14 June 2024 Friday

[KathyB]

Today I needed a haircut so badly that I took a Lyft to Great Clips and back. I had been looking into mobile haircuts, but they were very expensive for a women's haircut. I figured going to the Great Clips where I usually get my hair cut would not only be less expensive, but I'd be happier with the result. Although I don't get to have my hair cut in a genuine Airstream trailer, as one of the mobile places was advertising.

I got released from bondage on Wednesday! The occupational therapist said she wanted to see me out of the sling when around the house, and to try doing as many things as I can with my left arm. I still need to  wear the sling when I go somewhere, but for just hanging around the house I get to take it off. I am now typing with two fingers, which is infinitely preferable to one finger. 

I ordered Chinese food to be delivered for an early dinner, so I'm looking forward to having enough for a few meals.

Right now I'm listening to the Decemberists' new album--their first in six years--and really liking it.

[scenicdesign71]

Yay freedom!  ...when you're at home, at least, which is the best place to be free.

When it rains, it pours:

• After months of inactivity, I'm starting on an exciting new stage project (with FTC's very own Ray Rackham AND my much-mentioned friend Isabel—who seemed to get along famously at our first Zoom meeting yesterday, after only knowing-of each other, through me, for the dozen years since Isabel helped sew the American-flag curtains for the Assassins I designed for Ray in 2012);
• I'm finally jumping into a new full-time day job on Monday; AND
• I'm frantically pursuing a lead on a new apartment which, if it works out, seems almost too good to be true: a lovely rent-stabilized 1BR with a view of the Cloisters, in a courtyard building two blocks from my mom's place; and it costs almost exactly what I was paying at my old place (which is to say, significantly below market rates). The only downside is that it's above a club that plays loud music until 2am on weeknights and 4am on weekends.  But it's three floors above the club; I have a pretty good noise filter (my hearing's fine, but I tend to be unphased by — sometimes to the point of scarcely even registering — a lot of noise distractions that bother other people); and since this would be taking over a friend-of-a-friend's lease, if the noise really does annoy me, I could get out of it as soon as December.

The day job is a horrible commute — Staten Island — but my boss, who I know from all six seasons of Mme. Sec'y, is by now also a dear friend, and has offered to let me stay with her and her husband in their roomy 3-story Victorian in NJ so that I can just ride back and forth to SI with her every day.  On weekends I'll come back to my mom's place, where I've been living for the last six months, and/or to the new apartment if that works out.  And a month from now, once all the primary sets are built and painted, I might be shifting from regular ten-hour days on the prep scenic crew, to crazily-variable hours (probably 10hrs or longer most days, but at wildly varying call times and a higher hourly rate) as Camera Scenic for the entire ten-week shoot, for which I'd come back home to Inwood and just hop onto a crew van from downtown Manhattan every day (or night) to be taken to—and returned there from—whatever set or location they're shooting that day/night.

And my eves and weekends will be busy working on Ray's show, which I'm so excited about that I'm superstitiously not going to say much about it for now.  It's not a Sondheim show, but it has a Sondheim connection, and it will hopefully be cranking into higher gear in about three months, soon after the Staten Island job wraps.

I had been getting used to the strike, and post-strike, stasis for quite awhile now — so it's nervous-making, having to jump headfirst back into the juggling act after such a long period of inactivity.  But both of these jobs and the (potential) apartment couldn't have come at a better time, financially and otherwise; so, nerves notwithstanding, I'm very happy!

[DiveMilw]

Woo Hoo!  Happy news indeed for both of you!!!!