camping

this past weekend i went camping. not the full on roughing it camping- but for a first time camper (never slept in a tent) i feel i did ok and i went alone. 

I wanted to experience some peace and quiet some serenity, tranquility, nature. I bought a tent (a cheap one of course im not spending money on something i might never use again.) but it worked brilliantly. 

i got advice from lots of people - the best advice was from the sound guy at work - 

" bring tongs, you got tongs?" 

tongs? like for spaghetti? 

"yeah your gonna need em"

I thought this was a bit weird, I had been thinking i needed skewers. (why that didnt seem weird i cant tell you)

tongs were brilliant! i will never go anywhere without tongs again.

so were the fire starter - "you dont really know how to rough it matches"

BRILLIANT

camping is apparently easy if you go to the right store. 

at the last minute i decided i really hate hot dogs far too much to entertain actually living on them because they're cheap and easy to cook, so i read up on cooking on fire outdoors (via google of course- how else can one learn proper camping techniques?)

FOIL

the other best thing ever is foil. 

i cooked chicken and potato and wrapped that up in foil to be baked over the fire at a later time

with corn on the cob - i remebered at the last minute that would work over fire too - I dont actually cook that much,  in fact i never cooked corn that way but i see it at the street fairs every year all they do is throw those ears on the fire. yay for street fairs.

i then took a metro north train to the cold spring station where i called the taxi service who picked me up - uhm yes taxi-

they took me to the fahenstock state park - the only park accesible without your own damn transportation and i am eternally grateful that i can get farther than central park (though honestly the light woosh of the taconic parkway in the background made me feel right at home only at 3 or 4 am do you not hear any traffic. 

so its not quite the serene getaway but it certainly is a good compromise. a good starter experience and quite enjoyable

I tossed up my tent 

i got firewood

i cooked

i tried to sleep.

 unfortunately i pitched my tent on a slope and slid to the front door all night slowly sliding into a ball worrying id knock the damn thing over on myself then id claw my way back up only to do it again.

 i vowed to move the tent the next night and perhaps invest in a less slippery sleeping bag, but only if i first lived through the 3 am trip the bathrooms.

i chose my campsite based on the relative proximity to the bathrooms - i did not want to leave a tent at 3 am alone in the dark wood to fine a damn tree NO! - beginner!

i also realized that although i was mostly warm the ground was sucking the heat out of me and i perhaps should have got a pad of some sort because now i was freezing slipping down hill and hoping my bladder didnt bust because i really didnt even want to walk over the hill through the woods at 3 am to pee. at some point though the realization is that there is no way in hell you will live until five am when a flicker of light hits the sky, so you better get the damn flashlight with the eerie blue hued bulb that when seen on a moving vehicle just bugs the hell out and blinds you and just be thankful its not on a headlamp like the last time you stood alone in the woods, but i digress.  i lived no bears attacked no creep music i tried to ignore what little horror genre runs through my mind - i dont watch horror flicks but somehow there are still snippets living in the brain cells. 

in the morning i made coffee. 

i moved my tent.

 i went to the beach and bought a chair that had a small thin insulated layer and a removable frame so i could use it as a pad to sleep on that night. 

i went to the lake and i rowed for two hours well i rowed then i read then i rowed then i read. 

i cooked.

 i ate.

 i slept much better.

 had the same three to four am bladder dilemna.

 lived a second time.

 made coffee again - not as good,

 the daddy long legs were gathering for coffee -  apparently they like coffee beer and fire. 

me to!  yet somehow i still think they are creepy.

i discovered my cooler - which is soft had the zipper torn on half with small punctures in several spots, i believe this may have been the work of a local gang of raccoons, i had heard they liked the crackers from site 24. 

i put my food in a tree - i would have put it in my tent but the sign telling you were the bears were said not to. so i tied it on the laundry line. 

hard cooler next time. maybe.

i packed up my tent like a seven yr old, dancing around shooing bugs, swiping with a small towel i flicked them insanely away - id like to say bravely but when it has more legs than a dog it freaks me out. 

i didnt scream not once, i jumped a few times and maybe i yelled at a daddy long legs and told him where to get off, perhaps the other camper didnt hear my territorial discussion with the creature but if they did maybe they thought i had a friend with me. or maybe they thought -that camper on site 5 is totally cracked.

I called my taxi and asked them to get me from the beach at 12 15 - 

at 12 05 it began to rain my taxi arrived just in time. 

Jackhammer

I hate con ed. I am sure they have nothing better to do at 901 am on saturday than to begin a jackhammering project outside my door. i stared down at them hoping they could feel the glaring look of daggers i was using on them but i guess they get that everywhere. I know they have a job to do but i swear i think they tear up the streets just for fun. 

rude NYC just rude.

I spend so much time telling people that we arent rude, we are nice, polite a bit in our own worlds as an attempt to maintain some sort of personal space boundary and then you have to go and be all rude. 

damn. 

I havent taken the subway in a while Im on crutches - established previously, 

a  full car.

minimum 7 men ages 20 - 40 looking in perfectly good health with optimum subway seating. 

i look around they all turn their heads in the 'pretending not to notice that someone could use the seat they really dont want to give up cause they had a long day' kind of way. 

i am miffed. however i feel like 'fuck you, assholes! if i fall it'll be on you' -i mean that literally not in a karma kind of way i mean i will land on you, hard- and i grab a bar and try to situate myself so i wont. 

A woman in her fifties (approx) overweight with a cane leans forward and says "honey would you like a seat?" as she starts to get up, I quickly told her no absolutely not. and thanked her profulsely for being so considerate but she needed the seat as much (probably more) than i did.

At which point finally as we are no moving (of course, just to make it easier)some guy lets out a sigh! and stands up in a i cant believe i feel like i have to do this kind of way and motions me to the seat i thank him he doesnt even look at me just looks away irritated. fuck you. and thanks for the seat, you should have offered before guilt made you. 

I cant tell you how many times i have been the one to offer my seat to an older or pregnant person or someone who just looked like they might need it more than me. I have been offered seating once - i swore never to wear an empire waist again cause i know damn well he thought i was pregnant and he was doing a good deed. i didnt want to break it to him so i just sat down and tried to look motherly. 

monday

Plans. I had some. i ignored them. I am sitting on my couch. not unusual. I have one more day of crutches. tick tick tick. one day. its a good thing too cause i am about to go over the edge of the edge. I know i cant run tomorrow but moving without large hunks of rubber covered faux metal digging into my armpits will be almost as thrilling. if i can. walk. its been along time. am i worried? yes. six weeks and i have not seen or heard from my doctor. he doesnt care, he is not paid to care, he was paid to do surgery, the aftermath is all my problem.  I have questions.  I think. I have done all the PT. I cant bend my leg enough. I cant straighten it enough. tomorrow i will find out if i can walk on it. I will not be working full time for some time. Two weeks and i go back to as much work as they can find for me. ironing, checking for repairs, etc. as few steps as possible. i will have to build up to the 25 flights a day. in the mean time i am just building up to standing without falling. 

disability. still nothing. cmgr. still doing nothing. apparently he is unable to fill out forms becasue they are too much like work related questions when its not workmans comp so its confusing and they are "trying to work around those questions since its not work related" i wold like to say -like hell its not work related, ten years of this shit has destroyed my fucking knees my back my shoulders probably my hips too. it happens to most of us in this line of work so you can say its not work related but what you really mean is i didnt fall down on the stairs at work there by making it an officially recognized work accident. Just fill out the damn forms man. i havent worked in two months and i have rent to pay. 

blame the cat

Sunday is boring. its long and its boring. Its midnight, I tried to sleep in - the evil cat wouldn't let me, so i got up. I blame her. I have done a mostly good physical therapy work out- the ball is deflating. I'm going out on a limb here, claws. I know I shouldn't blame her without proof but Im just saying, cat. 

Had a visit with a friend. 

Rewrote 2 pieces as advised by some nimrod who was judging my work, as was his job - and sent them for re critique-ing. 

I had dinner out with friends and a gigantic margarita 

Fed the evil cat. Again. 

Checked 3 online dating sites.  Bored. 

Facebooked word games. note to self, cat can't spell. stupid cat.  

Didn't do dishes. can't blame cat, contract excludes water based activities.

Sunday. Most people enjoy it - there was a time i did. 

Pre theater.

Sunday became the day that was my shortest work day, matinee only. for ten yrs. 

No laying in bed all day with the paper, no out of town for the weekends.

Just another day at work.  My friday essentially. 

No brunch. I miss brunch. The 3 in the afternoon kind. Once again i blame the cat. 

Its not her fault but i blame her anyway. its easy. 

Now I am doing nothing, couch duty. sunday means nothing but it still has that sunday feel. 

Its weird but no day of the week has the implications, the vibe that sunday has.

Even the cat hasn't moved all day. well not really, new spot, same position. No Guilt. 

I wasted a day. Im going to join her. I can always blame her later.

Bad kitty!

submit this

Goddammit!!  Yeah I'm starting like that! I'm so... I'm... I'm...what?!

sigh. over it. 

I turned in some writing I submitted actually, the deadline being end of January and what I expect is some auto response form letter saying thank you for your submission, that's how it goes, that's what you get when you submit yourself to festivals, contests and the like. I'm not dumb I asked a few people to give feedback, two actor/writers, two non performers, one solid writer. I got one unclear and so i sat down and clarified what was unclear. only one unclear out of five. one mostly clear and three nice and creepies, yes creepy. That's what id hoped for. So I cleared the unclear and kissed it goodbye - its the first crap Ive written in forever to actually submit, I know, not top notch but I actually thought they were pretty good candidates.  The thing is I honestly fully expected a thank you for your submission and sometime in Feb a 'thank you, but we don't feel your piece suits our needs at this time' form letter. In fact its what I wanted, confirmation i sent it and confirmation it was looked at. I had no expectations other than that and I could walk away proud to have put myself out there again after years of not doing it. And I was and I am, except I get a critique, not a thanks, a full on tear into you, shred your work sort of critique. OK i can handle it but I didn't ask you to critique me or my work. 

" I like the way you got around the exposition",  is that a jab because it sounded really snide in email form or maybe it was a compliment but compliments were not being handed out in this email so I don't think so.  'A weak ending'. I can give you a weak ending- Maybe.  I liked the ending so did a few others but i can see how youd want more, and to be honest jab or not I liked the way i got around the exposition too! That was my first piece not bad, the 2nd? where to begin? About the clarity, 'having read 3 times still didn't get it. How will an audience'. OK. I can take criticism for work and i am happy to hear what someone misses and needs clarified. I am happy to go back and fix it if i can or feel its necessary and i will look at both pieces and consider all points. 

On one hand i appreciate the chance to learn, to grow, to take in criticism and weigh it against my true feeling about what i have done. I am happy to try new approaches and I am thankful for the unexpected point by point. But my point is that it was not expected!  I didn't send my work to a teacher for a grade! I was thrown off!  A simple yes or no after all submission are received would have been expected and accepted. This was more like being challenged to a duel. 'Your literary sword is weak my friend take that!'  Well Ouch. No shit! Call me a fucking beginner. that's where I am. That's where I will be hanging for a bit. This is called honing my skills.

So, as much as i want to say- hey I didn't ask for you to pre-judge the stuff i sent to be judged! Instead I said thank you for that, no one had to tell me the problems. My friends whom I adore, went soft on me, I reminded them I hadn't done anything in a bit and asked them to go easy, obviously they went too easy and maybe my critic went too hard, but probably not.  Now i have to go rework it and resubmit because, Dude! if your gonna give me advice, I am gonna be on it and you have now just put yourself in the line of fire. Im going to rewrite and resubmit until you say OOOOH NICE and CREEPY.  just remember you opened that can of worms.  

guacamole

I know its not a big issue, its not a hot topic. i am not writing politically relevant thought provoking blogs that inspire you and make you think, and dont think i dont feel a little bad about that. I'd like to be that woman. I am not. I do think about the hard hitting news stories and politics and social issues affecting myself and my loved ones - I'm watching msnbc right now and i am following several blogs that do just that, and they do it quite well. So I thought I would write about guacamole. 

No not everyday, you can only say so much about guacamole.

I just ate a lot of it. No really like two avocados worth. With chips. I lied to myself and called it dinner. Like broccoli and potato. HA. I didn't fool myself and I'm a little sick to my stomach. I hope you haven't been following along or you might already know that I am having severe issues of becoming jabbaesque while I am incapacitated after my knee surgery. 3 more weeks of non weight bearing (meaning no eliptical machine) crutch useage. 

Never Mind that! i tend to get off track and i like to use the new line to break away i know grammatically incorrect as i am still on the same tangent but i am also not here to appease your grammatical needs. back to Guacamole. 

  I never liked guacamole! I grew up in western mass. there was nary a Mexican restaurant. My first Mexican food experience was in - i hate admitting this part- Little Rock Ark. I KNOW!! who would have thought it!? but its true! I was 12 i came home touting the unparalleled deliciousness of fried ice cream to the dismaying response of "you cant fry ice cream" on every front!  But I was afraid of the green mushy thing made from avocado - whatever the hell that was. It looked slimey and I was quite sure it would be worse than mushrooms. Some things you just know intrinsically! 

A Mexican chain food restaurant finally hit New England and I was proven right that fried ice cream does exist. but i was also once again confronted with slimy looking green mush that kind of turned my stomach and i refused to eat. I reaffirmed my vow i would not try the avocado. 

I moved to NYC I eventually shacked up with a man from Arizona - now that's where you expect to find Mexican food,  southwest! not Arkansas! I learned almost nothing about Mexican food, except the chain i ate at was disgusting, margaritas are awesome and one shouldn't live without them (my opinion), you can sip patron and something about carne asada that i don't remember -he'd tell me if i asked him.  I still passed on the guac. why bother salsa was around . I was quite happy leaving him the guac as long as he kept the salsa dish filled!  

Cutting to the chase, years pass I work in theater - maybe we established that maybe not, i was keeping it vague for those venting moments but what the hell. I work backstage so i have a lot of free time in the day and i go out a lot at night. I also rarely cook and find i am drawn to a good salad and good Mexican more than any other food options(ok maybe pizza and no now is NOT the time to bring up my jabba complex, thank you!). I think i could eat Mexican food everyday. and I am sure its at least weekly. perhaps its the giant margarita i really want... 

OK so somehow i end up at a tequila bar - being sick of the usual joint my friends and i test the fancy new joint on the corner - once seated i realize it must be really fancy because they serve CRICKETS on the menu - yes CRICKETS, i think fried actually which makes me sick thinking about it! it is so disturbing to me. I will be honest my 6 yr old taste buds were terrified that a leg might end up on anything i ordered esp. if cooked on the same grill hell the same kitchen! Tears(yes tears) filled my eyes and i held them back but my company caught it and laughed at me appropriately - i felt i would skip the dinner portion and just have a drink.  i know how things go, and if there is going to be a random item amongst anyones portions it would inevitably be the one who would most fear it, scream and feel guilt at the same time she was shrieking, yes me. it has happened. not with crickets. I am not a fan of the insect kingdom. they can go places i don't want them to.

The table ordered the guacamole trio and being a fancy place had little, no or bad salsa - i was slightly perturbed. i sucked down my mini margarita that cost more than a pitcher at my hole in the wall. i ordered another and realized that the guac with the pomegranate seeds looked kind of cool everyone was raving and i had already been made fun of enough i thought i wouldn't let my 6 yr old taste buds get the better of me a second time on one night but really i wanted to go home and have a grilled cheese. I tasted the guac......uhm it was delicious, somehow the pomegranate transformed the icky slimy looking green stuff into an interesting colorful experience and all of a sudden we are ordering another round because essentially its all i am eating in this place! 

since then i have tried guac at several places i go out of my way to order it when at a new spot, i still love salsa but my options have expanded! 

I bought all the ingredients to make  pomegranate guac at home but i have no idea how to work a pomegranate they are one bizzare fruit - now i have experience with weird fru.....oh wait thats different... never mind. So i stuck with plain, i don't need to extract seeds from this contraption that may be a flesh eating plant- like a fly trap for all i know. I had the guac for dinner and since then i have made guacamole an inordinate number of times, its cheap its easy i can call it dinner and have it by the tv, its filling and tasty and, and, and... Im addicted. I know i should stop but i cant, i ate one and a half avocado tonight a plum tomato some onion and lime and like how many chips and i called it dinner. and it was but i should have stopped at one avacado or like 3/4 or just half and have a real meal but no! i couldn't and now here i am. confessing my love and addiction to guac. there is some left but i cant eat it.  I have to remember to only buy one avocado at a time i have no self control. And! I'm supposed to have lunch at a Mexican place tomorrow and margaritas with those same friends on Sunday - yes that means Mexican, thats like 3 times this week not including my guac fest. Did i mention the jabba thng? yeah i thought so.... excuse me i have to go.