6 Things

1. Thanks to everyone who sent kind thoughts during the past two sucky days at work. That was nice. Last night I unwound over a lovely dinner with Jack, after which he rushed off to watch Top Chef — apparently they were cooking something with chocolate and wasabi — and I drunkenly stumbled home and crashed into bed. I slept fitfully and finally got up at around 8:30 to shower, scramble some eggs, and pray I wouldn’t fall asleep at The Homecoming tonight.

2. Thanks to the person who Googled “isaac intimacy idiot” yesterday to find my blog. Or maybe you weren’t looking for my blog and found it anyway. Either way, I’m considering having that on my tombstone.

3. South Pacific is opening tonight, so to Matthew Morrison’s nipples I say break a leg.

4. The show at work also opens tonight, so there’s been press here all week and tonight Adam Feldman from Time Out is coming. I have such a Critical Crush on him. Last year Carrie, Dave and I went to a panel he moderated with several artistic directors of non-profit theatres in New York which eventually turned into Lynne Meadow going after him (and all critics) for hurting the theatre community with too-negative reviews. Not only did he defend himself ably but he countered that high ticket prices are what’s truly hurting the theatre community. Swoon. Too bad the press rep hands out the tickets so I never interact with the critics.

5. When I walked into Starbucks this morning, the cashier said, “Good morning, Isaac! Here for your venti iced coffee?” This is either a triumph or a failure. I’ll ruminate.

6. So the Cute Usher likes Joni Mitchell. I thought this was rather notable until Tallulah responded, “Oooh! Does he like pizza, too?” Fine: lots of people like Joni Mitchell. But I own fourteen of her albums. So I offered to make him a mix CD, a task that is proving to be harder than I expected. How does one even begin to whittle her astounding canon into a well-balanced hour and ten minutes of song and story? So far I’m including more from her early years — you know, For the Roses, Ladies of the Canyon, a little Song to a Seagull, and, yes, some of Blue — because when I was that age I didn’t really respond to her post-Court and Spark stuff the way I do now, with emotive convulsions. I thought her cigarette-ravaged voice sounded “weird” back then; I instead preferred to lay on my bed, re-read what some boy wrote in my yearbook, and sing “A Case of You” through choked sobs. So her later years are barely present on my mix, and it’s tough to omit that stuff. Especially Hejira, which is by far my favorite album of hers. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll throw on “Amelia,” and if he likes it I’ll have someone new to sing “A Case of You” about.