Tag Archives: Rhinebeck

Two Super Frosty Mornings In A Row!

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Yes, by midday yesterday, I actually broke down and turned on the furnace. It was really unbelievably frosty in this house yesterday!

By tomorrow, the temperatures will be getting back to the normal September weather, but last night (and tonight again) it actually got down into the 30s Fahrenheit… my poor cats, right? So I had to turn on the heat.

The main reason I hate having that furnace on, and always put it off until the final moment, is that it messes with my sinuses like you wouldn’t believe. (By January, I usually start getting nose-bleeds that last until I can finally turn that furnace off.) ( I really really just love fresh air.)  (Even this morning, I woke up at 5am, wondering why I couldn’t breathe and then remembered that the furnace was on…)

And now I am facing the awesome task of once again cutting back the hydrangea bush for the season. The blossoms have all turned to that greenish-pink color now, and are all bent over. I am going to try to get to it during the week. It is such a massive plant now that I can’t even imagine where I will start! I guess that I’ll just “start.”

(How it looked when it was finally in full bloom in August; it got to be 8 ft tall this year)

That first summer when I bought the house, it didn’t bloom anywhere near this astoundingly.  I don’t think anyone had really taken care of it in years.  But I began cutting it back that first fall, and these past two summers it has just exploded with growth and blossoms. I really just love this plant.

So, I got great work done on the novella yesterday (1954 Powder Blue Pickup). I sat and stared at it for several hours yesterday morning, before it came to me to move that part where  his girl does that unexpected thing to after the gangbang section. Because, honestly, I could not figure out for the life of me how to move anything forward. So it finally occurred to me to just rearrange stuff.

And then 9 hours later… I was done writing for the day. So I was happy.

All right, well, I don’t want to become a stalker or anything, but that blond teenage boy down the street is just too awesome. Now that I know what house he lives in, I can’t help but be looking right at it every time I get up from my desk and look out that window. And yesterday, in that unbelievably gorgeous (although cool) weather, he was out there washing and waxing that electric blue Honda Civic that his mom drive’s from the Honda dealership.  (See how, without even trying, I’m starting to learn all this weird stuff about their lives?? And I don’t even have a clue who they are! I wonder how much I would learn if I actually was stalking him…)

Well, he did an amazing job with that car. And it made me wish so much that I had a kid who would wash & wax my Honda civic!! Because mine is Molten-Lava, which is a color and intensely sparkly finish that makes “a bold sparkly statement” and draws attention and I never wash it. I have had it a year now and it has only been washed twice in that year.

Mostly this is because there has been a pandemic going on for 6 months of that year, but also because that first summer I was here in the house, the garden spigot was making me insane and always turning itself on by accident, without me knowing it had done that until after it had run up a fortune on my water bill. So I had the spigot removed, and had a turn-off valve installed just inside the basement where the spigot connects to the main water line, but then never had a new spigot put back in so, for now, I have no garden hose, which makes it a colossal pain to try to wash your own car at home.

I just love being a single homeowner.  I absolutely never get around to half the stuff that needs doing around here. Mostly because it would involve me actually getting up from my desk.

And speaking of getting up from my desk…

I guess I will get started here today, do yoga and then get back to work on the novella.

It is just so beautiful outside right now, and it’s supposed to get up to 70 today, so here’s hoping I will breathe just fine for most of the day!! I hope you are enjoying your Sunday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning — from an album I was listening to nonstop for most of my 9-hour drive out to Rhinebeck, NY, this time last year to see Nick Cave in Conversation (oh, and also to have that incredibly great meeting with my director in NYC regarding my play Tell My Bones that is indeed moving forward in a way that makes me so unbelievably happy.) (What a difference a year makes, right? Good and not so good, but mostly good.)

Anyway, a very, very favorite song of mine, as well as a total classic from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the “live” version of “Southern Accents”. (In the incredibly hard-to-put-down book, Conversations with Tom Petty (2005),  he talked about getting up in the middle of the night, going out to the piano in the other room and suddenly writing this song from start to finish, just like that. It all came out at once — music & lyrics. And then he went right back to bed. And it was the song that finally helped him process his mom’s death. They were from Northern Florida, which, especially back then, was like coming from Southern Georgia — very southern. Well,  I knew none of that stuff until I read that book; until then, I’d just sort of loved the song. Now, I really, really love the song. And of course, it practically became his anthem. Or one of them.)

Anyway!! Enjoy. Have a great day and thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!

“Southern Accents”

There’s a southern accent, where I come from
The young ‘uns call it country, the Yankees call it dumb
I got my own way of talking, but everything gets done
With a southern accent, where I come from

Now that drunk tank in Atlanta is just a motel room to me
Think I might go work Orlando, if them orange groves don’t freeze
Got my own way of working, but everything is run
With a southern accent, where I come from

For just a minute there I was dreaming
For just a minute it was all so real
For just a minute she was standing there, with me

There’s a dream I keep having, where my mama comes to me
And kneels down over by the window, and says a prayer for me
Got my own way of praying, but every one’s begun
With a southern accent, where I come from

Got my own way of living, but everything gets done
With a southern accent, where I come from

© 1985 Tom Petty

Okay, Gang! She’s Outta Here!!

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First, allow me to complain a little bit!

In no particular order:

  • Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds sent out an email this morning listing the upcoming listening events for the new album, Ghosteen, and apparently they accidentally left Crazeysurg off that list and so now I have no idea where I’m supposed to go! It looks like maybe Belgium is my closest option.
  • I am really, really tired of the lousy air quality in NYC and cannot wait to get back to Rhinebeck this afternoon. My throat is, like, raw.
  • While the audience at Town Hall last night was really fun and enthusiastic, they were the most fidgety bunch of people I’ve ever been anywhere near. First of all, at least half of the balcony arrived “late” — and I put that in quotes because they weren’t late, they were out in the upstairs lobby drinking and ignoring the flashing lights. So about 700 million of them came in and tried to find their seats after the Conversation had already started. And then I have never seen so many grown up people get up & down and go in & out— going for more drinks, going to the use the bathroom, etc. I really just wanted to smack all of them throughout the entire show.
  • The man in front of me — who arrived late and then left early to catch his train out of Grand Central— was really tall and it was a constant challenge for me to see around his head until he left (early) but then 10 minutes later, the show was over.
  • I have never seen so many people get up and go catch the last train out of Grand Central at the very same time as I saw last night (meaning: 10 minutes before the show ended).
  • Overall, while indeed enthusiastic, the audience last night drove me a little nuts.

Other than that, though, the Conversation itself was great. Very different energy from Lincoln Center, yet both were somehow equally great. And even though I was in that balcony with all those fidgety, constantly moving people, I still had a really cool view— dead center.  I could see everything easily— except for having to contend with that tall guy in front of me.

I still think it’s better than being on the main floor if you aren’t seated right up in front.  And even though Nick Cave himself seemed to be in a different headspace last night as compared to Lincoln Center — where he was sort of more subdued or something— Town Hall is now just a really sucky place to be in the audience after experiencing that specific theater at Lincoln Center, which was just incredible.

Okay, so I’m gonna get a Lyft here in about an hour and try to get through the insane Midtown traffic in time to catch my train out of Penn Station at 10:20am. Sandra is taking a later train but, truthfully, I just can’t get out of here quick enough. I just feel like I need some decent air.

I did spend a few hours with Valerie yesterday afternoon and that was really nice. I have had a ton of quiet time during my stay here in the city, so it was just so great to spend some time with someone who knows me so well, who laughs a lot, and who is such a huge part of the “old” New York. That old vibe— meaning, not militantly-politically correct.  And Valerie is a really tall, butch dyke who drinks and smokes and is extremely liberal and has been for 60 years, and yet she, too, has to contend with the constant onslaught of the intolerant zealously-politically-correct hordes. It gets so tiring.

I’m not sure if I prefer the Mongol hordes to this current horde of zealously PC liberals or not. I have to give it some thought.  I’ll get back to you.

After lunch, we hung out on the stoop so that she could smoke and we did indeed discuss Mick Jagger’s weird inability to age— how it was sort of spooky. (And I wasn’t the one who brought up this topic, either, so clearly, I am not the only person who’s kind of creeped out by him nowadays.) But I did fess up to my recent discovery that, like Mick Jagger, I, too, prefer the idea of having sex with much younger women over having sex with 70-year-old women, and so I can’t really call that particular kettle black anymore.

And, of course, she concurred. Which, in itself, is kind of weird because we were lovers for 20 years, and now I guess we’re agreeing that even we are too old to seem like an appealing sex option to each other.

(I’m sort of just kidding. However, under our breath, so as not to be overheard by the PC militant zealots scurrying around us, we agreed that when it came to girls, we liked them “really young.”)

All righty!!!!

So!

Wednesday, I make that drive back to Ohio and I’m not 100% psyched for that trip yet, but I’m looking forward to spending the rest of the day and evening in Rhinebeck and I guess spending some more time discussing the theater projects with Sandra in person.

Sandra works a lot, mostly in television in Canada, and it can be really hard to get her complete attention (or to even get her to reply to a text) when she’s working. So I need to get as much out of her as I can whenever she’s directly in front of me.

That said, though, I’m still not ready to tackle the next round of rewrites on the play. I can tell that all of it is gestating inside me, so I’m not concerned. I just know that I’m not quite ready.  I know I will be once I’m back at my own desk, with my Muse suffusing my entire room.  Although, Peitor texted, wanting to know when we can get back on schedule with the micro-scripts. So I guess I’m getting ready to be really busy again.

Well, needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, it has been so great to be able to see Nick Cave in the Conversation environment— twice. It really was just the best time and I’m feeling a little misty over having to move on.  But on we must all move.  Who knows when I will ever see him again in that specific, focused way. But it was just so wonderful. I just love him so much. And last evening— I can’t recall which song it was that he was singing; maybe “Love Letter,” maybe “Shivers,” — but for several fleeting moments, I saw the young Nick Cave coming through in his face, his expression. It was really interesting. Beautiful, I guess.

And now I must open the Lyft app and get that underway. Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya!

 

 

All Is Decidedly Well!

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[UPDATE:  In the Shadow of Narcissa has updated. You can read it here! Thanks!]

(Now, back to the blog!)

Three nights in a row now, I have slept really great. No anxiety at all, even though all my challenges remain the same and, now that I’m here in Rhinebeck, focusing on both plays with Sandra, new challenges are arising. But that sense that everything will unfold however it needs to unfold is really pronounced.

So I’m good.

I can’t believe that the Conversations with Nick Cave resume tonight in DC. It seems like it came so fucking fast. Then tomorrow night, I see him in the city— and then again on Monday.

I’m doing that thing again — dragging my feet, trying to slow it all down, because it will be over in a heartbeat and life will just go on!

No!! How can that be??

When Sandra asked me who I was seeing in the city, and I said “Nick Cave,” she said, “but who are you seeing on Monday then?”

”Nick Cave.”

”Oh, then who are you seeing at Lincoln Center?”

”Nick Cave.”

”Wait— you’re seeing that dude twice?”

”Yeah.”

“You must like him a lot.”

”I do.”

”Who is he?”

Aaaarrrggggh!!!! Oh well. Clearly not every American is oblivious to Nick Cave because all the Conversations are sold out…

Sandra and I had a long discussion last evening re: Tell My Bones and I went over the director’s notes with her, even though I haven’t done the rewrites yet. She was very insightful and enthusiastic. Today, we’re going to go over the whole play, scene by scene, which will likely help me facilitate the rewrites.

I’m feeling extremely good about everything because Sandra’s response to this new version is very, very encouraging.

I have a feeling I’ll be spending most of my time at the Airbnb writing. Both on Tell My Bones and on a new segment for In the Shadow of Narcissa. I’m planning to spend Monday with Valerie. But other than that, I think I’ll just be hanging out by myself, writing.

Yesterday, Sandra and I went and had lunch at this place I really like because it has great vegetarian options. And in there, I swear to you — I’m not lying about this — one of the guys who works there, who looked to be in his late teens, early 20s tops, came on to me!! I was completely taken aback by this because I was in one of those intense moods where I wasn’t even smiling. At first I thought maybe he was attracted to my Tom Petty tee shirt. But, no, it seemed that he was actually attracted to ME! And I was, like, WOW.  Now that is interesting, right? It’s like they get younger and younger.

Is it because I’m getting more and more immature?!!

When I woke up this morning, at 5:45 am, my brain was reciting various odd stanzas from Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric.”  I hadn’t thought of that poem in years. This is that area of the country, where he lived, roamed, thrived, wrote. Really, when you get to the East Coast you can feel the ghosts of all those sensibilities— writers and thinkers who settled here, drew in the Nature that was all around here back then, and then created from that intake. Rhinebeck is just one of those places that retains its history. It’s part of daily life. It’s the reason why I love it so much — but it does come with a huge price tag. It’s really expensive to live out here.

New Yorkers do that to a place: they buy a summer home somewhere up the Hudson, then decide it’s so nice, let’s make it year round. Then everyone catches on and does the same thing, and in a heartbeat, the price of everything goes through the roof and city people are all over the place.

Okay! Well, I hope things are good in your part of the world, gang. I’m gonna grab some more coffee and hang out and think about life until Sandra emerges from the boudoir. I leave you with a shot looking down in the neighbors yard at 6:30 am this morning.

Thanks for visiting! I love you guys. See ya.

Looking down at the neighbor’s yard in Rhinebeck 6:30 am

 

A View From the Porch

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It seems like today has been full of conversations about marriages that have gone wrong all over town….

A little depressing.

And  then what to aim for next. And never get married again. And all that. It makes me sad.  I want people to be happy. 🥺

Ah well. I’m sitting on the porch. It’s 5 pm in Rhinebeck. I’m guessing that the future is still my oyster  but it takes a  lot of effort to be a happy go lucky 12-year-old girl, when all these grownups around me are talking about divorces…

A view from the porch in Rhinebeck at 5 pm

Dawn Arrives in Rhinebeck

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It’s a truly peaceful morning here in Rhinebeck!! Below (at the bottom) is a photo I took just now from the bed.

One nice thing I was able to do for Sandra the moment I got here, was blow out a fuse here in the guest room!! And try as we might, we can’t fix it! So  an expensive electrician needs to be called in!! Please feel free to invite me to stay in your guest room whenever you’d like to!!

Anyway. I am doing things the old-fashioned way— relying on the daylight hours to write in my journal. Oh, and of course, using my iPhone to guide me in the darkness! Just like my pioneering ancestors did!!

Nick Cave sent out the best Red Hand Files newsletter yesterday. I’d link to it but I’m not certain how to do all that on my phone while I’m posting to the blog. Anyway, it was a really beautiful newsletter and luckily it arrived right before I took off for my 500-mile drive to NY. It really just helped me have a great frame of mind and I had just the best trip!!

i made it in exactly 9 hours, door to door. Unheard of!! It’s usually close to 10 or 11 hours, due to traffic. But yesterday,  everything was just absolutely perfect!! No traffic, no road construction blocking anything. Gorgeous weather! I sailed right through.

And it was so nice, as I was driving away from my house, to have my birth mom standing there, waving goodbye to me at my kitchen door. She just loves me so much.  She’s very introverted and quiet, but she is just so sweet to me. When I think of how terribly I missed her all through my childhood, it is still hard for me to grasp that she is now such a part of my life. I located her when I was 25, so it’s been many years already. Still, I am so blessed to have found her.

So.

Saturday, Sandra and I meet with the director in the city re: Tell My Bones., even though I still haven’t even attempted to begin those rewrites he wants for the ending of the play,  But it’s just so great to be here with Sandra and have her as a sounding board, too. She does feel extremely positive about the drastic changes I’ve made to the script. So that’s really good.

There’s a lot going on here re: our other play in Toronto. I can’t really go into it on the blog, but we just have a lot on our plate. So it will be some intense days around here.

All right. I’m gonna go downstairs and grab some more coffee. Thanks for visiting, gang! I love you guys. See ya!

View from the bed at dawn.

 

Yesterday’s Gone & Today is Officially Underway!

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You know, I’ve heard from houseguests that my guest room was really comfortable and last night I experienced it for myself!

I got into the bed and it was, like, man — this bed is more comfortable than mine is! And then I had the best night’s sleep I had in ages. It’s a really nice room. It just has great vibes.

Yes, I got lost going to pick up my mom yesterday.  A 2-hour trip going there turned into 3 1/2 hours, and included a visit from the Sheriff as I waited there alone at the side of the road in the middle of all those cornfields. Had to get out of the car, show my ID and everything.

My mom spent nearly an hour trying to find me. Eventually we did manage to meet up in a gas station in a little town called Clarksburg…🥺

What should have been a 4-hour trip total, wound up being an 8 hour trip. Plus I got to see my younger brother for the first time in a few years.  No one made fun of me for getting so fucking lost, though…

Yeah, so that was fun. Now I have to turn around and drive 10 hours today. But the weather is really just gorgeous so it should be a really nice drive.

My Nick Cave tickets are actually now in my handbag. So there is a really excellent chance the tickets will make it to NYC with me!

All righty, gang! I’m outta here. Gonna meditate. Have a little coffee. Load up the car and then scoot. Thanks for visiting!! I love you guys. See ya!

(oh, and I’m posting from my phone now so the photos are probably enormous…)

Most comfy room in the house, it turns out!!

I Wish I Could Just Hire Somebody to Be Me! Indefinitely!

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Life does indeed go on, doesn’t it, gang?

I have to leave here in a couple hours to go get my mom. She lives on my sister’s farm a couple of hours from here. Both of my sisters actually live on the farm, in different houses, and now my mom is retired and lives there, too. (She was a waitress and a cook.)

I haven’t been out to the farm in probably 25 years. My one sister actually grew up on that farm, then inherited it, then invited my other sister to come live out there with her.

That one sister who now owns the farm is not the sister that I get along with, hence, I never go out to that farm. That sister is 2 years younger than me, but she acts like she’s about 20 years older than I am. Not that she’s bossy or anything, but apparently she also thinks that I am still 12 years old and it frustrates the heck out of her and so she has little patience with me whenever I’m in the same room with her.

My other sister and I are extremely close. She’s 8 years younger than me and also treats me like I’m 12 years old, but in a really, really nice way. For instance, she just this second texted me, saying, I left you gas money on the kitchen table. Drive safe. I just love that!! Because, honestly, I am only just barely able to take care of myself. It’s a wonder that anyone allowed me to have such a grown up thing as a house… let alone this intensely grown-up car.

I was talking on the phone with Valerie out in Brooklyn yesterday, because I had gotten extremely depressed. And I was lamenting having to do all this driving by myself, and even though I’ve made this drive to NY from here I don’t know how many times, I am now suddenly feeling overwhelmed by all the driving ahead of me. Especially the 2 hour drive from here up to northern Ohio, where I then cross over into Pennsylvania — those 2 hours have a lot of confusing highway changes, and now that I have no CD player in my car, I have to listen to all my music on my phone.

She reminded me that I have a grown-up car now and that it has a really good navigation system. I totally forgot!!  (This is one of the many reasons why I need a keeper, 24/7.) So now, I have the navigation system; that cruise control thing that slows down & speeds up depending on the car in front of me; it brakes by itself; it stays in the lane; and it drives by itself for 10 seconds — so, basically, I can just hang out in the backseat, chew gum and play records! Yay!

I wish.

Yesterday evening, I ran into this elderly man (I’ve posted about him on the blog before – his wife recently died from Alzheimer’s and I had told him he could move in with me if he wanted to, and even though I could tell by his expression that he really, really wanted to, he refused to reply. ) Anyway. I saw him yesterday.  He said, “You always look so happy!” (Which is just bizarre, since I’m always in the throes of some sort of suicidal swoon, but that’s not the point…) For some reason, I told him I was going to NYC and I told him about the progress with the 2 plays with Sandra.

I usually do not talk about my private life — ever. I just don’t talk about it or myself. I smile. I’m friendly, but I am usually an absolute closed steel door. Thanks to google, as soon as neighbors find out I’m a writer, they google me, and it is usually not too long before people start asking me to come over and have sex with them, their girlfriends, with everybody.  (I’m not kidding. I’m actually serious.) Flattering as it may well be, I always politely decline. And then move farther away…

Anyway, for some reason, I told this man about the plays, and of course he didn’t know I was a writer. And it turns out he’s from NYC, too, and moved away shortly after 9/11. Too weird, right? Another New Yorker. (My friend Kara, whom I’ve gotten so close with over the last several months, was also born and raised in NY and I didn’t know this until well after we initially met.)

I guess we have these inner homing devices, or something.  Psychically picking up on this signal from “home.”

I am really digressing here, sorry. My point is that this man wants to introduce me to a female friend of his who also writes. And then he said that she now writes full time and added, “well, of course, she has a husband who takes care of her.” And then he back-pedaled and added, “not that that’s a bad thing.”

Just a really interesting piece of dialogue there, you know? Mostly, he was flattering me, implying that I do what I want and take care of myself, without relying on a man.  I think I said something like, “oh, I see.”

But I was thinking how this idea that I “take care of myself” is just so loosely defined. It’s just funny, people thinking that I do what I want and I take care of myself, as if I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world, assuming I could actually get along indefinitely with some guy I was in love with???  And then I immediately thought about the endless drive ahead of me, and then the drive back. And always traveling everywhere alone. Always working, always writing. Always, always. Alone. It just got a little depressing.

And I got nothing done on In the Shadow of Narcissa because nothing productive would come to me yesterday. But I might actually write while I’m away. Like, on paper — the old-fashioned way. I will be posting to the blog, though, but from my phone, so it won’t be my usual stuff, but I’m still gonna post!

Okay. I gotta scoot. Gotta leave here in a bit and go make the trek out to the farm to get my mom… Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world and whatever you’re doing!! Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys! See ya!

(A great favorite from my wee bonny girlhood!! Who knew that the only man I would wind up getting along with indefinitely would be Jesus??!!) (See ya!!!) 🙂

È meravigliosa!

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Yes!!! It’s wonderful!!!

I finally made it to the end of the most important segment of the play last night. And I could not be more delighted — even though it’s a death scene, it goes to a tragic place. But it is relived within a dream, so it doesn’t have the same kind of sadness to it that it would have had in “real-time.”

And there is a sense of jubilation woven all around the tragedy, creating absolute (controlled) chaos. Helen is in agonizing despair, crying out Psalm 22, while the choir is in this jubilant refrain of Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?, as Helen’s grandson, who has waited all his life to get a job on the railroad, finally gets that job up in Louisville, and then gets crushed by a train — but he goes gloriously to the sweet hereafter in all that joyous singing, while Helen’s heart breaks into a million pieces.

And all of it takes place within Helen’s dream where she is inside one of her paintings and the ghosts of her family come “alive” again.

I have been struggling with that whole section — 16 pages — for a couple of weeks now. It felt so amazing to finally finish it last night.

As usual, the Muse was working overtime and I could not have felt more appreciative.

Well, I did indeed make the 100 mile trek to get the less-than-10 minute interview for the TSA Precheck yesterday. And yes, I did manage to get a wee bit lost and my iPhone maps decided to stop speaking to me, only wanting to show me images while I was trying to drive, lost, on a strange  freeway. Through some miracle of divine guidance, I finally found the darn place and made it right on time for my interview. But, man, what a lot of driving, a lot of gasoline, and then the “check oil” light came on halfway home… all that for a 10-minute interview.

So I called my sales rep at Honda when I got home, and I will leave it to him to let me know if I should come in and trade in the car for a new lease right now. I am so close to being at my maximum allowed mileage on the current lease, and now I need an oil change…

Plus, yesterday, I was trying to book my flight to NY — I want to fly into Stewart International because I’ll primarily be staying in Rhinebeck with Sandra, and as you can guess, there are no flights that come anywhere close to being a direct flight between here and a small airport like that one.

I have a variety of layover choices in Philadelphia, that range from 2 hours to about 8 hours. I’m not exaggerating.  I could make about 7 commuter train trips between Philadelphia and NYC in that 8-hour layover. A direct flight between here and Stewart International would be 1 hour.  But since there is no such thing as a direct flight between here and there, the minimum travel time is 6 hours, including me having to leave by 4:15am to make the one-hour drive to the airport to catch the first flight out at 6am.

And all of that would cost me 25,000 frequent flyer miles!!!!! (Round trip). I’m, like, you’re kidding, right? I can go to fucking Alaska for that. So now, if I do lease a new car right away, I think I’m gonna go ahead and drive again. It’s a 10-hour drive. And I can leave at whatever time in the morning I want to. But I can’t do it if I don’t have the new car yet, because I’m too close to going over my max miles.

So we’ll see what the rep says when he calls me back today.

Meanwhile, I am at last nearing the end of the play.  I have one final section to revise. Between 15-20 more pages, tops. And I don’t have the luxury of it taking me an additional 2 weeks, so I’m hoping to have the rewrites finished here momentarily!! (Or, you know, maybe a week. That still gets the play to NYC a week before I get there.)

A quick update re: the sudden hashtag keanu situation in my Instagram feed — I’m actually finding it kind of soothing. Having my Instagram feed positively inundated with harmless photos of Keanu, night & day. It helps neutralize the somewhat emotional knee-jerk responses that I have to a lot of the other things/people I’m following. So I think I’m gonna keep it. A sort of social-media therapy: hashtag keanu; a new route to bliss.

You know, for many years, I was very good friends with a journalist who wrote primarily for Rolling Stone, the New York Times, etc. — big media outlets. And he interviewed a ton of movie stars in his career (he’s now a talking-head on a sports show). And the only movie star that he had nice things to say about was Keanu. He genuinely liked him.

I met Keanu at a party once in NYC, a million years ago, and I won’t say I actually liked him. He did something that insulted me — he looked down the front of my little black dress. I know it was very funny when they did that to the stepmom in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but I had spent a fortune on that little black cocktail dress I was wearing, and I was in the process of being stood-up by my date because he was stuck in a midtown recording studio and was not going to make it to the party.

And it wasn’t just Keanu who was coming onto me that night while I wore that dress; a number of men were. And some were very nice & polite about it. But when the one guy you’ve gone to all that trouble for, doesn’t show up, then it doesn’t matter if you end up being the tallest, prettiest gal in the room; you just don’t give a fuck, you know?

I’m sure that on any other evening, any other night, any other year, Keanu is indeed very likable.

All righty!! I’m gonna get started here. I leave you with the song I was listening to this morning — another little love letter to the Muse!! I used to just love this song when I was 7 years old. Really, gang. I played this record all the time and sang along to it, too! I woke up at 4am today, thinking about this song for the first time in decades. And so of course I found it on Youtube.  I sang along to it as the cats ate their breakfasts and they seemed to enjoy it. Purrrhaps you will, too! Thanks for visiting, gang! I love you guys. See ya!

“Call Me”

If you’re feeling sad and lonely
There’s a service I can render
Tell the one who loves you only
I can be so warm and tender
Call me
Don’t be afraid, you can call me
Maybe it’s late, but just call me
Tell me, and I’ll be around

When it seems your friends desert you
There’s somebody thinking of you
I’m the one who’ll never hurt you
Maybe that’s because I love you

Call me
Don’t be afraid, you can call me
Maybe it’s late, but just call me
Tell me, and I’ll be around

Now don’t forget me
‘Cause if you let me
I will always stay by you
You’ve got to trust me
That’s how it must be
There’s so much that I can do

If you call I’ll be right with you
You and I should be together
Take this love I long to give you
I’ll be at your side forever

Call me
Please, call me
Call me
Tell me, and I’ll be around

Call me
Don’t be afraid, you can call me
Maybe it’s late, but just call me

c – 1965 Tony Hatch