" ...I didn't move to New York City so I could go home early..."
White Teeth and ignored Dreams, May 22, 2001
Last Sunday, I watched television on occasion during the day, to try to catch myself hosting the Molly Dodd marathon on MetroChannel. During the shoot, I'd spent silly hours worrying that I looked fat or old, completely neglecting my real surface problem- the sallow, sickly shade of yellow taken on by my teeth.
Diet Pepsi, coffee and my dad's genes are at fault. Luckily, Allure or Glamour or Elle or some other woman's magazine that has helped me pick myself apart since the day I turned twelve, featured an article this month on teeth whitening. And, that's why I'm biting down on plastic trays filled with peroxide.
I'm starting cheap.
Rembrandt makes a $32.00 kit that you use twice a day and they have promised to take my teeth from jaundiced to pearly in two weeks. If that doesn't work, I'm going for broke with
Britesmile, a one hour laser treatment that the dentist around the corner does for $600.00.
My teeth are tingling, or whitening, as I like to call it.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we finished the play's run. Bathroom Confessions was sold out all three nights, and the last night was the most fun of all. We were finally getting in a groove, as a cast, and then it was over. Vanessa Hollingshead learned the whole play in three weeks, kicked ass at showtime and then got married on Saturday. Andrea Rosen, who was hilarious as the bucktoothed Abby, got contacted by some big ass manager and Kerri Louise, sexy, funny and vivacious, made a dream come true by writing, starring in and producing a whole play.
I am quite inspired.
Andrea wore awful fake teeth onstage. My favorite thing to do was to wait until she'd put them on and then ask her when she was going to put in her teeth. She laughed up until the fourth time I did this- then i reluctantly let it go.
This whole dotcom mess has put the city in a funk. Everyone's getting
laid off. I panicked and interviewed for a medium paying, one-day per week coding job in Brooklyn and the woman hiring said she got ninety resumes. My main freelance client (I feel like such a hooker when I say client) is restructuring things- alot of their sites are bieing consolidated. I'm working on the re-design, but after it's launched, that may be it. Another freelance client is doing this "one, last" web site, then that's done. And that may be it for me as a web coder.
I couldn't be happier.
Fear has gotten the best of me, so I am taking everything that's offered to me, no matter how bad my typing hand hurts, no matter how much sleep I'm missing, or how much I'm not writing new jokes, because it will end soon and I just want to have as much in the bank as possible. I'm anticipating a financial holocaust, nationwide.
I came here three years ago with my debts paid off and $5,000 in the bank, which I thought would last me a year. I was burnt out on the road but I still loved comedy. I stayed in the city and worked the system. Within twelve months, my debt was up to $12,000.00. I paid it off last year and now I'm putting it away, so I can coast for awhile, in awhile.
Everytime I'm too tired to push for another set, I tell myself, it's just for now. In a few months, it will all be over and you can be up all night, out all night. Tonight, I did a spot at the Strip and then at New York Comedy Club. I should have gone to either the Cellar to hang out, or Asylum for a final, open mic-y spot. But after New York Comedy Club, I was technically done, and I had a hoax to write and shit to code so I went home.
You know what Dear Reader, I didn't move to New York City so I could go home early. I want to be a fulltime comic again, without being away from home 40 weeks a year. I want to record a CD and turn myself into a real, rocking headliner and I want my seven minute set to be strong and cohesive and reflecitve of me. I have an idea for a play. I want to live up to my potential, whatever that means.
As soon as I finish this one last project.
