I Quoteth:

"Every morning I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work."
Robert Orben.

Feeling

upset that my hair has been cut too short

Wanting

my hair back

Playing

Sarah Brightman: "Eden"

Thursday 10 May

Randomness for a Thursday

*Michael's Mean Fifteen for Summer 2001*

1.  Will commit to rigorous body-sculpting gym work out schedule and not use Sex and the City reruns as an acceptable excuse to stay home.

2. Will not fall into horrible boyfriend trap simply because I "feel sorry."  Regardless of how cute he is.  Or if he buys me ice cream.  Especially if he buys me ice cream since it will directly conflict with resolution #1.

3. Will not become Woody's whore.

4. Will not become Xando whore in attempt to resist becoming Woody's whore.

5. Will allow paycheck to remain in bank for longer than a two hour period after it is deposited.

6. Will not fall in love with any straight men.

7. Will refrain from drawing the little line through the number seven.  It's faggy.

8. Will not act faggy.

9.  Unless very, very upset.

10. If, in fact, am very, very upset, will not revert to massive quantities of vodka for temporary pacification.

11. Will not go beyond kissing on the first date.  Or before I know his name.

12. Will not over analyze every facet of my life.

13. Will not over analyze every facet of everyone else's life.

14. Will expand my mind by reading a vast selection of books and periodicals and by watching the E! True Hollywood Story.

15. Will forget all of this by tomorrow.

Why does my body feel like at any point it is about to spontaneously combust?  I went to bed fairly early last night, granted I didn't sleep all that well, but I feel like I've been physically stuffed into a milk carton for the past week.  Now I know how veal feels.

Despite my physical ailments and feeling like I was six inches up everyone's ass all day, the first day on the job didn't suck.  It's a plus for Starbucks since the first day at the Ritz Sixteen last summer did.  And I'm making an extra $1.25 here which doesn't suck either.  Of course, I didn't have all that much to do today - basically filled out the necessary forms, drank some coffee, watched the more experienced people make a hundred and ten frappuccinos a minute, swept the floor, peed, and went home after four hours.  I did learn how to brew the drip coffee today which was exciting but I don't start the fun stuff at the espresso bar until this weekend.  The guys on staff are a little excessive about their hetero-ness but there weren't any females working today to balance out the testosterone levels.  Hopefully, this will improve tomorrow when cute Asian Michelle comes in.

So, I said I wasn't going to do this but considering all the threats I've gotten after posting yesterday's entry, I figure I'd better put out.  Over the next few entries, I'll try to include a story or two from the past two months.  Hell, they're just too juicy to leave out.

Be careful what you wish for, they say.  Listen to them, because they're right.  It's funny how pleasantly alluring something may seem in theory but if you're ever faced with it in reality, you may find it to be much more complicated than you had imagined.

In almost every group situation - school, work, social gatherings - there almost always is the one person who everyone wants to sleep with.  Straight, gay, necrophiliac ... whatever the situation, there's going to be an individual who everyone acts a little flightier around.  Typically, whatever sexual orientation the majority of this group is, the chosen individual will inevitably be of the opposite persuasion.  Otherwise, they probably wouldn't be the One Everyone Wants to Sleep With.  The more  unattainable this person is, the more everyone will want to be tied naked to a flag pole by them.  I'm just calling the facts.

My school is no different.  Among a few others, we have "Dawson," the unfairly gorgeous boy who everyone has had at least one Playgirl-worthy fantasy about.  He's straight (of course) and has a serious girlfriend who also goes to school at Rutgers.  Ugh, the ultimate in unattainability.  You can imagine my fascination.  One boring post-spring break evening while Dierdre, Joey and I were sitting around watching reruns of Saturday Night Live, D's phone rang.  "Sure, hold on," she said.  "Mikey, it's Dawson."

Dawson and I were considerably close friends so of course I thought nothing of this.  "Hey, Mikey," he said.

"What's up Dawson?"

"Ah, nothing much.  Hey are you alone?"

"Not at the moment, why?"

"Well, I kind of need to talk to you privately."

"Uh, sure.  No problem."  And I went into my room.  "What's up?"

"Okay, this may sound crazy, but are you attracted to me?"

"What?"

"Are you attracted to me?"

"Uh, well, sure..." I said, unsure of where he was going with this.

"Really?"

"Well, look at you, Dawson.  Who isn't attracted to you?"

"Oh, wow."

"What?"

"Well, okay, just so you know, I'm heterosexual but the thing is that I've been attracted to you for a while now ... and, uh, well I wanted to know if you'd be interested in hooking up?"

I almost dropped the phone.  "Are you drunk?"

"No.  Not at all."

"Um.  Uh.  Well.  Wow."

"Crazy, right?"

"Yeah, crazy.  Well, Dawson, don't you have a girlfriend?"

"Oh yeah, she's fine with it.  We've talked about this and she's totally cool with the idea.  In fact, she's right here."

"She's next to you!?"

"Yep.  You wanna talk to her?"

"Sure, put her on."

A girl's voice answered, "Hey, Mikey."

"Hiiiii... um, so you've heard about all this and you're OK with it?"

"Oh yeah, we've talked it over and, you know, I'm totally cool with it."

"But I don't want to mess your relationship up..."

"Oh, Mikey, don't worry about it.  I appreciate your concern but it's fine. Really.  It's something he wants to do."

"Well, okay, can you put him back on?"

Dawson answers: "Hey sexy."

"Uh, hi."

"So, what do you think?"

"Um, okay?"

"Cool!  Cool!  When?"

"Um, I don't have rehearsal tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow's cool.  How's nine?"

"Um, let me check ... yeah, yeah, nine is fine."

"Alright.  See you then."

Click.

What the fuck?

No, see, this isn't supposed to happen.  Not in real life.  Situations like this are reserved entirely for independent films and books by Christopher Rice.  Things like this don't happen to people like me.  The just don't.

But, fuck, it just did.  Holy crap.

I spent the entire following day shaking from the nerves.  Sure, I had day dreamed about this exact situation about a hundred times but never in my entire life did I think it would actually happen.  It was so bizarre.  It was like I really did wake up naked in high school.  This boy actually called me on the phone last night and asked if I wanted to get it on with him.  It was beyond.  Beyond the beyond.  And what made it even weirder was that it was scheduled.  I mean, I had it written in my palm pilot for shit's sake.  Right between "do Speech homework" and "write Theatre History paper" was "Dawson - sex."

John, who I of course made an emergency phone call to immediately after hanging up with Dawson the night before, called me between classes on D-Day.  "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Scared," I confessed.

"Don't be.  Mike, this is an opportunity that anyone and everyone would kill for.  You can't pass it up."

"Oh, hell, I wasn't planning on doing that.  Christ, I'm not retarded."

"You realize that you're doing a service for gay youth everywhere, right?"

"How so?"

"Don't you see?  When you're with him tonight, you'll be representing gay boys all over the country.  For everyone who ever fell in love with the coveted jock in high school, you'll be doing it for them!"

"Jeez, I didn't realize what a prestigious position this is."

"Believe it, baby."

The truth was, I actually had thought about calling it all off.  Sure, in theory I wanted to tear the boy apart but the possibility for complications was imminent.  I mean, what if he freaked out on me halfway through?  What if it made things weird between us and ruined our already established friendship.  What if his girlfriend snapped and came after me with a giant dildo poised to bash my brains out?  Or, most importantly, what if I liked it too much?  What if I couldn't keep myself safely emotionally detached and ended up falling for the kid?  Fact is, his personality is even sweeter than his looks are.  There's only so far you could go physically with someone like that before you're walking the line between the physical and emotional.  What if I ended up actually liking the guy?  How would it be having to go through the next two years seeing him constantly and, worse yet, with his girlfriend on a daily basis?  That's even more drama than I'm prepared to handle.

But 9:00p came around that night without me backing out.  I mean, hey, he's a friend and I'm always here to help out a friend.  Keep smilin', keep shinin', that's what I always say.  The roommates were both out of the house until 11.  I sat on the couch in silence and poured myself a glass of Baccardi Limon.  At 9:15, the doorbell rang.  Shit.  What was I supposed to do when I answered the door?  Create small talk or just attack him there?  What the hell are the protocols for something like this?  I ended offering him a seat on the couch and a rum and Coke.  We sat there with our drinks just shooting the shit for a good forty-five minutes.  We both confessed our nerves about the situation which actually calmed both of us down a bit.  We had talked about acting, school, families, home, the fact that the universe doesn't end (we were pretty tipsy by that point) when we finally came to a bit of an awkward silence.  He put his hand on my knee.  "Want to go in your room?" he asked.

I nodded hypnotically.

We sat down on my bed, looked at each other, giggled, looked up again, giggled some more and before I could stop giggling, he was kissing me.  Nicely.  Intensely.  He was good.  One of the best kissers I've ever experienced, actually.  My nerves shot out the window above my head.  It was much more comfortable  being there with him than I had imagined.  I finally was able to relax a bit and take in the fact that I was actually doing it with the One Everyone Wants to Sleep With.  That definitely gets me a point.

The next half hour or so is a blur to me.  All I know is that he initiated everything - I was still too nervous to do so - and that we ended up laying side to side on my bed, staring at the ceiling like we had just witnessed the second coming. (I don't know if that pun was intended or not).  "Damn," Dawson finally said.

"Yeah," I chirped.

"That was ... amazing!" he said.

"Yep."

"I mean, wow.  When you ... wow."

"Uh huh."

"You know, next time I'd like it if ..."

"Next time!?" I exclaimed.

"Yeah?"

"There's going to be a next time!?"

"Well, I mean if you wanted to, I wouldn't mind."

"Uh huh."

We left it at that, got dressed and repositioned ourselves back out on the couch just as my roommates were coming home.  They tried to act as nonchalantly as possible, but the fact that Dawson was openly stoking my hair and hands in front of them kind of made it difficult for them.  "Woah," Dierdre said after he left.  "Mikey, if I hadn't known before, I would have known just then."

"I know," I said.  "It's really strange.  I don't know what to think."

"How do you feel?"

"Fine," I said, "fabulous actually.  I feel good."

"Well, great then.  Good times for all."

Good times for a while was more like it.  While I was able to stop myself from actually falling for the guy, his suggestion of a second go with him never escaped my mind.  I liked the kid, I couldn't help it.  I wanted to kiss him again.  Badly.  But if it was going to happen it would have to be by his instigation.  I was still the innocent bystander as far as his girlfriend could be concerned.  No giant dildos for me.  But the fact was, the more I saw Dawson the more I wanted him.  And he didn't make it any easier on me.  He was just flirtatious enough in public to keep me on my toes but never enough to use it as an excuse to pass GO.  It was frustrating.  Worse than before because at least before all I had was an idea of what it would be like.  Now, I knew exactly what it was like and it was incredible.  Who could blame me?

Especially after he started kissing me in private at every party we were at together.  Even when his girlfriend was there in the next room, he'd pull me aside, tell me how sexy he found me and plant a deep one right on the lips.  And I'm supposed to keep myself emotionally detached from this?  Fuck.

Unfortunately, this story has no happy ending.  It doesn't really have an ending at all.  The semester ended and he went back home, many hours away.  He'll of course be back in September but who knows what the next four months may change.

That's it.  I'm swearing off of straight boys forever.

...

Like hell I am.

I've had an idea.  And I need your help.

Pippin, which I'm assistant directing and performing in, goes into rehearsal on Monday night and closes 30 June.  It's a nice perk having the show end so early in the summer before having it feel too drawn out but it's going to leave me completely theatrically-free for two whole months.  True, I've been talking about how I need a break from doing so many projects but two months is a bit much for me.  I'm a confessed junkie, dammit.  I'm going to be dying for a fix by the end of August.  Any of the community theatres worth working with around here are going to be well into their own shows by the time Pippin closes and the productions following them will cut into next school year.  So, I'm thinking it would make sense and probably be a hell of a good time to try to produce something independently.  All I need is to secure a space, which may be challenging but not impossible, get a small company of actors together and, of course, choose a play.  I'm definitely not thinking musical considering all the dough that would require.  We'd be talking rights, accompanists, scores, etc...  No, no, definitely not.  Instead, I'd like to find a small ensemble play, or possibly a series of one-acts, that we could bang out in three weeks tops.  Something a little edgier, a little more abstract.  Something interesting, fun and challenging and isn't technically complicated.  I've got a few ideas in my pocket, but I'm interested in what you all might have to say.  I'm open to any and all suggestions.