i haven't been online much, too much work.  i was supposed to have dinner with mandy (who's MOVING to NY this weekend!) on thursday, but the fucking power blew (how appropriate for a RENT site) at work and we had to fix things.  talk about lousy timing!  i'm going to miss you but i promise to come out and visit (of course, that means you have to house me and whoever i bring with :-)

roaming around the internet this evening, reading friend's sites and journals.  everywhere i go, dickie is there.  i finally went to the storage place this week and went through his belongings, deciding what to keep and what to donate.  realizing as i stood there that he's not in the couch, i don't need it.  he's not in the tables, i don't need them.  he's not in the chairs, i don't need them.  he's not in the lamps, or rugs, or glasses or any of the other thousand things that a person accumulates in their home.  i guess enough time has passed -i don't need this stuff.   i have everything personal of his that i want, and memories, the rest is just 'stuff'.  hopefully, i can get it to one of the foundations who does need it.  it's been an emotional week, all the way around (keep reading if you care).

i still have this funky hearing thing going on.  have i written about this?  when i got sick in may (cold/sinus infection), my doctor put me on antibiotics. when that got rid of the cold and symptoms, but i still couldn't hear correctly, he put me on steroids.  rounds and rounds and weeks and weeks (and now months) of steroids.  it's only gotten worse.  he finally sent me to a specialist who referred me to *another* specialist for tests.  i just got the results of those tests two days ago, and the report is talking about brain tumors and lesions and what-the-fuck-ever.   considering my mom died at exactly my age from a brain tumor, well, it's pretty... weird.  i'm in a weird place - like, is this real?  this can't be real, all i did was catch a damn cold for goddsakes.  so i'm kinda freaked but in denial, waiting to see specialist #1 again this week and go over these test results with him.  they're talking about cat scans and stuff... weirdness, just plain weirdness.  but i'm exhausted all the time from trying to figure out what people are *saying*.  it's not that i can't hear, it's that i can't hear 'properly' and it's fucking exhausting trying to figure out what people are saying on the phone, on tv, in meetings, everywhere.  i've given up even listening to music, it's just a wall of noise at this point, no matter the decibel level.  how fucked up is *that*? :-)

oh yeah - the new boards are at www.rentboard.uni.cc
lots of people have been writing and asking, so there you go!  oddly enough, i went to update the rentlinks page and these boards all point to (individually) 'miss saigon' and 'lionking' forums so... i'm not updating the links yet.  ben? ava?  what's up with that?

and the rent movie...?

here are some pictures becky took of the rent/tick, tick... boom! concert in bryant park.  thanks, becky! :-) i *have* to see this show!

and another she took of curtain call, closing nite, SF :-) (this is a *big* picture - be patient while it downloads).

"I would like to offer you all at this time the chance to order one of my prints that I designed and made that was given to each cast member by me as a going-away present, now an 81/2 by 11 color print of the San Francisco theatre logo on top of the set surrounded by face pictures of all final Benny Cast members and including Cary Shields as well as Maggie Benjamin and Raquel Roberts holding the "Thank You Jonathan Larson" sign that hung on the Up Stage Right wall in every theatre. 

The cost of the print is $25.00.  This includes postage and handling. I will donate a percentage of this to BC/EFA once I see how much it all costs me and depending on how many I sell.

Any true Benny Company fan would love to own this!  Please email me with your order and you can send checks and money orders to:

Bart Kahn
447 West 51st Street #3
New York, NY 10019" 

and, um, i haven't been to siteforrent in ages - when did it turn into this weird blue color? is that in line with the non-equity tour or what? and hey - jimbo has had the crossword puzzle up on lifecafe.com forEVER, and now siteforrent put one up with some of the same questions?  jeez.  and the site is LAME.  they have everything popping up in a separate window, with a 'back' button on the new window.  it doesn't work that way folks - who the hell is coding this thing?

'little shop' has been on late night cable all the time lately.  i can be fast asleep and i hear that music and wake up and have to watch the entire movie, it's ridiculous.  whatever - it's the most entertainment i've *had* lately.

i've been offline for so long, honest to God, i went to update this site and can't remember how to even *use* frontpage (what this site was built with).  i don't use it at work, i use homesite (which rocks) and coming in here and trying to figure out and remember what FP can and can't do is getting stranger and stranger. this WSIWIG editor has become so foreign to me and yet i've used it here for *years*.  like you care about this code monkey junk at all :-)

haven't had time to upload, post, or even *look at* any closing nite pictures.  i see cory's board is gone but i've forgotten where the new one got set up.  someone tell me and i'll change my link(s).

i'm here, just busy as hell.  we have AWS at work (alternate work schedule) where you can work nine 9-hour days and the 10th day you get to take off.  i've been doing that for a long time, but last week i told my manager i'm opting out of it cuz it's just stupid for me at this point.  i'm so overloaded that i already work 15+ hour days, and then either wind up not taking my AWS day cuz something has come up that day that i need to be there for, or i do take the day off and spend the entire day working just trying to catch up.  so i'm opting out and will just work from home some days - which is *great*.  i have a cable connection to work so it's just like sitting at my desk without the interruptions.  i literally cannot sit at my desk longer than 1 minute before someone walks up and wants or needs something - i can't accomplish anything there right now.  wednesday, i ran to my desk from a meeting to grab my stuff for another meeting, was there for ~30 seconds, turned around and 3 people were standing there. i thought they were together but no, they all had separate questions or issues or problems they wanted direction on, it's just crazy. so for now, on those days that used to be a day "off", i'll just work from home, i get *so* much more done here.

my SF trip was good except i couldn't get a connection from the hotel room.  no matter what we tried, the sucker just wouldn't go thru, which put me 5 days behind on work stuff i had expected to be able to deal with from there.  richard, sorry i couldn't get in touch with you! 

my current peeve: bush's vacation. how many of *you* have ever been in a job for six months and then get to take a fucking MONTH off.  they're doing major damage control right now, God knows they need to.  "he's going to be thinking about things", "he's going to the little league world series", "he's going to visit states in the midwest he's been wanting to go to".  in all my years in little league, i never knew the LLWS was in fucking europe, what a surprise! i don't hate the guy, i just think he's an idiot (someone sent that to me:-)  and don't get me started on the tax refund and all those *stupid* letters they sent everyone patting themselves on the back. have you thought about how much money it cost to send all those notices?  a fucking ridiculous waste of money. i framed mine, it was so ridiculous i had to honor it.

these are so silly (the captions aren't mine) - i got the giggles so bad at work over them. everyone else had read them a day or two before me, but watching me reading them and giggling/laughing/*crying*, got them started all over again.  and i could *not* stop!  oy. yes, i'm very tired :-)  what in the world was 1-800-flowers thinking?  LOL!

and what have *you* all been up to? :-)