Ten “FUCKS” and counting…

Sorry about not posting last night.  I was in the mood of all moods and knew that I’d just spend two pages ranting and it would do no one any good.  I’m in a little bit better mood tonight, but just barely.

So why was I in a bad mood?

Well it started when my roommate called to tell me that “Princess” as he’s come to call her had not sent a check for her portion of the utilities.  Princess is the sublettor if you are joining the program already in progress.  She had promised me a week ago that she would drop a check in the mail.  We are still waiting.  Unfortunately, that means I’m responsible for her portion of the utilities.  Which means I have to leave my roommate a check for almost 250 bucks when I leave this weekend.  This does not make me happy.  First of all I don’t have a spare 250 bucks.  Not many people I know do.  Second it pisses me off that she’s fucked me once again.  I don’t remember the last time I got fucked this many times and didn’t at least get breakfast out of it.  All told she’s cost me about 2,500 dollars since this little engagement began.  Not to mention that my roommate has made it very clear that I’m no longer allowed to sublet my apartment.  So in reality she’s fucked me for a lot more than 2,500 bucks.

My bad mood continued when my friend Michelle didn’t call me again yesterday.  Earlier in the week I got an email from a NYC director looking for someone to light his show next week.  It didn’t pay a lot, but it would have been a great credit and there’s a good chance that it will be reviewed in the Times which is a good thing if the work is good.  Unfortunately, I’ll still be house sitting for Michelle next week and I’ll still be taking care of Max.  So the only way this would work is if Michelle could get someone to take Max for a couple of days.  So I returned the email to the director and said yes I would love to do it, but it was contingent on Michelle dealing with the dog.  As soon as I got the initial email I called and left a message to tell Michelle what was going on and told her to call me as soon as she could.

Now for a little background information.  Michelle and her girlfriend Lisa are camping in the middle of nowhere Michigan.  They barely have a bathroom let a lone cell service.  So getting in touch with them is almost impossible unless it truly is an emergency.  However, I was asked, since I’m taking care of Max to leave a message each day so that they’d know every thing was okay.  Just a quick check in, they’d check their messages, and then they’d know all was well.  So I’ve been doing just that.  Leaving messages each day, saying call me as soon as you get this message.  This all started on Monday.  Michelle finally called me this morning.  Five days after the initial phone call.  Seems they haven’t been checking their messages and so they didn’t know to call me.

I was pissed as hell.  Why the fuck had I been wasting my cell phone time to call them to check in if they weren’t going to check their messages.  Why the fuck did they set up the fucked up system in the first place.  So of course she tells me it’s no big deal to get someone to watch Max while I’m in the city.  There are a couple of options that should work.  This message was exactly ten hours after I sent yet another email telling the director that I’d been unable to get in touch with my friends and therefore felt that the best thing to do would be to turn the show down now, before it was too late to find someone else.

FUCK!  FUCK!  FUCK!

Of course I emailed him back this morning but it seems to have been too late.  I’ve heard nothing from him and I don’t really blame him.  Who would want someone as wishy, washy as me doing their show.  So not only did she cost me money, a design credit on a show with potential, she made me look like a complete idiot.  I’m not one to stay mad and for the most part I’m over it, but it still pisses me off that this happened.

So when I got home last night I was pissed.  The dog didn’t come near me because she could sense something was up.  She hid in the living room all night.  And as I said, I would have posted something but it would have just been one long FUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK!!!!! and I didn’t see what good that would do.

Just as a reminder.  I’m in NYC this weekend.  It took about 7 hours to drive down today.  It’s supposed to be exactly five.  It rained for the entire trip, and for the last couple of hours or so traffic moved at a steady 15 miles per hour.  If I was in shape again I could have run faster than we were driving.

That being said.  The air conditioner’s on.  I don’t care that it’s 58 degrees outside.  It’s humid in here and I haven’t had my own air conditioner all summer.  And besides, I’ve paid for a month of utilities that I didn’t even get to use.  So the air’s on, the bed is made and in about 12 minutes I’m going to be curled up in my big queen sized bed.  Yippee!

Have a great weekend everyone.

Freaky Clowns, Scrambled Eggs, and an Evil Sublettor

I’m so tired I can hardly stand it.  I had caffeine way too late last night and at 4:30 this morning I was still awake, lying in bed, waiting for sleep to come.  There’s nothing worse.  I was so tired this morning that I don’t remember my alarm going off, I don’t remember turning it off, and I don’t remember going back to sleep.  I woke up around 9:00 or so to my friend Michelle asking if I wanted breakfast.  She was making scrambled eggs and thought I might like some.  And I did.  So that’s when I got up.

My roommate called me at around 9:30 to give me the latest in the on-going saga of the sublettor.  Last month she shorted him 125 bucks on the rent when it was due.  He was pissed but covered it and she gave him the balance about a week and a half later.  He explained to her that this was unacceptable and she couldn’t do it again.  Well on Wednesday, she did it again.  He wasn’t nearly as polite this time and actually dragged her ass out of bed to bitch her out on Wednesday morning.  Then he called me to tell me that the check that I wrote for September’s rent was going to have to be used to cover her missing portion of the August’s rent.  This was fine, but it pissed me off.  I told him to tell her that if it wasn’t paid on time she would have to cover the late charges the landlord will bill us.  When he told her this he said to her to either give him a check for the late fee, or be out by the first.  What do you know she suddenly had the rent available.

I just don’t get it.  Who rents an apartment and then doesn’t pay the rent.  I’ve never paid my rent late.  Never.  I might miss a car payment.  Or a cell phone payment.  Or an electric payment.  But never the rent.  The way I see it…you HAVE to have a place to live.   Have to.  Therefore the rent always gets paid.  I also find it amazing that she does this the first month she lives there.  If she can’t afford it (and it’s VERY cheap by NYC standards) then go some place else.  I was upfront about all the expenses when we made the arrangements.  And unlike other people I know, I’m not charging her more than I pay for the rent.  I just want her to cover my portion of the expenses while I’m not there.  Needless to say, I’m more than a little pissed about how she’s treated my roommate, me and the whole situation.  Anybody want to beat her up for me.

Tonight was the drag show.  It went well for the most part.  I say for the most part because the space they were performing in didn’t have air conditioning and the temperature was about 200 degrees.  They also didn’t have any fans so the air wasn’t moving at all.  It also annoyed me that the show started 30 minutes later than it was supposed.  How hard is it to start on time.  And the lighting was awful.  You couldn’t see half the performers that were on stage.  My friends were mostly in the dark for their performance.  The show was also a little weird.  It started out with a clown juggling.  It helped that he was cute.  But he was still a clown and that’s just freaky.  The next act was another clown.  This one more European and a woman.  But still a clown.  Still freaky.  Next was a guy playing some strange guitar like contraption singing Greek music.  Not fun.  Next was a LARGE black woman who did this performance art piece to poetry she had written.  It consisted of her walking back and forth on the stage with an umbrella responding to the things being said over the speakers.  Then she sang a song…and in a word.  She SHOULD NOT sing.  Last was my friends.  They were a welcome relief to the evening.  They were upbeat, sexy and fun.  At last we were at intermission.   We promptly picked up our things and left.  I was not willing to sit around for ACT 2 and see what strange performers were there.

And that brings me to now.  I’m home getting ready for bed.  I’ll brush my teeth and hopefully be asleep in the next 15 minutes or so.  Day two on my diet went well.  No complaints.  AND I walked 5 miles today around the bay.  I’m going to try and walk at least part of it everyday while I’m here.  I figure between walking and dieting I should get the weight to go away.  I’ve add a ticker to the right on my blog that tracks how much weight I’ve lost.  It’ll keep you posted on how I’m doing.

Drag Kings and Fat Queens

And still the people flock to my blog.  170+ today.  Still don’t know what the occasion is.  It doesn’t appear to be all spam although only my regulars are leaving messages.  Today they were mostly from the U.S. with about 25 or so from the international community.  I still don’t understand it but as I said yesterday I’m not complaining.

Life in Maine continues.

Today the high was 88.  Not exactly cool, but compared to two months in Oklahoma it was nothing.  You would have thought that global warming was at it’s worst and the end was near.  Every where we went today people were complaining about the heat.  And this started at 9:30 this morning when the locksmith came to put a new lock on my friends’ front door.  My friend Michelle was convinced that she was having a heat stroke at one point today.  For the most part I was actually comfortable.  I did suggest to Michelle that all of her suffering could be relieved by a trip to Best Buy to get an air conditioner.  She didn’t quite agree with me.  Really!  What do I know?

The best part of being here is getting up early.  (Comments to yourself, Chuck!)  I have been up around 8:00 a.m. both mornings so far.  We get up early, have coffee, walk the dog and just sit and enjoy the morning.  This morning we even went down the street to the little cafe and had $3.50 omelets.  It was a wonderful way to start the day.  The reason I don’t think I mind this schedule is that every afternoon involves a nap.  I love me some nap time.  We were going to see a movie today but I slept too long.  Whoops.  We ended up watching the first episode of the TV show Dexter that’s on Showtime.  I liked it.  I think I may try and see the other episodes while they are gone on their little trip.

At 5:30 this afternoon I had drag king rehearsal.  The Kings On the Hill have a performance on Friday night at this little space downtown.  It’s one number that’s about 10 minutes long.  It’s a medley of songs from Grease and it’s quite funny and quite good.  Being the theatre artists I am, I channelled my best musical theatre director and helped clean up some of the choreography.  By the time we finished they really had it down.  Now if they can only remember it for tomorrow night.  Jazz hands everyone.  Jazz hands.

Of course you’ll get a full update.

Today I started the South Beach Diet.  Several of Michelle’s friends are on it and they’ve lost significant weight.  I figure what can it hurt.  I need to lose around 100 pounds.  I figure if I work hard I can have it gone by Labor Day…don’t you think?  I’ll try and keep you posted on my progress.  Every time I’ve ever lost weight before it’s been on a low carb diet so I’m sure this will work.  I also feel that’s it’s healthier than the Atkin’s Diet because it doesn’t include so much fat.  Anyone have any pointers, or suggestions?  At this point I’ll listen to anything.

There’s also a path around the bay near Michelle’s house that I’m going to start walking.  It’s about 4.5 miles around.  I figure that I can pop my Ipod on, and take my time to start.  There are places to sit if it’s too much at first and I can do it at my own pace.  I’m smart enough to realize that I can’t lose weight just by dieting.  If I don’t exercise at least some the weight will never go away.  I’ll look at joining a gym when I get back to NYC.

Have a great weekend all.

I’ve become an old man…

Perhaps someone can help explain the traffic I’m getting at my blog lately. Up until two weeks ago I was averaging about 35 to 40 people a day. Not great but considering that I’m not quoting the news and not changing lives I thought it was respectable. Then for two or three days it dropped to about 20 and since then it’s exploded. Today according to my Site Meter I had over 200 people stop by. I’m sure they aren’t sticking around and reading about all 49 days of my visit to Oklahoma, but they are at least clicking on the link. My question is why? Why without a gradual build do I have so many visitors. They are from all over the world. Some days mostly foreign but as today mostly withing the U.S. I’m not complaining, I’m just curious.

Today was my first full day in Maine. I feel like I’ve stepped back in time. First the twin bed. There’s not much to say about it. Second, there’s no TV. Not just no cable. But no TV at all. My friends have a large screen computer they watch movies on but there’s no television to be seen in the house at all. Third, there’s no AC. I’ve been assured that it’s not needed here in the north, but so far I’m not convinced. It’s hot. It’s humid. The answer. AC. It’s not hard to figure out. I’ve was also warned today that the car I’m being left with doesn’t have AC either. Hmm…Soon we’ll be sitting by the woodstove, whittling a new seat for the outhouse.

I realized today that I’m old. There was a band in town tonight called The Cliks. It’s sort of an all girl band although there was talk the lead singer was a Trannie. Either way she’s kind of cute in that androgynous sort of way. But I digress. I stood in the back tonight and all I heard was noise. Lots and lots of loud noise. There were moments that you could tell music was being played but from my perspective, it was just noise. I spent most of the time I was there watching the cute straight boy make out with his girlfriend as they stood next to us. Based on the music on their website, it’s not bad. Live. Yuck. And this is how I’ve realized I’m old. I’m the parent yelling for their kid to turn down that awful racket. Forgetting what it was like 20 years ago to hear live music.

I think I’ll stick to whittling by the fire from now on.