Dateline: Allentown, Pennsylvania-
Looking at that title makes me realize I pulled a reverse Peggy Sawyer today. I guess it’s because there was no crowd singing The Lullaby of Broadway at Grand Central Station when I went to catch my train. (For those of you totally confused by this, go watch a musical…)
Last day in Manhattan so went around trying to leave the apartment in better shape than you found it. I always try to restock, replace small appliances, or do other things so that it will be ready for family or next guest and they won’t have to make a late night CVS run. I interrupted that process in order to have brunch with Ginny Crooks and her husband. Ginny and I go way back in both UU and Birmingham theater circles but I haven’t seen much of her since she remarried and hightailed it to New Jersey so it was lovely to catch up and reminisce. She’s also one of my few Birmingham friends who knew Steve and my life before Tommy.
NYC was hot and sticky again so I splurged on a cab to Grand Central rather than the subway as I had to schlep a couple of suitcases and a shoulder bag. Everything had gotten a lot heavier due to piles of playbills and other detritus of a two week stay. Trips always seem to do that. I always grab a bunch of extra playbills so I can give some to people who want them and then the extras go in a box in the basement which has a whole bunch dating back about thirty years.
The train deposited me back in New Canaan where I made my way to my cousin’s house and hung out with his family for a while and had dinner before heading out. I wanted to get away from the metropolitan area before Monday morning traffic so back towards the city, into New Jersey, turn right at Newark airport and into Pennsylvania where I figured it was a good enough place to stop. I haven’t decided on tomorrow’s route yet. It’s going to be a mass of holiday makers anyplace interesting so I’ll play it by ear.
No stories are occurring to me tonight. I’ll think through stuff on the drive and maybe I’ll have one tomorrow. I’ll post an old MNM column instead.
If your confused by the MNM reference, you have yet to meet my alter ego, Mrs. Norman Maine, star of stage, screen, and dream ballet. I invented her for a gay chat board several decades ago and she started writing film reviews for a now defunct site called epinions.com around 2000. She was a psychological response to the stresses of providing care for Steve during his prolonged illness. I wrote something over 350 columns for epinions from 2000-2005. I stopped as my life changed with Tommy and I developed my own performing career and no longer needed a vicarious one. In 2014, the site movierewind.com asked me to bring her back so I started up again. There’s about 150 columns in that series so far. One of these days I’ll edit them into some sort of publishable form for the three dozen MNM fans out there.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 