Friday, June 1st.

Got some chores to take care of this morning. I know there’s a wash and fold up the street so I’ll drop off my laundry. Also hit the grocery store and get some orange for the refrigerator. Amazing how much laundry I can go through in four days but I’m changing shirts twice a day.

I show the guy at the laundry the stains on my green shirt but he says all he does is wash them. So I’ll cross my fingers and hope for the best.

I take my bottle of OJ and my pad to the park and look at a new play. I work on a play about Hank and I meeting but I keep getting drawn off the subject by the play “Dinner With Friends” I saw last night. The problem with the Hank and me play is that I can’t come up with an important, life and death subject for it. If I don’t get there the play will just start, run and stop and nothing will have been accomplished. That’s what I get for reading too many books.

So I sit there in the park and outline a play about Beth telling Karen that she’s having an affair. In the play it was Beth telling Karen that her (Beth’s) husband was having an affair so see, I’m not plagiarizing. In my play Beth’s excitement and enthusiasm for the affair makes Karen rethink her relationship with her husband Gabe. That’s good. I fill out the rest of the outline and I like it. So I start to write:

Karen: Gabe, can I talk to you about something?

Gabe? What’s this about? I’m not writing about Gabe. But I very clearly see them sitting in bed, he’s working on a crossword puzzle and she’s reading a book. Okay, so I stole the setting from Dinner With Friends. Anyway, off I go for three hours with Karen and Gabe talking about Beth and their life and Karen decides that her life is pretty good after all.

I’m about half done writing it.

Past time for lunch. I head for Times Square on the Subway. Get off the subway and look for a place for lunch. What do I find? A place called The Playwrights Tavern. So I go in. It’s mostly Irish pub and Sean O’Casey’s stuff is everywhere.

It’s just before one and all the construction workers are in there drinking their lunch and the sound level exceeds even the usual NYC roar. Too loud to think let alone write. By the time I’ve finished lunch, I’ve had two beers so it’s back to the room for a nap.

I get a return call from a friend of Mazz’s. Her husband is in the final stages of directing Romeo and Juliette for NYC’s Shakespeare in the park. I’ll have to see it if I can. She said he wouldn’t be able to get back to me till after it opens. I mentioned his name to Hank and Hank knows of him. He’s a pretty big name in the NYC theater community.

Then I clean up, head back downtown to buy tickets for a show tonight. Hank’s just having dinner with me. I’m on my own for theater. I get a ticket for an off-Broadway version of the Fantasticks. I get the ticket then head to a quiet bar I’m starting to frequent on 46th street and write a little and have a beer. Just one because I’m meeting Hank for dinner and that means three martini’s for him. I settle on wine. If I’m paying fifty dollars to see a show I don’t want to fall asleep during it.

I have to say, this theater was tiny. It had an eight or nine foot ceiling height. Makes the Grange look real good. Hang lights from that ceiling then have the actors get up on boxes (which they did) and the actors have to duck. That started it. I decided to see Fantasticks because it is a staple of American Theater. Like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I thought it was dumb. Really dumb. Now I have to see it again sometime to see if it was just that production or if it really is dumb. One side note: The playwright who originally wrote it was in the cast.

On the way back to my room I remember that I was supposed to pick up my laundry after five. Well, 11 pm is after five but the place is closed. When I get back to my room I realize that I don’t have the ticket for my laundry. Well, something to do tomorrow.

I update my journal and get to bed around midnight.

Another day in the big city.

I’m getting excited about Monday.