Anticipation
Some of you who have seen my other sites, like Perfect Strangers: The Ultimate Site (formerly The Perfect Strangers Chronicle at my Geocities personal site), know that I'm a fan of both musicals and Perfect Strangers' two stars, Mark Linn-Baker and Bronson Pinchot. I didn't know until my friend (and co-proprietoriess of The Ultimate Website) Lauren Miller sent me a copy of the charming Broadway musical A Year With Frog & Toad a few months ago. I've loved it ever since.

Mark Linn-Baker is the rather neurotic Toad (a role not too far-removed from his rather neurotic Larry Appleton on Perfect Strangers), Jay Goade is his perkier pal Frog, and the show revolves around their friendship through the seasons - an embarrassing swimming incident in spring, kite flying and cookie baking in summer, raking leaves in the fall, sledding and spending Christmas together in the winter. I admit, the show is intended for very young children (and was based after a popular series of Frog & Toad easy reader books), but the music is sweet and charming, and the skits range from adorable (the cookies pig-out fest) to hilarious (I love Snail and his mail!) to surprisingly moving (Frog's song to Toad when his buddy thinks he's lonely, Toad's seranading his garden). I love every minute of it, and I'm neither four years old, nor do I have children.

A Year With Frog & Toad, as well as a play written by the creator of my other favorite TV show, Remember WENN, Say Goodnight, Gracie (about George Burns and his relationship with his wife, Gracie Allen), are up for Tony Awards tonight. I don't have cable TV (my own choice - there isn't enough on that interests me to justify the cost of the cable bill), so I can't watch the ceremony. Lauren promised to tape any "Frog & Toad" numbers, but I wish I could see it as it unfolds. I don't know about Gracie, but Frog & Toad already lost the first two awards it was nominated for, Best Book and Best Score, both to Hairspray.

The trouble in that department is that I saw Hairspray's finale performed at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last year, and I was blown away, it was so cool and exburent. If you'd asked me to choose between Frog & Toad and Hairspray in their categories, I'd have to tie them.

It's just that waiting that's killing me....

Change the World

I've never gotten along well with changes. I'm a creature of habit who prefers things to remain as they are. It's just easier that way.

As I mentioned, my rent skyrocked from $425 to $550 this month. My landlady isn't doing it to be mean, but the neighborhood where I live in Wildwood, NJ, just had six new condoninums built, and another is being worked on as I type this. My apartment is two blocks from the boardwalk and the year-old convention center.

Is it like this everywhere? Is there a place in this world where they build houses and apartments and normal hotels, not condos? That's all anyone wants to build in Wildwood - condos. I hate condos. I hate them with a passion. I don't see what's wrong with houses and apartments and normal hotels.

I want to move, but I can't. I don't have the money. I'm only able to work full-time year-round, and I don't know anyone who can get me "in" with the radio stations and newspapers here. Yes, I've left my resumes here, there, and everywhere, including online. No one needs a film historian, a copy girl, a feature reporter, an advertisement writer, a movie critic. That's what I do. I'd make a terrible waitress (I couldn't handle the customers - I can barely handle my grocery store job - and I'd eat everything). I can't make 30 pizzas in an hour and I can't hammer a nail. What good am I to a resort?

This is a resort. It's not a place to live. It's a place that people visit, then forget about. It's not a place for someone who's starting out and just wants a nice, quiet little apartment in a nice, quiet little neighborhood and a decent job with a decent media outlet that she can walk or take the bus here.

I just don't know how I can leave.