i am catching up on my lj reading.

it's been so long. and then i find mr. nate tabor had this for what felt like was for me only.




i am entranced.

if you have something to hide you are doing it wrong.

dreamed...

tim curry (rocky horror, tim) moved to austin and opened a theater called "UCB dark". it was a huge auditorium. red velvet walls and towering stadium seating. there were place to sleep there, i had slept there, like sleeper trains, i had a compartment. his shows were wild and sold out and i went to investigate and when i did i saw a show where he did live surgeries. blood everywhere and a ghoulish audience that applauded everything. i was afraid of him. he knew to befriend me and i knew to befriend him and we had a polite, political relationship. he offered me v.i.p. seating to one of his murder shows. where he murdered someone.

OBAMA!

on the last day of class, my genius level one improv students stopped the piece they were running ten minutes early and all screwed up these awkward faces and looked at me.

"why are we stopping?"

allison stepped forward and said "becca and pat and i need to go outside for a sec, ok?"

i am used to weird ass people. we celebrate everyone's strange ass behavioral problems and quirks and eccentricities because fuck it it's just funnier that way and it makes sweet ass comedy joke skits. so when 3 students walk out of class 10 minutes before class is over i thought either there is something happening i'm not supposed to know about or here goes more strange behavior.

so i continued to give notes to the rest of the class. and then becca and allison and pat came back in carrying a big flowery bag in which i found a bonsai tree and little bonsai clippers and an inside-joke book and a thank you card. for a second, for a half a split second, i felt a lump choke up in my throat. and i think i said something gay like this makes everything mean everything and sat speechless, literally.

the gesture was simple.
but the thought...

i am moved by how moved people are by this artform. i am moved by the infectious spirit of giving and acceptance and support.


why can't everyone act right?

i walked into the side stage door of my theater about 20 minutes before the house was open.
stephanie was in the tech booth.
jay was sitting on the couch.
everything was quiet.
the stage was dark and the house lights looked blue (we need blue house lights).
it was cool under the vent.
i had come in to grab my water before we warmed up in the parking lot. i could hear dave's laugh outside. the music in the front of the house was just like it always is and there was a sold out crowd waiting to get in to see us.

again, another weekend like this.





yes. thank you.

i am getting better at letting it happen to me.




to my right a polished highgloss white-like-cheap-plastic-flowers-white wall caught the reflection- ghosty almost shadow -of the man to my left leaning over me to make adjustments to the settings of my massage chair at crystal nails. i stared strait at the reflection shifting color on the wall and not at the man because at first i felt shy to be adjusted so intimately in public, like a hospital feeling, like being a body that is there for utility except this was for pleasure and after all it's crystal nails ... there is nothing unique about this-now one of one thousand asian nail shops tucked in one of one thousand strip malls off of one of the thousands of hot, ugly texas roads stuck between suburb and city. but he fiddled the control determined to set it to my clumsy instructions and for such a long time that it was more strange for me to look away than to look at him and so i watched him. in the florescent light. listening for the just audible house music among the random cell phone rings of other customers. surrounded by a dozen chattering vietnamese women squatting at other peoples feet. i smelled the sleep in his hair, on his slow breath too close to me. i tried not to react to the the alternating vibrations of my chair. he asked me what felt good.
i blushed.

you over did it, homes.
you're in the danger zone.
you shouldn't be alone.
see me. only me.





sleep and i are out of touch again. i'm telling stories about my capacity to kill at dinner parties. i'm identifying with goats. i have obsessed about pork shoulder all day. then i ate it right out of that pot with my fingers in front of nice company. suck syrup off the lid and not worry about lip cuts because i know the bull knows how to charge but also knows how to be cautious, tightrope. real live shit. one. one two. business before pleasure. get it right no matter what we air tight. i feel flashy. it seems necessary to tell you how it really is. but there are so few who know how to hear it right. in dirty words said knowing how they aren't dirty. taking my punches knowing i'm throwing soft. proving things and excusing me because i can be allowed excuses. and the thing is...i don't even need them.

this and that, compose a song, plan a wedding, day dream about dinner parties and remember murders packed cozy between caves and lillies in dreams and secret folds of being a person and still being alive after being awake for so long.

i take it very seriously when bar talk turns to plans of camping trips.


i take it very seriously when i am a casanova.

the master wastes nothing

lovey and lovey won best of week at frontera.


jastroch knows how to make a joke.
i know how to react to the joke.

but if it weren't for all of his glorious jokes it would just be me reacting to air and space on stage. and while that has some comic potential...

bottom line, jastroch is a comic genius.

arthur said "we are the poorest people to ever own this town".


i forgot to mention to arthur we are very wealthy now.

you can come pick up your check at

1 Million Future Avenue
Colton, TX 78666

i've got a gun.

i will shoot.

i am not afraid of you.

i am very prepared. better than you. i've been doing this longer. i'm a pro.



everyone just relax and put your hands up and no one gets hurt.


i don't want to have to use this thing.

i'll hurt you more than it'll hurt me. and that's just the proof they need.






careful.................................................careful......

dear look cookie,

your commitment to winning that gay ass poll thing on austin 360 fills me with a million swimming pools worth of bursty, sweet smelling bubbles. i am so glad we are friends.

i like to imagine every single one of those votes is from cody.

don't tell me i am wrong. that bubble stays intact!

but all i want to write about is mardi gras.
adrienne breaux asks me "what do people do here for mardi gras? i mean, does anyone do ANYTHING?"
"nothing"
someone pipes up "there is carnival"
she says "fuck that"
and i say "i know right"
she continues "...i dont want to hear anything about that...carnival...fuck that..."
and we get sullen on the couch of OUR after party for OUR (wonderfully successful) comedy festival and i get torn into duality again.

"With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two."
- Robert Louis Stevenson

my duality is a boring subject now even with my therapist. he only wants to talk about coldtowne. i am a showman, i give him what he wants. there are limits, of course, but...the lights are bright...

at the afterparty we dance steadily, decidedly and without awkwardness to each other in a circle humming along and keeping casual conversation over mardi gras music. there are enough of us here to know what we are missing. justin is going. my entire family will be there.

why do i choose to stay?

it's not like...i couldn't go.

"this is my first mardi gras away from new orleans" adrienne says.

i can't imagine what that means and i nod.

nod and focus my attention on this ship that i steer. this huge, hulking, creaky tug weight, all brass lips and paint peeling, a striking monolith for too many people who's names i can't remember, always tipping, never on coast, just shoved, never docked, always primed just so, just enough, you know you can find it where you look and it will never slow long enough for you, just cruising so that it can get to the port that i already know is dark, over-toured and shabby but nonetheless i believe in the silver linings of things and so there i can pull that silver thread out from between my teeth if i need to, see, i've done it a hundred times at this point. and i'll do it again. and there is always someone to be impressed, someone who's never seen it before. all aboard, right? there are limits of course, but the lights are bright...

right?

what is greed here?
i think i have passed greed and egoism so long ago it's vaudeville.




i dreamed i talked to my dead cat tomas last night and he told me he was in to photography now. he was doing a series of self portraits. i thought i was glad to know it and i tried not to interfere.

i learned how to listen to kenny rogers the right way and everything has changed.