So, I turns out that I still have some acting potential. I'm all sorts of excited. I auditioned for this sketch comedy group on campus called "Throat Culture," and I'm evidently now part of it. So there: I am auditionable. Anyway, the best thing about this is that it involves both writing and acting.

The worst thing about it is that it involves me being funny. (Although, I did make callbacks Freshman year for the "Buttered Nibblets," an improv comedy group also on campus.) I think that the two hardest things to do in life are to be intentionally serious or funny. I sort of float around in that terrible middle area: those un-serious, yet un-funny doldrums. The mundane. Quiet desperation. Whatever you want to call it, that's where I normally find myself, and it's a bitch and a half to get out of in either direction.

The power keeps going out in my apartment complex, but at least it's on most of the time. Still not sure if I can say the same about myself.

So... haven't been here in a while. There's been all this readjusting to Baltimore period and... well, who am I kidding? The Buffy premiere is later today and I kinda fell behind in my episode watching schedule. So, it had been like an all out Buffy-fest at my apartment, capped by the arrival of my new GeForce 4 Ti 4400 (overclocked, heh heh) that allowed me to watch eps on my big screen TV. Plus, the Friends season 2 DVD just came out, and I wanted to watch the first one to justify the purchase. So, I watched 24 Friends eps in the last two days. Oh, and there's that "Animal Crossing" game I got for my GameCube that takes up all the rest of the time. Really addictive stuff... sorta like a Tamagotchi crossed with "The Sims," which actually probably adds up to the most addictive thing ever.

Anyway, Edward Norton didn't come out to sign autographs. He is a really private person and all, but whatever. When we do meet, we're gonna have words, or maybe a throw down, or something. :) I said "throw down." But I do definitely have plans to stalk him at the stage door at some other point during the run of his show, which should be impossible to get tickets for now after The New York Times's glowing review.

But, I'm good otherwise. I've been cleaning up my room, and hoping that it works as an extended metaphor for my life. I've been cranking out a few poems with my new pen and leather-bound journal: that's always a good sign. I have one sonnet that I think is really good, and I feel closer than ever to being confident enough to post some of my own stuff up here. Confidence is a funny thing really, in that catch 22 sense... it takes some to get some. And I have some now... not really sure where it came from, but it's infectious. I have to say that therapy definitely helps. I'm not on any mood-altering drugs (good or bad), so it's not that.

The problem is that it's not some kind of overwhelming confidence, but more like something I might scare away. This is the first time I've really even acknoledged its existence, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Yes, I'm back in Baltimore. Yes, classes start on Thursday. No, I will not be here then.

After setting up my computer and everything, cleaning out my incredibly messy room a bit, and whatever else one does in a couple of hectic days preparing for school, I travel back to the land immortalized on the t-shirt: "New Jersey. Where the weak are killed and eaten." This is made possible by the convergence of three inmportant factors. One: I only have classes Monday through Wednesday. Two: The Jewish High Holidays start with Rosh Hashanah this weekend, and I'll be attending synagogue at home. And, perhaps most importantly, three: I'm seeing Edward Norton in the off-Broadway play Burn This, at the Union Square Theatre on Wednesday night.

If all goes well, I will get Edward's autograph at the end, and maybe have a few words with him in the midst of all the other screaming fans. Would he think I was his biggest fan if I told him how I have all of his films and his Simpsons episode on tape or DVD? Or would he think I was the biggest freak, or stalkiest stalker? All I know is that I'm going to be incredibly disappointed if I don't get to see him after the show.