Boston Boys and the Blahs

The trio of sisters known as The Roches recorded a song once called The Largest Elizabeth in the World, and sometimes that's just how I feel. They say this feeling comes along "usually at the point where the boy is oblivious to the girl," but there isn't a particular boy I have in mind, so I don't suspect that's what's going on in this particular situation. Some might just call it the blahs or the blues, but whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it's brought on by the fact that my family is coming to visit me this weekend.

Oh, the family members who are coming are lovely people and I do enjoy them. I'm just not sure I enjoy them two days' worth. Is that enough to make me feel blah-humbuggy? Well, it's enough to cause my emotions to go into overdrive. I feel happy they're coming to see me, upset that I'll have to escort them on a two-day shopping spree (for that's all they like to do), bummed out that my favorite nephew is in Iraq and can't come with them this time and generally uptight 'cause I moved to a new apartment and I don't know if they'll be able to find it...and if they do, will they approve of it?

So, not really a justification for blah, right? Well another little event today was one of the salesmen I deal with on a regular basis came to visit me in the office. He's a really cute salesman from Boston. I know another cute boy from Boston, don't you? Yup, that's right, it's Matt. And I guess I got a little sad 'cause this guy's really cute and Matt's really cute and another guy I know from the general Boston vacinity is really cute and none of them is my boyfriend. In fact, I don't have a Boston boyfriend at all! Sad, right?

Most of the time I'm just fine with this. I'm able to live my life with the happiness of knowing that no one opens a window in my apartment when I want it closed and no one steals the covers from me on cold nights and no one takes out my DVDs of The West Wing to put in a documentary about sharks in the mid-Atlantic region. Having no one around to do any of that stuff is really super! But since the weather is turning a bit chilly, I guess I'm remembering how nice it used to be to cuddle up next to someone and put my head on his shoulder and watch Roseanne. Right now, though, not only is there no shoulder to rest my head on, there's no Roseanne. And don't get me started on buying the collection of DVDs, 'cause I'm already having enough trouble keeping up with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Nanny releases.

Once, there was a night when I went out to eat with boyfriend du jour and when we finished we huddled under my umbrella in the Fall drizzle and worked our way back to my Hell's Kitchen apartment to sit and watch an evening of The Golden Girls, Empty Nest and Nurses. It was after that he realized he didn't have his glasses with him and he couldn't leave his contacts in all night so a sleepover was something he couldn't really commit to. The feeling of disappointment for me was deep until he asked if I wanted to go back to his place with him. What a lovely night that was!

But now he's gone and I'm feeling blah. Ah well, it's nice to have had a special evening, so when you're going back to an empty nest of your own you can think back on it and smile. Even if the smile doesn't completely obliterate the blah.

Tagging Along with Friends

I was on an internet forum devoted to theatre this morning and read a post by someone who said he saw Wicked 16 times. "Not my favorite show," he clarified, "but when friends want to go I always seem to end up tagging along." Uh huh. This brings several questions to my not-yet-awake mind very quickly.

1) You have 16 friends who wanted to see Wicked?

2) You just tag along with your friends no matter what they do?

3) You have 16 friends?

I will admit that I used to cultivate friends the way Wilt Chamberlain cultivated one-night-stands, but as Alanis Morissette says "you live, you learn," so now I keep it down to just the trusted few. I hang with folks who would push me out of the way of a speeding car, not folks who might wave to me half-dazed if they saw me at a rave. At one time, yes, I had invitations nearly every night to go out to eat or to a movie or to one of those dorm room parties you don't come back from until three days later. But now, I choose my events with a little more clarity of focus. Yes, I saw Wicked. And yes, I enjoyed it. Yes, I could see it again, but...16 times? If I had long-lost relatives visiting from out of town who'd never seen theatre and needed a guide to explain what an usher is, I don't think I'd see anything 16 times. Maybe I'm just an old fart now, but I'd much rather stay home and watch reruns of Frasier than see a show, any show, 16 times. Of course, if Matt were in the show, I'd see it 16 times. I figure that goes without saying, but I don't mind saying it, so I hope you didn't mind reading it.

As a matter of fact, I've now seen the HBO First Look episode featuring Stuck on You 14 times. And I did it all at home on the couch in my jammies, without having to tag along with friends.

Something Important

I had a birthday this week. Nothing new, of course, I’ve had a bunch of them. Sometimes it’s barely acknowledged and sometimes it’s celebrated with friends who either like me very much or know how to put on a pretty good show. Regardless of how the big day is spent, the basic outcome is still the same: I feel time slipping through my fingers and I wonder why I’m not doing anything important with my life.

It isn’t that I expect to eliminate hunger in Africa or stop the violence in the Middle East, but…well, actually, yes, it is those things. Okay, I’m not unrealistic; I know I’m not Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. But I want to make a difference in the world. And yes, I’m familiar with the old “act locally, think globally” axiom, but that just doesn’t cut the mustard (see How to Make My Couch into a Happier Place, August 14) with me. I have very high standards (as evidenced by my obsession with Matt Damon) and it just isn’t enough to man the phone lines for a woman I think will make a great president or to write a check to the American Civil Liberties Union or to give a homeless man a buck and a half.

I recognize that we all have different beliefs and different things are important to us, but, like Rodney King, I wonder “can’t we all just get along?” I sometimes think world leaders make problems seem more complicated than they have to be, but I also know that I have a tendency to be a bit naïve, so I can’t always see how the world’s issues have spun so far out of control and appear to be virtually unfixable. It seems to me that most opinions can be reined in to a middle ground, and that compromise can help to resolve our troubles. And if that’s too naïve, well, call me Blondie and wash the whiteout off my PC monitor. We should all try to bear in mind the ancient advice to refrain from criticizing others until we’ve walked a mile in their shoes.

It’s like the time Matt was on Will and Grace, playing a character named Owen, who, although straight, was auditioning for the Gay Men’s Choir. His ultimate motivation was a free trip to Europe, yes, but at least he tried to see what the world was like for a gay man. In an ego-fueled altercation with Jack McFarland, he was reminded that Aretha Franklin once told her costars on a VH1 concert “No one interrupts the Queen of Soul, bitch,” but he lobbed the ball right back over the net with “I believe she also said “Get out of my light and get away from my snacks, bitch!” So you see, he was trying.

Matt is also involved with some fairly impressive charities. He’s supported and worked with Sunrise Children’s Village (offering a fresh beginning for orphans and disadvantaged children in Cambodia), the Elisabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, The Hole in the Wall Gang (providing a no-fee summer camp experience for children suffering from serious illnesses), Team Harmony Foundation (motivating young people to combat bigotry while promoting respect for diversity) and the Boston AIDS Walk.

I guess I can content myself with the fact that, even though I haven't done anything important with my life, I'm obsessed with someone who has.

A Non-Story

Things are not really going as well for Tom Cruise as he'd like you to believe. Yes, he and his fiancee, Katie Holmes, have a lovely daughter, Suri, and only six of his films in the past 20 years have grossed less than 100 million dollars, but the couch-jumper has just lost his lucrative deal with Viacom, parent company of Paramount Pictures. Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom, has opted not to renew the deal with Mr. Cruise's production company, carefully pointing out his great affection for the world's most famous Scientologist, but saying it would "be wrong" to renew the deal. Wrong? When he's still the highest ranked actor on Premiere magazine's Power 50 list? When he topped Forbes magazine's 2006 100 Top Celebrities list? When he ranked #18 on VH1's 100 Hottest Hotties? Geeze, what more does Mr. Redstone need?

Poor Tom has had such a rough time of it in the recent past, and it wouldn't be fair to kick him while he's down. The poor dear couldn't get his point about prescription medication across to Matt Lauer without appearing to need a valium or two, and he had that nasty OpEd war with Brooke Shields about postpartum depression. The Blue Lagoon survivor seemed to win that little battle, seeming both more mature and more rational. Post box office depression is a topic Tom probably understands better, though, since Mission Impossible III had only a slightly better opening take ($47.7 million) than Taladega Nights ($47 million), putting Tom on par with Will Ferrell, which has got to make any action hero nervous. And speaking of action heroes, The Bourne Supremacy debuted with $52.5 million, but that's neither here nor there. I'm just saying.

Do we think Tom can bounce back from this? Do we think his career is running out of steam? Do we think Matt is catching up quickly to him and may soon jog right past him on his way to the Oscar podium?

It's hard to say, but the little man with the huge smile is smiling still, and he's not letting on that he's worried even a little bit. So I guess if he's not worried, there's no reason for me to go on and on about it. It's basically a non-story. Right?

In the Company of Matt

Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me opened on Broadway last night and the critics were not quite as enthused as one might hope (if one were Martin Short). Basically, I think it boiled down to Martin's spotlight being stolen by his castmates, the show being a tad too snarky for some tastes and the lampooning nature of the show arriving on the heels of The Drowsy Chaperone, The Producers and Forbidden Broadway. I saw the show on Wednesday, however, and I think it's wonderful that Mr. Short is secure enough in his own talent that he can allow his "Comedy All Stars," as they're billed, to share his spotlight as well. Brooks Ashmanskas, Mary Birdsong and Nicole Parker do some really great work in this auto-lie-ographical show wherein Martin pretends to tell his life story from a vaudevillian point of view. He warns us up front that some (most?) of what we're about to see will be made up. But he pokes fun at one-person shows (notably Elaine Stritch's), unfeeling testimonials and unfunny awards show banter (Jodie Foster to Renee Zellweger: "I won an Academy Award for The Accused and I accuse you of looking beautiful!") along the way.

So the critics I read think this path has been trod before? I would hasten to remind them, if I were to meet them in a dark bar brooding over a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, that ALL shows have been done before. There is not one original idea out there, not one! After Silence of the Lambs was made into a musical for last year's Fringe Festival, I was absolutely positive there was nothing new to be seen - ever. Maybe that's what keeps me from finishing my musical version of Mommie Dearest (with selections like When I Asked You to Call Me That, I Wanted You to Mean it; Do You Think It's Clean and the show-stopping Wire Hanger Ballet)? So what on earth is their problem? This has been done before in Drowsy Chaperone? Um, no. That show was poking fun at 1920s musicals, this one is poking fun at 21st century entertainers. See the difference? Well, you might if you get yourself over to the Bernard B. Jacobs theatre and catch Martin Short and his insanely talented sidekicks in Fame Becomes Me.

Who listens to critics anyway? It's like the time when The Talented Mr. Ripley opened and Jude Law got all the attention Matt was supposed to get. Everyone blathered on and on about how fabulous Jude was and how he stole the movie out from under Matt's gorgeous feet, but I knew that Matt was secure enough in his own abilities that he could allow Jude to shine on his own. Matt's character, Tom Ripley, is fascinated by/obsessed with Dickie (the name Dickie always makes me giggle) Greenleaf, so of course it makes sense for the audience to see Dickie (hee hee) as a wonderfully captivating personality as well. As the lead in the film, Matt also knows when to support his supporting players. Other reviews categorized Matt's Ripley as "ingratiating and needy," "an ex-fratboy who wandered into a party with all the cool kids and desperately wanted to belong" and "Affleck's other half." Well, I never! Actually, I did, but that's another story and I just don't have time for it today. On the other hand, Janet Maslin in The New York Times said Matt had a "fine, tricky mix of obsequiousness and ruthlessness." Since she uses bigger words and doesn't refer to Mr. Affleck (who isn't in this movie, duh!), it's obvious this is the better review. There were those who felt this movie was similar to others that came before, and there were those, as well, who lamented the tone of the piece. All charges leveled at Mr. Short and his new Broadway show.

So you see, Martin, you're in good company. You're in the company of Matt. And whenever we're in the company of Matt, nothing can be as mediocre as it might seem. So crumple up those mediocre reviews and toss them in the garbage. And just go out there on that Bernard B. Jacobs stage and knock 'em dead!

How to Make My Couch into a Happier Place

I don't have anything to say today. I'd like to talk about World Trade Center, the Oliver Stone movie I saw on Friday. But although it was brilliant in the first half, the second was manipulative and misguided, so it's just not worth the trouble to talk about something that ultimately disappointed me (not unlike my last date). I'd like to talk about The West Wing, since I'm now up to disc 2 of season 4, but after I say I still love the show, what else is there to say? I'd like to talk about the fact that my friend Joe thinks I don't want to see stuff at the Joyce theater because I emailed him that I didn't know what to say about seeing stuff at the Joyce theater with him. I assure you (and Joe) that this is a huge misunderstanding, that not knowing and not wanting are two completely separate topics, and that not understanding an email is quite common and no one should feel embarrassed about it. But I'll speak to him Wednesday when I see him, so I won't bother going over it all now. I'd like to talk about the Krugman OpEd piece in the Times that was recommended to me today, but you have to subscribe to Times Select to read it online and although there's a 14-day trial period, I'm pretty sure I'll forget to cancel before the time is up and I'll end up paying for something I'm going to use exactly once.

So what else can we talk about? How Allison is trying to get me to eat more healthily? How I put too many pages in my three-hole punch today and it took me and a senior staffer half an hour to get the ripped up bits of paper out of the center hole puncher? How much I miss Edy's Gourmet Ice Cream? How someone drove by my apartment building just as I was dropping off to sleep last night and their need to share DMX's Year of the Dog...Again with the neighborhood woke me up and kept dreams of Matt from arriving for at least another hour? Or what about how fast bananas go from being not quite ripe to not edible?

Nah, none of that will cut the mustard. Hold on - there's a good topic! Whoever thought up the phrase "cut the mustard?" And what, exactly, does it mean? If you put your knife into a jar of Grey Poupon it slices through pretty darned easily, so to "cut the mustard" really ought to refer to a simple task, yes? Well, I can't say if that's the case or not. Mark Israel on www.alt-usage-english.org says it means "to achieve the required standard." Is it a simple task to achieve a required standard? Hmmm... Achievements of any kind tend to put me off my feed, and even more so when I can't get any mustard out of the jar. The word "achievement" seems to denote manual labor, at least to me, and manual labor is something I watch hunky men do with their shirts off. If a standard is required, chances are I'm going to do my best to bypass it because I'm a rebel and I'll never ever be any good. So I'm guessing achieving this required standard is not quite as easy as pie. But how easy is that? If you're talking about "pie" you first have to shape some dough into a crust, fill it with, I don't know, whatever you put in a pie these days, and bake it at 350 for 45 minutes, or until the crust is a light, golden brown and that sounds pretty tough to me. If you're talking about "pi" you have to divide 22 by 7 or 223 by 71 or take the average of the two of them, which is already much more difficult than figuring how much to tip the handsome waiter so why should I bother wasting my time with it? All this shows us is that if one is able to "cut the mustard," it seems to me it would be cause for a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. But then again, walking in the door at night and taking off my shoes is cause for a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.

Do you think Matt can cut the mustard? Well, that goes without saying, doesn't it? Matt can do whatever he darn well pleases, and if he does it with me on the couch over a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon the world would truly be a much, much happier place. Or, at least my couch would be a much, much happier place.

Exact Words

“I never go on vacation,” said [name withheld because I don't know her], a real estate agent in Manhattan. “And when I do, I have my computer, my Palm, my e-mail and my phone with me at all times.”

What's wrong with the statement above? It's from an article in today's New York Times, about how more people are opting to waive their vacation time. But Ms. Name Withheld contradicts herself. First, she says she never goes on vacation. Then, she tells us that when she goes on vacation, she has her electronic accoutrements with her. Ms. Name Withheld may be big in the world of real estate, but she'd fail dismally in the creative writing classroom. One can't say one never does a particular thing, and then qualify the statement to say that when that particular thing is done, other things occur. Never means not ever, not at all, not at any time, not even if Matt Damon asked me to! If the word "never" is used, the phrase "and when I do" is as out of place as Ben Affleck in one of the Bourne films.

Doesn't anyone care about proper usage of the English language any more? On episode 87 of The Brady Brunch (Greg Gets Grounded), the number one son gets into a tough spot when he's banned from driving the car after a fender-bender, yet he takes a friend's car out to buy tix for a big concert (I'm guessing it was Tony Orlando and Dawn). When questioned by Mr. and Mrs. Groovy Parent on why he deliberately disobeyed them, he says he was told he wasn't to use their car, not any car. Well, hilarity ensues as Greg and his hip 'rents enter into an agreement about exact words and how important it is to say what you mean. It all leads up to Greg's date with Rachel, which is rudely upstaged by younger brother Bobby and his box of bullfrogs. Ah, those simple 70s.

But it is important for us to say what we mean. If no one took us at our exact words, how could we be sure what they'd make of anything we said? If no one were paying attention to exact words, I might say "I'm going to see Dogma again," and people would think I said I was in the dog house again. They might ask "Oh yeah, what did you do wrong?" And I'd be scratching my head, wondering what could possibly be wrong with seeing Dogma again. It would be quite the messy conversation, don't you agree?

So when Matt says he's committed to filming the third Bourne movie, that's just what he means. He doesn't mean that he was born to film The Commitments. Although, after his punk performance in EuroTrip, I'd love to see him tackle Ride, Sally, Ride.

Conspiracy Theories

I was reading reviews for the new Oliver Stone film, World Trade Center (mostly positive, by the way), and came across a site with a message forum devoted to this particular film. Since the film is based on actual events and those actual events have caused a great deal of stress for a great number of people, there is a lot to be said about both the film and the events. The threads in this message forum were not about the film, actually, they were more about the events of 9/11 - what happened, what may have happened, what some believe didn't happen, why it happened, who it really happened to, whether or not it was supposed to happen, it just goes on and on. I'm afraid I don't have the answers for this, and considering the intense heartache the day brought on, no answers could possibly be helpful to anyone anyway.

There are those who believe something indeed happened on that day, but that what happened isn't what we've been told by the network news and representatives of our government. These people are called Conspiracy Theorists. They meet each other via internet message forums and leaflets distributed in big cities and they band together to convince others of the truth, as they see it. I am positing no opinion whatsoever on the authenticity of their claims, but I will say their tenacity is quite remarkable. There are those who still believe that President Kennedy was shot by several people, as opposed to one lone gunman in the Texas School Book Depository, and since that historical event took place nearly 43 years ago I think you can see that Conspiracy Theorists aren't an easy lot to sway. Rather like a Republican with a congressional majority, a Conspiracy Theorist is unwilling to relent...or entertain another point of view.

All of this is meant to prepare you, dear reader, for a conspiracy theory surrounding Matt. I know it sounds positively gruesome, but where Matt is concerned we can't always be absolutely certain of the truth. We know him as well as we know him and that's all we can expect to know. Recently, there have been reports that some people see the fact that Lance Armstrong has been staying with good friend Matthew McConaughey as proof positive that Mr. McC. is going to be portraying the seven-time Tour de France winner in the upcoming Untitled Lance Armstrong Project (as IMDB cheerfully refers to it). According to the IMDB (Internet Movie Database, for those who are unschooled in the art of serious research), Matt is still slated to wear the spandex shorts and Alien-inspired helmet. So who are we to believe...a group of unnamed individuals who collectively think they have all the answers or a database with thousands of actual answers to important questions like "Who played Katie Morosky?"; "How many films has Johnny Depp made?" and "In what film did Keanu first say 'Whoa!'?"

The choice is yours, dear reader. Believe what you will, but please be certain you don't force your beliefs onto others. That sort of thing could lead to events like the ones featured in the new Oliver Stone film.

Or not.

How Are You?

The weather people say it's to be "less humid" today. In this city that thinks more of the word "more" than it does of any other adjective, it's rare that we'd get excited over less of anything. But "less humid" is cause for cake and cookies. So I'm guessing New Yorkers will be feeling pretty good today. Maybe this is the time to hit up that tough boss for a raise? Maybe this is the time to ask those noisy neighbors to keep it down? Maybe this is the time to ask that mean-looking guy on the subway if he wouldn't mind terribly moving over just a smidge so you could sit your weary butt down?

Well, let's not go overboard.

Yes, nice weather has the power to make people feel good about life in the city and about life in general. But some people are just crabby to the bitter end. And bitter too, come to think of it. I have one person in my life who makes me fearful of the phrase "how are you" because I know if I ask I'll get an answer. And it's not going to be a perky little inside-of-a-Hallmark-card kind of thing, either. It's going to be a medical history straight out of A Diagnostic Practitioner's Guide to Clinical Diseases and Their Origins. And believe me, when "how are you" sets off a litany of woes it's hard to find an ice breaker. Will the good weather make a person like this feel better or will it only serve to bring tragic memories of past illnesses spent inside on sunny days? I'm banking on the latter. This person could turn a trip on the Love Boat into The Poseidon Adventure with one great, heaving sigh.

Of course, when I'm forced to talk to a person like this, my mind automatically switches over to Matt mode. I could be hearing about a tender spot in a private place, or a painful inner agitation, but I might be thinking about how hard it must have been for Matt to lose 40 pounds to play a heroin addict in Courage Under Fire. Which, of course, would lead me to think about how I'd like to lose some weight since my waist is hugging my pants the way I'd hug Matt if I could ever get close enough. This is because I took up eating ice cream when I quit smoking cigarettes and now I truly don't want to go through all the hard work it's going to take to make my waist stop sidling up to my pants the way Matt sidled up to Penelope Cruz in All the Pretty Horses.


Unless, that is, I could watch Matt work out right across from me. Or, at least, look forward to a shower scene like the one from School Ties when I finish. Well, without the fighting that breaks out with Brendan Fraser. Wrestling in a shower room, okay, but flat-out fighting, um, no.

Working out is decidedly tough, but when it's less humid, after several weeks of hot, wet air, one thinks one can face anything. Except accidentally goading the wrong people into telling you how they are...

Making Georgia Davenport Green

Well, it's a scorcher! Isn't it cute the way those news anchors smile real bright and tell us "It's hot this morning and it's only going to get hotter." In fact, I'm given to understand we may reach a new level of hotdom today. It could be a record-breaking kind of day. Ever so exciting, no?

So I find myself worried about the applicants coming in to see me today. As part of my job (and no, I'm not telling you stalkers what it is - Matt knows where he can find me when he needs me) in a Human Resources capacity, I interview people who think they'd like to work here too. Since all the advice about how to dress for an interview says to wear a suit, the poor men and women I'm talking with have gone through sweat-drenched hell to get to my office. So as they sit across the desk from me, obviously I'm thinking about what it would be like if they were Matt.

"What's your greatest strength," I'd ask.

And Matt would say "My arms are pretty strong, but I think my greatest strength is my love for you, Sam."

I'd lower my eyes coquettishly and blush just a touch, then hit him with "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

At that point, he'd lean across the desk and whisper conspiratorially "Still gazing into your bright blue eyes, of course."

What were we talking about? Oh yes, it's hot! So the city is asking us to conserve. You know, turn off the air conditioner when we're not home, don't use too many lights when we are home, that sort of thing. What I'm wondering, though, is if it gets hot each summer (and it does) and people use more electricity as the temperature goes up (and they do), why isn't Consolidated Edison onto that little fact of life? It's like Georgia Davenport, a girl I went to school with, who always forgot that we had a Social Studies quiz the third Friday of every month. When the teacher (Mr. Ratcliff) would say "Books under your desk please," Georgia would always be so surprised - "Are we having a test today? Really?" Some of us become acquainted with routines and others never seem to notice.

So if Con Ed isn't prepared (and they're not), how are we to stay cool? Well, there's always the beach, right? And if everyone at the beach looked the way Matt does in a lime green banana hammock, we'd all be feeling a lot hotter, wouldn't we? So, books under your desk, please, time for a quiz:

What other film(s) did Matt wear a bathing suit in?

Does Matt ever take off his shirt in All the Pretty Horses?

When Matt wakes up to look out at the lawn fertilizer being delivered in The Rainmaker, what shirt is he wearing?

Okay, pencils down. How'd you do? Did you get them all right? Of course you did! Georgia Davenport would be green with envy!