The Uninvited Dermatologist: A Gremlin Grows in Manhattan

I'd like to take a moment and share an experience today - not even an hour old at this writing - that needs to go down in my annals of the "What the FUCK?" category - as opposed to the "WTF?" category, simply because spelling out the expletive indicates how sincerely fucked up this was.

I'm walking back from my lunch break, which was spent picking up my paycheck from the recent gig I did for the New York Film Academy. I stop to get a soup, which I intend to enjoy while I work when I get back, because I didn't have time to eat. I'm in a relatively good mood, despite the fact that I have a lot of things on my mind, which is probably why the following occurred without my being able to respond appropriately:

I'm at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, and this short woman is standing next to me. She looks at me and smiles.

"You know, you should really use sunscreen when the day is so hot like today. Your face is bright, bright red. It looks awful, " she says, sweetly, as if she was asking for the time.

Shocked, I find myself saying, "Yeah, it's pretty hot. I put sunscreen on today, but it's wearing off."
WHAT??? Did I just say that? Instead of telling her she needs to consider stilts because from the altitude she's at, anything would look distorted - that's how it is in Munchkinland.

She continues.
"Yeah, well, on days like today sunscreen is important. My mother gets like that. She has coloring like mine, (here she indicated her tanned arms) but her face gets really red like yours.
"Spotchy little patches, too. Like yours."

She says this as if she's discussing the weather, the high heels she's sporting still only bringing her to eye level with my nostrils. She must have noticed them flare in fury, because without another word she crossed the street before the light changed.

Unfortunately, the oncoming traffic missed her and she was not struck down.

I stood there, wondering if what just happened really did happen. I looked around for Rod Serling, but he was not anywhere to be found. Are people really that rude? And I was I that much of a schmuck that I didn't respond with anything other than actually agreeing with her that I looked like a fucking splotchy tomato?

Anyone who knows me knows that this is a sensitive topic for me. I have rosacea, and I've been battling a tomato face since I was a wee spud. Some days it's a total horror show and I have to cake on makeup like a tired drag queen or else look like the red Kool-Aid Pitcher Guy. Since I often either don't have time for makeup or I'm just too lazy, Kool Aid Queen it is.

I'm convinced that the woman was a gremlin, like the one in the 1943 Bugs Bunny animated cartoon Falling Hare that was wrecking havoc on the fighter planes; she was short, unattractive, painfully annoying - and knew how to get under my skin and disappear in a matter of seconds.

Harry Potter #8 - And Rowling Said It Would Never Happen

It hit the news today that Daniel Radcliffe, who, at his current age, plays Harry Potter the Elder, will be appearing nude on the London stage (excuse me while I slice my eyeballs open with a rusty blade...) Not that I believe in censorship, but do we really need to see his....? I mean, its only a play for god's sake. He's not posing for Michelangelo. Then again, maybe he's preparing us for "Harry Potter and the Real Secret of the Family Jewels'. Coming to a theater near you this fall.....

Remuda (A.K.A. Marketing Hell)

See This? This is Remuda. This is my cross to bear.

We've sent out emails, put out advertisments, wrangled sponsorships, pasted the damn postcards all over manhattan, yet we still have two more nights with no ticket sales. If a play is performed without an audience, does it make a sound?

Simply put, people don't want to see plays, unless they are overproduced, visually spectacular pieces of eye-candy. That is not Remuda. Remuda is just three actors putting a spin on the old girl/boy story, the old brothers story, the old story of the old west. It's funny, its sad, its intimate. I can't sell that, I don't know how to sell that. No one wants to pay $18 for intimacy.

Frustrated with the game, with the free listings editors that won't return my emails, with the potential sponsors that won't return my calls, with my friends and family who have already seen every damn thing I've done and don't owe many any favors. I've burned my bridges.

My nightmare is sitting alone in the theatre every night. My show, my show that I paid for, that I bullied into existence. It was never meant to be MY show. I'm serious.

Ha, I guess the moral of the story is....GO

www.remuda.homestead.com

Goin' Down to C-Town

Climbing out of the subway this afternoon, my nostrils were instantly filled with the fishy odor that can only mean one of two things: Chinatown or Coochietown. Today we would explore both. The day did not start off well. Murphy's Law seemed to be in full effect and we endured a plethora of small disappointments, including the 1pm phone call from the place where I was to have my Hysterosalpingogram (HSG) at 2pm. Evidently their machine broke down and they didn't know if they'd have it fixed before tomorrow. This would mean having to reschedule my appointment after my next period, leaving me with another month to worry about the damn thing. Fortunately, fate shined upon us, and I received a phone call around 3pm saying that they'd fixed the problem and I could come right in.

So we made the venture into Manhattan and climbed the stairs into fish-dom. Negotiating the hordes of pedestrians in Chinatown is no simple feat. Aside from the sheer quantity of humans and sidewalk markets, there is the Chinese equivalent of the Midwestern Cadillac Weave. The Cadillac Weave occurs when a small, older person is hunched behind the wheel of a very large car and driving very slowly, often weaving in and out of their lane, generally with the perpetual blinker on, not to negotiate any sort of lane change, but merely because they turned it on three miles ago and can't hear that the damn thing is still blinking away. In Chinatown, this phenomenon occurs in the guise of a small elderly woman in comfortable pants, flip-flops and a blouse resembling those worn by dental hygienists. These women move slower than the rest of the sidewalk traffic and are also prone to sudden stops to eye some knick-knack or exotic vegetable of a local shopkeep. Negotiating around them makes for a surreal sort of real-life video game.

So we make it to the front door of the imaging facility that will do the dirty work. But the place is certainly not dirty. It is spotless. Meticulously kept. And bustling with clientel there for all manner of x-ray type imaging procedures. 99% of the patients and 100% of the staff are Chinese. It is what I imagine life in China to be like. Incredibly crowded, but very efficiently managed. It is a veritable assembly line of human production and quite impressive. I imagine myself to be the equivalent of a cheap ceramic bowl or other such Walmart stocked item stamped "Made in China." After all of the paperwork and such is complete, I am escorted to small changing room to remove all clothing from my bottom half and don a blue, hermetically sealed hospital gown. Then the nurse leads me into the room for the procedure, explaining everything along the way, in very quick, choppy English. Every sentence ends with "okay?" To which one can only answer: "okay."

"You put legs up like this when I tell you, okay? Then move down to here, okay? I go get doctor, okay?"

"Okay."

The doctor is a calming influence as soon as he walks in the room. He asks a few questions and explains the procedure. His manner is gentle, and very reassuring. He has obviously done this many times before. I am lying on a long table with a large x-ray plate above my abdomen. He has me scooch my booty down to the end of the table and assume The Position. Oh, that lovely position every woman knows well. Legs akimbo, speculum spreading your loins far and wide, snatch fully exposed, a position that feels especially vulnerable in such a clinical setting. Delightful.

The doc is explaining everything as he's going along, that he will insert a catheter through the cervical opening and I may feel some cramping. Indeed, there is cramping and it is uncomfortable, but not too bad apart from the occasional twing as he keeps attempting to enter my most private place. "I'll have to try a different tube. Your opening is somewhat irregular." Hooray for me! I'm different. After several more attempts he finally snakes the damn thing through telling me, "The chances of failure were slim. I've done this for over 20 years and have only failed once. You weren't going to be my second failure." I make a quip about always knowing I was unique and both he and the nurse laugh. Always the comedian when in compromising postions.

The rest of the test goes according to plan. They shoot me full of dye and take x-rays of my abdomen, while I move from side to side, giving him different angles to shoot. Playboy eat your heart out. Check out those fallopian tubes and ooh, that sexy little uterus. Alll-right. Hot mamacita, bring it on!

There is good news and bad news. Good news is that my tubes are "wide open", so nothing going on there to impede the circle of life. However, he suspects I may have some fibroids and recommends an ultrasound. Something I believe my feritily specialist already has in the works. Yeehaw. More pictures of my girlie parts. Get Hef on the phone, I want to make sure my reservations at the Mansion are in the works.

We celebrated with a sojourn to one of my husband's favorite Chinese restaurants, an authentic sort of place, with several small-mammal carcasses hanging in the window. Good cheap eats. A feast for two that cost less than 10 bucks. Then to the "best ice cream in Chinatown" for a comfort food dessert. Bellies full. Anxieties passed. Time for a trip back to Brooklyn for more pre-move apartment painting. Another day in life's grand journey topped off with a glorious welcome home as we rolled into our Queens (soon to be former) apartment around 10pm and opened the mailbox to find... a notice for jury duty.

Will the adventure never cease?!

Toe-Day

This morning, I overslept. This, after a dream a novelist was sucking my toes. It is hard to get out of bed, after such a thing attacks your unconscious.

My toe has figured heavily in my dreams. Four months ago, during a quite intense session of Capoeira, a well-proportioned man of Brazilian descent stepped on the end of my big toenail with such ire and speed that it popped off out of excitment.

My toe has been bandaged since March. The nail has almost completely grown back, but only now has it begun to manifests itself as a symbol of anxiety in my dreams, replacing falling teeth and violent blackbirds.

Two nights ago, the bandage was picked off with tweezers by a masked doctor. Important men in important suits stood round, all white hair and balding, hands clasped behind their back importantly...as if cuffed.

Gasps and murmurs.

Where my toenail should be, floated the galaxy, the milky way and all its parts; fireworks frozen and rolling cloud-like. At first, I thought 2001 Space Odyssey was being played on a tiny cuticle television and I asked for the remote.

Toenails are oddly absent from creation myths. They seem to to have little archetypal value, unlike teeth or hair. Some dream interpretation websites seem to think they signify protection. This could be true. I feel unsafe, I never feel safe. An actor would say I feel safe up here, and point to his/her head, but not down here, and point to his/her belly. When I am with a man, as I am now, I feel like a victim.

Perhaps sticking the universe in my shield helps me feel controlled, destined, and fuelled by a guiding hand.

Not that I believe any of that mess, but what else am I going to do with all this living time except speculate.