Scene Twelve.

It's hilarious to me the way the things I write about in my plays end up actually applying to my life, even though I wrote them about a year before. It's mostly the scene with Jack and Gloria in the hospital from The Sidewalk - their discussion on the sort of existential separation of mind from soul and body, and the gigantic BITCH that is the decision making process. I sit here on my bed, way too early in the morning, and wonder about what I should do about so many things in my life that aren't what they should be, or what I expect them to be, or what I wish they would be. I have tired and tried and tried to come up with a solution to get me out of this frustrated rut, but nothing seems wiling or able to excavate the mines and lift my little cart up to sunshine. It's not that I'm depressed by my dilemmas, but it is a severe weight on my shoulders that I want lifted, that I want fixed, that I want to return to some state or normalcy. My life has changed infinitely in the past year: I made some really great friends that I cherish quite a bit, I've seen (and created) some fantastic theatre that has only reinvigorated my passion for this craft, and I met and began an amazing relationship with someone that I consider to be one of the most perfect, amazing, wonderful human beings in the world. But therein lies my quandary. I never stopped to think that it could all be too good to be true, but lo and behold it snuck up on me and proved that my thinking about it does not stop things from taking a turn for the worse - but that's an overstatement: from creating new challenges to get over in my life, things I have to beat the shit out of in order to get back to the good. Break open the coconut with the machete so you can drink the juice, Lane. I'm trying, Blog Voice. I'm trying.

Note To Self.

Remember this:

You are lucky. What you have is incredible.
Do not take it for granted.

Morning Reading.

I cried this morning, because I re-read this:

"Then I get home, and I have one of the most fantastic conversations with a friend of mine. Who I sorta like. And he sorta likes me back. And it feels SO good to feel that again. Nothing's certain, of course, because he doesn't know me that well and he could end up not wanting to date me. But, somehow, I have a really good feeling about this. Like, all of the pent up waiting and awkward real life sightings of one another are almost like a romantic comedy status movie. I'm just waiting for the "we both have a bad day, and suddenly we actually run into each other moments and everything gets better". He makes me really happy. He's smart, witty, loves theater (but doesn't live, breath, and do his laundry in it), is attractive, and is an all around amazing guy."


I love you.

People Like Us.

This song is BRILLIANT. Get thee to iTunes and buy it right now.

People Like Us
by Michael John LaChiusa


QUEENIE
Oh, the city. So many lights you can actually pretend one of them's shining on you.

Always wanted to see the lights of Broadway.
I always wanted to hear the traffic roar.
I always wanted to be a part
Of New York City's great big heart.
And now I am. I couldn't ask for..

I was that girl. I'm all of them. Trapped in a room full of shadows and not enough light. And soon we will fade away, into the walls, into nothingness. The end.

BLACK
People like us: We get through the day
Surviving the city way better than most.
We go through the motions
From nightcap to nightcap:
Here but not here.
With the heart of a ghost.
People like us: We meet up some night
In a room full of strangers who call themselves friends:
It feels like a dream
But it's too hard to tell
Where the dream begins
And the real world ends-
And where- where do we belong?
We might have to ask ourselves:
Where- where do we belong?
People like us:
Private stock.
Where?

QUEENIE
People like us. We take lovers like pills.
Just hoping to cure what we know we can't fix.
And we'll lay in their arms
And we'll say pretty things:
We'll be there but not there
But we'll still get our kicks-
People like us: We sure get our kicks:
And we heal awful fast and we don't even scar:
We are here but not here
Ina roomful of friends
We could join in the fray
Or stay here where we are-
And where- where do we belong? BLACK: Where?
Do we need to ask ourselves
Where- where do we belong? BLACK: Where?
People like us:
Damaged goods. Where? BLACK: Where?

BLACK
We dance alone on a crowded floor.

QUEENIE
We weren't given much.

BLACK
And we don't expect much more...

QUEENIE
-"More" is not a word we use.

BLACK
"More" would never be enough

BOTH
People like us: We slip by through the cracks
We'll never be famous. So who's gonna care?
Nobody needs us
And everyone's had us-
We're here but not here:
We've been there but not there-
And where- where do we belong?
We only have ourselves.
Where- where do we belong?

QUEENIE
People like us.
Lost.

BLACK
And found.

BOTH
Where...?
Where...?

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught.

A couple days ago, as I sat in the waiting room of the dentist's office, I rolled my eyes and readjusted my position as two families of children came pouring inside, loud, rambunctious, and altogether way too excited to be at the dentist. There was an Asian woman who, mysteriously, had a blonde/blue-eyed son, about six, and a dark haired daughter who was probably four. Following them was an elderly Mexican man with a great shock of white hair and eyebrows, and a Looney Tunes-eyed boy and his sister, who were four and three respectively. (I know this because they told practically everyone in the room.)

As strange or unexpected as this may seem, the children found each other and began running crazily around the small room, screaming their heads off about nothing in general and jumping off the chairs, shouting "ka-pow!" and "ka-zam!" as they did. Eventually, they realized that Elmo's World was playing on the TV above their heads, so they stopped and turned their attention upward, laughing hysterically at things that were far from amusing.

I found myself thinking back on my childhood, when I would have found that very joke hilarious, and would not have realized the network's sly didacticism sneaking its way through the airwaves. I also would not have known what didacticism was, even if I had been aware of it.

A song started and the little girl grabbed her new female friend and they began to dance in the way that only small children can. Her brother was quick to pull his sister away and say, "Let's all dance! You dance with me and she can dance with him. Boy with girl." He put his arms where society taught him they were supposed to be. His sister pulled away: "No, I want to dance with her. You dance with him," and quickly reunited with her first partner. The blonde boy, clearly the oldest and wisest of the group, turned to the other boy, reached out his hands, and said simply, "Do you want to dance?"

Something in that moment made it very clear how our culture teaches us, as we grow up, that men dance with women and that's the only possible combination. We're not aware of same-sex couples (unless our parents are such) and, conversely, we're not aware that there is anything wrong with two men taking hands and shaking their groove thing. We only know what we are taught, and seeing this rendered the delicate nature of parenting all the more apparent to me, and made the importance of future parents teaching their children that there is nothing to be ashamed of just that - important.

A few weeks ago, Hunter and I were walking into the movie theater from the parking garage and a car sped by behind us as the man in the passenger seat shouted a homophobic epithet at us. We weren't holding hands, we weren't even close to each other. It was the first time that someone had ever said something like that to me, outside of a friendly jest, and it was the first time that I had realized that even when we're not touching in any way, it is still clear that we're a couple. Being gay isn't something that goes away depending on your action. It's something that sticks to you, that flies around the air, and, apparently, causes those who were taught that homosexuality is wrong to be disgusted by your having a conversation with the man you love. I was not offended at all, and it hasn't affected me in any way, insofar as I think about that man in the car and why he can't (or won't) realize that we're just like him...

Only smarter, nicer, and more attractive.

All I Ask is a Chair That Tilts...

As Heath Ledger's Joker says in The Dark Knight: I'm a man of simple tastes.

It doesn't take a lot to make me happy, to please me. My favorite things are, for the most part, miniscule and, to most, unimportant, but these little things bring me unimaginable joy and make life worth living. Of course, I do enjoy big things - new cell phones and iPods, vacations, etc., but I find those things meaningless in the grand scheme of life; in the bigger picture. I have compiled today a sampling of the things that are meaningful to me - the things that make me incomprehensibly giddy - the things that make me love this crazy thing I call my life. (This is, by no means, an all-inclusive list.)

Joni Mitchell's soprano and the baritone of Rufus Wainwright, the strings in "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon, good acting, being scared shitless in a movie, a well-sung Sondheim tune, when Michael John surprises me, William Finn and Fred Ebb's sense of humor and ability to break my heart, seeing Hunter smile and listening to him talk about Dreamchild, hearing Heather say something mean or seeing her laugh, how my mom calls me Lanny, Sherie's "And totally miiiiine" riff in "I Can Do Better Than That," inside jokes with my sister about our family and watching trashy MTV with her, opening a new CD, finishing a really amazing book and closing the cover, going to Sam French and being so conflicted about what to buy, laughing out loud at something funny when no one else is around, remembering when Kelly was our best friend and how excited a new cast recording would make her, writing anything at all - no matter how small or stupid it is

The world is good, she said.
Enjoy its shit, she said.
'Cause this is it, she said...

Things I Found Under the Seats in My Car Today.

- Pay stubs for four weeks
- An empty Target bag
- An empty Barnes & Noble bag
- A receipt from Panera, a receipt from Mythos, a receipt from Starbucks, a receipt from the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble
- Three pens
- Six water bottles in various states of consumption
- Two empty half-size cans of Sprite from Heather's house
- An empty Starbucks cup with "Blaine" written on the side
- A newspaper from July 9th
- Directions to Hirshee's house and then to the Morgan-Wixon Theatre
- A program from Songs From An Unmade Bed
- "How I Paid for College" by Marc Acito
- A Samuel French bookmark that I'm pretty sure came out of "How I Paid for College"
- Disc One of the Rent OBCR