I'm Baaaack!

Here I sit in my nice new completely chaotic apartment, full of food (including a whole mess of fresh oysters, which I'm planning to eat for breakfast tomorrow), and covered in boxes. One of said (unlocated) boxes contains all my clean underwear, which is rather a problem, but Sarah nicely went down to the basement laundry room for me, and I've got at least enough until I find that box. I also found (duh) the computer cords, so I am no longer deaf and blind to the world around me. Unfortunately, I have not yet found the box that contains the pound of butter (no, I don't recall whose bright idea it was to pack that...Sarah says it was me and I think it was her). Luckily, butter doesn't smell much as it decays...although I'm not sure that's lucky, because it means that I can't follow my nose to it...I suppose I'll have to wait until I find the box that's oozing.

Meanwhile, I am feeling quite deeply proud of myself, because by God, I managed to pull off our traditional Christmas. It damn near killed me.

I moved in on Tuesday, and our friend Shai (who has been my absolute rock through all this) came to help later. I sensibly had the beds delivered Tuesday as well, because if I had had to sleep on that damn couch one more night I would have died. This turned out to be a lucky idea on my part, since, due to the fact that neither the couch nor the big chair and a half would fit through the door of the apartment, I am now reduced to precisely one and a half pieces of furniture...my black leather armchair and its matching ottoman. I also had to jettison two tall bookcases because they wouldn't fit in the elevator...and the guys had already had to carry three big bookcases up those six flights of stairs. I told them to leave the other two (which are or were taller and heavier) because I didn't want to have dead movers littering the hallways, nor did I want to have to pay tips amounting to the cost of the move itself. I can get smaller furniture. The kitchen table does fit into the kitchen, and I have plenty of chairs and two card tables.

I have encountered a few problems, such as the fact that there is no, repeat, NO damn storage space in the kitchen. I brought my nice kitchen cabinet, but it's filling up fast. I'll figure all this out...there's a Home Depot like four blocks away which has all kinds of nice wire shelving, which looks clean and neat, and they deliver.

Wednesday I shelved books in my remaining bookshelves and went out to Kmart for sheets and blankets and pillows. And I went to the grocery store, which is HALF A BLOCK AWAY! Is that neat or what? And within a block and half there, there's an all-night deli for party beer runs, a very good deli which has all my necessary newspapers, and a Rite Aid drugstore. That's all within a block and a half. What more can anyone want? And aside from my nice mundane grocery store right there, Whole Foods is three blocks away and Trader Joe's is a block and a half away. It is beautifully clear to me that I won't starve around here.

Thursday I kept madly unpacking, and Thursday evening my mother-in-law Ben arrived, and we went over to Sarah's bar to have dinner and then to the tree stand to pick out our tree. Oh, and the cable guy came on Thursday morning.

Friday was complete insanity. I went out to get: presents for Ben and Sarah (very few...give me a break here), the shrimp and lobsters for dinner that night (tradition), and plum pudding (also tradition). Oh, and to get a set of keys made for Sarah. This involved a cab from my house back to the West Village to the one place I can depend on for plum pudding...which was out of it. So another cab to two more stores (one cab...they're a block away from each other). And a stop at my favorite bookstore for Christmas gifts. And a stop at Barnes and Noble for another Christmas present. Well, the first store I went to in that direction may or may not have had plum pudding. but when I saw that there was a line of people waiting on the street to get in the door, I jettisoned that idea in one fast hurry. So I went down the block to the other store, and not only did they NOT have plum pudding, they have closed their fish counter...so now I have no plum pudding and no lobsters and shrimp! Another taxi later, I had the lobsters and shrimp (at actually quite a good price...usually I go to Chinatown where they're really cheap, but since there were only going to be six of us instead of the usual 15 or so, I figured I'd spend the extra money for the convenience). But still no plum pudding! But I called Sarah in a panic, since she and Ben were out shopping, and luckily she was able to find two little ones, which was perfect.

Billy Romp, our wonderful Christmas tree person, who has been a member of the family for many years, came over Christmas Eve morning to deliver the tree (a tiny one this year, only about six feet...usually we get a ten footer but God only knows where the hell I would have put it this year) and have a cup of tea and chat, and then Shai and Selina came over Christmas Eve, and we trimmed the tree and ate our lobster and shrimp and the glorious oysters Shai brought (with gorgeous sauces...the pomegranate is particularly toothsome). It was a somewhat bizarre meal, because at that point I had not yet unearthed the actual cutlery. Somehow we managed with plastic knives and forks and the one claw cracker I had had the sense to buy when I bought the lobster.

And we woke up on Christmas morning and opened our presents and I cooked breakfast, then we all napped, and then I cooked Christmas dinner (all as per tradition). Since there was only going to be me and Sarah and Ben for Christmas dinner, I got us some gorgeous filets mignon (instead of our usual roast), and we had those and pan roasted potatoes and gorgeous green beans from Trader Joe's and our plum pudding with proper hard sauce, flamed with brandy.

And now Ben has left on the rest of her round of holiday visits, and Sarah went to work, and I am sitting in perfect peace, having just watched Oliver and caught up with the world after my enforced internet hiatus, and we are in a blizzard...they're expecting 15 inches of snow. I am one happy, if exhausted lady.

I hope all of you had as merry, if not as idiosyncratic, a Christmas as I did!

Love, Wendy

Movers at 9 AM Tomorrow!

And I am signing off until Thursday morning between 8 and 11 am, which is when the nice cable people are coming over to hook me back up again.

Also, I am going to bed. If I see one more thing that needs to be packed, one more thing that needs to be put in the garbage, or, actually one more THING of any kind whatsoever, I am going to scream.

Yes, there are things undone, and I am getting up at five to deal with same...but my body has absolutely rejected me, and I'm taking it to bed. Well, okay, to couch. Where I shall sleep serenely, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow I will have an actual bed to sleep in. For the first time in a week. My back will thank me extravagantly for this, as I have been singlehandedly supporting the makers of Tylenol all week. Whether I will be able to find my sheets and blankets for this bed is an entirely other question...and at this point, I don't care. The notion of an actual bed is so exciting that I will sleep on the bare mattress and cover myself with newspaper and not give a damn.

And right now, I'm not going to even think about tomorrow morning. I am going to bed.

I'll tell you all about the move on Thursday!

Love, Wendy

To Do List

Sunday: Keep packing up house, go to new apartment to pick up keys.

Monday: Final push...finish packing up, take out all garbage. Call cable company and electric company to get stuff switched over. Go to party. Well, doesn't everyone? Anyway, I deserve it.

Tuesday: Move starts at 7 am! Beds being delivered. Sheets? Damned if I know. I'll think of something. After move...run down the street (only half a block to supermarket!), get food, eat the hell out of it. Mainly, find all kitchen stuff. Start unpacking...Sleep in bed (as opposed to sofa) for first time in a week! Yay!

Wednesday: Do all Christmas shopping plus getting little necessities like dish drainer and shower curtain.

Thursday: Unpack madly. Ben (mother-in-law) arrives at house around 6 pm. Go to Sarah's bar for dinner. Get tree delivered.

Friday: Run down to Chinatown and get the lobsters and shrimp for dinner. Come back, deposit same, go to grocery store for Christmas breakfast and dinner stuff. Find boxes marked Christmas. Decorate tree before dinner. Have 10 or 12 people for dinner.

Saturday: Open presents! Yay! Make and serve breakfast. Lounge around all afternoon until time to start Christmas dinner. Do that.

Sunday: Breakfast for Ben and Sarah (and anyone else who may be around...one never knows). Ben goes back home. Sarah does whatever the hell she's doing, and I collapse into my brand new bed and sleep until possibly Wednesday.

But other than that, I really haven't got a thing to do.

Love, Wendy

Yes, Virginia, There IS A Santa Claus!

YAHOO YAHOO YAHOO YAHOO YAHOO YAHOO!

Guess what I got? AN APARTMENT! My very own APARTMENT! A real, live APARTMENT!

I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to fit my stuff in it (mainly all those damn books), and I don't care. If necessary I'll hang it from the ceiling in one of those nets that people buy to hold baby toys. I'm setting up the move for Monday.

It's just a great place...tons of light because it's on a corner, and it's on the 6th floor (with an elevator, of course), which means I actually have an interesting view. It has two bedrooms, and mine is wonderful. It has a regular type door, but, for some odd reason, it also has big French doors with glass, leading to the living room. This means that I can use my room when we have a big party, and as the evening winds down, I can simply shut the doors (they have blinds) and go to bed.

The second bedroom is a small second bedroom, but then it's not used all the time anyway. The kitchen actually has room for a narrow kitchen table and chairs! Yay! I don't think it has a dishwasher, but I'm perfectly capable of washing dishes...I don't think I'm going to worry about it. The bathroom is also large, with room for freestanding cabinets for towels and stuff. And the living room will (I think) fit the couch, the two big chairs, and the TV and the record player (yeah, I've got one of those set-ups that plays records, tapes and discs and has an AM-FM radio - nobody separates me from my LP's, some of which are not on any other kind of media and quite valuable...to me, anyway). And if I can't fit both the big chairs into the living room, there's room in my bedroom for one of them.

Oh, you think I'm leaving myself too little time to move? Hah. We moved into this place on December 23rd, 1992. We closed the deal at noon, and on the way home from the signing, I grabbed a man with a van sign on the supermarket wall and we moved. That day. I gathered up my gang and we fanned out and bought a card table and four chairs, two beds and a dresser. Then we went and got a Christmas tree. When I'm determined to have Christmas, I am DETERMINED to have Christmas.

I'm sure all of you helped with good thoughts...thank you for your care and concern!

YAHOOYAHOOYAHOOYAHOOYAHOO!

Love, Wendy (who's MOVING...had you heard?)

Where Did I Get It All? WHY Did I Get It All?

packingpackingpackingpackingpackingpackingpackingpackingpackingpacking.

I will be more coherent at some later date. And damn it, Quacky (made you look), I am too hysterical! Wait...that's not what I meant...was it?

(And the rest of you, never mind...Quacky is a VERY old private joke.)

packingpackingpackingpackingpacking.

Love, Wendy (who, in case you hadn't got the point, is packing)

Spinning Head City

Oh, Jeez Louise. I finally got the last piece of documentation for that application for the Chelsea apartment, but it required me to go to the bank this morning. The bank is at One Broadway, which is all the way down at the tip of Manhattan. I needed documentation that I actually had a bank account and have had one for years. Then I had to shlep that to Soho and go sign things at my real estate guy's office. Then I came home and packed things. Then Richard came over with the cleaning and hauling guy to estimate what I'm getting rid of (a lot). Then I packed some more. Then I said fuck this, and went to Sarah's bar for therapy. Now I'm waiting for Chinese food.

I am beginning to get just a little tired of all of this. I get phone calls all day, every day, from eighteen directions telling I have to get all this done by Monday. Well, that's very nice, and I've called in a lot of markers and have a couple of crews of husky young men coming to help (thank GOD for spaghetti sauce in the freezer). But there's one major problem.

I DON'T HAVE AN APARTMENT. Everyone is totally focused on me packing up and getting ut of here, but I have no damn where to go! I have no final word on the Chelsea place, and you are not going to believe what is being proposed to me.

In short, I am supposed to pack up 20 years of my life by Monday, and then (presuming this apartment doesn't come through) move all of that into storage, and stay with my daughter until I find a house.

As an option, this bites the hind leg. A: Sarah lives in Bushwick. It is forty minutes away by subway. Because of my chest problems, I avoid subways without elevators and/or escalators, because it takes me 20 minutes to catch my breath at the top. Sarah's stop is stairs. (Say that ten times fast.)

B. My mother-in-law spends Christmas with us. Hi, Ben, you're 85, you're (as usual) carryng a million pounds of luggage, and you have to get to this godforsaken place in Brooklyn.

C. At a very stressful time, I am stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Now, the second option is more workable but a LOT more expensive. This is that all my stuff goes in storage, I get a hotel room in town (with a second bed), and then Ben and I get car service to Brooklyn and spend those three nights with Sarah (23, 24, 25). This is marginally workable, but where the hell do I get 20 lobsters on Christmas Eve day in Bushwick? And if I take the 45 minute subway ride to Chinatown (which is where they're always bought), what then? Another car service? And what about our Christmas tree?

If I sound hysterical, I AM hysterical. Nobody (except Sarah, who's equally hysterical) seems to understand how I feel about our traditional Christmas.

I am now full of Chinese food. This will at least make me sleep...which I don't seem to do much at the moment.

But I am GODDAMNED if I'll let anybody ruin my beloved Christmas. If all else fails, we'll do it in the damn storage unit.

ARRGGGHHH! And, HHHOOOWWWLLL! Also HELPPPPP! And for those of you to whom it comes naturally (like me), a few prayers would not come amiss.

Oh, and P.S. Jane, that would be a trip to meet you! Let me know!


Love, Wendy

Moving Right Along

Good heavens. I finally got my kid to come and help me with all this. Will wonders never cease?

We have just spent the evening packing stuff up (her) and throwing stuff out (me). Yesterday I had a great bit of luck...one of my favorite movies of all time was on good old TCM, so I used that time to pack books in the den. The movie is that wonderful old 1950's thing, King Solomon's Mines, with Stewart Granger (often bare chested...a definite plus) and Deborah Kerr. For work such as I was doing, movies like this are absolutely perfect, because you've seen them so often that you can concentrate on, say, book packing while still catching all your favorite parts.

I cannot imagine what some of the stuff I threw out was still doing in the house. Why, for instance, was I saving a bag of VCR tapes that someone taped off a television set? This group included a porn movie...no, I don't know either. I also found some strings of Christmas lights (belonging to my cousin) which were perfectly lovely, but they were so old that A. I was afraid to plug them in to test them, and B. half the light bulbs were missing and they are of a type not seen in years. Out, out, out.

And once I got to the bottom of that closet, I discovered that my poor cat was more acrobatic than even I suspected...how the hell did he manage to get cat shit THAT far up the wall? He really did defy the laws of nature in that department.

I have skipped Boardwalk Empire tonight due to all this, but I'll catch it on the 8 pm repeat tomorrow night. Then there's a party with our long-time Christmas tree sellers on Tuesday night, and I still have two plays involving friends to catch...and then all I have to do is pack up the house, buy all the Christmas presents, get the necessary ones in the mail (which this year will probably be Express Mail), and get Christmas done. While moving.

How am I possible? And Texas Beth, believe me, you're going to have fun reading this madness, you fink! And I love you, Jane!

Love, Wendy

My Head Is Spinning

Hoo boy. Things do move fast around here.

The people who were renting that lovely apartment with the backyard suddenly decided they wanted to sell, not lease. Damn it. So Richard the real estate guy and I spent today seeing four apartments, two in the East Village and two in Chelsea on the West Side around 23rd and 7th. (And that's as specific as I'm going to get, okay? Everybody happy now?)

The first East Village one was small, but workable. Even had a decent kitchen. The second East Village one was even smaller and fairly useless to me. I know I'm not going to get the closet space I have here, which is amazing, but one good sized closet and one tiny sort of broom closet are not going to get me anywhere.

Over to Chelsea, and the first apartment was completely useless, because the guy who was showing it lied in his teeth. It did NOT have two bedrooms, it had one, and it was on the second floor with no elevator. Also, while the kitchen was filled with the right stuff, it was so tiny that you could barely use any of it.

Ah, but the second one! I'm rather afraid of saying it again (look what happened last time), but it really is wonderful. No outdoor space, but on the 6th floor of an old elevator building with a ton of light, a kitchen where I can fit a small table, and just lovely all around. AND high ceilings (don't forget my birdcage with the stuffed tarantula).

So now I'm in a mad flurry of sending the application and reference letters and tax returns and all kinds of good shit.

Oh, and the powers that be seem to think that moving out this coming week is a good idea. Of COURSE. Move out of the three story house in which I have lived for 18 years into a two bedroom apartment...in a week. I think I should probably film this process for YouTube...or more probably, Fail Blog.

Eek.

Love, Wendy

On My Way To Bed

But I had to stop and share this. One of my Facebook friends (what a misnomer that is!) posted a video, which I assure you I didn't watch, of a band he had recently seen called "Hot Bucket of Fuck."

I BEG your pardon?

What on earth is that even meant to convey? Admittedly, band names these days don't seem to mean anything anyway...unlike the old days, when they had perfectly sensible names like...um...the Shirelles. Yeah, OK. Maybe that remark about sensible doesn't hold up terribly well. And I will confess to being totally charmed by the name of a fairly recent band which seems to have disappeared (again, I never heard any of their music...my taste sort of basically stops dead after Jimi Hendrix when melodies died), which was called Toad The Wet Sprocket. I thought this was terrific.

And I will freely admit that I read something on the internet a while back about a group of nurses being censored because they had giggled at a patient's "ambiguous genitals." Don't you think Ambiguous Genitals would be a GREAT band name?

But Hot Bucket of Fuck?

Good God.

And no, since you asked, my goddamn buyers STILL have not closed and I am slowly losing what is left of my mind.

Growl.

On the other hand, Thanksgiving is over. It can't be all bad.

Love, Wendy

While The Dishwasher Runs...

So that I can do another load, of course. As I'm sure I've remarked here, I frankly am driven nuts by Thanksgiving and am very happy when it's over, and we can get on with Christmas, which I love passionately.

It's all that damn food, you see. I love to cook, and I do it well, I cook for myself almost always...actual meals, not Lean Cuisine out of the microwave, and I cook for others. And I enjoy it thoroughly, EXCEPT FOR THANKSGIVING. There's just so much of it.

I got up at 4:30 yesterday morning, and essentially did the whole thing (for 15) totally singlehandedly (Sarah turned up later to help and did a lot of the cleanup, bless her). And people brought wonderful homemade pies. But that left me with the turkey, two kinds of stuffing, two vegetable dishes, two potato dishes (well, you have to have mashed and sweet), and the relish tray beforehand with the dips and the carrots and the cucumber spears and the olives...and thank God for leftovers because I do not want to see a lit stove for at least another week. And of course there are always minor screwups...I tend to scorch stuffing (I bake it separately for safety's sake), for instance, and I have never been able to properly time huge numbers of brussels sprouts in my life...they always end up either too crunchy or too soggy (this was a soggy year). Ah, well...I suppose this is what makes it a home cooked meal.

But I'm still really glad when it's over.

Sarah agreed with you, Texas Beth, about being too specific about the (possible) new place. But she saw my point after I explained my thinking...actually, the thinking I did after you guys called me on it.

First of all, why bother? Anybody who reads my blog knows that I am chronically broke and 65 years old. I am a lousy candidate for either robbery or rape, unless your interests lie in acquiring quite a lot of paperback books that the cat has shat on. And admittedly there's no accounting for taste, but really...this is a big city. I can get raped by anyone who sees me as a target. Knowing the block I live on doesn't affect that one way or the other.

Secondly, I dare anyone to find the actual building, which I very pointedly did NOT describe (the outside, I mean). This stretch of the East Village has very long blocks lined on both sides with almost identical buildings. Because of that, and because my hours are so extremely irregular, in order to nail me, you would have to literally walk up and down this very long block 24 hours a day looking for me. I mean hell, the one fixed point in my day is buying the morning papers...but even there, depending on when I wake up, that could be any time from 6 am to noon or later. And hoping that your john break isn't taking place just as I'm hopping into a taxi to go somewhere. Now I have a perfectly good opinion of myself, but I just can't get behind the notion of that much dedication to a cause.

And finally...I am the most social person in the world. If you want to meet me, announce in the comments that you're coming to New York and I'd be delighted to see you! I will promptly arrange to meet you at the bar where Sarah works. I know everybody in the place...at the slightest sign of anything off base, there is a whole gang of people watching my back and ready to go to bat for me...and I NEVER invite someone I've just met to my house, unless it's someone who is coming with a bunch of people we know in common. Last night our friend Shai, for instance, brought his new roommate and her boyfriend, whom I'd never met (they're darling people).

So there you have it. And Beth...when are you coming to NY? I'll meet you at Sarah's bar!

Love, Wendy

Thank You!

You guys are the best, honestly, my readers out there. Thanks so much for your support! Let us charitably assume that whoever the mouth that roared is, he/she/it was just having a bad day and forget about it.

Meanwhile, things are looking up and down (what else is new).

First of all, I bowed to the inevitable and had the cat put down. Along with his chronic diarrhea, he had started to throw up after every meal, and his back legs were going...and nearly 19 years old is a good long life for a cat. I am sad, of course, but it's also a great relief. You have no idea what it's like to just be able to put down a book or magazine or anything and not come back in ten minutes to find it covered in unspeakable things. And my furniture looks like furniture again without all those plastic sheets. Basically a good thing...although Sarah and I went to see Harry Potter today and we passed one of those adoption stands on 14th Street and there were four kittens...two orange and two gray and white...and I had to be physically restrained from promptly adopting all four. I'm just not used to being without a cat or two!

However, my real estate pal came through for me and found me a perfect place...it's still up in the air because my buyers have moved back the closing date, but it's just wonderful. I'll describe it and you can all send out good vibes for me, yes?

The place is in a small building on East 8th Street, between Avenues B and C, right across the street from Tompkins Square Park, which is a perfect location. It's small, of course, but my stuff will fit. The kitchen is particularly small, but I've cooked in a kitchen which was nothing more than a two burner hotplate on top of a half-size icebox where you washed your dishes in the bathroom sink, so what the hell. And it's got a passthrough and a dishwasher. The two bedrooms are also small, but they'll work...Sarah's room is REALLY small. It would make a great walk in closet. But there's room for a trundle bed, which is really, along with a bedside table and a tiny dresser, all we need in there. And mine will fit my queen size bed. And the closets are adequate, if not ample.

The living/dining area has plenty of room for everything and...wait for it...the apartment is on the ground floor in the back, so no stairs...and...IT HAS A HUGE PRIVATE BACKYARD. PLANTED. I mean, it's ENORMOUS. And I'm allowed to barbecue in it! I can get about 30 people back there for summer parties. A HUGE PRIVATE BACKYARD!

Now everybody's lawyers are going back and forth and around and about and arranging closings and arranging lease signings and arranging everything else you can think of. I am, as you can well imagine, on tenterhooks, since we can't pay for the apartment until we get the cash from the closing. However, it turns out that the real estate guy who listed the apartment is with the same firm (though a different office) as my original real estate guy (Richard), so this is very much in my favor.

Meanwhile, life goes on...I am busy scrubbing up odd cat deposits (some of them very odd) and getting Thanksgiving together. I've just been given all sorts of reprieves on it. My previous roommate Vicky is now living in Germany and has some things she wants that she left here, so her mother was going to come over tomorrow and pick them up, but now Joy (the mother) has decided not to do that until this coming weekend, so I can get all the Thanksgiving shopping done tomorrow. And the guest list has turned out to be tiny this year, only ten people, so I'm in luck there. My two chef pals aren't coming (one working and one entertaining his girlfriend's family and coming over after dinner), so the whole meal is back on my head, but I really sort of like that. Sarah's not working Thursday, so she and I can spend the day getting everything together, and I can do all the prep work (oh, you know...chop the onions and celery for the stuffing, make the dips for the vegetable tray, get the olives in their dishes...all that happy horseshit) Wednesday afternoon/night in my own half-assed and leisurely fashion. And my pals Jiggers and Kathy are doing the desserts, so I'm off the hook there! So I'll cook for 12 or so (one never knows around here)...I figure a 14 or 15 pound turkey should do it. I might even add a small ham to the mix, because while I'm not terribly fond of turkey, I do like having leftover ham around.

And that's the way it is around here this Thanksgiving week. (And Texas Beth, I absolutely agree with you about that beer and a half...some days it's the only way.)

Once again, thank you, my staunch defenders!

Love, Wendy

Followup...And Possibly Throw Up

Welcome to a roller coaster of a day.

Bill finally called this morning...I was right, he and his wife were visiting their son in North Carolina (well, I got the Carolina part right, anyway). They were due back today, but Bill's wife Boo (yes, it's a nickname, and I'm ashamed to say I haven't the remotest notion what her first name actually is...after 40 years. On the other hand, my actual first name is Loretta, Wendy being a nickname, and I don't think many people know that, either) had a heart attack on Monday. Thank God, their son is a doctor, saw the symptoms, got her to the hospital right away, and she's going to be fine. I'm very fond of her. Evidently it was fairly minor, as heart attacks go, and she'll be out of the hospital tomorrow.

However, Bill informed me that the closing on this house...you remember, the December 1st closing, the one which was cutting it so terribly fine for me? Yeah, that one. Well, it's suddenly set for Monday. Ah, what?

In the meantime, the apartment that I did in fact see that I loved looks like it's going to be a nonstarter. This was the one in Stuyvesant Town, a huge apartment complex built in the 40's for returning WWII vets, essentially. However, Stuy Town has horrendous requirements for renters...you have to have 36 months of rent in the bank, for instance. I don't think I've got 36 minutes of rent in the bank, actually. And because of the trust, even though as of Monday I will have $1.1 in the bank, it'll be under the name of the trust, and they evidently won't rent to a trust fund - which seems a bit weird, since NY tends to be trust fund baby city. Also, when they ran a credit check on me, they found that I owed Chase Manhattan nearly $8,000, which seems to send up a red flag. In fact, I have received a settlement notice from Chase's collection people which states that they will settle for $2,915.87, which will be available to me by the end of the week, so problem solved right? Um, no. Seems that the fact that you have EVER owed money that went into collection screws your credit rating for seven years. Well, if this continues to be a problem, come by the pup tent that I'll be pitching on the corner for the next seven years until I can find a goddamn place to live.

So I called in a favor, and went to a friend who happens to be my kid's ex-boss who is connected to real estate...and this all looks sort of promising.

Oh, dear God, it just goes on and on. I have spent the entire day sitting at the kitchen table in my bathrobe fielding phone calls and emails from trustee and real estate person, and many wonderful supportive messages on Facebook, and I am exhausted. I have no idea where the HELL I'm going to be living next month, there are 15 people (or so) coming over for Thanksgiving, and I'm exhausted with this whole goddamn thing. Also, I twitch. And shiver.

I think the best thing I can do at this moment is focus on Thanksgiving and my usual quandary about the green beans. What do you think? 15 people...given that 1/4 pound is usually one serving of something...but I guess that's really meat, isn't it? I mean, with the brussels sprouts and the yams and the mashed potatoes and the stuffing (oh, yeah, and the turkey) (maybe a small ham)...you think I could get away with two pounds of green beans? Like I did last year and the year before that and the year before that...and so forth?

Trust me...I think I'm a LOT better off at the moment obsessing about green beans than about anything else.

You will wave at my little pup tent in the middle of Christopher Street, won't you?

Love, Wendy

Oh, Honestly...

So Bill the trustee has been telling me that the closing is December 1 and I have to find an apartment, right? And Richard the real estate guy has been telling me he'll help, right? And Bill's going to take care of the money end? Yeah, well, not so much.

I thought I'd take a look at Stuyvesant Town over the weekend, because they keep advertising at the top of their lungs, and why not? So I trotted over to their renting office, saw an apartment (a model apartment) that was like the one I wanted (one bedroom converted to two), and fell in love with it. It's pretty tiny, but really, that's only comparative...I mean, I've been living in damn near 1400 square feet here, and I'm sure as hell not going to get anything that size on my budget. And it was all new and shiny and clean and uncatted...with an actual window in the kitchen AND one in the bathroom! My house tends to be somewhat dark because it's surrounded by other houses on three sides, so the only light comes from the bedroom window/sliding door thing in my room, and its skylight, and the skylight in Sarah's room, and the front window downstairs. And the kitchen has a built-in microwave AND an actual (very small) pantry! AND it's on 14th Street and Avenue C, with an entrance placed so I can walk out of my front door to a bus stop on 14th Street, with plentiful taxis. My favorite supermarket is a block and a half down the street, there's a deli and a 99 cent store across the street, and utilities are included...no more electric bill!

So I tried to get hold of Bill to tell him all about this wonder. No Bill. Not anywhere. I did email back and forth with Richard, but without the money, there's nothing he can do about anything. And there has been no word from Bill between Saturday and today, which, as we know, is Tuesday.

Now I'm beginning to get worried, because he's not all that young (70s), and I left him several urgent messages and a long email. Of course, he doesn't read his email every day, as far as I can tell, which is no help to me at all. I'm sure he's just gone off for a long weekend to visit one of his kids in South Carolina (well, it's somewhere like that). He's done this before. But wouldn't you think he'd TELL me? And if anything HAS happened, wouldn't it occur to someone to let me know? I mean, since I'm in the middle of a house sale that he's orchestrating? And if the worst has occurred, what do I do NOW? I mean, I know the Northern Trust Bank in Chicago is the backup, but WHO at the Northern Trust?

This is one of the times when I would cheerfully kill my father, were it not for the fact that he's been dead for some years (I usually felt that way when he was alive, now that I think of it). Daddy set up this damn trust, and one of the stipulations of it is that I was never allowed to know much about it. In other words, where other trust fund babies have monthly account statements and drawing accounts, and/or a monthly payment, I have always had to ask for what I needed, backed up with facts and figures, to be scrutinized. God bless Bill, he's always been wonderful about seeing my point, and has always been there when needed...but I should have had, at the very least, a set of emergency instructions about a million years before this. My father couldn't bear to relinquish the reins even after death. Part of this, of course, was the fact that Daddy was born in 1899 and didn't think women should have their own money anyway, and the other part is that he was just basically an SOB.

So here I sit, with my dream apartment slowly receding, losing my mind, and at the same time terribly worried about poor old Bill, of whom I'm very fond.

I do wish people would quit leaving me entirely in the dark...isn't it ME who's supposed to be leaving her home of 20 years standing? In about THREE WEEKS?

Love, Wendy

The Rocky Road To A House Sale

Well, we've got our house sold...the co-op board finally stopped being jerks. And then I evidently nearly managed to queer the deal all on my own, through the most idiotic set of circumstances.

I just remarked...kindly remember that contracts have been signed and the closing is set...that the wiring was wonky. Now this is the same thing I have said to A. the broker, and B. the buyers, all along. I merely told what I thought was an amusing Village story this time, which was that the original electrician had wired the house when he was stoned out of his skull.

This is an entirely true story. The electrician in question is our friend Rob, who has been clean for about a million years now. But it is an undeniable fact that when he wired the house, he was a wreck. I thought this added a lot of character to the house...you know, a real true to life Village story.

I have told this story to my realtor, I have told this story to buyers...and all of a sudden, our buyers decided they couldn't live in a house that had been wired by a crackhead.

SOMEBODY SHOULD LISTEN TO WHAT I'M SAYING. I prefaced the story of the wiring with the remark that this had taken place in the 1970's. Yes, that would be the 1970's. That is 40 years ago. May I repeat...40 YEARS AGO. 40. Years ago.

We got our buyers back. But I've been told that I'm no longer allowed to talk to them.

Look, I'm perfectly fine. But I think the rest of the world has gone stark raving mad.

Meanwhile, I'm being told that I have to rent and move into a new apartment within the next three weeks. It's going to be a damned interesting holiday season.

Love, Wendy

30 Rock

Well, damn, that was fun. I just wish I hadn't been wrapped so soon, because we got out at 2 pm after an 8 am start...this was fine in terms of getting tired, but not so hot for getting any overtime.

Our scene was in a battered women's shelter, with Tracy Morgan and Jack MacBrayer (is that how you spell him?), who plays Kenneth. I got to exchange words with both of them (mainly since I was sitting practically in their laps). Tracy Morgan, by the by, can't remember lines to save his life, in case you care. It gave us a good laugh, anyway.

I'm presuming this will air around Christmas, since there were Christmas decorations on set. I couldn't get the name of it, but it's Episode 5.10 (meaning the 10th episode of the 5th season), and you can look it up on their website. I should be very clearly visible, because they gave me a small bit to do involving my inhaler...you just never know what'll come in handy.

The reason I'm dying to see what the hell the episode is about is that the people coming in for the afternoon shoot were fascinating...four large drag queens (one of whom was on roller skates) and at least one little person. I confess to having a LOT of trouble imagining what on earth you would do with a plot involving battered women, drag queens and little people.

Then Saturday night a friend came in town and brought me a carton of cigarettes, for which I am forever in her debt...Sarah, I love you! (Yes, her name is Sarah too.)

And on Sunday I trotted off to Spanish Harlem for the annual Marathon Party with Saint Tiger Lily and the Boss...and got to snuggle up with absolutely the world's most adorable and happy baby, the one and only Nico. This is why I didn't watch Boardwalk Empire last night (although I caught up with it tonight and was rewarded by a flashing glimpse of myself on the Boardwalk in that awful Lesbian On The Boardwalk khaki suit) and why when I started to write this blog last night I decided not to...as usual after one of these events, what I was typing was complete gobbledy gook, so I decided to wait until cooler heads (those less filled with beer and magnificent banh mi with three kinds of pork) could prevail. I always feel that if you find you suddenly have twelve typing fingers on each hand, bed is the only answer.

And this week yawns before me with absolutely nothing to do, which is probably good, since my house is humongously disgusting...anyway, announcing that I'm going to clean the house is usually the best way for people to start calling me with jobs. This doesn't help the house, of course, which is why it looks the way it does (disgusting, remember?).

Food and sleep beckon...

Love, Wendy

More Work!

Oh, yay me. I just got a call from a casting agency that never hired me before. This is always good, because the more people know you're out there, the better. Anyway, I'm doing 30 Rock on Friday! I would say, isn't that glamorous, but it isn't, actually, since I'm playing one of the denizens of a woman's shelter. Ah, well. I am, after all, a character actress...also, unless I miss my bet, from the questions on the phone about my sizes, I'm pretty sure it's going to be one of those lovely jobs where I just roll out of bed and get there and they do the rest.

Meanwhile, I have three lovely bits for all of you in the listening (reading?) audience.

The first is tiny, but it amused the hell out of me. You know my oft-repeated rant about nobody paying any attention to the English language any more. Well, the complete inattention to copy editing and proof reading paid off the other day in the NYPost in an article about a gentleman named David Pecker (which is a rather unfortunate name to begin with). He is the CEO of something called American Media and seems to be doing some sort of restructuring...which caused the article to be headlined: "Pecker's Package."

Secondly, I had the most bizarre experience last week. A friend was in town, and she and I were having a drink and chatting. Apropos of talking about my first marriage, I told her the story of being sort of engaged (I think we were sort of engaged) to another guy with whom I was sharing a room in a boarding house. This would be about 1967 or so. Anyway, the guy and I also shared this tiny room with Buzzy, who became my first husband. You see, Simon and I worked days and Buzzy worked nights, so we would get up for work as Buzzy was coming in to take over the one bed. This sounded a WHOLE lot more reasonable in 1967.

Now I have not thought of Simon in years, except very much in passing. And I certainly haven't laid eyes on him in a good 40 years. The morning after this conversation, I opened up my Facebook, and guess who requested me as a friend? Yup. I about died. How completely weird is that!

I'm going to have to start looking up all my old boyfriends...presuming I can remember their names.

Now I'm going to do something I rarely do, which is change the names to protect the innocent. You will understand why.

The lady I was talking with about the boarding house room I will call Mary. Mary has a boyfriend, call him Joe, who is an old pal of mine, which is how I met Mary, whom I adore.

So Mary told me that she had quite a lot of issues in her nether regions which had been bothering her for years, and she finally decided, oh, the hell with it. I've got the insurance, let me get this taken care of, finally (a botched episiotomy, among other things). Before the operation, since there was going to be a fairly decent bit of reconstruction done, her doctor told her to go home and measure Joe...length and width flaccid, length and width aroused.

The result is that they can never break up, because Joe now finds himself going with a lady with a custom-built crotch, just for him.

And you thought those monogrammed shirts were a great Christmas present.

Love, Wendy

Free of the Javits!

That was a long, long week there. Next year, I swear I'm going to find myself a little battery operated heater, if there is such a thing, and tuck it under my feet. But as always, the two guys who run the computer expo are very nice, so except for the freezing and boredom, it wasn't as bad as it might have been.

Nothing's coming up, so I might get deeply busy cleaning my house, which two dogs have not improved in the least. I must say it's fun to have them around, though. There's something deeply cozy about watching television with two nice warm dogs resting their heads on your lap.

My, Boardwalk Empire just gets more naked every day, doesn't it? (No, Beth, I haven't been seen recently, not since the first episode...but keep watching!) I must say I was quite pleased this past Sunday to get my first glimpse of the full male frontal. It's not, you understand, that I have any great interest in gentlemen's what have yous...not after two marriages and many rather less formal liaisons. Face it...unless you've got a square knot or an interesting tattoo, you guys all look pretty much alike. No, what was bothering me was that we were getting lots and LOTS of ladies in all their unpruned glory, but the boys were always covered with a sheet or something, which I felt was some sort of discrimination. Small sidelight about the movie business in re that "unpruned glory" remark...did you know (well, how could you) that they actually put out a casting call that way? For women who would appear in the nude and were "completely natural; no Brazilians." I wonder if anyone desperate for work went out and had it put back on?

And I seem to be having a play reading! My friends Pete (my current roommate, he of the dogs) and Trish were reading a one act I wrote some years back, and decided to talk Carla, who owns the bar where they and my daughter all work, into doing it as a reading in the bar! I think this sounds like fun. It's a funny little one act about Gabriel coming back to earth to search for a new Mary for a second Son of God. It should be fun...since the script is somewhat blasphemous (yeah, well, we fallen away Catholics tend to get that way), audience reaction will probably be greatly improved if they're all a little drunk.

Meanwhile I am going to clean the icebox, because the lettuce is brown and the cold cuts are green, and somehow I feel that should be the other way around. Also I distinctly heard rustling noises in there the other night, and I'm deeply afraid that things are taking on a life of their own.

I shall leave you with this...I was reading the paper during a lull at the Javits last week, and my, how the world has changed. Seems there was a gala celebrating 50 years of the contraceptive pill (God bless its little heart - sure did make life more fun). During this event, Cosmopolitan Magazine was presented with an award for Best Contraceptive Reporting. I think this is by far the best award I ever heard of. Sure beats an Oscar for, say, Best Sound Editing of An Already Written Score For A 7 Minute Documentary, or whatever other bizarre things they hand out.

Love, Wendy

Back in the Javits Again....

Why did I remember so many things about the horrors of working in the Javits Center (bring your lunch and snacks, remember that the only affordable coffee is out back by the loading dock, there is nowhere to eat lunch in any comfort whatsoever), while forgetting the main thing...the first day of the Interop Expo is when they set up the Exhibit Hall and LEAVE THE LOADING DOCK OPEN ALL DAY. Aside from the usual pigeons wandering around indoors, the result of this is that an icy wind blows through the whole place for all of your 12 hours there.

Long underwear tomorrow...and boy, does that ever feel sillier than shit in October.

Love, Wendy

Two Hundred Shrieking Nurses From Hell

Bet THAT title caught your eye. It is extremely descriptive of the day I have just had...or, even more descriptively, the day that just had me.

Off I went at 7 am to do a medical seminar for a company for whom I have worked many times. These things are absolutely easy, simple, no problems, so I picked up the morning papers, because once you've signed people in, no problems whatsoever.

Oh, hee hee hee, and giggle giggle giggle. There was not one single damn thing that worked today. And by not worked, I mean, craziness beyond belief.

Here is how you do these seminar things. When you get to your location, normally a hotel or that nutsy 7th Avenue joint that I've talked about here (the one that's a conference center and antique store), your boxes of handouts and stuff to sell and your various bits are sitting there waiting for you. You unpack everything, set it out enticingly, and then you collect your nicely faxed list (UPDATED the night before list) and settle back to welcome the hordes.

Yeah. Right. We (me and Vincent, with whom I've worked on many of these things) got there at 7:30 am for a seminar that started at 9:00. There were no boxes. There was no fax. The hotel staff had to go running around to find the boxes. There was no fax. We had to make an entire new list, damn near.

So, OK. It then was made quite clear to us that the organizers had seriously overbooked, because there were seats for 180 people. We had (and this according to the organizers) 196 people. AND we had walk ins. We had to turn down the walk ins after one or two of them. They objected fairly strenuously, but hey, they were walk ins.

This thing started at 9:00 am. Around 10:00 am, a lady (I use the term advisedly...she weren't no lady) walked in and announced that she had a seat because she had paid for it six weeks before, and we should throw out people to make room for her. She was quite determined, and very, VERY loud.

Now, you have to understand that by this time we had already attempted to make room for people by removing tables in one room...which brought down on our heads the people who had been sitting at those tables. All of them, according to each and every one of them, had terrible back problems, and couldn't do without the table. We had also, in complete defiance of Fire Department rules, ranged people along walls and out in the hall, within at least earshot.

Next, a lady turned up...this at 10:30 am for a 9:00 am thing...and she was even nuttier than old Nurse Ratched (see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). SHE called the cops. No, I'm serious. She actually called the Fire Department to get the whole shebang closed down, but what we got was a very nice cop. Who went away. She also called the Mayor's office and God knows who else.

And when we finally lurched to the end of this day...all of these people who attend are given certificates to say that they have attended before they get professional points for this. Because of the earlier kerfluffle about the old sign in sheet, Vincent and I had to hand write some of these (this always happens...usually with walk ins). At which point we had people screaming that their various employers wouldn't give them credit unless their names were typed.

After that, I went to Sarah's bar and got somewhat drunk. Because, to be honest, the only thing that held me together all day was the notion of nice cold beer. And, given the lovely mix of people at the Bistro...it is just so lucky that there wasn't a nurse in there tonight. Because I would have cheerfully strangled any nurse I saw.

Oh, and by the by, after about 16 of these damn people threatened to sue for not having seats they paid for, I happened to look at the actual title of the seminar, which was: Nursing Documentation: Legally Proven Strategies To Keep You Out of the Courtroom.

Um, yeah.

Love, Wendy

Disjointed Remarks

Oh, good Lord. I'm now harboring TWO dogs. Really, life does get complicated. As I think I must have mentioned, Sarah's friend Pete is currently living in with his darling (large) puppy Luna...well, it turns out that Aisha (another of the denizens of Sarah's job) has to give up the dog she just got...another largish one, Bella. So Pete is helping with this effort...and in the meantime, guess who gets to live with BOTH dogs? It's damn good thing that A. I love dogs, and B. I have made it perfectly clear that I do NOT walk dogs. Unless they're my own, of course. In fact, I'd have a dog again in a heartbeat, except that my life is not dog-friendly in the least. You can't leave a dog alone for the 16 to 18 hours I'm sometimes away on a movie shoot, for instance. It's cruel first of all to the poor dog, and second of all to my floors and furniture...even though the cat has actually not left much undone to said floors and furniture.

Speaking of which, I honestly got down on my hands and knees today (which, at my age, takes a while) and started cleaning the bedroom floor. Then I got up and got a start on the ironing...wherein I found a dress I haven't worn since, I believe, last spring. Oops. Naturally, what I've been doing is ignoring the entire tottering pile and just grabbing and ironing the pair of pants/skirt/blouse/dress I want to wear that day...but since I have a heavy few days coming up, I thought I'd better tackle the heap.

Temp work has suddenly revved up, you see...which means I need to look like a nice professional type person instead of a friendly Greenwich Village bar patron. I've actually got work for this coming Thursday, Friday, and Sunday through Thursday (all seminar stuff). That's a Franklin Covey seminar Thursday, a PESI on Friday (these are nursing seminars), and then off to the dear Javits Center (retching noises here) Sunday through Thursday for Interop.

Much to my fury, the Metropolitan Transit Authority is forcing me to take a taxi to each of these jobs except the Interop orientation/training session on Sunday (because that's from 1 - 5 in the afternoon). The taxis are because the MTA has cut out my overnight crosstown bus and it doesn't start until 7 am, and has cut the hours of the uptown bus, which also doesn't start until 7 am. This is of limited usefulness to me since all of these jobs START at 7 am. And I am damned if I'm going to walk 6 blocks to the subway in pitch blackness in a neighborhood which unfortunately has gotten pretty dicey at that hour. And it makes no sense to grab a cab to the subway, because the Javits is over here on the far West Side and a straight shot up West Street, whereas the subway is over on 7th Avenue. Oh, and did I mention that after all these service cuts, they're raising the fares again? ARRGGGH.

Meanwhile, if you're not watching Glee, you should be. Lea Michele, who plays Rachel, is lobbying her cute little socks off at the moment. Seems there's going to be (in real life, I mean) a revival of Funny Girl in 2012, and the kid is going for it at the top of her lungs, which are somewhat upwards of considerable. She sang Don't Rain On My Parade at the Oscars this year, and in tonight's episode of Glee, not only did she sing Happy Days Are Here Again, but she was wearing a replica of one of Streisand's first act costumes from the show (the sailor suit, if you care). Personally, I think she's pushing it, but she really is just about the only one of the current crop of actress/singers who could do it...more power to her. Meanwhile, I absolutely can't wait for Tuesday after next, when the Glee cast takes on The Rocky Horror Show...which I love with an unholy passion.

Oh, and if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend Raising Hope, which comes on right after Glee. It's silly as hell, and very, very funny...the story of a young man with a mad family who becomes a rather reluctant single father. Try it...it makes me giggle.

Love, Wendy

Oh, For God's Sake

I just saw this new study that's come out linking childhood obesity to the cold virus.

Boy, it is just really hard for people to admit that they eat the wrong things, now isn't it? And even a mother interviewed for this video says that when she was a kid (and when I was a kid), we were out playing until we were called home for dinner. We were all running up and down the block, we had our bikes out and our roller skates, we were playing baseball in the vacant lot down the block.

By the by, this study encompassed 124 children. Um, no. Could we get a much larger sample here?

When Sarah was growing up, we didn't have junk food in the house because we couldn't AFFORD junk food. I never made dessert because I am not that much of a sweets eater and am fairly lousy at making desserts.

And once again, and probably to the enormous boredom of everyone, because it's my favorite rant. Make dinner. You can do it in half an hour. Look up quick recipes for decent food. Rachel Ray, whom I detest as a person, has very good family recipes that can be made in a short time with fresh food.

STOP FEEDING EVERYBODY GARBAGE!

And now I'm going to eat some more candy corn (and a nice big mouthful of popcorn) and go to bed. Nobody's perfect.

Love, Wendy

Bizarre Movie Shoot

REALLY bizarre movie shoot.

So Grant Wilfley called me on Tuesday for a shoot yesterday. Be in Long Island City at 6 am Wednesday. And LIC, God help us, happens to be what SAG calls "in the zone." In layman's terms, this means...no location bus.

Up I drag myself at 3 am. Out the door at 4:30 am. On the N train by 5 am. And at Queensboro Plaza by about 5:30 am.

Frankly, I defy anybody who doesn't live in Queens to follow the directions we were given, which were (I know, because I dutifully wrote them down), go to the Five Star Indian Banquet Restaurant at 13-05 43rd Avenue, between 21st Street and 13th Street. Um, WHAT? This is one of those peculiar addresses that only exists in Queens. In case you ever find yourself having to do this, I will be the first to tell you that there are no people, no lights, and no nothing at 5:30 am in Queens. Luckily, a block away I saw a street with all kinds of unoccupied taxis racing down it. UNluckily, as I soon discovered, they were all deadheading in from the airport and heading back to Manhattan, because I had to stop six of them before I found a driver who knew anything about Queens.

Well, I got to holding on time and we shot stuff under the train lines. Then we were told, okay, now we're all going to Times Square. Oh. We are? This little detail wasn't mentioned before, but okay, why not. So we piled into the picture cars (they hire people to work with their cars on various shoots, because you can't depend on actual traffic to move when you need it).

So we get to Times Square JUST in time to shoot during the lunch rush. As I think I've mentioned before, after my nice quiet Boardwalk set, this shooting right in the middle of the immediate world tends to be annoying. You have to spend so damn much time clearing the civilians out of the way.

We shot most of the scene, went to the midtown holding on 46th, and had a nice lunch. Then we finished up there, and were told that the vans were coming and we were now off to 34th Street. Well, to begin with, those damn vans should have been at the subway station first thing in the morning, and we were all fairly pissed off that there were suddenly vans to take us from 49th to 34th (and some of us are planning to lodge a complaint with SAG).

Once the scene on 34th was explained to us, the whole shebang suddenly rocketed into complete and total insanity. This was the first day of shooting on a movie called Safe, which stars a guy named Jason Stathorn, who seems to be quite hot as an action type character. Awfully nice. Very British. Anyway, the powers that be had decreed that the shot was going to be some sort of guerilla filmmaking/cinema verite stuff, where two production people and two handheld cameras would be on 34th Street right opposite Macy's. We 12 or so background people were to form a flying wedge around Jason to protect him from unwanted civilian types.

This was the nuttiest thing I have ever done on film. (I have done many, MANY nutty things in my life, but I've never gotten paid for them before.)

We got out on 34th Street and the production guys, Steve and Brad, organized us into our wedge shape. We then proceeded to stand in this odd arrangement in the middle of the sidewalk across from Macy's for about 40 minutes while we waited for Jason and his stand-in Chris to appear. You simply have no conception of how idiotic you feel standing like this in the middle of the damn sidewalk for 40 minutes. After a while, we started playing around...we'd all look up, for instance, with varying degrees of horror and prurient interest on our faces. This achieved nothing at all, because everybody on 34th at 5:30 pm is either running for a train or to catch a sale, but it amused us for a while.

Well, eventually Chris the stand-in arrived, and we all started marching up and down the street in formation. Yeah. Right. Have you ever noticed how deeply focused New Yorkers are when they're trying to get somewhere? They were shoving us out of the way, intent on their Blackberries and train schedules...

Then Jason arrived, and evidently he's something special, because suddenly people got interested...and it all got MUCH worse. We're supposed to be keeping these people out of the way, but really, when some little girl leaps out in front of the poor guy and flashes a phone camera in his face...I just don't see myself tackling a 14 year old. And some ditzy broad thought it would be great fun, despite all our reasonably discreet closing of ranks, to insinuate herself right in the middle of our flying wedge...oh, and did I mention the lady in the red outfit who wanted to dance with us?

I have never been so tired in my life. Whoever dreamed up this nutsy shoot should be...um...shot? Preferably in three locations in one day. Starting at 5:30 am in Queens.

Love, Wendy

Weird Jury Duty

Well, that was deeply amazing.

You have to understand that I seem to do a LOT of jury duty. I almost never try to get out of it, because you have to serve anyway, right? So why bother? I've done it a couple of times, but only because I'm leaving for Europe or something. And I'm always put on a case because I seem to be the demographic they're looking for...nice middle aged liberal woman with family.

So, as I said, I called in on Wednesday night and was told to report at 9 am Thursday, which I dutifully did (in that lousy weather). I got there a bit early because the buses were for some reason nonexistent (two of them didn't turn up) and I knew damn well that even if one did come, it would still be lousy service since New York has this weird thing about weather. You see, New York seems to be completely incapable of dealing with anything other than fair and warmer. The powers that be...i.e., the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) and drivers of cars and anybody else who's trying to get around greets everything like a major emergency...something that has never happened in the history of the world. So if it rains, you get all this doom and gloom about "The subways will flood!" No, actually, they won't. In forty years in New York, they never have. "Snow is coming! Everybody panic!" Um, it's winter. Snow tends to arrive. At any rate, I said the hell with it and took a taxi.

I got to the jury room around 20 to 9, had a cup of coffee and a brownie, and then they called us into the jury assembly room and said "Please sign in." After we had done this, the gal (Clerk of the Court, I think) announced, "The case has been settled out of court. You have discharged your jury duty. Thank you for serving."

Eh? Two days...one from 8:30 to 12:00 and one from 9:00 to 9:10? And I don't have to do it again for four years? I can live with this.

So I went to my decent Old Navy on 18th and 6th Avenue, and found my pants...one pair of black, one pair of khaki, and one pair in a nice black and white tweed. I'm not much of a fan of khaki pants, but some of the jobs I do require quasi-uniforms...as in wear black pants and a white shirt, or khaki pants and black t-shirt. So, a pair of khakis is kind of a necessity. This being New York, a black t-shirt...or anything black...is also a necessity.

On a related theme (clothing, children...we were talking about clothing), doing background work has an extremely boring effect on one's wardrobe. You see, my colors are black, red, and white. I decorate my various and sundry living spaces that way, I buy clothes in those colors...I mean, this is me. Now, when you get a call from a casting agency, unless it's a period show like Boardwalk Empire, they tell you what to wear/bring. This can get deeply annoying, because quite often they say something like wear one, bring three. Yeah, seriously. And you're shlepping three sets of clothes all over the damn place. But the FIRST thing they always say is, "No red, black or white." Naturally, it's because those colors are eyecatching, which is the LAST thing they want you to be if you're doing background. In that regard, according to me and every other woman on Boardwalk Empire, that show is a dream. Fall out of bed, throw on your jeans and t-shirt, catch location bus. You don't have to touch your hair, your face, your anything. It's all done for you when you get there. Admittedly, this requires you to catch a bus at 5 am, but think of all the time you saved by not having to think about anything!

This is why I agonized about buying that lipstick red dress for the wedding...because I can't wear it for background work. Not like I have the money or the space for two totally separate wardrobes. So now I find myself eying clothing in medium blue, or dark wine red or deeply boring beige...not colors I would choose if I had my druthers. And I cherish the remark of a gal at an open call a couple of years back at Central Casting who, when confronted with the bit of info about the black, red or white rule, said, "This is New York. Have you ever tried to buy anything that ISN'T black?"

Meanwhile, I have a ferocious hangover (yeah, good night at Sarah's bar celebrating my release from jury duty) which, in a deeply stupid move that I should have gotten over YEARS ago, I am attempting to cure with cold beer. Unfortunately, it seems to be working pretty well, or else I'm blitzed again. Which is fine because I'm going to bed...having successfully fought off the blandishments of my roommate Pete and my old pal Jiggers (who dropped by tonight) to come out to the bar. Luckily, the notion of attempting to find clothing is quite beyond me at the moment. I'm going to eat something or other and go the hell to bed. I just hope the dog and the cat don't take up ALL my space in it.

Love, Wendy

Good News/Bad News

Well, it looks as if I live in my way too big house for a bit longer. I am going to KILL some of my neighbors...that would be the ones on the co-op board. You see, they, in their wisdom, decided that if I sold my house for $1.1, it would lower the property value of THEIR houses. So they rejected our nice buyers and told us to get $1.4 for the house.

Honestly. Nobody in their right mind would pay that for this house, lived in and falling to bits as it is. Not to mention the constantly erupting cat. So my trustee called me and laid out some complicated plan that I didn't understand a word of...and now I'm back in house limbo again. AARRRGGGH. And meanwhile I seem to have acquired a dog...I hasten to say that the dog is visiting, along with Pete, my current roommate (yes, of course, another friend of Sarah's). Luna is a sweet dog...a big puppy (six months old) of collie and Australian shepherd background. She gets in bed with me in the morning and tries assiduously to lick me to death. The cat isn't thrilled, but he and Luna are getting along and even do the occasional nose kiss.

Meanwhile I'm on jury duty. I went in on Monday in a pouring rainstorm. They let us go at noon and told us not to come back until we had called into their hotline after 5 pm tonight, which I've done, and now they want us back at 9 am tomorrow...when there is going to be not only a pouring rainstorm but 40 mile an hour winds. I'm so thrilled about this that I may vomit. The only bright spot is that the courts, in their infinite wisdom, have actually provided the prospective jurors with an indoor smoking room! I think I'll write them a letter of appreciation.

And the layoff from jury duty this week made me able to actually be here for the arrival of a treat I bought myself. Since my husband bought something from them YEARS ago, Omaha Beef has been chasing me around trying to get more business, and I finally succumbed to their blandishments. Really, it was an awfully good buy. For $70, including shipping, I got 4 sirloin steaks, 2 aged filet mignon steaks, 2 nice boneless porkchops, 2 of their very good sole filets stuffed with crabmeat and shrimp, 4 hamburgers, 4 big fat hotdogs...and a free gift consisting of a knife set, a cutting board, and 6 more hamburgers. That's about 24 meals for me at a cost of $3 each...oh, and there were 8 little cakes of potatoes au gratin, too. I consider this a damn good buy. Not to mention those nice knives, which I figure will cut things for at least a week. Being a complete cynic about free gifts, I have absolutely no doubt that the knives will fall apart the minute I try to sharpen them, but what the hell...they were free.

Meanwhile (remember I liquidated that little IRA), sdaedddds (that was the cat walking across the keyboard...say hello to the cat), I have been doing a bit of shopping.

Good Lord, shopping is annoying these days. I am a creature of habit because while I love to wander through stores and think about the odd (sometimes EXTREMELY odd) things people seem to be buying and presumably wearing, I actually BUY things as little as possible. I hate dressing rooms, and I hate standing in line. Therefore, I go to H&M, where I know exactly what sizes I wear, and to Old Navy, ditto. That way I can just grab what I want, pay for it and get the hell out.

Oy. All I wanted was some new turtlenecks and office-type slacks from Old Navy, and I had my eye on a dress and jacket combo at H&M. Well, it turned out that the Old Navy in Soho no longer sells office slacks OR turtlenecks. Which means that until I get uptown to the 34th Street store, I will have to continue wearing the old slacks which are stretched out and falling off my rear, and mending the old turtlenecks, which are falling apart. And on top of that, the outfit I wanted at H&M fit badly and looked awful on me. I did get a bronzy, silky dress at H&M which is very pretty...a sort of shirtwaist thing...and it was on sale for $30. It shouldn't be a total loss.

Meanwhile, I have returned my library books and gathered a whole new bunch, I have gone to the local Rite-Aid and stocked up on paper towels and toilet paper, and I have a house full of food. Unfortunately, I still have a house.

Love, Wendy

Wedding Weekend and Boardwalk Empire!

Well, nothing of any great note happened last week - I had a day's work on a seminar, but other than that, it was a real snoozefest.

But then Sarah and I went off (way too early) on Saturday morning to the family wedding, and it was truly great fun. It was the wedding of a cousin and took place on the waterfront in Annapolis; you should have cousin Sarah and her Ben standing on the edge of the water, Sarah wearing her grandmother's wedding veil (and a lovely simple dress, of course - although I must say wearing the veil alone would certainly have been innovative), as the sailboats went by behind them...just lovely. And then we all ate and danced and caught up with each other...a perfect day.

We stayed with my brother- and sister-in-law, which is always fun...but the trip home was a disaster area. We always get the cheap Chinatown bus for excursions to either Boston or Washington (we have family in both) and nine days out of ten, it's fine...this time we hit the 10th day. What should have been a five hour trip turned into a six hour trip. We hit every single traffic jam available, to the extent that I began to suspect our driver of actually looking for them. I, of course, was going bonkers, because I happen to be mildly claustrophobic. I get myself together for the length of the trip and have no problem, but if it goes on too long, I begin to twitch.

And of course, these are marathon travels. Let it be said here and now that I am a pure, unadulterated city kid, and being in a moving form of transport for an entire two day weekend doesn't thrill me. And this weekend went like this:

Taxi from home to bus station
Bus
Washington Metro to end of Red Line
Car pickup (my sister-in-law Diane)

Then:

Car to wedding
Car from wedding

That was Saturday. On Sunday:

Car to Metro
Metro to bus station
Bus (for WAY too long)
Taxi home

So added to my discomfort at all those traffic jams, there was the fact that I was vaguely motion sick.

But it was a lovely wedding, and we got back in time for Boardwalk Empire, in which I was superb for the entire 12 seconds of my appearance.

And, Texas Beth, yes, there's a difference between doing a run of the mill thing like, say, a Law & Order or an Ugly Betty and doing something as big as Boardwalk. I can't exactly explain, but it's an excitement, a feeling that you're part of something fascinating. Hell, that's what kept us going during all those grueling shoots!

I'm quite pleased with myself today...yesterday I didn't even bother to get dressed, because I was exhausted from two days of traveling. Today, however, I got out of the house, talked myself out of two dresses and a pair of shoes (none of which was in the least necessary at the moment) and into Trader Joe's where I stocked up the icebox once again. It had become a takeout graveyard...I have two young friends of Sarah's staying with me at the moment, and they're not much into cooking, and I sure haven't been. But now my icebox looks grown up again.

Oh, and as to what I wore at the wedding...I actually went out and bought a dress. This was pure self indulgence; first of all, because I had two dresses I could easily have worn, and secondly because it's lipstick red and therefore unusable for background work. I decided I didn't care...it's a Calvin Klein sheath, sleeveless with a wide self belt, and anyway it was on sale for 60 bucks. I wore it with a black Pashmina, black slingback pumps, and a lovely black jet and freshwater pearl necklace. I looked wonderful. So there.

And tomorrow I've got another seminar, of the sort I hate most, where I not only have to keep track of all those eager attendees, but also sell products and keep track of all that stuff for 8 and a half hours. Bleaaah. But every little bit helps, right?

Love, Wendy

New Phone!

In order to get myself a tad bit of cash to go on with while this damn fool house sale goes through, I closed out a baby IRA I had lying around, and I finally got myself a new phone.

This may sound like an extravagance for someone as broke as I am, but in fact, it isn't. The problem is that I often find myself in places where I can't get to a computer...i.e., on a set for 14 hours, doing one of those lousy seminars, etc, etc., and so forth. Since all my notices for film/TV work come via email, this means that I'll never know about them until I get home, at which point it's too late.

So I went out and got myself a Blackberry Torch. I got a good buy on it, because I was due for an upgrade...$300, with a $100 rebate. The only problem is that I haven't got the remotest notion of how to use the damn thing. One of the icons, for instances, is labeled "Social Feeds." I presume this has to do with things like Twitter, but what it suggests to my mind (which is admittedly fairly wonky) is a group of friendly werewolves settling to chat over a nice meal of human. I also have something called Visual Voice Mail. I haven't the remotest notion what Visual Voice Mail means.

I sat down to read the manual, and discovered this this thing doesn't COME with a manual. You have to go to the website for AT&T tutorials. Well, I will. Tomorrow. I just hope to God nobody calls me until after I've done this, because I'm not at all sure I know how to even answer this thing.

Oh, brave new world, that has such technology in it!

Love, Wendy

Two In A Night!

Well, there wasn't actually a way that I could think of to tack the following remarks onto the previous remarks about scams, so I decided to do a new entry.

Right now, I am planning to shoot my own child. You see, we are embarking on a trip to Annapolis, Maryland next weekend for a family wedding, and Sarah has unfortunately inherited her father's hysterically casual attitude toward travel.

Now, I was not originally invited to this wedding, Sarah having been invited by the bride, who is her age (and her cousin), but she did get a "plus one" invitation because at the time they were sent out, she was still attached to her now ex-boyfriend. Since he's no longer in the picture, I got the extra seat at the party.

However, I have these terribly old-fashioned notions about getting places on time and being properly dressed. Since Sarah got the invitation, and has it "somewhere at home" (having been trying to find the floor of her room here for 26 years, I deeply distrust "somewhere at home"), I haven't laid eyes on it. This makes me twitch. I know we're staying with my brother-in-law, which is fine. But what I don't know is:

What time is the wedding? I.e., do we have to get there the night before for a 10 A.M. ceremony?

Where, and of what sort, is the reception? This is entirely germane because family wedding receptions have, in the past, been known to involve softball games and swimming in a creek. I would deeply prefer NOT to be stuck on the sidelines in my nice elderly silk dress and heels whilst the gang is lolling at ease, having been able to change out of grownup wedding clothes into jeans.

And of course, Sarah shares her father's casual attitude toward train, bus, plane and camel times...after a couple of years of traveling with Matthew, I learned to simply hide the tickets and announce that the flight was two hours before its actual departure because he couldn't see why we might need to get to an airport more than 10 minutes before departure time. This makes me twitch rather badly and need several drinks on the plane, which in turn gives me a terrible headache on landing.

I have taken the high road here...I have emailed the bride's father for some hard information...this being enormously easier than bugging Sarah, who snaps at me and tells me everything will be fine.

Anyway, we're going to have a lovely time.

Love, Wendy

Query

I have come to the conclusion that we as a nation, and I believe, the whole rest of the Western world, have gotten terminally stupid.

I base this on the fact that every time I open my junk mail I find about six notices purporting to be from various banks that announce problems with my account. None of these notices come from my actual bank, you understand...well, they don't in fact come from ANYBODY'S actual bank since they're all scams. And people all over the world fall for them and, sheeplike, calmly fill in their bank account numbers, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, etc.

And here is where the stupidity comes in. Can you honestly tell me that YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU BANK? Yes, I know, I'm shouting, but honestly. I have a checkbook. I have bank statements. I have an online link to my bank account. And I know good and goddamn well that I don't have an account at Bank of America, or HSBC, or TD Bank, or any of the other bank names that the scammers use.

Really. How terminally stupid can you get?

Love, Wendy

A Blog About Very Little

Well, I haven't been doing anything of any note whatsoever, except for that idiot job calling preschools last Tuesday, which earned me a huge 38 bucks (which won't turn up for at least a week and a half). I'm so deeply (not) excited about this.

However, I have just arranged for a large infusion of cash, so I am feeling quite chuffed...mainly because the exchequer has gotten so low that my entire personal fortune now stands at 29 dollars. This is not a noticeably useful sum of money. It will buy me exactly two packs of cigarettes and some cat food. Like I said not useful (except, of course for the cigarettes and cat food).

Cigarettes and cat food are the two main points of my budget, of course, because without a calming cigarette, I cannot possibly deal with my madly aggressive cat, who gives me no peace unless he is copiously fed. And of course, without peace, I need a cigarette to calm my nerves.

In other news, I find that the lunatic who was going to burn the Quran has finally bowed to public opinion and dropped the idea. I'm sorry, but has this country finally gone completely insane?

I keep hearing about the horrible things the Muslims have done. Has NO ONE ever in their lives studied history? We Americans have perpetrated such ghastly things upon other people, and there doesn't seem to be a single voice of reason that remembers them. Stealing Indian reservations, and introducing firewater. Dragging smallpox around and decimating whole populations. Japanese internment camps in World War II. We took an entire race of people, some of whom were American citizens, born and raised here, yanked them out of their homes and jobs, and stuck them in prison camps. The Unabomber. How on earth was his crime any different from the death at the World Trade Center? And a lot of the people he killed were children at day care. Did we then condemn all Christians? What the hell, how about Jim Jones and the Koolaid (although I will give you the fact that they went willingly...if idiotically). And the Westboro Baptist Church...I think that's their name...the ones who picket soldiers' funerals announcing that the death of someone's 18 year son in battle is because of homosexuality? How in the HELL can we set ourselves up as moral arbiters when we completely ignore our OWN damn sins?

Please, someone, go and tell the majority of Muslims...and all of the ones I have met were perfectly nice normal people, and I've met many over my years of life...that not all Americans are shrieking loons. Because we're beginning to look that way.

And for further reading, may I recommend Fahrenheit 451?

Love, Wendy

Just For Silliness

Because I just answered a Facebook remark from a friend of 50 years, it occurred to me that a LOT of you who read this blog have never actually seen anything I've done.

Well, aren't you about to be surprised. It just so happens that there are two clips of me on good old You Tube. Since my child has STILL not taught me how to do a link, you'll just have to hunt, but it's fairly easy. One of them is a goofy damn thing that was shot as (according to its director) a Comedy Central pilot...it's called Jihad Joe, and you look up Jihad Joe, Part II. I am the elderly lady at the airport.

The other one was a student project, and you find that under Haggis-on-Whey...its title being "Giraffes? Giraffes!" It amused me to do...and when you see it, you will notice that you (quite awkwardly) never see my mouth. This is because it was originally intended as a voice over and recorded as such...then the gal decided I should be on camera.

Anyway, see if you can find this stuff.

Love, Wendy

WOO-HOO

No, I am not, at my advanced age, indulging in owl calls. I went out today to deliver some money to my kid, because I found it in her jeans which were discarded on her bedroom floor. Now, you have to understand that when I clean her room (which is invariably when her grandmother is coming to visit at Christmas...yeah, once a year, whether it needs it or not), I consider any change I find on the floor is my salary. Ditto the off hand dollar bill that goes through the wash. However, this time the silly twit left 40 odd bucks in her pocket! Well, you know, that would be stealing.

So off I trotted to her bar to return the money to her, and on the way, I borrowed five bucks to buy my favorite magazine forever, which is called Victoria, and which espouses things like antique silver napkin rings and having your own conservatory where you grow exotic orchids. Don't ask...just google Victoria Magazine. I love the thing with a passion.

At any rate, while I was in the magazine store, I picked up the copy of New York magazine and riffled through to find this picture of me, which I thought would be the publicity shot of me behind Steve Buscemi...and lo and behold, it was a candid shot of me in the LAST episode in my horrible khaki Lesbian on the Boardwalk outfit! I'm still wearing an awful hat, and I have a neck tendon standing out all over the place, but damn, there I am, in all my glory.

So I'm quite thrilled...except for that damn neck.

Love, Wendy

Welcome to Godless Greenwich Village

I don't know why, but we seem to have an awful lot of proselytizers floating around the West Village. Yesterday I was interrupted in my terribly important work (that would be screwing around on the computer and sort of thinking about cleaning something) by two ladies from Jehovah's Witnesses, and this morning the Mormons were at my door. Sheesh.

So, in answer to you, primarily, Empress, and anybody else who's interested, yes, guys, I am prominently featured in the first episode of Boardwalk Empire. There is a scene which features Steve Buscemi giving a speech to the worthy ladies of Atlantic City on the eve of Prohibition, and there I am, larger than life, sitting on the platform with him. I am sitting in the last chair on the left as you look at your TV screen. I'm wearing a ghastly little fur piece...one of those horrible things that's the entire poor fox biting its own tail, which, I may add, smelled awful. And of course, a hat. That was a DAMN long day. Mr. Scorsese himself directed the first episode, and we sat on that platform for 15 solid hours...with a break for lunch and occasional visits to the john (not as easy as one would think, considering all those layers of costume and the damn corset). That was the day when one of my platform cohorts and I discovered that yes, you CAN sleep with your eyes open.

September 19th, guys! Mark your calendars! And you may also be able to spot me in the mock funeral for alcohol on the Boardwalk in that same episode...

Love, Wendy

So Much for THAT Hurricane

Once again Manhattan is doing its neat little trick. All around us there's high surf, and rain, and wind, and flights canceled (also the Coney Island fireworks tonight, I'm told via Facebook by my child)...and in Manhattan? Didn't even rain.What's that Stephen King book, The Dome or something? Yeah, like that. Weird.

I've been clearing out old magazines, and I ran across something that I think should be in the collection of that annoying Russian guy on the cable commercial...you know, the one with the miniature giraffe. This is from Food and Wine's Trendspotting page in the September issue. You can now buy a set of corn picks...you know, those things you stick in the end of your corncob to pick it up...which are gold plated and cost $80 for a set of eight. Personally, I should think if you can afford $80 for a set of corn holders, you really ought to have enough servants to hold your corn for you.

Secondly, even though I'm pretty diffident about throwing out my recipes, what with Saint Tiger Lily channeling Thomas Keller all the time and whatnot, I did something twice this week that I just love, which is fried tomatoes. No, not green ones, and not cornmeal. Just slice up a nice firm ripe plum tomato (for one), dip it in a beaten egg, then in flour with salt and pepper in it, and fry it up in a pan with some olive oil and butter. You can play with these to your heart's delight, of course...squeeze some lemon over them when they're done, top them with a little minced fresh tarragon or basil, throw in a little garlic when you cook them...but they're just basically good to eat, and being plum tomatoes, they hold their shape nicely as you turn them. A handy little quick side dish is always useful.

Meanwhile, I've done two of the play readings with the ambiguous Const, who turns out to be a woman who is going to drive me nuts because she's got the mind of a grasshopper in a very intellectual way. She evidently believes, along with Robert Louis Stevenson, that "The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." Unfortunately, this takes the form of us barely getting to read more than 10 pages of script per hour and a half get-together, because by the time Const has shown us her latest newspaper clippings, read to us from the book(s) she has with her, thinks it would be a great idea if Richard and I read for a couple of pages in a completely different play...yes, well. Like I said, mind like a grasshopper. She also has a habit of calling one between readings to see how one feels about the role. Um, lady, I'm reading it for the hell of it and to keep my hand in. What difference does it make? Yes, it's a lovely role. But until you decide to do an actual presentation of this play with, you know, an audience and all that good stuff, I'm damned if I'm going to spend all that much time plumbing the depths of the role.

Meanwhile I trotted off to Brooklyn last Sunday to see my friend Michael in The Devils, a play I haven't thought about in years. I vaguely recall that someone I knew did it back in the '60s. It's an interesting play, taken from an actual case of a witch hunt in, I think, the 1700's, but don't quote me on that. Aldous Huxley wrote a book on it called the Devils of Loudon which I read about a hundred years ago. It turns on a corrupt priest and the hierarchy of priests hunting him down...and said hierarchy decides that a nearby convent is possessed of the Devil while they're at it and drives everyone nuts, while blaming the corrupt priest (and the Devil, of course). It was, on the whole, a very good production, except for the first act, during which I was reminded of a quote by Jean Kerr, wife of Walter Kerr, who was a brilliant reviewer for the NYTimes. She said she had been to a play where the first act was so long that she considered she had given up smoking, and spent most of intermission wondering whether she should start again. The first act of The Devils is EXACTLY like that. It doesn't need cutting, it needs slashing...a machete might come in handy.

And Michael and I had a lovely two hour lunch yesterday of my absolutely favorite variety...yapping incessantly about theatre, since he's of my vintage and has been around nearly as long as I have in the business. Boy, that was fun!

Meanwhile my crazy temp lady called for the first time in ages and I have a job for Tuesday calling preschools for a rich Park Avenue lady. I did a day of this last year, and it's a short, sweet thing. Seems that the private preschools have a system where you have to call them at a certain time to get your kid on the list (or some damn thing), so these wealthy gals hire temps to make the phone calls...this because the lines at the schools are almost always busy and you have to keep dialing them over and over and over again. Four or five of us sit around a table with our cell phones dialing repeatedly...as I say, a soft job, even if you do come out with somewhat of a sore ear.

But I need the money (what else is new, gang?) and movies aren't lining up for my services. Although I hear that might change...I've just been informed that a publicity still of me right behind Steve Buscemi is all over the news magazines! I wouldn't have known this (since I don't buy news magazines) except for my next door neighbors telling me (and they're saving the mags for me, too). Who knows whether this might lead to more work...but a girl can dream, can't she?

And on the 18th I'm off to a family wedding in Annapolis! Pretty amazing for a gal with not a cent to her name, right? Admittedly I'm wearing a dress that must be upwards of 20 years old, but it's in fine shape and still looks good and doesn't scream "Hi! Look what Wendy found among the moths in the closet!" And it's not even covered in cat shit. Hey, you take what you can get when it comes to good omens, right?

Love, Wendy