So Wednesday, because I am such a good friend, I went to work at 8a.

Well, I did have to leave the office early to rehearse down at the boat, so I wanted to get in around 9a or so, but this was coupled with the fact that Cynthia had extra work to do with her car and needed to be on-set with the car at 8a, but there is a new rule that no cars with only one person will be allowed in the Tunnel between 6a and 11a.

She was completely horrified at the idea of going into the city two hours early, and I didn't so much mind going in an extra hour early, so I rode in with her.

I beat everyone in. They all were shocked as shit. This always makes me laugh.

So anyway, I had to be down at the Chelsea Piers by 6.30p to rehearse, but of course I was late because I am me, but in wasn't so much my fault as the fault of all that damned traffic on the West Side Highway, and it wasn't as though we were under a deadline.

I got there and we tromped down into the hold with all of the props and tried to figure out how to do the show. There were these guys hanging and focusing the lights, but none of them seemed to be the kind of lights that were particularly useful, more like little beensy lights that would be focused on the paintings that were already on the walls.

There was one light that looked big, but as Reed (the organizer and impresario) showed me the switches (not dimmers) that controlled them, I realized that we would probably need to do the show without the light brightening at the end, not to mention without a blackout.

So we ran it a couple of times, and Kirsten managed to spill as few things out of the bag as possible when she tripped over it, because my great fear was that things would go flying all off the stage and bean imaginary audience members in the eye, and besides the fact that all of those bottles are my shampoo and things, and I wanted to make certain that I got them back!

the biggest note I gave them, though, was volume, because this boat is noisy! It creaks when it moves, which is constantly, people walk overhead on metal floors, every noise is amplified like we're in the bottom of an oil drum, and if I didn't know the play as well as I did, I wouldn't have had a clue what's going on. "Don't lose the intimacy, but for God's sake speak up!"

Kirsten and I took the bus together going back.

"So, what do you think?"
"I think it'll be fun. It's really strange performing on a rocking floor, though."
"I just hope that we leave saying 'I wish we could do it on Friday, too!' rather than, 'Thank Christ we don't have to do this on Friday as well!'"

Thursday I meant to get into the office early because I had to leave at 5p, but I just couldn't manage it the day after coming in at 8a. I think I wandered in around 10a, which is an hour earlier than I am required to be there by, but not really all that early.

I left at 5p, though, dammit! I wanted to get to the boat by 5.30p, because I wanted to check how the lights had been focused after we left, and the art show was supposed to start at 6p, though nothing in the hold until 6.30p, but I wanted to make certain. We were going to be between two fashion shows, which I thought odd, but what the hell, the whole thing was odd!

I had remembered to bring my camera, which thrilled me no end, because I was simply dying to shoot this wonderful, rusty, shadowy old boat, so after I glanced at the lights, which took two seconds, and reclaimed the little stools that I was using as a bench (I had hidden them after rehearsal, but clearly someone thought they were being all helpful and took them back outside), I had plenty of time to take pictures. That's my favourite kind of place to shoot, all old and crumply, with piles of chains and old turbine engines and things.

Then I sat down on the stage and just got used to the movement of the boat. It was very windy, and that boat was just rocking and rocking. I spend my entire childhood vomiting on any boat I even stood near, but I guess I'm better now than I used to be, because it didn't much bother me.

It was interesting, though, because there was nothing in this hold but Reed's paintings hanging on the walls, and me sitting on the stage, saying hello to whomever came in. I must have looked like an art installation myself. I call it "Girl in Hold", how do you like it?

So I sat, without a watch, waiting for Omar and Kirsten, waiting for something to happen. I knew that the dance portion of the evening did not take place on the boat, but in a tent on the dock, so most people were watching that, though as I said there were the people wandering through, looking at the paintings, but I kept sort of vaguely wondering if I were there on the wrong night or something.

Then, the fashionistas started arriving, and you know when you are in the presence of fashion people because if you are not a fashion person, they don't pay the slightest bit of attention to you. I was there, they were there, I was frankly staring at them, but they never acknowledged my presence in any way. I have anti-fashion cooties, it seems.

Finally, Omar and Kirsten got there, and they were getting ready and it was getting near 7p and the first fashion show had yet to start, let alone any audience arriving, so I figured we'd be starting somewhat late.

So I'm sitting on the stage, and these people come in carrying musical instruments and equipment and things, and started putting it all over my stage. My stage that I have been guarding since 5.30p. I finally stopped one of them.

"Hi, can you tell me when you come in the evening?"
"O, we're after everyone, at 10p."
"Well, my piece is at 7p, between the two fashion shows, and I need this stage without all this shit all over it."
Then this really obnoxious short shaven-headed guy came up to me, "Your piece? What's your piece?"
"A play, a fifteen minute play, and we're after the first fashion show."
"Well, we were told that we could have this space all night, that no-one would be using< it but us! We were told that months ago!!"
"Talk to Reed."

So he flounced off and got Reed, like a little boy complaining that his piece of cake is smaller and it's not fair, and Reed came back, all calm and negotiating, and asked if we wouldn't mind having some of the equipment around us onstage.

"Look, I'm not even using that half of the stage, because it's not lit, so put what you want on it, I just need this area, this rug, to be clear for my actors."

Then I went in the booth area in back to the stage with Omar and Kirsten as the hold started to fill up, and the music creeps set up their band all over my stage. I just figured that I would make them take it down again if it was all in the way, but then Reed came back and asked if we wouldn't mind doing the show on the floor, in amongst the audience instead, and I had a look, and actually it was better lit than the stage, and I thought it would work, so I agreed.

Then ol' Baldy comes up to Reed and thanks him profusely. He was acting as the I had swanned off the street and insisted on putting my play on in his space, as opposed to being the invited artists that we in fact were. What a shithead.

A long time ago I wrote a poem that contained the line "Feels like midnight on another planet," which I still say in my head whenever I feel particularly at sea as to time and space, and I just kept bursting into laughter every five minutes or so.

"Do you think they will introduce us, or will we just wander out and start acting?" I asked at one point.

Soon after I said that, Reed came back and said, "How should I introduce you?" and I said, "O, thank goodness!" It was a real relief.

So then the first fashion show ended and Reed went out and said that before the second one, there would be a short play, "Only about ten minutes long," called Clerestory by Love Creek Productions. Although I heard him say "Theatre Creek Productions", but I don't know if that was an aural hallucination or not.

They started the show, and I sat on the floor in front of the largest and most fashionable audience ever to have seen this show, and...they seemed to pay attention!

So then we went back into the booth and huddled together, giggling. The whole thing felt more and more surreal as the evening went on. There was all of this driving music, and the first fashion show finally started, and our little play just was seeming more and more out of place.

I was stunned. There were a few laughs, alot of ambient noise, footsteps (vootshtaps vootshtaps!!) overhead, a cell-phone ringing, a couple of flashbulbs going off, but a large section of the audience mostly seemed to be paying attention! A sort of bemused attention, but I'll take what I can get. And Omar and Kirsten did a beautiful job, just lovely, and they were loud enough, and I realized how much better the floor was than the stage, because the audience were right on top of us, so they kind of had to watch and listen. Much better than the remove of the stage.

We finished and scurried in the back and waited for the other fashion show to end. I snuck out and watched part of it, and saw this woman with the ugliest implants in earth in a see-through top. They looked like tennis balls. Exactly that round and hard-looking, and small, might I add. Who are these men who find them attractive, I ask? Well, some of them were in that audience, some of them were in that band. One of them was Reed. Weird.

O, and I finally understood why Reed put us on between the two fashion shows, because, as he explained when I thanked him for letting us participate, that way nobody left! Smart man.

On the bus I said to Kirsten, "Well, I'm glad we did it, that was fun, but I'm sure glad we're not doing it twice! Once is crazy and fun, twice would have been kind of a drag."

Today's horoscope:
Don't be so hard on yourself. You're doing the best you can to combine emotional (love) and career (work) needs.

One year ago today:
It could be that I'm wrong to be happy, that my happiness means that I have no sense of reality...

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