September 26 – Day 20: Like Being Smothered in a Heavy Wet Blanket

This humidity sucks.

Walking to the train today was like walking underwater. By the time I left for rehearsal (after stopping at the comic store), it was in the mid-70s with about 98% humidity. Rain was threatening all day, but for a good portion of the day, it was actually sunny.

We rehearsed in the bar again, but we couldn’t get the air conditioner to work. Myself, I would have preferred to have the windows open to get whatever breeze there was, but everyone else (I guess) wanted to keep them closed. There were wall fans and an air conditioner at the other end of the bar, but it was just close and muggy all day.

Today was devoted to working through as much of the play as we could. I was a little dubious about how far we’d get, since we were only on about page 22 when we broke yesterday, but we managed to get through nearly everything. There’s still some mop-up work tomorrow, but I’m not called until 2:00, which is nice—although we’re taking a 30-minute break at 2:30 prior to a 3:00 start for our designer run.

We’re having a good time (or seem to be), but (as I’ve said) I kind of feel bad for the rest of the cast because things are starting to feel a little cramped, and they might not feel they have enough time to work everything—or get as comfortable with the material—as they’d like. Don’t get me wrong; they’re all professionals and will all be ready on the night, but (selfishly speaking) I’d rather have the seven (or nine) weeks’ experience that I’ve already had with this than only two. One of the odd things for me is that, while learning lines is usually torture for me, I already knew these coming in, so I was off-book early, which was actually nice.

Maybe the most notable thing that happened today was that it was our stage manager’s last day with us. She got a job at Pixar, so she’s moving to the Bay Area. I wish her well, and hope she has time to still stage manage in some capacity, because she’s really good and good SMs are a valuable commodity. We were briefly introduced to her replacement, but she didn’t stick around long. (I assume/hope she’ll be there tomorrow.)

We broke at 6:00, and since I hadn’t really had a lot of opportunity to move around, I decided I’d walk home in spite of the weather. Not only would I get in a walk of about four miles, but I’d get to see a good stretch of 1st Avenue, which I don’t know at all. As little as I know the Upper East Side, I have to say I do like how it still seems like the New York I think of from the 50s and 60s, when each block was its own little neighborhood, with a grocery, a cleaners, a hardware store, a shoe-repair shop, or a diner, all owned by the people who lived on that block. I’m not sure why the UES has escaped the fate of so much of the rest of Manhattan (meaning, the homogenization and takeover of every space by a bank or a drugstore). I assume it’s because, until recently, the subway didn’t really come up the east side of the island (and still hasn’t affected anything east of 2nd Avenue). It’s nice to see that that ecosystem still exists in some form, though.

My plan was to walk down 1st from 85th to 35th, then transfer over to the FDR Drive, then Avenue C, but as I got closer to 49th, I saw signage that indicated that the sidewalk was closed around the United Nations, since all the world leaders are there this week, so I had to transfer west.

I had a hankering for a fried chicken sandwich, so I consulted Yelp and saw a likely-looking place on 51st and Lex—which turned out to be another iteration of the place I went the other night, so I started for that, but as I looked at the map, I realized I was in Turtle Bay, and decided to take a look at Stephen Sondheim’s house. I did a quick search, found the address (which was only a couple of blocks away), and took a gander. It’s quite a nice house (Zillow says it's worth $14 million), and while I could kind of see inside, there was no sign of anyone in there. (I think Steve’s in London for the opening of Company.) 

 Chez Sondheim.

The restaurant was only a couple of blocks from there, but when I arrived, I was disappointed to find it was part of a food court ("Urbanspace") that was filled with what looked like financial guys in suits, and felt like a place I didn’t want to stay. I figured if I only want to get a fried chicken sandwich, I might as well do it at a place close to home that I like, so I got on the subway, took the 6 to Astor Place, and headed back to Bua. The same waitress from last night was on (she seemed surprised to see me), and I ordered the same beer as last night and the fried chicken sandwich (which was very good, even as it surprised me by being served on bread, rather than on a bun).

 Urbanspace--minus the suit guys.

Despite the humidity, it was a nice evening to sit by the window and eat (and drink; in addition to the beer, I polished off a liter bottle of water), even if the restaurant was a little loud. I left, thought briefly about getting a soft-serve cone, but realized it was more ice cream than I wanted, so I stopped at a bodega and bought a small Good Humor bar and came home.

At about 10:00, while I was watching television, the skies opened and it poured solid sheets of rain for about ten minutes before settling down again. It seems to have stopped for now, and tomorrow is supposed to be cooler and less humid. As I said, I’m not called until 2:00, and there are a couple of things I’ve been meaning to do in midtown, so tomorrow might be the day.

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