Natural Sleep Aids for New Yorkers

Why I hate iPhone Calls

I am not a phone person. I have no real excuse except that I don't like talking on the phone. My iPhone is my only source of telecommunication and frankly it makes my arm hurt after two minutes of trying to cram the thing down my ear canal or hang out the window to get better service after the call was dropped three times while a fire truck goes by. 


I think email is better anyway. On the phone, you can't ignore the, "what are you doing this weekend" question. Phone-friend is about to ask you to do something which will probably sound fun but really you planned to sleep in and have no plans. Maybe indulge your X-files-Netflix-stream addiction. In your underwear. And you can't admit that to Ms./Mr. Afraid-Of-Nothing-Completely-Accomplished-Life. Maybe that is my real problem. All of my friends are better than me. I need to hang out with high school students more.


There are many 'kids today' issues with technology and I resent being on either side of my feelings. I don't think there is a 'general decorum' rule for communication anymore. I think there is a 'how distant can I keep my true feelings' rule. We constantly offend each other with tactics, perhaps we should just stop being offended? The technology is there and it doesn't help to judge if one is better than the other. I'm sure when the telephone was installed in every establishment, some stubborn human refused to use it and tried to write a letter to the police that an armed robber was in the house. 


Efficiency. 


I've had friendships unravel over badly chosen and poorly timed mediums. I once texted I was unable to attend a concert. I was sick as a dog and couldn't lift my head. I thought the other end would understand. The other end was furious I didn't call. I don't blame her. For me, I've received much desired acknowledgment and validation through thank you texts. I certainly would have preferred a letter, visit, a call, diamonds but who knows if they were possible and the reason for the impossibility could be left up to each person's judgement. 


I've found that even though I irritate the heck out of many folks, I stick to hiding in my writing. Plus, I tend to be reactionary by trait. I do not enjoy the ulcers that causes me. I'm sensitive beyond normalcy so I have to protect humankind against my fears. If I write, I can carefully attempt to avoid tasting my toenails in conversation and I have the added bonus of style. It would be weird if I tried on different accents every time I returned a call. 


Because I never answer the phone. That is what a strategically happy and cool recording of my greeting does for me. 


"I am always this balanced and you will never see my bad side."


"Except when I blog about it later."


I think I secretly want to out my bad side.

Three Reasons Why I Love iPhone Pics

Collective Conscience

Many years ago, in Los Angeles, I was telling a group of people about a sketch company I had been involved with, in Los Angeles, many years ago. Most of my stories are from life-times past. I say, 'many years ago' a lot. Since Los Angeles, I've seen a few of the folks I 'sketched' with on TV and one of them is down right famous. Kinda cool. 


Way back in the sketch days, I was a newbie to the world of comedy and even though the entire company was new, I felt a tad small. Lots of big personalities. One of them, a college friend of mine, seemed to feel the same way so we would meet for coffee after the group meetings and discuss ideas. We did this until the day he brought all of my ideas to the group. My ideas typed out in sketch form. Right in front of me. I didn't know what to do, so I told on him after the meeting. The company leader laughed at me. Lesson learned.


Back to the group I'm sharing tales with in Los Angeles, I tell a story of a successful sketch I had written for the company all by myself. I had help with the punch-line... but still... I typed it alone. This had been the only sketch I wrote for the group on my own, so I recall it well and share it often. 


A few days later, I get a voice mail from one of the friends I told my tale to.


"I swear to God, Christopher Walken did your sketch on Saturday Night Live last night."


I call back. He describes Mr. Walken's opening monologue which, yeah, sounds EXACTLY like my sketch. 'Many years' after I had performed it live in a coffee shop.


Cut to: last night, 2011. The way-back LA sketch stories are before personal computers and the internet. We had crap PC's and chat rooms but no one Googled or utilized streaming information in place of human memory or dusty volumes of encyclopedias. I go searching through Netflix on our new PS3. I happen to see a 'SNL : Christopher Walken' special.  I hit play.


Sure enough. My sketch. Christopher Walken and Jimmy Fallon. I wrote that! New punch-line though... but still...


Squeaky early bird wheel gets the worm oil.  


Kinda cool. Lesson learned.

Death of Theatre

Everybody is frowning about the danger of Spider-Man on Broadway. I am not a hater about any theatre. Maybe if they molested people or murdered them against their wills... I wouldn't promote that... but I am usually the person that defends the production, "yeah, the show kinda sucked and Ethan Hawke could have been better but you know...THEY DID IT and THAT is everything."  I believe that.  Collaboration is what makes this world go round and if enough folks - no matter who or what they are - believe passionately in a vision just for the sake of making the vision happen... I'm impressed.


But...


I think Broadway has gone too far. Actors are not circus performers. Hire circus performers. Wait. Hire ACTORS and DO PLAYS on Broadway.


Yes. Theatre should always evolve and find new ways to reach an audience but how do we reach an audience with the attention span of a pop-up on their iPhones? We THROW actors AT them? While they are singing?


Peter Pan did it. I even heard that Sandy Duncan hit a few walls face on. Which is kind of hilarious. And of course there are accidents and difficulties when a medium is expanding. I can even talk myself out of this rant because I believe change is a part of life and evolution is inevitable.


BUT...


The next time I sit with a Broadway audience and have to ask people to stop talking more than six times or turn off their phones or please stop texting during blackouts or fantasize about putting gum in someone's hair when I hear in full voice in the middle of a monologue, "isn't she from TV".... I'm going to stand up and say: 


"IT'S YOU PEOPLE. YOU PEOPLE ARE KILLING BROADWAY. YOU PEOPLE AREN'T LISTENING OR WATCHING THIS SHOW. DIDN'T YOU PAY OVER TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR THESE TICKETS? OR DO YOU PEOPLE GO TO THE THEATRE JUST TO TELL PEOPLE YOU GO TO THE THEATRE? MOST OF YOU ARE OLDER THAN ME. OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW HOW TO BE QUIET WHEN SOMEONE ON A STAGE IS TALKING. MOST OF YOU ARE ACTING LIKE YOU'VE NEVER BEEN A PART OF AN AUDIENCE EVER IN YOUR LIFE. DO YOU JUST COME IN TO GO SHOPPING AND CATCH A SHOW STARRING A NAME YOU'VE HEARD OF SO YOU CAN BUY A T-SHIRT AND PROVE TO YOUR FRIENDS THAT YOU THINK YOU ARE CULTURED? YOU PEOPLE ARE THE REASON ACTORS IN SPIDER-MAN ARE RISKING THEIR LIVES. WE NOW HAVE TO REDUCE THIS CRAFT TO SLINGING A PERSON IN YOUR FACE SO YOU WILL PAY ATTENTION. YOU PEOPLE NEED A TIME OUT. I'M PULLING THIS CAR OVER AND I'M GOING TO COUNT TO THREE. YOU PEOPLE. LEARN TO BE WHERE YOU ARE. EXPERIENCE LIFE. I'm very sorry Mrs. Lansbury, please continue."

Eye of the Beheld

A few months ago I had the opportunity to travel with Greg on a business trip to San Francisco. Neither of us had been. We fantasized about making out on a trolley car.


Day One, Greg had to work. I walked half the city. There is a reason you don't see folks walking alongside trolley cars in photos of San Fran.  You see them attached to the thing as if a giant picked it up, rolled it in caramel and dipped it in a bowl of people. Then it goes horizontal to vertical and the caramel people are holding on for dear life. Like Rose on the top of the Titanic. Standing next to this, I was climbing the sidewalk at such an angle I swear I could have puckered my lips and kissed the sidewalk without moving my neck.


I found my way across the city to a giant, phallic Rook called the Coit Tower.  Inside its walls are colorful murals once painted by local artists of the day. Each pictorial told a story. You could focus on different faces and wonder about the 'scene'.  


I'm still trying to figure out why Frida Kahlo is so disgusted with Mr. Bean's Dad's lunch order.

It's the little things...

As I left the office today a friend asked how I was because I looked a little tired. I told her I had a little headache. She asked if I had a little time before I got on the elevator and handed me a little packet of aspirin. I went into the kitchen and got a little cup of water. When I got in the way of the office matron, I said in a little voice that I was sorry. She said not to worry, relax and take a little time. I gulped, then sipped the little bit of water and left. My friend asked if I was a little better and I thanked her for taking such good care of little 'ol me. I got home in little time and had little to no pain. I sat with my husband and little dog. We enjoyed a little meal, a little TV and a little reading and writing. 

Penny for Your Thoughts

In the middle of the work week, I wandered into a local thrift shop. A pretty handsome, Manhattan store-front that looked like it had once been a large restaurant. I got the impression the owners lived in the building as well. Ah, the life. If someone paid me to visit thrift stores, I'd be one of those folks who says they love their job. Having my own? Now that is just fancy talk.  Especially since it would have to have a pub, a coffee bar and room for my band to play.  The Duran Duran cover band where I play tambourine and shoot portraits of famous people on the side.  


As I chatted with the woman behind the counter, I decided, "yep, this is gonna be a good one." Every thrift store visit is an archaeological dig. I've been known to leave a store with everything from silk, couture evening gowns for a dollar to like-new living room furniture at a 95% discount. I don't consider myself a shopper. I'm an adventurer.  


I didn't spend a cent this visit but left with something more valuable than anything I'd ever come across. 


I found a life. In a box. 


There was a section of old photos. Not the turn-of-the-twenty-first-century photos you giggle over at a flea market, but lots of regular photos circa 1980.  None of them were particularly interesting except as I dug, I started to notice the same face in each photo.  I sifted forward and backward. Hundreds of photos all cast with the same woman in each scene. I realized they were in order and started at the back.  


It looked like the late fifties or sixties. She was a little girl.  She was an athlete. A dancer. She was in a religious ceremony. She had a new dress? A birthday girl. A cheerleader. Then she was a young actress. Arms around cast members. Posters outside of theaters. She's holding a brush.  She's a painter. Still life. Landscapes. Then the pictures of landscapes and still lives. A photographer. Pictures of the inside of an apartment. Another. Her plants. Her cat. She's at a party. She's visiting her parents? More paintings and photography. She's looking thinner. She looks sadder. She's in a bed. She's in another one. She's in a hospital. She's got family sitting around her on pillows. She's got bandages on her head. More landscapes. They stop.


I enjoy visiting cemeteries.  I like to think about the brief, scarce clues I read on a headstone and imagine the life of the decayed body under the ground just below my feet. I like stories. The stories of the objects in every thrift store I venture into. History is full of stories of the dead. I didn't know I would find such a complete, simple and beautiful one in a box at a store. Life is in everything isn't it? 


I left the shop loving my every breath.