Now that's what I call theater

Tonight I saw a production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at a local theater. It was quite good: the cast was talented, the theater itself was fairly small and intimate, and the play was wickedly funny. Oh, and did I mention there was nudity? Ah, yes. There was.

What struck me the most about the nudity part of the play was how the two actresses who disrobed were both slender and very large breasted. Naturally so, it appeared. And pretty. And they were good actresses. Now, that just seems not fair, doesn't it? Why should some people get it all?

But, as a member of the audience, I was happy that the two women getting naked onstage were attractive with nice slender yet curvy and full in the right places kinds of bodies. And it was fun to watch the bad boy, the Vicomte de Valmont, woo them so playfully and sensuously in the bed onstage. Those scenes were funny and sexy at the same time. I think I was a bit jealous, actually. Only, I'm not sure which one of the actors I was most jealous of, to tell the truth: the voluptuous women, or the Vicomte who got to lay on top of them and seductively caress their breasts. I think I'll have another glass of wine while I dwell on that question.

Well if it helps my pool game, it should improve my art too ...

Tonight I went to my first art class - an acrylic painting workshop. I've been wanting to learn how to paint for a long time, and I am so excited now that I found this particular class. The teacher seems cool, the other people in the class are nice; it's not as intimidating as I was afraid it would be, and with only seven students in the class I will be getting lots of one-on-one attention from the instructor. Tonight I painted a still life: three pears. They don't look very realistic yet, but hey, I actually put paint on canvas, played around with mixing colors together, and came out with something that at least looks interesting, even if it's not very good.

The best part, for me, though, is that I am now totally looking forward to my Thursday nights from now on. From six to nine every Thursday evening for the next couple months, I'll be going to this cool art gallery in a hip part of town, heading upstairs to the working area, setting up all my paints and brushes, and pretending like I'm an artist at work ... and drinking while I paint. Yep, that's right; the instructor told us that we are welcome to bring whatever we want to drink to class with us, including wine, which she says some of her students do regularly in her other classes. Now I KNOW I'm going to love painting.

It's sick tv, and I love it.

I think I've admitted this before, but I have to say it again: I freakin' love watching "The Bachelor." I feel like I should be ashamed to admit it, because I know there's something just wrong about that show: all those women going on tv to compete against each other to try to get some guy they've never met before to pop the question and marry them after just a few crazy unrealistic dates? But it's the very wrongness of it that makes me like it so much, I think.

Tonight, watching Natalie or whatever her name is going out on her "Pretty Woman" date with Jason, wearing a million dollars' worth of diamonds, taking a jet and then a helicopter to Vegas with him, having a private concert moment with Kate Voegele, bragging in her asides to the camera about how great the date is going and about the connection she feels with him, saying that her goal for the night is to get him to elope with her to one of the Vegas chapels, ... then watching her get dissed, not getting a rose, and then getting so angry about it, especially once she had to give back those awesome diamonds and get in the limo by herself, saying to the camera "What, just because he's JASON I should bow down to him? Please, I'm hot. Fuck him. ASSHOLE." I mean, come on; that's just awesome.

Poor Jason. Poor all of them. I do feel bad for them all at times, in moments when things just get incredibly awkward and emotional and unreasonable ... but the whole concept is unreasonable to begin with, and they all signed up for it nevertheless. So you can't feel too bad for any of them. No; I just sit here, drinking my wine, watching girls get into catfights back at the bachelorette house, watching all of them talk about each other behind their backs, all of them trying to make out with Jason, and Jason seeming like such a sweet guy but at the same time there on tv just making out with all these girls one right after another. Right now, he seems to be straining to keep himself from staring at Nikki's massive cleavage while he talks about what special qualities he thinks she has, then going in for the kiss (and she immediately slipped him her tongue; ok, that was kind of gross, watching that); and here I totally thought she was going to go home tonight, since she couldn't come up with anything to talk to him about earlier tonight in their one-on-one time, but now that she slipped him some tongue I'm guessing she's going to be staying, especially since he's so obviously hung up on her humongous breasts, which are pretty impressive I have to admit but in a totally intimidating way in my mind ... and now here he's talking with Erica, and she says to him "Are you checking out my boobs?" (Off camera Jason insists he was just checking out the color of her dress. Yeah, I'm sure; guys are really always wanting to check out the color of a girl's dress.)

Ok, I was typing all that as I was watching, but now I've got to stop typing and give this show my full attention for the rest of the episode; Jason keeps kissing girls and asking them to dish on what they think about the other girls in the house, whether any of them are mean or there for the wrong reason or whatever, while all the girls keep on drinking and waiting around for that rose ceremony to start, and dude, you just KNOW that's a recipe for disaster. Fabulous disaster.

P.S. This season's best "The Bachelor" buzz-phrase for a drinking game? Listening out for how many times each of these girls will tell this guy how "ready I am to be a mother." Extra challenging because it's kind of hard to keep your drink down sometimes, depending on the degree of desperation in the girl's voice and craziness in her eyes.

Admission

Okay. Want to hear something pathetic? If so, read on. (If not, you must be new here.)

Do you recall the post I wrote the week before Christmas, about an asshole lawyer? It's this one. In that post, I ranted on and on about a lawyer who was such an asshole towards my client and towards me in this day-long deposition that didn't even end when we called it a day at 6 p.m. In all my holier-than-thou glory, I went on and on about what an inconsiderate and rude lawyer this guy is. And I complained about how I was going to have to go through yet another horrendous, long day of deposition again with him the next day; not only had we not finished with the witness (my witness) whose deposition had begun (and continued ALL DAY) that Thursday, we were also having to depose another witness (another client of mine) that next day, that Friday, after finishing up the first witness's deposition. So, see, we were scheduled to begin my witness #2's deposition at 10am on Friday; but since we hadn't finished my witness #1's deposition the day before, Thursday, the day I wrote that post, we decided to start back at 9am on Friday with witness #1, finish his deposition, then start with witness #2 at 10:30 am - knowing, of course, that we'd be lucky to finish witness #2 by the end of the day. So I was annoyed; the night I wrote that post, I was extremely annoyed, not only by the asshole lawyer's behavior, but also by the slow pace of the depositions, the fact that we weren't yet finished with #1 and didn't know if we could finish #2.

Did you notice how, in that post, if you read it, I mentioned that I slept for a few hours, then woke up at like 2 am or something, and couldn't go back to sleep? And how I said that, at the point I was writing that post, I figured I should just stay up? Do you see where I'm going with this?

As it turned out, At around 6:30 am, I laid down on my bed, lights on, for what I thought would be just a moment, to have a few minutes of rest before I got up and got dressed. And, of course, because this is the way things happen sometimes, I fell asleep.

I woke up at 9:30 that morning. Half an hour after the continued portion of the deposition was supposed to have begun. Freaked the fuck out when I realized the situation, when it all sunk in to my consciousness. Called the law firm immediately, the firm of the lawyer taking the deposition, and told him I was so sorry, I'd been up sick half the night (partial lie) and then slept through my alarm (true), said I could be there in half an hour. Well, we decided to just skip the finishing up of witness #1 (who was in that lawyer's office, waiting on me, poor guy), and instead send him on his way, reschedule him, and all meet back at 10:30 am, the time we'd instructed witness #2 to arrive for his deposition. And that's what we did.

Well, it's not really a big deal, in the larger scheme of things. I mean, we actually accomplished the deposition of #2 that Friday, finished him shortly after 5 pm that afternoon, and rescheduled the end of #1's deposition (about an hour's worth more of questions) for another time. And no one made a big deal of it at all. But, the thing is, I totally lost face. And not just with the other lawyers, but also with myself. I mean, come on; how can I keep up my own personal tirade against asshole lawyer for being such an asshole in that deposition, blaming it in part on his incompetence as a lawyer in general, when I totally flaked the next day and overslept a deposition of one of my own witnesses? What could possibly suck more? I mean, man; my own inept behavior has now totally taken all the joy out of my making fun of that asshole's ineptitude. And that's just not fun.

reconnecting

So, in the spirit of the holidays, (and because I was buzzed and bored and lonely one Friday night), I called an old friend of mine out of the blue about a week before Christmas and, in a message left on voice mail, asked if she'd be interested in going to lunch sometime. I had actually seen her that day, which is what prompted the thought to call her. (I almost said that's what prompted the call, but honestly I think that just prompted the thought to call her, and the wine I later drank prompted the actual call.)

This girl used to be my very best friend. She was the first friend I made when I moved to this city almost 10 years ago, and we were very good friends for about 5 years; then something happened, we had a falling out - - I think I used to know why, but now I couldn't really tell you exactly why, for sure - - and so now it's been about 5 years, almost, that we haven't been friends; haven't called or emailed or gone out or anything. I have run into her occasionally over the years, always at lawyer functions, and we've said hello and how are you; but that's about it.

Well, I was a little disappointed, but not really surprised, when she didn't return my call right away. By New Year's, I figured I'd never hear back from her. But then she did call, on an evening when I wasn't home, and left a message; said she'd be happy to have lunch sometime. She sounded nervous, strangely enough, in the message; the way she spoke, the sound of her voice, it was her nervous voice. But friendly.

Well today, over email, we finally made plans. We're going to get together Friday for lunch. I don't really know what I expect to come of this lunch. I'm not entirely sure why I'm doing this. I mean, I'm just not sure that it's possible to pick up a friendship again after all this time, especially given how close we once were and how much time has since gone by. I mean, can either of us feel totally comfortable, totally ourselves, around each other again? How open and honest are we likely to be with each other? Because, really, will we trust each other again? Will we care? And what's going on in her life, anyway; how might we both have changed, since 5 years ago? Will it be awkward? Okay, that one was a stupid question; I already know it's going to be awkward. But HOW awkward will it be, how long will the awkwardness last? Will she be wondering why the fuck I called her out of the blue? I don't know if I could even say, really.

And finally, am I being crazy/obsessed/overly-girlly in analyzing and worrying over this at all? I mean, dude, would guys go through stuff like this, thoughts like this, over their friendships? Somehow I doubt it. Somehow, I think you've just gotta be a girl to understand. And, frankly, a somewhat unbalanced girl at that.

Safety First

It's so reassuring to receive an email at work that reads:

"Maintenance staff will be performing work on the second floor of the building this afternoon which will require the use of a torch and welding equipment. As a precaution, the building's fire alarm system will be turned off. During this time, if you smell smoke but don't see any smoke or flames, call the Business Office. If you see smoke or flames, please call 911."