So yesterday was a really peculiar day characterized by wild swings of emotion.

First of all, I woke up after having a really weird dream. You know the Actor's Nightmare, I have it all the time, at least once a month or so (I've written about it a couple of times, here and here), but this was different. This was the Director's Nightmare.

I dreamt that I was directing a show and I invented this opening sequence for about four or five actors, and then we were just about to open, but I suddenly had about twenty actors, and I couldn't remember what I had blocked the original five to do, and suddenly there were fifteen more actors (one of whom was, for some reason, Ben Stiller) and I had no idea what to do with them.

Gee, I wonder where that dream came from?

After I woke up, it wasn't one of those things where you wake and you're really happy because it was only a dream, I woke and I was depressed with the residual feeling from the dream.

I showered, dressed, fed the cats, grabbed my bag and my purse, and left. I waited for the van for a long time, literally ten passed us without stopping, then finally one came and I got on.

Traffic was awful, and by the time we finally crawled into the city, I was really late, so I jumped up to get off early and take the bus on 10th, when I realized that I didn't have my purse, only my big bag. I looked frantically around my seat, but it wasn't there.

I got out and called home. You see, the last time I didn't have my purse, it turned out that I had left it at home, so I had Cynthia look in my apartment, and then go out to the bus stop and see if I had left it on the bench. She couldn't find it. It was gone.

I went back to the van stop to search it more carefully, but the one I took wasn't there, and I didn't know the number of it or anything, so they couldn't help me with where it had gone.

I was really upset. Fortunately, in my pocket I had $30 and my Metrocard and my keys and my swipe and key cards from work, but in my purse were my bank and American Express cards, my expensive clip-on shades, my Demeter cologne, my inhaler, my movie passes, my receipts, my everything. Not my digital camera, thank God, but so much else.

The last time I lost my wallet, about eight years or so ago, I had in the preceding months found like four wallets and purses and briefcases and returned them to their owners, so I expected someone to find it and give it back intact, and they did! But this time, I haven't found anything for so long, I hadn't built up the points to get it back.

I was right by my bank, so I went in and canceled my card and the checkbook that was also in my bag. I won't get another card for 5-7 business days, but they said I could get a temporary one. Unfortunately, I need two forms of ID to get one issued, and with my bag gone, I was not overwhelmed with ID. My passport at home, I think my driver's license was in the house rather than in my bag, but I certainly couldn't get anything then.

I called my Mom and had her cancel my Amex, since it's on her account, and then I went to Starbucks and got a chai crème frappuccino. Because when you've lost your bag and everything is awful, you want your drugs, even if that means that you have spent $4.50 of the $30 that has to last you 5-7 business days.

I tried to call home to see if I had any messages, but I couldn't remember the number to call to get them. I call that number every day (well, a couple times a week, anyway) and I couldn't remember the last two digits to save my life. I guess I was just too freaked to have my mind work normally.

So I went home. I had called work and told them that I didn't think I was coming in, and at that point, I just didn't want to. And maybe I'd find it in my house when Cynthia couldn't, though I knew that was unlikely.

The van took something over half an hour to leave. You think it's slow to fill up at 2a, try 1p on a weekday! Man, we just sat there forever. I trudged home, after getting out of the van and forgetting to pay (after the driver honked, I went back and apologized, "We waited so long, I completely forgot that I hadn't paid already!").

I walked through my door, all depressed and sad, then checked my messages, having remembered the number. And the second message was from a woman who barely spoke English and I could hardly understand her, but I did catch the words, "I find you bag!"

Yippee!! I called the number she left, which was wrong, but I tried it with my area code rather than the Baltimore area code that she accidentally left, and I got her, and she was in the bodega right on the corner, so I ran over and there she was and there was my bag!

She explained that she had to open it to find my name, and I tried to give her $20, but she flat out refused to take it, so I went home after vowing to always shop in that bodega in future, and burst into tears. People are so good.

At first, before I knew that my bag wasn't lost forever, I thought the lesson was that I had thought that the worst thing that I was dealing with was my show and how worried I was about it, but clearly, that was the least of my problems and I should just let it go. When I got my bag back, I realized that everything would work out fine with the show, everything always does, so I should just let it go.

Clearly, all roads lead to Show.

I decided not to go into work, it was after 2p at that point, there was hardly any point, so I stayed home and beamed and wrote and watched Monk, the new Tony Shalhoub series about the obsessive-compulsive detective.

I really liked it alot! It's kind of old-fashioned in style, more than anything it reminds me of Columbo, and there are no shows like that on these days. Tony Shalhoub is a terrific actor, but it certainly could have been him being brilliant in a stupid show, but this is a good character and a good premise and a good supporting cast, and I really recommend it. But I particularly recommend it for fans of the NBC Mystery Movie in the 70's, Columbo and McMillan and Wife and McCloud and so on.

And the thing that makes it as great as it is, is that although alot of the obsessive-compulsive behaviour is played for laughs, the character isn't comic or silly, there is real pain and real emotion behind everything.

So, after relaxing happily at my house all day, I went into rehearsal and got all tense again.

Not really, because I have decided to let it all go, there is nothing else I can do, but really, at this point I would cheerfully drink that kid's blood. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he's a nice kid, a normal nine year old boy, but normal nine year old boys do not make good actors because normal nine year old boys have absolutely no self-discipline whatsoever.

I said that I didn't care if the kid could act or what he looked like, just that he could learn lines, and I ended up with a cute kid that cannot act at all, cannot stay in character, or rather has no concept of what being a character is, and cannot learn lines to save his life.

He will be reading them on the stage. This does not bother me, and works in context with the show, but now I'm trying to get him to stay still and not make noise backstage, and not peek around the curtain when he is supposed to be offstage and not crackle paper or move the chair around and just to shut the hell up.

Ann has much more self-control than I do, because if I were the star of this show and had this bear of a role to learn, remember and deliver, I would skin alive any brat who couldn't learn two lines or keep still while I was giving a five page monologue.

But I have let it go, and I mean it. The show is what it is, which wasn't particularly good last night, but will be good. Pageant is hilarious, Lyle came in with a character and realistic line readings for the first time in this rehearsal process, and I truly believe that Moira will pull her big monologue out of her ass and give it the depth that it needs.

I rather wish that all of my friends weren't coming on Friday, but there you have it. It'll be over soon.

By the way, if anyone saw Law and Order last night, the actor playing the kid who took the hostage at knifepoint in the store, Gene Silvers, used to be in Love Creek some years back!

I remember that he was a little peculiar and would get into character about ten hours before the show, to the great annoyance of all and sundry, but I thought he did an excellent job last night and was very proud of him. It's nice to see someone grow as an actor, I don't think that that part was in him ten years ago.

Happy birthday Beth and Shae and Corina yesterday, and congrats Library Lil, what miraculous news!

Today's horoscope:
Sharing ideas with friends and exchanging information is a good use of your mental talents. You're more casual and carefree than usual.

One year ago today:
Well now, my Da was in that play on Broadway, so this is his copy!

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Last Updated Thur 18 July 01:25:09 2002