Schadenfreude - is that wrong?

From Avenue Q

Gary Coleman:
That’s...

Both:
Schadenfreude!

Gary Coleman:
People taking pleasure in your pain!

I’ve had a good couple of days. Posting the crap of depression intensifies the absurdity of it all. This weekend I saw P1pp1n and Ragt1me at local community theaters. They were both very good. Of the two, I think only Ragtime will be running against my show for Best Musical this year. But who knows, P1pp1n was more fun, still I think that Ragt1me was the better show. I directed Ruthl3ss! The Mus1cal in January. It surpassed my every hope. And it was my very first venture as a director! The review in the Washington Post said:

Most importantly, [the] first-time director [] has whipped his cast into the tightest ensemble seen on any local stage this season. Every word is pumped full of exaggerated theatricality, every facial reaction and physical gesture is lovingly artificial and larger than life. The resulting laughs come fast and furious.

I had wanted to tell you about my weekend, how I had an early rehearsal on Saturday, and followed it with a nice lunch on P Street, with a lovely glass of wine. I drove to Georgetown, then walked around the neighborhood looking at the gardens, while reciting, quite loudly, my soliloquy from A M1dsummer N1ght’s Dream for class on Tuesday.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows
Where oxlips, and the nodding violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight
And there the snake throws her enameled skin
Weed wide enough to wrap a fiary in
And with the juice of this, I’ll streak her eyes
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it and seek through this grove
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth. Anoint his eyes
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady. Thou shall know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love
And look, thou meet me here ere the first cock crow.

I stopped and bought myself a pack of cigarettes, though. And given the early start with the wine, by the time I fell into bed I’d had 10 cigarettes, 4 glasses of wine, 1 Martini, and 2 Vodka and Sodas with Lemon. And made an idiot of myself at the P1pp1n cast party. Yeah. I threw the cigarettes away though. Not that it matters today.

Sunday was supposed to be gardening day at my parent’s house. We didn’t make it down there until after noon. My sister was excited to tell me about the townhouse she has put a contract on, but I was so hung over I couldn’t pay attention. I didn’t realize it until I’d obviously hurt her feelings by not listening, and I tried to make it up to her by being there. But I’d already fucked up. She’s having a really hard time. Her husband left her. And divorce is so horribly messy and painful that she deserves better from me. I did go to hear her gospel quartet that night though. I know she appreciated that, and I’m glad I went because they are very good and I’d never been to one of their concerts before.

After lunch, we did get around to weeding the garden, and it really looked pretty good. We don’t even need to put any plants in, and that’s the first time since we built it about 5 years ago. Then I cleaned myself up, and grabbed a couple of beers, and went to church! God is going to strike me down, I know. I bummed cigarettes from my nephew, and had who knows what to drink when I got home.

Are we having fun yet? Well, not on Monday. Monday’s suck. I was late to work. I had wanted to update my blog, do some work, memorize a sonnet for my other class. (I have to perform the Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day sonnet for this class.) And I didn’t have it ready. All I ended up doing was mindlessly surfing the web, bummed 1 cigarette from the receptionist, and pushed papers around my desk. I grabbed dinner at Taco Bell, and memorized the sonnet on the way to class. After two hours of class, then an hour of rehearsal for Shakespeare, I went to the Playbill and had a 2 Martini’s, another dinner, and bummed a cigarette from the bartender. Got home, and had a big glass of wine, and all the left over Chinese Food that the boys had for dinner. Why was I so hungry?

So of course, drinking that much, and eating so much so late, insured that I would wake up at 4:30 in the morning. I got a glass of milk, went back to bed, but miraculously made it to work on time. I even got some work done. The receptionist was out sick, so I just bought my own damn pack of cigarettes. Class started earlier than usual, and it was a good class. I ordered take out and picked it up on my way home. I would have had a drink at the bar, but my food was ready when I got there. So I took it on home, and had a beer. I got the dishes washed and cleaned grout off the tiles in the new bathroom so it can be sealed before the toilet and sink are installed, and made it to bed by 12. Sober. Wow.

I was going to try for another day of sobriety yesterday too. But, I stumbled upon the news that Dr. Paul Br0wn’s Abund4nt L1fe Bapt1st Church burned down. I was happily singing Schadenfreude for the rest of the day and decided to celebrate this long awaited turn of Karma, before it turned and bit me in the ass (as I knew it would.) Yea! Wednesday was a fun day!

My Mom used to work for Dr. Br0wn. She was the organist at the church, he was the pastor. I was living on my own near D.C. by the time he was hired. But I would still go back to the church to sing for special occasions, either solos or in the family trio. That is until Dr. Br0wn told my Mom that she was to tell me: I was not welcome to sing in the church anymore, neither as a soloist, nor with the trio, nor with the choir, because I was a fag. (Not a quote, I don’t know what he said exactly. But that’s the gist.) Also, he told my ailing Grandmother that the reason she suffered was because God had cursed her and her family. Yeah, it happened. It wasn’t long after that that he tried to get the treasurer of the church to show him the tithing records of the church members, which is forbidden, and she with the head deacon had him thrown out on his ass. Oh I wish I had been there that day. I heard that he had been barred from the church, and there was a business meeting going on instead of the normal Sunday morning worship, and he barged in anyway with some other men backing him up, and it turned into a shouting match until many individuals in the congregation started shouting back at him, yelling “get out!” Oh, the bliss. So it’s hard to believe that that bastard was able to start another church. News reports say it had only 100 members, I feel bad for them. Maybe they’ll realize that God doesn’t want them to follow Dr. Paul Br0wn (jerk)!

After hearing that news, I decided to have just one martini before my rehearsal. So, I went to the Playbill, had one, while singing Schadenfreude. Rehearsal was fun and quick, so I went back to the Playbill, had another martini, two glasses of wine, two shrimp cocktails, a salad, and many cigarettes, while reviewing all my Shakespeare class notes. Once sloshed, I made new friends. I told them stories of the vile Dr. Brown and another vile person they might know. (Who it turns out is being sued by the Washington Shakespeare Company. Imagine that! But that’s another story.) We talked about Shakespeare, and I got my huge complete compendium of Shakespeare out of my bag to show how huge it was, and dropped it with all my notes and page markers going everywhere. Then I paid my check, had another loopy conversation with a classmate of mine, and I drove home.

I really need some help.

Now, tonight I’m going a tony country club dinner, being thrown by the president of my partner’s company, a large consulting group. They’re very gay friendly, and we’re going. Not that I want too, and after writing this, not that I think it’s a good idea, but I have to. Fuck.

So – I get home, safely. (It’s only now that I realize how drunk I was, and how dangerous and wrong it was for me to drive. Stupid stupid stupid.) And I grab a beer. No one else is home except my husband, and I go to find him to tell him of my excellent day. He’s downstairs and we talk about Schadenfreude, lawn mowing, mundane stuff. Then I ask him what time the dinner is. Earlier in the day, he had said he’d check and let me know. Well, he snaps at me! “I don’t know! Would you like me to go check?” If I was snippy back, it wasn’t much, because all I said was “Yes.” So, he acts all angry and put upon and goes up stairs, then comes back down with the invitation and sticks it in my face. I said “I don’t want that, just tell me what time it starts.” He sits, and opens it up and tells me “6:30”. “Oh, ok,” I say. Then he said “Are you going to be able to be civil toward me, or should I get someone else to go?”

I still don’t know what the fuck that was about. And I said so. He said it was uncalled for for me to be nasty to him. And I told him, I didn’t know what he was talking about. I said “Have I had that much to drink? Because this makes no since. I came home happy to see you to tell you about my day. Everything is fine, everything is nice. I ask you what time the dinner is and you snap at me and shove the invitation at me and you say I’m being nasty? When did that happen. Did I not notice because I’m drinking so much, because I’m an alcoholic? Or did it not happen at all?”

I got some sort of apology from him, the “Oh shut the fuck up – I’m sorry – ok already” kind. Which didn’t work. So, I said “As usual, I’m confused; I don’t know what is going on, so I’m leaving. I’m going to bed. Good night.”

I poured the beer out. Jerked off as revenge, and went to sleep. I was still seething this morning when the alarm went off. He nudged me to turn it off, and I jerked away from him and fumed “Don’t you touch me!”

And some wonder why I drink. What the fuck?! What is wrong with him? He said so. This morning, I’m in the bath, and he comes in, late for his meeting, and says “I’m sorry about last night. It wasn’t you, it was me. I was having a bad day and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.” I reacted as if it were a very perfunctory performance. But I realize it wasn’t. I know it’s the truth. Something is wrong.