Producer’s Club – Clownmommy

Stay At Home Mom –NOT!

When I was preparing to begin a blog of my own, in my random cyber-wanderings I came across a blog that made me laugh. It wasn’t the wit of the writer, it was the subject matter. A man, a professional athlete had just become a proud stay-at-home-dad. His blog bragged about how smoothly his day went. He got up early and got in a good workout before his wife went to her job. Then he managed the care and feeding of the baby all day, accomplishing other tasks and getting in more exercise while the baby slept. He didn’t know why people complain about how hard it is to stay home with a child. There are no further posts.

I don’t want to be one of those people who start a blog and don’t continue. But, I also don’t want to chat and vent and whine. I want to write about what I do or try to do making my way as a theatrical clown in New York City at the same time as I am a “stay-at-home-mom” although apparently unable to stay home for more than a few hours at a time. Granted My Kid is in school now (except she’s not now–summer vacation has begun both “Finally!!!!!” and “Already???”) so it’s not like she’s a baby or a toddler. But, it did seem that going on the science field trip, attending the Second Grade Field Day, the Brownie Girl Scout Badge Ceremony and taking cupcakes to her class in honor of her “summer birthday” not to mention, the cleaning, that I don’t do enough of, but spend a lot of time stressing about and the cooking, that I don’t do enough of but spend a lot of time stressing about, and the laundry, that I don’t do enough of but spend a lot of time stressing about, and the hanging out on the playground so that she can run and play (before the summer becomes too hot), during which time I think to myself: “Surely there must be some high school or college student who could do this instead of me”. Except that it was lucky for me to be there talking to the other moms on the playground when it was decided to organize a week of Mommy Camp for those of us who haven’t registered our kids daycamp starting-right-away-like-the-moms-with-real-jobs and so there is the problem of what will our kids do now that school is out and all their friends are in day camp. I wouldn’t have been a part of this project if I hadn’t been standing around chatting with the mothers at the edge of the playground when the idea came up and Enthusiastic Mom ran with it and several multi-kid mom’s latched on because they hadn’t planned anything anyway because of upcoming travel or visitors or baseball or finances.

It’s a good thing I was there, because otherwise My Kid would spend all next week watching Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zach and Cody (I hate that show) and iCarly, television shows wherein My Kid learns that middle school is going to be great fun and grown-ups are sight gags. Meanwhile I would drink too much coffee and vibrate between the kitchen sink and my laptop trying to decide whether I should clean or cook or shop or do laundry or work on a clown piece or write or take My Kid to the park or the library or the beach or a museum and end up going to Target because it’s entertaining for her and has some errand accomplishing value for myself.

Instead, for this coming week my friend, Enthusiastic Mom, has already e-mailed me a spreadsheet schedule of when and where My Kid and I are supposed to be each day in order meet up with the other kids and mommies to do something stimulating and exciting with My Kid’s friends and assorted younger siblings.

Meanwhile, there is some life in my life on the clown front. The full-length show I proposed was not chosen for the New York Clown Theatre Festival this September, but they would like us to do a piece in one of their evenings of short works. I forwarded that e-mail to my puppeteer partner but she didn’t respond. Before I sent her another e-mail asking why she hadn’t responded and would she be able to be in town to perform with me, and what’s the matter didn’t she like the show we proposed or want to work with me anymore. I googled the summer theatre where she is running the prop shop and noted in their calendar that they had 4 different shows open this week, so I let it slide for now. I was on stage at the New York Downtown Clown Revue in a demonstration of Jef Johnson’s Clown Lab. Kendall’s next project, “Clown Axiom”, went into rehearsal on Friday and I was there at Triskelion Studio on Williamsburg (after schlepping my kid to a begged-for babysit/playdate in Brooklyn Heights and the end of the day I took the girls swimming at the Y and then for pizza and then donughts with My Husband and then the next morning my kid’s friend’s mommy called and said her daughter was still asleep at nearly 11 am. She reported that her child had gone from little girl to teenager in less than 24 hours.) I attended some Clown Labs at Theatre Lab and The Producers Club and I got a 4th of July corporate gig through a Ringling contact. So I’m not doing nothing.

But,

It feels like it sometimes.

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.

Wake up-pack lunch-take the kid to school-come back home pack a case with costumes and props-take train to Times Square-rehearse at the Producers Club-take the train to Lower East Side-eat a bagel-meet the family-my kid goes to Japanese-My husband and I take advantage of the time and go to pub across the street to talk through the week: Tomorrow-I-am -going-to-see-the-matinee-of-Gypsy-we-will-have-dinner-in-Greenwich-Village-with-our-friends-from-India-and-his-former-boss-and-wife-my-Kid-has-a-field-trip-on-Thursday-and-I-may-have-more-studio-time-Friday-the-kid-and-I-will-go-on- the-Girl-Scout-campout-My-husband-will-fly-to-Seattle-Saturday-my-parents-will-arrive-in-New-York-on-Tuesday-but-not-in-time-to-see-my -perfomance-on-Tuesday-maybe-husband-will-return-to-New-York-on-Thursday-The Kid-will-make-her-First-Communion-on-Saturday-(I-still-need-to-make-dinner-reservations)-The-Kid-will-have-a-Japanese-Closing-Ceremony-on-Sunday-On-Monday-my-parents-will-return-to-Montana-and-my-husband-will-start-his-new-job…

After sushi after Japanese we all walk down 14th Street. They take the train home to Brooklyn and I go to Theatre Lab for a Clown Lab.

Hello world!

I spent yesterday in and around Times Square. I enjoy getting off the subway and walking past Birdland to the Producer’s Club for a few hours of studio time with some clowns. It makes me feel as if I am part of it all no matter how low the level at which I do my work. I am still doing it. In the diner afterwards we talked and I was reminded of the book Art and Fear and the object is just to keep doing the work. If you produce a lot of work then it follows that some of it will be very good. Conversly if you produce little or nothing the chances of proucing good work must be slim to none.

Waiting to meet the husband and kid at Toys R Us Times Square (when my kid was a toddler she thought Toys R Us WAS Times Sqare– and if you asked her what part of New York she liked best she could be counted on to say Times Square) I saw the toys for the new Pixar movie. I’m in love with WallE and Eve. I know I’m going to start crying from the opening credits and cry through the whole movie. But, I digress.

Took the Kid to New Victory to see IJK physical perfomers from France. A tight show. Gotta love the geometry and juggling. I aspire to a tight show that can play the New Vic and the international children’s festivals like the one in Seattle. It seems realistic now. An old friend (actually the director of the show my husband and I were working on when we met) is now among other things the Producing Director for the Seattle International Children’s Festival.

We ran into Pre-K classmates from our PS 3 days at the theatre. That family is now at the Neighborhood School in the East Village.