Thursday, May 22, 2008

Get Out Of My Dreams (And Into My Car)

Yesterday I got hit by a car while trying to enter an occupied taxi.

Yes, you read that correctly. Please, please, stop worrying about me. I'm fine. Really, I'll be alright. But let me tell you the story...

'Twas a dark and stormy night, and I had left work late on my way to a rehearsal. So I'm already angry because yet again, working has gotten in the way of living. Awesome. Additionally, no one informed that it was dark and stormy outside, nor that there was a chance it was going to be dark and stormy. So I walk out into the dark and stormy umbrella(ella, ella)less. (I'm done using the phrase "dark and stormy", so you can wake up again.)

I am so late for my rehearsal that I need to catch a cab, which also means that I need to take money out of my empty bank account. And that realization, mixed with the rain, began my descent into rage-induced madness. I make it to the bank, already looking like a drowned grease trap, complete my transaction, turn toward the street and see a cab in front of the bank with it's light on. (Those of you unfamiliar with NYC cabs, if the light is lit on the top of the cab it means it is unoccupied. Those of you unfamiliar with NYC cabs at rush hour in the rain, seeing a cab with its light on at 6 PM on a weekday in a rain storm would be like finding a full box of Wheat Thins in my apartment. Good luck.) So I make a mad dash in the driving rain, head down, toward the cab to catch it before the light changes and it drives off into the dark and stormy (I lied), never to be heard from again.

I make it to the cab, open the door, and begin to enter. It is at this point that I look up, finally, at what I'm entering. I raise my head to find a woman in the back seat staring back at me incredulously, a gaze which I am intently returning. Then my sense of sound begins to kick in and I realize that the cab driver is yelling at me in what sounds suspiciously like gibberish (and no that's not racist, that's just what words sound like to me when I'm confused, aka most of my days). I apologize confusedly, still standing in the rain holding on to an open cab door waiting at a green light, and finally slam the door shut. I am so dumbfounded at this point that I have no idea what had just happened, and still concerned about whether or not I will make it to my rehearsal on time.

Thankfully I was quickly brought back to the reality that I was standing in the middle of a Manhattan street in the rain during rush hour when a van slams into the side of my body.

And by slams in to the side of my body, I actually mean its retractable mirror grazes the side of my arm. So same-same.

The mirror slams back against the side of the van, while I spin around on my heels, still thoroughly confused about how someone got into my cab before I did and why I'm spinning in the middle of the street. The van screeches to a halt as I pause my pirouettes long enough to stumble to the sidewalk. The passenger in the van rolls down his window and, with much concern and urgency in her voice, asks if I am alright. My response was also quite proper. For a Neanderthal raised in orphanage in a Ukrainian fishing village: "Yes! Fine! Damn it, I'm trying to get a cab! Leave me alone!" Pleasant.

So there I stood on the corner of 40th Street and Park Avenue, soaking wet, thoroughly confused, slightly battered, in a rage blackout, and still sans cab. Finally a cab pulls up, I leap into my chariot, and am shuttled off to rehearsal, only to find that I am still 15 minutes early because everyone else decided to postpone rehearsal by 30 minutes without telling me. Show business, huh?

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Coming out of the dark

Dear friends,

Many of you have wondered where I've been. Sorry I've been so bad at keeping in touch! Time flies when you're...

Ok. I have no excuse. Well I have one. A while back I watched this video and it blew my mind, and I've been recovering ever since.



More to come soon. I'm almost over it.

TTYL. LYLAS.

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