Today I found out that we will be hiring NOBODY for the open position, because the office was told to go back to the drawing board and start all over again. What the fucking fuck.

In other news, I got heavy mail to deal with this week and kinda had a breakdown over email to a work buddy of mine in an adjacent office who loves me and does not want me to quit, saying that I need to drop out of my favorite specialty because I cannot do 1100 corrections of incorrect stuff because someone fucked up AND do all of my job that I do all alone as well. Gah. Was very tired today.

Today’s synchronicity: walking down the street, I saw a bunch of candy hearts scattered on the sidewalk. I love it, mind you, but that brings up another mystery: Where the fuck are those coming from? It’s fall, not Valentine’s Day. Who has chalky candy hearts around now?

Mysteries, mysteries.

Rehearsal for this show is still weird to me. More kids than adults at this (14 of ‘em). I find it hilarious that we are supposed to have a multicultural, international New Yorker kid cast, which is spelled out in the script, and we have all white kids. Most of whom are blonde. This is a small town we’re doing this in, with presumably mostly white folks. Even the adult casts are fairly low on the folks of color, really. You get who you get with auditions, I guess. I dunno what else to say there.

One kid wasn’t at rehearsal because, I shit you not, “a bee flew into his mouth. The bee is now out of his mouth but it left a little present.” So he was off in the emergency room. When another kid (the one playing Clara) was late for whatever reason, the kid who told her this got told to play the part instead.

We have it divided into three sections, we did the first third tonight.

When they start the journey down memory lane, Clara says, “Is this going to take long?” I busted up laughing.

I have one line, which I say twice. I did get to read my own line today, as well as doing a radio voice. I subbed as Miss Glace, but I only had one line in what I’m going to call “section one” that we rehearsed twice today. “Tres, tres bon!” I stood around pretending to do nothing in rehearsal. Yup, this is pointless. I wanted to volunteer to do the one line that a random teacher does (in the script, Old Shirley just says it) so I’d have something bloody else to do, but not my business to say that, I think.

I feel that Isadora will be told to be louder like I was in the last show. Her little sister is adorably hammy when subbing in as other absent kids. She especially enjoyed the nose picking and playing King James.

Quotes:

When the lights started randomly flickering:
“It’s a ghost!”
“Oookay....” -Trent and Anita

“What a sweet dad I am.” -Trent

Anita to another kid: “I want you to talk more than kinda loud.”

One kid plays the Statue of Liberty and in the script is wheeled out. Trent suggested that “we can wheel her in on a dolly like Hannibal Lecter.” I was thinking, damn, you mentioned Hannibal Lecter in front of children?!?! (I don’t think any of them noticed or got it.) Anita’s response was, “That’s a nice image.”

When Young Shirley is playing the Thanksgiving turkey: “We’re going to add in some gobbles. It gives you six, we’re giving you nine.” -Anita.

Trent was the only adult male around to play both his character and Mr. Hilton: “You get to be schizophrenic.” -Anita

The girl playing Mrs. Abramowitz was there tonight, Alexis. She is youngish. She also did a very, very deadpan “Never” when her husband was swooning over how well their kid played a turkey.

I guess the good thing about a short play with a bunch of kids is that rehearsal gets out before 9. I still kinda felt like I suddenly wanted to take up a pot habit, but instead I jetted to karaoke and Formerly Redhead, Now She’s Good With This Shade Of Blonde After Three Dyeings Now Sarah. Before everyone but Sarah came in, I attempted “Little Girls” from Annie, because it fits with this rehearsal situation. However, the karaoke recording of it was bad, too fast, and generally weird. Bummer, I always enjoyed acting out the Carol Burnett version (nobody else lives up to that, I love how she’s totally bombed all day) and I really couldn’t do that to this thing. Even Matthew was all “need to find you a better one.” I did “Careless Whisper” later and that went better, at least.

Robert and Janene came in later, eventually followed by Scott. Everyone else but Scott and I eventually left early (by which I mean before closing), ahem. We’ll get back to that.

Memorable moments:

Badger was having Quite A Night:

* Meghan Trainor Chick is now hanging out with Badger and his other friend. They were dancing around cutely in the back.
* Badger had some other female friend(?) in the bar and while she was singing, he went outside and danced around behind her in the window. I desperately wanted to take a picture of this, but thought it might be rude since I don’t even know the chick and she might find it weird. I told my friends, “If anyone does this to me, let me know and I’ll do something.” I was thinking of licking the glass and making obscene gestures with my hands, per Ferris Bueller.
* Badger and his guy friend also sang Barbie Girl, which was priceless. I’ve considered doing it but thought it might come off Too Much, but now I’ve seen this. I ran out for a bit to dance around behind them in the back (I don’t think they noticed). During this whole thing, Scott was wandering around doing...whatever outside (pacing? rehearsing? brooding? who knows, something, he does this frequently) and wasn’t ever in watching it, but at some point he walked by the window and and started jumping behind them. “I fucking love you guys,” Matthew said afterwards.
* Badger also started acting silly behind Matthew towards the end, which turned into an amusing dance duet of sorts.

Ashley was singing and Matthew somehow blew smoke behind her (machine?), which was amusing. She actually sang Miley Cyrus’s “See You Again” song, which is on my playlist on the iPod. Didn’t know anyone else knew that one. I’m not a fan of Miley (especially with the “she’s just being Miley” cutesy bits in the song) but relate to the rest of the lyrics of it, so...yeah.

Matthew announced to us all that what I vaguely thought was a dirt smudge turned out to be a DEAD BUG ON HIS FACE from motorcycling and could someone please let him know if he has a dead bug on his face next time?

Jim did “Dreamweaver” again, still excellent.

The folks in the play came in all dressed up, presumably they are doing dress rehearsal at this point. I told them when asked that I was going on this Friday and they seemed taken aback. Like, “THIS Friday?!” I was all, is that a problem? I gather they still are working out bugs, like certain cast members (hi, Cody!) who can act well but are forgetting their lines still. Robert had some kind of moment of improv when someone blanked, I guess. Scott is also getting some kind of beard dye to attempt to look like he’s in his 50’s (which his character is supposed to be!), so this should be interesting to see how that works.

We also discussed how they aren’t at CIC rehearsals this week but will be next week. I said what went on and who was cast (if I know their names, which uh, not all of ‘em). Robert is actually in it and playing Santa Claus, which Sarah liked.

As for Scott: When he finally got in, somehow we had some kind of brief clasped hand moment happen. I was all, what just happened? In front of people, no less. That said, he was stuck sitting far away from me since he came in late.

For his first song, he did “The Power of Love,” which I did last week. He kind of did this facial thing...apology? for doing it or something at me, to which I facial expressioned right back, “Oh no, go right ahead!” Of course he’s excellent at everything he does and I knew he’d do this one better than I did (it’s more suited to him than me anyway, which is why I had reservations about doing it in front of him...but did anyway since it was “do what you normally wouldn’t do at karaoke” night). He’s got the power thing going on. Love it.

In between rotations, at some point I looked over at his direction when he was talking to Badger and saw his phone. The page he was reading had a very large headline and I’m a speed reader and I saw....well, let’s just say I whipped out my phone and took a picture* because I was absolutely flabbergasted at what I saw and was all, am I right? Is THAT what it said? When I went home I looked at the photo and while I could see the general screen images, the text somehow was whited out. I did a lot of Google searches on what I thought the words I saw were (I didn’t get it exact from memory as it turned out), but eventually figured out via the general style of the words and definite picture matching that it was this one.

* I don’t think he saw this or that I spotted it. If by some chance he reads this before I ever mention it to him IRL....uh, hi? ;)

The headline: 105 Songs About Crushes and Crushing on Someone.

Seriously, he was reading this at karaoke, y’all. While I was there. I should get a fucking acting award for having enough restraint to not jumping up and down and screaming with joy at that moment. Though after I read the list when I got home, I thought, “I don’t think he’d be into ANY of these songs.” Which I suppose explains his strategy instead: doing songs he knows I like, because his second/last song of the evening was “Waiting On The World To Change.” Good strategy, sir.

Once upon a time, I have looked at many websites of that ilk myself in the privacy of my own home. Once upon a time, I would stealthily be singing certain songs I might have found on these lists back in the day at karaoke, knowing he wasn’t likely to clue in that it meant anything to me personally. These days, well... mostly I just sing random stuff, though last week I did a lot more lovey stuff than usual.

Anyway, squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

There were also some group numbers. Stephanie was back in the bar tonight (yay!) and had us both come up to do “Shut Up And Dance” again (this always gives me joy), and at the end of the night she had everyone left get up to do “Play That Funky Music White Boy.”

Since we were left alone by ourselves after everything ended, he walked me to my car and we chatted outside it for about 45 minutes. Haven’t done that since July. It is a wee bit chillier to be doing that outside now. Mostly we talked about CIC rehearsal and movies. Cameron is also assistant director because Anita works on emergency things in her job and she might have to disappear if something awful happens. He wants the script book but can’t get it till next week (I thought about offering to pick it up for him but dunno how I’d drop it off before Monday anyway) but needs to be focusing on the current play anyway. And how there aren’t really any scenes and it seems like one giant scene in which folks mosey from set to set, and how is that going to get built. I warned him that yeah, he’s going to have to shepherd all these little kids, which he was not so thrilled about, and we both said we don’t usually spend tons of time with small children.

Oh, and he said, “I’m going to have to kiss Cameron again.” To which I was all, “yup, it’s very Love Actually,” which turned into discussion about how he was not too into that movie and only ever saw it once. I said it’s a mixed bag (I like it, but seriously, it’s got the good and bad) and we’re generally agreed on what was good and bad, ish. Like he said the Alan Rickman/Emma Thompson/Rowan Atkinson bits were well written and I said yeah, but I can’t stand how Mia acts, also really, is anyone going to nail Colin for that accent, etc. Which went into watching movies in college and how Twilight is ridiculous, etc. Somehow this got into him wanting to watch a movie on his one weekend night off from doing the play at Alamo Drafthouse, which was confusing me because while I’ve heard of the place, I thought it was like, a theater in Texas or something. Upon checking the Internet later, no, it’s a chain, but the nearest one is in SF and the movie he wanted to see is already sold out. Bummer.

So....that happened....

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