“Goddammit! I lost one of my shoes! Goddammit!”

Day 2: Friday, February 17

That title will be explained in good time. Suffice it to say, this is one noisy neighborhood.
As mentioned earlier, I’ve lately had trouble getting to sleep. Thursday night, between still being on California time, the need to go over my lines, and the urge to write more of this blog, I got to bed late and to sleep even later; probably somewhere around 5:00 am.
Imagine my surprise to learn that, not only is this bedroom incredibly sunlit in the morning (it’s a corner room with windows facing east and south), it’s also not very soundproofed. Traffic, pedestrians, and construction noises all combined to wake me up at about 7. After a bit, I was able to go back to sleep, woke up again at 9, and fell back asleep again until noon. (Shut up. It was 9:00 am body time.)

My main task for the day was to purchase an air mattress. Beth’s (our stage manager with whom I’m splitting the apartment) boyfriend is staying with us for a while, and the other bedroom has only a single twin bed, which won’t exactly do. Seeing as how Pidge and I recently got rid of the futon in our guest room, we figured we could use the mattress in the house in case we have guests (and don’t get any ideas about staying with us … ). As long as I was at Bed, Bath, and Bea Arthur, though, I also wanted to get some washcloths (we were provided with towels, but no washcloths), a tea kettle (the carafe here in the kitchen just won’t cut it as far as making tea goes), and some groceries.

Knowing the mattress would weigh a lot, I had bought a luggage carrier (one of those collapsible things that you can strap an unwieldy suitcase into and wheel it with ease and comfort) which would allow me to bring the box home in an efficient manner. This proved to be a sucker bet.

One of these things.

I walked over to the store, found the things I needed, checked out, and strapped the bags into the carrier. Little did I realize that the mattress box was packed so that no matter which side I put at the bottom, the whole thing was out of balance. I was generally able to go about three feet before it started careening drunkenly all over the sidewalk—especially so at corner curbs. I managed to struggle to another store where I purchased a big-ass teacup, and Trader Joe’s, where I procured the makings of my usual breakfast: half a peanut butter sandwich. All of the boxes and bags just fit on the rack, but the weight imbalance became more pronounced.

I tried pushing the cart, pulling with different grips, changing from the outside to the inside of the sidewalk—all to no avail. I did notice at one point that one of the plastic bags was getting shredded from so much contact with the concrete, but didn’t think anything of it until a friendly kid (this time, an accurate description) came up to me and told me I’d lost something back on the sidewalk. I looked, and it was two of the washcloths, which were filthy from having being dragged along a Manhattan sidewalk. Thinking quickly, I jammed those two cloths into one pocket, then grabbed the other two from the bag and jammed them in another pocket. I’m sure that a guy with washcloths protruding from his jacket while wheeling an out-of-control cart full of bags didn’t look pathetic at all.

I finally managed to haul everything up all the stairs here, and was able to relax a little before heading back to Midtown for my second show, Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul’s Dear Evan Hansen.

When the show started, I had a moment of “Oh, I’m not going to like this,” because as the houselights dimmed and the lights on stage came up, the first sight of star Ben Platt made a group of teenage girls scream like they were seeing The Beatles. Things soon settled down, though, and I ended up loving the show, which is smart, funny, and touching.

Ben Platt. Astonishing.

After that, it was time for supper at Joe Allen (grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, and banana cream pie; as I noted on Facebook, “it was the pie that done me in"). It was then back to the apartment, by which time Beth had arrived from California. We talked a little, I gave her some hints about the things I’d learned in my one day here, and we each went to bed. Her to sleep, me to work on my lines, do some writing, and listen to the people going to and from the various bars in the neighborhood. I kept catching snatches of conversation (as I’m doing tonight as I write this), but my favorite was hearing some drunken woman screech as only a very, very drunken woman can, “Goddammit, I lost one of my shoes! Goddammit!”

Words to live by.