Today I can turn the heat off and open the windows to let in fresh air. 

Squeaky had her first grooming of springtime. She's gone from one stinky, itchy four-legged dreadlock to a streamlined dog. 

I heard this song for the first time this morning while I was making coffee, and it put a spring in my step. 

This also makes me happy. I hate it when people put their feet on the dashboard, but I like the song. I know some of the people in this video, particularly the girl who's driving around with a gorilla. 

I read February by Margaret Atwood, and it resonated pretty strongly. 

That's pretty much it for now. 

This morning, I was really, really angry. 

Last night I worked on the podcast, and I got a lot done, but I was feeling very, very dark. 

I planned to work on the podcast some more this morning, but I was angry. I read this article about this rich guy who bought himself the right to have his play professionally produced at a regional theatre in a major city. I also read about Larry David's new play on Broadway. 

I was so angry that I got an image in my head, and I started writing a play about how theater is not a meritocracy, and how it's okay to suck if you have enough money. 

Eleven pages later, Vince came home and took me out for lunch. 

I just finished revising it and condensing it down to ten pages. On its surface, it's now about the fashion industry. I'm taking it to a playwrights' meeting on Sunday. We'll see how it goes. 

I haven't had a writing day this good (balls-out, spark-to-completion)  since probably last May. 

I don't know if it's good, but I like it. 

yesterday afternoon, I wrote longhand at The Last Drop for 3 hours. It was productive, but almost not. 

There were two men sitting next to me having a coffee date. One looked to be in his mid 50s and the other seemed like late 40s-early 50s. They both set off my gaydar, but lightly; you could tell they were men who'd lived in the quadrant between Vine & South, Broad and Front since maybe the 90s. Both of them had high-quality clothes and silver in their hair. I tried to ignore their conversation, but it was difficult.

They were talking extensively about properties they'd bought and sold, properties they'd bought and wanted to sell, properties they were trying to buy, properties they owned, in the city, in the burbs, how the city had changed, and all of this in a way that indicates money was not an object. Some of their details seemed fuzzy, like they weren't sure about whether or not certain businesses still existed or not. I know there's a lot of turnover in Philly's real estate market, but it was as if they were out of touch with real life.  Still, I got the sense that they were guys who'd bought property in Center City back before or in the early days of the Street administration, taken advantage of tax breaks, and done well enough to now look down their nose at newer housing trends.

"It's nice. It's trendy, but not hipster. You know, not like... Fishtown."

"Remember back when Old City was nothing but us and Mulberry Market? We were pioneers. Pioneers."

The ease with which they talked about buying things was off-putting. I finally put my earbuds in and cranked up Pandora to block them out. After an hour or so, I took a bathroom and coffee refill break, so I took out my earbuds. When I came back, they were still talking about real estate.

"Oh, I LOVE New York. You know what I really want? I want to be able to have a place here, and then have a little place in New York."

"Huh. A little place? Like, two thousand bucks a month for a cubicle?"

"Oh, well, yeah."

"That's what a friend of mine has. He pays two grand a month for a room. That's it, just a room. It's like a hotel."

"Well, sure, but if you're out all the time, what do you need?"

"It has two windows. That's it."

(I wondered if the residents shared a bathroom, like in a dorm.)

"But you're out, you're going to museums, eating in restaurants, the art, the culture-"

"Oh, sure, sure."

"I'd just go up there on Thursday, stay there all weekend, come back on Monday, go to work."

I wanted to take notes on their conversation, and I wanted to dig in my purse for my emergency orange earplugs. I wanted to tell them that if they're so nuts about art and culture and able to work only 4 days a week, they should be throwing their money around here instead of spending it up there. 

On the one hand, for example, I think it's great that The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-Time and The Audience and Hedwig are playing on Broadway. I think it's great that there's off-Broadway shows that are unusual and cool and might even star someone you've seen on TV. But their proposed system makes you not so much a master with two servants, but a tourist with no home. If your own city doesn't seem good enough, maybe it's because you didn't invest in it. Maybe if they quit looking for happiness and money elsewhere, they'd find it were they are. Click your damn heels, Dorothy.

and, as Jarvis Cocker said, everybody hates a tourist, especially when it's all such a laugh and the chip stains' grease will come out in the bath.

The guys decided to leave to have cocktails at about five minutes to two. in the afternoon. cause, what the hell. first they thought about going to Dirty Frank's, then Woody's (wondering if it still existed), and then Uncle's. They finally settled on Dirty Frank's.

I hope they remembered to bring cash, because Dirty Frank's doesn't take American Express.

Last night we went out for dinner because we had cabin fever. We went to our favorite pub. It was mostly deserted. 

One table away from us were three people, a woman and two men. The woman and one of the men were a couple, and the other man was talking, very, very loudly, about how he would never even joke about wanting to sleep with her, because, of course, they're just friends. She was echoing the same sentiment back to him. He was talking about how even if he finds someone attractive, once they're married, he no longer finds them bangable, because the "no" switch flips and that's all there is to it.

It was totally a "methinks the lady doth protest too much" situation, because the guy was talking so loudly that it was like he was trying to make a very public declaration. It was like the very bad first act of a police procedural tv show, where, 24 hours later, the character that is me should go down and answer the doorbell to find two police detectives on the doorstep, holding a photograph of the woman and her husband, asking if I had seen the two of them lately.

When the noisy guy left, they said to him, "it was nice meeting you." I thought holy shit, it's your first time meeting these people, and you're having the "of course I'd never want to sleep with you" conversation?

Too tired to type. 

Imagine Into The Woods, except instead of a forest and palaces and towers and cottages and a village, imagine a library, or a curiosity shop, or both, a magical shelved room with a piano and harp in one corner. And a string quartet just beyond the shelves. 

And everyone's dressed in thrift shop clothes. And lit with strings of fairy lights, and small table lamps. 

The cow is a gently contemplative young man with an accordion. 

Now, if you're a hard core Sondheim fan, imagine "No One Is Alone" in this environment. 

I bawled so hard that Ted put his arm around me. 

Please?

I was trying to type the sentence, "I swept the slush outside," and instead got  "I swept the slash outside."

Yes. Jesus, there were giant piles of pages of poorly written fan fiction all over the sidewalk and steps! It was horrible. They were falling from the sky! One of them stuck to the windshield of the car and I couldn't scrape it off at first. Something about The Tenth Doctor and Sherlock being completely exhausted from a rough battle with Helen A and her pet Stigorax Fifi, and needing to relax in the TARDIS' jacuzzi with a couple of shots of Sentarion rekkar. 

I SWEAR I DIDN'T READ IT. 

Edited to add: I watched The Interview. I expected it to be on a par with Anchorman or worse. I may have been in a mood. 

It was better than I expected. I actually laughed, really, really, really hard at the climax. I can also see why North Korea was a bunch of pissy little bitches about it, but that just proves how dumb they are. 

So, this is a big deal: 

The Relentless Award. 

TL: DR; a playwright can win $45K. That's forty-five-thousand US dollars. No playwriting contest has had this big of a cash award. 

But wait! THERE'S MORE! 

The winning playwright also gets a week at an artists' retreat in upstate NY, which they can attend alone, or, bring a director, dramaturg and/or actors. They have the option of having the play published by Dramatists' Play Service (a very big deal) and the play gets a reading at regional theatres across the country, including The Wilma and The Goodman. As far as opportunities for playwrights go, it is a Golden Ticket. 

How can such a lucrative, prestigious, and useful thing exist? 

So, here's the tragicomic part. 

When Philip Seymour Hoffman died, his friend David Bar Katz was the first person to find him. In the days that followed, The National Enquirer published a story claiming that Katz (or is it Bar Katz?) a) was Hoffman's secret lover, and, b)was supplying PSH with drugs.  Neither of which were true.

Katz is a playwright, best known for his collaboration with John Leguizamo on Freak and House of Buggin'. In Philly, he's mostly known for being the fortunate son of a really rich guy. He did what any smart fortunate son would do, and sued the crap out of the Enquirer. Actually, he just signed a libel suit, there was a settlement, and Katz, wisely, used the money to create this playwriting award. 

I can't think of a better way to memorialize (?) a friend. or to get revenge. 

Details here: Truth and a Prize Emerge from Lies About Hoffman. 

I have nothing exciting to impart, other than that I was listening to Slate's Working podcast today, and they had an episode that I thought might be of interest to some folks who can read this. 

Working is a podcast about the typical workday of people who work in different fields- porn stars, perfumers, other professions that don't start with a P.  Anyway, they interviewed one of the guys from They Might Be Giants about the typical workday of a rock band guitarist.  Okay, that link sucks, because it asks you to log into Slate for a 2-week free trial. However, you can go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and find it as well. 

I'm glad that either this guy has a guitar tech, or he chose not to go into 25 minutes of talking about pedal board setup and restringing.  His answer to the question, "How do you get up the energy to play Birdhouse In Your Soul/Don't Let's Start/Particle Man again after umpteen years of playing it?" made me happy. 

It's also interesting to consider that their kid concerts seem to be paying off in an audience for their non-kid-concerts that's younger than they expected. Maybe making a kids' album or two isn't such a bad investment after all. 

The Unicorn exists.