Musings of a (would be) Drama Queen

Note: Sorry for the length on this one, but sometimes when it rains, it really pours.

I don’t know why I thought of it today. I woke up and it was just there in my head. I suppose it crosses my mind more than I would readily admit, but some of the details are lost to time. When I was a senior in high school, I got caught up in the Speech and Debate club for a brief time. Before you go thinking that I walked around hauling a briefcase with debate topics and resources, let me be clear. My original event was Prose and Poetry. The idea of debating anything was way far off in my evolutionary cycle. I just didn’t have the stomach for cold, factual debating.

So I chose something that required creativity and expression. Plus, this event was listed as a reading interpretation, so I was actually required to have it printed out in front of me. It was like a crutch in the beginning to help keep any stage fright at bay. It almost felt like cheating to have my script in my hands. Of course, I quickly had it memorized and then it was more of an effort to appear as if I was reading it at all. Apparently I was well suited for it because from my very first event I placed first in my category. I continued this streak for my first 4 events. In the fifth event, I placed second and then shortly after I quit and moved on to Drill Team.

It sounds as if I was driven by the winning rather than the experience and maybe part of that is true. Winning is fun and quitting after placing second was an easy excuse. However, the timing was also such that I faced a choice I wasn’t ready to pursue, so I didn’t. That’s what this story is about. The turning point.

When I won my very first competition, it was really incredible to me that reading a simple children’s story and clever poem could possibly outshine some of the more dramatic subject matter that I competed with those months. My only real memory of the competition was a girl who read something about the Holocaust. It was mesmerizing as far as I was concerned, yet she still managed to always rank just behind me.

Before becoming involved with this club, I was also taking a public speaking class in high school. As I recall it wasn’t a mandatory class, but I think perhaps I may have been railroaded into it by my very extroverted father who though it would do me some good. Like many such events that would come to pass, he would once again be proven right eventually. Also “helping” me from both an academic and perhaps Pygmalion-type perspective was the teacher himself. It often felt as though Mr. Campbell had taken a special interest in my (apparent) public speaking abilities and pushed hard to have me join the Speech and Debate team on which he served as advisor.

Frankly, the guy was a little creepy. I will swear to this day that the man was flirting with me. If I think about the dynamic between older men and young teenage girls, there is really no surprising new information to report here. Plus, if nothing else, growing up with a single father and some of his friends gave me an awareness of this dynamic at an early age. Apparently I come from a long line of basically harmless flirts. It’s practically a genetic characteristic like eye color. So whether it was genetic coding or the questionable ethics of a high school educator, Mr. Campbell and I established an easy rapport. Perhaps this was how he finally got me to join the club.

Immediately, he wanted me to select a category that would allow me to compete at a national level. Ugh. Even thinking about it now makes me want to throw up with jitters. I may be willing to bend to a stronger will than mine, but I rarely break if it’s something I really don’t want to do. My line in the sand was Prose and Poetry. This category was only recognized to the State level. I didn’t see a problem with the choice because I never dreamed I would be successful at it. It felt like a safe compromise. I thought I could go to a couple of competitions, hope I at least placed, add it to my college applications and be done with it. But I won. And then I kept winning.

As I mentioned before, winning was fun. I think it pleased both my father and Mr. Campbell to see me succeed in an area that I didn’t believe I could. However, there is always some sort of payment required for success. Mr. Campbell increased his campaign to get me to switch topics so I could continue to complete well past the state finals which were still several months away. It would have been one thing to just have him as the club advisor, but I was also taking one of his classes. Escape was impossible. In fact, one of our speech assignments in class was to do an interpretive monologue, either humorous or dramatic. Coincidentally, he was trying to get me to switch my event from Prose and Poetry to Humorous Interpretation. Hmm….

So going with the “bend, but not break” theme, I chose to perform a dramatic interpretation rather than humorous. Call it passive- aggressive, but just saying “no” wasn’t part of me at the time, and certainly not to a teacher. Plus, (and this is critical to the story) humor seemed too easy for me. Maybe it’s because I think my whole family is funny and humorous storytelling is similar to breathing. That alone led to me feeling that I was often type cast into humorous roles in just about every play or musical I performed. It felt like no one wanted to take a chance on placing me in a more dramatic role. Humor was more of a sure thing. I can understand the motivation, but I was never happy with it.

So, since I had made my choice to go for drama, I went for it in a big way. The piece I chose was from the alleged autobiography of an actress named Francis Farmer. The piece touched on her destructive relationship with her mother and her brutal treatment in mental hospitals. As far as drama went, this was it. I remember performing this in class. Actually, I mostly remember the end of the performance. This was where I had to go into some level of detail of the apparent rape and torture of staying in a mental hospital. As I performed this I realized that I was about to lose it in a big way and start crying. I think that fact alone brought me “out of character” and let me hold on enough that no tears ever fell.

Once I was finished, I remember 3 things very clearly. The first was the silence. Did people not realize I was finished? Was I really that awful and no one was paying attention? Did I pick the wrong topic? I had a brief feeling of panic. The second thing I recall is seeing a friend of mine in class wiping her eyes. That was surprising to me and in a moment of clarity I realized that the delay in reaction was likely a good sign. Sure enough, only a few seconds (that felt like years) passed and I received the customary polite applause. It was funny, but as I went back to my seat I realized that no one was really willing to look at me. Then again, it was high school and I almost bawled like a wounded animal in front of these people, so having them look at me wasn’t high on my list either. Still, their reaction, while interesting, was not the reaction I was looking for in the end. The only comment I can recall from Mr. Campbell on my assignment, aside from telling me I HAD TO perform this as my next event, was a simple piece of feedback: “Next time, let the tears fall.” I got an A.

I never performed it again. I performed my Prose and Poetry event for one last competition and placed second. I was clearly in a state of crisis. I quit the team and joined a bunch of my girlfriends on the drill team. I can think of any number of reasons why I did this, but pinpointing the true reason required some soul searching. Maybe I felt like I had already accomplished what I set out to do: getting recognition for carrying off a dramatic role. Maybe I was just being a fickle teenager and decided to squeeze in one more high school experience before I graduated. Maybe I was turned off by the feedback I received from Mr. Campbell. I think he was moved by what it could bring him in terms of glory rather than moved by my performance.

It was all of these things to some degree, but I think it was mostly how I felt when I performed it. I was lost in the character and it hurt to perform it. Given the subject matter, that would seem like an obvious reaction, but I didn’t think I could continue to perform it knowing this. Perhaps it also gave me a better appreciation for humor. Humor doesn’t hurt, it heals. Faced with the choice of comedy which didn’t feel challenging, and drama which would probably shred my soul to pieces, I made the choice to give up theater altogether. I miss it every day.

I looked up the Francis Farmer book on Amazon today. I wonder if I am ready to read it now.

Hurry Up and Wait

Well, it’s practically December. I find that I am torn between wanting it here faster and wanting to hold off a bit longer. Since I already know the outcome of that situation, I guess I should just deal with the inevitability. So, much like last December, I find a checklist is in order.

1. The Tree
   The tree has been done since just after Halloween. I think I have tinkered with the design long enough and am ready to call it done. I have already gone over the design with you all, so I’ll just leave it at that and show you the finished product.


2. The Trip
   You would think that my planning for this trip home would have been done months in advance. Truthfully, I haven’t felt my usual overwhelming need to plan out the details. I figure that once I know the route to take (and I can ask Dad for that), what’s left? I’ll drive until I’m tired and then sleep. Planning done! Sure it would nice to have some company, but considering all the togetherness I have coming for those 2 weeks, perhaps a little solitary time will be good.


3. The Holidays
   I believe I have the gift situation figured out. Now I just need to finish it all. I should be shipping stuff soon, but I don’t think it is going to be this first weekend as I had hoped. That pesky job of mine is getting in the way! Plus, I still haven’t dug up the motivation to once again go searching for my Christmas cards. Last year I caved and bought more and then literally had the missing ones fall at my feet a few days later. At least the shipping for my “out of towners” will be much more reasonable since I can take a bunch of stuff with me in the car. No Christmas Tetris this year at UPS.
   

Well I think those are the big items at the moment. I am going to have Honda look over my car one last time before I hit the road. I have a feeling a battery replacement is in order. I would much rather deal with it now than in Middle of Nowhere, USA. Ok, I think I am ready now. Bring on December!

PS. Happy Birthday, Brian!

Guys Weekend

Another weekend, another 72 hours with little sleep. This weekend was the “annual trip” for some friends of mine that have made the third weekend in November their “guys” weekend in Las Vegas. It’s a weekend of poker, football, comedy and lucky me, I get to be an honorary “guy” while they are here. It’s not so bad, really. I ditch them a lot to go do my own thing and they end up spending half the night in strip clubs.

So Friday night most of the group had tickets to go see Spamalot. I wasn’t really interested in seeing it, so I decided to skip it. One of the guys was flying in late on Friday, so I picked him up from the airport and took him to dinner at Firefly. Matt is someone I have known since high school. We only went out once and it was nice, but no spark. Actually, he was really interested in my sister. I don’t think there was much of a spark there either. Anyway, he’s married with 2 kids and I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, so we had plenty to catch up on during dinner.

We left and met up with the rest of the group for drinks at the MGM Grand. It was good to see everyone again. I believe the original concept of the weekend sprung from the OSU-Michigan game that also takes place on this particular weekend each year. Most of the group is made up of Buckeye fans, but there is one lone Michigan fan in the mix. Poor Mark. He gets pretty abused during these weekends, but he seems to take it all in stride. Anyway, the guys decided to head out for some decidedly male entertainment, and I decided to go home. Tomorrow was game day and unfortunately for those of us on the west coast, that meant a 9 am start time.

The next morning I headed back to strip to the ESPN zone. This was where we watched the game last year. It was so incredibly crowded last year that the guys had decided to get there early and stand in line so we could at least have a table and chairs this year. I think one thing that we forgot was that last year’s game was played later in the day. This year, the crowd was still a good one, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as last year since it was so early in the morning. And thank goodness we had chairs, because I think my boys had maybe an hour’s worth of sleep. It seemed wrong to be drinking that early in the day, but I had already had a cup of coffee on the way there, so I felt ok. I had one bloody mary and then after we ate I had a cocktail. Still, I wasn’t ready to start drinking for real and luckily neither were the boys.

Once the game ended (OSU won), we decided to go our separate ways again and meet up for dinner. I promptly went home and back to bed for a couple of hours. Saturday night was really where our plans went in different directions. The Comedy Festival was in town this weekend and the guys were going to try and get tickets to see Eddie Izzard. I was so upset when I learned he was going to be here and that I wouldn’t get to see him. I bought concert tickets months ago for Billy Joel who was performing the same night. I need to remember to check the list of comedians for next year before I buy any concert tickets for this weekend. Last year I saw Barbra Streisand, this year was Billy Joel. Honestly, how can I not take advantage of seeing the big names when they come here? Why do they keep picking this weekend to show up?

I ditched the guys for dinner since they decided to meet kind of late and I didn’t think I would make it to the concert on time. The concert was great. Billy was pretty funny. After the first song (which I didn’t recognize), he introduced himself as Billy’s dad and said Billy couldn’t make it. He was rubbing his bald head as he was saying this. It was cute. In reference to his shiny dome he said “Remember, it’s not about having less hair, it's about getting more head.” Nice.

He sang a lot of his more popular songs and he also threw in more obscure ones too. After a song called “Vienna” he said “What? You thought this was going to be a greatest hits show? If you want that, you should go see the Red Piano.” It was funny because that’s what Elton John’s show is called. Remember when the two of them toured together? I never saw the show, but I always thought that would have been a great one to see.

The show was great and he kept things interesting. Periodically, we would break into Elvis impressions. He was quite good, actually. There was also a strange part of the show where he introduced one of the guitar roadies and had him come up to sing. It was weird. This guy who he called “Chainsaw” came up on stage and sang “Highway to Hell” while Billy played guitar in the background. Again, it was a fine cover of the song, but how weird is it to be at a Billy Joel concert singing Highway to Hell? And, I must admit, I never knew Billy could play something other than the piano.

After the show I checked in with the guys and learned they had been able to get tickets to see Eddie Izzard, so I was on my own again. I went home and went to bed. On Sunday, I was glued to my couch watching Food Network all day. It’s been nothing but Thanksgiving specials for a couple of days now. I finally pried myself off the couch long enough to test my pumpkin bread recipe. It turned out fantastic if I do say so myself. I am spending Thanksgiving with friends this year, and I wanted to bring something to dinner. Looks like I found it. I love baking!

Some of guys left that day, so there were only a couple left. I decided to once again haul myself to the strip to meet them for dinner. They had been playing in a poker tournament all day and they actually didn’t finish until around 8 pm. They were at the Venetian, which you know I love, so I occupied myself while they finished playing. Turns out my friend Jeff won the tournament. And, since first place was $4k, he decided to treat us to dinner. Who was I to refuse? Especially since he wanted to go to N9NE steakhouse at the Palms. So off we went to dinner. It was amazing. Both the food and the bill.

After dinner, I dropped them back off at their hotel and made my way home again. I’m tired, but luckily it’s a short week. This weekend is yet another concert, but at least this one is free. I get to see The Fixx this weekend and I am so excited. I tried to see them here in August and the concert was cancelled. I’m glad they are coming back!

Fanilows

This past week and weekend were a whirlwind of activity. It seems that everyone likes to come to Vegas in the fall once the scorching summer temperatures have died down to a manageable 75 degrees. Before the fun of this weekend, I started off the week with a work trip to Idaho. Now in general, this is certainly no cause for excitement. However, it was a state I had never visited, so there was some mild excitement about being able to cross another state off my list.

It quickly ended once I got there. I was working all week in the small town of Pocatello. It is incredibly quaint and full of nice people. In other words, a little on the dull side. Plus, since this was a trip for work, I was also cooped up in a conference room each day. I won’t dwell on the details since I have more exciting things to talk about, but basically the week involved carpooling (not my favorite thing to do for business trips), the Holiday Inn (ugh. My inner road warrior snob did NOT approve), and 3 squares a day with the group. It reminded me of older times on the road when I worked with larger project teams. If you liked who you were traveling with, it could be a great trip and the start of a long and healthy friendship. If you didn’t, well…let’s just say you found reasons to eat in your room. Luckily, I liked everyone on this trip.

I came home Friday and had to shake off the week so I could concentrate on the weekend. This weekend I had some friends come to town. We had tickets to see Barry Manilow on Saturday. In addition to myself, I had my friends April (Baby), Jeff (Jefe), and Deanna (we’re going to need to get a name for you). The three of them grew up together and I know April and Jeff from college. I was meeting Deanna for the first time, and she is fabulous. I especially like her husband Tim, who took care of us by getting us into the Foundation Room at Mandalay Bay and arranged our limo ride to the show.

So Friday night, I managed to get myself together and met the group at THE hotel at Mandalay Bay. From there we had dinner reservations at a restaurant at Paris. I had never been there before and it was quite an experience. For some reason I had some sort of jinx on me that night and it seemed that no matter what I tried to order, the restaurant was mysteriously out of it. At first it was funny and then it was just annoying. We quickly decided that I was not allowed to order first and from then on everything seemed fine.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and went up to the Foundation Room. I have mentioned this place before since I was there back in August for a birthday party. This is a member’s only type of restaurant and lounge located at the top of Mandalay Bay. It’s nice and dark, and if you get there early enough, relatively quiet. Apparently Deanna’s husband had worked his magic and got our names on the list to get in and to have special service from one of the bartenders. It was really great and I was glad to get a chance to get back up there since the view of the Strip is one of the best.

Saturday was a spa day for the others and I spent the day just puttering around the apartment. I met up with the group again later in the evening for another trip back up to the Foundation Room for drinks before heading to the show. As I mentioned, Deanna’s husband had also arranged for us to take a limo to the show. Even though it was a short ride, it was a lot of fun. Before heading in to the show, we stopped at the Barry Manilow gift store and oohed and ahhed over all the great fan merchandise. Some of the really funny stuff was the Christmas ornaments that said “Barry Christmas” (he’s Jewish) and all the things that said “Fanilow.” Awesome!

The show itself was amazing. We were probably some of the youngest people there by about 30-40 years based on the crowd sitting around us. We also received glow sticks as we made our way to our seats. The theater at the Hilton is fairly small, so there were no really bad seats. It was great. At various points in the show I think I actually felt like I was going to start crying. It was weird. He sang most all the songs we really wanted to hear. In addition, Barry has apparently been putting out compilation albums on songs from the 50’s, 60’s and most recently, the 70’s. He sang a few songs from each album and it started to feel a bit like a TimeLife commercial with the way he introduced each album. The funniest bit was when he was talking about growing up in the 60’s and he was sitting on a small set decorated like an apartment complete with lava lamp, beaded curtains, and a joint. He started to smoke it and then conveniently forgot what he was talking about. It was hilarious.

He ended the show with Copa Cabana of course, and the crowd went crazy. I think we all decided that we wanted to see the show again. Since we couldn’t do that, we decided food would be a good idea. I wanted to take everyone to Firefly, but our cab driver told us he had just come from there and there was a long line to get in so we ended up at the Peppermill. Deanna and Jeff hadn’t been there before, so it was a real treat for me to see their reactions. The food was amazing as usual and way too much to eat. I though I would be okay just ordering a fruit plate and ended up with an entire platter of fruit.

After our feast, we headed back to the hotel in the worst smelling cab ride of my life and said our goodbyes. After I left I headed straight for yet another birthday party. One of my friends was having a party and I was pretty confident things would still be going strong. It was only midnight after all! I think I finally crawled into bed around 3am. Yesterday I spent the day on the couch and marveled at how old and tired I felt. I only have a few short days this week to get myself together before next weekend and the next group of people comes to town.

Garland Troubles

Ok, so I put my tree up this weekend and put the decorations on it. I wasn’t happy with the results. I was using the body of the dragon kite as garland. It looked like a string monster threw up on the tree. I was worried that it wouldn’t look right, and it didn’t. The string holds together discs that have faces painted on them. I was willing to give it a shot, but I think it screams that I am a member of the RAW Fan Nation. Not really what I was going for. I had to come up with an alternative.

One option was to go back to the boa idea. I like the fullness from a boa rather than traditional garland. I think it might look better as the dragon body. I am thinking green might look good. Or, if I can get lucky and find two colors like red and black or even red and (heaven forbid) orange. We’ll see what I can find. Maybe I can find some cheap ones now that Halloween is over.

The other option I was thinking about would require more work. I thought maybe if I could get some fans or something to look like dragon scales it might work. Now that I am thinking about it, I might be able to make that part myself. Maybe some good construction paper or something that I can do an accordion fold on and then overlap them. (It looks great in my head.)

Ugh. And you wonder why I start these projects so early! The dragon head looks good, but it is smaller than I would have liked. I can live with it, though.

Later that day....

So it turned out that I went back to one of the Halloween stores and was able to find some black and green boas. When I put those on the tree, it looked much better. I also rearranged all of the ornaments. I think I am happy with the placement, but I still continue to tinker with it over the next few weeks. I think I am most excited about not making any more ornaments. I’ll start taking some pictures to put out here.

Chinatown

Earlier this week I finally made it to Chinatown. I’d say the trip went pretty well. I was able to find a lot of ornaments for the tree. My favorites by far (aside from my dragon) are my little china girls. How cute are they?

I also found some other girls that were carved out of wood. The little stinker on the end kept giving me trouble when I was trying to pose her for the picture. I’m guessing it’s because she is in some weird pose where she seems to be balancing on one foot. She’d better watch it or she is going to get banished to the back of the tree….

Not to be totally out done by the ladies, I did find some fine looking china men too. Fine in the sense that they look “jolly” like little Chinese Santas. Or maybe they are my Christmas "wise men." I’m not sure what they are carrying. Looks like a bowl of some sort. In one of the stores I went in, the lady at the register was evaluating my purchases and telling me that I had made good ones in terms of money, luck, and a long life. Oh goody, it was like a talking fortune cookie.

And finally, in one of the last stores I went to, I was very excited (I think there may have been squealing involved) to find little baby dragons. Of course now my big ferocious dragon that will wrap around my tree is going to look like a mama and her babies. Hmmm, how I can twist that into some sort of Chinese nativity, I’m not sure yet. I might need a pagoda……Anyway, I have a small collection of other colorful and slightly weird ornaments to add to the collection. I am particularly fond of the baby riding the fish. And of course the teapot reminds me of my sister (thanks, I think I’ll be keeping this one sis.)

So today’s plan is to drag my tree out of storage and put it up. I have already prepared the living room and rearranged my furniture into it proper Christmas placement. As I tinker with the decorations and try to get that dragon wrapped around the tree, I’ll be sure to include pictures.