Conversation turned to who we used to be: beautiful young women. Now we are getting used to being invisible in public. Some of us are tired mothers with altered bodies and neglected wardrobes. We no longer attract attention of strange men on the street. Online dating sights are full of men our own age who are looking to date women between 18 and 25. We are sliding to invisibility in the public world, but we are constantly observed, scrutinized and admired by our children. One woman’s preschool son demands that she take her hair down and wear it long whenever she pulls it back into a ponytail. My daughter loves to watch TV with her head on my belly (soft like a pillow and completely devoid of sculpted abs). She also likes to pull on the loose skin at my elbows which I find disconcerting. Are we attracted to creating our own clown work because we no longer interest (nor do we care about interesting) directors who choose actresses based on youth, beauty and eagerness?
Month: October 2009
The Red Shoes Fairy Tale is True
While I was running errands yesterday I went into the Barnes & Noble on Court Street and came across an interesting book. It’s called The Dancing Plague, The Strange, True Story of an Extraordinary Illness, by John Waller. Full of footnotes, the book must have begun as an academic paper. It describes a woman in Germany in the 1500’s who one day began dancing in the street and couldn’t stop. She danced until her feet bled, just like in the fairy tale The Red Shoes. It was the start of an epidemic and hundreds of people danced beyond exhaustion and some did dance until they died. That fairy tale developed from a true story. Freaky.
We have a “red shoes” piece in Clown Axioms.
tick tick tock
Watching the clock… How much can I get done before I have to leave? I have two and a half hours before I have to leave for the theatre. My Kid has Robotics after school today and The Husband is planning to leave work early to pick her up, so I don’t have to leave in half an hour to pick her up. I have a whole two and a half hours in the apartment.
I should take a shower. I didn’t get one this morning in the rush to get My Kid to school. I definitely should not go into a 5 hour rehearsal without having showered today.
I just got back from Trader Joe’s. I didn’t think I had gotten that much but when I got outside I realized it would be hard to carry the 3 bags all the way from Court and Atlantic to the subway at Jay Street. So, I called a car service. I hadn’t planned to call a car. If I had I would have bought more groceries. Well, I bought frozen enchiladas, the kind My Kid likes, they can have that for dinner tonight while I’m at rehearsal. I also got apples, clementines, carrots and mini yoghurts for her lunch. But, I forgot the maple syrup for her toaster waffles and the fruit bars she said she likes in her lunch. Me, I’ve been living on Odwalla Super Protein and bananas and coffee for quite some time. I’m too busy running around to eat. Unless I can sit down with The Husband I’m just not interested.
Enough of this blogging. I need to get the front room organized enough so The Husband and My Kid can make dinner and do homework (IT’S ALL ABOUT THEM) and I need get together some makeup to put on. Kendall said there would be a photographer at rehearsal tonight. I need to draw on some eyes and lips so I won’t be featureless under the stage lights (IT’S ALL ABOUT ME).
IT’S ALL ABOUT TIME.
SYTYCD
Watching So You Think You Can Dance and thinking about the clown show.
“That was not good.” “You didn’t bring it in personality.” “Prove to the judges that you’re good enough.” “That was not strong enough”. “We would like you to fight for you life today.” “Show the judges that I am here to stay.” “That wasn’t strong enough.” “You have got to come up to a certain standard.”
That wasn’t strong enough. He knows he needs the performance of a lifetime to stay in the competition. (That’s what I thought going into the studio and then I didn’t deliver and expected to get cut in the manner of So You Think You Can Dance.
Ryan said: “I talked to Evan last night: Yesterday was a little sketchy. It was not my best day. I talked to Evan last night and that calmed me down a little bit. Which was awesome. He was like just chill out, relax, don’t take it personally. He was like you’re going to kill it tomorrow. I was like Yes I am.”
Nigel said: “Ryan step forward please. Ryan yesterday in the hip hop I think we gave you an extra chance cause the hip hop was not strong yesterday and we gave you and extra chance because we just adore what you do. Your solo is outstanding. And as long as SYTYCD is about people will talk about that solo. Today it was frighteningly strong. It was, there was no relaxation down into the hips. The feel of it was totally wrong. It looked like you were going to mug her halfway through. I mean you were going to beat her up. There was nothing of they style involved in this routine. So you know what we feel about you Ryan but it’s not happening this season. I’m sorry. We’re going to let you go.”
Ryan: “You never know what’s going to happen, you know, and I believed that coming in. I never, never once did I expect to just make, make it through. You know I had to deliver and I didn’t so I’m going home. So I’m calling Evan, little bro, Um. Top 4. Um. This is not the phone call I was hoping to make. I’m disappointed… in myself because I know can do better. You know. And I should’ve. I should’ve.”
Ev
Hey What’s up Dude.
Guess what?
What?
I got the axe.
No Way
I got cut
As the song lyrics plays: “…Through the same mistakes we always make and here’s where it ends..”
3rd in line
Darn! 10:00pm and I still don’t have my NYCMOMS blog post up. I feel I need The Husband to oversee to make sure I do it right.
But,
At Target, My Kid saw the game of LIFE and really wanted it…and since she was such a good girl at the doctor’s office and got her flu shot and the doctor pronounced her “Perfect” at the check-up…so we bought the board game LIFE. And that shaped the rest of the evening.
My Kid wanted family game night.
So…
Pasta is easy…
…with jar sauce…
…and Daddy had his new phone…
…so after dinner he could multi-task…
Play the game of LIFE when we told him it was his turn…
And program his new phone at the same time…
Now…
The new phone is programmed…
Homework is done…
The game of LIFE has been played…
But…
Mommy didn’t get to upload her new blog on the new blogsite…
That’s not impotant…
It’s time for everyone to go to bed…
Good Nite!
Another strange dream…
involving earthquake, fires, refugee camp and me as a clown.
Riding the family schedule train
On Friday I took my bags of costumes with me to drop-off at My Kid’s school because from there I went straight to rehearsal. After rehearsal and went right back to My Kid’s school. Dismissal was over and the woman with whom I’d made previous arrangements to pick up my kid after school along with her own was already on the way to the park. I caught up with them there and sat on a bench and talked to the other mother while the girls practiced their cartwheels and walked around the ball field pretending they were unsupervised.
On Saturday I dropped my bags of costumes off at the apartment and went directly to the soccer fields by Prospect Park to stand in the rain and watch my daughter and her soaked to the skin teammates run around on a field of fake grass and ground up bits of rubber. The fall season is already half over and this was the first game I’ve seen.
It is now Sunday morning. I am preparing to awaken my daughter and take her to church because today is the first day of the new school year of religious education. I will drop her off on my way to rehearsal and The Husband will pick her up.
working mommyclown nightmare
I dreamed I was at a clown conference at Seattle Center. There were high profile stage and circus clowns teaching workshops including the man who had been director of clown college when I was there. There were inspirational clowns who worked with sick orphans in Africa. I was excited to be talking to former CC classmates who had been working in the business for 20 years since I’d last seen them.
We were walking to a workshop about hospital clowning in Uganda. I was talking to old friends I hadn’t seen in years.
I had on a full Ringling style agent suit with wig and makeup and big shoes.
My cell phone rang.
It was from my daughter’s school.
“Your daughter was not picked up fifteen minutes ago at 3 o’clock. She’s still waiting to be picked up. This is the third day in a row no-one has been here to pick her up. Don’t you care about your child?”
I feel so much more comfortable now that the rehearsals have taken the on the shape of theatrical rehearsals. The goals and hierarchy and priorities are clear.
And… if you have some plastic flowers, strings of fake pearls or rhinestones, overly sweet stuffed animal — or a large ugly Toad — perhaps you could bring it for a Positive/Negative prop. Or fake legs for the gore fabric…
Hey child of mine do you have any stuffed animals we could use for the…
NO!
…show.