Clownmommy

I was watching My Kid all in pink on her pink Ripstick with pink knee, elbow and wrist pads.  As I watched I rethought the clothing items I packed earlier in the day to take to rehearsal tomorrow.  I’m rethinking the black and grey silk clothes that are what I consider to be “better” clothes.  They were each purchased and worn to family events, a wedding and a funeral.  So they are “good clothes”.  And I guess I’m not sure I want to wear them as a clown.  They are of my “real life”.  

So I think I have to start over coming up with something to wear at rehearsal tomorrow.  I like the fluttery.  I like the  silhouette of a long skirt.  But, I don’t have anything to wear.

Tomorrow is the first day of school.

Tomorrow I have rehearsal.

First I made sure I knew what My Kid intends to wear on the First Day of School and that it is something that is clean and exists in the apartment. 

Then, I ransacked my closet looking for something for me to wear as a clown in the studio tomorrow. The clothes we wear in Clowns Ex Machina are not dropped in our laps during tech week by some costumer we haven’s seen since having our measurements taken right after being cast (as is the case in traditional theatre).  We develop our own costumes in the course of the rehearsal process and at the moment I have none.

It is a source of stress.

We are re-working Clown Axioms which had its first incarnation at the undergroundzero festival last summer.  I came in at the end of the process at the end of the studio time and the beginning of tech.  I was assigned to wear all black and move across the stage during transitions.

As a result, while the other women are trying to remember what they did in their pieces, I am starting that process from scratch.

I have no idea what to wear.  We’re riffing off of fairy tales and gothic romances and so on the first day of rehearsal I put together a skirt and corset affair.  But, several of the other women are already wearing that sort of thing so it’s a no go.  For the second rehearsal I wore a cotton Indian tunic, pants and sari outfit, given to me by friends from India.  I wore it to a workshop this winter and enjoyed the color and ease of movement.  But, when I brought it in for this particular show, Kendall said it didn’t work because it’s from a different time and place than the others.

So, I am back to square one.

I have returned to the pictures we were given as inspiration.   In among the wenches in corsets and full skirts, there are also fluttery gowns and flowing hair.  So I have found something else to try.  It’s fluttery but it’s dark, grey and black instead of virginal white.  We’ll see.

I’m thinking about fall and the first day of school.

My Kid’s first day of 4th grade. I started at a new school in a new town in a new state when I was in 4th grade. I remember that time so well and I am a little bit, no, actually a lot shocked that my baby girl is already that old.

9/11 was to be the first day of playgroup for My Kid and I when she was a toddler and we had just moved to New York and I was looking forward to meeting other mothers in the neighborhood.

Katrina happened right before My Kid started kindergarten and since I couldn’t watch the news while she was around I stayed up until 3:00 or 4:00 even 5:00 am several nights in a row. I couldn’t stop watching and being shocked and depressed by the news. Later that school year, I was assigned to the jury of a murder trial that lasted two months.

Last fall, The Husband was in the middle of changing jobs when the economy tanked.

What is the opposite of auspicious?

I sent it as an attached document. I received an email telling me there was no attachment… And we do it AGAIN! and again… and again… and again…

I hate to criticize another mother’s decision making skills…

I know it’s just a cartoon and plot devices are needed so the kids can have their epic adventure. But my goodness! This is what Sosuke’s mother, Lisa, does: When her husband doesn’t come home from his job as a boat captain on the day she expects, she drinks beer and falls asleep on her kid’s bed. In the middle of a storm so fierce electricity goes out and people are predicting a tsunami, she decides to put her kid in the car and go home through the driving rain, through flooding streets and up a narrow mountain road. Then, in the middle of the night while that same storm continues to rage, she decides that what she really wants to do is leave her five-year-old son, and someone else’s preschool size child (who just appeared in her yard during the storm), alone in her neighborless house on top of a cliff while she drives several miles back to the senior center where she works.

And then a neighbor goes to the hospital in an ambulance putting everything into perspective…

It is either easier or more important, I don’t know which, for me to create a list–that did not exist before today–in order to send it to the woman in the organization who is putting together all our mailing lists for a full company email blast about the upcoming event.

The Husband doesn’t understand why I have spent a significant part of the past two days combing through two years worth of old e-mails and pulling the addresses of people who might be interested in an upcoming theatrical production that I am in especially given the fact that I have not previously created or maintained such a list.   Why didn’t I just tell them I didn’t have such a list?

Because that would be too embarrassing!

I don’t want people I work with to think I am a slacker or failing to step up to the plate even though I go out of my way avoid this kind of work because the effort has never yet produced for me results that are worth the anxiety.  Last fall agreed to be a class parent as long as I didn’t have to create the class list because I knew that it would take me about ten hours of pure frustration to put the names and addresses of 25 kids into a Microsoft Excel program when someone else could do the job in 20 minutes.  

So, I have been combing through two years of old emails (two years is the record I can access because that’s how long I’ve had this laptop) looking for addresses that I could add to my address book (even though before this week said address book did not even include my parents or brother and sister)  I pretty much just respond to the e-mails as they come in.  

Then, I padded my address book with names from the class lists and team rosters of My Kid’s activities, but when preparing to send the list to the person who is preparing to send the email blasts about our show I pulled most of them off again.  I left on the mommies who I know for certain are either artistic, go into Manhattan frequently or are technically savvy enough to know that the e-mail about my show is something they can ignore.  I  erred on the side of caution when removing from my list acquaintances I was afraid would receive the email with the question “Why did this person send this to me?”  

Unless it is someone with whom I’ve actually conversed about my clown activities, I feel much more comfortable handing out postcards in person.  Then I can explain to the people I only know in the context of our children’s activities will not assume I am a birthday party balloon clown or that this is a show for children.  This is a theatrical event for which reservations may be made and tickets must be purchased.  Oh and if you think it sounds cool, please give us money so we can have a longer run in a larger theater:

http://clownsexmachina.com/

Aghhhhh! I failed to create a link! F&$#@!

I thought I knew where the rehearsal space was.  I’ve been there before, many times.  I got off the train with 10 minutes to spare, plenty of time to walk to the studio.  Except that I couldn’t remember where it was.  Aghhhh!  How frustrating.  Of course I felt like a complete idiot and wasted half the rehearsal just shaking off that bad feeling and getting centered again.

The original plan was for me to take My Kid up to The Husband’s office in midtown and then go back down to the East Village for rehearsal.  Already that plan is in flux.

Cleaning.

Babysitting.

At the end of the day a nice meal at our local Ethiopian restaurant with honey and honey wine

And little bit of checking facebook pages of clown college classmates.