i just looked at the last entry, and it was monday night and i thought, “oh, monday night, so long ago…” However, as i’m sure you’re aware, monday night was just LAST NIGHT.
i should be sleeping right now. it’s almost one. but the finale kept going through my head, it’s “wand’rin’ star.” and the thing is, we just found out that we have to sing this for the finale, so the women have to learn the words. that is, we were supposed to have ALREADY learned the words.
so over in my head it’s been, “i was born…under a wanderin’ star…” but then i don’t remember the rest of the words.
we’re going to all get into VERY VERY BIG TROUBLE if we don’t know the words. and some of us women don’t. but here’s a trick i told a couple of them: you just open your mouth really wide and look very enthusiatic as you pretend to sing. it totally works. as long as you smile and open your mouth wide, nobody will know. eddie izzard, my favorite comic who is a genius and i hope you know who he is and if you don’t you need to find out, does a very funny thing about this very thing, about how you can sing the national anthem but not know the words, as long as you look enthusiastic.
but i want to learn the lines anyway. so here there are, the tricky ones – “When i learned to talk the word they taught me was ’good bye;’ that and ’where’s my hat’ are all i’ll need until i die. achin’ for to stop and always achin’ for to go; searchin’ but for what i never will know…”
that’s the trickiest part. but maybe because i typed it out, i’ll know it.
you’ll have to come to the show so you can try to see if i’m really singing, or just mouthing the words. i bet you won’t be able to tell.
ok, here’s my tragedy for the day – i lost my glasses. i hope they’re in erica’s car, but i suddenly decided that they’re probably not there, because i didn’t dump my purse out in her car.
however, as we were walking to the car after rehearsal, i groped around in my purse for a flashlight, and i know my glasses case was right on top. and so it could have easily fallen on the ground…and we were walking on the roadway.
so now i’m certain that i’ll get up in the morning to the sad message from erica that my glasses aren’t in her car. and then, even sadder, i’ll get to new salem, and there will be my glasses case, flat as a pancake, having been run over countless times by tomorrow night.
i’m lost without my glasses. right now i’m wearing an old (and very ugly) pair, and they’re too strong and they’re already giving me a headache.
so now i’ll have to get a new pair (i’ve already given up hope of ever seeing the other ones again), and it will cost a million dollars and it’ll take a long time to get them and in the meantime i’ll have a headache all the time or i’ll try to wear my contacts but they will be painful because they usually are.
ok, trying to think of SOMETHING good tonight…
actually, i was lying in bed thinking about how a person sleeps. i always sleep on the left side of the bed. since i sleep all by myself in this big bed, why don’t i just sleep smack dab in the middle? wouldn’t that be more comfortable, in the middle, all that room, no danger of accidentally rolling over and falling right out of bed (i’ve never done this, which is quite a feat for me)?
in my life there have been various other people (only one at a time) sharing a bed with me, and i think i’ve always slept on the left side. but there have been long stretches when i’ve slept by myself, and surely, surely, i must have slept in the middle some of that time, instead of crowding over on the left side.
and then i started thinking about all the other people who sleep alone – do more people sleep in the middle, or on one side? or do they mix it up? and if you sleep in the middle, does that mean you’re happy about your freedom and space and not having to share a bed with somebody who may or may not snore and keep you awake? or does it mean that you’re resigned to sleeping alone?
and if you sleep on one side or the other, does that mean you’ve just been conditioned to do that, or does it mean that you hope to share a bed with somebody again someday, and so you want to keep in practice? and if you’re doing that, is that a pathetic thing, or a hopeful thing?
and THEN i started thinking about my mood earlier in the day, which was not particularly good. right now i’m feeling kind of OK about life, but earlier, i was in a much different place. i wonder at how i’m able to look at my life right now, the very same identical life i had earlier in the day, and how now things seem entirely different to me.
so really, what everything seems to come down to is perspective. i mean, tonight when i got in erica’s car to go to rehearsal, i’m sure i sounded like a mental patient, so woeful and full of woe and woe-ness was i. but when we drove home, the wind blowing our very ratty-looking hair because it was up in big wigs all night, i was darn happy.
it’s surely because we got to sing and dance “hand me down that can o’ beans.”
ok, this is why i should be asleep, too much thinking about things.
that, plus the fact that i have to GET UP in the morning, YET AGAIN, and i’m going to be tired. perhaps i’ll have time for a nap.
hey, we did get through the entire show tonight, which was quite a big deal. it was kind of touch and go there for a while, but we made it, just barely. i had been thinking that maybe we’d have to end the show at intermission, or somewhere randomly in the second act, because it was going to run too long. they’re VERY VERY VERY STRICT at new salem about how late a show can run. VERY VERY STRICT. which is good so we can get home at a “decent” hour, but not so good for the running of the show. which had better KEEP MOVING, or we won’t finish in time and then you’ll never see how it ends up…and, more importantly, you won’t get to witness my singing in the finale, to see if i’m really singing or not…
ok, i’m attempting sleep yet again. boy, i’m going to be surly and tired in the morning.
but i know i don’t HAVE to be surly and tired. well, not surly, anyway. i could, instead, choose to be happy to be alive, or something like that.
that’s easy to say now, but morning grace will probably have none of it.
ok then,
grace in need of maybe a nice glass of wine to make me sleep soon.