Cruel Summer

Wow. It's over. SPF. July. August stares us in the face. The somber downhill month of summer. All the excitement and promise of the summer has left us. August is quiet and reflective.

I feel... worn. Melancholy doesn't quite fit. Infinite sadness, perhaps.

Parties may be over, and the neverending goodbyes, but now's the real work. I've got some serious writing to get done. Along with getting back to people.

People in my life have got to be compatible with my long-term goals. I've severed people from my life who just weren't helping me at all. It's amazing how much time a person can waste getting shitfaced at bars. I'm no prude. I enjoy the oblivion. But it can become an anchor. And you can end up staying in that painful place indefinitely because you can't feel anything. There's got to be some balance. People can end up holding you back without meaning to. (Some people just don't want to see you escape.)

If alcohol is the only thing that enables us to have a conversation, something's fucked up there. Not to go on an Axl rant...

To be filed under "Things That Aren't New", I'm fuckin exhausted. I saw 10 of the other plays at the fest this year. I liked the ones that featured people getting emotional and crying. As sad as I may be, it takes a lot to get me to cry these days, so I'm sort of fascinated watching other people do it. It's like grief porn.

New Ink Alert!

I got some new ink today. Two new ones. Semi-impulsive. The best kind.

July 28, 2006. Not sure how I'll remember that one. But remembering the dates of all my ink is getting to be difficult. It's hard to time the impulses with significant dates. But it's been a pretty good month for me, and I like to be good to mice elf sometimes (sic).

I like them. They're meaningful in a way that I'll have difficulty articulating when people invariably ask me, "What do they mean?" They mean a lot of things, but when I try to explain it I start to sound stooopid (sic).

Took the day off from the New York Theatre World today. Helped a friend put together his reel, got some tattoos, a cheap haircut and started to catch up on my DVR. I really like "Lucky Louie". It's not for everybody. May not be for most people. But I just watched a mini-marathon of them and I've gotta say, I really like it. It's sentimental and anti-sentimental at the same time. (Kinda like me!) And Pamela Adlon is worth marrying. I love her. A true, unsullied kind of love.

Somebody to Love

BLOGGER's been unconscionably slow today! Could it be because Lance Bass announced that he's gay? Remind me to post that on my brand new Who-Gives-A-Fuck? blog....

I'm gonna get me one of these bioengineered fuckers for Chrimbus this year. Maybe the one-year-lifespan edition. Three years seems like too much of a commitment. (That's like as long as a fuckin marriage!)

Last weekend of the Summer Play Festival. It's been one big mood-swinging month! There's a lot I'm following up on, but for this weekend I'm just going to enjoy the last of the free booze/theater. Monday mourning, all carriages revert to smashed pumpkins... light a candle for the sinners, set the world on fire...

My Eyes Are Open

Maybe the sunlight will be dim
But it won't matter anyhow...

All the things I'd like to say, but can't.

What's the point of a blog when you can't be blunt?

Nothing really matters. It doesn't matter what anyone says. This year is mine. I'll turn myself into anything I want to be.

It's uphill from here. I'm walking till the string in my legs snaps.

The Lurking Horror

Hello to all you silent lurkers reading this. Voyeurs against your better judgment, trying to catch a glimpse of a train wreck? Friends, former-friends, acquaintances. How many SPF interns have managed to find this not-so-hidden personal blog? (You should be ashamed of what you've read here.)

Well, whoever the hell is reading this, welcome. You've managed to catch me on a day when I'm not dangling off the precipice of madness. (But the day is young...)

Back at work after the long weekend I granted myself. It was actually a good weekend. I spent it haunting Theatre Row like a fucking spectre. But I saw some excellent work and had some good conversations with people (once lubricated with sufficient spirits).

One last week and SPF closes shop for the season. I'll be at Theatre Row almost every night this week. If you're trying to avoid me, consider this fair warning. (You know who you fucking are.) If you're hoping to run into me, perhaps you should ask yourself if you don't deserve something better to hope for...

Blood of Reptile

It was nice to take a break from Theater Row last night. Those people must be sick of me by now. I don't know if I'm going to get to see all the remaining shows this month. That was my initial plan, to support the other writers, but I honestly need some time off. I'll see as much as I can see.

Not sure what time I nodded off last night. I remember watching a full half-hour of "So You Think You Can Dance?", just because I was too tired to put in a DVD. I had two discs from Netflix sitting there. One was too scuffed to play. The other was a crappy doc called "Pornstar Pets". Sent out a few emails and nodded out way before my bedtime. Last night, I got a lot of sleep. 7 or 8 hours, maybe. It was needful. But I'm still tired this mourn.

At work so far today, I've done a final polish on the new play excerpt that'll be cold-read at Naked Angels/SPF this evening. Printed out copies for the readers and highlighted the individual scripts. There are the things I have control over and things I don't. My new mantra is, "There is nothing else I can do."

I'm gonna run out of food soon. Payday's a week away. May have to hit the soup kitchen with NewOp this weekend. We'll be the boys in cheap suits cramming bread rolls in our pockets.

A Heavy Rain

The downpour last night was biblical. I still walked home from the theater because I'm a masochist. This city needed a good rain to scrub the streets clean.

I am a cold and unforgiving human being. That would make me sad if I stopped to think about it for too long. What have I been through that's rendered me this way?

It's survival and evolution. You suffer a setback, you figure it out and you move on. You adapt. The skin thickens.

There are things I need and things I don't need in my life. I won't sit here and gaze at my scars.

Got about 5 hours of sleep last night. That's not bad for me. Could have slept longer if I didn't have to go to work. Got home late and had to send out some follow-up emails before I could retire. I'm still tired today, but I'm catching up. I'm going to skip the theater tonight. Go straight home and get some work together.

Heat and Concrete

There's talk of temps reaching near 100 today. Won't that be funny?

Back at work this mourn. I hope things don't get too busy because I've forgotten how to do my job.

My hands are a little bruised this mourn. I think I was punching things on the walk home from the theater yesterday. (Homeless people and abandoned children.)

I was so concerned about how I was going to feel once my short production ended, but I feel okay. I'm glad it's over. I thought it was going to be fun, but it just made me really stressed out. It went well and people came to see it, and now it's done. I'm okay with that.

I'm exhausted but not sleepy. I need to try to sleep this week. SPF isn't over. I've gotta go in and unveil an excerpt from my new play on Thursday. A cold reading of a work-in-progress. Everybody loves those. I'll have that to obsess over for the next few days.

For now, I just need to get through the next 10 hours before I can go home and have a mental breakdown. I lead a very lonely existence. Shed a tear. (Just one.)

Sleep When I'm Dead

Help me.

Another sleepless night. I couldn't sleep before my opening night and I couldn't sleep before my closing.

I've become so numb, I can't feel you there
I've become so tired, so much more aware

I don't know what to feel anymore. I've no sense of anything. I think this week's been more terrifying than fun. People approach me saying they've met me before and I have no memory of them. I think I'm losing my mind.

Hello to my clever cast members who managed to find my personal blog. You're playing a dangerous game. I'm a bucketful of crazy.

I can't believe I've gotta go back to work tomorrow. I just want to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling for a week...

You've Been Sad for a While...

The concrete broke your fall...
To hear you speak of it...
I'd have done anything...
I would do anything...

I feel like a cartoon brick wall...
To hear you speak of it...
You've been so sad...
It makes me worry...
Why not smile...?
You've been sad for a while...
- R.E.M.

People should check out that Butcherhouse blog to read about how opening night went. It went very well.

This afternoon, I'm meeting with the people from Donmar who were at the show last night. I hear they enjoyed it.

Today is payday, and rent is due, and bills are due. Can't I just be happy for a little while longer...?

Becoming

I beat my machine
It's a part of me
It's inside of me

I'm stuck in this dream
It's changing me
I am becoming

The me that you know
He had some second thoughts
He's covered with scabs
He is broken and sore
The me that you know
He doesn't come around much
That part of me isn't here anymore

All pain disappears
It's the nature of my circuitry
Drowns out all I hear
No escape from this
My new consciousness

The me that you know
He used to have feelings
But the blood has stopped pumping
And he is left to decay
The me that you know is now made up of wires
And even when I'm right with you...

... I'm so far away...

I can try to get away...
... but I've strapped myself in

I can try to knock away...
... the sound in my ears

I can see it killing away...
... all of my bad parts

I don't want to listen...
... but it's all too clear

Hiding backwards inside of me...
I feel so unafraid...
Annie, hold me a little tighter...
I might just slip away...

- Nine Inch Nails

Tardy Slip

WHAT TIME'D YA GET TO WORK TODAY, MALICE??

9:27am.

WHAT TIME ARE YA SPOSDA BE AT WORK, MALICE??

8:00am.

JESUS! WHAT TIME'D YA WAKE UP THIS MOURNIN'??

~8:30am.

AT LEAST YOU NIPPED THAT INSOMNIA IN THE BUD!

Watch me get fired this month...

The All-Nighter

I wish I could sleep like regular people sleep. But every so often, I get a night like this where I've just got to surrender to the insomnia.

It's not that I never sleep. I can sleep. In patches. Some nights, I get a pretty decent stretch of shut-eye. There were a few nights this weekend where I got a good 7 hours, I think.

And then there are nights like this.

I've gotta sleep with the television on. The light and the sound distract me slightly. They mix with my thoughts to create a kind of white noise. It's the closest I can come to "clearing my head", most nights.

I put the TV on "SLEEP". Nights like tonight, I've gotta keep resetting the SLEEP timer so the TV doesn't shut itself off before I can drift off.

At a certain point of no return, I've just gotta stay up or I'll sleep straight through the alarm clock.

In a few hours, I've gotta put in a 10-hour day at work and then attend the SPF Opening Night Party. I'm gonna die!

The Secret of My Success

I hear you out there. You're saying, "Malice, you've been married for 3 years today. What's the motherfuckin secret?"

Well, Billy, what you've got to do is let your wife walk out on you a little after your 1-year anniversary. Spend the better part of the next year and a half trying to salvage the marriage until you're sure it's absolutely fucking dead. After that, it's just a matter of aligning your schedules so you can find a time to meet with a lawyer to fill out the divorce papers. Then Bob's your uncle and May's your auntie!

"Isn't that a bit callous, Malice?"

If you want to see callous, Billy, come see my next play when it debuts. Then, you will see some fucking brutality.

My heart's a fucking grenade.

"All Goodbyes Should Be Sudden"

In my dreams, I'm a different me...

More violent. More base. Given to terrible desires, not to be shared.

Last night -- in a dream -- I nearly killed an old man with a sharpened spoon to the throat. It was only a dream, why didn't you go ahead and kill him, Malice? Even in dreams, I have morals. Fears of being caught. Will power. But I was prepared to kill him. And he deserved it.

Each night, you have a series of dreams. Often it feels like one dream blurred together. Most of the dreams are forgotten completely, even if I take notes. In another dream last night, it was a movie hybrid where I was partially a spectator and partially a participant. Recalling some of it and thinking about the meaning makes me reticent to share it. But it featured Tilda Swinton playing the part of somebody's wife. But in the dream, she was a grifter, and accidental killer.

I also dreamed of a creature that had the body of a dachshund and the head of a little girl. She wasn't born that way. Someone had made her. Had cut off the head of a little baby and put it on the body of a dachshund. Put her on this little fantasy island resort. She seemed happy/content with her lot in life. There was something so grisly about it. It seemed like such a wonder that she was alive. I couldn't stop thinking about how many babies and dogs they went through before they created one of these creatures that lived.

I've been having a lot of terrible/strange dreams lately. Most of them are forgotten. With only the lingering melody of something truly dreadful.
xxxXxxx
I've just begun the process of redrafting my second play "CHINADOLL OVERDRIVE", yet the writing of my third play "ALL GOODBYES SHOULD BE SUDDEN" (known as the "Assholes" play to my work friend) officially begins today. Nessun dorma. No one sleeps. Not this year.