Peanut allergy.

Well, I stayed up very late last night, and then had to get up at a decent hour. Which was HARD. But I did it. I always try and gauge the number of other people in the house before I go out to take my shower so I can decide if I want to go out to the bathroom in my towel, my jeans and a sweatshirt, or my underpants. I decide that I am the only one in the house. I march to the bathroom wearing my bra, a purple skirt and clutching my towel and some things I shouldn't mention in a public forum. The door is shut, but the shower is not on, which means I now probably do not have time to get back into my room before the door opens and I am in full view.
Then Brianne materializes out of nowhere and during our 2 1/2 minute conversation, I manage to drop first my towel, then my underpants, then my unmentionables on the floor of the hallway. Bri says nothing about this. She is great. She is the white Katrinah.
Then out of the bathroom comes a relatively attractive tall man with curvy hips. In a towel. Bri introduces me to this man who is Marnix, or Mushkin, or something like that. He is her brother in law who is in town to watch the US Open. And to use everyone else's toothbrush.
We all have some conversation about how many cats are raped in the yard behind the house each night and then I take my shower.
Which was lovely. This shower has necessary water pressure, which is something I adore.
I then brush my hair, sweat and curse and struggle my way into my what you guys all called "sexy Dorothy" dress (which was difficult because of many reasons. This is a dress one should only wear when one has a roommate that can tie sturdy knots) and my trusty orthopedic shoes.
I realize I might be running a few minutes late, but decide to sacrifice the time to apply some mascara and lipgloss. I know.
So I scowl and hiss all the way to the subway because for some reason whenever I go out in public looking halfway decent I tend to try and look as mean as I can to discourage anyone from speaking to me or saying anything that might make me feel threatened like, "you look nice."
Whatever. It's a problem.
I am so distracted by the fact that I am wearing a form-fitting top that I entirely miss my subway stop. So I get out one later and walk back to 42nd St. and the Starbucks that has been assigned me.
Alanna walks in in a fedora and one of those cute sundresses that you can wear very breezily and casually if you are somewhat flat-chested. Envy.
Oops. That sounds like I've insulted Alanna. I haven't.
We drink tall mocha somethings, which tastes a little less like tar sludge than some coffee I've had, and then we just start walking around Times Square. She just likes to get inspired as she happens upon things in the street.
It was so much fun. Even got to the point where I was being provocative sitting in a gray baseball mitt and throwing my arms around a pair of sailors.
Then I dropped Alanna off for lunch with her very nice boyfriend who looks like the Apostle Paul.
I go home to pack. Easy. Since I've learned that rolling up your clothes trick, easy. I stuff my backpack with flannel pants and chocolate chips and head off to the train.
I become FURIOUS in the train station because my train is fifteen minutes late and the other trains that are not late are coming ahead of mine. Imagine that.
But my fury subsides in due course because I have learned that when I get irrationally furious like that, it is best just to let myself be so, and it will slide right away.
I get on the train. In the back row, which I have all to myself except for a lumpy middle-aged woman wearing capris and reading lots of newspaper clippings about the Golden Arches.
From my position in the back row I learn everything there could possibly ever be to know about the pale red-headed graduate student in psychology who has changed her focus and wants to now focus more on counseling lesbian and gay high school students that have been kicked out of their house even though in New York once she gets above the southern part of the islands where the streets have no rhyme or reason and into the logical numbered part, she gets completely lost and can walk for "blocks and blocks" when she gets out of the subway and have no idea where she is.
Which frankly, makes you an idiot.
Oh- the end of that run on sentence should be --who is sitting in front of me.
All I heard from the girl sitting next to her are a few grunts and some soft sobs.
But once I started to see Connecticut (another new state for me) out the window, I got very happy. Connecticut has trees and clouds and a sun.
And when I got out at the station at Old Saybrook I heard crickets and frogs and nothing else. I also got completely lost. This train station was the size of a cocktail napkin. Never been more confused.
Finally see Sam coming across the parking lot.
We drive to pick up Stephanie, who is the dance captian/Tintinabula/understudy ensemble swing/rundown dancer/bleak single woman for Sam's production of Forum from the Super Save Shucks grocery store or something.
She emerges from the store, looking bleak as Sam has described.
She gets into the car and grills me about my orthopedic shoes. I sell her a pair.
We drive down a lovely tree-lined freeway that reminds me of the lovely tree-lined freeway I once rode down to grab a bus in the middle of the night on Cape Cod, and get off at exit 7. Which is probably irrelevant.
I get VERY excited when I realize that this is where Katharine Hepburn lived and xed.
We pass the Chinese place, I get even more excited.
We cross a gray bridge over what I assume was water but we'll never know until tomorrow when the sun comes back on.
(Speaking of water, I have decided that I a. do not care for negativity at all, and b. would like very much to marry a man who might one day have a boat that I could go out on.)
The Goodspeed looks like a straight and tall shiny bright white doll house twinkling on the hill as you cross the bridge. It lit up promptly at 8 when Camelot began for the evening. Camelot will come down at about 3 hours from Thursday.
We drive completely through the town in 3 meters during which we pass the liquor store/sweet shop. Where I will be going first thing.
Sam is living in this enormous haunted creaky turreted house. Which I imagined to be located on a lush lawn nestled about half a mile off the road. In reality you can get hit by a car rolling over in bed.
In this house, and I expect in every house that is owned by the Goodspeed, things are thoroughly labeled. There is a paper label on Sam's door that says, "Sam." There are labels on the closets that say, "closet." There are labels inside the labeled cupboards that label the labels on the mayonnaise, carrots and ground beef.
There are two refrigerators in the kitchen. Inside these refrigerators are lettuce, hummus, water, diet water, some bottles of Ex-Lax, some bottles of tears.
Apparently the women playing the hookers in this show have all been told that they need to lose fifty pounds each and they are going to stark naked in the show under fluorescent lighting. And everyone in the audience is going to be given a telescope which they will use to count the dimples on the girls' fannies.
There is apparently a ghost here named Emily. Also the girl playing Philia is named Emily. This Emily believes that Connecticut is south of New York.
Anyway. Sam and I are sitting here on a very heavy couch playing on our computers watching a television program about a small Pomeranian puppy named Peanut. This is really too much.
Tomorrow I'm going to sit on the dock.