Kind of like the character in the play I’m working on, for like five years I’ve been meaning to volunteer with New York Cares, and I FINALLY attended an orientation.  In the play, the character gets involved for sort of selfish and strange reasons, it turns out, but does badly want to help.

There, in the weird theater in the children’s room at the West Village public library, I felt like I was INSIDE of my own play, inside of this fictional person I created that is also sort of myself. And when we had to share with our neighbors why we wanted to get involved, I opened my mouth, and out poured some nonsense about being a playwright and doing research kind of, but wait, ALSO WANTING TO HELP, and my neighbor looked at me like I was insane, and there I was, inside of my own play. But for real: it’s a really amazing organization and I can’t wait to get started.