Cranky Actress Blog

Cranky is experiencing the advantages and disadvantages of living alone.

Advantages:

Falling asleep in front of the TV and nobody cares.

Saturday afternoon ritual of going to gym, then eating lunch and watching “Fashion Police.” What man is going to put up with that?

Having cheese and crackers for dinner. Having watermelon for dinner. Having soup for dinner. Every man I’ve ever known wants a 3-course meal night after night.

Less clutter.

Disadvantages:

Um, ah, I couldn’t think of any until last night. Last night at 11:30pm a giant waterbug appeared in the bathroom and this is when you need a man. When I switched on the light, it ran between the shower curtain and the liner to hide. They do that. They know that when a light goes on they must hide or they will die. I hate them, but it makes me sad that they know that. How do they know that? Do they have some kind of ancestral archetypal unconscious that links to the memory of generations that have gone before? Is it survival of the fittest? The ones that hide get to live and reproduce? Or do they have folklore passed down to the younger generations by songs they sing to their young in the middle of the night while they hide in the black pipes of buildings:

Hide hide hide when they turn on the light

The sight of us gives them a fright

We do not sting, we do not bite

It does not matter, they’ll squash us on sight

So my terror was tinged with poignancy as I looked at the bug hiding behind the white translucent curtain, thinking it was safe, but still in plain sight. My elder statesmen friend on the sixth floor once watched one of them crawl out of the dumbwaiter in his kitchen and said, “What a life,” feeling sorry for this creature of the darkness living behind the walls.

But terror is more powerful than poignancy, so I immediately texted three neighbors. No answer. Which meant I would not be able to use the bathroom. Ever. Which was going to present a problem. But wild horses could not drag me in there now. I was going to walk the dog, and my backup plan was to find someone on the street or one of the busboys I see nightly and drag them home. When I lived in the Village, I once asked a waiter from a restaurant across the street to walk me home because there was a bug on the stairs. He thought it was his lucky day until after he killed the bug and I said goodnight. (Sorry Marcos!)

But then the doorbell rang. My savior. Bob. “Where is it? Do you have any paper towels?” His demeanor looked a little too casual to me considering I was in trauma/phobic mode. “I’ll try to get it,” he said, “But sometimes they just run away back to where they came from and you never see them again.” I said, “WAIT! STOP! DON’T GO IN THERE UNTIL YOU ARE DETERMINED TO KILL IT. YOU HAVE TO BE DETERMINED TO KILL IT. JUST PUT IT IN YOUR MIND THAT YOU ARE GOING TO KILL IT!” I’m feeling very Pattonlike talking to the troops.

Because if he doesn’t kill it, it will hide until the worst, scariest, moment and then come out and TOUCH ME. I know this is a fact.

Bob is in there for much longer than I expected. The bug must be employing diversionary tactics passed down through generations, but Bob emerges victorious. He even takes the death shroud of paper towels with him which is the greatest thing ever because even if it is dead I would have fears that it would somehow crawl out of the garbage and get me.

So in conclusion this probably means that Cranky might have to go on dates to find a bug killer, better known as a man. Even though Cranky considers dating an invasion of privacy.

On Jul 14, 2014, at 2:18 PM, “Cranky” wrote:

http://www.ptero-play.com
You want to see this with me? I will buy us tickets – wanna go this Friday?

Cranky

From: Anastasia
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2014 2:31 PM
To: Cranky
Subject: Re: a play i want to see

A play?
Any idea what it’s about? I am going away Friday after work though for the weekend..

On Jul 14, 2014, at 2:39 PM, “Cranky ” wrote:

Good playwright
If you click on link and go to About it has info: http://www.ptero-play.com/
We could go 7/25 or 7/26 or 7/27 if you wanna go.

Cranky

From: Anastasia
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2014 2:43 PM
To: Cranky
Subject: Re: a play i want to see

Can we do Thursday the 24th? Yeah I like theatre!

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 14, 2014, at 2:44 PM, “Cranky” wrote:

Yes – I’ll get tix.

Cranky

On Jul 23, 2014, at 9:46 AM, Anastasia wrote:

Are we still on for tomorrow?

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 23, 2014, at 10:12 AM, “Cranky” wrote:

Yes. Left u a vm about it!

Sent from my iPhone

From: Anastasia [mailto:argouliaeva@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 10:15 AM
To: Cranky
Subject: Re: a play i want to see

Never got it. Do you have the right #? XXX-XXX-XXXX?

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 23, 2014, at 10:21 AM, “Cranky ” wrote:
I left it on: xxx-xxx-xxxx –home

Is that not right? How can that be?
Want to see if we can find cheap place for a bite before show?

Gerry

Subject: Re: a play i want to see
From: Anastasia
Date: Wed, July 23, 2014 10:25 am
To: Cranky

That number is not mine or ever was mine…are you sure you have the right person? Haha
I actually have plans for early dinner though with a friend that we been trying to meet up with for months.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 23, 2014, at 8:15 PM, “Cranky” wrote:

You are not going to believe this – I thought I was inviting my neighbor Anastasia – hence the wrong phone numbers!

I’m an idiot.

You are so gracious to accept and I hope you will come to the show with me even though it probably seemed peculiar to you that I emailed. If you prefer to remain at dinner with your friend I totally understand!

Forgive me.
Cranky

Subject: Re: a play i want to see
From: Anastasia
Date: Wed, July 23, 2014 10:25 am
To: Cranky
I did think it was a little odd, but figure you never know. 🙂

I would still like to join you for the play, but if you rather take your friend I would not get offended in the least bit! Let me know.

No need for apologies.
Anastasia

So this is how Cranky went to the theater last night with a complete stranger. Autofill. Someone who had received a business email from me years ago, who I have never seen, met or talked to. I began typing my close friend’s name in an email, and autofill finished the address with a complete stranger. If it was a French film, she would have turned out to be the illegitimate daughter of my father or something like that. Or the correspondence would have covered metaphysical topics like the meaning of life before we realized we were strangers, instead of dinner no dinner. But it was just Cranky’s hapless error, so I saw a show with a stranger. Had to look on LinkedIn to find a picture so I could find her in theater lobby. We actually had a great time and thank the lord she is a theater lover and we laughed at the laughing parts and cried at the crying parts.

The show was Pterodactyls by Nicky Silver at Teatro Circulo, 64 East 4th Street, NYC. If you are in NYC, go see it – http://www.ptero-play.com/ Tickets are $18 bucks – a major deal.

I was blown away by how great it was. The play draws an ingenious analogy between the extinction of the dinosaur and the earth’s landscape strewn with human carcasses due to the extinction of the human race due to the dysfunction of the family.

The director, STEPHEN KALISKI must be some kind of genius boy or something. Years ago I saw a play, Tigers Be Still, starring Natasha Lyonne, that was directed by the now famous director, Sam Gold. This director has the same kind of talent. When everyone in the cast is doing star-quality work, you can thank the director. Isn’t great theater uplifting and transporting? Go be uplifted and transported. Go see actress Maggie Low in a role she was obviously born to play.

Cranky had a print audition today. They are the only ones she can afford to go to at the moment. Ten minutes of standing on an X and smiling like an idiot. Upscale casual. Cranky is expert at upscale, looks rich even though broke. A friend once described face as “to the manor born.”

Nothing like a print audition in summer sweat weather. You have a shiny face you look like hell. The most pristine makeup job is no match for the 100 degree New York City subway platform. So took a taxi, which is a gamble. Need the taxi money, but need the four grand I will get if I get it. All morning was going, “taxi, no taxi, taxi, no taxi, taxi, no taxi…” in my head. When real feel temp reached 80 at 10 am, went with taxi. Will eat Trader Joe’s salads for the next week to make up for it. Have to say, sitting in a quiet, cool car does make one composed upon arrival at a casting studio. As they say “Nothing succeeds like success.” Successful people probably take a lot of taxis or something.

Because it pays big bucks, the casting studio was nice and all. Cool, good music, and an assistant who types your info into a computer instead of filling out the sheet with shoe size, etc.

I sit down to wait and a handsome actor sits next to me and starts talking. BEFORE AN AUDITION. I can be civil, but I like to stay in my own head before an audition. I have to loosen jaw and do other spastic things before going in. Don’t ask me why. So even though I am trying to listen, my body language is saying, “Get the fuck away from me.” I don’t hear much except that he mentions HE BOUGHT A PLACE years ago. They drop financials into the conversation early to spark interest. It’s hopeless. I have no response to questions. He was wearing a nice blue shirt. He was very upscale casual. Like me. He goes in before me and I am very interested when he tells me what they asked him to do in the audition room. “They want a funny face at the end.” So I immediately start going through my repertoire of funny faces in my head while he continues to talk and I stare at him with a blank face. “Ah, well, maybe I’ll see you around sometime,” he says. I nod my head thinking, “That will happen if we both get cast.”

The audition went well. They wanted me to talk about best concerts I have seen, and I recounted the transporting experience of seeing Thelonious Monk as a teenager.

When I am leaving, I realize that being at an audition had turned me into a self-centered, anti-social freak. But if that’s what it takes to get that four grand, I can live with it.