ASK Musings

No matter where you go, there you are.

Monthly Archive: August 2007

Thursday

9

August 2007

0

COMMENTS

Auntie Em, Uncle Henry, It’s a Twister

Written by , Posted in Adventures

I got up yesterday and consulted my blackberry as I do every morning, especially when I’m on call. I saw, around 6:30, a tornado warning issued. Crazy, right. There were some major storms that work me up very early, but a tornado? Please.


I left my apartment around 7:15. It was hot and nasty and sticky already, but I only had three avenues to get across, then I could take respite in the over-cooled 6 train. I swiped my Metrocard, and heard the announcement that there was no 4, 5, or 6 train service where I needed to go because of track flooding. Bummer. Luckily, I was only about five blocks from the F train, but when I got there, it, too, was shut down. So I continued on to 59th and Lexington to try to catch the R, which goes kind of near my office. No dice. Everything was shut. At this point, it was raining a bit, and still really, really hot and humid. I started walking. Buses were packed full or missing in action, and there were dozens of people waiting to try to get on. I emailed my boss and her supervisor.  One response was “You should move back to Brooklyn.” Thanks.


I kept walking. Along the 6 line, just in case it would start running again. I contemplated trying to walk across town to get the A or C, which goes right to my office. A well-timed call to Allegra confirmed that those trains were down, too. Damn. I kept walking.  Got to Union Square (about three miles from my home) around 8:45. Still no trains. Got a page to report to the situation room at the office. Emailed back saying I’d be there . . .  eventually. Was told to take a cab. Riiiight. Because me and the other 1.5 million Manhattanites hadn’t thought of that. Not a cab in site that wasn’t full.  


I finally got to Broadway Lafayette, where I was told trains were running to Brooklyn. After 20 minutes on the world’s hottest subway platform, a Q train came. Q doesn’t usually run there, which meant it was going to be stopping a good 20-minute walk from the office. But at least I’d be in the right borough. At this point I’d walked about 4 miles in nasty heat. I was over-tired, dehydrated, sweaty, and just over it. The train went over a bridge, and I got an email from a coworker/friend asking if I was stuck and needed a ride. He picked me up at the train station, which was a saving grace.


I then walked in, washed up, and went straight to work in the sit room, where I stayed until 7:30, when I had to leave for class. Why a sit room for a storm? Because there were TWO TORNADOES. Two. One in Brooklyn and one in Staten Island. Nutty, right?

Tuesday

7

August 2007

0

COMMENTS

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Written by , Posted in Adventures, Reviews

I’ve been bumped up to the advanced acting class. Woo. I’m going on auditions, and even had a call back. It’s fun and kind of weird. I sometimes get nervous, but then I remember that I’m lucky in that my whole livelihood isn’t at stake. I have a great job that pays pretty well, and I have a boss who recently told me she wants to support the acting thing, so if I get cast in things we can work around it. That’s beyond rare. So I really do just treat each audition like a rehearsal. If I screw it up, I screw it up. It’s not the end of the world. And if I get a callback or, some day, a part? That’s pretty cool.
 

I don’t know about you, but I go in Netflix spurts, where I’ll not watch any of my movies for a couple of months, and then watch one or two a day for like two weeks. I’m going through the latter, and have just seen some pretty sweet documentaries. I finally saw Jesus Camp, a documentary about evangelical and pentecostal children. CREEPY. I don’t have kids, and none of my close friends have kids, so I haven’t seen, up close, how pliable children really are. And they are so genuine. This one poor girl was talking about dancing for god, and how she shouldn’t dance for the flesh. The heck? I’m conflicted – at least these parents seem to care about their kids. But oh my, the damage they could be doing. How does it help for a kid to think in some of these ways?

 

I also just finished two other documentaries – This Film is Not Yet Rated and Maxed Out. The former is about the MPAA, and puts forth some interesting ideas (note to the sensitive – don’t watch it with your parents; the nudity is off the charts, since they show a lot of what has made movies get an NC-17 rating). I didn’t think it was necessarily a good film, but it was very interesting to see the history, the censorship, and, as it seems is often the case, the delusion of those in power.   

 

Maxed Out was a bit better done, I think, and really drove home the interesting points about consumer debt. This is another place where I get conflicted. On the one hand, why aren’t people smarter about their money? And why should the collective we have to bail you out? But on the other hand, I don’t want to be the person, or be surrounded by the person, who doesn’t have compassion for the people who make some bad decisions. Does making a bad decision, or even a string of them, mean someone should be screwed forever? Should they kill themselves out of shame or desperation? Two of the people profiled were mothers of young adults who took the campus credit card bait and ended up killing themselves because they couldn’t see a way out. I do push for personal responsibility. I just wish that applied to the companies that offer credit cards to kids with no income or people who clearly already have loads of debt. And that is why I’ll never be able to be a pure capitalist – I don’t think that the market will sort everything out to a way that is satisfactory to my ideas of right and wrong.

 

Also? Totally made me want to set a stricter budget and save up.   had a great vacation this year, and I want to be able to travel more, but also . . . yeah. I should really think about the fact that I’m not so likely to win the lottery (especially since I don’t play).

 

Finally, has anyone seen “Taboo” on National Geographic channel?  Oh man. It is crazy.