Wow. Last night was Halloween, and now it’s suddenly November. Funny how that works.

As I begin to write this, it’s almost 5:00, and it will be dark soon. Ugh. I don’t see why we can’t be on Daylight Savings Time all year round. Okay, so the mornings would be darker — at least we’d have more light in the evenings. This reminds me of college winter weekends, when I’d wake up at noon, eat brunch, do some classwork, and then suddenly it would be dark outside.

Last night, Matt and I went to the Halloween Parade in the Village. It was my first time seeing it, and I’d had no idea how huge it was! People were packed on the sidewalks and curbs like sardines. We stood at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 12th Street, right on the curb; I’m not incredibly tall, so it was hard to see, especially when a guy in a sombrero decided to stand right in front of me. Then there were the throngs of people trying to squeeze past us in the mistaken hope that they might be able to get through, and the guy in the space warrior costume with huge spiky shoulder pads who thought he could just slip on through. Eventually we got tired of watching, so we squeezed through as well, and got the heck out of there.

Even away from the parade, the streets were filled with revelers in costumes. It’s not every year that Halloween falls on a Friday night — and on top of that, the weather was great, so there were just hordes of people everywhere. It felt like Mardi Gras. I’d never experienced anything like this in Manhattan before.

During the parade, out of the blue, a college friend called me. He was visiting the States from China, where he works, and it was his last night here before going back there. So after a really good dinner, Matt and I met up with him and a couple of my other college friends at a party, then headed back out in search of a bar. Eventually Matt headed home, and my friends and I finally found a bar (where there were yet more people in costumes), had a round of drinks, and caught up with each other for a while.

The PATH ride home was even more crowded than usual, with yet more people in costumes.

Costumes, costumes everywhere, from early evening to late at night. This was the most I’d felt the presence of Halloween in years.

It was also my most enjoyable Friday night in a while, and — even better — my first alcohol buzz in about two months. All in all, a darn good evening.

Hooray! At long last, it finally works!

I’ve converted my blog to Movable Type. After a few mishaps — mostly involving me attempting to import all my Greymatter entries, or me fiddling with the database files and accidentally screwing things up, several times — it’s finally good to go. I still have a few templates to fill out and some things to figure out how to use (such as Trackback), but everything should be functional now. I ultimately decided not to import my Greymatter entries after all, but rather to leave them where they are, because I want those entries to retain their old URLs, and importing the files winds up screwing up the numbering. So my old Greymatter entries and my new Movable Types entries will live in the same directory, and hopefully I won’t somehow accidentally erase all my Greymatter stuff someday. Anyway, the numbering is starting over with this entry — or rather, with the previous entry; I figured since it’s the beginning of the month I may as well keep all the November stuff together, so I imported just the previous entry. Luckily, Greymatter and Movable Type use different numbers of zeroes in their entry URLs, so 0000001.html will not be written over by 000001.html.

One disappointment is that I can’t figure out how to use “oil me” when there are no comments listed. With Greymatter, you can set your comment line to display different things for zero comments, one comment, or plural comments, but it appears that with Movable Type, you can only use one thing. If someone can figure out how I could do “oil me” again, I’d appreciate it, because I always liked that little line. [Note: as you can see, I’ve fixed it. Thanks, Alan!]

Goodbye, Greymatter. I’ll miss your cute purple, green, and yellow color scheme, but I should be able to do a lot more with my blog now.

Anyway, back to blogging.

[4/21/08: Greetings, Googlers! No doubt many of you are here because of the New York Times article today. You can find out more about me or check out my archives. Feel free to drop me a line!]

**************

I’ve been reading Not Since Carrie, Ken Mandelbaum’s book about Broadway musical flops. Since I also own Hot Seat, a collection of Frank Rich’s 13 years of theater reviews for the New York Times, I’ve occasionally looked up some of Rich’s reviews of the flops that Mandelbaum discusses. They’re entertaining, often scathing.

Mandelbaum’s book does not discuss Moose Murders, one of the most notorious Broadway flops ever, because it’s a play, not a musical. But Frank Rich reviewed it. I couldn’t find his review online, so I’ve transcribed it from Hot Seat in its entirety. Have fun.

**********

February 23, 1983

From now on, there will always be two groups of theatergoers in this world: those who have seen Moose Murders, and those who have not. Those of us who have witnessed the play that opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theater last night will undoubtedly hold periodic reunions, in the noble tradition of survivors of the Titanic. Tears and booze will flow in equal measure, and there will be a prize awarded to the bearer of the most outstanding antlers. As for those theatergoers who miss Moose Murders — well, they just don’t rate. A visit to Moose Murders is what will separate the connoisseurs of Broadway disaster from mere dilettantes for many moons to come.

The play begins in the exact manner of Whodunnit — itself one of the season’s drearier offerings, though at the time of its opening we didn’t realize how relatively civilized it was. There’s a loud thunderclap, and the curtain rises to reveal an elaborate, two-level, dark wood set. Amusingly designed by Marjorie Bradley Kellogg, the set represents a lodge in the Adirondacks and is profusely decorated with the requisite stuffed moose heads. Though the heads may be hunting trophies, one cannot rule out the possibility that these particular moose committed suicide shortly after being shown the script that trades on their good name.

The first human characters we meet — if “human” is the right word — are “the singing Keenes.” The scantily clad Snooks Keene bumps her backside in the audience’s face and sings “Jeepers Creepers” in an aggressively off-key screech while her blind husband, Howie, pounds away on an electric hand organ. Howie’s plug is soon mercifully pulled by the lodge’s beefy middle-aged caretaker, Joe Buffalo Dance, who wears Indian war paint and braids but who speaks in an Irish brogue.

This loathsome trio is quickly joined by a whole crowd of unappetizing clowns. The wealthy Hedda Holloway, the lodge’s new owner, arrives with her husband, Sidney, a heavily bandaged quadriplegic who is confined to a wheelchair and who is accurately described as “that fetid roll of gauze.” Sidney’s attendant, Nurse Dagmar, wears revealing black satin, barks in Nazi-ese, and likes to leave her patient out in the rain. The Holloway children include Stinky, a drug-crazed hippie who wants to sleep with his mother, and Gay, a little girl in a party dress. Told that her father will always be “a vegetable,” Gay turns up her nose and replies, “Like a lima bean? Gross me out!” She then breaks into a tap dance.

For much of Act 1, this ensemble stumbles about mumbling dialogue that, as far as one can tell, is only improved by its inaudibility. Just before intermission, Stinky breaks out a deck of cards to give the actors, if not the audience, something to do. The lights go out in mid-game, and when they come up again, one of the characters has been murdered. Such is the comatose nature of the production that we’re too busy trying to guess which stiff on stage is the victim to worry about guessing the culprit.

Even Act 1 of Moose Murders is inadequate preparation for the ludicrous depths of Act 2. I won’t soon forget the spectacle of watching the mummified Sidney rise from his wheelchair to kick an intruder, unaccountably dressed in a moose costume, in the groin. This peculiar fracas is topped by the play’s final twist, in which Hedda serves her daughter Gay a poison-laced vodka martini. As the young girl collapses to the floor and dies in the midst of another Shirley Temple-esque buck and wing, her mother breaks into laughter and applause.

The ten actors trapped in this enterprise, a minority of them of professional caliber, will not be singled out here. I’m tempted to upbraid the author, director, and producers of Moose Murders, but surely the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will be after them soon enough.

**********

Moose Murders closed after one performance.

There’s also this enjoyable account.

Another reason why it’s good to go to the dentist every six months:

I had an appointment this morning for my regular six-month dental checkup — x-rays, cleaning, et cetera. There was a new dentist; the last three times I’ve gone, the dentist who’s worked on my teeth has been this old man who doesn’t say much, but this time it was a young Nigerian woman with excellent English. I liked her much better.

And then she told me that I had three very little cavities.

She said they were so small that I wouldn’t need anesthesia if she filled them in. She asked if I wanted to have it done now.

Hell, why not. I figured it was good to get it done before my brain had time to process this.

And she was right — it took about 20 minutes and I didn’t need anesthesia. I did feel a little pain for a second or two — but really, once you’ve had a swab stuck up your urethra, everything else is peaches.

So it’s done. Good. Thank you, nice Nigerian dentist lady! Apparently I need to do a better job of brushing the tops of my teeth.

Meanwhile, I’m still having bladder issues, and they’ve been getting worse again since the urologist told me last Monday that it’s probably psychosomatic. So I’ve scheduled an appointment with another urologist, which unfortunately isn’t until next Thursday. But I still have some Celebrex left (an anti-inflammatory drug), and I’m going to start taking it again to see if it helps. I was not in good shape mentally at the end of work yesterday; I’d made the mistake of searching the Web and diagnosing myself with something that’s incurable, even though I’m missing one or two of the key symptoms, and I figured, that’s it, I’ll have to deal with this every day for the rest of my life, I will forever be impaired, my life will never be the same again. I was really upset.

Once I got home I realized I was being ridiculous. Why not just wait until I see the new urologist and he makes me better? I took a hot bath, ordered in a sandwich for dinner, and watched “Smallville” and “Angel.” “Smallville” has been really good lately; I’m still not sure what I think of “Angel” this season. But I’m halfway through Season 2 on DVD, and it’s damn good.

I’ll be glad when the Wellbutrin kicks in.

I’m officially looking for a new job. If anyone out there has a lead, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.

I think I’d love to work in a library — I’ve had library jobs before and they seem to suit me — but a job in a nice office-type environment would be fine, too. Preferably something low-stress. What I’m pretty sure about is that I don’t want to practice law anymore. (Not that I ever really wanted to in the first place.)

I had therapy last night, and it was really really good. Since the urologist has told me that my uncomfortable physical sensations are all in my mind, my therapist and I tried to figure out why my mind would be doing this to me. I have a theory that I’ve gone through a fucking nutty amount of stress in the last three months — first and foremost related to my job, but also related to other things — and this is my body’s reaction to all that stress. It’s never reacted this way before, but since I recently had prostatitis (which itself was stressful), I wonder if my body perhaps “remembers” those symptoms and is recreating them.

I need to get out of this job. I no longer care about fulfilling my three-year commitment. The worst that will happen is that I won’t be able to get an official recommendation from the state in the future. I can’t wait until next August; my health and my sanity are more important to me. A new job — something to which I’m better suited — is the most important thing right now.

It also could be that Wellbutrin is not the right drug for me. Granted, I’ve had these symptoms since before I started taking Wellbutrin, but perhaps the Wellbutrin isn’t helping. I haven’t been sleeping well since I started taking it, especially this week; last night I woke up at 2:00 and then at 3:00, and I was awake with pain until about 5:00. Wellbutrin can also create agitation, and perhaps it’s making my symptoms worse. Who knows. Anxiety has always been my problem more than depression, anyway. Maybe a different drug will reduce all this stress and make the symptoms go away.

I actually broke down and cried last night as I tried to get out the words, “I feel like I can’t even trust my own body anymore, I feel like my body has turned against me.” It’s scary to feel that your own body is playing tricks on you.

When I was at my lowest yesterday afternoon, completely scared and stressed out about this, I called my dad to talk about it with him, and he called me a hypochondriac.

Okay — I’m a chronic worrier about my health. I often worry that a particular symptom is a sign of something worse than it actually turns out to be. But while I overly worry about the consequences of symptoms, I’ve never actually imagined symptoms before. So this is just weird. I’ve printed out this to read, though.

There is one ray of light. When I have an erection, there’s no pain.

Yup — last night I confirmed that despite what’s been going on with me, I can still have great sex.

(This was not during therapy, of course.)

I’ll close by repeating — if anyone has any job leads, I’d love it if you could pass them on to me. Thanks.

I went to my first yoga class this morning. I’ve needed it — I’ve needed to relax, and I’ve needed to get more in touch with my body.

I was the only male in the room. The instructor and the other 9 attendees were all female.

I contorted my body into unfamiliar, difficult poses. I became aware of muscles I didn’t even know I had. The instructor would walk around the room, and she kept having to adjust my body because I was getting many of the poses wrong. She’d say to the class, soothingly, “Now go back into the blah blah position,” and I’d forgotten what position that was, so she’d come by again and readjust my body. But this was all okay.

At one point she told me that I’m pretty flexible for a guy. (Ahem.)

“What do you do?” she said.

“I’m a lawyer,” I said.

“I mean, what do you do physically?”

Oh.

“Nothing, really,” I said.

The class ended with each of us lying on our backs with bolster pillows underneath us. Calming meditation music played on a stereo. One by one, the instructor placed a blanket over each of us.

It was heaven. I’m definitely going back.

Then in the afternoon I saw “Wicked,” which I’d been looking forward to for a while. And it was terrific. A little long, and it gets a bit amorphous in Act II, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Can’t wait to buy the cast album when it comes out. I’ve loved Idina Menzel and her voice ever since I first listened to “Rent,” and Kristen Chenoweth — well, she’s Broadway gold. I couldn’t stop thinking of Elle Woods while watching her, though.

And I smiled a big smile, of course, when the Tin Man appeared.

“Bobbie Boland,” a Broadway play starring Farrah Fawcett, has closed in previews. Apparently it’s been 10 years since a Broadway show closed before its opening night. Wow. Cool.

I stopped by the TKTS booth in Times Square on Saturday evening, but there was nothing worth seeing. I’m pretty sure “Bobbi Boland” was one of the options listed, though. Now I kind of wish I’d seen it, just so I could have a Playbill. Then again, who knew.

Oh, well. I’ll always have “Carrie,” “Nick & Nora,” and “What’s Wrong With This Picture?”

Guess I’d better get a ticket for “Taboo.”

It’s Veterans’ Day, so, as a state employee, I had the day off. I brought work home with me. I have a brief due next Wednesday. I figured I’d have a greater chance of working on it if I actually had the materials here.

I did get as far as opening the Word document on my computer screen.

Other than that, I picked up a new prescription. My doctor is adding Klonopin, an anti-anxiety drug, to the Wellbutrin. He wants me to stay at a lower dose of Wellbutrin, since my urinary symptoms seem to have disappeared with the lower dose. (Thank goodness.)

I’m supposed to take the Klonopin as needed to reduce anxiety. Apparently it’s potentially habit-forming in larger doses, so I’m trying to avoid it if possible. I did take one earlier, and I felt slightly drunk and relaxed while eating lunch, as if I’d had half a glass of red wine.

The psychiatrist, however, suspects that Wellbutrin might not be the best drug for me. He might want to switch me to the SSRI family, something like Celexa or Effexor. The only downside is that these could have sexual side effects — delayed orgasm, decreased sensation, et cetera. I woke up in the middle of the night last night, freaked out that I might have to take something that could affect my sex life. The idea of something interfering with orgasms really skeeves me out.

On the other hand, not everyone experiences sexual side effects from these things, and tons of people take them, so if they give me a happier outlook on life, maybe the trade-off is worth it. And if not, I’ll get off whatever drug it is. The effects are by no means permanent.

Still… ugh.

Last night was quite heavenly. I broke down and bought the DVD of Into the Woods at the Virgin Megastore in Union Square, even though it was $5 more than on Amazon. (Sometimes instant gratification is worth it.) I came home, popped in the DVD, and watched it with some leftover pizza and a glass of red wine.

I’ve had several really nice nights lately: Thursday night, Saturday night, Sunday night and last night were all terrific. (Friday night I was in pain.) Occasionally I’m a bit sad when a really nice night ends, but why feel nostalgia for yesterday when I can anticipate tomorrow?

OK, this is cool as hell. Back in 1985, the year I started collecting comics (I stopped several years ago), DC Comics put out a 12-issue series called Crisis on Infinite Earths, which included pretty much every character in the 50-year history of DC Comics (we’re talking several hundred characters), killed off some major heroes, and redefined the DC Universe’s continuity.

When the series was released as a graphic novel several years later, Alex Ross painted a cover for it, based loosely on George Perez’s cover for issue #7. Alex Ross’s painting includes 562 characters — it’s an incredibly detailed mosaic, almost like a Renaissance piece. (Just look at the rows of people standing on the bottom — each of those is a specific character.)

Well, I just stumbled across the Crisis Character Finder, with which you can find the location of any character in the painting and identify characters you don’t know. You can get close-ups and move around. It’s just awesome.

And here’s a somewhat mind-blowing article on comic book universes and continuity.

I feel like a kid again.

When I was in law school I developed a fascination with the Complete Mozart Edition, a 180-CD collection of all of Mozart’s music. The set cost something like $2,000. Who knows if I ever planned to listen to the whole thing — all I knew was that I wanted it.

There’s something so delicious about a boxed set of music, a complete something or other. Especially to own it. A couple of years ago I finally bought a complete edition of Wagner’s Ring Cycle (Karajan’s recording) after fantasizing for several years about the prospect of owning it. Have I listened to it? Once. Over the course of several days. Since then I’ve occasionally listened to excerpts (the overture to the second opera, “Die Valkyrie,” is one of my favorite pieces of music), but not since that first time have I listened to the entire thing.

All throughout college and law school I plopped down money for recordings of classical pieces that I’d never heard before. And those boxed sets were especially appealing. Mozart’s Complete String Quartets! Almost a hundred bucks. So what if I was a student and wasn’t earning a salary? No matter. I wanted it.

It was kind of like a drug. I’d feel this rush about the prospect of buying something. I’d go to Plan 9 Records in Charlottesville several times, find the boxed set I wanted, hold it in my hand, stand there feeling a rush of adrenaline and guilt at the prospect of spending money I shouldn’t be spending — and so I’d put it back, resisting, and I’d go home. And then finally one day the desire would be too overpowering and I’d drive back to Plan 9 and buy the damn thing, actually pay for it and bring it back to my car in a nice plastic bag. Success!

And then I’d bring it home and listen to it a little bit. I might like it, I might not. Eh. And then it wasn’t enough, and I’d want something else.

I wanted to own everything. There’s something secure in having a huge collection of somethings within the walls of your own cozy home. After all, maybe every record store will blow up, or the company will decide to stop making the album, or something. But you, you can own this vast reference library. Your very own reference library! (Perhaps this is another reason I love libraries so much.)

I began buying classical music CDs during my second year of college in 1992. Today I have about 400 classical CDs. I haven’t bought a new one in a long time, and I rarely listen to them anymore.

But now… now I’m getting into cast recordings. Showtunes. Matt has several hundred. Mike has even more.

I have about 21.

I don’t know the source of this desire to collect. It’s less about making use of the collection and more about having it. There’s a knowledge component, yes — “Oh, so that’s what this show sounds like!” and poof you’ve increased your store of knowledge. But again, there’s also that sense of security, of ownership, of being God in some way, of being able to look over your flock and admire it.

I went into Footlight Records for the first time a couple of nights ago. They seem to have just about every cast album ever made. The CD booklets are contained in these big folders organized alphabetically. You write down the number affixed to the slot containing the booklet of the CD you want, and then you’re given the CD. They also have a used CD bin, and I bought “Big River” and “Kiss Me Kate” from it, because I’ve seen them, and they were the only CDs in the used bin that I wanted at that time.

The thing about cast albums is that they’re less taxing to listen to than classical music — more accessible, more immediately enjoyable.

I’ve just developed this newfound curiosity for the music. I want to hear it. Experience it. See if I like it. Be exposed to new sounds.

I hope there’s some benefit to all this intake of art and information.

I hope it helps me output something of my own someday.

You are so lucky!

I can’t wait to see Angels in America on HBO. One of my biggest theater regrets is that I never saw either part of the play on Broadway. This is yet another case (or another couple of cases) of my meaning to see a show, putting it off indefinitely, and then eventually realizing it’s closed. So I’m really looking forward to the HBO version.

Except I don’t have HBO.

Therefore, someone’s going to have to be nice enough to tape it for me. I’m sure it’ll be out on DVD soon enough, but I don’t want to wait that long.

I actually own the scripts of both plays, but I’ve never read them. I tried reading the first one once, but it was confusing on paper. Plays are better experienced on the stage than on the page, I think. Still, once I finish Not Since Carrie, I may just have to try again.

God, I’d love to write a killer play.

Dracula: “Do you know why you cannot resist?”
Buffy: “Because you’re famous?”

So you know how people say you should just write openly in your blog and not worry about how stupid it sounds?

Okay then.

I’m envious of Choire.

I must be living on Planet X or something, because I didn’t realize until today that Choire’s been the editor of Gawker for two months now. I began here, which led me here, which led me here, which led me here, which led me here. It was that last one that led me to say holy shit.

I don’t really read Gawker, and although I knew it was big, I didn’t realize how big. I didn’t realize it was more than just a New York thing. (Of course there’s no such thing as “just a New York thing,” since New York is the media capital of the country.) Choire is the editor of Gawker; ergo, Choire is now famous in the national media world. People who are in the know know who Choire Sicha is.

Wow.

The thing is, I’m feeling this cognitive dissonance. My brain can’t accept the fact that someone I know can be famous.

Choire was the first person I ever met through my blog, back in 2001. Back then, there was this little New York gay blogging circuit. The gay blogging world seemed finite. Choire became an acquaintance, and I’d IM him sometimes, usually feeling anxious about one thing or another, and he’d help bring me back to calmness. Of course, he had his own big world going on, but I didn’t know about any of that. He was my gay blogging friend.

And now he’s famous.

I think I still have a child’s-eye view of fame. When you’re a kid, famous people are the people you see on TV, and people on TV are not real; therefore, famous people are not real; they are not like the flesh-and-blood people you know and interact with. Part of me still thinks that’s true. Part of me still thinks there’s this wall between The Famous and The Rest, while really, in the 21st century, that wall is porous.

I grew up around Manhattan, and yet I still get all sweaty and speechless when I see a famous person in three dimensions. Many years ago my family was visiting Paris at the same time that the cast of “The Hogan Family” was filming its 1989-1990 season premiere there. We saw them not once but twice, on two different days, in two different places. And I was subconsciously in love with Jason Bateman at the time, so I was just like… aughghgughgh.

I always want famous people to notice me — as if a) there’s any reason they would notice me and b) their noticing me would lead to amazing things — I’d be pulled into their circle, they’d recognize my amazing talents, and I’d be loved and admired for the rest of my life. Last winter, my family and I were eating dinner at a restaurant near Rockefeller Center, and Conan O’Brien walked in with three other men. They’d probably just finished taping that night’s show, and they sat down at a table right near us. And I kept wanting Conan to notice me. I would have been satisfied even if one of his tablemates had noticed me. I got up to use the bathroom at one point, hoping that by moving around I might draw their eyes. To what end? Even if I did draw their eyes, I’d still just be some random guy.

The Internet has democratized fame. If you’ve got what it takes, it’s so much easier to be famous today, because it’s so much easier to build a web to others. You still need to have certain qualities — Choire’s a hysterically creative writer, and he deserves to be well-known. I just envy that, I guess. I still feel weird that I’ve hung out with Brad and have met Anil. It’s almost like there’s supposed to be this button that lights up when someone is Well-Known. Some universal Platonic way to identify him.

Famous people are just people, of course. And is it really important for me to be famous? Isn’t it better for me to just find something I love to do and be able to do it?

Why are certain people more well-known than others? Is it just inherent talent, or is it inherent talent plus ability to meet others? I could never be like Choire — I’m not a mover and a shaker, I’m not plugged into the scene, I don’t have the drive he has. But I’m envious, because he’s crossed the barrier into… into what?

Into someplace I’m not.

It’s not that I necessarily want to be where he is. Because where he is is not the place for me. But he’s (presumably) doing stuff that he loves, and he knows lots of people, and he gets free cocktails and he probably lives a fabulous life right now. He’s achieved certain goals.

I want to achieve the goals I set for myself. I want to write something wonderful, and then meet the right people (and more importantly, have the ability to schmooze with them), and then have someone recognize my supposed talents and pay me lots of money so I can quit my job and write wonderful works of art and live happily ever after.

There are more threads I could spin off of this post — the objective value of works of art, whether something is truly Great or not, and so forth.

But I need to go eat lunch.

Tonight is the night when Americans might have tuned into Part 1 of “The Reagans” on CBS. But the joke is on the whiners who forced the mini-series off the air. Just three weeks from tonight, HBO will present the first three-hour installment of Mike Nichols’s film version of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America”… If “Angels” reaches an audience typical for HBO hits, it could detonate a debate bloody enough to make the fight over “The Reagans” look like an exhibition bout.

— from Angels, Reagan and AIDS in America, a wonderful piece by Frank Rich in tomorrow’s New York Times.

On Friday night, Matt and I saw Rounding Third, an Off-Broadway play for which Matt had been given free tickets. The play had its moments, although I don’t think either of us would have paid $55 to see it. It was very, very average. But since it was free, it was a nice way to spend an evening. And hey — now I have another Playbill for my collection.

Afterwards, we had drinks with Mike and the illustrious Brad, who’s in town for a few days from St. Louis. He regaled us with his review of Bounce and his tales of Hugh Jackman and old British ladies. It all made me feel so fabulous.

On Saturday morning, Matt made me get on his scale so we could measure my weight and body fat percentage. (It can measure both of these things — it’s a magic scale.)

It turns out I weigh less than I’d thought.

I’m a smidge under 5 foot 6, and I’d thought I weighed 125 pounds. But no — I actually weigh 117 pounds, and I have 8 percent body fat, which is apparently just within the healthy range; any lower percentage and I’d be underweight.

I hadn’t weighed myself in ages, but I didn’t think it was possible for me to be thinner than I’d thought I was.

I guess this means I can keep drinking alcohol and eating burgers.

Feel free to throw things at me.

Theater Note #1: I’ve been using Spinner a lot lately, a program with streaming music channels for every taste and mood. It has a Showtunes channel, which is great, because it plays lots of pieces I’ve never heard before, and I never know what’s coming next. There’s also, strangely enough, a Smallville channel, which plays only music that has appeared on “Smallville.” And a WB channel, playing music that has appeared on the WB.

(Let’s see: Spinner is owned by Netscape… which is owned by AOL… which is part of Time Warner… which owns the WB, and also owns DC Comics, which owns Superman. There’s so much conglomeractivity here it makes the head spin.)

Theater Note #2: On Saturday I was at J&R Music World with Matt; the place has an amazing inventory of showtunes albums at great prices. I discovered Columbia Broadway Masterworks, which is a series of remastered classic cast albums, and J&R was selling them for $6.99 each. I bought “My Fair Lady,” “The Sound of Music,” “South Pacific” and “A Chorus Line.” I figure if I’m expanding my showtunes collection, I may as well start with the basics. I also bought “On the Twentieth Century” for $6.99, an album that so far seems to be filled with delightful tunes. It kind of reminds me of “Anything Goes,” although the shows were written 40 years apart.

(This is a great place to slip in the fact that I got to play Moonface Martin in my high school production of “Anything Goes” — the most fun I’ve ever had in a show, hands down.)

Theater Note #3: I finally finished Not Since Carrie this weekend, which makes me want to run out and buy tons of albums. To replace it, yesterday I bought Ghost Light, Frank Rich’s memoir about finding solace from his parents’ divorce by absorbing himself in the theater. You might have gathered from this blog that I’m a fan of Frank Rich; his writing is just so, well, rich, and even if his complaints about the state of our culture get repetitive at times, his insights are almost always right. Because of his writing and because of what he’s accomplished, he’s one of my idols.

One, two, three theater notes! Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.

Holy crow.

High Court in Massachusetts Rules Gays Have Right to Marry.

“Massachusetts’ highest court ruled Tuesday that same-sex couples are legally entitled to wed under the state constitution, but stopped short of allowing marriage licenses to be issued to the couples who challenged the law.

“The Supreme Judicial Court’s 4-3 ruling ordered the Legislature to come up with a solution within 180 days.”

Excerpts from the decision.

Here’s the Boston Globe’s page on the case.

Here’s Reuters (via CNN).

There’s sure to be plenty of stuff on GLAD’s marriage page, since GLAD helped bring the case.

More later, including the full opinion, I’m sure (which will probably be available here, and all over the Web).

Holy shit.

Jesse McKinley writes in tomorrow’s New York Times:

All across Broadway, producers, landlords and investors are suffering through one of the bumpiest fall seasons in recent memory, a snake-bit period that has seen one show close in previews (“Bobbi Boland”), another close in rehearsal (“Harmony”) and a Stephen Sondheim show (“Bounce”) close out of town.

The article goes on to discuss “The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All,” which has just closed after one performance, as well as the crappy reviews for “Taboo” and “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks” — not to mention Donna Murphy missing several performances of “Wonderful Town,” and both female cast members dropping out of “The Violet Hour.”

All these failures and problems wouldn’t be so bad if there were as many shows produced on Broadway as there used to be. It doesn’t matter that there are so many bad movies out there, because there are still lots of great ones worth seeing. But the theater isn’t as ubiquitous as the movies anymore; a mediocre show can get a Tony nomination for Best Musical merely because it exists.

Not that any of these complaints are new.

Well, at least there’s Off-Broadway.

A couple of days ago I removed a bit of code from all of my blog templates that had blocked search engine robots. I hadn’t wanted my site to be findable on Google. But lately I just don’t care anymore. So I took out the line of code, and now it turns out that if you type “tin man” into Google, my site is the first page to come up.

Since “tin man” is a phrase associated with a classic world-famous movie and the Tin Man is a beloved literary character, I think my page might be getting a lot more hits from now on.

Not that I care about that sort of thing.

Marriage Quiz: “What kinds of marriage do these quotes describe: interracial or same-sex couples?”

Also check out the links at the bottom. Buddybuddy.com is the website for the Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples. Cute URL!

“This is the Gay Spiral. Not every gay man will go down this path, but many, many will.”

Nevertheless, I remain optimistic.

Just two more days: PATH ready to roll into WTC hub (from today’s New Jersey Star-Ledger). “On late Sunday morning, for the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, a PATH train from New Jersey will pull into Lower Manhattan. The same eight PATH cars that were the last to leave the World Trade Center with passengers before the Twin Towers collapsed will pull into a temporary station at Ground Zero. Gov. James E. McGreevey, New York Gov. George Pataki and other dignitaries will be aboard the ceremonial train. At 2 p.m., the line will reopen to the general public.”

Also, for the first time, the station will accept Metrocards (although I think it will only accept pay-per-ride cards and not monthly cards).

On the PATH page you can look at PDF files of the new schedule, map and brochure.

A bit creepily, the stop will still be known as the World Trade Center station. PATH trains going there will still be labelled “WTC,” just as they were before 9/11.

I’m looking forward to being able to use that stop again, although there’s one thing (among many) that will probably be different. The station used to have a computer terminal at which I could check my Yahoo! e-mail — it came in handy if it was late at night and I had a long wait for the next train. I’ll kinda miss that.

But I’m psyched that I’ll be able to use the stop again.

Yesterday Matt and I went to one of my favorite places in the city: the Panorama of the City of New York, located in the Queens Museum of Art, right across from the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. We took the 7 train — riding through Queens, past Jackson Heights, where my dad grew up and where I used to visit my grandparents, and continuing all the way out almost to the end of the line.

The Panorama of the City of New York is a huge scale model of the entire city. All five boroughs. Models of every building, every street, every park, every bridge — everything. Even all the random islands: Roosevelt Island, Governor’s Island, Ellis Island, Randall’s Island, et cetera. You really have to see it to believe it.

It’s contained in a big room, and there’s a walkway around the perimeter, so you can take your time and examine the city from any angle. It’s a great lesson in New York City geography. You enter on the Manhattan side, and as you make your way counterclockwise around the perimeter, getting further away from Manhattan, you realize just how small a part of New York City Manhattan really is. From the southern tip of Staten Island, the Financial District is so far away; once you’re out at the far reaches of Queens, Manhattan’s skyscrapers look even tinier. What’s also striking is that Manhattan is really the only part of the city with tall buildings; most of the rest of the outer boroughs is a vast valley of residential areas.

There’s even a tiny model of the Queens Museum of Art itself — the very building in which you’re standing. I’d like to think that inside that tiny museum is another tiny panorama of the city, containing an even tinier model of the museum, containing an even tinier panorama…

Anyway, a visit to the Panorama is a trek, but I think it’s a mandatory visit for anyone who loves and cares about New York.

I wasn’t expecting the view.

The PATH car emerged from under the Hudson River and pulled right into the pit of Ground Zero. Through the car’s windows I could see the sweep of it all before me as the car rolled along — the rough retaining wall, the cross-section of the former parking garage, the wide ramp that leads down into the pit. Stadium lights illuminated everything in the early evening darkness. We were in Ground Zero.

“That’s just wrong,” one black girl said to her friend.

The car came to a stop and the doors opened. “World Trade Center, final stop,” the conductor said. I stepped out of the car and onto the platform. It all seemed so familiar again. I felt like I’d just been here yesterday. But the last time I’d been here was on the evening of September 10, 2001, right after buying a new T-shirt at the Gap in the World Trade Center concourse. Back when we lived in a different world.

Now I ascended the same staircase I used to ascend — or if it wasn’t the same, then it was at least in the same place. Here was a better view of Ground Zero, although it was covered by a mesh scrim. I walked through the turnstile, and there was a Hudson News stand, in the same place where the old one used to be.

And then those escalators.

That tall, tall bank of escalators. I used to run down those steps, two at a time, late at night, hoping to catch the next train home.

I walked up them now — the very same escalators as before. Only when I got to the top, there was no concourse. No stores. There was just a big concrete space, the breeze blowing in through the scrims, and a sign pointing to the N/R/W and A/C/E trains.

But I could see where everything used to be. I could see the Warner Brothers Store, with its big statues of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. I could see J. Crew, and the HSBC branch, and the cell phone kiosk, and the Gap, and Duane Reade. I could see them. But they weren’t really there. Ghosts, all of them. I felt like I was standing inside a matrix, inside a blueprint. This wasn’t real.

I walked up the final set of stairs and out onto Church Street. And there, a block away, was the subway station for the A, C, 2, 3, 4, 5, J, M, and Z trains. Blue, red, green, and brown circles. A beautiful rainbow of subway connections.

A seven-minute ride across the Hudson and I can once again hop onto almost any subway line I need. I can easily go anywhere in the city again.

It’s just like it was before.

Well, no, it can’t be just like it was before. That will never be possible.

But it’s as back as it can be.

I didn’t expect to go this many days without posting, but I kind of got lazy over my Thanksgiving break.

I took last Wednesday off from work, and Matt and I saw a matinee of The Boy From Oz. I liked it more than I’d expected to. The plot is nothing special, and the show would be nothing without Hugh Jackman; even with him, it’s basically just an enjoyable afternoon at the theater. But that’s worth something. The over-the-top impersonations of Judy Garland and Liza Minelli added to the fun — as did the post-show auction of a t-shirt worn by Hugh Jackman, which went for $2,000.

I went to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving on Wednesday night, and I didn’t come back until tonight. That happens a lot when I visit my parents’ house: I get comfortable there, and I postpone leaving until the last possible moment. It’s so cozy.

On Wednesday night one of my favorite movies, The Age of Innocence, was on HBO, so I cuddled up with a blanket and watched it. Sometimes at the end of a vacation I look back nostalgically to the beginning of the vacation. That’s the point I’m looking back at right now.

On Thursday we had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with a few relatives and friends over.

Much of the rest of the weekend was depressing — boredom, dark clouds in the sky, worrying about work, knowing that Thanksgiving vacation would eventually end. Friday was a blur, except for a trip to a local secondhand bookstore, where I bought Richard Rodgers’s autobiography.

Saturday night was better. My parents and I went to see The Station Agent, which has the sexiest dwarf I’ve ever seen, and then we went to a typical New Jersey diner for dinner.

Today I helped my parents and my aunt clean out my grandmother’s apartment in her assisted-living community, because my dad and my aunt have just moved her into a nursing home. We kept passing old people who would ask us whether she’d died or just gone to a home. “Once you come here you never know where the next stop is,” one of the old women said.

Then my mom took me grocery shopping and then home, so I now have a refrigerator full of food once more.

I feel so secure at my parents’ house, and it’s often a little unsettling to come back to my regular life. Especially at times like now, when my regular life feels unsettled. At least I have the nice memories — cozying up with the dog on the couch with a blanket watching movies on TV, eating out with my parents, having interesting Thanksgiving conversation with our guests, falling asleep in the guest room at night listening to my mom’s CD of the London production of “Oklahoma”…

I don’t know why I worry so much about the future when there always seem to be new things up ahead to someday get nostalgic about.