Monthly Archives: November 2003

November 17, 2003

Those of you who’ve been reading my blog since the beginning, as well as those of you who have joined late in the game but who have read back through the archives, may remember E.S., a man whom I dated for about six months before breaking up with him. He thought we were something serious and I thought we were something casual—so casual, in fact, that, while dating him, I slept with half of Manhattan, singly and in groups, on film and off, and blogged about it all. (Those of you curious to know the full backstory can peruse the archives from February through September of 2002; they’re rather sparse, as I wasn’t posting daily then. Those of you interested in the short version or a brief refresher can look here, here, here, and here.)

In any case, after we broke up, E.S. and I remained friends. He was in Boston for much of last school year, getting yet another graduate degree; he came back to New York in June. Upon his return, we started hanging out again, this time platonically. Every once in a while, I’d think, “Gee, maybe I made a mistake breaking up with him—he’s a great guy, I have lots of fun hanging out with him,” etc., etc., but I’d always return to knowing that I’d made the right decision.

So a little over a month ago, we made the terrible mistake of going to see Underworld, which I knew would be bad but which I didn’t expect to be nearly as bad as it was. Furthermore, it was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, on which we traditionally fast from one sundown to the next. So I had to watch the damn thing without any candy or popcorn to distract me from its awfulness.

In any case, after the movie, we wandered around Union Square, talking about this and that, generally having a good time. Eventually I started getting cold, so I turned towards the subway. He said, “Actually, let’s sit down for a while, ’cause there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Now, there is absolutely nothing that strikes more terror into my heart than hearing the last nine words of that sentence. So I sat down, quivering now both from the cold and in anticipatory dread of whatever awful thing he was going to force me to deal with.

In the event, I wasn’t quivering nearly enough.

Because what he said was, “I read your blog. All of it.”

To be continued.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 19 Comments

November 16, 2003

Being sick and feeling rotten and thinking there’s no Theraflu in your apartment and then finding out that there actually is: it’s not quite heaven.

But almost.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 5 Comments

November 15, 2003

I spent the day today performing with the gay cheerleaders at the Gay Life Expo. During a break I saw James Getzlaff from Boy Meets Boy exploring the Expo with Jai Rodriguez from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

The realization that the boundaries of reality TV are so permeable almost caused me to faint on the spot.

Luckily I regained my senses before I had to go up in a half liberty as part of a wolf wall.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 10 Comments

November 14, 2003

Several years ago I wrote a very short musical about a guy coming out to his mother. It was hysterically funny, if flawed, but as there are very few production opportunities for ten-minute musicals, it has been lying in the desk drawer gathering dust.

Here is a lyric from it, sung by the mother.

Some Playboys would be nice and
We’ll sign you up for track.
We can throw away the Streisand.
We’ll get the minister’s advice and
Get you back.
Don’t worry; you will heal.
If you feel
You’re not okay,
You forgot some
Of the flotsam
Is departing
Starting
Today.

You won’t hang out with bikers.
You’ll drive a Chevy van,
Stop your weekly trips to Riker’s,
And throw those movies of Jeff Stryker’s
In the can.
We’ll hire you a whore
You’ll adore;
See this my way:
It might hurt, you
Know, but virtue
Stops the smarting
Starting
Today.

Darling, we can beat this.
Dreams can come true.
Doors will open to
You if you’re hetero.
We can obsolete this.
In your soul,
You’re straight
And whole.
This will be better, oh
Wait
And see!

You’ll stay away from disco.
We’ll dress you all in plaid.
I’ll use lard instead of Crisco,
And we won’t visit San Francisco
Or your dad.
We’ll make this disappear;
You’re not queer,
You are not gay.
‘Cause you’re not having drama,
And, besides, you don’t tell mama;
You will not go to gay bars
And you’ll pick up girls at Zabar’s.
We’ll change your chromosome, oh,
You don’t have to be a homo!
Reinforce that
On the course that
We’ll be charting
Starting
Today!

It’s the most problematic song in the piece, because it’s not really funny so much as clever, and too clever by half, but still I kind of like it.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 5 Comments

November 13, 2003

Everyone must go here immediately and click on “watch it now.”

Thanks to this man for the link. May his return to blogging be permanent.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 6 Comments

November 12, 2003

Oh, dear. This is very, very bad. Not only was yesterday’s post a complete repeat of a post I already made, but it was a repeat of a post I made less than six months ago.

My friends have all gotten used to my telling the same stories over and over again, but I’m mortified to have revealed this character flaw to people with no first-hand knowledge of my virtues—such as they are—to balance the scales of judgment.

Excuse me while I go play in traffic.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 12 Comments

November 11, 2003

In my junior year of high school, I had a birthday party and invited my whole class. I got really excited and decorated the house and baked a terrific cake and planned lots of fun things for everybody to do.

Three people came.

I would have been absolutely fine with the whole thing

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 14 Comments

November 10, 2003

On the one hand, surgery to correct my umbilical hernia would mean that I would never again have to go through two hours of agonizing pain such as I suffered last night.

On the other hand, it would mean that I’d have to stay away from the gym for six weeks, during which time lack of exercise coupled with a natural tendency to despair would slowly but surely cause me to assume the shape of a sphere, at which point I would have to retreat entirely from all human interaction.

Then, of course, once I was a sphere the patch (or whatever it actually is) would pop out, and I’d have the hernia again.

So really in the end it hardly seems worth it.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 7 Comments

November 9, 2003

I came very close to having to spend the night tonight in the emergency room, after a narrow brush with an umbilical hernia that became more and more excruciatingly painful as the evening went on. Luckily, I was at dinner with a friend in medical school, so we went back to his apartment, where I lay down and he told me how to perform a manual reduction, after which all was well again.

I wanted him to perform it himself, but he demurred.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 11 Comments

November 7, 2003

I am working 10-6 for the next couple of weeks, assisting a composer during rehearsals of her show

This is the first time in a very, very, very long time that I have had anything even remotely resembling a full-time job with a regular schedule (as opposed to the patchwork of part-time and freelance work with which I currently keep body and soul together), and I’m so exhausted I want to die.

I don’t know how anybody manages it.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 11 Comments