My favorite form of punctuation is the ellipse. Because so...much can happen betwixt those three little dots...
Friday, March 30, 2007
Opening Night Part VII
Are you guys feeling it yet? The familiarity of occasion? Come on, people! It's opening night! Again. Ready? Set? And a one and a two and a one two three:
Everybody sing!
It's time to play the music.
It's time to light the lights.
It's time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight.
It's time to put on makeup.
It's time to dress up right.
It's time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight.
Why do we always come here?
I guess we'll never know.
It's like a kind of torture to have to watch the show.
And now let's get things started.
Why don't you get things started?
It's time to get things started
On the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational
This is what we call the Muppet Show!
(Gonzo blows his trumpet - or at least attempts to.)
The explosive diarrhea hasn't sunk in yet, but it's only a matter of time, I'm sure.
I meant to tell you people the secret to my character, this character. I figured it out a few days ago. Blue nail polish.
I was walking my dog the other day and these teenagers came up to me and started petting her, my dog. I noticed this chipped blue nail polish on the teenage girl's hand and it hit me. That's what I need. That's the secret missing piece to achieving teenager. Chipped blue nail polish.
It's genius. I mean, how important are your hands, right? You know your hands so well, they're so, if not the most familiar parts of your body, right? So, how much can hands inform character? Gracious, so much. My hands, Plimco's hands don't look like this. Ever. So, to look down, on stage and see these hands, not my hands, but her hands? Oh, it's just so helpful, I cannot even tell you. I'm glad I get to keep it. I was afraid my director was going to say it was too townie or that the lights caught the metallic blue the wrong way and it was distracting, but I've had the polish on all week and everyone's seemed to have forgotten. Yay.
Ok. This is when you tell me to break some shit.
Labels: opening night
Sentence of the Day 3/29
(sung) "Here I go again on my own, going down the only road I've ever known, like a drifter I was born to walk alone, and I made up my mind."
Labels: sentence
Sentence of the Day 3/28
"You had a little too much disdain tonight."
Labels: sentence
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Live blogging final dress
I'm going to get into so much trouble if I get caught.
So, here we are. Back stage in the dark. The sink works tonight! Yay. The set designer has just journeyed upstairs to look for an umbrella it seems...
Oh. We're about to start now.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Have I not told you about this yet? This is exciting.
This one is just a light under a stove. I stuck my camera under there because I wanted to see what it looked like. This is what it looks like under there. Pretty.
This one is a favorite with people for some reason. I think it's pretty goofy.
I think this looks like a horror movie set.
During tech the mind wanders
How the fuck am I going to be able to see the play button on the remote in the dark to push play to start the music that starts the play?
I know I'm going to ram my knee into that corner of our metal coffee table at some point. It's only a matter of time.
Why isn't that lamp working?
Is the video going to be projected on the floor? Because that's where it's being projected now.
Ok, people. The set has been wet for the past two nights. I'm going to need to rehearse in my costume at some point because it consists of leggings and a mini skirt and I don't often wear leggings and a mini skirt so I need to figure out how the hell I'm supposed to move around and flop on the couch without looking like a freak.
Is the oven working tonight? Cause it needs to be.
Since this laptop is my prop and since it has wireless, does that mean I could live blog from center stage? I think it does. That's wacky.
Is the pie burning? It smells like the pie might be burning. Shit. What do we do if it catches fire? We have to stop the play, I guess. Where's the fire extinguisher on this floor? I have no idea. Fuck.
I've thrown that box down and broken it 500 times. Somebody just needs to take the hinges off.
Ouch. When you hug me that hard, the zipper on your hoody smashes into my forehead and hurts like a sumbitch. Am I bleeding?
Ok, so if I bang on the cutting board like that I get flour and dough all over my hand. Good to know. Now where do I wipe it off?
Is my cell phone ring really going to sound like that? Because it sounds like a bucket full of gargling demons coming from under the couch. Does it really sound like my cell phone from the audience? Cause up here? It totally sounds like we just stuck a speaker under the couch and called it a day.
God I hope the printer works tonight, God I hope the printer works tonight, God I hope the printer works tonight.
Ok, can't wear this bra apparently.
Ummm, Plimco? I know you're exhausted, but honey? At the end of the play when you turn around and see the pie all complete and cooked for the first time? And I know it's the first time we've used real fruit instead of blue colored marbles, but sweetie? You can't burst out laughing and fall on the floor and laugh and laugh and laugh like a crazy exhausted person for 5 minutes straight. That's not a good idea. Ever. Stay the fuck in character. Yes, it's wacky as hell that she just baked a pie from scratch on stage, but you need to hold your shit together.
We open in 3 days We open in 3 days We open in 3 days
Labels: tech
Sentence of the Day 3/27
"If you like."
Labels: sentence
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
SotD 3/26
"Anyway, you're distractingly spectacular."
Labels: sentence
Monday, March 26, 2007
My ass
The other day Fluff Bucket and I were jogging along through my neighborhood, right? So, we trot by this house and I hear from the upstairs window, "Hey! Nice ass!" I was momentarily startled. Then I hear it again, "Yo! Nice ass!"
I continue my jog with an extra bounce in my step. All the way to the park, through the park, I'm grinning. I have a nice ass. So nice, in fact, that people must holler at me from the upstairs windows of their homes just to make sure that I am aware of the niceness of my booty.
I'm feeling good. I mean, I sort of look like crap when I jog. I don't wear exciting tight jogger pants with festive stripes or anything. But, yeah. I was so pleased by this neighborly shouting that I jogged further than usual. I jogged, in fact, all the way around and back to the corner where the house was that yelled at me. I stopped at the corner. And then I hear another message projected from the faceless upstairs window, "Yeah you better stop running. Fat ass."
What? But! You guys! You're the ones that just told me that I had a NICE ass! What happened? If anything my ass is BETTER now than it was 15 minutes ago!
And then again, to insure that I wasn't hearing things incorrectly. "Fat ass."
Humph. I wish that house would make up its mind about my booty. It's going to give me a complex.
Sentences of the Weekend
3/23
"Our job tonight is to just tell this story."
3/24
"No cavities, everything looks terrific."
3/25
"Here. Use this one. I still have 21 minutes left on it."
Labels: sentence
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Eavesdroppings
"
I mean, she's the biggest lesbian in the world.
This stripper had hemorrhoids and they were flarin'.
How can you eat a meal and watch this?
Tom Petty.
Keep it to yourself. Keep it to yourself.
I'm still in love with you.
This of course was at 1-o-clock in the afternoon.
Yeah, it was terrible. I'm like...is this what it's like in Montreal?
I fucked it all up.
Eating pizza. Like a dollar pizza and I look at this guy and I go...
Do you need another Bud Light?
Yeah maybe in the mid 70s.
She goes, I really like this.
Ok.
You know what?
I got a deal on it. I saved like fourteen hundred bucks.
It's pathetic.
Big big guys, a lot of movin and swayin.
That kid who owns Sears.
He's a great guy, never met him, but he's a funny fucking guy.
They go about their business. Every time.
He's an animal. I'm not kidding.
Animals? Animals. Animals?
(This is all so beautiful somehow)
The fact that it worked...
If you had to make that piece of wood there?
I mean that's fucking hard right there. Figuring out that angle.
So fake. I'm like. What does he do?
Sleeps over like every night.
Ten dollars.
Now I sound like a pervert.
It's not a big deal. I know that. All men do this...
His parents.
Satellite.
Vodka, amaretto and pineapple juice.
Hairy navel?
Lemme just...finish this thought.
I used to love her, but I had to kill her.
Five thousand dollars cash.
Nitpicking.
Know what I'm saying?
How do we know?
3.15.
Non-negotiable.
Smells good.
Risk factor.
Original offer.
Sure. Cool. That's cool. It's gone.
5's good.
One chance to do that.
I wasn't gonna be rude.
So fuckin fat.
Dragon flies.
Down one? Ok. Over one? Ok.
So you get the manual.
I said...
He doesn't understand friends.
Funny as hell.
How can you write with all this noise?
You must be from New York.
Tennessee.
Is this hip hop or somethin?
"
Friday, March 23, 2007
What we're going to have to do with the dick and other stories
Switching gears. Tonight I perform the other play. Motherfucker. Why do I do this to myself?
Because it's fun. Weeeeeee. Fun. Ah cha cha cha.
But it is. It's a lesson in focus. I find it fascinating the character bleed that happens. It's like a celebrity boxing match within my body kind of. The 24-year-old lesbian minister vs. the adopted teenager! DING!
Last time I did this, the anger bled. The teenage anger bled a little too much into lesbian minister town. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it just colors the play a bit differently. At rehearsal on Sunday, it was the posture that bled. My teenager is very stiff and walks around and sits very straight like a princess. My minister used to be all slouchy/slumpy, much like a Plimco I know, but Sunday... She wasn't. I don't think that's such a bad thing either, it's just different. And at least I'm aware of it.
People ask me, "How do you keep the lines straight? How do you not jump into doing the lines from the other play?" It's kind of a non-issue. If you really allow yourself to be present in the world of the play, and you should, they are two very very very different worlds. It would feel like speaking in another language. Walking the streets of Hong Kong speaking Spanish. Or something...
Although. I have to be honest with you. There is a point. There's this monologue. Two, actually. There are these two monologues. In the adopted teenager play, the line is, "I don't know where to go, what to do." In the lesbian minister play the line is, "I don't know where to go, who I am."
Yeah. That's pretty much a giant brain fuck. They're both at the height of emotion in each play. They're both in the middle of the identity crisis/bursting into tears monologue. I end up getting it right in the teenage play, but in the minister play, this is what I've been saying the past few times I've done the show, "I don't know where to go, what to do, who I am, what to eat for breakfast." Ok, not the breakfast part, but it's very much like chasing my lines tail when that happens and it's creepy as hell.
I don't want to even think about the amount of text in my brain that must be up to performance standard right now. It's a lot. It's so much...I have dreams that I'm swimming in it. Swimming in text. Choking.
cough cough.
Oh and I have to tell you this. There's a dick in the show, right? The show where I'm the minister. It's a softy packing penis and it is purple and I love it. It's my prop that I have to carry on. I start the show flopping it around and my first line is, "Umm....so.... What exactly do you do with this?" Best. Way. To start a show. Ever. Yay penis. Then my lovah packs it in her pants. Ok. So, tonight. Since, tangentially, this play is about faith, more specifically Christian faith, we're performing it at a church tonight. Another church. That's what I really hate about doing this play. It keeps making me go to church. I hate church. So, the UUs are all great and welcoming and pretty much anything goes, but... And oh my gracious, I wish I could have seen this email. One of the church leaders emailed the theatre company and said something to the effect of, "Golly, we sure are excited you folks are coming out to perform your little play for our congregations (it's going to be like a church party. 15 or something congregations from all over there tonight). We just have one teensy request. We don't want to see the dick. Just keep that little ole penis hidden and everything will just be right as rain. All righty? Lookin forward to it. God bless."
Ha! We can't show them our dick. I immediately said I CAN'T WORK LIKE THIS! I NEED DICK! IT IS ESSENTIAL TO MY CHARACTER'S ARCH! He he. Dick. No dick. It will hurt the poor Unitarian's eyes. Yay. This is fun.
So we figured out how to hide it. My lover just turns her back to the audience whenever she packs or unpacks. Problem solved. And I just changed the line to, "Umm....so..... What exactly do you do with that?" Ding. Still. It just won't be the same without the dick. It just won't be the same....
So, tell me to break something tonight.
Then Sunday we'll start the tech week parade for the other play. Ready? Go potty and get you some snacks. Buckle up.
Sentence of the Day 3/22
"The 'butt juice' and the 'butt hole' just kind of lost its venom tonight."
Labels: sentence
Thursday, March 22, 2007
I can't feel my skirt
What the hell is going on? I've worn this skirt before and felt it fine. It's light, I suppose, but not that light. I think my legs are numb and sleeping. I think I need sleep. It has that feel, though, of a dream and I'm walking around all day and doing my stuff all day and the swish isn't there. The swish should be there. And I walk into a room of people and think, that dream like sense of fear....that I've forgotten...to put on... my clothes. And that I'm just standing there like a goon in a pair of black tights and they, the people in the room, can see the tights roll up around my waist and my stupid support panties that I'm wearing because I need to do laundry.
It's an awful feeling, this. When you cannot feel your skirt. But it's there. The skirt. I mean, I see it. I think it's there.
Hello?
30 gallons of water
I think I may have a crush on my TD. I think he's most likely gay, but I don't care. I still want him.
He put the door on the fridge last night. So that we can open it the best way without cutting anybody off.
He's essentially building an entire working kitchen and living room split level New York apartment flat on stage. God, he's so hot. And his little tool belt?
The oven of course will work. It has to. We have to bake a pie in it. And the stove, to cook the blueberries. Almost all of the sound cues are done by us on stage, putting CDs in the stereo and turning them on. Turning it off with a remote. Up/down. My lap top is being a pain in the ass. My character's lap top and we haven't gotten the printer to print yet, but we will. We must.
So I'm just kidding around last night at rehearsal and say, so is the fridge going to work, because I'm drinking water on stage and that has to be chilled or I just can't perform. The TD says, "Of course. Why not?" Wow. I love him. Why not.
Then the sink, the kitchen sink, I mean usually when you have sinks on stage there's a very limited amount of water you can use to just get you through the show, like a bucket underneath and a pump. Since my "mom" is baking the pie and since the audience is eating it after, we were thinking that it would be great for her to wash her hands on stage, you know? So the audience can see that and feel safe about consuming her baked goods later on. My director's all, "I don't know if we're going to have enough water for her to be able to do that though..." My handsome, sexy, scruffy TD in his teal sweatshirt and a little too tight jeans, power drill in hand pipes up, "We're going to have a 30 gallon tank of water. I think we should be fine."
Holy shit. Fuck me now. A 30 gallon tank of water???!!! And then. As if I needed any more titillation at this moment, he says... Oh and it just makes me squirm and sigh thinking about it... He says, "I was thinking about installing a disposal, but I thought that might be a bit much."
Oh hell yeah. I love this man.
I mean you get so used to pretending, to making do with the artifical on stage. Making concessions for the world of the play. That's not sunshine, it's lighting. Fake blood. Jello as a 4 course meal. 3 years passing in an hour. But this? This show? This real time, this....realism? Oh man. I'm getting spoiled. It's so fucking neat. I love it.
Labels: tech
Sentence of the Day 3/21
"You're like Muddy Waters with a cooter."
Labels: sentence
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Sentence of the Day 3/20
"So, we decided we're going to do Aunt B's play. The question is: Can you yodel?"
Labels: sentence
I could totally play a zombie in a zombie film
Ok, the more I think about this, the more I really want to be a zombie. No, really. I want to play a zombie in a zombie movie. I love zombie movies. I could totally play a zombie in a zombie film. How much fun would that be? I mean, the make-up would take forever and I'd have all sorts of issues if they made me wear funky contacts in my eyeballs or something because I cannot touch my eye balls or deal with that, but... I could totally play the undead.
UUUunnnnnnnnNNNNNNNGGGGGG.
Aw yeah. I could move slowly and scarily and strike fear in the hearts of all I meet. And bite people. I like biting people. And falling apart in a heap of decomposing body parts.
Oh hell yeah. I'm going to do this. I'm adding it to the list.
Things to do before I die:
Play a zombie in a zombie film
Sign me up.
But I still somehow managed to do my taxes
Go me. Neener neener. I just had to share this small victory with the rest of the world. Even though you'll probably have to do yours too. Or did already. And it's just part of being a person in stupid America, but you don't understand. My mathematics skillz are just so very poor that my brain freezes when confronted with numbers or content dealing with numbers and taking numbers from boxes and entering them into other boxes and coming up with other numbers and federal terms and 1099 W2 hoobie choobie mumbo jumbo ah cha cha.
It's such a sense of accomplishment though when they're officially filed in the big governmental filing cabinet in the sky and the whole affair is just so sadly anticlimactic. I mean... I should get something. Other than a refund, something that denotes some sense of event, some sense of having accomplished a feat. Like a cookie. Or a parade. Or a donkey.
I want a prize.
And it's not even tech week yet
Fuck me. This week I'm rehearsing every night until 11:00. If I'm lucky, I can wind down and get to sleep by midnight. I have to get up at 5:23 every morning. Oh except Friday, Friday I don't have rehearsal, I have a show. The other show.
I'm zombie cheese muff.
Hello zombie cheese muff.
Helloooo!
And then tech week happens, the week that it's ok to feel like this, that happens next week only I'm already here. I've already arrived. I need some crack.
Zombie crack.
sheeba moo moo nonnie hay.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Say hello to the zombie
Hello zombie.
Hello.
How are you today, zombie?
Oh, I'm keen. You?
Splendid.
Great.
Great.
Oh my, your left arm just fell off again, zombie.
Oh, just leave it on the floor. I'll pick it up later.
You sure? It kind of smells. I don't want you to walk off and forget it.
It's my arm, how could I forget it?
Good point.
Thank you.
Hey, zombie. You're not going to eat me, are you?
Now, why would I do that? Seems like the perks to joining the ranks of the undead sort of speak for themselves. You know I can bite you at any time and make that happen for you, Carlson. All you have to do is ask.
Thanks, zombie. Gee. It sure is swell that we're such good pals.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ok, Carlson. If you're done, I'm going to continue practising my groaning now, alright buddy?
Oh yes, sure, zombie. You go right ahead. Sorry to interrupt.
No problem. Ahem. UUUUUNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGHHH! (inhale) UUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGHHH! (inhale) UUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG!!!
Sentence of the Day 3/19
"Huh. I forget that you're so flexible and actually can fold into a ball if I ask you to."
Labels: sentence
Monday, March 19, 2007
I met me at 5
I am so cute. Oh my gracious, you guys? I am so fucking cute. I'm so cute that I wear little t-shirts that say, "It's hard to be this cute" in pink glitter with pictures of cartoon baby deer on them.
Yay. I am pleased. I didn't think it was possible to come close to the cuteness young Plimco possessed, but they got really close. They got reeeeally close.
Sentences of the Weekend
3/16
"Why don't you just bring her with you to rehearsal?"
3/17
"Michael, where's your four leaf clover?"
3/18
"i did
a minute ago
i'm serious as hell"
Friday, March 16, 2007
This just in
I get to bring Fluff Bucket with me to rehearsal this afternoon.
Yay.
I hope she doesn't eat the prop pie dough.
Dough!
You know what's really fucking surreal?
Casting a kid to play your 6-year-old self.
It's just bizarre. The play begins with a video of "me" when I was 6 in the orphanage. Sort of ADOPT ME! footage that they would send to potential parents in the US.
So far the little mes we've auditioned have been inadequate. I mean, the kid has to look enough like me so that the audience makes the connection. They see the video first thing and then immediately see me on stage, so they have to get that the kid in the video was me 12 years ago or the play won't work.
Basically we need a kid that has curly dark hair and an ovalish face. Dark eyes. I have a big honking forehead. Oh and the kid has to be brave enough to sing a song and catch a ball on film. Sounds easy enough, right? We're still casting.
Such odd situations actors get to find themselves in, you know? Who else gets to worry with such things, finding a credible 6-year-old version of yourself? We're going to have to dress the set with old pictures of me too, pictures for the fridge, the book cases and crap. I'm going to drive my mom (my real one not my pretend one) insane. Ummm....Mom? You mind digging up a bunch of old pictures of me for our set? Oh, but they can't have anybody else in them. I'm playing an only child this time. I've asked her to do stuff like this before.
Anyhow, I hope we find little me soon and that she doesn't suck. I was really a beautiful child. I'll settle for nothing less than impeccable. I'm so awful. Sitting in the audition rooms with a parade of shy first graders. Oh! This simply will not do. NEXT! Children bursting into tears. Sorry, dear, but you just don't have what it takes. You don't have that Plimco magic. Not just anyone can be a Plimco. Don't take it too hard, sweetie. You can always audition for Annie or A Christmas Carol or something at your local community theatre.
Sentence of the Day 3/15
"Now you look like a wind up toy."
Labels: sentence
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Street personalities
Here in my town, there are some favorite bums, some street personalities, if you will, that everyone knows.
There's the bearded, skinny crack head that walks in between the cars at the stop lights on 203, not selling anything, but mumbling and smiling. It's like his job, to smile at you while you wait at the stop light. He's never asked me for money, only smiled. He is there in rain, sleet, snow, spring, summer. I could imitate his walk for you, it's like a slow motion person canter. A limping jaunt. I could drive by at 6:15 AM, there he is. I've driven that same street at 1 in the morning. There he is. Slow motion cantering, smiling at nothing.
That's smiling crack head man.
Then there's the squirrel lady who lives in the big park down town. You know the pigeon lady in Mary Poppins? Yeah, she's like her only with squirrels. And she has her squirrels trained, they follow her around and do her bidding. They sit on her shoulders like parrots. I shit you not. They're kind of cute. They have names. You'll walk by and she'll shout at you, "Frances says you stink!" And you realize Frances is the squirrel munching on half a potato chip at her feet. And I swear he'll look right in your eyes and you know it to be true.
That's wacky squirrel lady.
Then there's the bum I'm most intimately acquainted with. Gravely screaming man. He's kind of scary. Most of the time, most people know him as "Do you have any spare change?" guy at Park subway stop. He has this gravel whisky screaming voice that emerges from deep in the back of his throat. I can do a great impression. This may be one of those posts that I tell better than I write. Maybe I'll record the audio for you. Who knows. I'm feeling wild. Usually he approaches and says his line: "Do YOU have any SPARE CHANGE?" He doesn't wait for an answer. This is not all Spare Change man is capable of saying though. Oh no.
Cut to a few summers ago. I had gone and spent the day at the museum of modern art cause I'm nerdy like that. I had purchased from the museum gift shop a bright red umbrella that turned into a kitten when opened. Ears and everything. That umbrella was magnificent. I think I had it for about 3 months before I lost it. I'm bad with umbrellas. Anyhow, back to our story already in progress.
It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, I'd just seen some really fucked up art, I go, umbrella in tow, down the stairs to hop on the subway. My train isn't there yet. I sit on a bench and wait. Enter Spare Change Man stage left. He sits next to me. This is the worst possible scenario to be approached by freaks, right? I mean, you're very obviously waiting for the next train to come. There's no where to hide. It's not like you're approached while walking down the street and can just keep walking. You're a captive audience.
Spare Change man speaks in his charming whiskey-gravel-scream manner, "Do you have any spare change?" I say that I don't and stare straight ahead. Spare change man says, "It doesn't look like rain." I say, Oh, I know. It's a beautiful day. I just bought this at the museum of modern art. It's a cat umbrella. It turns into a cat when you open it. Spare Change man replies with, "Do you like oral sex?" Ok! My gracious. That's enough Spare Change man.
I just love the progression of those sentences. Let us review:
1. Do you have any spare change?
2. It doesn't look like rain.
3. Do you like oral sex?
Yay. Spare Change man is awesome. Oh, to live in that brain.
And you know? It's one of those questions that... Well. You know the answer is "yes". You know what I'm saying? But you don't really want to open that door for Spare Change man at that moment. But, Spare Change man? Yes. I really really really like oral sex. Really.
And now you know.
Sentence of the Day 3/14
"Has he ever been privileged to your sweet support, your taunting dreams, your incomparably adorable sense of humor?"
Labels: sentence
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
I'm an actor
I had a squashy old blogger question the other day why I call myself an actor and not an actress.
I act. I'm an actor. One who acts.
One who works is a worker. One who paints is a painter. One who plumbs is a plumber. If you bake stuff, you're not a baketress. You're a baker. I've never met a lawyeress. It's an unnecessary gender distinction.
If I'm talking about going out to dinner with a bunch of actors, male and female, I say I'm going out to dinner with a bunch of actors. They all act. That's what they do. They're actors. I don't say I'm going out with a bunch of actors and actresses. It's unnecessary.
But I don't even think about it. It's not conscious, it's just fact. I am an actor. It's what I do. Does that make sense? "Actress" doesn't even enter into the picture. It's just how everybody in the BizNass, the community refers to what we do, the people that do what we do. People look at you funny if you use the term "actress". It's an immediate clue that you are not involved with the theatre in any way, that you don't know what you're talking about. It's like walking up to a mechanic and saying that you think your muffle thingy is making a weird noise.
Unless, it becomes necessary to provide that gender distinction (and is it ever really necessary? I mean, really.) The obvious scenario that comes to mind is the Academy Awards. There's a male that wins and a female. Ding! Ress. Distinction. But other than that? Completely unnecessary.
Thank you for your time and have a nice day.
Snip snip
Sentence of the Day 3/13
(sung) "You are my sweetest downfall."
Labels: sentence
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Question:
What do you think is more interesting?
To watch someone think?
Or to watch someone feel?
First Memories
Coloring a stop light in pre-school. Red, yellow, green. Staying in the lines. Looking at it and being so proud because it was perfect.*
Eating chicken noodle soup from my Sesame Street thermos.
Making red play dough.
I remember the skin on my inner thigh being pinched in the silver buckle of the car seat.
I remember that same buckle burning me on a hot day.
The Christmas I got a hoppy dragon. This green blow up ball thing with a dragon head and you held on to these handles that came out of the dragon's ears. I remember bouncing around the kitchen in my red, Strawberry Shortcake footy pijamas, the noise the hoppy dragon made on the kitchen floor.
I remember standing in church, not able to see above the pew, and when the part came in the liturgy that said where the pastor said, "Lift up your hearts" and the congregation answered in song, "We lift them to the Lord", I remember lifting up my layers and layers of dress and lace up over my head and my Grandma's knotty cool hands gently smoothing it down. Our dresses had jingle bells sewn into the under lace so that we could dingle when we walked.
I remember those same cool hands, knotty and smooth tearing Double Mint gum strips in half and handing them to me to chew quietly next to her on the wooden pew.
I remember light cotton summer jammies, mine with teeny yellow rose buds on them, Dr. J's with pink. Satin ribbon weaved into the straps, matching rose bud jammies, sleeping with the windows open at Little Grandma's house and those white curtains blowing in the breeze through the night.
I remember when The Big E was born and standing tip toe to look at her through the glass in one of those plastic baby trays.
I remember being lifted to a sink and tipping my head, drinking water from the faucet.
*I found that stop light years later in the drawer in my parent's room where my mother kept all our macaroni art and lost teeth. It was scribbled. Scribbles. I didn't even stay in the lines. But the colors were right.
Labels: When I was a little girl...
Sentence of the Day 3/12
"I'm using that photo for the next show flyer. Seriously."
Labels: sentence
Monday, March 12, 2007
Sentences of some Days
3/8
"Break a leg."
3/9
"This looks like a job for.... PHANTOM DICK!!!"
3/10
"My pussy's cleaner than my face...and not everyone can say that."
3/11
"Hold on, Buckaroo."
Labels: sentence
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Gas
When there's only one person on stage with you, who do you blame the farts on?
I think cereal makes me fart. Or maybe it's the milk. I've been eating a bowl of cereal before rehearsals and... Gas. Stinky, hanging-in-the-air poots that you can't get away from. The kind of farts that stick in the fibers of your clothes and you smell them again in 5 minutes when you plop down on the couch.
My new mom is very... She's in touch with her sternum. Let's say that. She used to be a dancer. You know dancers, they're very. I mean... They're dancery and I don't think they fart. Or maybe they do, but it sounds like a little mouse and smells like baby powder cup cakes when they do.
I've got to figure something out here, people, or I just don't know what. Maybe the smell of the pie baking will cancel out my farts. One can only hope.
Now, in the four person play, I can fart all day long and nobody's the wiser. I mean, ok. There's me. The smeller who knows it's not them, but there are two whole OTHER people it could be right there on stage. And I move around so much, I'm usually able to release and retreat. I feel sad to leave my grandma sitting at the kitchen table in a Plimco cloud for so long though. Oh well. She's supposed to be looking at the death certificate and crying in there. Maybe it'll help to have the smell of the dead in there with her as well.
Sentence of the Day 3/7
"I have to go poop. And I have Indian food on my breasteses."
Labels: sentence
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
I broke a mirror
We rehearsed last night in this new space. This new space is the best space ever. They have a giant stone fireplace and scooters. Yes, scooters. And a dart board. And a wee bicycle that you can navigate if you poke your knees out to the sides and and and floor space and scooters. Did I mention the scooters?
So, I'm whizzing around at top speeds wearing this velcro bonnet thing while another actor throws velcro balls at my head and then it hits me.
I left the oven on.
This is what I do. We've been through how cool I keep my house. My kitchen is particularly drafty. When I'm in there, I turn the oven up to 450 or so and crack it so that I can get toasty while I make my pre-rehearsal coffee and eat a bowl of cereal.
I left it on.
I'm now committed to be at rehearsal for the next 4 hours. I'm across town.
Fuck.
What's the worst that can happen?
A) The house burns down.
7) My dog and cat die from gas inhalation.
ii) My house catches on fire and high winds spread it to the entire neighborhood catching the entire neighborhood on fire killing whole families and it's my fault.
Fuck.
Or... Let's see. Ok.
Maybe the gas will run out. Or... It'll just keep the kitchen nice and toasty until I get home. People bake for longer periods of time than that, right? What about turkeys? Turkey! Hey! Yeah. It's ok to leave your oven on for that long. See? Everything's fine. I can rehearse.
Fuck.
Needless to say, I was a smidgen distracted.
Then, during the first scene, I broke a mirror.
Great.
Not that I'm superstitious or believe in omens or anything, but fuck. It can't be a good sign. This is why it's not a good idea to have mirrors on stage. But how else is my lover supposed to affix her soul patch straight for the drag number? I stepped on it. Crack! Just a corner, it was just a corner that broke, it didn't shatter, a corner only means a few months bad luck, right? Right?! (Now I'm sure my house is burning.)
I somehow make it through the show and we're packing up and heading home and there are signs everywhere. On the radio, that stupid song, "Feelin' hot hot hot". I drive by the fire department closest to my house, it's 11:00 at night and the lights are on, a truck missing.
Fuck.
I see it in my head. The flames. I imagine Fluff Bucket backing into a corner, flames singing her fur, her final moments on this earth terrified of the inferno. I imagine the conversation with my land lady. "I was irresponsible. I don't know what to say. I know that was the house you grew up in, everything is irreplaceable. I'm so sorry." I go through friends in my head that would maybe let me stay with them until I find a new place.
I turn on my street scanning the sky for signs of glowing orange, blinking lights. Surely my neighbors were awake and called. Surely they saw the flames. I see my house in the distance, still standing. I check the windows for light, signs of gas, smoke. I screetch to a stop, run up the back steps to the back door, fumble with the keys, fling the door open. Bucket greets me. Alive and breathing! Oh sweet fortune! I run in the kitchen, the oven door is still cracked open!
It's off. The oven is off.
I'm a moron.
Maybe I'm loosing my mind. What is going on lately with all the invented paranoia?
I still broke that mirror though. There must be some consequences for that. Or not. I guess we'll see, won't we...
Sentence of the Day 3/6
"Anyway, I love you."
Labels: sentence
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
61 Degrees
I have a question. How hot do you people keep your house? I have a big ole drafty house to heat and there's just me and my dog and my cat in it and it seems so wasteful to make it all so warm and cozy, but sometimes I splurge and set the heat to 61. I have the 403$ oil bill to prove it.
But I was talking to someone the other day and she said she keeps her apartment at 80. I couldn't believe it. 80?! Isn't that excessive? Or am I living like an Inuit?
How hot do you people keep your house?
Labels: question
Bad dreams
I'm having a hard time shaking them. I think I have Daddy issues. Or maybe it's because my character in this play has Daddy issues. Anyhow. The dream(s) were all me running around this house trying to find a private spot to masturbate and Dad kept walking in on me.
Then I found this guest room and this man in the bed who was my boyfriend and I got in beside him and molded my body to his and his hair was so greasy and dark and when he sort of turned over, I realized it was my father when he was younger.
What the hell?
Gross.
There are definite patterns in my fucked up sexual/relationship history, but I don't think I've been dating my Dad. They're nothing like him, I don't think. Most of them are artists or musicians or very creative people and my father is not. There was that one legislative aid to the senator, but he kissed like a lizard and we never sealed the deal so to speak.
What the fuck. Those dreams were so awful.
I want to take a shower and scrape them off of me.
Labels: dreams
Sentence of the Day 3/5
"A play? Well that sucks. How am I supposed to download that?"
Labels: sentence
Monday, March 05, 2007
Hop on the Plimco train!
For reasons I am not willing to disclose to you, I am dressed as a train conductor today.
I feel jaunty in my stripes.
Woo WOO! Hop on the Plimco train, everyboday!!
chuggah chuggah chuggah chuggah
WOOO WOOO!
All aboard.
SNOT!
I meant to tell you people about my latest stage paranoia.
SNOT!
I've never had allergies or anything. I never really knew what they entail. But it's strange. This year, I had a cold/sinus/fever/chest congestion/flu thing a month or so ago and since then my body has continued to produce inordinate amounts of snot. It's out of control. And impressive, I mean... Where does it keep COMING from??? It's just SO MUCH snot!
It's clear and I don't have any pressure anymore or anything, but I swear I blow my nose at least 57 times a day and when I'm not blowing, I'm sniffing up snot or thinking about blowing. Sometimes I cough up stuff too. Or, the dreaded sneeze and cough. God, I hate those. The juicy face explosion with unexpected ejected phlegm wad. Those are embarrassing.
But I feel fine. It's just... snot. All snot all the time.
So, the last time I was on stage, I started obsessing about it. I started sniffing as soon as we started. You can't really take a time out on stage to blow your nose. I mean, you could, but... It's probably not the best idea. So, the first few scenes, I'm all sniff.... sniff.... Sniff!.... SNIFF!!!...
Then I start thinking... Fuck. I totally have snot running down my face, don't I. I do! I know it. Oh dear, it's dripping! I feel it dripping! Then, I'd wait for the other actors to make eye contact with me, to look in my face thinking that I could read their expression for signs of hideous snot. I mean, if you look at someone and they have snot rolling down their face, or bulbous boogers hanging from their nostrils, that has to register on your expression, right?
They seemed fine though, when they looked at me, but... They're just acting. I know it's there. I feel it.
Meanwhile, while my brain is going through all of this snot paranoia, my body and voice and lines are on auto pilot. Creepy. It's so fucking creepy when that happens. Whole pages of script can go by and I realize I've been thinking about snot the whole time.
Then, in this play, the crying starts which certainly doesn't aid in the snot situation at all.
These things, you just have to let go of these things. Especially in plays where you're on stage and visible for the entire 90 minutes. The other play I'm doing is like this as well. Real time. An hour and a half. Visible.
So, if you have an itch? You know, a special itch. You cannot think about this special itch. The special itch has to just go away away away from your brain because you cannot scratch it, but as soon as you acknowledge its existence, that is all you think about and... ACK!
Focus. Focusfocusfocus.
People could be having sex in the back row and you'd still have to say your lines and walk your blocking.
I remember once the lights went out on stage. This would have been fine if we had been "inside". We could have acknowledged it, "Huh, power must have gone out for a second there. Anyhow. As I was saying..." But no. We were outside on the back porch. The sun doesn't just go out without the screams of humanity. We just said our lines in the blackness and pretended nothing happened. I mean... What can you do?
Suck it up. Swallow your snot, that's what.
Sentences of the Weekend
3/2
"You're not just a guy, Troy, you're team leader.
3/3
"Yeah, I have offices in Russia, so they should be able to give me some information for you."
3/4
"Before that, we heard the Beverly Hills Cop theme re-done by the Crazy Frogs."
Labels: sentence
Sunday, March 04, 2007
A post from 16-year-old Plimco:
Do I as a citizen have the right to turn off the lights in the bathroom as I do my business? I'll ignore the shrieks from neighboring stalls and allow my tinkles to reverberate in the darkness. Peeing doesn't sound like a faucet. Velvety pink lips screaming the yellow poison. What a beautiful art.
Labels: When I was a little girl...
The twelve-year-old prince
My first professional role, my first real role that was not performed in front of a church was at the community college. That summer I had gone to Governor's School and taken the story telling classes. That month of study on a university campus, the summer before my senior year in high school concluded with me in a vintage white dress, delivering a story in first person to a room full of hundreds of my peers and their parents. I had written the story. At the conclusion of the story, I died. There, on stage. It was all very dramatic. I was barefoot. Pictures exist of this.
I promptly came home from Governor's School, showed up early to the first day of band camp, and told my fat, nicotine stained director that I was dropping out of band. He said I was making a huge mistake. I'd never felt more certain about anything in my life. I shook his hand and walked out of the band room in flip flops. They knew something was up the second they saw me in flip flops. You can't wear flip flops to band camp.
A week or so later, I read in the paper before ballet practice that the community college was holding auditions for their upcoming production of Shakespeare's King John.
I auditioned.
I got cast as the twelve-year-old prince.
My first major role and I had to cross dress.
I also had to fling myself to my death from a wall around the castle:
The wall is high, and yet will I leap
down:--
Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!
There's few or none do know me: if they did,
This ship-boy's semblance hat disguis'd me
quite.
I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.
If I get down , and do not break my limbs,
I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:
As good to die and go, as die and stay.
(Leaps down)
O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones:--
Heaven take my soul, and England keep my
bones!
(Dies)
A week before we opened, the actor playing Blanch, King John's niece who goes crazy and also kills herself, stopped showing up for rehearsals. She had to be replaced. Blanch and prince Arthur were only in one scene together and I didn't have any lines in that scene, so... It was decided that I play the role of Blanch as well.
We did the play in the round and I remember having to sing all sorts of songs as the prince and draw all over the stage with chalk, visions of murder and knives and beheadings. And then running and changing clothes into a dress real quick to come back on as the mad Blanch.
I ate it up. It felt like home. Shakespeare was my first love and...we just fit. It felt right to be there on that stage, running around, dying, going mad, dying again.
That community college cast me in their next show that season as well.
And I wrote. I wrote every day in my journal. I wrote every single day from my freshman year of high school to my freshman year of college. Since I'm playing a high school senior now, I found my journal from that year.
I was such a weird teenager.
Seriously. You guys? I was such a very strange girl.
I'm trying to decide how much of that journal I want to share with you. I just came upon this entry which brought back all of these memories. I never used names or specifics or "Today I went bowling with Sarah and Julie. It was fun." Nothing like that. It's all written in this very strange stream-of-consciousness prose that takes the essence of things and...puts it in a blender and... Then there's this very globby and amputated version of the memory of the day and sometimes I read it and I'm like...What the hell? What does that mean? Then I realize that it was my representation of the day we held a car wash at church. But it's written in such a way that... Well. It just seems so much more meaningful, so much more... Than that.
So, here is the entry that brought all of this on. It was after they had asked me to play Blanch with the stipulation, "If you can memorize the role. We open in a few days." To which I replied, "I can do it." My parents were out of town for some reason and I was spending the night at my best friend's house. Everyone went to bed. I stayed up in their darkened piano room with a flashlight and my script, shoving that part into my brain. Determined to do it:
Whispering and padding back and forth in a silent house belonging to a family that is not quite my own. Memorizing. Pacing. Crushed ice at 1:00 in the morning is demonic frozen screaming monsters.*
I return to this quilted warm house to snuggle in bed with a borrowed rhinoceros and a yellow haired bear caressed by a yellow haired girl. He coughs heat on our blankets. My pillow is soggy with her gift of flowers. I'll dream on the fragrant damp fluff, a vision.
I remember she'd do things like that, leave flowers on my pillow. Of course we had that friendship that I am only capable of having that involved the allotted amount of sexual tension, the frequent cuddle and occasional kiss. I'd spend the night with her and we'd spoon, each with our separate stuffed animals. That's beautiful. Teenagers are still very much children.
*They had a fridge with an ice button on the side that you could press your glass to. I guess I got thirsty and needed a drink in the night. Wincing.
Labels: character, theatre, When I was a little girl...
Friday, March 02, 2007
Anger
Why am I having such a hard time being angry? On stage. I just never show it in real life, never allow myself to show it. It's the way I was brought up. All guilt and repression, no vocal or physical displays of anger. Ever. I've spent my whole life acting like I wasn't angry, everything's fine. It just feels so foreign to yell at a parent.
That's what I do for the whole play. Fight with my mom.
I can only remember one time in my childhood when I yelled at her. My real mom. Once. And it was briefly. And I caved quickly.
My father and I would butt heads fairly frequently. Everyone said it was because we were so much alike. God, I resented that. I still do. Stubborn, we're both stubborn. But the way it would go would be him yelling at me and me sitting there, taking it, and staring at him. Oh, I perfected that stare, that look. Black eyed and blank. Thinking, just awful things. Silent. Drove him crazy. Sometimes it'd make him so mad, he'd scream, "Say something!" or "What do you have to say for yourself?!" Then, just to watch his face turn that much more red, I'd say very simply, very honestly, calmly, "What would you like me to say, Dad?" Then he'd usually have to either leave the room or ask me to.
Heh heh.
So, that's super controlled/repressed/censored/filtered into something else anger. I know that kind. I've got it down pat, but that's not the kind of anger I need in this show.
I need out-of-control, fiery, intentional, pointed, mean anger. Rar!
It's because I'm such a pacifist, I avoid conflict at all costs. I can't stand it. I'll do just about anything to avoid it. This includes sacrificing...just so much of myself sometimes, to hold my tongue, allow someone their point, their position.
It's probably not the most emotionally healthy way to live, but it's all I got.
I remember sitting on the school bus on the way home with all those hicks who gave us lice because they caught it from their chickens. I remember them hitting me on the head with their books, pinching me, calling me "fatty". I sat there. And I sang. I sang that song from The Lion King, "Can you feel...the love tonight? The peace the evening brings." I rose above it. I remember being chased out of my senior prom by preps throwing rocks at me, the sting of them on my bare back, my dress getting dirty. I didn't fight back. I rose above it. I went to my pick up truck and smoked a cigar.
So now, when I have to fight back and do it legitimately, I have no frame of reference, nothing to base it on. I've repressed anger so much, I'm not even quite sure what it feels like. If I pretend to be angry, it just... Feels like I'm pretending. You know?
This play's going to really suck though, if I can't figure out how to do it. And quick.
Rar.
Labels: anger, theatre, When I was a little girl...
Sentence of the Day 3/1
"I bet George Washington Carver could help you with your plants."
Labels: sentence
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Moon Face Plimco
We had a photo shoot for the other play I'm doing. Yes. I'm doing two. Keep up.
Looking at all the pictures and deciding which ones we're going to use for publicity, it became very clear to me.
I have a moon face.
A big ole white pale moon face.
I'm moony. It's kind of embarrassing, it's so moony.
Ah well. As far as celestial bodies go, the moon isn't so bad. I mean, I guess I could have a Jupiter face. That would suck.
Labels: moon
Sentence of the Day 2/28
"And getting to perform on stage with you? Icing, baby."
Labels: sentence