Natural History – Clownmommy

After a workshop with Chris Lynam

Last night, Jef organized a workshop with Chris Lynam, a clown who is in New York for the Broadway run of Slava’s Snowshow. It’s always good to meet new clowns. After the workshop, there were three conversations at once around the table at the diner. Jef and Chris were talking about working with Slava and working on their own work. I was talking to the only other woman from the workshop about writing and the other guys were talking about guys being goofy.

Walking to the train at the end of the evening, Chris mentioned another clown, Thomas Kubenick a Czech clown who has his own show that he tours around the world. It’s good. I’ve seen it. I met Thomas for the first time at Movement Theatre International in Philadelphia in 1990. He was at that time assisting Boleck Polivka who taught a workshop. I met him again when he showed up at the workshop I was taking with Ctibor Turba at his studio in Nectiny, Czechoslovakia (right before it turned into Czech Land–that’s what the locals called the Czech Republic–and Slovakia) I’ve been around a while, but it’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve gotten a handle on what may be my particular style…

I’m pretty much the opposite of Amy G. Chris took a call from her about a gig at a club. Organizing and coordinating are so not my thing that the passing mention of a woman I know putting together an evening of acts apparently caused me to have a nightmare. I had a dream, last night, about running a theatre space–like Annex where Allison Narver, Andrea Allen and Gillian Jorgenson have all been artistic director or the Brick where Audrey Crabtree is the face of the organizers of the New York Clown Theatre Festival. In this dream which was more like a nightmare, brought on perhaps by conversation about successful theatrical clowns and the women behind them, (I was reminded of the organized women behind the careers of monologists, Spalding Grey and Mike Daisey and cartoonist Gary Larson, not to mention the countless women who work as personal assistants, executive secretaries and stage moms (The Husband, My Kid, My Sister and I all saw Gypsy this week.) These passing bits of conversation caused me to have a nightmare about being in charge of an art space like Celebration Barn, currently run by the Amanda Huotari. In my dream there 4 toilets on the second floor that were all overflowing and unusable. The Marley dance floor in the rehearsal hall had been scrubbed with Comet by someone’s helpful visiting unsupervised mother and was now ruined… It was a nightmare.

Now, disorganized person that I am, I’ve got to hurry and help My Kid, (who is alternately yanking on my body an falling on the floor to prove the point of gross parental neglect) get dressed in a manner appropriate for both ice skating with her aunt at Rockefeller Center and hooking up at the Museum of Natural History with old Seattle Annex friends and their offspring, who are visting from Chicago.

Gotta go.

Living in New York

My Kid had a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History. Robotics Team checking out the Global Warming special exhibit. Kid back to school with her team, I walk down Central Park West. Grandstands being erected for Thanksgiving Day Parade. Cold grey rainy birthday again–no wonder I went crazy producing outdoor parties for my July baby. Checking out the Billy Rose collection at the library of performing arts in Lincoln Center. Rush to Brooklyn Heights school for kid pickup. A train to F train up to Rockefeller Center where The Husband now works. Wandering around like tourists as is our want. Times Square Marriott 8th floor lobby for a drink. Ruby Foo’s for dinner after the theatre rush has gone. Home to Brooklyn on the subway. A path of least resistance.

Playing Second Fiddle in Toronto

Finally I have a chance to come down to the lobby of the hotel and post a blog entry. This trip has been about The Husband and his presentation and his continued ability to work remotely while at a conference and also about My Kid who is on vacation, a glorified field trip or whatever. The Husband’s computer worked in the room but mine did not. My kid and I have been sleeping late, then she would watch cartoons and I would read the Globe and Mail that was delivered to our door each morning, until neither of us could stand it anymore, then we would dress quickly and leave for our day as tourists.

The first night we were here we met at the pool another “convention widow”. She was traveling with a 7-year-old, a 2-year-old and an American au-pair who had only been with the family for a month. We ran into them again the next day and joined them on an expedition to Little India, where the girls bought matching outfits and the au pair bought beautiful Sari fabric.

The next day the girls wore their matching outfits when we met to go together on a boat tour of the harbour and to the amusement park on Centre Island. My Kid was particularly excited by the old fashioned car on a track she got to drive–not just steering but pressing the accelerator pedal as well–very grown up!) But, at the end of the outing all of the kids melted down, we rushed back to the hotel in separate cabs and we haven’t seen them since.

My kid swam late, we went out to dinner late, and then slept late the next day and I didn’t find the other mothers phone number until around noon. By then we had decided that we would go to the Royal Ontario Museum. (My kid was not impressed. She prefers the American Museum of Natural History in New York and was more impressed with the child-friendly exhibits and activities at the Natural History Museum in London —-tough crowd My Kid—-) At the end of the visit, the souvenir she chose was a plastic box of 12 birthstones in their natural unprocessed state.

We have enjoyed the pool every day, partially outside, the pool is heated. But, I still get cold, and a little annoyed, standing in the water (not swimming laps and getting fit) watching, cheering, and being splashed in the face by every single spectacular jump into the water performed by My Kid.

We did have fun with her learning to stand on my shoulders just like we learned at clown college (although when I went, I was the tiny thing that got to stand on the shoulders of a big sweaty muscly guy…) I think that is the favorite thing to do in the pool. But, I wanted to spend more time in the hot tub than she did, (duh) and she wouldn’t believe me when I said she could swim without me.

Well, I’d better stop now as I know The Husband and My Kid are in the pool together and if I don’t join them we will never have a proper meal or make our way to another tourist destination today. Not that we must, but I do feel somewhat obligated to do so.

My plans to look up members of the Toronto Clown Community, and try to catch a show, have come to naught. I haven’t even done anything regarding the New York Clown Theatre Festival next month. This week isn’t about me. I’m just the mommy.

High Heels and Lawyer Pants

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.