One Foot in the Grave

There were a couple of moments yesterday where I thought I was going to collapse and/or die.

I'm not kidding. I really thought I was going to die. My knees were weak, I was burning up with fever, I had chills, a hacking, painful cough, my head was reeling... So this is what it's like, I thought. This is what it's like to die on the streets of New York. Of course it's cold. Of course it's winter. And of course I'm penniless.

So this is how it all ends.

I didn't die, but I really thought I was going to. I whimpered softly in the subway station, feeling all dizzy and feverish. I wanna go home, I said.

Being sick...REALLY SICK...in New York SUCKS. You're millions of miles from home or anyone who cares about you enough to fetch a bowl of chicken noodle soup from a deli. I kept thinking of those Gothic novels where the heroine is told by the doctor not to go outside...that the cold air would KILL her. All this time I thought that was just some quaint little, "Oh, those ignorant people who thought the cold was deadly" sort of thing. Now I know there's something to that.

Still, I forced myself to do those two callbacks.

And when you think about it...REALLY think about it...these theatres are just dirty, cramped little black boxes. What the CRAP was I doing running around in the cold, risking my health--no--life for these people? Why? There's more to life than off-off Broadway shows. Isn't there?

The first callback was good enough to rent a proper audition space. The second one was in their location on the lower east side (WHAA??) on the fourth floor of this utterly ramshackle old building with a creepy Spanish-speaking doorman. Dirty, cramped little black boxes. I'm about to do my third show in New York and I have yet to feel like I've reached that "other level" people mention when they talk about New York theatre.

I vowed I would stay in bed all day today.

But do you have any idea how difficult that is? I mean, it was easier earlier. It was raining. But now it's clear as a bell and the gym is beckoning. I can't just NOT GO. I ate cake today. CAKE.