Wow. Lots of really, really bad news this morning. Stomach-churningly bad.

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Occasionally, I'll write down random bits and pieces that pop up into my head. Three words or a sentence here and there. I figure they might come in handy. It might be a paragraph. It might be a poem. It might be nothing much at all, but I find that getting it down helps me to stop thinking about it.

For instance, a few months ago I just had this couplet running through my head nonstop:

"What's happened once, will happen again
Forever and ever and ever amen."

So I wrote it down, and I could then sort of let it go for a few minutes, since it had been driving me up the wall. Anyway, preamble over, here's some stuff I've taken down recently:

Poem:
A $28 bottle of wine is just the thing
Sitting at an outdoor cafe in the
Heart of Tribeca, waiting for the
Fringe Show to start while
My roommate talks on the
Phone to his girlfriend (in Scotland)
Well, my former roommate, I suppose

****

Line that fits into something larger that I can't quite grasp yet:
It is a scream, a primal thing, an atavistic exhalation of such force and terror that it transcends sound and becomes something greater.

****

Couplet:
On a scale of one to ten
I'll withhold judgment yet again

****

Really short story:

He runs into her on the street and isn't it great to see you and they hug to say hello. It's been a long time hasn't it and are you working on anything and how's the apartment are you still in the same place? Well it's nice to see you, maybe we should get a cup of coffee sometime, but I have to go right now I'm on my way to something. Do you still have my number I think I still have yours. By the first step apart, the first date is imagined, a mocha or a hot chocolate at a corner bistro in the Village. Two steps brings the first kiss in the rain, maybe in the center of Washington Square Park, and they are of course both laughing. Half a block and even he, hardly a romantic, is standing in the one bedroom apartment, single kiss home from work, the dinner party, the joy at just being together. A porch swing and a house in the country and the whole scope of a joyful life spent together. So he looks back to see if maybe she's just seen the same thing but she already turned the corner and, well, who am I kidding I probably won't call her anyway.

I recently received the offer to become the Assistant Director of The Seven at New York Theatre Workshop. The rehearsals begin in mid-December, and the show opens on February 8th, 2006.

This is very happy news.

I was very keen to continue working on this show; I had appeared in two workshops as a performer, and find the material fascinating, humorous, and just all-around fantastic. My only regret about acting in the show was that I always wanted to jump to the other side of the table, where the director and the writer were hashing out the story, staging, cuts, etc. I find that part of the job much more fun than acting, even though I do find that acting is amusing every once in a while. You know, for a bit of a laugh. But what I really wanted to do was... well... assistant direct it.

It's also the first time in *ever* that I won't be going back to the ancestral home for Christmas. This is a bit weird. As it has become something more of a family tradition and WAY LESS of a religious ceremony, I don't mind the date of Christmas being relatively flexible. We can celebrate Christmas on December 29th or on March 18th for all I care. I'm hoping that my family feels the same way. Or, that my family is able to make it out for a New York City Christmas.

Which, if it happens, would be most excellent. I even promised to... go... to... the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree (gulp). O, Brave Soul am I!