April's Starch March

Despite my firstborn son status, I survived Passover. Eating matzoh for a week and a day didn't help. When I got on the treadmill the Saturday afterwards, it felt like I had accidentally worn my combination gym shorts/X-ray lead apron. Energy bled out of me. I refused to extend the ban against leavened foods to my diet beverages. To all for whom Coca-Cola is banned from kosher-for-Passover foods because of its corn syrup, I say, "Suckers." Still, the twelve miles was very, very hard. They say your body has about two thousand calories' energy stored in its muscles. This is your "gas tank" and when it goes empty, that's your "wall". Runners like colorful metaphors. I hit the wall at about seven miles. Now I know why runners like to eat a big dinner of pasta the night before.

Brandi and I celebrated the end of Passover by eating most of a Chicago-style deep dish pizza with extra cheese and tomato sauce. I can't help but wonder if Moses and the Thirteen Tribes did the same when they reached the Promised Land.

The thirteen miles I did the next weekend went much quicker. My secret: a giant Jewel-Osco cookie, with frosting, and lots of sleep.

My dad used to talk about exercise giving him energy. I never had any idea what the hell he was taking when he said it. Exercise bums my body out. I work out and I need lots of rest. At least, I usually do. After my thirteen mile run, I was wired. When I came home and tried to burn a DVD for my friend Bob, the computer crapped out. "Stupid computer," I wanted to shout at it, "I'm ready for more. Run, dammit!" But like so many things in the tech industry, just punching it did more harm than good.

I didn't actually punch my computer. I haven't seriously abused my electronics since the time I took my iMac's keyboard and slammed it into my recliner as hard as I could. A couple of "shift" keys came off, as I recall, and a bunch of the numeric keypad. So, if you ever wonder why I consider re-attaching keys that have popped off the keyboard, consider that my start. I also once punched my computer so hard the processor popped out of the motherboard. Boy, did that scare the crap out of me. "Disconnected?!" Slam. Computer goes blank. Matt tries to remember how much money a new computer would cost and how soon he can get one. As a lark, he opens up the case of his computer, looking to see how much silicon he's going to have to solder together to get the old thing to work. To his surprise, he discovers the heat sink and processor have dislodged from the motherboard. He plugs it back in. The computer powers up. Matt hears a silent reply from the gods of computing: it was not her time; it was too soon.

I have trouble sleeping sometimes. What doctors call insomnia, I call "cats". We saw an animal behaviorist to learn why one of our cats held her feces so long, she began throwing up because her digestive system literally could hold nothing more, and why the other one sometimes uses what he likes to think of as the literbox and what we think of as "pillows". Apparently, there is a silent power struggle in our home. Also, cats' noses are 3500 times more powerful than our own. I suspect that number. Wouldn't that mean if a cat smelled a flower, he would explode? Regardless, we have to clean the litterbox more often. We also need to devote 20 minutes a day to getting them aerobic exercise. Twenty minutes each. I joked about one of us quitting our jobs to become cat parents. Brandi said, "You told me getting a cat would be a lot of work." Being right sucks when it doesn't get you out of anything.

Brandi also swapped around bells to deal with the issues of dominance - one cat seems to have developed a dominant streak in addition to the permanent PMS she seems to be suffering whenever she meows. I swear when I hear it I want to write a symphony of nails on a chalkboard, just to have something more pleasant to hear. Rio, our orange cat, now has three bells to Patrick's none. Whenever she bounces it sounds like the opening strains to "Jingle Bells". Unfortunately, cats are nocturnal, so while they do like to sleep on top of us for part of the night, they also roam in the very early morning. I've woken up at four in the morning two days in a row only to look at the clock and groan.

I did have an interesting dream this morning. Last night, Brandi and I joked about quitting our jobs and moving into our garage to eliminate 90% of our rent and most of our utilities. My sleeping brain must have been listening because in my dream we had downgraded to exactly that and the cats were driving me absolutely nuts there. I also had terrible flu-like symptoms. I woke up - in the dream - and tried to find the computer or the phone to call in sick to work. Eventually, probably when the alarm went off, I realized it was a dream. I opened my eyes for real... and felt okay. I was only dream sick. I think it was my unconscious phoning in sick because the dream wasn't very good or original. It was the best it could do.

Brandi asked me the other day if I had goals. I rattled off a short list of them, including, "make the best Chicken Parmesan ever" since, coincidentally, I was making Chicken Parmesan at the time. I want to lead an interesting life. A long time ago, in eighth grade, I thought I could lead an interesting life by writing one. I think that dream lasted until I saw "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", and I realized that writers trying to lead interesting lives either a) burn out or b) lie. The honesty bug makes lying painful and socially awkward for me, so I opted out. Sure, I still write and love it, but it's something I want to make part of my life, not something I want to carve my life out of. Perhaps the distinction is semantic.

Regardless, I want to make elegance. Sometimes I draw. Other times I perform improvisational comedy. Alarmingly, I haven't found a good way that also brings in a lot of money, although, strangely enough, the ways I have found wound up costing us a lot in taxes every year. You won't catch me saying this very often, but thank goodness for George W. Bush and the repeal of the marriage tax. Whoa. That hurt more than I thought it would. I think I had less trouble running a half marathon.

Brandi and I wisely chose to do both our laundry and taxes on the same night. I won't imply there was friction, but I will say it's a good idea we didn't soak anything we owned in anything flammable. We owed. Between the two of us we had at least a small child's body weight in clothing. Several highlights of the evening: 1) sending that letter off with the taxes, our payment, and a middle finger aimed squarely at a conservative government bent on spending my money on crap like Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, 2) the hauling, 3) laundromat television blaring really loud Spanish soap operas at us for three hours, 4) thanking the woman at the counter at the post office for staying there late to handle us last-minute stragglers, whereby decreasing by 0.000004% the chance that someone in the near future will "go postal", 5) did I mention the hauling?, 6) pretending the change machine was a slot machine, sticking a twenty dollar bill and "winning" twenty dollars in quarters. Hey, I get my entertainment where I can.

The nice thing about getting laundry done is never having to gamble that you're going to walk under a black light while wearing your favorite pair of pants for the eleventh time. This has happened to me and it was not, not, not pretty.

There but for the grace of God go I.

Looks like the mayor trotted out the nice weather preview today. Not bad, Mr. Mayor. Your choice of seventy degrees married to partly cloudy skies and gentle breezes may just be the master stroke of your political career. Then again, some of the naysayers are blogging about your taking advantage of the creation of someone with even more connections. I wonder what He would think of that, sir.

This weekend, I played a show held in honor of the theatre where I have performed for almost the last six years. 2851 North Halsted played host to shows with John Malkovitch, Gary Sinise, Laurie Metcalf and a thousand other Chicago theatre stars, legends, afficionados and hobbyists. The show alternated scenes from St. Nicholas productions, Steppenwolf and ComedySportz, and, yeah, we held our own against actors far more seasoned. You get a lot of leeway with comedy. Deanna, Martin and I did Brecht/Ibsen stage directions with the directions parts shouted offstage by Katherine and Keith. I don't say this often enough but our timing rocked. Fresh-faced improvisers often make the mistake of filling the air with sound. I used to peform with a guy - "Jethro", but he was born "Jeff" - who made sound effects every time he took a step. Unfortunately for him, he also really liked to set his partner up with intricate, clever arguments, which he would invariably punctuate with some weird farting noise because he was baking quiche. He was great once he quit that habit. Other improvisers just talk. And talk. Did I mention the talking? I learned reasonably early on in sketch writing that efficiency counts most. People use ten words when they could use three or one and a tilt of their head... Why? Because they don't trust the actors or audience to know their intent, and so they trade clarity for mystery or tension.

We did not trade clarity for mystery. Given a Brechtian location of junkyard, Deanna immediately went searching for her lost wedding ring, an opening with about a million overtones of sadness, anger, love, shared history. Martin and I hardly had to move.

I should also take a moment to mention the other two scenes: Pick-a-Play and Blind Line Mamet. In Pick-a-Play you usually have two players reading and one justifying, grounding the scene and helping to marry lines from, for instance, Shakespeare and Duck Tales. Our artistic director, Joe Janes, chose to make all three actors read from plays by the same author - Sam Shepard. The unity of voice allowed Sara, Paul and Martin (again!) to relate to each other through voice, body language, mime... in other words, acting. For the suggestion, Joe got a Sam Shepard location (trailer park). Sara broke hearts when she cracked open that first brewski.

Last before the Panel of Famous Former Tenants, Scot, Rich and Ben performed Blind Line Mamet, set in a typical Mamet location (pawn shop). All the lines the players pulled out at random came from David Mamet plays. My favorite in light of the Brown Bag or "We never say anything dirty at ComedySportz because like Jackie Chan we want to play family friendly to increase ticket sales, and this is generally a good idea" Foul was, "Money talks and bullshit walks..." Three guys in suits wandering around a pawn shop cursing at each other? The audience ate it up. Props to Scot for trying to sell, um, something and props to Ben for not giving in to the improv urge to identify everything because, man, Mamet is vague, sometimes infuriatingly.

Oh, I also got drunk on expensive champagne.

They had glasses of it out. It was billed as a "champagne brunch". I had just finished my scene and felt relieved my unburnt bridge to the rest of the Chicago theatre community stayed unburnt, so I wandered out into the lobby. Brandi started me off on watching my calories, so I didn't want to stuff Ann Sathers cinnamon rolls into my face, delicious and sinful though they were. Put enough work into your workout and eating starts to feel like an investment. Of course, after everyone went in to the theatre to watch the show(s), they stopped putting fresh glasses out, so I had to open one myself. In the coatroom. Because I was afraid of getting caught. I poured a glass and headed back inside the theatre, resisting the urge to chug. I still drank it quickly.

Then I got another one.

Oh, my poor liver, you were born for better things.

Brandi and I had a glass of wine at dinner, testing out the Costco Riesling we want to use for Thursday's seder at our house. We both almost fell asleep into our Chicken Parmesan. I would have slept for the rest of the night, except that I had another ComedySportz show (Battleprov) that I had to ref (badly; at one point telling the audience to send a player out of the room, "...with a one, two, three! Ready? Goodbye [player]!" Pause. "I just forgot how to count to three.").

In retrospect, I'm kind of lucky to be alive.

Certainly on a day like today.

Enjoying the sunset.

Pinned by the turtle

Babysitting duties this Saturday, with Brandi and special guest rockstar Michal. We trundled off to the local playground to work off some energy. Michal dared me to crawl under the cement turtle. I did it. "Now sit up!" I could not. If I had to guess, I would say I couldn't have sat up underneath it since the late seventies, when I was Michal's size. I did make Brandi take this great shot, though. It looks like we wrestled and I lost.

By the way, if I'm ever homeless and out of friends, I'm making the underside of this turtle my home. It's small but still roomier than my studio on Melrose. I kid. The studio had a closet. Just a few blankets would keep me warm in the turtle's concrete embrace through wintertime. The shell would keep out rain. Maybe a length of chicken wire for the larger vermin? Maybe a hot plate? Maybe I'm gonna think this plan through a little harder?

Aw, turtle.

Some wine with that cheese

Nothing hurts more than losing a patient. Unless that patient belonged to somebody you didn't like. Plausible deniability works, but you have to fake sorrow.

We have a guy who works at one of my offices. People call him "Buzz". He's old enough, but I'm sure he never walked on the moon. Buzz has problems with technology. Lucky for him, though, he's a legend in his own mind. He breezes into the office with a sheaf of stuff to scan for, I dunno? His personal archives? He can't use a computer.

I walked through the door this Wednesday and smelled trouble just as strong as the smell of burnt pizza drifting up from the Giordano's four floors below. Our office manager walked up to me. She wore a smirk. "Buzz is looking for you."

"Oh?"

"The Internet is out at his home. He's going to ask you to fix it."

"We're not supposed to do support outside of the office."

"I know. [The admin you replaced] went to his house. He's going to ask you to go to his house."

What? Does nobody tell this man "no"? Apparently not, because about ten minutes later, Buzz walks by my desk.

"Uh... Yeah, the Internet's out at my home."

Pause. What was he waiting for? Me to ask how I could leap to the rescue? Where he lived? Whether he broke the Internet? "Okay..."

"Yeah, I need it to work."

"I can't work outside of the office."

"Well, the other fellow came by."

"I'm not him."

Buzz went through a bunch of different reasons why I needed to restore Internet connection to his home. Some things you should know: Buzz doesn't work for my office, per se, but he has received grants for travel and a computer because he promised to drum up enthusiasm for our seminars. So far, $10,000 later, nothing. He has an office on campus he never uses. He has an assistant who he used so infrequently, she was re-absorbed back into our main office. However, he needed the home computer for, er, work email. His wife works for the state retirement system and would be out of luck without that computer. If that failed, he would "talk to [my boss]". I respond to veiled threats with unveiled apathy.

"Can I tell her to give you a call?" he asked, turning large, watery eyes towards me.

"She can give me a call," I said. My shoulders slumped.

So she did. It helped that his wife was nice and seemed more lost than demanding. She gave me the error message, which I looked up. Not a lot of solutions. At home, they used dialup. So many things can go wrong with dialup. Worse, it's not like you can call tech support when your computer blows up. She was speaking on her cell phone. Okay, that works. Her computer still didn't. The limited information I had suggested her modem had failed or become unseated from the motherboard, but like many users she had her own opinions about her granddaughter using her computer, or maybe the lightning storm, or maybe...? One thing was sure, her operating system did not see a modem attached where once there was a modem, and the computer was very, very old.

I recommended she get a new computer, but, that being just my opinion, I also looked up Yahoo! tech support, so she could consult more advanced minds than mine. She called back ten minutes later. "They couldn't help." I gave her Dell's support number. Ten minutes later, nobody called. I thought I was off the hook.

The next day, the computer showed up at my desk. Buzz brought it in. He didn't leave a note, though. I realized it was his computer because, two minutes after I walked in the door, our office manager handed me a slip of paper showing me the model of computer Buzz had taken home from the office. They matched. On the minus side, the problem would not go away. On the plus, I might be able to fix the problem just by re-seating the modem.

I couldn't fix the problem. Was it the modem driver? Well? Aztech, the modem maker with the name adorably combining technology with bloody sun god worship, had drivers for Windows 2000, but only for New Zealand. Installing them kind of fixed the problem, at least until I tried to dial out. No dice. I looked up other access numbers. The computer made "faxing" noises, but fell shy of handshaking and acknowledging username and password. I installed the XP modem driver for US computers. Yahoo! still hated me.

"You're going to have to get another computer," I said for the second time.

He stared at me. "So, what are you saying?"

Nothing hurts more than losing a patient. Except losing your patience. That sucks, too.