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    Showing posts with label free. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label free. Show all posts
  1. Just Stuff

    Tuesday, September 2, 2014

     
     
     
    Well, boo fuckin' hoo.  I didn't get selected to participate in the festival where I had submitted a video of me doing stand-up.  Almost sixty people were selected.  I am very curious about the quality of their work and how mine lacks.  In the past few days, I remembered that announcements would be made soon.  So I again watched the tape I had sent, and I realized that the first minute did not get enough laughs per minute if that's how it is judged.  I wondered if they'd watch the whole thing or if my first minute was it.  Oh well.   

    I have had some free time though quite broke.  My dog had vet needs which came when I'm the most broke.  That's the way it goes.  I know my free-ish time will be coming to an end, and though I was able to do many things, there are still many things I didn't get to.  I knew I'd feel somewhat uplifted if I did some cleaning of very neglected areas.  I already had the supplies, so no money was needed.  I finally put the thought and desire into action at 3am one night.  I felt better about myself turning something awful into its original white and shiny state.  Scents changed as a result, and I wondered for a quick second if I upset the mouse world.  The next day a mouse ran by and into my broom closet.  Ugh.  I have to work consciously to feel like it is my apartment and not the mouse's.  I am afraid of rodents and detest that they enter where I exist.  I stomped around to try to convince myself I am bigger and all the stuff people tell me.  My dog immediately knew what that meant, and he then seems afraid which is just awful.  Meanwhile, I am supposed to make sure he doesn't lie on the hard floor so his elbow can heal.  I feel I need to pad the whole place.  He has a bed, he uses the sofa, and I allow him on a chair, but still he lies on the floor also.  Maybe for the coolness.  But his elbow needs to heal.  I'm not supposed to let him lick it, so I put a cone on his head which he hates.  He's an old man, a darling old man, and I hate to make him miserable with the cone, but he has to heal.  He's on a second round of stronger antibiotics. 



    Soon, both jobs are going to blast me away.  That's how it feels.  I have to remember to breathe and how much better it will be to be able to pay my bills more easily again. 

    I just opened my bottle of wine.  Ten bucks, and I'm my Saturday night date.  I just need a big strong man who laughs in the face of a mouse.   




                                                                                                                                                                                   
    ​Other than that, I need a nonjudgmental cleaning and therapy team to help me.  It's not that I don't want to throw things out.  I am very happy when I've gone through clutter and fill a bag for garbage.  I appreciate the cubic inches of air space.  It feels hopeful.  What is so very difficult is going through and looking at each thing.  No one can do that for me.  I'm digging out, but the pace isn't fast enough.  It's like an archaeological dig.  I find things from eras ago.
     
    I have prepared a shopping bag of clothes to bring to the shelter in the neighborhood.  The more stuff I get out of my house, the better.  I am so overwhelmed.  I need to get this place back to where it once was when it looked like someone creative and healthy enough lived here on a low budget.  Now it looks like a baffling case study. 


    If you would like to come to a free comedy show this Thursday evening, I'll be in Johnny Zito's show at Goodbye Blue Monday, 1087 Broadway, Bushwick, Brooklyn.  (J train to Koskiuszko Street & walk a block.)  7:30pm, nice place, CBGB vibe, affordable drinks, and good food.  I hope to have the honor of entertaining you.  It is my last free Thursday night for some months.  Next week, my evening job will be in full swing.  I am thankful that Johnny fit me into this week's show, and I hope you come and have some laughs with me.  (Hosted by Greggory Daniels! Stand-up from Joe Newman, Robert Commiskey, Monica Taller, Gabe Zucker, Mindy Matijasevic, Rogin Kim, Momoh Pujeh, Mike Hernandez, Dee Marie, Caleb Barge, Yohei Kawamata and Johnny Zito.)
     
     

     

     

  2. Throw Back Thursday by Rhonda Hansome

    Thursday, February 6, 2014

    I am cautiously announcing that this week I took a tiny, but pivotal, incremental step toward possible forward movement in my Sisyphean odyssey for a new place to live. Sound chary? Chary and weary of the task begun August 1st.

    In fact I am so wary of speed bumps and blind alleys, I've chosen from this point on, to eschew the use of exclamation points (written, verbal, or otherwise) when discussing this subject.
    It helps me not burst into a torrent of tears...

    What else is new? Well, I've started a new series based on my character Betty NoAbode. I love her and hope you will too. Follow and share Betty NoAbode on Tumblr or Instagram.



    BTW, a facebook friend sent me a picture which inspired this week's title. This picture took me back to a time when I lived in a fabulous apartment in Tribeca, had great health insurance and visions of stardom.

    That was then. This is now.
    That's why it's called #TBT
     
    Rhonda Hansome is a director and sometimes writes. She does stand up HERE. See her as Mrs. Ray in The Bottom by Cinti Laird tonight (Thursday 2/6) 7PM at NYU FREE.
    
     
    
     
    





  3. THERE'S A BRIGHT SIDE SOMEWHERE

    Tuesday, January 15, 2013

    By Helene “Freebird” Gresser



    I am restless. It’s sleeting out, and 11:21 p.m., and I want to go somewhere. I am listening to ole-timey honky-tonk banjo music on my radio, smoking like I cannot get enough, and I lost twenty bucks out of my jeans pocket on my way to the stupid Family Dollar store. I  also lost my umbrella in a bar last week, so if I get the hell out of my newly rented bedroom, I will have to face the sleet on the way to – somewhere. Where do I go? In my new neighborhood in this outer borough, the local bars are sparsely populated and close early. So I’d have to get on the damn subway and go ---where? The bars I have frequented lately have all been with the dude I’ve been hanging out with – and since I am trying to back off from trying so hard to be his “girlfriend”, the thought of going to these places solo just makes me feel more restless.
    I have been flying solo for many years now, and usually do it peacefully and revel in my freedom. Having feelings for someone who wants no strings is testing my emotional “triggers,” as my therapy has taught me. Suddenly I want company, and dislike being alone in my bed, and am starting to hate myself for becoming attached to the unattachable. Over and over and over again, I repeat this slow torture, and I vow each time that everything I have learned about my fears of abandonment and feelings of inadequacy and anxiety will eventually become rational thought and action. But here I sit, disgusted, fully dressed and made-up, ready to have fun, and cannot pick up the phone to call the one person I want to be closest to right now. Last weekend I promised myself, and told him of my promise, that I will leave it up to him when he wants to see me. He needs his freedom, and I don’t want to ruin us with my need for MORE.
    I have the overhead light on as well as my bedside lamp. I feel too vulnerable in the dim light, though I usually despise overhead lighting. I need the brightness right now. I need to be out of here, somewhere, just anywhere but here.
    I feel alive and free and strong when I am onstage. My honesty is not muzzled when I have a microphone in hand. I suppose that is why I write, too. I am bottled and buzzing and need to be uncapped to fly free. I suppose that is the way I have to view my “relationship.” Let’s just run free, unmuzzled, uncapped, undefined, with lots of space to wander and wonder and play. 
    Why do I understand that as a rational woman, but in these late hours, need something else? What else can I do but live and let live?
    I’ll grab my pillow and hug it hard. The night will become dawn. I will work, and write, and be free. But it’s a cold, dark rain right now, and I am contemplating my boots. I’ll put my baseball cap on to keep off the worst of the drizzle. I will stick a few bills in my pocket, my Metrocard, and buy another pack of cigarettes as I walk towards something. Anywhere but here.

    -hmg