We are All a Little Crazy

In the past 24 hours, some crazy things have happened. As of yet, none of them involve Bill Clinton.

Last night I went to see my friend CH in a play (AEA showcase) downtown at the Access Theater. I knew two of the actors from school and one of them as the ex-boyfriend of St. Matthew’s girlfriend, CB. I know that it’s confusing. CB dumped (or so we thought) this actor to date St. Matthew. It didn’t turn out to be that simple. She had dated the actor for a complicated decade, or near a decade, and they had both been as it seems a bit on the conniving, head-trippy, we-love-being-unhappy-together side.

For those reasons, and many that I don’t know anything about, CB and the actor had some overlap with CB and my roommate. There was much drama throughout these dark times. St. Matthew got the girl in the end, and we know he’s visiting her right now in Atlanta. What happened was after the show I said hello to my friends, mingled a bit and then said hi to the actor with a, ‘do you remember me?’ he replied with a vehement ‘yeah’ and asked to have a private moment.

So the actor took me aside and we had a long talk which boiled down to him telling me, “I’m not a bad guy.” Poor thing. Relationships are hard. People do stupid shit. I told him I didn’t know any details (which is pretty true as St. Matthew is a saint and respects other people’s privacy), but that I knew what it was like to have something huge collapse and that I would have done the same thing. The same thing being: have a heart to heart with an almost complete stranger just to gratify my own sense of justice. I wish I didn’t know what a freak he is, he’s pretty cute.

The other crazy thing has to do with a theater company founded by my college friends. I ran into one of them on 42nd the other day I was walking to work and found out he’s involved with The Color Purple (the new musical presented by Oprah). I congratulated him profusely, because that is super cool, and I am happy for him. Well, today he called me to audition for the college company’s fall production. He called about 30 minutes before the auditions were to take place. Thank God that I got up early and was at the gym at that time.

When I returned the call the auditions were in process and I explained that I had work, and plans and was not free. He just wanted to apologize for the ‘gross oversight’ of not actually getting me an audition. From there on the conversation went a little something like this:

yb: No worries.
TD: Well, I wanted to let you know, we’re thinking of you, babe.

Actually, no TD, if you were thinking of me, you would have called before now. Don’t lie now, there’s no reason. I do not feel better or worse based on how your company casts its shows. I’m relieved that circumstances kept me from the whole thing. He probably wanted to make sure I’ll be attending their fundraiser next week. “No hard feelings, babe.”

I think I may have mentioned before my love/hate relationship with theater people.

On the love side of it, I met Brian F. O’Byrne, the actor in Doubt who is truly incredible on the 42nd St. Subway Platform last night, waiting for the A. I made eye contact with him, recognized him and since, I have the most expressive face in the world, was a bit trapped after that since we had such a strong eye-contact moment. I went up, introduced myself, and congratulated him on the play. I gushed about how great I thought it was, that I’ve seen it twice, and then made a hasty escape. He seemed very nice, and probably would have talked to me longer, except that my face was turning purple. Actors make me nervous.