I’ve just finished reading How I Paid for College : A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater, by Marc Acito (which Thom got me for my birthday off my wishlist a few months ago). It’s been a long time since I’ve let myself read something breezy and entertaining. It’s a totally fun, madcap read, and it makes me wish I were 17 or 18 again, except more in touch with my sexuality.

There are some recurring scenes in the book that make me wistful. The novel takes place in New Jersey, and the main character, a sexually confused teenage boy, frequents this gay Manhattan piano bar with his friends. I picture the bar being right near the Duplex and the Stonewall on Sheridan Square. Whenever our main character is in Manhattan, particularly at the bar, he’s told by one gay man or another that he’s totally cute.

When I was 17 or 18, there was nobody to tell me I was cute. Looking back today at old photos of myself, I think I was. But nobody ever told me so. Granted, I lived overseas during most of high school, and I didn’t come out to anyone until the end of my first year of college, back in the States; but still, nobody ever told me I was cute.

The main character in How I Paid For College also dreams of being an actor. He loves the theater. I, too, loved the theater when I was in high school, and I used to “get the acting bug.” I used to decide that the only thing I wanted to do when I grew up was be an actor.

Reality set in, though. I never got far with my college acting career. I was in a couple of shows with fellow first-year students, but when I tried out for college-wide productions at the end of my first year, I didn’t even make callbacks. So I decided I sucked, and I gave up.

Occasionally the dream of acting rears its head again. But I’m no longer that crazy teenager, out of touch with reality and susceptible to the whims of my dreams. Sometimes I wish I were still that guy, but I’m not. Today I’m in a nice, stable job, making a decent enough salary. I’ve learned that a life of lowered expectations is realy not that bad; it may lack a certain spice, but at least it’s comfortable. And how could I even break into any sort of acting these days? In New York City, of all places? I don’t know if there’s community theater in New York that’s open only to non-Equity people or something like that, someplace where I wouldn’t have to compete with the thousands of professional actors in the city who have taken drama and dance classes and know their Shakespeare backwards and forwards. Is there? Or I could look into taking an acting class? Maybe that would be fun.

It’s funny how you can read a book and it opens the floodgates.