Last Week

It's the beginning of the end. I'm leaving the 42nd Floor. No, really. I am. I mean it this time. I'm really leaving. Thursday is my last day. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Oh, wait--I guess I could always...oh...I dunno...move to NEW YORK!

I will continue to chronicle the madcap antics that ensue when the corporate and artistic collide, but, for the time being anyway, the 42nd Floor will go from being a literal place to a figurative one; a place which represents that strange spot on the map of life where these two worlds intersect.

This week let's take a little stroll down memory lane and remember our favorite moments on Floor 42.

Who can forget one of the first posts, the Analyst's Exam? Or Ask Nelson? Remember when I had hair like this? Or our very special post for New Orleans just after we learned a hurricane was headed their way? Who can forget these posts? I know I can't. After all...I lived them.

Nothing Ever Happens Anymore...

I mean, for real. Nothing. Not a thing. Ever since they started pumping smooth jazz into the 40th Floor Sky Garden and Restaurant, things just haven't been the same.

See, the wall by my desk is made of glass and it overlooks the 40th floor. All day long I can hear saxophones and flutes moaning sleepily through the glass wall. Every now and then I'll hear a tune I recognize (I had no idea "Till There Was You" from The Music Man was so popular), but it'll be played by a jazz saxophonist on Nyquil who has no idea that I'm trying to work up here.

I think someone's confused. This is an office building, not a beach-side cabana that serves refreshing pina coladas and delicious hams.

Mmm...hams...

It's not a too-mah. Oh wait...yes it is.

For those of you who don't know, yesterday's minor surgery didn't go quite as expected. The doctor opened my head up, looked inside, and found nothing. Big surprise there!

Wait...that came out all wrong.

What I mean to say is that little/large bump on the back of my head is a calcified cyst. It's pretty much bone. The doctor stitched me back up and said they were going to have to send me right over to the general surgeon--there was nothing she'd be able to do. My appointment is for tomorrow at 3:30. You know what that means!

Half-day tomorrow! Wahoo!

I was just about to Mapquest the address when I took a look at the diagnosis. "Neoplasm on scalp." I had already googled every possible combination of "calcified cyst" (cyst, calcification, removal from back of head/calcified cyst, head/sebaceous cyst, calcified, removal/cyst, life threatening, terminal, extremely painful, scary) so I thought, hey! I'll plug in "Neoplasm" and see what happens!

Now I wish I hadn't.

Surely there's nothing to worry about...is there?

Neoplasm

Closing Doors

This morning I sent my Two Weeks Notice mail to Mr. Archibald thanking him for a swell time up on the 42nd Floor these past two years.

Oooh. Notice all the twos. Two weeks notice...two years...42...I also have two eyes, two ears, two cats--wait...I don't have two cats. I have one cat. I guess Nelson could be made into two cats but I don't own a saw.

And for my next trick...

Has anyone else noticed that, no matter how many carrots you eat, they never fill you up? In fact, I feel hungrier after having eaten twenty baby carrots than I did before!

Oh yeah. Midsummer closed on Saturday. Not that I care. It doesn't matter to me. Not once has it even occurred to me that the show is really over. I haven't thought about it at all because it's not important in the long run. So I try not to think about it and, really, I don't think about it which is a very healthy way to deal with something that is, ultimately, not that important. Not important at all. To me, anyway.

It was an intense little journey. A wild ride. I'll never forget it. Rest in peace, Midsummer Night's Dream: the Musical!

Sour Grapes

I auditioned for Everycity Shakespeare's fall production of Much Ado About Nothing.

I thought,

"What the heck? After seeing my performance as Puck in Midsummer, they'll probably want to use me as the young romantic lead. That would certainly pad my resume quite nicely...to have all these kooky roles and then a very serious dramatic sort of role stuck in there for good measure. That might be worth postponing my move to the NYC for!"

I wore one of my new outfits to the audition. I did my hair so it would fall just so, partially obscuring the right side of my face in a moment of Elizabethan passion. I looked very young romantic Shakespeare lead.

And I got called back for constable Dogberry's sidekick, the dottering old man. The smallest part in the show.

Sure, I was confused and slightly insulted, but I went to the callback anyway, still looking every bit the young lead, hoping my appearance would cause the director to think, "What am I doing calling him back for the comic walk-on role? Am I retarded? I must be! This guy is so dreamy and talented. And look at that beautiful hair! I bet he's got so many six packs under that untucked button-up shirt of his, it's like a St. Patrick's day party down there!"

Why weren't they letting me read for the young lover?

I found out why when Mungo walked in the door. His hair was buzzed, he had a swell tan, wore a very tight black shirt...and had the most disproportionately LARGE arms I can remember seeing on a person.

"You've got to be kidding," I thought as I looked at this dude's dull, empty eyes. "They're gonna cast him. They're freakin' gonna cast this guy as Claudio just because he's got huge guns."

I was not a happy camper on the drive home.

"Freakin' rassafrackin' big arms! Grouchafrackin' probably can't act! Bluster barfin' blithering biceps!"

I went to the park last night to see a little bit of The Tempest. One of the actors was running late. I was sitting in the very back of the lawn where I could observe everything. As I was people-watching, the late actor come in.

No, it wasn't Mungo. It was someone else. But, like Mungo, he had the same deformity.

He was wearing a sleeveless shirt and his monsterous arms fairly screamed, "Hey America! I do steroids!" I observed those freakish limbs and thought how peculiar it was that, having seen the show two and a half times, they didn't leave an impression on me.

Then I realized why they didn't leave an impression. Because you never see them! They're completely covered up by his flouncy pirate shirt!

The dude probably came into the audition and the director thought, "Wow! He looks like he could kick some pirate ass! Let's cast him!"

"But sir," says the stage manager, "There aren't any pirates in this show. There is no pirate ass-kicking."

"Who cares! I'm so dazzled by his disproportion that I just HAVE to cast him!"

Then--and this happens EVERY time--the costume designer completely covers them up.

All we're left with is a bad actor who has crazy-big arms we never even see.

Why do directors DO that?

A Little Update

Things is crazy, folks.

The show is almost over.

The job is almost over.

A-Dub and Dr. No have left Everycity for Wackytown.

My sister's gonna have a baby.

Candie, the receptionist, is gonna have a baby.

Mr. Weatherby, second in command to Mr. Archibald, came into the office yesterday to say his final farewell (he has terminal cancer).

Everything is insane in the Middle East.

That temp, Yasriel, is about to make me quit this job MUCH earlier than I anticipated.

Next Monday I get my brains removed.

It's time to start the move to New York.

And worst of all...last night...I...this is so hard...I had...

I had a piece of cheesecake.

Best Ever, week 28

I almost didn't do one this week. I mean, look at the headlines! The turmoil! The fighting! The fires! The cysts! I thought, "Gee, this week's 'Best Ever' is going to have to be something sarcastic like hippies or lawn mowers." But after giving it some thought, I found something about this week that really and truly made me happy.

BEST EVER

week 28

My Bed

There's a place you can go where nothing can touch you--where everything is soft and warm. You try to get to that place at work when no one is looking. You sometimes try to get there while driving. But the only proper way to reach the realm of the subconscious is to do it in one of these bad boys: a bed.

My bed has a comfy mattress and one of those foam egg-crate things under the sheets. It's like sleeping on a cloud. It's the ultimate. Whenever I feel like I just can't go on, it's always there waiting for me. It's faithful. It's steadfast. It's my best friend.

And that's why my bed is this week's

BEST EVER

Right Behind

I expect faithful fans of the Left Behind series have all wet their pants by now.

Now me, I don't really know what's going on over there. I don't know if the Second Coming is upon us or what. But at the rate they're going, I guess now's as good a time as any to confess a few sins I've been meaning to talk to the Almighty about.

All these bombs and missiles and twisted scraps of metal...kinda makes you wonder how a person can put on tight white star pants and sing to a large, tipsy audience seeking refuge from the worries of the day. I guess that's sort of what theatre is about, huh?

In other news, things did not turn out well for our ever-hopeful friend, Jude Fawley. Yes, folks, I finally made it to the other side of Thomas Hardy's classic tale of futility and broken dreams, Jude the Obscure. And what a tale it was. Long before Arthur Miller attempted to shock the world with the notion that great, sweeping tragedy isn't exclusive to ancient rulers of Greece, but also to your average working-class man, Hardy had already done it.

All Jude ever wanted was to be a preacher. All he ever wanted was to be heard. All he ever wanted was to make a difference in a world that just didn't give a crap.

I guess the thing to take away from Jude's little tale is that, no matter how much you wish, no matter how hard you try, sometimes the world just says No. Then you get consumption and die.

Irony

It's kind of like what the Duchess tells Alice. "Everything's got a moral if only you can find it."

The moral of today's headlines, for example, would probably be, "Don't mess with Israel or you'll get your ass handed to you with extreme prejudice."

The End is Near

It really is hard to believe. It's like those years when Christmas sneaks up on you. "Wait! It can't be Christmas already! It doesn't even feel like it!"

After weeks and weeks of rehearsal, we're down to pretty much the last weekend of performances. And to think...most of this time I've been a neurotic mess. I'm only now starting to really freakin' enjoy myself thanks entirely to JBo doing over the phone what our "musical director" should have done in the rehearsal hall. And it's all going to be over in just a few more nights.

Four performances left. The end is near...

Unicorn Boy

Health insurance is a wonderful thing. For mere pennies a day, you can go see a doctor whose job it is to focus entirely on you--on the cheap! Yessir...whenever I feel lonely or that nobody's paying attention to me, I do what Queen III does: I cook up some sort of ailment and walk myself across the street to the downtown clinic.

But you only have health insurance when you're employed. And since my employment at Eventual Practical Financial Services Inc, Corp is drawing to a close, I figured it was high time to check out something that's bothered me for most of my life but has only recently become a problem.

I was in the 20 Minute Ab-Killer Class yesterday evening. We were using those big exercise balls. At one point, the instructor had us roll on it so the backs of our heads were resting on them.

"Ouch," I said. "That hurts."

I've had this bump on the back of my head, right where the spine meets the skull. I've had it for years and years and years and years and years. It never bothered me, except when I'd go get a haircut and they'd have me lean back to wash my hair in the sink. I could never get comfortable.

Well, here lately this harmless little bump has gotten...well...bigger. Pointier.

"This is so cool!" I initially thought. "Maybe I'm growing a horn out of the back of my head! I've always wondered what it would be like to be a sideshow attraction. Now people everywhere will want to study me! I'll be a star! It'll be my ticket to fame and fortune!"

But when the bump got in the way of my ab exercises, I knew something had to be done about it. Nobody messes with my abs.

I did some research online, trying to figure out what the dag-blamed thing could be. According to the various articles Google pulled up for me, it could be...

Cancer

An alien tracking device

A genetic indication of possible Melungeon ancestry

A genetic indication of latent psychic abilities

After going to the doctor, I learned that it's nothing nearly so exciting. It's just a good, old-fashioned cyst that's become infected and needs to be removed. Now.

Good Lord. Not again.

No Fun For You!

I'm too busy to write anything fun! Go to www.homestarrunner.com. From there, click on "sbemails" and scroll down to the one called "suntan". I'd post the link for you but they've got the website blocked. Something about being "too much fun for corporate whipping boys." Something like that.

Enjoy.

For the Weekend

I thought this was going to be totally stupid.

I was wrong. It's really clever. But if you're a heathen, good luck getting the jokes. All the more reason why you should read the Bible!

Turn up the volume and prepare to lol. Thanks to Queen III for sending this to me.

Click!

Best Ever, week 27

BEST EVER

week 27

"It's Friday already?"

Three little words, sixteen little letters that simply mean "I can sleep in tomorrow". It's a time of transish up here on the 42nd Floor. Seems like everybody's off moving to a new city or about to start something new. The weekend looms large. And it got here a lot quicker than usual thanks to the Fourth of July! There were a lot of good things this week, but knowing that the weekend just arrived beats them all. And that's why the question, "It's Friday already?" is this week's

BEST EVER

Honorable mention: JBo's telephone voice lessons, Tracy

What the crap?

It's Wednesday but it feels so much like Monday I'm afraid there's been some sort of terrible mistake. Is it Wendesday where you are?

The Office is Closed

Enjoy the long weekend! Remember why we celebrate!