This Makes Me Giddy

DUBLIN (Reuters) - A kangaroo is roaming the green hills of Ireland after escaping a circus near the picturesque port of Kinsale.

"This kangaroo broke loose just before the show while they were bringing him from the cages to the arena. He decided to take a walk," said local farmer John Walsh on whose land the 2-year-old male, named Sydney, made his break for freedom.

Circus staff launched a fruitless four-hour search following the escape Sunday.

There had since been one unconfirmed sighting of the animal, renamed "Hoppy" by locals and described as two and a half to three feet tall and dark in color.

"He would be happy out there and he'll have plenty of grass, plenty of water and plenty of sunshine," Walsh told Reuters on Wednesday as Ireland basked in near record temperatures more typical of Sydney's native Australia than Ireland's temperate maritime climate.

Put On Your Eatin’ Dress.

SO I’m trying to be good. Anyone that was worked on enough productions knows that the craft service table should really be called the ‘we wanna get you so fat you stick in your chair and are unable to leave the office or set with any ease ‘ table but I’ve been really careful.

I get in early and have a small cup of cereal—whatever seems healthiest at the table—with low fat milk. I follow this up with a yogurt later in the morning and then a salad with Diet Coke for lunch and maybe an apple or cheese stick for a mid afternoon snack. I avoid the chips, candy and cookies like a bad ex boyfriend at a party and stay aware that I have cute clothes waiting to be worn.

Where the problem lies is my schedule. I get up at 4:30 in the morning to get to the set by 7 with a combination of long subway rides, walks through scary neighborhoods that I wouldn’t let the said ex walk through. My day ends at 5 and I get home by 6:30-7pm tired and hot so I usually shower and nap for a half hour. I then do social things with the boy or the girls or maybe a party or BBQ.

The problem is the schedule allows for only about 6 hours of sleep a night for 5 or 6 days stretches at a time. So what happens is that to stay awake I prop myself up with food to give me energy. And at night I will eat ANYTHING. I mean things that I swore I would never touch after I gave up being bulimic. It’s ridiculous.

It’s starting to resemble an old Margaret Cho comedy routine about girls who only eat salad in public but get home and putting on their eatin dress and work their way through ice cream, cake and a super sized McDonalds meal because it doesn’t count if no one see you do it. It’s annoying. It’s scary. It tastes so damn good though.

I just don’t want to be fat. Or a living example of stand up comedy.

Lee Harvey Oswald Had A Better Funeral Or An Update.

I normally don’t revisit a previous entry but figured that some might be curious about the fallout—or lack of one—from the Haggis’ demise. Turns out that Edie read my blog before finally coming back to the good old 236 and knew the score before she open the door so she was prepared.

I hadn’t seen her much due to the job so when I saw her--with Ali--on my day off she said that she did like the new set up and wasn’t even really bothered by my decision to remove the body. But she was bothered by my stacking the evidence in room and—to my surprise—told me that we had to throw it out.

Of course I didn’t believe her and asked if she was sure because I knew it meant so much to her. Edie felt that it would be too much to fix it and there was no where for it to go. I was still a bit startled so I asked again if she was sure and Ali laughed and offered to make a memory quilt for us if we wanted. Edie was as blasé as I was overwhelmed but it was decided to toss it in the dumpster and be done with it.

So later that afternoon we left to go meet up with Lizzie and Kelly and I ended up carrying the Haggis down to the dumpster with the girls help. We stopped long enough to dump the Air Chair and then we were off. I was surprised by how much I was bummed by this.

Maybe I should have had Ali make ME the memory quilt.

Reality Needs a Little Tweaking.

So at the start of every show there is a bit of a learning curve—the fastest way to get footage in, logged for story to follow, available for the editors—little things that make the show get done. What has been driving me crazy is the feeling that this show is being run by a lot of people with ideas but not much capability in follow through.

I have been struggling with crazy computer programs, people that don’t like the work being done but not communicating what to fix and a post producer who sleeps on his office floor and is so overwhelmed that he can barely have a conversation with anyone. I mean—I have worked in tough productions but I have never felt so much like quitting in my whole life. Ever.

It’s just amazing that we are all so ragged when we haven’t even aired yet but hopefully we can get our shit together soon. I know that there is more staff—which we ALWAYS needed—a bit more of a schedule for the talent but this needs to be fixed faster.

Because I’m already having work dreams and that doesn’t normally happen till a month in. And they’re usually sexy. Not with this show. Sighs abound.

Like A Time Life Series

I’m waiting for work to start up and the show to get rolling. And in my boredom I have decided to do something so weirdly anal that it shocks even me. (Get your mind out of the gutter.) I have decided that I need to compile a best of my music collection into a set of cds.

So I have been spending my days picking a single definitive song off every cd I own. This process can take as long as an hour as I go over the criteria for each single—is it the best single? Is it too similar to another song already there? Do I think it properly reflects the artist or the tone of the album it comes off of? Is it too overplayed? Would I be embarrassed to make it one of my must haves?

This task fills many a slow day as I wait for friends to get of work or Edie to get back from the gym or ‘General Hospital’ to start. And the weird thing is how much I LOVE every cd I own. There has only been one album where I couldn’t find something I liked (‘Dew Drops In The Garden’ Deelight) and even then I have made myself listen to it about three times in a row to make me chose. I don’t know if I’m going too far but it’s hard to judge anything when you realize that left to your own devices you go crazy.

But it looks like the series will be a ten disc set called ‘Life in the Key of Rory’. I’d like to think that it will be good. If it’s not then I wasted all my time. And that would be crazier than crazy.

I’m a Machine or No One Likes Haggis or Edie’s Gonna Kill Me or God Bless the Chair

So I’ve been cleaning. And when I cleaning I mean scary cleaning—like under chairs and table, flipping lamps to dust the bottoms, and washing every dish in the house twice. To the point that a room might take 4 to 5 hours and we’re not dirty people here at the 236.

It would be easy to assume that this is because of Edie’s homecoming from the set of ‘Spider Man 3’ but it is instead more linked to my anal retentive ways. See, one of the many joys of living in one place for 8 years (I know) is that every so often things needed to be done to keep this up code. Replacing the oven that never worked, putting heat in so we don’t need parkas in the winter, fixing the occasional ceiling collapse—these are all things that need to be done at points. This time it was the bathroom.

Over time the paint in the shared bathroom had become disgusting due to candles, sneaked cigarettes and rust from decorative pieces. And every attempt to clean the walls led to more damage from either dripping paint or corrosive cleaners so it was decided that the room needed to be repainted after drywall started to be exposed. I took all the décor out and waited a few days (five) for the management company to come and repaint the whole thing.

Afterwards I decided that I should do a good clean before putting the room back together. During the process I found a deep cleaning product that took away stains from even the previous tenants and well—I became obsessed. I canceled plans, stopped blogging or having sex to slowly work my way through the apartment. I justified it multiple ways such as “Edie’s coming home’, ‘I don’t want to workout’ and ‘I’m taking a job that’s going to ruin my life so I should clean while I can’. It was actually fun and rewarding when Mrs. Garrett wasn’t lurking in the corner with a fast food bag strapped to her face.

And then I saw it—the Air Chair. Now most people in my life have had a moment or two with this ‘unique’ piece of furniture but if you are one of the unfortunate to not make its acquaintance here goes… The best way to start its description is with its natural form of industrial rubber casing—similar to a tire raft—longer than 12 feet and covered with commercial grade carpet the color of dehydrated urine. The kicker was the shape could be made into any formation—heart shaped, squared, or even the bastard cousin of the bean bag.

It came to us via a package sent by Edie’s parents—rescued from their basement rec room--because in the beginning neither Kelly, Edie nor I could afford real furniture. So the original Angles of 236 (which makes Kelly=Farrah, Edie=Sabrina and me=Kelly) had an event where the air chair was blown up—by hand—and which lead to the nickname of ‘The Haggis’(Thanks Dominic). We spent many a night reclining on the floor in the various poses that first summer, grateful to have something beside the floor.

Eventually—as we became more financially stable and I began work at Pier One—we started to buy more ‘first place’ furniture which lead to us acquiring couches. I began a slow campaign against the air chair since we didn’t need it; it was ugly and not really as comfortable as the brochure (featuring 70’s art) would lead us to believe. My hatred grew to the point that I began to imagine ways to cause the demise and departure of the Haggis; such as falling on it with scissors, having lots of sex on it so no one would sit there, and even sneaking the chair out the window via the park in the middle of the night and claming burglars stole it. But Edie would have none of it and so I seethed but learned to accept—if not love—it.

And then last summer it started to leak. How it happened I don’t know but like a Hollywood feud it got old and I was the last one standing. I wasn’t sure what to do with the Haggis but I didn’t want to be blamed for its sorry state and so I waited for Edie to come home and deal with it.

Of course she promised to free it from the carpet casing and inspect the old patches—maybe it could be fixed—and I agreed because I knew there was no need to fight it. So I waited as she went from film to film, city to city, adventure to adventure as the Haggis continued to sit defeated in the corner. Until this past week’s cleaning spree.

As I dusted and stain removed, I kept staring at the chair with one eye. I knew that I should do something with it but as the cleaning progressed I realized it was not on Edie’s—or my—priority list. And later that afternoon, mid-clean, I talked with my friend Naomi who pointed out that it had been a year since she had been in my place and it had been deflated then.

Realizing that having a dead chair for a year was ridiculous, I quietly gathered up the Haggis and folded the casing into a neat pile which I placed it in Edie’s bedroom. With a heavy heart I cleaned out its old corner and began placing various extra furniture pieces in its old home. (Which turned into a kick ass reading corner.) I was surprised at how sad the empty spot made me but it had to be done. Even with all the good memories the Haggis had with us.

Maybe I can blame it on my crazed cleaning or Mrs. Garrett or the natural order of the world but the Haggis is finally gone. All I can say really is God Bless the Chair. And please don’t kill me Edie.