Employment of the week

This week I'm working for the NYU medtheatre program. Its a test for 4th year medical students to give them the experience of working with real patients. Only I'm not a real patient. I'm an actor who gets paid to pretend to be a patient. I spent two weeks developing my character, Paul. I haven't been sleeping very well lately, so I've come in to see if I can get a prescription for a sleeping aid. What you don't know, and neither do the doctor's unless they build enough rapport to make me feel comfortable enough to share, is that I came back from working in Iraq 4 months ago. A few weeks before I came home I was at work and a car bomb exploded outside my office. And it was such a lovely day too. I had gone to the market that morning and bought some figs because I like fig newtons and its the closest thing I could get in Iraq. But I digress. Two of my co-workers were killed in the explosion. Bonnie and Cliff. We weren't extremely close, but Bonnie and I did go on a date when I first got to Iraq. It was just a one time thing.

I wasn't in the military, so even though I saw something traumatic, I don't feel like I really deserve the attention of someone who was effected by war. But I actually have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Don't worry, most of the doctors I see get me in touch with a psychologist and give me a light sleeping aid to use for a few weeks before the therapist sets me up with a better drug to control my anxiety. I have lots of anxiety. If there is a loud noise outside the exam room, I jump. I bounce my knee a lot and wring my hands. Loud noises bother me.

My exam room is in the Pediatric wing of Bellevue Hospital. Its an old brick structure that was one of the first hospitals in the city and instead of tearing it down when it started to deteriorate, they built a new building to surround the first. So when you walk in the modern glass entrance, you're face to face with a antique looking large red brick building.

The whole wing is closed for testing. Apparently kids don't get sick on the weekends. My room has a scale, tongue depressors, stickers that say "Ouch! I got a shot" and lots of other medical equipment I don't understand. There are lots of bight colored signs about the food pyramid and healthy living. It makes Paul feel a little weird and kind of like a wimp for having to see a doctor.

I see, or rather am seen by, about 18 doctors a day. Same bouncy knee, same jump at the loud noise, same story 18 times. It gets exhausting, especially when the doctors aren't getting it. I just want to grab them by the lapels of their white lab coat and shake them. I have it pretty easy though. I don't have a physical exam like some of the other standardized patients (actors). They have to wear a hospital gown all day and have lights shown in their eyes and their knees pummeled to check reflexes. One girl has to undo her bra and lift up her boob so that the doctor can check her heart. One time a doctor undid her bra and lifted her boob for her without so much as a warning. This same patient also was diagnosed with AIDS once, while her real diagnosis is that she's pregnant. Not even HIV, full blown AIDS. Don't worry, not all of these students become doctors. Some do research.

It gets hard to remember which is which when I'm writing their review at the end of the exam. Did he ask me if I was feeling suicidal? Did he use open ended questions? Did he pressure me enough to find out that I'm self medicating with alcohol? One doctor decided that I was an alcoholic. He jumped on it pretty quickly too. First he asked if I drank to which I replied, as always, "for the past three weeks or so I've been having a beer or two at night to try to help me sleep." His next question was "Do you ever drink so much that you pass out and have seizures?" "Not that I'm aware," I said.

This Old House

Tonight my key got stuck in my front door when I came home. I called the horribly mean maintenance people three times in two hours to try to get it fixed and these are the responses I got (no joke).

1. The first woman asked for my name, phone number and address and said that she would call me back in 20 minutes after she tried to call the super of the building. She, of course, never called me back.

1.5 I called and someone hung up on me, so that doesn't count.

2. Another woman asked for my name, phone number and address and told me that it wasn't their problem and that anything to do with the front door was my problem, "so call a locksmith."

3. The third woman, and the most glorious, told me that their company no longer owned the building, that she didn't know who owned it now and that I would have to figure out who owned it and call them with the problem.

So I got a big bowl of ice cream.

Of course after about a half hour of struggling, the key slipped easily out in my hand while I was fiddling with it on while on the phone. Awesome.

All My Jobs

So far in New York I have organized children's books, been coat check boy at a private gallery, file organizer for an ancient man, managed a group of ex-cons working as carpenters in the Bronx, assembled a giant (and I mean massive) wall for a fashion show, receptionist at Leman's, French tutor for a crazy rich kid on the upper East side, cleaned house for a gay orthodox Jew, danced around in a Lion costume for thousands of 3-5 yr olds, script reader, private bartender for a French family (which was almost a disaster seeing as I know next to nothing about mixing drinks, thank heaven for text messaging friends who can google things for me on the spot) reviewed plays for the Innovative Theatre Awards and soon I'm going to be an apartment painter.

I don't know what I would do without variety.

Jump cleaning

When I was about 7 and my older brother 9, we invented our own bartering system. I'm fairly certain that it was he who actually came up with the system and I just went along with it, but it was there none the less. We each chose what the most important thing we wanted from the other person was and then traded them. Billy, my brother, had a very simple system. What he like was cleaning. He liked having the house in perfect order, counters scrubbed, dishes done, carpet vacuumed so that the lines were perfectly perpendicular. There was actually a rule in my house about how many times he was allowed to vacuum, but I digress. I'm not exactly sure I knew what I wanted because my currency was a little more complicated. The smallest was the "jump." That required my brother to go outside and jump on the trampoline with me for 15 minutes. A "jump" was 1/4 of a "clean," which usually involved an hour of cleaning. In general, a "play" was equal to a "clean," both taking up an hour. So four "jumps" are a "clean" which is equal to a "play." Then there was also a "performance" which was 2 "cleans." The "performance" was only used a few times because 2 "cleans" was enough to kill me at 7 years old. I hated cleaning with all my heart and soul. However, when the "performance" card was pulled, it was well worth the several hours of activity. First we, as a creative team, would choose the piece to be performed. It always involved the tapes of our favorite shows like The Little Mermaid, Meet me in St. Louis, Beauty and the Beast ect... Wow, if my parents didn't figure it out then. After we'd chosen, we'd run around the house getting set pieces (like the dining room chairs to make the trolley car or the fountain in the living room for the town square), costumes (mostly table cloths of different colors to wrap around our heads to make hair or the one costume I had growing up which lasted several years of halloween as a bear then a groundhog then finally a skunk) and props (stuffed animals, something for mics.) We would always rehearse and perform in my parents bedroom because it was dark and painted in deep reds and greens and held all the most elaborate and expensive furniture in the house. The audience (my parents and sometimes a family pet) would sit on the couch against the wall and we would perform in the space between the couch and the bed. We were incredible. Our production of the highlights of The Little Mermaid brought down the house. I was of course Ariel, because I was smaller and more squirely to handle the costume change when I got my legs, and Billy played the sea witch. When we did the Trolley Song from Meet Me in St Louise, Bily was the Judy Garland role and I played all the other people on the trolley. I had at least five quick changes. No wonder we didn't really get along with the other kids on our block.

This system of currency is a cute concept if it had only lasted for a few years in elementary school. But it actually lasted well into our teens. We kept a mental talley of how many cleans, jumps and plays we had. The names became ineffectual for discribing what we used them for. For instance, I got a screaming deal one day when Billy was really bored and wanted to play Gin, a game my grandfather taught us as soon as we could hold cards. I got three jumps out of it. It was the best day. Or when I wanted to hang out with my brother and his friends, it cost me a whole play.

Sometimes I think life would be a lot more simple if we used the currency we chose. Don't think about the nightmare of who would decide how much everything was worth, or those people that would choose strange sexual acts as their currency of choice. But really, isn't that the idea of a utopian society. A group of people having and sharing. Its not? Well, isn't it a nice thought anyway?

Some journal

I am a journal writing maniac. Maybe its my Mormon upbringing, reminding me to write in my journal to teach future generations. Maybe its that my mother is a columist and because I grew up reading what was essentially her journal in the newspaper every week, I was instilled with the understanding that writing is a good way to express yourself. Or maybe its just that my biggest fear in the universe is forgetting and so this is the way that I try to keep things remembered.

So there they are on a shelf in my bedroom, all these little pieces of me. Every year I tell myself that I'm going to read them all once a year, just to peruse my life. And every year they collect more dust, completely unread. I think I'm scared to read them. I'm worried that it will be like looking through your Junior High School year book. You want to look back and laugh at all the awkward things, like your hair and the clubs you were in. But then you crack the binding only to find that your hair looked awful, you were far more awkward than you remembered and you were on the Chess team. (Don't make fun.)

Plus, I'm completely and discusting honest in my journals. I won't let my closest friends read them. At some point I'm bound to have been angry at them or have done something that would have made them angry, and there's a good chance they'd find it in my journal. I'm not saying that I use my journal stricting for confessions. Heaven knows how tedious and long winded that would be.

When it comes to blogging, sometimes I have trouble knowing when to draw the line. I want it to be interesting, but I don't even read my own journals! How can I expect someone to want to read my blog? And it isn't the type of blog with cute little photos showing what an amazing amateur photographer I am, its not wraught with spicy anonymous confessions, and so far has not included a single amazing recipes that I just have to shout to the world. But maybe thats not what its for.

So anyway, I wanted to include some sections from my journal the past few weeks as a blog entry.

1/30/08
I got a call back on Friday and by Monday they wanted me to have learned the three songs they were emailing me. I got sick the next day. So I pretty much lost Saturday and Sunday to a drug induced Dayquil stupor. I did, however, get mostly over my cold and sore throat in two days which never happens to me. I'm usually tanked with illness for a week. So I didn't spend as much time as I could have learning the songs. Plus I'm always nervous with new material. I've been listeneing to the recordings of the songs they sent me non-stop since Sunday night. So basically I spent three and a half days entirely devoted to this callback. I walked into the room and was already pretty freaked out. After the first two songs, where I could hardly remember the words, I was done. 3.5 days for 6 minutes. The problem was that I really wanted this job. I wanted it far too much. I knew that I had a lot of work to do, but I focused on it so much that in my mind it was built up way too high. I prayed a ton about this audition. That I would be able to do my best and that if it were right, then I would get it. Do I think what happened was what was supposed to happen? I'm not quite sure. The rejection isn't what bothers me, its how much I hate it when I don't do my best.

2/1/08
We went to dinner with Nathan and Luke at this Peruvian restaurant in our neighborhood tonight. They have lived in Sunnyside for over two years, but have failed to ever come to this place because it looks like the kind of place where we might be racially profiled. And I'm pretty sure we were. I've narrowed it down to two possibilities: they either thought we were health inspectors or writing a travel book. I think every single waitress in the place asked us how we enjoyed our meal at least twice. Then the chef and owner came out.

2/2/08
Well, I finally got a good spot in the audition line. That involved being at the Equity building at 7:10 am before they opened the building. I took yesterday off to get over my discouragement. Its all ups and downs with me. With acting in general. You can only take it every day for so long and then you have to step back to get some perspective. Not unlike a prostitute I assume.

We went to the Chinese New Year's Spectacular at Radio City. It was like a three hour dance recital for a Chinese dance school. But as I was watching the chorus of dancers, I realized how much I love performing! I would love to be the fifth guy in the back carrying that spear. I keep getting called back for leads that I'm just not quite right for. Too young, too old, too tall, not enough of a tenor...so I must be right for an ensemble somewhere, right? I have three more callbacks this week, so I guess we'll see.

2/5/08
Tonight I'm going with my friend Seth, who was on foreign exchange in France at the same time I was, to some fashion week events. I think I need to go home and cut my hair so I look a little more cleaned up and put together. But then I get worried that I'll end up like that girl who cuts her hair the day of prom and then has photos of her terrifying, unfixable hair for the rest of her life.