(no subject)

There is stress and not stress. Like, stressful things are going on, but they will all be fine. I'll be getting my back pay (and current pay) on Tuesday at the latest, and the financial woe at this job will finally be over, thanks to our new contract.

Meanwhile I am still waiting on a check from my other job, a background work check, and a check from a commercial I did ages ago. I at least know when to expect the first two.

Megan and I are looking at an apartment today -- I want this to be the one.

I didn't get a role in something I auditioned for. I was relieved, for logistical reasons, if nothing else, so it was annoying to have to spend so much time on the phone with the director who was desperately trying to make me feel better -- I was busy and serene, but I suppose it was sweet.

Dress, dress, dress.

Scanty Particulars is amazing and chilling and freaking me out entirely. It's a biography of a pioneering Regency-era doctor who was eventually tried for sodomoy -- HOWEVER, he was considered a woman at birth (and raised as such in childhood), lived as a man thereafter (claiming to be a cousin of the girl he was) and may have been a hermaphrodite. Also, he was a notorious dandy from the moment the word first entered British consciousness (1813) and had a series of pet dogs, all named Psyche -- the first being a gift from a lover. He travelled the world and found himself constantly embroiled in great historical and social moments. I am so riveted.

Last night I wrote letters with fine ink and used sealing wax.

Also, Marrilyn has returned from Oz, and called me from Utah.

apartment!

Megan and I have just applied for an exsquite apartment on 106th between 1st and 2nd. Two utterly seperate bedrooms, all newly rennovated, great light, lovely kitchen and bath, etc. It will save us both hundreds of dollars a month in rent and vastly increase the quality of our lives. I see not just the end of many debts, but the promise of travel and adventure.

So this is the part where I request, beg, cajole and hope you all will think good thoughts, pray, or whatever it is you do, that we will get approved (possibly, it seems, as soon as tomorrow).

I knew we'd find it today when i turned eat on 106th and saw the bridge over the river there. It has the same basic structure as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and in my magical world, that's a sign, and so it is.

Scanty Particulars

Some passages from my book of the moment.

First, from a letter from Colonel Bird, colonial secretary at Capetown around 1818:

When an actress assumes the character of Sir Harry Wildair, although at the first entrance the fan sticks may be raised before the face, they are soon dropt. Curiosity, accompanied by admiration, is gratified at seeing a female of elegant symmetry and form, act with spirit and effect, the part of one of the lords of creation.

.

On the subject of dandies (a passage which I find even has the cadences of a moment in Velvet Goldmine):

When Barry signed the pupil register in 1813, dandy was beginning to insinuate itself into the English lexicon -- or rather, to announce itself loudly with impenitent ill-taste and brash self-consciousness. By the end of the nineteenth century the word was to conjure image of sartorial elegance, modern flair, and urban sophistication. Yet as every Wildean knew, the origins of authentic dandyism lay in an intentional and monstrous affront to good taste. And in this visible affront was symbolized resistance to accepted moral values and the conventional upholstery of all well-fashioned polite society. .... A visit to observe the dandies parading in packs in Hyde Park was on the itinerary of every tourist in London. One visitor marveled at the excessive starching of the dandies' "horse collars" as well as their jacket skirts and tails, describing them as "stiff as though lined with a sheet of iron." Dandies were the punks of Regency London. They called their tailors "man-makers," and in their eclectic view clothes entirely made the man.

Finally, a description of our protagonist from Rene Juta in Cape Currey:

The whole affair is opera bouffe -- personally I always figured to myself Barry springing up from the world, born of swords and dragons' teeth and nothing more human.