I just got home from rehearsal at the Producers Club. I had to take my kid with me, bribing her with the promise of a McDonald’s Happy Meal in Times Square if she was good. She only disrupted once, when she was running up the aisle and fell and scraped about 5 inches of her shin. There was no blood, but there will be a bruise and there were tears. My clown piece is about multi-tasking and living for somone else–like my kid who interrupted my rehearsal with her injury and her tears.
On the way home she asked me; “Why are you wearing high-heels and lawyer pants?”
I think I got the costume right! I am trying to look like a professional woman. The clothes I chose for my costume in browns and blacks are from my own closet and the outfit I put together is similar to the clothes worn by the mothers of my child’s classmates who are lawyers. The only clown makeup I’ll have on is a small circle of red glitter on my nose and a clear rhinestone under each eye. Other than that I will wear normal stage makeup which for a small house is just street makeup a little thicker and a little darker; foundation, lipstick, eyeliner and mascara.
This piece is for the Emerging Artists Theatre (EAT) Laugh Out Loud Festival. I am in tomorrow’s lineup.
I feel much better about it now, after rehearsal, than I did last night and this morning when I didn’t know if I was going to be able to work on the piece any more at all. I was preoccupied with my parents arrival tomorrow evening to the point of wondering if I should back out of the perfomance so I could be at home to greet my parents when they arrive and let them into the apartment.
The key I sent my parents so they can let themselves into my apartment when they come from the airport did not arrive and will not arrive because of the holiday weekend. There were multiple phone conversations about contingency plans involving neighbors, the landlord and possible going straight up to mid-town to either watch my piece or to sit in a hotel lobby because that’s where people with luggage can feel most comfortable (at least I do). But, my parents would rather wander around my neighborhood in Brooklyn because it is less populus and they were here once two years ago. They want to hang out in the diner, but our local diner closes at 5:00pm. They will be less comfortable in the pub and I fear they will go with their luggage for just a short time and then sit on our stoop for a very long time. Please don’t sit out on the stoop with your luggage in the dark.
Last time they were here my dad started to take out his wallet on the steps of the Museum of Natural History and I said “Dad don’t!” and the homeless guy went away and then kept circling back to curse me as we ate our ice cream. I felt like a terrible person. But, I also didn’t want my dad to take out his wallet in his slow Midwestern way in such a touristy place where pickpockets and muggers scope out potential victims.
By the way, my cell phone was lost–OR STOLEN–last Wednesday. I had to take out my credit card and pay full price for a new phone because I didn’t have phone insurance. I used it twice walking down Montague Street right after I sent the keys to my parents from the mailing store. Somone must have seen it fall out of my pocket and instead of saying “hey lady you dropped your phone!” as I would have done. They picked it up and kept it. I know because as soon as I realized it was gone, I started calling it from pay phones. The first two times I called it rang and rang and then went to voice mail. The second two times I called, it went straight to voicemail. So somebody picked it up. And that somebody kept it. And that somebody turned it off. They could have answered and told me where they were and I could have met them and gotten it back. I was still within blocks of anywhere I could have possibly dropped it.
When I was on the phone last night my mother kept asking me specific questions about where things were and what are the names of the cross streets and all I could say was, well I don’t know, I can google it and call you back. She’d say no I didn’t need to do that. I was braced for it this time.
Last time they visited I was humiliated by my inability to answer a single specific question–and my parents asked a lot of specific questions. (I gave my family the Meyers-Briggs test once when I was still living at home. I’m an INFP and my other family members tend to be ISTJ.
Digresson: Meyers-Briggs has 16 combinations on some continium of I or E (Introverted or Extroverted) N or S (Intuiting or Sensing) F or T (Feeling or Thinking) and P or J (Perceiving or Judging). Basically all my information comes from feelings and impressions and other members of my family of origin get their information from actual facts. Other than the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, I couldn’t name any a single building on the New York skyline. We had been in New York for several years when my parents finally came to see us and I thought I should know more. I was mortified. I couldn’t give them directions to the nearest Catholic Church (of course they wanted to go to morning mass…) I could have showed them if we had gone out the front door and I could have pointed to the cross street at the end of the block, and bent my arm and pointed my finger in the way they should walk. They would have come to the church, it is impossible to miss. But, I didn’t know the specifics. I didn’t know the name of the cross street for the church. I didn’t know if the turn was left or right (without facing towards the street it is on and making the L with my index finger and my thumb to know which way is left). Of course I don’t know North, South, East or West (UNLESS THE SUN IS ACTIVELY RISING OR SETTING) I don’t know how many blocks away the church is. I have never counted (I never needed to I just see it every time I go that way). Later in the visit when we were on a subway platform on our way to some tourist destination my mom asked innocently “Will we see such and such?” I blew up. “I DON’T KNOW!” My mom was sad and I felt bad.
I’m pretty sure I have some sort of learning disability. Apparently I’m bright enough to have faked it all these years. But, there are definite gaps and they have never gone away.
So I am a clown.
I have a show tomorrow.