So yesterday it was hot and today it is hot and I'm so glad that I work where there is air conditioning, although that is only at Job #1, Job #2 entails no air conditioning in the hot hallway that is my truncated box office, on the other hand, that means that I may be sweaty, but I'm selling lots of water and wine and soda.

I'm bored with complaining about the heat already, and I was complaining about the cold less than a week ago!

After work I went to the library to return my overdue books that I spent the day frantically finishing--the wonderful Almost French and the even more wonderful An Embarrassment of Mangos.

I finished them a little early, and decided to glance through the overdue and unrenewable book that I was just going to return and get out another time, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and fell completely in love with it in about three pages and knew that I was just going to keep it and pay the fine.

At the top of page two, "And also, there are so many times when you need to make a quick escape, but humans don't have their own wings, or not yet, anyway, so what about a birdseed shirt?"

And at the bottom of page three, "Sometimes I think it would be weird if there were a skyscraper that moved up and down while its elevator stayed in place. So if you wanted to go to the ninety-fifth floor, you'd just press the 95 button and the ninety-fifth floor would come to you. Also, that could be extremely useful, because if you're on the ninety-fifth floor, and a plane hits below you, the building could take you to the ground, and everyone could be safe, even if you left your birdseed shirt at home that day."

That was the moment I burst into tears in the lobby and realized that I'd be paying another 70¢ to read this book.

On my way to the bus, I passed the Evil DVD Store and bought more DVDs. The Evil DVD Store is very evil indeed.

Everything was on sale! Shakespeare in Love and From Dusk 'Til Dawn were $10 each or two for $16, the new extended version of Stripes was $15 and the first season of Rocky and Bullwinkle was $20 down from $40, and there is also a $10 rebate, so it only costs $10 in real life. And what am I not made of? Stone, that's what.

Rebates are such a scam, though. It's smart on the company's part, but I see it for the scam that it is. If you take $10 off at the register, then everybody gets it, but for a rebate, at least half the people who get it will forget to send in the form, and about a third of those will forget to cash a $10 check, so it costs them much less and they still sell lots of DVDs from people who want a good deal.

So I got to the show, and there was my usher whom I thought was going to be there tonight, which was why I was going to see Mark in Troilus and Cressida tonight. So I went last night instead.

It's awfully handy having his show right downstairs in the outdoor theatre, so that I didn't have to actually take the night off from my show, I could sell the tickets and start it, then run downstairs and my usher took care of our intermission and sold my drinks for me. Mildly ashamed, I was, to have her sell the concessions that go into my pocket, but it was too hot to deprive the audience of them.

And how was Troilus? Not nearly as bad as Hamlet! Almost good at times, even. Mark was terrific as Thersites, the most interesting and fun role in the play, and there was this one actor, tiny and skinny, playing Aeneas, who blew the roof off the joint. He was far and away the best actor anywhere near the show, probably for blocks.

He should give lessons on how to A, make the most out of a small part, and B, speak Shakespeare and make every word both conversational and understood, it sounded like he talks that way all the time. And it's hard to be that small and actually appear dangerous, but I really believed that he was a soldier.

And I really believed that Mark would do anything to avoid being in a fight, which is pretty impressive acting on his part! He would have been better had he actually been directed in the role, but he would occasionally make some cartoonishly evil faces that were really unnecessary. I told him so, when he asked me for notes, and hopefully he'll be able to get rid of them without too much bother. He's too good in the role to mess it up with the Simon Legree faces.

I also liked Hector and Achilles quite a lot, and Al did a nice job with Priam and Menelaus.

However. There were some other things that weren't so good. Fat, drony Ghost from Hamlet was much less effective as fat, drony Agamemnon, Nestor really needed to learn his lines (though he had that silver beard into a golden beaver one down solid), and Cressida (Ophelia in Hamlet) really needs to either lose 20 lbs or learn to dress flatteringly. Also, to stop it with the fakey British vowel sounds.

When she played Ophelia, I commented on her unfortunate choice of costumes, making her look fat and lumpy when she is not. I have now changed my opinion, she is fat and lumpy, she just looks like she should not be because her face is so thin.

Okay, people who live in fat houses shouldn't throw bones, but I'm not a leading lady, I am a character actress and have a little leeway. She's not actually fat, she's just lumpy and dresses as though she is not lumpy, so she looks about twenty times lumpier than she actually is.

You have to be really super-skinny to wear clingy fabric like jersey or satin so tight that your belly button is outlined, and pair that with a belt that goes right under your tummy and over the top of your butt. Unless you are Kate Moss, you will look like an absolute whale. Therefor, learn to dress more flatteringly, or lose the weight, these are your leading lady choices.

I wanted Cressida's uncle (was that Pandarus?), or whomever he was, to shut up and go away, and at first I thought it was the role, but then I figured no, that there must be a way of playing that part where you don't want him to shut up and go away, but that actor didn't know what it was.

The worst thing in the play, though, was Diomedes. Dear Jesus. Diomedes, for those of you who only know the bits of the story that were in Troy (and I'm one of them, this might be the only Shakespeare play that I didn't at least have a nodding acquaintance with the plot beforehand), is the Greek whom Trojan Cressida was given to as some sort of a peace offering. Besides Troilus and Paris, he is the only male in the play who appears to like sex.

Unfortunately, the actor cast appears to like to have sex with men. This is one of my pet peeves, gay actors who can't play straight and straight actors who can't play gay. It doesn't matter what you are, it matters what the character is, and if you can't play that, you need to join that bus and truck tour of La Cage and not look back.

Well, this actor was so incredibly queeny that it was like he was sending up the role. It was as though Carson Kressley from Queer Eye was playing it, only slightly more effeminate. In fact, if he played a gay character in that fashion, he would be accused of promoting offensive homosexual stereotypes! It was hilarious. And it almost ruined the show. When he stalked up to Cressida when she was given to him, I thought that he was going to give her costume advice. Frankly, somebody should.

There are no real offstage areas in the outdoor theatre, so on one side of the stage they have a sheet on sticks that looked like a Wendy house. Halfway through the show, the Wendy house collapsed, which was frankly hilarious. It didn't actually fall on the actors, which would have been great, but it was still pretty funny to see them exit the stage, march towards it, then crawl under the sheet and attempt to fix it from the inside.

Honestly, the poor actors, there has to be a better way to hide them from the audience than with a teepee made from a blanket, like a child playing in the yard.

Anyway, much better than the appalling Hamlet, and much nicer outdoors, because during the duller parts of the play you can look at the buildings or the stars or the planes flying overhead and you feel much less trapped by bad actors underdirected.

I only was charged $10 to see it, which might have been a discount or might have been the opening night price, and Mark had told me some weeks ago that significant others can see the show for free after paying once. Last night he said I would be able to get in free from now on, which does not delude me into thinking that I am Significant, but gives me a little sparkle anyway. I live in hope of Significancy.

Heard on the news this morning, a newscaster trying to segue between a story about bears in New Jersey and the weather:

"People should try to keep their distance from the animals and avoid making eye contact, that sounds like good advice. Chris, eye contact with you, however, let's make some contact with that weather forecast!"
"It's warm eye contact, that's for sure, any contact is going to be warm today!"

It was a beautiful moment in Awkward Newscaster Banter history.

Today's horoscope:
If your world was 'The Love Boat,' you'd be Julie McCoy, cruise director. Use your organizational superpowers to put together a social event that'll make the shipwide talent show seem like a yawn by comparison.

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Last Updated Tues 14 June 15:53:09 2005