it’s all over

Friday morning I was completely asleep at ten twenty when there was a loud knocking on my door.  Oh, shit.  The cable guy.  If I don’t get it now and he leaves, I’m screwed.

I bolted out of bed and ran across the apartment.  “I’m coming!  Hold on!”  I shouted at the door.  I ran back all the way to my bedroom again where I threw on some pants and a bra.  I bolted again to the front of the house and opened the door.

And then this wave of pain and nausea just ran right over me.  A migraine pinched me in the eye and my stomach dropped into my knees.  I had been hit with a hangover.

“Rough night?” asked the cable guy.

“Just do the cable.”

And now we have digital cable.  DIGITAL CABLE!  We have 274 channels!  There is always something on!  It’s amazing!  There are FIVE HBO’S AND THREE CINEMAXES!  That’s amazing!

I couldn’t really enjoy it, however, due to the massive headache and the stress I was under about the show that weekend.

The show is over.

I don’t have to do that show ever again if I don’t want to.  I didn’t write on Friday because I was busy scouring my house getting ready for my mother’s arrival.  I was also planning out how to change my show if my mother was uncomfortable with any of the dialogue.  I had three different plans and I was going to let her choose which one she wanted.  When my mom showed up I followed her into the other room and said, “Okay… which one do you like best?  I could say…”

“Just say the line,” she said.
“No, not if you’re going to be uncomfortable,” I said.

“Do they laugh?  Is it funny?”

“Yeah.”

“Then just do it.  It’s already written.  I want to see how you do it.”

I got to the show.  Matt was outside.  “Are you going to say the line?”

“Mom told me to say it.”

“Your mom is the coolest.”

Chuy came over.  “Are you going to say the line?”

“Mom said yes.”

“Oh, that’s so cool.  You’re mom is so cool.”

My mother got high accolades at the show.  Afterwards she spent time talking to my friends telling them how smart I am that I’m able to make up all of these stories and make them sound real.

The show went really well on Friday.  I was really nervous, since my mommy was out there, but the show went well and I was happy with it.  I’ve never done a show before where so many people wanted to hug me afterwards.  This is happening after every show.  People just come up and give me unsolicited hugs.  This does not happen when you are doing Neil Simon.

However I remember seeing Lynn Redgrave do “Shakespeare For My Father” at the Alley Theatre, and the entire time I just wanted to go up and hug her.

Saturday afternoon Eric, Mom and I went to Katz’ Deli to have lunch where we found out about JFK Jr.’s missing plane.  It was strangely quiet in the restaurant.

Eric had an audition to go to right after that so mom and I went out and went girlie shopping.  She bought me some new towels as a belated birthday present.  I love my new towels.  They are green and blue and big and soft and make me feel happy.  I’m wearing one now.  I didn’t even feel like putting on clothes after taking the shower.  That’s how much I love the new towels.

Mom and I came back and watched the Game Show Network for a little while until she insisted that she had to leave so she’d beat both the dark and the big rainstorm that was coming in.  I hugged her goodbye in the rain and watched her drive away.  Then I went into my apartment and cried for a little while.

I miss my mommy.

Eric came home soon after and we played cards and then went to see a friend’s play.  Then it was time to do the show for the last time.  This time they were taping it.  This time we were supposed to have a pretty good house.  This time I didn’t want it to be like last Saturday, where it was strangely quiet and I barreled through my show in just over thirty minutes.

I think there were other journallers there.  I met one before the show.  I think she likes to keep her life kind of private, so until I hear otherwise, I won’t point her out.  I thought she was very nice and funny, though, and somehow when I saw her sitting by herself I knew who she was before I ever got her name.  I was also rather embarrassed when I met her because I didn’t see her sitting there right away, and I don’t know if she saw me on the stage just a second before when Eric and I were setting up the lights and sound and I was goofing around and flashed him my sports bra.

I’m great at making a first impression, you know.

Matt’s show goes first, and it opens with a quick little scene where it looks like I’ve started and then he comes and interrupts me and asks that he can go first.  Because I didn’t want to do any of my show, I did something completely different for the fake start of the show.  I put three candles on the Hyde Park Theatre stage and I act ultra-serious in lighting them, with animal moves and such.  This is a little dig at Hyde Park Theatre (where I will be a Skinhead Girl in two months), because they often do shows with candles and serious animal moving.  In any event, sometimes the audience laughs (usually if they know who I am) and sometimes they are really quiet.  Like, “Oh, here comes the serious theatre.”

Last night you only heard one laugh, and it was coming from one of my friends.

I was worried when that was happening.  I thought maybe it was going to be another one of those Saturday nights but this time it was going to be taped for everyone.

It’s a strange thing performing in front of a mix of friends and strangers.  Before the show when I was backstage I was listening for familiar voices in the crowd.  I listened to Andy tell some story about a chicken.  I heard someone else talk about filmmaking.

The show was good.  Eric said it was the best I’d ever done.  I had a lot of fun last night doing the show.  One time I heard Eric laughing all the way up in the light booth.  That was a good feeling.  The show was over before I knew it, and everything was done.  There were no more shows.  I hugged a few people and we went to another cast party for a few minutes.  Then we went home.  Chuy and I played with all of the Digital Cable channels while the others played poker.

I slept until this afternoon.

I’m really glad that I did the show.  I got some great feedback, and I’m looking forward to the re-write process where I decide what was funny and what only I thought was funny.  It’s hard to know because different audiences laugh at different things.  Sometimes my delivery is off.  Sometimes I forget to set it up just right.  So when do you know when to cut?  That’s what we’re going to look at.

Hopefully, I’ll be doing the show again in October for the Aspen auditions.  Maybe if you missed the show, you can check it out then.

I’m going to go get some lunch and read Hannibal all afternoon.  I’m so excited about an afternoon off.