Carol Burnett was on the Leonard Lopate show today. She talked about coming to New York and living at The Rehearsal Club, the real life role model for the boarding house in the movie “Stage Door”. Of course it no longer existed by the time I was an aspiring actress. I didn’t come to New York in the 1980’s even though it was a dream of mine, like Carol Burnett, to be on Broadway. I was discouraged from the prospect as the reality seemed to be more “Taxi Driver” than “42nd Street” and I became pretty convinced I would be raped in a stairwell if I couldn’t afford to live in a good neighborhood. So I stayed in Montana. My friend came. She did fine. Maybe I shouldn’t have been such a chicken. (But that worst nightmare did happen to Kelly McGillis in while she was an acting student at Julliard.)
Tag: aspiring actress
Sometimes the simple things take me so long, like logging onto the internet using the hotel’s wifi connection that by the time I have my Clownmommy dashboard on the screen I forgot what I had intended to write about.
I don’t know how much of my “writing time” I wasted hitting buttons and guessing at the procedure for logging in from a different connection. I ended up calling The Husband on the phone and having him walk me through the simple procedure that I ought to have down by now. But, I don’t. Story of my life–and that’s why I am a clown. The movements are too small though, getting frustrated in front of a laptop, it would have to be so subtle, so underplayed. Maybe it could work on film, certainly not on stage. In either case it would be a pretty boring piece to watch. (I do have a performance date in the fall…will I do something completely new or rework something I’ve already tried…)
While I am trying to remember what brilliant mommy thoughts I had that are now lost I am overhearing parts of the conversation of the two men at the set of couches next to my own seating arrangement here in the lobby of the Westin. One of the men seems to be ordering custom made shirts and possibly other clothing from the other man. It seems to be a regular event as the salesman type in a suit said to the other man in shirtsleeves “See you in September.” And they both made references to “last time.” I think that’s how Obama gets his clothes. Fascinating. Most of my clothes come from the sale racks at discount stores.
Speaking of clothes, I have been looking at the clothes of the people on the street her in Seattle. So much khaki, such baggy clothes. It was a difference I noticed right away when we moved to New York and there was so much black and the clothes were so much tighter, even on people who weren’t athlete thin. There is also more bright color in New York. Seattle people wear muted earth tones. When we come back each summer I start to feel dressed wrong in Seattle, but by the time I am in Missoula I start out feeling so uncomfortable I inevitably buy items like Tevas or shorts that I proceed to wear nearly every day of my visit home and never wear again back in New York. But I did notice a Gucci and Louis Vitton stores right across the street from each other near the 5th Avenue theatre in Downtown Seattle. That was a bit disorienting.
I see the thin young people riding their bikes and am then startled to see myself, a middle-aged mom type, reflected in a window, not at all the person I was when I lived her as an aspiring actress riding a bike while wearing Dock Martin boots with black leggings under a skirt, oversized T and flannel shirts. Yeah that. I also learned from another out of work actor that if you got a very large Starbucks coffee off the day you could doctor it up with vanilla and cinnamon and milk and it tasted like a latte and with enough milk it was a fine stand in for a meal all for less than $2.
That period of my life came completely to an end when The Husband, Baby and I flew back to Seattle from NYC where we had lived for only a couple of months for the final Annex party in the theatre space at 1916 Fourth Avenue. We stayed at the Kings Inn under the Monorail tracks on 5th Avenue. In preparation for the trip I pushed my stroller around Macy’s in Fulton Mall and Marshall’s at Atlantic center struggling to find something “presentable. . Presentable was a disappointing goal for such an emotionally charged special event. I was still nursing so I ended up with a easy access stretchy polyester top and skirt outfit for the party, a far cry from the slip-like or corset containing Betsy Johnson dresses I had worn to previous Annex-related events that were part of the courtship that led to our wedding here in Seattle over 10 years ago.
And my alone time has once again come to an end, The Husband, My Kid and The Mother-In-Law will be here in a few moments and we’re going to drive to a mall.