Clownmommy

So we were at camel park (that’s not it’s real name but there’s this concrete camel in the middle of it so it’s called camel park locally) watching out lithe and graceful daughter in her pink helmet and pink converse sneakers gliding as gracefully as an Olympic ice dancer on her pink Ripstick (registered trademark skateboard-like object) and then it was time to go home. We walked past an empty oversized stroller and an unmanned child-sized walker and we looked up to see a perky happy physical therapist sitting on the ground waving her arms and stretching her legs in front of the preschooler sitting facing her, barely moving, on the asphalt.  On the nearest bench the mother of the child watched carefully.

Oh that is such a funny Fruedian slip type-o that I’m going to leave it up!  I meant to type: “switching gears”!

I’m home from rehearsal and I’m tired, wanna put my feet up and relax but not that’s not going to happen.  I’m a mom.  I gotta go meet The Husband and My Kid in the park on this beautiful sunny Sunday for some family time.

We switched gears at rehearsal today. We’re not coming up with new stuff anymore. We have to go back over the material we’ve been improvising in the studio that made us laugh, do it again and see if it still makes us laugh.  Kendall, as the director, has the task of putting the pieces into an order that balances a multitude of elements and we the clowns start acting more like actors in rehearsal.

Some days in the studio go well.  Some do not.  Some days are half and half like today.  I thought I was good to go, ready to play all showered and coffeed up and on time (despite the F train)  for rehearsal.  But somewhere in the getting going of things I lost confidence.  It was pointed out that I wasn’t breathing properly during warm ups.  The words I chose when it was my turn during the one-word-at-a-time-story exercise were called “too modern”.  By the time we had to make up our “love incantations”, an improvisation which can produce some crazy fun, I felt like a 7th grader hoping nobody will notice her.  Needless to say my improvised love incantation was neither powerful or funny.

  Aghhh!  Shake it off!

 After the mid-rehearsal 10-minute break I did and was able to have fun.

 It goes against the Protestant work ethic to put oneself into a situation wherein if it’s not fun, little work can be produced.

 Wierd.

After I got home from rehearsal we decided that we would go as a family to see the animated feature, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.  I was expecting something on the level of G-Force, the action movie about super-hero guinea pigs.  My Kid thought it was great.  Me I could have waited for the video.  But, we all enjoyed Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  It’s almost as good as Pixar.  I can’t think of higher praise for computer animation.

Sometimes in our clown improvisations we say what we imagine–crazy stuff.  In Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, animators let loose their imaginations in the same way and then realized the fantastic images. Also the story was good.  There were threads that were introduced and picked up again.  There was truth in familial relationships.  

It’s a good movie.

I’m glad My Kid is not yet a tween. That would be tiresome.  I thought she would be interested in the local preparations for the VH1 DIVAS special was filmed just down the street at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).  For two days blockades have been going up and by 4:00 yesterday flocks of uniformed police officers had arrived to control the expected crowds and protect the “Diva’s”. Some of them, Miley Cyrus and Jordin Sparks for example, and are still in high school. (Personally I think a Diva has to have a larger and longer body of work –But who am I to have an opinion about pop culture, I’m just a mom.)  When we got off the subway at Atlantic Center My Kid didn’t want to walk past BAM to check out the preparations.  While flipping channels later in the evening she wasn’t interested in watching the show that was taking place just down the street even though she perked up at the mention of Miley Cyrus. She looked up and then went back to what she was doing. No thrill for her at the 6-degrees-of-separation from all those stars just down the street in the ‘hood of my jaded little New Yorker.

I don’t know how much of my stress in this modern life comes from waiting around for fragile plastic machines to do what I asked them to do and they don’t hear me when I speak and they don’t understand my words and I’m not allowed to hit them. Even though they are ugly plastic and metal they are as delicate as a baby. Aghhh. Why won’t the printer print? Why can’t I e-mail a word document? Why does my computer hate me?

The Husband took My Kid to school in Brooklyn Heights on his way to his office at Rockefeller Center.  After the cleaning lady arrived at the apartment my old clown college roomate  and I went out for coffee.  She’s New York for a production meeting.  We had time for breakfast at Junior’s before she got on the subway.  We talked about her work as a puppeteer  (she’s been hired for a commercial)  and my work as a clown (in rehearsal for Clown Axioms at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club).  Is this really my life?

So while I was chatting, I took a paper towel and put it over the bottle brush to get the peanut butter off the inside of the bottle I was washing. I never would have thought of that, she said.

I am following the story of the murder of Annie Le in the news and I can’t help thinking of the predatory wolf in the the Brother’s Grimm tale “Little Red Riding Hood”.

I was walking through Fulton Mall after dropping off My Kid at school. I went into a store where I noticed some crazy clothes that might be right for the show. I still don’t have my full costume.
When I got home, I tried it on under the purple dress and it didn’t quite work like I thought it would. I bought it because it’s the same color as My Kid’s old flowered tutu that I have been wearing as part of my costume.

Anyway, at rehearsal one of the other women needed some more color and I offered my yellow bustier that I bought today and it might work for her, which is pleasing in that it will help the show.