I have two zits! TWO!! Where does my skin get off pushing out two zits on the same day? I'm 37, not 14!

On the other hand, it was only a few years ago that the above paragraph would have read: "I have two zits! ONLY TWO!! Life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporania!!"

You'd think it would take a little longer to forget those appalling years B.A. (Before Acutane). I am an ungrateful whore. It's like forgetting to appreciate not having a toothache.

This weekend has been a weekend of rushing around and doing stuff. Someone I've been catching up on (I think it was Plum) mentioned that you need a day after the weekend is over to actually rest in, what with all the shit that needs doing in a weekend.

Friday night I rather wanted to go out to the films, but I had to work out my costume and learn my lines, so I went home. Where I neither learned my lines nor worked out my costume. Well, that's a lie, but the sentence came flying out of my fingers before I remembered that I did in fact study the hell out of my lines Friday night!

Friday afternoon, too. I kept sneaking into the bathroom to study said lines--finding this new character that I started playing Thursday night. I have a speech near the end, a speech about loneliness, and as I read it, I started to weep, and wept every single time I acted it out after that. Unlikely it will happen onstage, but it was lovely to be swept away like that, even if nobody saw it happen.

When I went home, I went over them again, and I'm just changing everything, everything is so quiet and intense, so different than how I started. All of a sudden, it's just springing to life inside of my head. Unfortunately, onstage you have other actors to deal with, and sometimes they don't do the right things. But the good thing about playing an insane character is that you don't have to react exactly to what the other actors really do, but what they do in your character's ravaged mind. Handy, that.

I got up early yesterday and got the costume together then. I was astonished at how easy it was to find my Charlie Manson t-shirt and my ripped-up leather jacket. I can't find something that I wore a week ago, but a shirt and jacket that I haven't actually put on my body since I have been living in this apartment I find in a trice.

My homeless punk was dressed in the shirt and jacket and my mottled green leggings and pink doc martens, but the important part was the hair and makeup. I put vaseline in my hair and tried dreading it with it, but that didn't quite work, though I did manage to get it to hang in lank clumps around my face, and then I started with the makeup, deciding to have a shiner and smeared eyeliner and bruised lips.

Then I realized that I wanted Laura to see it and I didn't want to take it off and put it back on again, not to mention that I couldn't undo my hair, so I changed back into my jeans, put a pair of sunglasses on to cover my black eye, and hoped that I wouldn't actually run into one of the neighbours that I know by sight, looking all homeless.

I got on the van, trying not to meet anyone's startled eye, then saw, happily, that Gemma, my co-homeless woman in the show, was there with an empty seat beside her, so I didn't have to freak anyone out.

When I got to rehearsal, I ran into the bathroom, touched up the bruise, put on my costume, and swanned into the room. I may not have been off-book, but I had a character!

The rehearsal was four hours long, though, so though I wasn't much off-book at the top, I was at the end, without actually realizing it. We started again from the top, and then I realized, when I needed a line, that I had to flip like ten pages to find that line, because I had been carrying the script unread it time through.

The rehearsal went quite well, but before I had a chance to debut my new character, Laura said, "Okay, this first time, no acting, just listen to each other and quietly do it," which was my new character! At the end, when she was crowing about how much better it was, I told her, "Look, that's exactly how I've been working on it, that's what I want to do, so if you want me to do something else, you need to tell me!"

I have found this character and it is rooted in something that isn't overtly in the script, but it is so close to me and who I am that it's almost impossible to shake when it's time to go home.

After rehearsal, I had to run back downtown to do the reading for the Marathon Benefit for the Riant Theatre II - Electric Boogaloo.

I had to wash my makeup off first, and stop at the Duane Read for bobby pins, then attempt to find a cab in the wasteland that is the area near the Port Authority at 3.30p on a Saturday afternoon. A wasteland that I had no idea existed, but can emphatically assure now you that it does.

I finally got one after walking about ten blocks, and told him that I needed to get to the address, but that I didn't know what the cross streets were, and you can't go downtown on Hudson, it only runs up! But my cab driver was intrepid and clever, and managed to estimate it exactly, so I gave him a huge tip and tore upstairs, it being 3.55p.

It actually seemed a bit more like a benefit that was trying to actually raise money than last week, though there still was no indication on the front of the building that it was open or that anything was occurring inside, but if you braved the abandoned-looking doorway, by the elevators there was a small sign stating that there was something occurring on the 4th floor.

I got up there and it was crowded as hell! Ther 3p slot had just gotten out, and there were a jillion people there and I thought, now this is more like it! I ran back into the bathroom and started pinning up my greasy hair to stuff inside my borrowed wig (later, when Cynthia complained, I told her, "But if you are wearing a wig it doesn't matter if you get a little vaseline smeared on your hair, you're already in a wig!!") and putting on my suburban Long-Island matron makeup, when I was joined by Cynthia and Betty.

The show had started, because we had to stay on-schedule this week, with the playwright reading The Longest Poem In the World again, and Al wasn't there yet. Which was cute. He had called Cynthia's cell to say that he was on his way, but wasn't actually there yet. I snuck out into the hallway to wait for him, as nothing makes me tense like an actor not being there when the show has actually commenced, and I wanted to be the first to see him arrive.

He got there about five or seven minutes before we went on, thank Christ, and we went out there and set up our set, because everyone had shown up too late to take care of that before The Longest Poem In the World, and we got out there and started the show, and then I did the bit with the squirrel where I'm looking straight out into the audience, and there was no-one there!

I'm staring into the house with my glasses on, and there's quite a spill from the stage lights, and I cannot see a single solitary person. When Cynthia and I exited, I whispered to her, "Is there anyone there?" and she said, "I don't think so!" "Why are we doing this show again?"

When the lights faded at the end (not fast enough, by me), and there was applause, I, for one, practically leapt back in shock. There were at least three people, maybe even four, but they were just out of the spill and thus I couldn't see them.

After that (another show down, on to the next!), Al gave us a lift uptown, even though he had to go to Brooklyn, because he is such a sweet gentleman, and I pressed my giant bag of punk costumes onto Cynthia to take home, and I went to the movies.

The film I wanted to see was From Hell, which wasn't playing for more than two hours, but I'm afraid that it will close soon, so I got the ticket and started killing time. Fortunately, just walking through Times Square on a Saturday evening in December when it is, by the way, 70° and gorgeous, kills plenty just in a couple of blocks.

I had dinner, I went to Virgin and started Christmas shopping a little bit, which took plenty of time, thankfully, though my feet were killing me by the end, then went back to the theatre for the flick.

Which was swell! I know, I know, I like everything, blah blah blah, but I really liked it, it was really violent and beautifully acted, and I didn't mind Johnny Depp's accent a bit (though I may have cut him a break because I liked his performance so very much), and Heather Graham's wasn't too sucky, and the plot was fascinating and Ian Holm and Robbie Coletrane kicked out the jams, and it made me very happy. Great acting, great story, loads 'o blood, makes my day.

And it had a remarkably hot kiss up against the wall between Johnny and Heather, which was right up there with Keith Carradine and Lesley Ann Warren in Choose Me. Never seen that movie? Great movie. Never seen that kiss? Perfect kiss. It's a kiss to aspire to.

The bad horoscope of hilariousness strikes again!

"Don't let another day go by without patting yourself on the back for being the incredible person you are, Kymm. It could be that you are constantly striving for perfection, but never satisfied with all the work you've done and the person you really are. Remember that the cleanliness of your house is not a reflection of the cleanliness of your soul. Give yourself a break."

In re that last sentence, I should fucking well hope not or I'm going straight to hell!

Today's horoscope:
A day to be with people, to share ideas. Group activities may appeal, or the simple social stimulation of others. Communicate.

One year ago today:
Where are the bright colours? Where are the ear flaps? Where is the pompom as big as a fist?

* Yesterday / Index / This Month / Tomorrow *

E-Mail

Graphics by the holly jolly Saundra!

This page was written by hand. My hand. Only pussies use HTML editors.
Last Updated Sun 2 December 23:58:09 2001