OOPS!

I fall at the office.

PLAY HOUSE

At my day job on 29th and Madison, they ordain one person, one of us, (one of us part timers) to over-see our part-time operations. The over-seer decides specific break times, dress codes, comments on one's handwriting, quotas, allocations, allotments, allowances apportionments and assignments.

I bristle but nod in agreement.

All of these rules are play acting. We're playing house. Or office.
I'll play the boss and you play the worker.

I enjoy tedious work.
In fact, I escape in work. Boring work is good therapy for my troubled mind.
But do you want me to do your mindless work or concentrate on your pointless protocol?

Today, I bring my lunch to work so that I won’t have to hunt and gather during my new professional designated break time. But I get an e-mail from my bank. A check has not cleared. A check has been returned!

I walk to the bank on my professional designted dinner break.

As I walk to the bank, it must appear like I have all the time in the world! I'm so unrushed!
I'm walking so slowly that when I pass a co-worker on the street, I put my phone to my ear (so it appears that I’m talking to someone) to cover my loping dopey walk.

My walk to and from the bank would normally clock in at twenty minutes. Today it takes my entire professional designated break time.

When I get back to work I sit in the office kitchen and eat my dinner and read the New York Post.

I read; A.I.G will have to return their bonuses because the IRS will tax them at 100%..

But am interrupted by,

"Wow! All the four food groups" young handsome dark-skinned Iranian Jason comments.

(We don't talk normally but commenting on other people's food is easy entrée)

And then, my new supervisor enters the kitchen.

I stiffen.

I don’t know what he’s about.
Why HAS he taken this role on?

There is something dark here.

He is from Scotland and stifles his accent. He wears black shirts with floral ties. He is young and bald and his eyes have the steeliness of Sir Ben Kingsley when he plays one of his more demonic characters.

"Ah! Mr. Roberts, I see you eating your dinner, now, don't I?

"Yes, this IS my dinner. I'm just finishing up."

"But the time Mr. Roberts, the time."

"I know it's past six but I'll be done in just a bit"

"Ah Mr. Roberts, we all take our breaks at the same time, that's the way we do things now."

(He's being tongue in cheek, but the badgering, it never stops. It's tiresome.

"I know, I know" I say, " but you see, I had to walk to my bank during my breaktime and I walk at like... 2 miles an hour"

(this IS what I said but it occurs to me NOW that walking 2 miles an hour is actually okay)

"I'm having leg problems, leg issues, and it takes me a long time to walk ANY where, so I used up my entire break walking, This is why I'm late for work some times, because I have to see doctors or go to the hospital for some tests for something to do with my legs. So I can't get done what I need to get done on that new break, not with the way I walk, I just cant' do it."

I'm a defensive teenager and I’ve stood up and began to wrap up the remains of my healthy, dismal dinner which included carrot sticks, baby potatoes, (week old) beans n' rice, half an avocado, and rice crackers.

My supervisor wasn'r ready for this unleashing. He is concerned.

"No, It's okay, it's okay,"

And disposing of any emotion I say, "I'm not trying to make you feel guilty or pull a little surprise gotcha! on you. I'm just telling you the plain fact that I can't get to my my bank and eat my dinner on one fifity minute break because I don't walk fast enough."

"Sit down Mr. Roberts, sit down, I think can make an allowance for you, I think I can let this go. I didn’t know."

"It's okay, I'm done here any way." (I'm playing it very flat here.)

"No, I think what we should do, ( my supervisor says) I think what we should do is that YOU should sit down and finish your dinner and come back to work when you need to. You don't need me all over you right now"

(That was a nice thing to say (I guess) and okay I’ll sit down. Even though I am done. Really.

(I’ll play house... or office)

So, I sit down at the white plastic table, with the matching white chairs stacked in twos and threes, (the kitchen doesn’t get much love) and I think, I don’t want to have conversations about my terrible undiagnosed disease, but I'm afraid and frustrated by what I can't do anymore. This is what I am unleashing (I think). I'm not so angry with my supervisor, I'm angry at the small and developing realization of my (brand-new) IN - abilities.

I haven’t looked at this, can't look at this.

My angy realizations come out in child-sized bites.

COOL KIDS

This morning before work, I bike to West 21st Street for a voice-over audition.
It's for Lowes Hardware.

I'm not really sure if I should go. My ability it articulate words is different each day.
But I was requested by the producers.
Maybe it will be easy, a goofy son buying flowers for his Mother.

Going to these audition studios around the city is always the same.
There are multiple auditions going on.
In the voice over world (if you've been around a while) you know every person in the room even if you don't know their name.

And, you know that your agent has been neglecting you, when one or two actors give you a warm hello! with a look in their eye that says, you must have been out of town on a job? you've been in LA, right?

This happens to me today. Normally I would be buggy about this but these days, I feel like I'm eves dropping in a world that I may not be a part of (soon).

Today, there are auditions for Lowes, for American Express, for AT&T and others.

The audition areas often feel like a cocktail party without alcohol. (Or for theatre graduates?- when you're in rehearsal for a show in school, and during break you come out to have a smoke in the lobby with the other shows that are in rehearsal, the other show folks) -you know?

Everyone feels chummy. It's a sliver of a rare community in New York.
It feels good to be apart of these little parties.

No-one know when they will be, or who will show up.

If there are fifty people in the room, I've done a spot with twenty-five of them.
(I've been in auditioning for commercials in New York since 1975)

I'm not so great at these parties.

I'm a problem reader so I have to spend time staying focused on the copy.
If I work on the copy and then start talking to someone, and my name is called, all my preparation is lost.

But I'm an old timer, an old timer with a worried youngish face.
I'm good once you get me oiled up.

Actors are grinning and guffawing and talking about our unions and recent movies and TV.
These show folk don't talk theatre as much.

They all, have always seemed... so much more successful than me.

When I am there, in the waiting room, this fever comes over me, this need to succeed, to win this job, to win MANY jobs. It's like a gambling addiction or walking into a party and having a beer and knowing immediately that you want six more.

When I'm away from it, I don't care about it. But when I'm there, I want to be in, I want to be with the cool kids.

And I am! for a tiny part of this Voice Over world.

I see Steve B. from college days. We did an episode of "Spencer for Hire" together. Steve was a good looking kid who has aged like he had a bad blood disease. I mean... for years I thought it was alcoholism, but now I don't know why he looks so tired.

Then there is Thom S. who carries himself the same ways he did in college, like he's an S.A.E and doesn't really have to lift a finger to do anything. Just grin and keep it easy. Everything is easy.

There is Tim P. married and full of humor and a little unsure and can't ever remember my name (fine by me) so he calls me the character name I had in a spot we did together years ago. This joke is dull and I get a bored look when I run into Tim.

There is Amanda who I have partnered with for many spots but is the kind of girl that wouldn't be seen with me in High School.

These are the cool kids.

after diagnosis

Sister,

Thank you  or being there for me for a great day,
A  day which illustrates that everything is relative.
Who knew that one day I would be thrilled to have JUST an undiagnosed disease.

To celebrate, I ate 3 pieces of pizza  (and noticed my heart beating in my ears at work later.
So, pizza IS going to make me feel like shit.  And so it goes.)

Thank you for taking this on. I feel uncomfortable and resistant (to you or anyone else doing that)... that's my nature.

I felt elated at work. I know it's temporary. No one said I was fine. Still, it felt good.
I gave Ashley 9my annoying supervisor)  some M & M's,

And thank you again for the cat food and litter. That is a big relief. It's so hard for me to keep stocked. The cat knows when I'm running low and starts to madly run around in circles.
When the apartment is clean and everything is well stocked, the cat calmly presides.


- Charley


Charley,

I am very happy to be there for you.  For me, it is what must be, because my life is nothing if I cannot be there for the ones I truly love.
And for me, you are one of those.

Your friend Penny doesn't sound nuts.  Are you sure she didn't say EEG on her skull?  Maybe that's what she meant.  That is probably what she had done.

I also felt an enormous relief last night.  And today, it was really hard to go to work as I just wanted to hang out, as if it were a break after writing a big paper.

It is definitely true that you cannot live your life by the numbers (statistics).

It is also true that our bodies will provide information to us about what we need to attend to, what we haven't been able see or feel that we cannot look at in our lives, or just what IS in our lives.

An interesting book on this is "The Alchemy of Illness" by Kat Duff.  A very interesting book.

Tibetan Buddhists believe in kharma, and that when you go through trying and hard times, you are working off bad kharma, and this is reason to feel grateful and rejoice.

So, anyway.  I'm really happy about how yesterday went.

When is your next appt with Dr. Mitsumoto?  Do you want me to come in for it?

Talk to you later,

Sister