak 'n' Shake when I started to read my father's old copy of Dale Carnegie's business motivation book, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE, the book said that you should write down and constantly review how you used the principles of the book in everyday life.

I figured that it might make for interesting blog entries and improve my improv skills, and I do have a legitimate desire and curiosity about how to improve my relations with other people. So I thought I would try it.

OK, so here's a new personal project.

I'm going to apply HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE to my life, and I'm going to blog about it.

Things to do with a freeze ray.

2008-07-20T16:54:00.005-04:00

- Last night after my improv show, someone told me that there was a new Joss Whedon musical, which I thought incorrectly was some kind of stage show. No, instead it's a three-part video called DR. HORRIBLE'S SING-ALONG BLOG, that's available at the website until the end of the day and thereafter only available through iTunes, according to the "master plan" on the website. It's a comic-book plot with fun music starring Neil Patrick Harris as an evil genius and Nathan Fillion as a superhero in a really tight shirt, and I recommend it (and not just because of Fillion's nipples).
- Saw THE DARK KNIGHT. Absolutely amazing.

- A couple days ago, I was watching the trailer for WATCHMEN, a movie coming in March that's based upon the best graphic novel ever written. (TIME called the Alan Moore book one of the greatest novels ever written, a friend of mine called it "the CITIZEN KANE of comic books." Both assertations are correct.)

- Lupo tells me that I have to see MAMMA MIA! because it's just that awful, featuring the worst choreography he's ever seen in a musical. He compared it unfavorably to GREASE 2. Who wants to go with me???
- Emily just e-mailed me to ask if I knew about six-word stories, which paint a picture in spite of their lack of length. After finding this website, I wrote this one: Mother wept as the soldier knocked. THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENT: Write a six-word story in the comment section.

Things to do in someone else's dreams.

2008-07-13T17:10:00.005-04:00

- My friend and improv cohort Jeremiah Prescott is the only person onstage in PushPush Theater's work-in-progress movieplay, INTERSECTION OF DREAMS, and I saw it on Tuesday. Good stuff. It's romantic, contains much dream logic but tells a clear, somewhat creepy story. It's very experimental, but I recommend it.

- I already have my tickets to THE DARK KNIGHT: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE. I'm going at the end of my shift on Friday to the Mall of Georgia IMAX theater. I can't tell you how excited I am to see this movie. I just hope that my expectations for it aren't too high. But I love Christopher Nolan, and I love BATMAN BEGINS.
- I started listening to Tom Perrotta's THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER audiobook at work. Its narrator is Campbell Scott, an actor that I've had a crush on since I saw DYING YOUNG in 1991. His voice is so smooth. Everyday at work, listening to him talk about a sex-ed teacher's difficulties in a right-wing, religious suburban community, Campbell's voice makes it all so soothing and right.

- The French trailer for TRANSPORTER 3 has been posted on YouTube, and Kacoon and I have already made plans to see it when it's released in November. (My first reaction to the trailer was, for the record, "Sweet Jesus, he's in his underwear!") Kacoon said that this one looks better than TRANSPORTER 2, and I agreed because it looks like it has more Jason Statham shirtlessness, a fight scene that requires the bad guys to strip a suit off the Transporter and a girl that looks like she's had at least one meal in the last two weeks.

- Lately, I've been listening to some Rilo Kiley, and I realize I'm late to the party on this one. But UNDER THE BLACKLIGHT is a good album.
- A couple weeks ago, I wanted to ride on the Ferris wheel that was at a roadside carnival on Jimmy Carter Boulevard, but friends of mine refused to join me at a roadside carnival for what would only be a 20-minute stay. I was just in the mood for some Tilt-a-Whirl action, you know, maybe some cotton candy or something like that. I was in the mood to put myself in danger. I wanted some thrills, twists and turns, something like a roller coaster. On Wednesday, though, I finally found someone who was willing to go on an amusement park ride with me: my two-year-old nephew DJ. He and I hopped on the Merry-Go-Round at the Mall of Georgia, and he had fun, even though I wouldn't let him have the black horse that he wanted because I was afraid he was going to fall off it and break his head open. Heck, even the horse I put him on managed to freak the hell out of me. DJ is this little, fragile kid I adore, and I was deathly afraid that something would go wrong. Even though he was strapped in safely, and nothing bad did happen. I can't believe people are ever able to relax about taking care of their own children. I was freaked out that my sister-in-law Samantha trusted me to put her child on such a ride, which went from being cute, quaint and fun - at a distance - to looking to me like a giant death trap while I put DJ on the horse. Parenthood must be like one long, sustained, paranoid panic attack. High praise to those of you who manage it. Once the ride ended and DJ was back safely on the ground, I felt better and realized that it was all fun. But, geez, that ride was scary. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Do any carnival rides scare you? Have you ever had a bad experience on one?

Momentarily gone.

2008-07-12T16:40:00.001-04:00

My domain name expired, so I just renewed it. Blog will be down for a day.

Card in a drawer.

2008-07-07T15:06:00.003-04:00

A couple days ago, going through an old drawer of cards and Valentines, I think I found a holiday card sent to my mother from her Aunt Averial. (I always thought she had an "Aunt Averille" or "Aunt Avril," but, to trust the card, it's "Aunt Averial.")

My mom can't talk about her aunt without tearing up, but I always try asking about her. My mom's aunt, you see, was sent to an institution and lobotomized during the 1970s - I think - after having a nervous breakdown. But, to hear the stories from my mother, Averial wasn't crazy. She was smart, strong and a battered wife. Apparently, for speaking out against her husband or defying her husband or something like that, she was institutionalized. When she wouldn't comply with being locked away, her husband had the authorities there treat her "madness" by cutting off a portion of her brain so that her personality would subside, so that she would lose the supposed crazy defiance she had for being a strong, smart and independent woman trapped in a bad marriage.

I found out about this in an odd way. There were occasional mentions of Averial's lobotomy, none with too much explanation, but I got the most detailed descriptions of the story after I watched ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and asked my mom if she's seen the movie in the theater. My mom tells me that she had to walk out of the theater while seeing it with my dad in 1975 because the ending - which, sorry to spoil it, features a creepy, creepy lobotomy - reminded her too much of what Averial had gone through.

While driving through Paulding on a trip there while my grandfather was in better shape than he is now, we drove past the "county institution," though it wasn't the one where Averial stayed. It was an earlier one, maybe from the 1920s. It was a dark, renovated shack - practically falling down. My grandfather pointed out the graveyard with no marked graves. He pointed out to me that, in the '20s, that's where parents were encouraged to send their children if they were retarded or disabled or such, for that was how mental health was treated in those days. It was horrifying, particularly for someone born disabled, for I often wonder how my life would've gone if I'd been born at a time when disabilities like mine - even ones as mild as mine - were treated with "care" that was a good deal more harsh.

Her name was spelled "Averial." As it happens in the family, her handwriting was almost exactly like my mother's.

Another trip to the library.

2008-07-07T15:00:00.001-04:00

A woman here keeps lightly smacking her children when they get loud. I don't know whether to be offended or to find such discipline of children quaint.

I have eight minutes to write something profound.

OK ... peanut!

Things to do while I'm in suburbia for the summer.

2008-07-06T15:28:00.006-04:00

- Last night, I saw WANTED, the hilariously violent Angelina Jolie-James McAvoy assassin comic-book movie. Every friend of mine who'd already seen it (and, in some cases, seen it twice) said that it was the most crazy and satisfying "summer movie" they'd seen this summer. And it didn't disappoint. It was, in fact, a hell of a lot of fun, and the combination of seeing people getting shot in the head and getting to hear Morgan Freeman's crisp diction as he says "kill this motherfucker!" was worth the price of admission. Best action movie since IRON MAN.

- Granted, WANTED is no WALL-E, which is a masterpiece that's equal parts romance and sci-fi. I'm assuming that you've already been to the theater to see it. If you haven't, nothing should keep you from it.
- Meanwhile, at the Center for Puppetry Arts (Oh, come on, you knew I had to mention it ...), this nice couple I met at a party are staging this show called THE DRAGON KING, a Chinese fable about an old woman who travels to the bottom of the sea to find out why it's stopped raining in her country. The show's touring the country, and I always recommend stuff at the Center for Puppetry Arts. It runs through July 13.

- Dad's Garage has extended the run of the great SONG OF THE LIVING DEAD until July 19, so there's still a chance to catch musical numbers like "Why Are You Cornholing Me, Jesus?" at the theater. Highly recommended.
- Or, if you're me, you can go to the library to check your e-mail and find out that all sorts of interesting people have moved into your hometown since you graduated high school.

- I've been watching all sorts of TV on DVD lately. My copy of the first season of MAD MEN should, UPS-willing, arrive at my house tomorrow. Meanwhile, Netflix has allowed me the chance to become obsessed with this show called BURN NOTICE. SLINGS & ARROWS, before that, was fantastic. And I'm really enjoying the 1976-set trading-spouses drama SWINGTOWN on CBS.com. And, above everything else, did you see that mid-season ending of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA? Good Lord.

- As for books, I've now completed JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL after trying to read it for years. (Thank you, downloadable library audiobook!) I've also read my friend Emily Giffin's latest bestseller, LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH, and now I'm debating what to read next.
- I'm in Level Five of the improv classes at JaCKPie now, and my experience there has changed my life for the better. I highly recommend taking part in the new JaCKPie Level One class if you want to add some fun to your life and some positivity to your existence. The new Level One will be on Thursday nights, beginning within two weeks. You can sign up for it at JaCKPie.com, and I strongly suggest that you do so.
- As for this list coming back, I thought it would be a way to get me writing regularly and paying attention to what's new in art again. Plus, I thought it might drum up some readership. (I'm a whore.) Actually, I thought it'd be nice to drum up topics of conversation again. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: So what's the most fun thing you've done this summer? What movies, books, TV, stage shows and music have you enjoyed lately?

What I've kept with me and what I've thrown away.

2008-07-04T21:38:00.002-04:00

Things are changing at my office, though I'm not sure if things are changing for me this time. So much has changed since I started this job in March, what with my forced departure from Barnes & Noble to the loss of my apartment, that I should start feeling more comfortable about change and loss.

A couple days ago, it talked with my old bookstore manager about the changes here in the office and how they might affect my potential return to the bookstore, but I don't know if it's going to work out - and I don't know if it should. I mean, I didn't honestly expect to work two jobs as I approached middle age. But why am I not relieved? So much is changing and so much was supposed to have changed for the better, but I'm still shell-shocked by much of it.

I don't feel like myself. It's another Independence Day that I've spent inside working, and routinely I've been calling people on the phone to assure that they have plans, that they're having fun and that they've been taken care of.

But, in spite of all these changes, I feel like I'm still not taking proper care of myself.

I didn't really want to spend another Fourth working, but I actually said that I was OK with working this shift when I was asked. (Someone just walked in while I was typing this to alert me to the fact that there might actually be work to do, but my shift here ends in nine minutes. I have friends to meet.)

Is my life better? I think so, even though the evidence is harder to discern when you actually examine the details of my life.

Mediocre men of the hour.

2008-06-30T15:46:00.002-04:00

So I'm here at the library again on Monday, this time to grab some addresses for packages that I need to send. In the process, I have a bag filled with a variety of things that I should probably use today - blank index cards, a pen, the copy of JONATHAN STRANGE that I'm almost finished with (yay). I've got it in my head that I should either spend the day making some headway in my apartment search or, at least, write something. I really, really think that I'd be better off in the long run if I fucking wrote something, though searching for an apartment is important. (I keep thinking I should do that with James, the future roommate.)

I had a date last week. If I'd not vowed to never blog about a date again, I would give details as to the look, shape and feel of the day I spent with the guy - not to be confused with the look, shape and feel of the guy. When there's something to say, I'll say it. In the meantime, I feel like using whatever inspiration comes my way to write something fictional again. I think I'd have more fun getting back to my imagination.

Played an improv show last week, and it felt pretty fantastic to do it. I was mostly comfortable onstage, trusted my scene partners and felt like I was playing to just have fun, which made the audience have fun. I told my stepmom yesterday that I played a Mafia hitman trapped in prison, and she just laughed at the thought of it. (This was cool, for all week I've still managed to think about how much better I could've done if I'd just given my character an accent, a physical affectation or more specifics. The character I played was cool, but, given the chance to play him again, I'd play him far differently.)

I want to just have fun without appearing to worry too much or try too hard.

I like Mondays like this at the library. It feels like pleasant routine.

Book update.

2008-06-25T19:39:00.003-04:00

I'm on Chapter 29 of JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL, and it's still rather good.

Shannon Jenkins photography, August 2008.

2008-06-22T16:10:00.005-04:00

These were actually taken in August 2008 by my improv classmate/teammate Shannon Jenkins, who is an excellent photographer. I'm very pleased with these and intend to use them throughout the site very soon.

Hey, this book is really good.

2008-06-20T00:21:00.000-04:00

I'm now in Chapter Eight of JONATHAN STRANGE, in the audiobook, and it's actually really good. I was right to recommend it to so many people without reading it.

As I've researched the library.

2008-06-19T17:37:00.002-04:00

There are all sorts of downloadable audiobooks available to check out from the library. This is fantastic.

The first one I've grabbed to listen to is JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL, a book that I used to recommend and have routinely tried to read but have never been able to finish.

A couple weeks ago, I was able to borrow a friend's audiobook version of Sarah Vowell's ASSASSINATION VACATION, and I found listening to them to be a very useful way to pass time while working.

The first thought I had when I woke up this afternoon.

2008-06-16T17:09:00.003-04:00

I turn 32 on Saturday. Isn't that the oldest Jesus ever got? Oh my God, that's as old as Lorelai was during the first episode of GILMORE GIRLS. I am now as old as Lorelai. I could have a 16-year-old daughter. Oh my God, what would I do with a 16-year-old daughter? Would she even know me? Would I prefer a daughter to a son? I guess I would. I mean, I wouldn't know what to teach a 16-year-old boy. Or a 16-year-old girl. (Hell, do I still behave like a 16-year-old?)

Wait, does that mean there's still hope for me? Lorelai didn't find the love of her life on GILMORE GIRLS until she was way older than 32. Awesome.

Another Monday at the library.

2008-06-16T16:22:00.003-04:00

A computer glitch is causing the Bank of America website to give me an old balance, rather than a current one - which means that the next couple days are going to be fun for me. I love not knowing exactly how much money I have at my disposal. (I check my balance online to assure myself that the balance I keep is correct, so I have a general idea of how much money I have. But who knows what surprises may be in store?)

Saturday was great. I played an improv show, then went for food with Mauree. Then, we met up with James. And James, Mauree and I went to Fado in Buckhead, which was terrific. Mauree told us stories from her life that I'd never heard before, adding to her charm. I'm so glad that she's my friend.

I keep reading Batman comics while I'm at home. I've not been writing so much. I coped with some emotional stuff this weekend. And I'm seeing the zombie musical at Dad's with Katrina tonight, so that should be fun.

Weird as this may sound, I miss having two jobs. Which is to say that I actually miss having two paychecks, for I was used to having generally regular income, rather than just income every two weeks. (Silly complaint, I guess, but I was used to whatever potential financial crisis seeing some kind of relief every Friday. Now I look at the bank balance, and it freaks me out. And this is while I'm living at home and shouldn't have as many bills. But the cost of gas is killing me.)

Oh well, this will all work out. Heck, there may not even be a problem, and I'm worrying for no reason.

Odd encounter.

2008-06-13T17:21:00.001-04:00

At 3 a.m. last night, I walked the Buford town circle. A homeless prostitute approached and propositioned me. We were once in school together. I did not get a "favor." I did not buy her food. She left me at the circle, and I finished my walk and went home.

13 minutes remaining.

2008-06-09T15:34:00.002-04:00

I'm writing from the library again. I kinda like the gimmick of this. The timer telling me that I only have a limited time to use the computer because the rest of the rabble - without Internet connection in Gwinnett County - want access to the library computer, as well. The wait for these is slightly less intense than the wait for computers at the airport terminals, those computers that never work or never let you access your e-mail accounts, though you try in vain anyway to get them to work.

I need to go get my oil changed. I have a DVD of UNTRACEABLE that my mom rented from Blockbuster, and I watched it and feel it is my duty to return it to the store. It wasn't a bad movie. It wasn't great. My mom and stepdad like "torture porn" movies. Their favorite is SAW. If you weren't concerned about my upbringing before or uncertain about my potential for long-term relationship success, keep in mind that my mom is depressed and unable to let herself be happy, my stepdad is ignorant and dissatisfied, and they watch "torture porn" movies.

I'm trying to thwart the example they've set me for marriage.

Fun at Gitmo.

2008-06-05T20:00:00.000-04:00

At my job, I occasionally edit photos from Guantanamo Bay, and today's photos of the frisbee golf course there made going to prison in Cuba look like lots and lots of fun.

At the library.

2008-06-02T17:22:00.002-04:00

I was gonna head to the garage to get my oil changed since it's my day off, but a call to the bank to check on my balance tells me that maybe it'd be better to do that sort of thing on Friday, when I get paid and have money. I was also gonna avoid hanging out at my mom's house tonight - since I finished the cheesy, underwhelming ending of TWILIGHT, that teen vampire romance novel that I was reading - but it looks like I'd be better off staying in and saving some funds. I've got a DVD of THE SEARCHERS to watch on my computer, and I've already picked up the vampire romance's sequel.

But now I'm at the Buford Library, which is now more like a Buford community computer lab that just happens to still have some books, and I figured I could spend some time outside the house here without spending money. To my surprise, they have comics here now, so I picked up BATMAN: YEAR ONE. Also, since I've been watching SLINGS AND ARROWS on Netflix, I assume that I should get around to reading KING LEAR before they start performing KING LEAR in Season Three, for enjoyment of that show deepens so much when you know about the plays the Canadian troupe is performing. (Don't gasp. I've never read KING LEAR, even though my copy of it is in storage.)

So I grabbed one of the computers here, checked my e-mail and have 13 minutes left on my time before the vultures start circling. So I figured I would post a blog from the library, for it's always usually interesting to do that when I'm in Buford.

Except now, until at least July 15, it looks like I'm going to live in Buford again.

Even though the circumstances aren't nearly as bad as I suppose they could be, Buford still sucks.

Don't change your plans.

2008-06-01T22:40:00.000-04:00

So last night, a friend of mine told me to meet him at the bookstore so that we could go see IRON MAN. He knew I'd seen it already, but he wanted me there because he thought it'd be more entertaining to spend the evening with me than to be alone.

At 9:15, I showed up at the bookstore as discussed, and he wasn't there. By 10:15, he still was not there.

I left a couple texts, placed a couple more phone calls and then headed to Relapse Theatre, where I'd intended to go before my friend suggested that I change my plans to hang out with him.

The Relapse gang, who had seen me earlier in the week when I'd been forced to vacate my apartment and move in with my mom temporarily, asked me if my week had gotten any better.

I told the gang that, on Tuesday, I was supposed to have wine with someone, but that person forgot. And I told them that a different friend asked me to a movie but didn't show up.

Most of the people said, "Oh, sorry," then looked sideways - trying to find someone to change the subject.

At one point, they tried to suggest that maybe something had happened to my absentee friend.

"Yeah," I said brightly, "maybe he's dead or something."

"Um," a Relapse friend said.

"No, it's OK," I said. "If he's dead, it's probably from a drug overdose, so he probably died happy. You know, one of those moments of pure bliss where it's great up until the moment you realize that you're not breathing."

The Relapse friend was still optimistic.

"I bet death is like that for everyone, not just drug addicts," he said. "You know, like, you get the moment of pure bliss right before you go ..."

"You think so?" I asked. "I always thought my death would be kinda horribly painful."

"Really?"

"Yeah," I said, "I think I'd be screaming right up until I hit the pavement."

Only one person laughed.

I can't let this get to me.

2008-06-01T17:46:00.003-04:00

I lost my apartment, moved in with my mother, was asked to drinks by a friend who later forgot that he asked me to drinks and was then abandoned by another friend who told me to meet him. That was last week.

It's a new week.

If you don't like the weather in Atlanta, wait five minutes.

2008-05-30T20:14:00.000-04:00

Where did all that earned hope and self-esteem I have go? I swear to you, it was just here, like, a minute ago.

Writing as though no one's reading.

2008-05-28T21:39:00.000-04:00

Staying at home with my mom, there is no Internet, so I'm actually trying to write something without the immediate gratification of having it read. I'm sure I'll eventually upload some stuff here - when I have my own home again. But, in the meantime, it's nice to write stuff and have it marinate in my head, solely belonging to me.

I heart Sami.

2008-05-28T21:29:00.004-04:00

Is it horrible that I want to go to the Rite Aid Health and Beauty Expo at Cobb Galleria next week ONLY because Alison Sweeney from DAYS OF OUR LIVES is supposed to be there?

The opening credits.

2008-05-18T23:19:00.001-04:00

Juxtaposition.

2008-05-17T01:16:00.002-04:00

So, because AMBER NASH SHOW is playing really well to XPT's sold-out crowds and the parking lot pieces in XPT AUTO SHOW are fantastic and bring a level of fun and enthusiasm to the audience and to the puppeteers performing them before the show even starts, I've been feeling good about life and mostly satisfied with the work I've done. (My puppeteers and performers, though, are all brilliant and supportive, and I will love them forever for the gift that they have given me this week.)

As something bad must happen to accompany all the good, just to remind me that there are moments when I can feel like a complete failure, I'm being kicked out of my apartment for being packrat messy and for not reporting a problem with mold in the apartment. They had to rip out a wall of my bedroom, and now they've given me seven days to vacate the place.

So, because I'm an adult now, I have a plan. I'm running home to live with my mom for a couple weeks and finding a storage facility to put my stuff. Then, in the next couple of weeks, I'm moving into an apartment with my friend James. (Start praying for him now.)

I'm going to be OK. I'm just freaked the fuck out right now.

I want to get past the worry and the panic and all the bullshit and just deal with the problem, but that's the thing with depression. It causes you to not be able to bring yourself to move, clean, take out the garbage, do the dishes, stay inside the apartment. Depression causes me to not like myself enough to take care of myself, to instead escape into the things in my life that are working, escaping the responsibilities of life that aren't as fun, paying bills, cleaning the apartment, etc.

I'm crazy. I have mental illness. I've got to fix some things. I've been trying to fix them for 30 years, but when are they going to be fixed?

This is a journey. I'm going to try not to worry about it. I'm going to instead fix it.

I have to, eventually. I don't have a choice.

OPENING NIGHT.

2008-05-15T23:15:00.003-04:00

Tonight, the show was attended, I swear, by 40 people I knew. It was really, really cool.

Thanks to everyone who turned out.

PREVIEW NIGHT.

2008-05-14T23:04:00.004-04:00

This has been the most amazing experience. It was great to see and experience not just THE AMBER NASH SHOW, but several of the pieces that I wrote for the parking lot come alive.

People laughed in all the right places.

And, hilariously, this also happened.

Thank you, Matt. I didn't know it was possible for my night to be any better, but you just made my night better.

And, in college, I liked you, too.

Oh wait, my night just got even better.

A thank-you note.

2008-05-10T01:15:00.012-04:00

While AMBER NASH SHOW's been in development (all 10 minutes of it), I've not been blogging about the progress, the difficulties, the hangups, the problems and the thrills of the process I've learned about trying to stage something and what I've learned about my own control-freak tendencies and inability to relax all these weeks. I didn't want to sound pessimistic, particularly when I knew that the process, though it's probably interesting to hear about, matters little in comparison to what the final product looks like.

For the record, I'm starting to get really, really excited about what we're doing for XPT this year. I'm very happy to be part of XPT, for it's through this blog that I suppose this accomplishment started. If I'd not attended that ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY puppet show ages ago and blogged about it with Brad Fairchild, then I wouldn't have met the wonderful Sydney Ellis and become familiar with XPT.

I've wanted to be part of XPT since I saw that show in 2005. I saw the show then, found it amazing and thoroughly entertaining and wanted more than anything to one day bring something to the stage. I hope that I bring a bit of fun to all the people who entertained me back then, some of whom I now know and expect to be in attendance.

More than anyone, I think I want to entertain the hell out of Sydney Ellis, who actually is involved in my production. She wrote the AMBER NASH SHOW theme song with her father, and she performed it. And that song - and the vote of confidence in my writing that Syd always has given me - may be the best thing that this blog has ever brought me. (Thank you, Syd. Love to you and Abby.)

I stopped blogging regularly a couple years ago. It faltered a bit when I signed up for writing classes at the Margaret Mitchell House so that I could focus my efforts there. Thanks to the people who helped me there. (Thank you, Sarah Shope, Frank Ciccone, Lynda Hawkins, Betsy Crosby, Monica Cox, Kat West and the absolutely wonderful Marianne Lacey.)

When I started taking improv comedy classes at Dad's Garage about 18 months after that, the blog slowed even more. But what I was learning about acting and about characters and about how to tell stories was spectacular. And, more than that, the people that I met through improv have been fantastic and supportive. (Thanks to people like Tom Rittenhouse, Eve Krueger, Josh Wilcox, Ed Morgan, Matthew Grove, Matt Myers, La Schaffer, Z Gillispie, Chris Rittelmeyer, Jenny Clark, Rueben Medina, Heather Starkel, Nick Tecosky, Casey Childers, Berny Clark, the Write Club, the wonderful Spencer Stephens, George Faughnan, Linnea Frye, Matt Stanton, Dan Triandiflou, Mary Kraft, Steve Platinum, Matt Horgan and Amber Nash, of course.)

And then, through my improv home at JaCKPie, what I've learned about myself - in addition to learning more about how I want to approach stories, make theater and the kind of improvisor that I want to be - has been life-changing. Though I'm still wary about God, I'd say JaCKPie is the closest thing to a godsend I've ever received in my life. (Heartfelt thanks to Jim Karwisch. Thank you, everyone at JaCKPie.)

Even the people in my new office have been incredibly encouraging through this wacky process. (Thank you to Brit Tennant, Lisa Federico, Armando Tirado, Brandon McCarty, Jay Alexander and Phil Koehler.)

Larry Corse, a long time ago, told me that I had the talent to be a very good writer, and he said he'd do whatever possible to nurture and encourage me. And he has. Over and over. (Thank you, Larry.)

Thanks to the artists who've helped my puppet show become what it is. (Again, thanks to Amber Nash. I hope that you like what we've done. Thanks to Mauree Culberson, one of my best friends. Thanks to Jillian Fratkin, Wes Parham and Emily Tsuboi. You all impress me with your dedication and commitment to the project. Thanks to Jeremiah Prescott. Thanks to Michael Haverty for the chance. Thanks to Amy Rush and Raymond Carr for the support.)

If this week progresses the way I expect it will, I think I'm going to be crying happpy tears a lot and laughing a lot.

I keep thinking of how I should thank everybody, but I honestly have no idea how to do that. I feel hokey, like I'm giving an Oscar speech in my head at all times. (Thank you, Liz Perry, Dena Waggoner Beck, Jessika Coon, Shalewa Sharpe, Vickye Zarbrook, Bonnie Davis, Steven Igarashi - yeah, I said it - and C.J. Spraggins. Thank you, Solenn Pigree. Thank you, Carrie Gibson. Thank you, Marley Angel. Thank you, Eric Black. Thank you, Jennifer Resendez. Thank you, Kate George. Thank you, T. Kyle King. Thank you, Doug Gillett. Thanks to the Phi Kappa Literary Society. Thank you, Paul McCurdy. Thank you, Kurt Summers. Thank you, Chris Brandon. Thank you, intentionally unnamed ex-boyfriends of note.)

Everyday, I think of new people who taught me aspects of all the stuff I needed to learn to get here.

If this were a book, I would write some kind of personal dedication. But, though I feel like thanking people for the puppet show, I really want to thank people for how blessed I feel right now, which is harder to do.

Luckily, I do know which dedication I would consider the most important.

Thank you, Jon Lupo, for supporting me and holding me more accountable than anyone ever has. Thank you for teaching me how to return your kindness through a friendship that is the most precious, reliable, rewarding thing I carry with me everyday. Thank you for believing in me. You've played a role in my happiness. It makes me proud to think that I've done even a fraction of the same thing for you. I'm very proud of your accomplishments. I believe in you. Thank you for letting me play witness to your life. I'm so excited about what good things the future will bring for both of us. I think we're both still learning how to cultivate the good in our lives. And, as good as I feel right now, the fact that I know there's more joy to be found strikes me as the most remarkable thing.

Hope is hard-won. But I do have hope. It is here.

Is it bad that I love this?

2008-04-30T00:04:00.000-04:00

THE FOURTH SEASON PREMIERE OF 'THE AMBER NASH SHOW'

2008-04-28T06:51:00.003-04:00

Please come see XPT: XPERIMENTAL PUPPETRY THEATER at the Center for Puppetry Arts.

I know that, in years past, I've promoted this show before as an excited audience member and fan of the Center. But, this year, I've got a more personal stake in the success of the show.

I wrote the script and have worked for months now on one of the pieces to be presented, THE FOURTH SEASON PREMIERE OF 'THE AMBER NASH SHOW,' and several of my very talented friends have worked and continue to devote their time to making it a rather entertaining piece of theater.

XPT is a great, great program, and I am beyond thrilled to be a part of it.

Please come out and support us. The show runs from May 15-18 in the Basement Theater of the Center for Puppetry Arts.

Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.

2008-03-04T15:21:00.003-05:00

I've been reading JANE EYRE. It's pretty good. At the end of Chapter IV, though, there's the sentence that I've chosen as the subject line of this post.

Reading that sentence during this week of life changes, as though it were highlighted by magic, made me smile.

I'm leaving McGraw-Hill on Friday. And I found out that a short script I wrote is going to be staged at the Center for Puppetry Arts as part of "XPT: Xperimental Puppetry Theatre" in May.

These here things make me glad.

2008-02-20T18:41:00.000-05:00

Trying to figure out how to play a happy character, I'm making a list of small things, props and memories that might help me change my mood and build a character. I'm keeping this list here so that I'll be able to add to it or refer back to it in the future. I got this idea because my mom used to have this collection of Peanuts cartoons in a book called HAPPINESS IS A WARM PUPPY.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY

* The color blue.
* A bouquet of flowers.
* A new Moleskine notebook.
* The time I met Michael Chabon on his birthday and managed to impress him.
* Meryl Streep's disco number at the beginning of DEATH BECOMES HER.
* White chocolate banana creme pie from Buckhead Diner.
* The time I met Parker Posey at a Q&A, and she was drunk and crazy - and then she called me "hostile."
* Just the right music.
* The time I met my friend Emily, who came into the bookstore to buy the first copy of her very first novel on the day it was released.
* Henry Fonda falling down in THE LADY EVE.
* The day I spent fulfilling my duties as a "bridesmaid" for my friend Kate by driving her around and helping her try on wedding dresses. I took photo after photo of the dresses she tried because her mother wasn't able to be there. Later, at the wedding, I wore a periwinkle vest and stood on the bride's side during the wedding. It was the only wedding I've ever been in, and I was a male bridesmaid. (As an added bonus, my tux meant that the other bridesmaids could stuff tissues into my pocket so that, should anyone on the row start to cry, I could quickly supply relief.)
* "Dyslexic Heart" by Paul Westerberg.
* My sister-in-law Samantha is an elementary school teacher, and she puts these dots on the stems of every letter she prints longhand. Her voice is always chipper, too, and encouraging in that sweet, easy way I can't manage.
* The monologue that Parker Posey delivers in the deleted scenes on the DVD of WAITING FOR GUFFMAN.
* One time, I ran into a Kroger, grabbed a rose from a refrigerator case, ran to the Express Lane and bought it. A pregnant woman in line said that she wished someone would buy her a rose like that. So I ran back to the refrigerator case again, grabbed another rose, ran to the Express Lane, bought it and handed it to the pregnant woman.
* The performance of "Stonehenge" in THIS IS SPINAL TAP.
* My nephews DJ and Andrew, particularly moments when they were born or moments when I got to carry them around and talk just to them so that they wouldn't cry when they were babies.
* Bright colors.
* That fake swing-dancing move that I do sometimes, either in a scene or just standing around talking to a girl.
* One time, I tried swing-dancing with my friend Vic in the middle of Parisian at Gwinnett Place, but my footing was off. So I tripped her, and she fell into a display of shirts in Mens Wear.
* The essay reading I did in April 2006 at an academic conference, where friends from all different aspects of my life came together at the Marriott Marquis to see me read. My best friend Lupo was there.
* At the bookstore, I had to dress up as this giant puppy dog named Biscuit for children's storytime. It was hot in the suit, and I couldn't see anything. But I got mobbed by little kids hugging me.
* Listening to Sarah Vowell read her essay "Shooting Dad" on a CD of NPR's THIS AMERICAN LIFE.
* Playing Scrabble with my friend Daniel.
* The callouses on my friend Daniel's fingers, which he's gotten from meticulously repairing string instruments in a workshop for years.
* Playing Rum 500 with my Grandpa.
* Playing Trivial Pursuit with Lupo.
* The final 10 minutes of CHINATOWN are devastating, but it's also the best movie ending maybe ever.
* The time I visited Lupo and tripped over a stick within five minutes of arriving, and he flew into this panic, rushed me into his house, treated and bandaged my arm. Then, he made this joke about these WWI-era Maisie Dobbs mystery novels he reads. It was cute. You had to be there.
* The Jimmy Stewart-Katharine Hepburn drunk scene in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY.
* Beef stew.
* Sitting with my friend Carrie on the member balcony on the roof of the Tate Modern in London.
* WONDERFALLS.
* THE MUPPET SHOW.
* PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
* Episodes of GILMORE GIRLS.
* Every August at the family reunion, my cousin Holly and I break away from our parents and everybody else, and we head out to whatever dive-bar we can find and talk about all the inappropriate things we can't say in front of other relatives. And we gossip. And, this last year, for some reason, we played mini-golf and rode on go-carts.
* Smiling.
* Laughing.
* Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime"
* Listening to my mom - who's now suffering from severe hearing loss - sing the way she used to when she was a church choir director.
* My mom told me this story once about singing at a fraternity formal when she was in college. They hired her to wear a pink cocktail dress, stand in a spotlight next to a grand piano and sing "I Will Wait for You" from THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG. She was maybe 19 years old. I wish I could've seen her do that. I bet she was pretty. I bet it was fun.
* Awkward phone calls with my brother Dan, when we're clearly both trying and trying and trying to connect.
* "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" from GUYS AND DOLLS.
* Singing in my car.
* Those moments with friends when you can discover the means to a great evening without making a single plan.
* Dancing in my apartment.
* When I walk around humming.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

2008-02-18T17:14:00.004-05:00

I look at the blog now, and I'm reminded of how the blog used to be. Since it once was my primary outlet, it was updated constantly and featured all sorts of links and chatter about books and movies and such. But then I joined a writing class, and then I started taking improv classes. And then I learned that sometimes it's easier to live life if you're not constantly introspective about it. Life is so much nicer now that the blog is less current.

I suppose an unexamined life is sometimes - in spite of what the adage says - easier to live with.

I had an interview today, and I think it went all right. I was nervous, but I liked the people at the company.

A door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream.

2008-02-11T14:54:00.000-05:00

When Amie and I went to a Chinese restaurant this weekend, my fortune cookie message was a dud.

You will be getting new clothes.

Meanwhile, Amie's promised her a life of success in the entertainment industry, so she said she would rather have my sucky fortune than her own. Maybe she realized that being a modern celebrity was a taxing, annoying prospect that she didn't want to bear. She maybe thought of photographers chasing her like Britney Spears, having to live up to the hype. She probably didn't want to shave her head in open defiance of her "image." She likely imagined the ROLLING STONE covers that would predict her downfall, saying things like "Amie: An American Tragedy."

She said she'd rather have my fortune because, faced with the alternative of having her face on US WEEKLY, it seemed infinitely less stressful to get a new pair of socks.

***********

I'm here at my desk, looking over some other fortune cookie messages that I've collected. I save the ones that I like or the ones I cannot understand.
_

You will make many changes before setting satisfactorily.

This one is taped up in my cube at work because it reminds me whenever I look at it that I'm not satisfactorily settled yet and that my future is ahead of me.
_

You will soon be crossing desert sands for a fun vacation.

If I think of this one as a metaphor, it makes me think of keeping hope in spite of challenges. If I think of this as literal, I'm bummed out. I can't stand the sand and cannot imagine that crossing a desert would make for a fun vacation for anyone. Chevy Chase certainly didn't make it look fun in that first NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION.

_

The constructive use of riches is better than their possession.

This one is my current favorite. I got it around the time in November when I interviewed for a job that I didn't get, but my preparation for the interview showed me that I was capable - when properly motivated - to do some really extensive research and really good work. I was proud of how I prepared for the job interview, even though I didn't get the job, and that seemed like a decent enough accomplishment since I feel inert most days. The fortune reminds me to use the tools I have, that it's not merely enough to know you have talents. You have to use them.
_

I did not save my worst fortune cookie message ever, but I do remember it verbatim.

This biscuit pleases you.

No, it really didn't. And, if I was one of those people who put 'in bed' at the end of all my fortune cookie messages, the biscuit still wouldn't please me.

The lovers, the dreamers and me.

2008-01-24T17:12:00.000-05:00

Written to the JaCKPie improv troupe:

The first thing I ever wanted to be was an actor. At the point where little boys were encouraged to embrace "fireman" as their dream career (maybe because of the wicked-cool hat), I decided that I wanted to be famous and on TV. I didn't really consider that there'd be work involved with acting. I just liked, when I was 4, the opportunity to get really, really emotional or really, really histrionic. I liked that you could try and do funny voices. I wanted to come running on THE PRICE IS RIGHT when Johnny Olson yelled "COME ON DOWN!," so I would yell "COME ON DOWN!" myself and run from room to room. (I'm old. When I first watched THE PRICE IS RIGHT, Bob Barker's hair had the tint of dark brown shoe polish.)

I liked the variety shows, where singers like Barbara Mandrell got to do scenes with her silly sisters and giant puppets or Donny Osmond would stop flirting with his sister long enough to sing me a song.

But, more than anything, I wanted to host THE MUPPET SHOW. I wanted to wear glasses like Scooter. (For some reason I didn't figure out until later, I really, really liked Scooter.) I wanted to meet Kermit the Frog and sing a song with him. I wanted Miss Piggy to come karate-chop me in a dressing room that had a star on the door. (I maybe convinced my mom, at the time, to put a star on my bedroom door. The memories are vague.)

Eventually, one day when we were riding in the car to my physical therapy, my mom probably thought it would be a good motivator to tell me that, to be an actor, I'd have to be able to walk as normally as possible, that there aren't regular roles for people who don't walk like regular people. The goal of telling me this was to encourage me to work harder at the therapy. But the advice had the adverse effect on me because I refused to accept that I was flawed.

One of my great flaws - in conjunction with my disability - is that I stubbornly resent that I have to work harder for things that come so naturally to other people. (When I was a kid, I didn't understand that everyone has to do this sometime.) I thought that the disability was neither my choice nor my doing, so I couldn't figure out why *I* had to be the one to deal with it. Even as an adult now, I occasionally exhibit this childish ego. My ego can't figure out why I'm just not given things straightaway from people because I'm clearly the most special person on Earth who deserves everyone's undivided attention. Work for things? Bah! (As I said, it's a huge flaw. Someone once asked me how I could have a huge ego and no self-esteem. This might explain it.)

Hearing from my mom that a disabled person couldn't be accepted as a regular actor led me to immediately reject my dream as impractical. (The only person on TV with cerebral palsy, at the time, was Blair's cousin Geri on THE FACTS OF LIFE, and I remember not understanding the way she spoke or how the two of us could have the same disability because her afflictions seemed so much worse than mine. I didn't want to be like her, but that's apparently all that people like me got to do.)

I hate my disability. I try to ignore it, even now. I don't like that I have to accept that there are some things I'll never be able to do without extreme amounts of work that would involve me having to accept - to know in my soul, rather than in my mind when faced with obstacles at different moments - that I'm damaged. In my soul, I still want to sing and dance with Kermit the Frog. (I even went to the Kermit display at the Center for Puppetry Arts a couple times this year and just stared at him, gleeful and daydreaming that I was finally getting to meet someone I'd wanted to meet my whole life.)

I was a child when I developed these opinions of myself, and they're deeply rooted. Much of my mind has changed. I even have something of a work ethic now, achieved begrudgingly. But some things are there forever.

I became interested in arts journalism as a kid through extensive study of my babysitter's TV GUIDE collection. Every Saturday when I had to visit my dad, I would read the Weekend insert of The Atlanta Journal and study the movie reviews. Seeds were planted in my head, combining old ambitions with new ones, that I could still be involved with a community of actors and artists, even if I wasn't one myself. I could stand on the sidelines, watch and make comments. I could ask questions and critique. It didn't matter if I was a cripple - as my father once called me while also trying to get me to take physical therapy seriously. (All it made me do was cry.) As an arts journalist or theater critic, I could fulfill different dreams that still looked a lot like the old ones.

So I went to college and did exactly that. I became a pretty good journalist and a good writer, and I spent time with the art and theater students as much as I could. Eventually, I started writing features for newspapers. Then, even later, I started to blog about entertainment stuff. But I perpetually wanted to belong more, not be on the sidelines. Even though I'm disabled, I want to perform. I wanted to contribute as an artist, and I still do.

I'm 31. And I'm finally getting to do things I've wanted to do since I was 4. I'm performing. I'm writing (and rewriting and rewriting) a script where an actress is surrounded by puppets. I'm finally using the tools and skills that I've acquired over a lifetime, and these achievements are so much more valuable to me now. And I'm getting these things because I'm working (and working and working) for them, not just expecting them to be handed to me.

And I'm accepting - as much as I begrudgingly have to accept it - that I have special needs. I need that step next to the JaCKPie stage, and I really, really appreciate that you guys put it there. Moreso, I appreciate the lessons that I'm learning about myself - ridiculous flaws and all - through this work that we're all doing together.

So, having achieved this, I want more. I want to act. I want to stage projects. I want to show off. And I still want to host THE MUPPET SHOW. And if someone could get me Scooter's phone number, I'd be eternally grateful.

THE GODFATHER ... for girls.

2008-01-15T14:36:00.000-05:00

My friend Jenipher shocked me several months ago with the confession that she'd never seen THE GODFATHER and that her husband hadn't seen it either.

I didn't take this well. I told her that I was sorry that, by neglecting the film, her family had failed to bring her up right and that her husband wasn't a true man.

Eventually, she told me that she'd probably watch THE GODFATHER if it were more her taste, i.e. if it was about shoe shopping, a school dance or falling in love.

So I wrote her this description of THE GODFATHER, leaving out the parts about the Mafia, and she's finally decided to watch it:
___________

All-American girl Kay Adams is in college and in love for the first time, and her GI boyfriend Michael - home from WWII - wants her to FINALLY meet his family. His sister Connie is getting married, and Michael's family is super-rich and powerful! Kay's excited that she's gonna have a well-dressed soldier on her arm, but then she realizes that Michael's brothers and extended family are all attractive, intelligent and maybe a little bit dangerous!

Michael's brother Sonny is married with kids, but Kay catches him flirting with all the bridesmaids! Michael's other brother Fredo seems like he'd be a charmer if he weren't so nervous. Meanwhile, Connie's groom sure seems to have a temper! And the Father of the Bride is running late to the wedding because he's in secret meetings all day ... including ones with the dreamy Johnny Fontaine, the singer and big-time movie star!!!

Will Kay catch Connie's bouquet? Will Johnny Fontaine perform a song at the wedding? Is Michael and Kay's special, special love meant to be? Or is Michael a little bit dangerous himself?

To find out, watch Diane Keaton fall in love in THE GODFATHER ... also starring Marlon Brando, James Caan, Al Pacino and Robert Duvall.

Top Ten Films of 2007.

2008-01-11T11:44:00.000-05:00

10. LA VIE EN ROSE
9. LARS AND THE REAL GIRL
8. ONCE
7. ZODIAC
6. RATATOUILLE
5. THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
4. MICHAEL CLAYTON
3. JUNO
2. THERE WILL BE BLOOD
1. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Golly gee gosh.

2008-01-02T16:26:00.000-05:00

Why am I twittering? I have 14 other potential blogs as it is.

So as not to see you see me react.

2007-12-07T10:52:00.000-05:00

I wrote this to my improv teacher Jim, who is also my friend and whom I write everyday so that we can escape the tedium of our jobs.
________

Jim,

You and I are alike in some ways, not alike in others. I've been attracted to bad elements, done bad things, destructive things and made some mistakes with some really terrible people. I would like to think that I've remained constant and good throughout whatever situations I was dealing with, but occasional lapses and weakness have probably made me a worse person than I'd like to think I am. It's certainly made me darker, a little bit more bitter - which would be great if I were, like, a chocolate, but I'm not. It's probably also made me a better writer, capable of drawing on a larger trove of human experience, but sometimes I wish that I could be the person who doesn't make jokes about, for instance, putting a puppy in a catapult.

I am also an intellectual snob, which makes it either ironic or telling that my apartment looks as scary as the Unabomber's. I've developed this habit around the bookstore and in my office of not tolerating fakery - even though I'm capable of it. A couple nights ago at the bookstore, our new security guard panicked because someone rang the back doorbell. I had to calm her down and tell her what happened. She asked me, startled, "There's a back door?" I had to tell her where it was - that it was in a room we'd actually been in together before. It was not her first night. She's the security guard. For some reason, it didn't provide me with much comfort when *I* had to tell her where one of the doors to the building was. Since then, I've had this opinion that she's stupid, and I can't shake it.

This year, because I've been trying to improve how I interact socially with friends and improve how I relax and cope with things, I've had to say goodbye to Scott, my on-again/off-again lover who could never commit and, in fact, would usually run from a discussion about commitment with me into the arms of some random Internet hookup, into the crotch of some skeevy guy from a bar or into some long road trip across state lines to experiment with some sort of fetish that he hadn't really indulged in before. I thought, at first, that it was because I was just too needy or that conversations with me just really annoyed him. It didn't occur to me that he was spectacularly ill-equipped to deal with the safety I was providing him, that I was - for once - the stable one in a relationship, until our waitress at the Steak 'n' Shake one night told me that any person who would run away from me and what I was providing was retarded. She said it in front of him. He was dumbstruck. It was one of the funniest moments of my life. I went back to the Steak 'n' Shake a couple months afterward to thank that waitress, but by then she was back in jail for - according to that night's staff at the Steak 'n' Shake - jumping the fence of a Halfway House to try and score some crystal meth. I don't think that invalidates her good advice, but I don't know.

I stopped hanging out with my friend Brad after I realized he would only come over to my apartment if he happened to have another appointment for "intimacy" near where I live. In March, an amputee in my neighborhood - whom he met through a website - canceled on him, and he told me that a trip to see me alone "wasn't worth the gas." On the phone, he said it in this sort of passive way, as though he were asking me to pass the salt. He couldn't figure out why I was laughing. And he didn't seem to notice for months that I was even upset. By then, I told him that I didn't like our friendship because I didn't like being "the back-up plan to an amputee hook-up." I asked him why my crippled legs weren't good enough to spend time with.

I also said goodbye to my best friend Vickye, who I actually don't think likes me very much. Even though she claims to love me, I never see her, and she's spectacularly unreliable. One time during our 20s, she got married, and she didn't introduce me to her husband for four years. She said she didn't think we'd get along. I finally met him at a skating rink during her niece's birthday party. They were divorced within a year. Vic lost her job earlier this year, then changed her phone number so that I didn't get to talk to her from August until the end of October - when she called up and said that she wanted to get back to "feeling like herself." We made plans to do something just recently, and she stood me up. And, actually, that's exactly the way that Vickye is herself.

The patterns lesson reinforced for me that, maybe, getting away from these folks - and unreliable folks like this - was the right move. Thank you for it.

Anyway, this e-mail is too long.

Benj