There’s a huge Easter Bunny that’s been lying on my desk, wrapped in plastic, since Easter. My employer handed them out just before Easter, but I was out on vacation, so I didn’t get mine until after, when I had no chance of actually using it or giving it to you (cuz, you know, it’s a bunny). So it lay in its bag untouched.

Yesterday I arrived at my desk in the morning to find my Easter Bunny sitting in my chair working on my computer. This freaked me out at first, but I picked up the Easter Bunny and moved him to a corner of my desk, where I propped him up in a sitting position so he could watch me work.

Today I noticed (after about fifteen minutes of sitting at my desk) that the Easter Bunny has acquired a lei, a visor, and an ice cream pop cone.

This is starting to get creepy.

I went to Denny’s (on Euclid) and bowling (at Lindbrook Bowl, which is open twenty-four hours) with several members of the cast last night. It was a very good thing. Hopefully this show will be a pre-packaged ready-to-serve social life, which is exactly what I want from a show. I think the catalysts are that we have rehearsal almost every night and a cast that’s at least somewhat close in age.

The T-Mobile hotspot in this Starbucks is really weak. Fortunately there’s another (independent, possibly privately owned) hotspot somewhere outside the Starbucks, and I’m stealing my internet access from that right now because it’s giving off a much stronger signal. So I’d like to give a shout-out to whoever is running a wireless access point near the Starbucks on Birch Street in Brea. Thanks for the access, pal. If you’re ever in Costa Mesa, I’ll hook you up.

When something angers Deirdre, she says that it “tickles [her] hate organ.” I absolutely loved that expression, which she must have stolen from some anonymous source. Later in the conversation, though, Amanda was tickling Deirdre’s feet, and Deirdre complained that she hates it when people tickle her feet. So we decided that Deirdre’s “hate organ” is her foot (or feet), and from now when something angers her, she needs to say that it tickles her feet.

I saw Nicole today at DCA. She walked by me and I was saying, “Nicole? Nicole?” until finally a friend of hers said, “Nicole, someone’s calling you,” and she turned and pretended to be excited to see me.

A recent outing at Starbucks gave me insight into the nature of coolness.

I went to starbucks with three other people. We got our drinks and sat down in the big, comfy chairs. I brought in my laptop because I needed to do some work, but after trying for a few minutes, I realized that the wireless connection in this particular Starbucks wasn’t strong enough to work if I was seated in the front of the store.

I promptly moved my hazelnut latte and my laptop to another table further back in the store, near the queue. This is when the coolness began. Because my friends were in the front of the store and I was in the rear, they kept coming over and saying things to me and then returning to the front of the store. To the customers in line, it looked as though I had come alone but that a lot of people who came into the store knew me. This gave me an ora of coolness.

Mike came over and kissed me on the forehead and told me he was leaving. Amanda walked by me on her way to the restroom and said, “Hey, stop checking me out,” and then laughed. And each time something like this happened, the customers in line saw me as almost a celebrity. It must have looked as though I (and my friends in the front of the store) were regulars who came in all the time. After all, if we happened to be there at the same time but in separate groups, the logical conclusion was that we must be there quite often and that this was a coincidental meeting.

So if you want to be cool, or more specifically if you want to “take over” a hangout and make it your own, the trick is to split up into groups and sit separately. Your imminent movement around the store and interaction with “other groups” will make you seem cool to those who don’t know you.

Of course, those who do know you will still know you’re uncool. I’ll have to figure out a solution for that one later.

Tonight I went to the callbacks for Anything Goes. I’m not a tap dancer, so I can only be a lead in it. Obviously I’d be good as Moonface Martin, but I also wanted to try for Evelyn because he’s usually done as a character role as well.

The funny thing is, they also had me read for Billy (the romantic lead) a whole lot. It was weird, and at first I thought they just wanted me to read for the hell of it, but then I realized they were actually considering me for the part. In fact, there were only a couple other guys they were looking at. Now, I still don’t think I got the part of Billy, but I’m proud of myself because I think I did a good job reading for it. I used really strong eye contact with the girl reading Hope (it was easy–she was cute), I made the lines feel real and not contrived, and I actually got the audience to go “Awww!” when my character was rejected and laugh when my character joked.

I still don’t think I’ll get Billy; I’m much shorter than the other guys and I’m more suited to other roles. But it made me feel good to read for it. It’s nice to think that the directors actually saw me as a possibility for a romantic lead; it means I might not be stuck in character roles forever. That would be nice.

I’m watching Saturday Night Fever. Despite the ridiculous dancing and the ridiculous way that everyone is so serious about dancing, it’s actually a very good movie. As a family and relationship piece, it’s almost on par with a Neil Simon script, although it’s a drama and not a comedy, and the characters are simple instead of intellectual. The important thing is that the characters are realistic and easy to sympathize with, and their interactions (within the family at least) are very familiar.

I really don’t think it’s a movie about dancing at all. To me, the theme of the movie has more to do with optimism. John Travolta’s character decides to be worthy, not just as a dancer and a lover, but also as a human being. The thing is, he has to struggle against his own ignorance and cockiness to achieve this. His ignorance and cockiness are his obstacles. It’s an interesting idea. I like it.

Tonight is the premiere of “The O.C.” on Fox. This show is going to be everything that “Sunset Beach” tried to be, but for teenagers instead of middle-aged housewives.

The web site mentions that in order to survive as a teenager in Newport Beach, you need to drive a new BMW or Mercedes, carry a cell phone with digital photos on it, have a credit card which your parents pay off, and wear nothing that’s more than a year old. At first I found humor in the obviously overdone stereotypes that they were using to create this show. But now I realize the really funny part is that many of my O.C. friends actually fit that profile.