jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

I’m bundled up on the couch channel surfing. I’ve pulled the plug on all planned activities for the day, including work. I’m most bummed about missing the concert we have tickets for. My friend Mary is singing English chorale music with the Manhattan Ensemble Chorus and they seem amazing.

I did manage to get something done today, which was to give my closet a good clean out. Damon’s going to be very excited when he sees the pile of clothes I have ready to go. Now I wish I had my Atlanta girlfriends here for a clothes swap because there’s some very nice stuff that I’ve worn enough times to make me want to wear something else. I bought about $200 worth of clothes online over the past few days to get me on the right foot for the Redbook gig.

And one thing that I still plan on doing tonight is picking up our new kitty to see how that goes. I’m still leaning toward Frank, but could change my mind when I see him more. Damon still likes Earnest, as does pretty much every person we ask, so I may be compelled to give in. I’m sure the poor guy is going to be so happy to get out of that apartment that he’ll gladly let us call him any old thing.

You know what I like to do when I’m sick? Play computer games. I’m deeply engaged in Neverwinter Nights today.

Sick. Blah. I’m not totally down for the count, but I’m down enough to sit on the couch, eat soup and shiver. Damon is being a lovely caretaker, as usual. He’s made two trips to the bodega tonight to find stuff to make me feel better.

Tomorrow night we’re once again taking a second crack at adopting a second cat. Remember the upstairs neighbor who got dragged out by the FBI? Well he had two cats. We met them, and the one was just too high strung to try to match her up with Zoe. But Kristen and Michael (who were trying to find them new homes) understandably didn’t want to split them up. That was almost a month ago. They think they’ve found a home for the tiny girl cat. Which means the big furry fatty is all ours if we can make him make Zoe love him. He’s just under 18 pounds with long black and white hair. And — get this — he’s a Hemmingway! That’s right! Six toes per foot! I don’t have photos of him yet, but am working on names. Up for consideration right now: Frank, Howard, Earnest. Feel free to cast your vote.

Every day I’m a little more checked out of AOL, as is currently made clear by my updating LJ — which I’ve never done from work before. To top it off, I’m actually working from home today. The cable guy is coming to install my new job present to myself — cable tv. We’ve gone 15 months without cable tv (which means no tv at all because we dont’ get reception) and high speed internet, but that ends today. The truth is that it hasn’t been so bad, but it will still be nice to be able to watch Animal Planet.

So I’m watching ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ as I type. I’m watching is at super low volume and keeping sort of distracted because that’s just about as much of this as I can take. I know how this story ends, and I know how it gets there and I don’t think I can watch it at full force. Last night we watched ‘The Laramie Project’ which is one of my favorite plays. But there’s a theme here and I’ll be more than ready to watch some ‘Little House on the Prairie’ once this one is over.

I’m lolling around tonight in a post-Costco glow. Charles and I went out and joined yesterday. We even got two memberships for the price of one because we were both wearing left hand rings and the woman assumed we were married. Adn that was just the beginning of the joy. We shopped like we were stocking a bomb shelter. The highlight for me was 3 half gallons of organic milk for $7.50. One half gallon is $4.50 at the market around the corner, so this is a big score. I also benefit from shopping with Charles. It was that I would Costco shop in DC and then lose half my perishables to spoilage when Damon and I couldn’t bring ourselves to eat six pounds of apples in a few days. But now I have a partner and he and I went halves on many things.

After we got home I whipped up a Cincinnati chili feast and James and Charles came over for dinner. It was roundly praised and Damon has actually brought up his love for my chili a few times today. As a vegetarian feeding tvp to a meat eater, I’m flush with victory.

So today I’m eating and lounging, lounging and eating. Damon’s watching a movie called “The Pawnbroker” which stars Rod Steiger. It looks utterly boring, so I’m just tuning it out and waiting for it to end. Oh, which it just did. Thank goodness. It was full of aggressive 1970s horn music and I’ve heard more than enough of that. Now I’ve made the mistake of asking a small question about it and Damon is telling me the entire plot as I type. At least he’s easier to listen to than the horns.

Tomorrow my whole team is going to the Star Jones shoot and I am not. My boss is starting to cut me out of stuff since I’m leaving. I’m happy to hand off as much work as possible as quickly as possible. I’m not getting a break between jobs so I might as well get in some goofing off where I can. The only sad thing about tomorrow is that I can’t just duck out when they leave at 1. Primarily because I should stick around and hold down the fort. But also because Damon and I are going to a book discussion and signing at 7 downtown, so there’s no point in going home before.

James Frey, author of ‘A Million Little Pieces,’ is who were going to see. We’ve both read it within the last few weeks and it is harrowing. I’m eager to get a look at this guy and hear what he has to say now.

I’ve moved on to reading ‘Horse Heaven’ by Jane Smiley. I picked that up when we went and saw her give a reading a few months ago.

I’ve been meditating on a post ElectricRocket made about books. I wanted to reply there, but think it might be bad form for a comment to exceed an entry in length. And I have a lot of thoughts about books.

When I was a little kid, a children’s shrink told my Mom, “I never thought I’d be saying this to a parent, but I think you’ve got to stop her from reading so much.” It’s to my Mom’s credit that she understood me well enough not to take that advice.

In grade school I used to shove a book into the top of my pants and under my sweater. Then I’d ask for the bathroom pass and once I was free I would go hide somewhere and read until a teacher would find me — sitting on a radiator or wedged under a water fountain were two favorites — and drag me back to class. Ironically, I was often made to stand in the hall for this, so I was missing class anyway.

Both of my parents are dedicated readers. My Mom bought me hundreds and hundreds of books and read to me every day before I could do it myself. My Dad would read to me every night, whatever he was reading. By the time I was seven my favorites were Dracula and I, Claudius. My Dad would bring home reproductions of Roman coins and show me the profiles of the Caesars we were reading about. Just yesterday my Dad and I had a long, excited conversation about Shogun (which I just finished and he is re-reading) and its historical roots.

When I was little my Mom kept having to explain to me that it’s rude to bring a book and try to read it while eating in a restaurant with another person.

If I ever have a kid, there is almost nothing that would be more disappointing to me (outside of malice or dangerous stupidity) than if s/he doesn’t like to read.

One of my favorite things about living in New York is that we go everywhere by train. That means my commute alone means I get an hour total of uniterrupted reading a day. I usually don’t care at all if we run late, get stuck or go slow — more time to have my nose in my book.

Damon and I have a deal. Being an actor is a big part of who he is, and I’ll never ask him to stop. I have a million books, and he’ll never ask me to reduce their number because that’s just as big a part of me. Everything else is up for grabs.

Every day I put the book I’m reading face up on my desk and leave it there, hoping someone will bring it up. No one ever does, but I still leave that bait out there because I really like to talk about books and you just never know.

I won’t buy a purse too small to hold a paperback.

I keep an Excel sheet of all my books and their authors. It doesn’t really have any function, but it just made me happy to type out all the titles and authors. It was like having a quick visit with each book.

I do know that this is all a little over the top and weird. But it brings me such pleasure to read books, talk about books, think about books, write LJ entries about books…