if you saw the journal-register article about the show today, and you saw the inside photo of all the women dancing, i’m the one in the red and black dress and the long blonde curls.
so…WHEW. things went surprisingly well tonight.
i realized when it was over that mostly, most of the women spend most of our time during the play putting on/taking off costumes, plus putting on wigs and doing our hair. i’m already obsessed with curling and re-curling my bangs, which immediately get limp when i step outside. by the end of the run, i’ll probably have fried it all off.
so many things i want to say now, but it’s almost one a.m….
on the way home, erica was explaining her theory on how the characters on Sesame Street are a lot like those in “paradise lost.” i had to read paradise lost, more than once i think, a very long time ago, so of course i’m a little hazy on it, but she explained how satan is like the cookie monster, because both use the same kind of syntax…satan always says stuff like “me hungry.” maybe he doesn’t actually say that, but he starts things incorrectly with “me” which is an indirect…something…i was also impressed with the way she rattled off the parts of speech. indirect pronoun? yeah, maybe that’s it. i’m impressed by her knowledge, and at the same time i want to go get a textbook to remember what all the parts of speech are.
anyway, she went on to say that miss piggy is like eve, because they’re always talking about eve’s hair in paradise lost, as does miss piggy. and adam, even though he’s supposed to be the hero, has no backbone, like kermit.
“And they’re both green,” i said, just to show that i’m not completely without any knowledge of anything. almost, but not completely.
she then explained how bert and ernie could be compared to sin and death, who God put in charge of guarding the gates of hell (they didn’t do a good job of this, apparently). i said, “how are bert and ernie like sin and death, exactly?” and she said they’re not EXACTLY like sin and death, but satan tempts sin and death, and she clearly remembers one Sesame street episode where the cookie monster tempts bert and ernie to do something.
and she talks about this in classes she teaches at lincoln land (the community college here in spfld). I know she must be a really fun and interesting teacher. maybe she’ll let me come and sit in on a class one day. perhaps i could say i’m her sister…
i just like the fact that she sits around thinking about stuff like comparing sesame street to paradise lost. she talked a lot about the collective unconscious, and how all stories through time are basically the same, which of course is true (especially all movies are the same, i believe). but also she makes me think that i should sit around and think of things like that, instead of obsessing about stupid things, which seems to be how i spend much too much of my time.
tomorrow night is our opening! and then we’re having a cast party! which i’m looking forward to a lot. yet ANOTHER reason i should be asleep right now instead of staying up writing. erica isn’t sure she wants to go to the party, but bev and are pretty much insisting that she goes. i used to hate going to parties – i never, ever talked to people. i mean, never. ever. one time i went to a party with my then-boyfriend and his brother. my boyfriend’s brother didn’t talk to anybody ever, either, so we sat and talked to each other for a while, and then we left.
i don’t know exactly when the change took place, when i finally started having a better time. i mean, sometimes i have moments of panic and don’t feel i could possibly have anything to say to anybody, but mostly, things are much better. actually, if i think about it (and i try to avoid thiking about it), there were lots and lots of times earlier in my life when i went to parties and was utterly miserable. i could start recounting some of the more hideous ones right now as a matter of fact, but then i’ll be all bummed out and that’s no way to be THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BIG OPENING!
tonight when i was standing backstage – well, backstair, there really isn’t any backstage to speak of – i thought about how fun it is to be in plays, and how i’d like to do it more and more. this is how i get when i’m in a play, it makes me want to do more of them.
gee, maybe i could list that as a “hobby” when i have to write down what my hobbies are. i always hate that question; it makes me panic (i don’t really panic as much as you might think) and i can’t think of any hobbies at all.
i bought TWO new pairs of glasses today, and i was going to put a picture up here of one of them, because they’re so cool, but of course it feels like i did all that about a million years ago and i didn’t take the picture and maybe i’ll do it over the weekend, when i’m not sleeping and resting up and lounging around. and maybe riding my new bike which i also want to take a picture of and put it up here because it’s so lovely.
please, PLEASE go to sleep now.
ok, just this one more thing – last night, erica, bev and i marched down the hill to the dressing room at new salem singing “i was born under a wand’rin’ star…” and it was quite fun. it’s the perfect song for marching down a hill, especially someplace all rustic like that, and i think bev said we should do that all the time. i think more people should burst into song at odd times of the day; it’s quite uplifting.
if only life was a musical…
goodnight. grace smith.