Getting Bent.
Yes, that really is me and Martha Stewart. No Photoshopping was involved.
I haven't touched this at all in nearly two years, and the last really good fondle I gave it was a year before that. But there's something about the death knell of summer that makes me want to be heard on a more intimate level. I have about two solid months before I have to really buckle down and work. Doing Bent in London starting at the end of September, and I couldn't be more excited about it. I've loved that play (by Martin Sherman) for years and I think I need to get into something that will inspire me once again to look a little deeper. If you're anywhere near London when it's going on (late September to January), let me know and I'll get comp you. You really should see this story, and I'd say so even if I weren't in it.
Of course I'm taking as much time to chill as possible, get some party on, but I think I need to prepare myself for having those heaving damp crampy sobbing moments I get when the work is heavy. This does mean I'm accepting invitations, but I really daren't stray far from New York. I just know that if I stray too far before a big job, I'm going to end up with something broken or horrifically abrased, overlit on the news making pleading noises and trying to cover up my sore naked bits and I'll be unceremoniously fired - or worse! fired IN A CEREMONY - before I even trip the light bombastic. I should not take any chances. But I do.
There's such a sheen over reality these days. I have a fragrance and body care line that boosts that sheen, by the way. But what I meant was that things seem so fabulous and happy and I know it's not the usual. My darling friend Georgie in London has informed me that I will be cured of this notion in short order once I get nestled into Old Blighty and that kicking things in secret and planting gardens and grizzling over the strength of my tea will seem perfectly normal, as opposed to showing off my streak free "tan" under a glitterball with a dozen men younger than I that all want my ... attention. This is not normal, I'm told. This is the life that ends abruptly and which, in the meantime, builds envy to such a dizzying degree that every ailment that falls on my head is a direct result of the mental pins stuck in virtual voodoo dolls of me all over the world.
She's so dramatic.
Somewhere in the middle there is the reality. I have a wonderful life, and I will continue to have a wonderful life because I feel good about some wee philanthropical ventures I've made, and I really do love people and I really do want people to be happy because misery is so bad for your skin. I just want to make sure I'm looking inside enough not to miss any horrible things. I want to use the money I've made and am making to be able to afford to do the really meaty projects I've always wanted to do, producing things and writing things and having the luxury to take this next role, for instance. I'm sure I'm not the only one doing that, but it's so easy to get lost in the gloss and the glitz that you forget who you are.
I'm Alan. It's a pleasure to meet you.