A scanner is a beautiful thing

This Facebook is a wonderful thing. I have found people here that I haven't seen in over 30 years!
I have seen pictures of all of my old friends now and when we knew each other then and it has been like walking back in time!
I feel 16 again...and this is what I looked like in 1983...



With my good buddy Maria at my side, as always in High School. This was at her Halloween Party! What memories!
I need to dig now through all my old photos and get to the scanning.

**Special thanks to Vin for getting me here and for finding these photos! I cannot wait to see more!

"Propaganda" Photo Phriday

Donna had to do some homework on the Arches scattered across the country and we just so happen to have one here in NYC's Washington Square Park (which is actually closed for renovation) that honors George Washington as our first president.
Propaganda? Why yes, for the promoting of our first president and that USA is the greatest!
That's just fine with me.

I love being quoted

I go to read my brother's blog (www.vinniecosta.com) today to find this post:

I just called my sister wanting to take my young niece, Brook, to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular; I called to find out when she would be off from school - not Thanksgiving weekend - so I wouldn’t be interfering with her learning - she, my sister, said, “She’s in kindergarten. I’ll just take her out of school…what is she going to miss?”

Now, in my opinion that makes my sister not a good mother, but a GREAT mother!

The story behind the quote:

The other day my brother calls me up and tells me he wants to take Brook to see the Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular. I say, great.
"I guess you will have to come too" he says (wow, don't I feel special) and my response is of course, "I am not putting my baby on the train by herself, and since I am there already..."
He asks me when her next day off is and I check the school calendar.
Day after Thanksgiving? Black Friday? Uh, no.
"December 3rd or 10th is a half day, how would that be?"
He has to check and call me back.
I wait for all of 10 minutes and the phone rings.
Neither of those days are good for him,
OK.
"Why don't you tell me when it is good for you, we can go any morning or afternoon except a Tuesday or Friday" I say, and then I say (the famous quote) “She’s in kindergarten. I’ll just take her out of school…what is she going to miss?”

So he got the tickets for December 1st at 2pm.

Its a Monday, she will be just missing gym, that by the way, she has 3 times a week. She really isn't missing much at all and I don't feel too bad about it.
I guess I am a great mother!

Photo Phriday

Sunset outside of my terrace.
What did you see?

Memories...Prom Night

It has been a long time since I've dated but one really stands out in my mind from days gone by.
Believe it or not, it was prom night and I was dressed in my frilliest pink taffeta polka dot gown, thinking about it now, I looked like an Ace of Cakes "Throwing up Pink".
The year was 1984.
My date arrives in his supped up limo, his Ford Escort. I asked him where the limo was? He told me that he waited too long to get one and there were none available for this night.

Strike 1.

Thousands of pictures later, we get in the car and drive to the prom. My hair almost didn't make it because the window on the passenger side was broken open about 3 inches. I asked if he had thought about this when taking his car instead of going in my Mustang. He didn't want to drive my car, well, I don't let anyone drive my car, and he didn't want to be seen with a girl driving him to the prom but I digress.

Strike 2

We arrive at prom embarrassed that I wasn't exiting a Limo with all my friends but exiting a Ford Freakin' Escort!

Again, I digress.

As you may know, the first thing you do when you walk into the venue is get accosted by a Prom Photographer to make a lasting memory of this eventful time in every teens life.
Well, this was not the case for us. My date/boyfriend had to use the little boys room and left me standing there my myself!
I was mortified when it was our turn and it was only me standing there like a schlub!
In retrospect, I am glad not to have a professional visual memory, of which is still on display on one of my parents shelves, of that cheap jerk.
We get to our table and it was wonderful! All my friends were there to support me and dance and eat and talk the night away with stories of where we were going in NYC to hang out at afterwords.
Back then it was all the rage to go to Dangerfield's (does that place even exist anymore?). One of my friends asked us whose limo we were taking and I said anyone's but ours!
It was potty time and all the girls from the table got up and left all the boys to wonder if they were going to get lucky, at this rate mine was not (never did either).
I lifted up my massive dress only to see blood all over the inside of it!
WHATHA...(insert explicit here).
I found the source of the blood on my what I thought was a perfectly shaved leg. I found the gash across my shin and the pantyhose I was wearing stuck to it but it still got all over the dress even though it had stopped bleeding by then. I had no idea that I even cut myself!
I called for reinforcements, my BFF (who by the way, is still my BFF). We cleaned it as best we could and about 1/2 hour later emerged from the bathroom only to see my date/boyfriend waiting my the door asking me what took so long? I told him what happened and he said that he requested our song to be played to dance to and I missed it!
OMG, how sweet was that?
Alas, I missed it and there was nothing I could do about it now, but it was the thought that counts right.
Strike taken away from him, but still Strike 2 because of the bloody leg/dress.
The rest of the prom was a blur, I wound up dancing with my BFF the entire time and date/boyfriend sat at the table talking football or baseball, some kind of sport anywho.
We decide to go in my BFF's limo to NYC and had a fabulous time.
My BFF asked why my date/boyfriend had his hand behind his back the entire time. I didn't realize he had had his hand at his back the entire time and wondered about that myself, afterwords.
I get home at an ungodly hour and date/boyfriend wants to know if I would like to go to his place. I gracefully say No Way Jose, see ya at work.
I exit his Escort and off to bed I went, my own bed, by myself thank you.

A week or so later, this was the days before the digital camera, I get the photos back and notice again that my date/boyfriend did indeed have his hand behind his back.
What was that all about I thought. I showed them to my friends and one of them told me why he had his hand behind his back.
He was carrying a GUN! A gun? To prom? Why?
My friend told me it was because we were going into NYC and he wanted to be prepared!
How stupid can you be?
Even in the 80's NYC was a fun safe place to be, as it is today.
I love NYC!
I went to Art school in NYC after High School and I now work in NYC.
OMG...Super Strike 3!
We broke up.

Photo(shop) Phriday

A work in progress...what did you see?

Weimar Hole

After a long week of sickness, it was nice to get back out again.
Back to work and back to the theatre.
I had the pleasure of doing both yesterday.

I woke up early to catch the 8:37am train to NYC to go to work.

While walking up 45th street I came upon the Madison Avenue street fair going on to my surprise, there is always something happening on Sunday.
Same shit, different day. The same folks show up all the time with the fake Prada's and matching wallets, the junk jewelry and the oh so famous I (heart) NY Tee's.
The food vendors though, all smelled delish...too bad it was only 9:15am!

I kept walking to my first destination...D & D (there is no better way to start the day..."America runs on Dunkin" and so does Cristina).
Then off to work.
Nothing exciting to report, work was work.

After work I meet up with my brother at a little diner between 47th and 48th Streets and 8th Ave. before going to the 7:30 pm show at the Roy Arias Theatre Center Off Broadway Theatre (300 W 43rd Street, 5th Floor, shamless plug).
We had the traditional of traditional diner food...The burger deluxe! Yummy, Yummy. I haven't had one of those since the Thru-Way Diner closed (sad).
Good company, good conversation then off to the show.

The theater is small, but comfortable, in a NYC comfortable kind of way...tight but not so tight as my fat ass fit in the seat with no jaws of life needed to rescue me after the show.

EATfest 2008 consisted of 6 one act plays that were all brilliant in their own way.
I enjoyed all but two of them immensely.

The two I didn't like as much as the other four were "Hotline" which was about a teenage girl whose boyfriend breaks up with her and she wants to commit suicide and calls the suicide hotline only to get an asshole who knows nothing of how to talk down a potential suicide and then tries to pick her up, so to speak.

The second one I didn't like so much was called "Tranquil" a story of a gay brother (who is paralyzed from the waist down) and sister who is asked of said gay brother, to describe what sex feels like (since he will never feel it). I found this one a bit uncomfortable because I myself having a gay brother don't think it would be something that I could talk about or describe to him.
It had too many holes...ha ha, in it to work well (my opinion only).
Like the part when he thinks he would be a "bottom"...how could he know he was a bottom if he never even had or felt sex?

My second favorite, to "Weimar Hole" was, "We Appear to Have Company".
I loved it so much because of its simplicity.
An older couple sitting on a couch, husband reading financial times and wife flipping through a rag mag and a clown sitting on a chair in the background reading a book.
Already it sounds like something you would see at your parents house, clearly.
Said "wife" then turns round to see the clown, looks to the audience rather alarmed, but calm...turning to her husband and tells him of the clown in their living room. "Hubbie" in turn turns round and says, "ahh yes, so there is" and continues reading his paper.
The banter between hubbie and wife is brilliant (I do say "brilliant" a lot, don't I?) and its so nonchalant, like he is a stray cat on the porch that just got in the house or something...this is how the clown is treated. They continue talking about the clown and if he could be dangerous or what people might think if they just threw him out, when the phone rings and you find out that the husband is the Prime Minister and that the clown was his defense adviser who just pushed "THE button" to start WW III.
BTW, the clown makes no sound and does not speak at all.
Too Funny!

My absolute favorite though was "Weimar Hole" but not just because my brother is in it, but because it was the most entertaining and different.
It was funny, well written and there is nothing and I mean nothing that I haven't seen my brother perform in that wasn't absolutely brilliant!

This segment was about two performance artists that are just so bad, they are great. The audience cast members then have a "talk back" with the artists after their show only to find out that they "Weimar Hole" have become prisoners of said show and then...well, go see it for yourself! Comedic genius!



Vinnie Costa is a comedic genius and I just cannot see why he doesn't have his own sitcom yet! Come on NBC, CBS, Fox or even ABC...grab him up before Cable gets him!

By the way, the costume my brother is wearing for this roll was all found in his Halloween trunk (we are obsessed with saving costumes, you never know when you may need them again) Brilliant!

Photo (shop) Phriday

I love Photoshop! Thanks Donna for the refresher (as always).

What did you see?

The anatomy of a lie

Fabricator,
Fibber,
Prevaricator,
Storyteller,
Defamer,
Libeler (or libeller),
Slanderer;
Perjurer;
Distorter,
Falsifier;
Equivocator,
Gossip,
Gossiper,
Talebearer;
Charlatan,
Cheat,
Cheater,
Confidence man,
Counterfeiter,
Deceiver,
Defrauder,
Dissembler,
Dissimulator,
Double-dealer,
Fraud, hustler,
Pretender

Just to name a few other ways to describe a LIAR.

I despise liars. I always have. To be blatantly lied to about something and then finding out about it and confronting the lie to be told it was nothing and that I checked up on it? What is worse? The lie or that I checked on it? DUH.

Don't turn it around...you lied, you were caught in it and you feel it was no big deal?
Quit harping on it.
You are gonna hang on to it because I didn't do what I said I did?

That is not the point! You LIED TO ME!
LIED ABOUT IT, for what? So you wouldn't have to hear me? WTF

Regardless of how I voted...

I am happy.

I voted McCain because I felt that he was the change in President we needed. He fought to protect this country and he is a proud American.
If he were a bit younger, and he had a better PR man, he may have won this election.




My feelings are that in 21 months, Barak Obama had the best PR that money could be raised! I am hopeful that the Change he so vehemently preached in that 21 months is for the better and will become a reality and not just some brain washing geared toward the youth of America.

For the health care promises

For the economy promises

For Americans

Time to become accountable, to be a part of this history in the making, that we can honestly tell our children that even they can become the President of the United States.

Had to share

I had to share this great photo of me and Brook that my dear friend Anna took of us on Halloween...

I love Halloween!

Fun Facts

 It takes your food seven seconds to get from your mouth to
  your stomach.


 One human hair can support 3 kg (6 lb).


 The average man's penis is three times the length of
 his thumb.


 Human thighbones are stronger than concrete.


 A woman's heart beats faster than a man's.


 There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.


 Women blink twice as often as men.


 The average person's skin weighs twice as much as the
 brain.


 Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are
 standing still.


 If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.

 Women reading this will be finished now.


 Men who read this are probably still busy checking their
 thumbs.