The Tin Man » 2004

Thursday, January 1, 2004

Happy New Year!

So I’m 30 years old and it’s 2004. Where’s my fucking flying car?

On Tuesday night, I’m pleased to say, I finally got to meet David of Abstract Nixon. He was visiting New York, and he met up with me, Matt and Mike for dinner and drinks. He’s so friendly (and quite the flirt, which I wasn’t expecting…). Several times during the evening, he pulled out his camera — no digital camera, either, but a big old-fashioned mechanical camera, with a separate flash device. I almost expected him to pull out a tripod out of his bag, too. He kept clicking away, so I hope he managed to get some good photos of us. Anyway — it was such a pleasure to finally meet him after reading his site for so long. He’s a terrific guy and I think we all had a terrific evening.

So, it’s a new year. A tabula rasa, a blank slate. Twelve months to fill with events, incidents, goals, achievements. Who knows what I’ll be writing about at the end of the year? It feels kind of exciting to have this blank expanse ahead of me.

The future awaits.

3:55 PM | 2 drops of oil

Sunday, January 4, 2004

Today has been such a wash. It’s been dark and rainy all day long. I feel like I’m in Mordor. And tomorrow I go back to work after taking a week and a half off. I didn’t get nearly as much done during my vacation as I’d hoped. Maybe I need to put myself on a schedule.

Matt and I saw Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change on Friday. I was really looking forward to it, because I’d heard such wonderful things.

I thought it was terrific. Flawed, maybe, but still terrific. It moved me in some indefinable way. Afterwards, my left brain wanted to analyze everything I’d just seen — the themes, the characters, and so on — but my right brain said no, don’t ruin the mood, just wallow in it. So that’s what I did. I just thought it was so creative, the world it evoked so emotionally resonant. Jeanine Tesori’s music was a bit cold and complex, but I like complex scores. (The show is almost completely sung through — there wasn’t even a chance to applaud until about three-quarters of the way into the first act.) I’ll either need to see it again or hope that the score gets recorded, because I think it would benefit from multiple hearings. I hope it transfers to Broadway.

I’m also happy, because this was the first time I’d made it a point to get tickets for a hot Off-Broadway show. It just felt so cool to be sitting in the audience. Even if it ultimately goes to Broadway, I’ll be able to brag that I saw the original production, something I can’t say about Take Me Out or Avenue Q.

Meanwhile, I was hoping to see the acclaimed production of Henry IV, but according to Telecharge, it’s sold out for the remainder of its run.

I hope to be less procrastinatory about the theater from now on.

6:54 PM | 2 drops of oil

Monday, January 5, 2004

Money, money, money.

We got a long-overdue raise at work last month — more than a 10 percent increase in our government salary. When I received my first new paycheck, I saw that it contained several hundred dollars more than I’d been expecting, even taking the raise into account. It turned out that the raise was retroactive to September. Woohoo! So today I used some of the retroactive money to finish paying off my credit card. I have no more credit card debt. Double woohoo! (My balance actually reached zero a year ago, but then I used the card to buy a new computer in March.)

So now my only remaining debt is $49,000 in student loans. Yay.

I’ve barely made a dent in my student debt — after four years of making payments it’s only about $1,000 less than it was when I started. I’ve been on the 25-year plan, with monthly payments that barely dig into the principal after paying the interest. (Pesky interest.) But now that I’ve got extra money — an increased salary, as well as the money that used to go to credit card payments — I think I’m going to put much of it toward my student loans. It would be a big psychological boost if I could pay off my loans at 40 instead of at 51. (I’ve been having fun with a loan payment calculator.)

I still have no savings, and it would be nice to have some sort of rainy-day fund, so I think I might put a little of the extra money aside each month, too. Depending on the choices I make (or depending on what happens to me), my yearly income could decrease in the future. I don’t know whether it makes more sense to pay off as much interest-accruing debt as possible or to set some money aside — which is better for the long term? — so I guess I’ll do both.

It’s kind of fun figuring out what to do with extra cash.

3:56 PM | 3 drops of oil

Wednesday, January 7, 2004

I’m fascinated by the high-resolution color photos from Mars. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has stared at the newly-revealed Martian landscape and imagined himself standing there, walking there, feeling the Martian dust crunch underneath his shoes, making footprints in the Martian soil. What if human beings walk on Mars someday? Will it happen in our lifetimes? What will it be like?

Walking home tonight, I looked up and saw a full moon in the sky. The frigid night air made it beautifully clear and bright. When my peers and I were born, the 1969 moon landing had already happened. That achievement has been a fact our entire lives. But what must it have felt like when it first happened? What did people feel when they watched Neil Armstrong live on television on that summer Sunday night? How can someone look at this front page today and not be taken aback?

“Men Walk on Moon.”

Men. Human beings.

Walk. Human action.

On Moon. On the frickin’ moon.

Human beings have walked on the moon. This mysterious shining object in the sky, an inspiration to ancient Chinese poets, a beacon and god to our childlike proto-human ancestors — human beings have made marks on it with their boots.

A few months ago, Mars came the closest to Earth it had ever come since people started calling it Mars. We’ve landed human-made machines on its surface, and now we’ve got the best photos of it we’ve ever seen. Someday, some lucky person will take the first tentative human steps onto the planet. A descendant of primordial cellular soup will walk on another world.

And if that never happens, there’s still the two Voyager spacecraft, which have left the solar system behind, carrying their collections of photographs and their recordings of music, sound, and the human voice.

Whatever happens to us here at home — whatever major scrape our species ultimately gets itself into — the two Voyagers will always be out there, keeping our collective human memory alive.

9:46 PM | Comments Off

Thursday, January 8, 2004

I was reading Faustus this morning (his latest entry, posted last night, is a keeper, as usual), when my eyes wandered over to his sidebar.

In his sidebar, Faustus links to some of his most memorable entries. I noticed a phrase: “Faustus Is on the Horns of a Dilemma.” It’s a phrase I’ve come to associate with Faustus, because he’s used it at least twice (well, at least three times, if you include the sidebar). Something finally piqued my curiosity this morning — perhaps too little breakfast, too much boredom, an itchy trigger finger — and I decided to look up the origin of the phrase.

Apparently it involves the horns of a bull. It comes from a Latin phrase, argumentum cornutum, or “horned argument.”

But here’s my favorite definition:

“Thys forked questyon; which the sophisters call a horned question, because that to whether of both partyes a bodye shall make a direct aunsweere, he shall renne on the sharpe poyncte of the horne.”

Middle English is so cute.

2:12 PM | 3 drops of oil

Oh my god oh my god oh my god.

While transferring my bloglinks into my newly-installed Daily Crawl just now (thanks Matt!), I came across angst-ident prone and began to type it in.

And I finally got it.

I’d always mentally pronounced it ANGST-eye-DENT-prone. I’d figured it was just some wacky nonsense word. But no! I saw in his title bar that it’s actually two words. Angst-ident Prone! And I finally got it! It’s pronounced ANGST-ident prone! It’s a play on Accident prone! Accident prone, angst-ident prone! Hah!

I’m slow.

5:02 PM | 8 drops of oil

Friday, January 9, 2004

I’ve been reading the profile of Howard Dean in this week’s New Yorker. (I love a good New Yorker profile.)

Dean’s rise to front-runner status has been astounding. It’s truly amazing that a man whose campaign had less than $3 million in the bank a year ago is now the presumed nominee — presumed by the press and the White House, anyway.

Meanwhile, Clark appears to be gaining momentum. I have to admit, though, that despite my expressed preference for Clark, I’m starting to get won over by Dean. Perhaps presumed winners always look more attractive, or perhaps I’m just impressed by his rise. I still think that ultimately, Clark would have a better chance against Bush, but there’s something very sexy about Dean’s campaign. Sex sells. In fact, other than his support for gay civil unions and his anti-war stance, I doubt that many people could state what Dean’s positions are.

Okay — to be honest, I can’t really tell you what most of Clark’s positions are. But I think that more Americans would vote for him than for Dean.

Sometimes I wonder, does it really matter who the president is? If I were to completely shut myself off from the news, in what ways could I say that W’s presence in the White House has affected my life? The only thing I can think of is that I have $300 more in my bank account than I’d otherwise have. I’m being slightly flippant, of course. The problem with people who hold conservative Republican views is precisely that they think only about how economic policy affects themselves, here and now, and not about how those policies affect the rest of society, or about the long-term effects of those policies. The only time they think about the rest of society is when they’re telling people what to do in their personal lives, and the only time they think about long-term effects is when they’re preaching about Judgment Day.

I don’t know why I’m discussing the race for the Democratic nomination, anyway. Even I were a registered Democrat, New Jersey’s primary isn’t until June 8. If you’re not going to hold a primary until after the contest has been decided, why even bother?

Of course, maybe everyone drops out except Dean and Clark, and there’s a long, drawn-out battle for the nomination, culminating in a big suspenseful fight at the convention this summer. That would be pretty effin’ cool.

Or maybe Dean or Clark bolts and runs as an independent candidate.

Hey, anything can happen.

4:07 PM | 2 drops of oil

If anyone cares, I’ve taken my list of the Ten Most Memorable Events of My Twenties, which I blogged in the days leading up to my 30th birthday last month, and compiled them together on a separate page of my site.

4:59 PM | Comments Off

Sunday, January 11, 2004

Here are two stories from today’s Times that, taken together, illustrate the tension between wanting to be in New York and missing what you’ve left behind:

Mr. Schlesinger’s songs are also born from what may be the most widely shared trait among New Jersey kids, a sort of suburban inferiority complex. “In high school I felt vaguely inadequate when I was in New York,” he said. “In my perception, the city kids had a certain attitude that was based on nothing more than being raised there.”

- from a piece about the allure Manhattan holds for New Jersey teens (a feeling I remember well).

And:

Every New Yorker needs a break from the city. Some escape to Central Park, some drive to the country on weekends, some summer in the Hamptons. Here’s what I do. I take a trip to an electronic simulation of my childhood home, with robotic versions of my high school friends, all controlled and viewed while I sit in front of my computer at my apartment on the Lower East Side.

- from a piece about using The Sims to escape from New York.

10:10 AM | Comments Off

Monday, January 12, 2004

Oh, there’s nothing halfway
About the Iowa way to treat you,
When we treat you
Which we may not do at all.

Were the Iowa caucuses such a big deal four years ago? I don’t seem to remember this much hoopla, except for Dan Savage trying to give Gary Bauer the flu by licking doorknobs (which I’d forgotten until I read this last week).

And we’re so by God stubborn
We could stand touchin’ noses
For a week at a time
And never see eye-to-eye.

It seems weird to give so much weight to a process that involves getting together in neighbors’ living rooms and then raising your hands or dividing into groups. What about secret ballots? Apparently, the caucus system works in Iowa, and wouldn’t work in big states, because the caucus attendees are neighbors. But doesn’t anyone worry that people will feel pressured by their neighbors? What if everyone secretly supports, say, Dennis Kucinich, but no hands go up for him, because everyone’s too embarrassed or too afraid of being the subject of neighborhood gossip? I don’t know — it just seems wrong to me.

So, what the heck, you’re welcome,
Glad to have you with us.
Even though we may not ever mention it again.

But soon it’ll be off to New Hampshire, and nobody will think about Iowa for another four years.

You really ought to give Iowa
Hawkeye Iowa
Dubuque, Des Moines, Davenport, Marshalltown,
Mason City, Keokuk, Ames, Clear Lake –
Ought to give Iowa a try!

2:13 PM | 3 drops of oil

I didn’t even notice this last week, but the New Republic has done something interesting. It has officially endorsed Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primaries. But it has also provided space for some of its writers to endorse other Democrats. Here’s the case for Dean, for Clark, for Edwards, and for Gephart. Finally, here’s the case against Lieberman. And there’s also the New Republic’s ongoing anti-Dean blog, Diary of a Dean-o-Phobe.

I haven’t looked at all of these yet, but they should make for some interesting (and lengthy) reading.

5:20 PM | 1 drop of oil

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

“What number-one hit song from 1984 was addressed to Marie, Louise, Jack, and Milo?”

My team members and I were racking our brains last night at the Big Quiz Thing, trying to come up with the answer. I remembered that “Thriller” was the biggest album of 1983, but did it carry over into 1984? Or was it maybe a Cyndi Lauper song?

Suddenly — I have no idea how — it hit me. I grabbed the Big Quiz Thing pad and began scribbling down the answer.

And then Matt looked at me, shocked.

“You’re left-handed?!?” he said.

Yes, it’s true. I’m a lefty. A southpaw. I’m sinister.

Since, after three months of dating, Matt and I have officially decided to begin referring to each other as boyfriends, I guess it’s good for him to know these things about me.

Oh, and the song?
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1:25 PM | 11 drops of oil

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

This is fascinating: a logarithmic map of the universe, moving outward from the center of the Earth all the way past the Big Bang, where space and time converge.

Even more mind-blowing than that is a logarithmic timeline of the universe.

(Here’s a simple explanation of the logarithmic scale.)

I love stuff like this.

[Note: a few hours after posting this entry, I read an essay about the map in Tuesday’s New York Times. More good stuff.]

6:42 PM | Comments Off

Friday, January 16, 2004

I’ve been advised that there’s a Jersey City blog. Check it out. The author also has a topic index, with links to the author’s writings about Brooklyn, Jersey City, and a few hipsterish and intellectual topics. It’s worth browsing through.

10:10 AM | Comments Off

Here is a 2004 presidential candidate selector. Apparently the candidate most in agreement with my views is Dean, although several other Democrats followed closely behind. The only candidates I disagree with more than Bush are the candidates for the Natural Law Party and the Constitution Party. This questionnaire doesn’t take “soft power” into account though — personality, political skill, temperament, et cetera — all those little things that can make or break a presidency.

11:57 AM | 3 drops of oil

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Last night’s Iowa caucus results were, of course, surprising. I’ve never been good at political analysis, though, because I’m always wrong, as are most other people. I think that anyone who makes predictions or pronouncements about “what the caucus results mean” or whatnot is just succumbing to our very human need to make the unknowable knowable. Really, nobody knows what’s going to happen. Why bother guessing? This is why I don’t watch TV news — too many instapundits.

Because Edwards came in second place, however, I can now come out of the closet as an Edwards fan. I liked him a year ago, mainly because he was being touted as the savior of the Democratic Party. Then people stopped talking about him. I don’t hold strong enough positions on the issues to have a clear preference among the Democratic candidates — all I want is someone who can beat Bush. So my support is really soft; whoever is touted as the Next Big Thing seems to become my first choice (except for Dean, about whom I’ve always had some reservations). I think Edwards is refreshing and charismatic and can go the distance. I still like Clark a lot, although I’m wary. I think that Kerry, despite his military service, could be Dukakicized, and he’s still not all that charismatic, but hey — if he wins the nomination, I’ll vote for him. Lieberman, too. I’d much prefer any of them in the White House instead of W.

And that’s my talking-head bit for the day.

Meanwhile, here are some political news sites I’ve been checking out daily:

Political Wire
The New Republic Online Campaign Journal
Howard Kurtz’s Media Notes (Washington Post)
The Note (ABC News)
Campaign Desk (Columbia Journalism Review, criticism of media coverage)

2:32 PM | 1 drop of oil

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

I saw Jackie Hoffman perform her one-woman show on Monday night. She’s in the cast of Hairspray (which I still haven’t seen), and one of the themes of her routine on Monday was how much it sucks to be in a Broadway show. She touched on something that I can’t get out of my head: she says she enjoyed performing in Hairspray so much more back when it was still new and the theater was filled with gay men. Now that the show’s been running for more than a year, the audience is filled with tourists and families, who don’t get all the humor, and she can’t stand them. “Welcome to Irony Airlines,” she intoned. “We’ll soon be reaching our cruising altitude of THIRTY-THOUSAND FEET OVER YOUR HEAD.”

I’ve been feeling a little envious and inadequate since then. I still haven’t seen Hairspray, and if and when I finally see it, I might feel like I’ve missed the boat, that it’s just not “cool” or “in” anymore. I want to be one of those people whose finger is on the pulse of New York theater, who has subscriptions to Encores and the Roundabout and the Manhattan Theater Club and sees the hot new shows in previews. I’m not saying I want to turn all pompous and stuck-up and fabulous; I just want to know a whole lot more about musical theater than I currently know. I want to know people who can get me free tickets to stuff, and invite me to parties, and I want to be able to chat intelligently about obscure shows and composers and Off-Broadway plays and such.

Okay — my dad did give me two free tickets to Wonderful Town last weekend, which he got from one of his co-workers who couldn’t use them. So that’s a start. I took my friend Jere, because Matt had already seen it and was busy with work.

Anyway, I love learning, and I’ve been learning a lot about musical theater these last few months. So I guess I have nowhere to go but up.

5:37 PM | 5 drops of oil

Friday, January 23, 2004

I saw the revival of Gypsy last night starring Bernadette Peters. I got my ticket for 50 bucks through the current Season of Savings promotion, which Broadway uses to lure people to the theaters during this, the slow time of the year.

Ever the theatrical optimist, I enjoyed the show. For one thing, Gypsy is one of the greatest American musicals. Bernadette Peters’s voice doesn’t quite fill the role of Mama Rose, but she acts the hell out of the part; you can feel her anguish at having failed to become the person she’s dreamed of being. She’s sexy, too. She looks great in her purple dress and 1920s haircut. The entire production looks great, actually. The minimal sets make for a sleek, colorful production. Most of the other actors play their parts well, although I preferred Jonathan Hadary’s Herbie and Crista Moore’s Louise back in 1989 over the current performances by John Dossett and Tammy Blanchard. For one thing, I wanted Tammy Blanchard to have a little more oomph in her final strip scene.

I was pleasantly surprised to recognize the actor who plays Tulsa, the character who sings, “All I Need is the Girl.” He’s David Burtka, and he’s totally cute, and I’ve seen him twice before. The first time I saw him was a couple of summers ago in Edward Albee’s The Play About the Baby, and he was stark naked part of the time. The second time I saw him was a couple of weeks later, when I realized I was standing next to him at Starlight, a gay bar in the East Village.

I wanted to say something like, “Hi! I’ve seen you naked,” but instead I didn’t speak to him.

Oh well.

5:06 PM | 3 drops of oil

Sunday, January 25, 2004

John Tartaglia and Rod of Avenue Q will be on “Hollywood Squares” in April.

I must watch.

10:11 AM | 3 drops of oil

Monday, January 26, 2004

I settled myself onto the couch.

“Well, it’s been another good week,” I said to my therapist last Thursday night. “Things are going pretty well. No big problems, no big issues, no big crisis.”

“Wow,” she said, smiling. “I think that makes three weeks in a row.”

It’s true — life has been Really Not Bad lately. I haven’t been majorly worried or anxious about anything, which could be due to the Celexa. I’ve been enjoying spending time with my boyfriend and with other friends. I seem to have a good handle on my job lately, and I’ve been appreciating the good things about it. I’ve been able to increase my monthly student loan payments and even open a savings account. I’ve made room in my life for one of my old hobbies, the theater: I’ve been regularly seeing shows, listening to cast albums, and reading theater-related books.

Most importantly, I think, I’ve taken the pressure off myself to achieve something.

I had a revelation in therapy a couple of weeks ago. While I’d long ago realized I didn’t have to become a doctor or a money-making lawyer or anything I wasn’t interested in becoming, I’d still kept the pressure on myself to achieve something in a field that interested me. I couldn’t just be content to see shows or take in knowledge; I had to do something with that experience and knowledge, too. I wasn’t allowed to just relax. Says who? Says me, and says my parents (or at least my parents as I internalized them when I was a kid; they’ve long since realized I should do what makes me happy, but it’s hard to shake the impressions you form when you’re little), and says my childhood teachers who expected great things from me and were always happy when I did those great things. And says my therapist, too — or so I’d thought.

After I told my therapist where all the pressure was coming from — including from her, as I’d perceived it — she pointed out that she didn’t have a stake in my achieving anything. I’d assumed she wanted me to. I’d assumed she wanted me to work hard and create something and not let my life be in vain. But she told me she doesn’t feel that way at all. All she wants is for me to be happy. It doesn’t matter what that happiness is, as long as it’s not harmful to others or to myself. All that pressure I feel — I’m the one who’s created it.

I was shocked how simple this all was. It’s like when I finally realized it was okay to be gay: it turned out that I’d been the one making things hard on myself. I’d been my own worst enemy.

It turned out I also had the power to be my own best friend.

So I’ve realized I don’t have to do certain things right now if I don’t want to. What do I really enjoy? What do I do when left to my own devices? I love to take in knowledge. I love to absorb things: read books I haven’t read, see movies and shows I haven’t seen, hear music I haven’t heard, go places I haven’t been, and so on. Perhaps someday I’ll feel ready to create something, to write something substantial. Meanwhile, as one of my readers has occasionally pointed out to me, I’m already creating something: this blog. If my goal is to write something so that I can make a living off it — well, that’s not necessarily impossible, but if it happens, it’s going to take a long time. I can’t depend on it. (And if I want to make a living in musical theater — forget about it. There are like a dozen people today who make a steady living writing musicals.) That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t attempt to write, but it means I should do it because I enjoy it, not because I feel that I have to do it.

I don’t want to discount the power of the Celexa here. It’s very possible that it’s reduced my habitual anxiety, clearing the way for me to have these revelations. Whatever the cause, though, I’ve been feeling pretty content lately.

And I’ve been enjoying that feeling of contentment.

4:27 PM | 4 drops of oil

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

My favorite question from trivia last night was this:

Each of the following phrases is an anagram of the name of a famous poet. Name the poet.

(a) YOGA ALUMNAE

(b) IS A SPERM LIKE A WHALE

(d) I WILL ALARM ISLAMIC OWLS

Here are the answers.

I got (a) and (d), Mike got (c) (which I might have got had I not heard it as NICE SMUG KNEE), and Lisa got (b) (which I don’t think I would have got at all).

It’s questions like this that are slowly addicting me to Trivia Night.

(Note: please don’t write the answers in the comments section, as new comments appear at the top of the home page and might spoil the fun for others.)
(more…)

11:51 AM | Comments Off

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

It’s a slow day at work. Lots of people are out because of last night’s snowfall. (My boss’s boss’s boss’s boss doesn’t seem to like giving us snow days, but apparently people voted with their shovels.) So I’ve been catching up on things that don’t require communication with others, and so forth. I’m a little disappointed — I was hoping it would be one of those days where I stay home from work and the snow falls outside my window and I drink hot cocoa. Not that I have cocoa at home.

Since I have some time, I’m just going to blather on about a few things today.

I like Henrik Hertzberg’s lead piece in this week’s New Yorker about Bush’s shitty State of the Union address. If Bush gets re-elected (and that’s by no means a sure thing), he will have won two elections in a row based on luck: Florida in 2000 and 9/11 in 2004. I honestly don’t get what some people see in him. He’s so obviously a worse president than his father, who got just 38 percent of the popular vote in 1992. His approval ratings should be somewhere in that range right now. And I bet they would be, if not for 9/11. Remember how ambivalent people were about him during most of 2001? Jim Jeffords’s party-switching was seen as emblematic of the administration’s problems. Remember Alaskan oil-drilling? Faith-based initiatives?

This whole damn presidency has been one big faith-based-initiative-related program activity.

Someday, when we’ve got a normal president again, someone who knows how to form a coherent thought, someone who knows how to use his brain, we’re all going to look back on former President George W. Bush and think oh my god, I can’t believe we went through all of that.

Speaking of which, I hope Karl Rove & Co. don’t try to weasel out of having debates next fall. I can totally see them trying to do that. And then they’ll give in and there will be debates after all, but we’ll be back to the “soft bigotry of low expectations” crap and people will expect Bush to tank during the debates, and he’ll do a mediocre job but he won’t tank, and the press will be impressed again, and the populace will eat it up with a spoon, and who knows what will happen next.

I wonder what W. will do after he retires?

Lately I’ve bought a few cast albums, using assorted Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble gift certificates I got for my birthday. In the last week, the following CDs have arrived in the mail, wrapped in cardboard: Urinetown, Oklahoma (Hugh Jackman recording), Follies (original cast), A Little Night Music (original cast), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1996 revival cast), and Sondheim: A Musical Tribute (a.k.a. the “Scrabble album”). I’ve also bought the Bernadette Peters and Tyne Daly Gypsys. (I once borrowed the latter from my parents for about two years and I thought it would be nice to have it again.) All told, in the last four months I’ve more than doubled the number of cast albums in my possession. I think I’ve got about 45 now. That’s not including the ones that Matt has burned for me.

I’m trying to like Follies more. I’ve been listening to the album a lot in the hopes that the more I listen to it, the more I’ll like it. I used to not get the fuss over Bach’s B Minor Mass, but one day while listening to one of the movements it finally clicked, and I realized what a genius piece it was. I’m hoping the same happens here. It would probably help to see a performance, though. As it is, I’m having enough trouble getting the story straight in my head. The main characters are named Buddy and Ben and Sally and Phyllis. I keep getting Buddy and Ben confused, and the same with Sally and Phyllis. Being a synesthete is hard enough without having to distinguish between people who have the same letters in their names.

Speaking of synesthesia, maybe that’s why I’m good at anagrams.

Which reminds me — a few days ago, one of my U.S. senators, Frank Lautenberg, married a near-anagram of himself. Lautenberg and Engelbardt are one letter away from being anagrams. So close… and yet ocossle.

How about those Oscar nominations? For Best Picture there are two L movies (both of which I’ve seen), two M movies (neither of which I’ve seen), and Seabiscuit (which I’ve seen). I don’t know — last year’s movies spoke to me more: we had Chicago and The Hours and The Pianist, and Far From Heaven got some nods. This year feels kind of blah. A year ago I went on a big movie-watching binge, and by the time the Best Picture nominees were announced, I’d seen all of them. But this year I’m not as interested. I’d still like to see Mystic River and Master and Commander, though.

And don’t forget the Razzies.

Like I said, it’s a slow day at work.

1:00 PM | 2 drops of oil

Bears aren’t really my type, but these bears are too cute. Especially the Avenue Q bear.

1:54 PM | Comments Off

I just about orgasmed when I saw Tom Lenk in the list of guest stars at the beginning of “Angel” tonight. I don’t watch the coming attractions at the end of each episode, so I was completely surprised by this. Looks like our little Andrew has come a long way under Giles’s tutelage. But did he have to grow out his hair? He looked much cuter back when it was shorter.

Still, I got my Tom Lenk fix, so I’m not complaining.

I am complaining that Willow’s still with Kennedy. Whatever makes her happy, I guess.

So apparently Buffy knows that Angel’s running Wolfram & Hart, but she doesn’t know that Spike’s alive? Hmm… I guess I can buy that. After all, Wolfram & Hart is a big player in the underworld, and word probably gets around about what’s going on there. But Spike’s just a British ensouled resurrected un-ghosted formerly-brainwashed guilt-wracked vampire with no hands and an Oedipus complex.

Therapy, anyone?

OK, apparently his hands will be fine.

But seriously. How much more shit does this guy have to go through? He’s totally the Mutant Enemy whipping boy. How much can one man take? If there’s going to be a pity contest between Angel and Spike over who gets to prevent the apocalypse and turn human, I think Spike totally wins at this point. Sure, Angel’s gone through a century more of ensouled torture than Spike has, and his own son doesn’t remember him, and he turned evil when he fucked his girlfriend, and…

OK, so maybe Spike doesn’t have it in the bag quite yet.

Watching “Angel” tonight was kind of like reliving “Buffy” Season 7: Andrew and Spike together, a Kennedy reference, Andrew’s pronunciation of “vamPIRE,” a truckload of Slayers, and so on. But it wasn’t just a “Buffy” nostalgiafest; the story also managed to tie into one of the threads of “Angel” this season, which is the question of how far you can compromise your ethics before the bad you’re involved in begins to outweigh the good you’re trying to accomplish.

And I lied a little bit, because I did see the coming attraction for next week’s episode. In episode 100 of “Buffy,” Buffy died; in episode 100 of “Angel,” Cordelia’s coming back. That’s poetically kind of neat.

As long as she’s not a CordeliaBot, I can’t wait to see her.

11:26 PM | 2 drops of oil

Thursday, January 29, 2004

What’s gone wrong with the Democrats? In today’s Times, Robert Reich discusses the politics of the last 10 years and postulates an answer to this question. It makes sense to me. If you let yourself be defined merely in opposition to others, eventually you’ll have no clear long-term message. (See: the Democrats in the 2002 elections.) The Republicans have the advantage right now because they know what they want to do, while most Democrats just do what they think other people want them to do.

The answer is so stupidly simple. Figure out what you, you yourself, believe in, and why you believe in it, and then try to convince other people that you’re right.

If you can’t figure out what you believe in, you have no business being in politics.

11:51 AM | 1 drop of oil

Friday, January 30, 2004

I’ve filed my taxes.

It’s said that money is the last taboo. People talk about their sex lives and reveal their deepest secrets on TV, but nobody talks about their income. If someone started a blog meme in which people posted their tax returns online (minus things like social security numbers and home addresses), how many people would actually do it?

This is going to sound really cheesy, but as I was filling out my 1040A and consulting the instructions last night, all with their pink-and-white color scheme, it was moving to think that a vast nation of people is filling out the same sheets, filling in the same pink-and-white boxes, looking at the same instruction booklet. Imaginary Americans entered my brain, such as a middle-aged born-again Christian couple in Kansas, their house filled with 40 years of knick-knacks and memories; a Hispanic bus driver who lives with his wife and kids in Queens; a 30something gay couple in Seattle; a single mom who works as a secretary or waitress. And me. It made me feel patriotic.

Then I thought, you know what? Here I am, doing my taxes like everyone else, filling out this pink-and-white form like everyone else, and yet there are people out there, including many in Congress, who want me to be a second-class citizen just because I’m gay. I deal with the same pink-and-white forms that everyone else does, but there are people in power who don’t want me to be able to marry for love, or raise kids, or even just have the kind of sex I enjoy.

And the color scheme is white and pink.

What a country.

P.S. I typed gay tax into Google and found:

The Anti-Gay Tax Refund
Unfair Taxation of Homosexual Citizens

12:05 PM | 1 drop of oil

Jumping on a recent meme, here are maps of the countries and U.S. states I’ve visited. The map of countries is misleading. I’ve never been to Alaska; my visit to Mexico consisted of two hours in Tijuana, right over the U.S./Mexico border; my visit to China consisted of several hours in Canton, on the southern coast, as well as three trips to Hong Kong back when it was still in British hands. I spent two whole weeks exploring Israel, but it shows up as nothing more than a tiny speck on this map. And I spent a week in Jamaica, but you’d never know it.

Make your own maps here.

3:12 PM | 1 drop of oil