Chilly In Here...

Actually, it's always chilly in my bedroom because the doors to my little balcony don't fit terribly well, and nothing I have ever been able to do (weather stripping, duct tape, etc., etc.) has ever helped. Usually I simply sit here in my nice warm bathrobe, but tonight this isn't possible. And why is it not possible? Because my robe is in the washer, that's why. Along with the lovely matching jammies my mother-in-law got me for Christmas (fleecy, warm) and the matching slippers. The reason for all this laundry is that I'm doing another Law & Order SVU tomorrow, and when I called them to get my van pickup time, I was informed that the wardrobe had suddenly changed, and I was now, instead of the jeans and sweater they originally asked for, intended to wear pajamas, slippers and bathrobe (to play a hospital patient). Personally, I consider this somewhat rotten...I mean, how many people do you know who keep a pristinely clean bathrobe and slippers just lying around? My robe seems to collect every single bit of gunk in the whole house...mainly things like butter and jam stains from breakfast (with a tasteful touch of egg yolk), and of course, with my elderly incontinent cat floating around, the slippers are usually fairly unspeakable. So now I'm sitting here waiting for the washer to finish and then I'll throw everything in the dryer...and pray most sincerely. My dryer is over 20 years old and has issues about actually drying things in less than two or three days. Jeans and towels are particularly slow. However, I have cleaned the lint trap, and nothing's in there but the robe, the pajamas, and the slippers...all of which are fluffy synthetic stuff, so let us pray. And given that I am no longer young and am drinking beer, I'll be up in the middle of the night to go to the john anyway and can restart the dryer...let's all cross our fingers.

I did mention a small problem with my play. It seems that Ted, my director, offered it to a theatre in the East Village before it was decided that I was going to play the role. Well, the script reading lady found it and decided it would make a great vehicle for HER.

This is a fairly major problem. I have known and worked (on and off) with this gal for more than 30 years, and some of it, particularly in the last few years, has been extremely rocky. For instance, several years back she was annoyed as hell when I got Kate in Taming of the Shrew and she didn't. The most recent episode of this was about three or four years ago, when she and I were co-starring in a play at this same theatre. She had a monologue in the first act, and I had one in the second.

So we were in rehearsal, and she did her monologue. Comes time for me to do my monologue, she decides to start making it into a dialogue, and kept inserting lines for herself into it. The director, who was also the playwright, kept telling her to stop, and she kept right on doing it, insisting that her character wouldn't let me talk for that long without commenting. Eventually it came to a showdown, with her saying that unless she could walk all over my monologue, she'd quit the show, and the director/playwright said, fine...so she did.

You can imagine how much I want her to get her hands on my nice one-woman show...even though Philippe heard her read it and says she was just AWFUL. (Yahoo.) Which was great, because I had just sent him an email explaining to him just precisely what she was liable to do to the show...most of which she did in the reading. (Yahoo, twice.)

Well, we shall see.

I have been being just vile about closet cleaning or painting or any other damn thing around here, and I finally discovered the two reasons. One of them, which I can fix and am going to, is the fact that the damn heat is screwed up...i.e., there isn't any. When I come down in the morning and put my hand on the banister or the table, the surfaces are cold, for God's sake. It's one thing to have the thermostat set to be lower at night, but low heat should not be nonexistent heat. The result of this is that I can't move because I'm coming down with hypothermia. Really, it's awful. I'm going to get that fixed on Tuesday. Yeah, well, I'll be on a set all day tomorrow and all day Monday, so I can't have the heating guy come over until Tuesday.

The other reason is that I CAN'T GET ANYONE TO HELP ME! Except for, God bless them, Vicky and Caesar, who are rocks. Every single person who said they'd be glad to help has disappeared into the woodwork, and I am a person who needs a sort of cheering section. Also competition. I mean, if people are all around me hauling out stuff and doing things, then I feel that I should be doing something too, and get my rear in gear...but if it's only me all alone, I promptly descend into Poor Pitiful Pearl and sit around doing crossword puzzles and reading and whining to myself. I mean, I have dragged yet ANOTHER bag of crud out of the closet...evidently Joshua's, because it contains a couple of pairs of shoes in size HUMONGOUS and a whole mess of tangled t-shirts and junk like that...out it goes. He doesn't need it. I have also taped the downstairs bathroom door for painting and spackled (badly) another wall in there. So at least I'm making SOME progress. But I really, REALLY need some more people here!

The laundry is in the dryer. I am thrilled. And even better, I've got a late call time tomorrow - 8:15 van from 43rd and 9th Avenue for North Bergen, New Jersey (yet another place I've never been in my life). So presuming I have to go to the john in the middle of the night, and presuming I wake up at six as I usually do, I should have at least a dry robe and dry pajamas, if somewhat damp slippers.

And it's an indoor shoot! Boardwalk Empire is outdoors on Monday, and I'm not looking forward to it. Admittedly, it's going to be in the 40s, but still, it's supposed to be late spring, which means no nice fur cape, like last time. Naturally. Welcome to the movies. Shoot winter in June, shoot spring in early March. Grumph. I must say I do like this costume, though. I look rather like a period Girl Scout...dark khaki suit with a striped shirt and boots that lace almost to my knee...which are going to be a bitch because, like everything else on this show, they're vintage, meaning they're too tight, since woman didn't have feet as wide as ours are these days. Not to mention that they lace almost to the knee, which takes quite a while, since I've got to unlace them almost all the way to get into the damn things. And a corset, OF COURSE. They want me to go braless and wear a camisole, but I think I'm going to try to change their minds on Monday...I'm way too busty to feel at all comfortable braless, and I think my sports bra (the one I bought for the first episode) should work fine. And a nice straw hat...I do love Boardwalk Empire.

Also I have to remember to get someone to get a photo of me so I can email it off...there's another thing I just submitted for set in the 1930's, and they want a photo in period costume.

Yes, well. I'm going to finish my beer and go to bed...and what bliss it will be to fall asleep in the certain knowledge that I don't have to get up at 3:30 am. I just hope Monday's call will be as humane, although I doubt it. Which will be a neat trick, since the Oscars are Sunday, and I have to watch that to make snotty remarks about the dresses.

Love, Wendy