DAY OFF IS ON

The sun is out ...

Our hats are on ...

We're heading ...

For the park ...

The fountain ...

The zoo ...

Say hello to some favorite statues ...

Maybe picnic.

Have a busy Saturday ...

Doing nothing ... Just walking, talking ...

FINGERNAIL PHASES

I bit them. I wore scarlet red nail polish,. I peeled off the polish. I bit them.

I resolved not to bite them, and bit them. I bought a fancy nail file, and cuticle scissors, and shaped them. I bought myself a pale pink nail polish. I applied it. The next day, I peeled it off.

I had a manicure at a beauty salon. I didn't enjoy trying to make conversation with the manicurist. The way she filed my nails hurt. Nevertheless, I made a second appointment. The next day, my finger was fevered and painful. I canceled my appointment, and never went back.

I bought fake nails and glued them on. Hated them.

I went with D an actress friend to a fingernails place. We each paid $60.00 for a set of fake nails. Mine were lovely for about a week. When D broke a nail, I went back with her to the salon, and watched very carefully as a new nail was created.

Afterwards we had cocktails. The chic things we chatted about made me uneasy. D's elegant expensive exclusive look, made me feel put together in my Filene's bargain wardrobe.

(Fingernails went with gadding about, and I was maybe 30% committed to gadding about. I didn't know what my next project was, and while JC was coming up up up in the world, I had a feeling I was teetering down down.)

At a beauty supply shop I bought fake nails powder, the two liquids that are needed to harden the powder, a roll of nail shaper papers, and a small electric nail filer (like a tiny power drill). Also application brushes and tweezers for removing the shapers.

Then, slowly, carefully, I created a thumbnail. And practiced, and practiced, till I could make ten professional looking nails.

They looked good. But within a week my fake nails began to develop greenish moons at the cuticles. By the middle of the following week, the whole nail was green.

Even so, though it was time consuming, I kept my unnatural nails perfectly manicured.

A filmmaker phoned. He'd seen me dance my "Four Seasons" solo and said he loved it. He suggested a lunch meeting, saying,"There's something important I want to discuss with you."

I wore my ankle-length black jeans skirt, a studded black jeans jacket, and a purple (for good luck) shirt. With my three favorite Liz T rings, (see my post "Elizabeth Taylor Socks Syndrome"), and freshly fake nails, I felt glamorous. Entering the crowded chic restaurant, I was delighted to notice people noticing me.

After we ordered, he asked what I was doing. Though I was in the doldrums, between projects, between forkfuls of salad, hoping he'd interrupt and tell me what the important something was, I described "Zinnia," a two character play I'd been writing.

Finally, he put down his fork, and said, "The head of PBS and I would like you to be the fund-raiser for our new dance film foundation ..." and mentioned yearly salary, my own office, my own secretary ...

The conversation became ah ... oh ... yes ... mm ... How I got home, what I said escapes me. Did I turn him down gracefully? Probably not. I've never heard from him again.

What I do remember is ... removing the fake fingernails, dumping the powder, the liquids, roll of shapers, and hanging the black jean skirt and jacket in my closet where I keep clothes I'll probably never wear again.

Was it the next day, or two days later that I was back in my studio ...no rings, on my fingers, no bells on my toes. I had music -- Mahler's Tenth. I had "Zinnia," I was me again, unadorned, self propelled -- with a project I loved working on.

WHO IS EPLEY

Why is this guy becoming someone I have to contend with every day? Along with MJ being turned into the media's new Anna Nicole Toy, And the health care war, the Ask Don't Tell issues mixed into a pudding with the S. Carolina Gov's guilty-boy ramblings.

He's Japanese specialist, Nakayama M. Epley. A medical person who had made a series of simple exercises you do if you "BPPV." (A benign inner ear problem that creates light-headedness, which comes and goes.)

Yes it's "Vertigo." But I'm not using medical terms today. I'm trying to untie the knots that I seem to have been tying around myself.

A million years ago this past March, I wrote a post 'GOING TO THE DOC" and mentioned the 125 physical therapy exercises I had to do in order to re-learn how to walk.

I stated loudly -- I don't want anyone telling me what I can do, should do. Shouldn't do. Or give me permission about anything.

Whoops -- (I didn't realize till I re-read the post myself just now). I refer to "water" in my left ear. But a note I made for myself in April of 2008, clearly refers to water in my right ear. So it's moved, from ear to ear.

Last week I saw Mike (my doctor) and based on his exam, Dr. Em had herself diagnosed correctly . It's a temporary condition -- not serious, not anything to do with tumor, cancer, stroke or any other bad stuff. Mike said he'd heard there was a physical therapy treatment for it. Something new. Did I want him to check it out? I said no.

At home, having seen a reference to "new physical therapy treatment," and pictures of it, I printed out the Epley "maneuver" exercises. Look to the left -- don't they look simple? Probably these exercises help the inner ear repair itself.

Then I found a YouTube film that shows you what to do. IF you know which is the "affected" ear. Want to try it? Just click EPLEY MANEUVER.

What point am I making? Right now JC is in his office, laboring over making me a simplified copy of what's in the Merck Manual. There are 5 variations on YouTube. I'VE TRIED THEM. There's even a test you can do to figure out which of your ears is affected. I DID THE TEST. IT IS BOTH EARS.

I have 3 different ways of doing the Epley typed out. Plus the new version JC typed out making it sound ... Simpler? Slightly different? I don't know what to do, unless I compare all the versions.

Dr. Em is thinking right here as you read this -- S T O P. The shoe doesn't fit. The exercise DOES NOT work for you! Do your nightly dancing, and handle the dizzy feeling you get when you jump (there are jumps in the dance) by changing the jump. For the time being. that's what I'm going to do.

Leave it alone, says Dr. Em. And she's the one I obey.

NOSE PRESSED TO THE BAKERY WINDOW

I love the smell of fresh bread at the bakery. And the fragrance of fresh pretzels, on a street vendors wagon ... I've got to have one immediately!

I'll never recover -- you'll never recover echoes psychotherapist Em -- zoom --flashing back, remembering the bakery in Greenwich Village that I used to pass on the way to my temporary home.

My first summer in New York -- my allowance was TEENY. I'd been staying with Mrs. Graves in her Washington Square apartment. I was, lonely,and hungry.

Mrs.G was a wealthy widow. Her husband, Daddy's partner, had died a year ago. All Mrs. Graves ate, all she served me was soup. All she talked about was her husband, his cancer, how her dead husband's lung, eaten away by cancer, looked in the X-ray they showed her.

I phoned my parents and they arranged for me to stay in Sunnyside with an Aunt and Uncle on a cot in their dining room, where I could hear them whispering at night, saying my parents were cheapskate snobs. But there was plenty of food, subway fare, ten cents for emergencies, no money for snacks.

I remember how hungry I was. After beginners' ballet at the Metropolitan Opera house, I ate crackers with ketchup at the Horn & Hardart Automat, and chewed the ice cubes I got from the water and ice machine that was next to the pastry.
And desserts in glass compartments -- oh boy -- cookies on a doily, chocolate cake on a plate, breakfast rolls, pies -- I could smell them, see the poppy seeds, wavy patterns in the icing, the semi-sweet chocolate buds in the cookies ... so near, yet I couldn't have them in my hand or in my mouth.

(You'd think with all that in my mind, I'd be a big eater, definitely overweight, but I'm not -- my slenderness is great, just what a lot of women want. This 'nose' business -- my longing for things is a permanent quirk.)

After my divorce, walking in Washington Square Park, seeing couples holding hands, chatting, I felt like I was back in the Horn & Hardart Automat.

After I met JC, who'd mentioned dropping in so casually, there I was watching the street, counting ten taxis telling myself he won't show up ... maybe he will ... telling myself in ten minutes I'll stop waiting. But I kept waiting at the window counting cars, looking for him, longing for him to arrive.

He didn't that night. He did a week later.

That 'nose pressed' neurosis -- how many times, on the verge of success (his or mine), have I waited for the reviews, the goodies, the rewards on the other side of the window.

Just yesterday, working hard on a post, I found myself longing for more hits, more readers, more visitors. I checked the stats on my website and blog -- wow. I'm getting more readers!

So, ladies and gentlemen and fellow self-therapists, if my nose is still pressed to the window, and I'm on the outside looking in and longing for something -- hey -- all I need to do is go inside and look around at what I've got.

TURN OFF THE LIGHT, DEAR

Save water -- DO NOT leave the faucet running while brushing your teeth! (See my post, "Doodler Hints").

Clearing the table after dinner, oif course, go ahead and rinse dishes before loading them into the dish washer. But DO NOT walk away and get more dishes with the water running!

These are small ways of saving water in a household where one of the occupants loves to learn his lines, practice his songs while taking a long long shower.

So, what about turning off lights?

Both my guys were always light-leave-on-ers, even before the days of energy saving bulbs. Both invariably groaned when Mom/Wife would invariably remind them to turn off the light please. And in the way irritants progress, when Mom/Wife could later be seen turning off a light in a closet, the light over the chair, or the light on the desk that no one was using -- of course they would quietly groan.

So what did I do Friday night? I didn't exactly nag, but in a semi-nagging, wifely tired-tone, I reminded JC that he'd left the lights on in his closet, and bathroom.

This after he'd been rehearsing, then performing "Scottsboro Boys" at the Vineyard Theatre, then rushing off to perform in his show at the Music Box Theatre.

The staged reading was Friday afternoon ... (A hellish day -- One Glove Michael would have hated the hullabaloo over how he died, but loved the evocations of him, praises, touching elegies and tributes by celebrities.)

The Scottsboro boys were the focus of a powerful race prejudice case in 1931. (I used it in Somebody, Book 1, p. 296.) Nine young blacks were found guilty and sentenced to death for raping two girls, retried, convicted again, and only years later found innocent and released from jail. Composer John Kander (who wrote the song "New York, New York" and created "Cabaret" with Fred Ebb) has turned the story into a minstrel show, and JC was playing the interlocutor for the reading.

But the moment they started the reading, some of JC's music pages got stuck on the glue he used to patch in some changes. Joel Grey was part of the invited audience, which included producers, backers, and JC's manager. Paranoia momentarily flared. Joel and JC are friends, but if the musical gets done, one never knows what will happen with the casting.

And Em at bed time mentions those lights ...

JC, who grins and bears it usually, said, "One of these days I'm going to remind you about your inconsistencies."

"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day ..." And parting at night, saying goodnight when you're pooped and somewhat frayed ought to be sweeter ...

The subject was dropped. "I wanted to say "You hurt my feelings" -- thought about saying it, was ready to say it, but he was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

Marital trouble? A spat?

This morning he made me my coffee. I buttered his bagel for him.

PEEK AT EM'S GALLERY

When you buzz our buzzer, we ask who it is, and when we know who you are, we buzz you in.

It's a surprise when you walk in. Our hallway walls are shocking pink, and bright orange; the steps and banisters are bright red. The brilliant, almost clashing colors make visitors laugh, and put most of them in a good mood.

After you climb eighteen steps, you see a hand-painted silk scarf on a the wall, a tall white plastic plant. Twenty more steps up, and you're at the third floor, where you see some of my paintings hanging on the pink wall.

This my blue cityscape.
JC took the picture. I'm a novice with the camera, but JC (who never seems to know what he's doing on a computer) has read the How To booklet -- he's already adept at taking photos, and patiently teaching me what to do.

If you were a New Yorker, you'd recognize some of the buildings my cityscape. Why did I do this painting? I found a photo that fascinated me, and I love repetitive tasks, (like embroidering "True Friendships Are Eternal" on a sampler -- I gave it to Mom for Mother's Day when I was eight years old. See my post "Night Light" for more about me and my mother).

Since you're passing our theater-dance studio, JC's and my office, I'll let you have a peek at my clipboard on my beige desk It's a painting I made of the galaxy. I clip phone numbers, e-mail addresses, website passwords on it. Also a long list of ideas that I might use for new posts, along with notes on how to make a link, and emergency phone numbers for our net-worked phones.

(I still haven't recovered from installing them -- my very first post on this blog "Out of Order Phones," tells the story.)

As we climb the stairs to the top floor where our home is, you pass four more Em paintings.

The "Dad Clown" is at the top of the step behind that plastic plant (a memento) -- it was a stage prop from my play "People in Show Biz Make Long Goodbyes. "

The Clown went with a song for JD which I sang to him when JC was out of town ...
"See a clown,
He's looking down.
He has a bird.
Oops he heard --
You and me --
Talking about the fact that he lives in a tree."

In the other part of the loft, on the door to JD's room, there is
the "Em Clown." ( Taller than I am, she's wearing one of my costumes, and real fake lashes. ) I painted it on the door to keep JD company when I was on tour.




Take a look at my orange city scape below.










It's my favorite.
Give it a double click and take a good look to the left and the right. You can the bridges to other boroughs, and a bit of Queens.

DOODLER DO LIST

Buy NEW Computer for JC
XP, 2 GB mem, 2.8 Ghz.
What size HD?

Or give JC mine? Get NEW for me ...

Order the vitamin D 2000.

Fix the lump in the fixed kitchen floor ... JC slaved over fixing it! Cut the bulge in the linoleum perfectly! It's the "Goop' glue! The books we piled on it to make it dry flat didn't work ... Do we cut into again? Suppose it turns out worse? ... It doesn't really show ... The lump doesn't really look like a worm ... does it ...?

Transfer JC files to old Mitach computer ?
Shouldn't we get the updated Finale software?
What about NEW refrigerator? Wait another year? Do it now before our darling brown old GE breaks down?

I'm not thinking clearly; I don't feel like writing a post today -- MJ news is overwhelming everything ... Farrah's death on the same day barely mentioned ... We're being brain-washed into wonder-worrying about overdose, criminal doctoring, between updates on Kate and Jon, Jon and Kate . No wonder I'm doodling ...