7:37 am - Thu 6/06/02
My Life Story (Pt IV)

(I've pretty much lost my enthusiasm for this project, but we're in the home stretch now, so I guess I might as well finish it.)

The 90s

(At lunch with Jane today, we talked about this little project of mine, and I told her that it hadn't been hard to designate a "most important person" in each decade of my life--someone who kind of "defined" the decade for me--until I thought about the 90s.)

My "most important person" of the 90s was not a "person" but an institution--Schuler Books.

It's easy for me to forget just how much I wanted the job. It had been almost a fantasy of mine to work at a bookstore, and like I've already said, I thought it was going to be "the answer" to the Beth/Deja Vu problem; I had always loved books, was always a good reader (It was probably the reason I thought of myself as "smart"), and I think I had a "kid in a candy store" notion about the place.

It was a smarter group of people than I had ever been around before, pretty quickly disabusing me of the notion that I was an "intellectual".

It was a little "family" to me. But that said, I know I struggled with feeling like an outsider for years, frequently angry and hurt because of the lack of interest people took in the plays I did (I remember when I won an award for Big River, I brought the award to work and put it in the break room, as some kind of angry commentary--"See? I'm good at this"--hoping it would impress people enough to come see me in something. And eventually, people did). I helped to actually open the store, and have been a part of it for almost a decade now. I kid a lot about "The Schuler Era", and how I didn't want the 90s to be defined that way, but it's too late--The 90s really were..."The Schuler Books Era".

The 90s have seemed like a time when things were largely stagnant.

I dated a little in the first years of the decade, but nothing serious, and then it basically stopped (I haven't had a date with someone where there was a genuine, mutual attraction since...94?).

The bookstore had gone from "dream come true" to "tender trap", a place I should have left a couple years after I started.

I get paid to do storytimes at the bookstore, and there was a period of time where I did a couple of dinner-theater shows for Jane Burnham/Goebel at the Golden Rose Dinner Theater, but my days where I could say I was a professional actor/entertainer were over in the 80s (In addition to four seperate seasons at Thunder Bay Theater in the 80s, for about five months I was in "The Winged Victory Singers", a very cheesy singing act in the Borscht Belt).

The 90s were the decade I "settled down". I had my first cars (I had a car briefly after Beth II broke up with me, but the brakes quickly died, and when I didn't have the money to fix them, I scrapped the car), and moved into the apartment I still live in (Again, it's easy for me to forget that this was a step up for me. Before this, I'd mostly lived in furnished rooms). I finally established a line of credit--My first credit card was for JC Penney--and was basically able to feed and clothe myself and pay my bills. It's often not seemed like enough, but I do have a 401-K now.

I got fat (If it started in the 80s, it reached full flower in the 90s). I got tired, and sore, starting to go gray and continuing to lose my hair.

The dream of being an actor faded into a bad joke, though my status as an actor locally was probably enhanced by my longevity. I've done really well in local theater on a pretty consistent basis throughout the 90s (The best thing I've done in the 90s is probably Lies and Legends, a musical review of Harry Chapin songs that happened in...95?).

After a long period of feeling like I really didn't have any friends at the bookstore, a group of singles formed and started hanging out together. We went bowling for a time, played poker briefly, then kind of settled into going to movies together. "The movie gang". Maybe my first real "work friends".

So of course, one of the big traumas of the 90s was when everyone started "hooking up", first Mark F. and Angela, then Mark N. and Lynda.

I was jealous--especially of Mark and Angela--and felt tremendously lonely and somehow hurt (How did I end up being the one alone?). I didn't handle things very well at all--I pouted and fumed--until I had to be told (By Kris Vitols the first time, then by Lynda), that I was being an asshole. I suspect there's still a residue from those times. At least I still feel a sense of embarrassment for what I revealed about myself.

I made friends with Kevin Knights, who I first met when we were in Wait Until Dark together, a pretty unquivocal dud of a show.

Like with Jane, he initiated the friendship; He gave me rides to rehearsal, and at some point, we discussed the fact that I was considering surgery for my deviated septum, a surgery he was going to have done himself shortly after the show. I said he'd have to tell me how that worked out for him, and he used that as a pretext to call me after the show closed (I remember during the show being very impressed over how quickly he memorized his lines--quicker than I did, and I kind of prided myself on usually being the first person "off book" during a show--and bonding with him over how slowly Bruce B. was memorizing his).

Kevin's pretty much been the best friend I've made in the 90s. We've bowled together--There was a problem for a time, when I would be so upset over losing it was a problem for both of us--played chess, gone to movies, and celebrated birthdays together, and I was one of the first people he "came out" to (Much to my surprise and personal shame at the time, I was bothered by the news, though it quickly turned out not to matter in the slightest).

Of all the things I have or have bought in the 90s, the most important has almost certainly been the computer (I have an IBM Aptiva that I bought...two or three years ago? I think two years in February).

The computer was something I wanted because I was feeling bad. I was bored and lonely, and wanted a distraction, and even though it was the most expensive "toy" I'd ever bought--around $1200--I'd have to say I've gotten my money's worth from it and then some.

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