I’ve got the theater bug again.

After seeing “Avenue Q” on Saturday (see previous entry), I saw “Take Me Out” yesterday afternoon, finally. Great play, if a bit long, and Denis O’Hare is… just… absolutely… priceless. I almost bought the script afterwards just for his baseball monologue.

Why the hell don’t I go to the theater more often? This is goddamn New York, and I love the theater. Whenever I see a Broadway show, I feel like I’m back in high school. This weekend I felt like a giddy excited teenager again, a closeted gay teenage theater lover. It just makes me feel so good. I used to come home from college during vacations, take a quick bus ride from the New Jersey suburbs into Manhattan, and get myself a ticket to a matinee. I remember how nervous I felt when I was 18 and went to see “Falsettos,” which I’d been dying to see, and then had to explain to my parents afterward that I’d only seen it because I’d heard it was good.

I miss acting — it was my main activity in high school. I used to dream of being a professional actor. (I wasn’t that great — I was a ham — but I loved doing it.) I cut short my acting career toward the end of my first year of college, when I tried moving on from UVa’s First Year Players to the collegewide productions and didn’t get called back for anything. (Too bad — maybe I would have had a chance to work with Tina Fey, who was a fourth-year UVa drama major at the time.) I gave up on acting, and my main extracurricular activity became singing.

After my great weekend of theater, I’ve made a promise to myself. From now on, I’m going to try to see at least two shows a month. I’m particularly going to try to see all the big Broadway musicals and plays. I haven’t seen most of what’s currently out there, and that’s just dumb.

And maybe I’ll try my hand at playwriting again.

Incidentally, I bought two more of these yesterday, because I had a bunch of stray Playbills piled up. I’ve now got six of those binders, and my collection’s nicely organized chronologically by show, from “Peter Pan” and “Annie” (my first shows, late 70s/early 80s) to “Take Me Out.”

I guess I shoudn’t be afraid of my inner theater queen. I should embrace it.

I finally saw “Avenue Q” this afternoon. This show was at the top of my list, because it seemed like everyone I knew had already seen it, and I’d heard it was hysterical.

I loved it.

I grew up watching “Sesame Street.” Okay, lots of people my age grew up watching “Sesame Street,” but I really grew up watching it. When I was a toddler, I’d watch it three times a day. It was my favorite show. My mom took me to see Sesame Street Live when I was little, and when the show ended and all the characters waved goodbye, I cried.

Anyway, “Avenue Q” was terrific. It was basically the id of “Sesame Street.” Trekkie Monster is what we all thought Oscar the Grouch was supposed to be: we always knew that Oscar’s messiness was just a synecdoche for being a bad, misbehaving, slovenly boy. (Holy crap. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever used “synecdoche” in a sentence.) Rod and Nicky are what we always knew was going on with Ernie and Bert (okay, when we were little kids we didn’t know, but we learned it as we grew older). And Lucy the Slut is clearly Miss Piggy.

The two key phrases of the show that are resonating most in my head right now are “for now” and “for porn.” “For now” — this too shall pass. The bad things shall pass, the good things shall pass. Rather Zen, eh? It all passes. “For porn” — we all have slutty thoughts, and that’s OK. There’s that id again.

For now. For porn.

“Avenue Q,” like “tick, tick… Boom!,” made me think about one’s 20s — a time when you’re supposed to have fun, and a time when your dreams buck up against reality. One song, “I Wish I Could Go Back to College,” actually brought tears to my eyes. And more than the latter show, “Avenue Q” made me ponder my identity as a part of this group.

As of today, there are 70 days until my 30th birthday. Did I ever really have that quintessential 20something “Avenue Q” experience? Has anyone had it, or is it just something that we romanticize and see in the media? I was in law school in a small-city academic setting until I was 25. My New- York-City-focused life, that eptiome of Gen-X-ness, didn’t really begin until I was 26. And suddenly, soon, I will no longer be 29. I started late and now it’s almost over.

Bah. It’s not almost over.

These days, the 30s aren’t much different from the 20s — especially when you’re gay, I think. A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend of mine at work who’s in his late 40s, and when I told him I was almost 30, he got excited for me. He told me that the 30s are a great decade — you still have your health, but you know more than you did in your 20s. He told me I have so much to look forward to. It made me feel great.

At any rate, the nice thing about seeing a Broadway show is that after you’ve left the theater you can buy the cast album, like I did, and then listen to it over and over, which I’m about to do.

Everything in life is only for now.

Since I won the bet (yay! see previous entry), I’ve guest-blogged for Peter today.