The Son also Juices

Yesterday, I finished reading Hemingway's The Sun also Rises. I identified the most with Jake, but I'm committed to starting the Bill Gorton society within the next year.

Today, I started reading Game of Shadows, the new, definitive account of the events leading up to and surrounding the BALCO scandal. It provides an intimate history of all of the major players in BALCO's rise to become pro sports' leading distributor of performance-enhancing drugs, and of course it details Barry Bonds' involvement in the whole stinking mess. It's not possible to read this book and not feel at least a bit ambivalent about being an American: all of these characters used the same system that made this country great, all while engaging in some of the most egregious breaches of ethics in its history just because they wanted to be rich and famous. Why, oh why, though, did they have to mess with baseball?

Ah, I don't want to get into it. I've already written a long post about that crap.

I took my first practice LSAT on Saturday. In my whole life, I've never scored anywhere outside of the top 5% of scores on every standardized test I've taken. Of course, I walked into the Kaplan test prep center expecting I'd score somewhere around 165 or so, setting me up to raise my score into the 175+ range with the aid of a disciplined test prep course. I scored a 156. 60th percentile. The goddamned thing absolutely kicked the living shit out of me.

Background: I graduated from Cornell with a 2.7 GPA. I need that 175+ on the LSAT if I'm going to have a chance of getting into even a second-tier school.

So I'm pissed off right now, pissed of at myself for being so presumptious, yes, but really, I'm pissed off at the test. Fuck this test - I'm going to kick the ever living shit out of it. I'm mad at this test. It has insulted me.

As a matter of fact, what the fuck am I doing writing this post? I'm going to go study.

Laundry, Public Fax Machines, the Vagina Monologues

Another day off... what WAS I to do with myself? Well, I postponed answering that question for as long as possible, sleeping in until half past noon. I had two things to get done today: faxing a long-overdue health insurance application in to my kindly exasperated insurance agent, and getting my room cleaned up so I can have a cable box installed in here tomorrow. The cable box won't actually be installed tomorrow, since my roommate, who's been pushing me to get cable in my room - it keeps her up at night when I watch TV in the living room - made the appointment without asking me if I'd be home. So the cable guy is getting here between 2 and 5, while I'll be at work until at least 4; at best, there's a 33% chance I'll get the cable box tomorrow. In any case, I wanted to set up a shelf under my TV set so the guy would have some place to put the thing. Didn't get that done, but I did manage to do my laundry, after a lot of procrastinating. I'm worried about what's going to happen when I have cable in here - I watch too much TV as it is.

But, this is my life, and I'm the one who decides how much TV to watch. I must keep that in mind.

In other news, I went to the gym for the fourth day in a row today, which is my longest streak in months. Unfortunately, David Spade's abominably crappy show was on and I had to cut my cardio short. I mean, I HAD to - that show is a piece of shit. I would have changed it, but some skinny little bastard seemed to be enjoying the segment where Spade went out in the street in blackface and pretended to re-enact scenes from a Chris Rock standup special.

I went back to my apartment and made dinner, then went to the laundry room by way of a smoke break outside. I met a girl out there. She was a real crazy: a pudgy, pretty faced A.U. student. The girl was in the process of "gently" turning down the son of an Arab diplomat. It was a scene to which I've been both witness and participant at different times, the guy facing the girl, draping his forearms about her shoulders, almost ready to go in for the kiss when he recieves the bad news: he's wandered into the friend zone. He trod away and drove off in his $75,000 sports car with diplomatic plates, and I silently roared with laughter: no one should ever feel sorry for rich kids who can't get laid.

She lit up a cigarette as he drove off, and I said, "Hi." In the ensuing small talk, it came out that I was an actor and that she, while not an actor, had just been in a production of The Vagina Monologues, a piece that I've never actually seen, though of course I've read parts of it and seen it lampooned a dozen times in various venues and media.

I tell her this, and she asks, "Do you have five minutes?"

Sheeeeit, I think. This lunatic's doing The Vagina Monologues at 11:20 on a 40-degree night? It was a funny monologue, though - the one about the varieties of orgasmic moans, the many methods of producing them and the pleasure the speaker has found in doing so, if anyone out there knows the show. She had the classic lunatic's charm to her, which made up for her amateurish acting for the most part, and I ended up enjoying the moment quite thoroughly - what's not to like about standing outside your apartment building at 11:20 while a woman you've never met before moans through a thousand different examples of orgasm for you?

By the way, she had launched into her monologue before either of us knew the other's name.

It was time to go inside, and we bade each other goodnight. I didn't end up hitting on her, and in retrospect, I'm glad. I am very glad of it. Too many crazy people in my life as it is.

Long Time, No Shit

Well, my friend, I am going to start writing on this blog every day. I've been living in D.C. since November 15th, and I haven't done a thing about the rest of my life since then. Auditions - forget about it. I've fallen into the trap of the restaurant industry. I don't blame the restaurant industry - it's the nature of the beast, you know - the restaurant is the center of every restaurant worker's universe, the server unable to penetrate the ranks of the served, drawn inexorably back into the job that has become the center of his existence, thinking of nothing but the restaurant, the squabbles with co-workers, pettiest politics, drawn slowly (at first, then faster) away from his self-respect, ambition, reason for being, and he soon becomes an automaton: the perfect servant, only happy and at his best when he follows perfectly the rules of making others happy.

He waits for the good things in life to happen to him. He hopes, but he only hopes for better shifts, better tips, perhaps a better job at a better restaurant where he can think his own thoughts without the knowledge that they are useless to himself and everyone around him. His hope is both hobble and crutch. Soon after he entered the restaurant, he found quite by accident that if he gave up the notion that he was in control of his life, it became much easier to perform the job he was hired to do. The restaurant and the rules of service are in control. As long as he works in the restaurant, he can only hope to be his own man again.

That's the last four months of my life. But no more. I still work in the restaurant, but I have my ambition back. Soon will come self-respect. My hope - my crutch - was dissolved, but so was my hobble, and I see my life differently now that I feel myself standing at my full height.

So what happened? One of my regulars offered me a job. "You're intelligent and well spoken," he said, "and I think you could really help us launch this new product. You could make some real money, too. We mostly need someone to talk on the phone."

I thought, "Yes - after months of waiting, an opportunity has come my way! Someone recognized me, and how I could benefit them, and now I can make some real money and get my life started."

The opportunity turned out to be a $12-an-hour cold-calling job, trying to sell educational software to school administrators. Great, I got offered a fucking telemarketing job. So I walked out of the interview and went to my car. I sat in the drivers' seat, cursing the situation and thinking to myself what an idiot I'd been to think that good things would happen to me even if I did nothing to make them happen. I had been bullshitting myself, coasting along on arrogance, thinking I was so great that I didn't have to work for what I want in life, or even know what I want in life.

Then something dawned on me that I'd heard from a million different mouths - I am in control of my life. Up, down, left, right, heaven, hell, hell or high water, nothing that happens to me, at least right now, happens to the credit or shame of anyone but me. Which means that I'm responsible for my own life, and if I think that I'm such hot shit, then I'd be the biggest asshole in the world if I let my life go down the tubes while I just sat there.

So, instead of doing nothing, which is what I'd usually do with my day off, I went home, e-mailed a headshot photographer to set up a session next month, and decided to start dieting and going to the gym every day until then. And I'm going to stick with it.

My LSAT review course starts tomorrow night.

I have a shelf full of plays to read. The Leauge Auditions are in June.

Here I go. It's my life, and from now on, I'm running the fucking show.