Times Square – Clownmommy

Wednesday Matinee

So I took myself to see a matinee on Broadway, something I think I can do just any old time because I live in New York, but of course I can’t because I do my day to day living in New York.

So, since this was likely to be my last free Wednesday afternoon, because now that the Citywide FIRST Lego League Championship is over, that particular after school program will go down to once a week and that once a week is most likely to be Thursday. This was my daughters 3rd year on her elementary school’s FLL team. Every year I tell myself; after tourist season I will take myself on up to Times Square of a Wednesday afternoon and get myself a half-price ticket to a Broadway show. Every year I put it off week after week until I realize that this may be my very last Wednesday chance and then I do it, just the once. Even at half price the tickets are expensive and even if it’s just one afternoon there are lots of other things I could or should do with my Wednesday afternoons.

Last year, on my last “free” Wednesday afternoon, after meeting my husband for lunch in mid-town I took myself the two blocks to Times Square and got a ticket to the play Angela Lansbury was in at a theatre so close it could be seen from TKTS booth which was an important consideration, since it was already 1:55 pm. This year I did essentially the same thing, again choosing the show with Angela Lansbury in it; A Little Night Music also starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. Leigh Ann Larkin (who played “Dainty June” in Gypsy) was also in it. She go to sing “The Miller’s Son”. Her “Petra” was a continuation of the same story of the young woman she played in Gypsy, who must acquiesce like a child in her day to day work, as a Vaudeville performer or as a ladies maid, when she is in reality a woman of passion and substance. That could be an interesting piece…

Several of the singers had colds. So does everyone else in New York City. I still enjoyed their performances.

But, what I really left the theatre with was Stephen Sondheim’s music and the story. I don’t know how much of what I saw and continue to think about was Sondheim and how much was the original inspiration for the musical, Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night. (I’ll put it into my Netflix queue and find out.)

So…

Cirque du Soleil’s Banana Shpeel has again delayed its first performance at New York’s Beacon Theatre. The new vaudeville show, which had already postponed its start date from February 25 to March 17, will now begin performances on April 29. In the bar after the New York Downtown Clown Revue on Monday night, I was talking to another clown who was saying there had been a big audition for the show recently. The new opening night is six weeks away, that’s a whole rehearsal process. I wonder if they are starting over from scratch. I wonder if (as opposed to Bergman and Sondheim) they put the cart before the horse and tried to put up a show before they had a story.

shopping for makeup in character

I was in Times Square this afternoon and since I had some time before I had to make my way back to Brooklyn to pick up My Kid after school, I decided to go to the drugstore to buy the eyeshadow and press on fingernails that I will wear Monday night in the New York Downtown Clown Revue.

The Birthday of My Princess

I suppose the grandparents want to know how the little princess spent her birthday. And incidentally she loves what you sent!

It is so easy to produce an extravagant birthday in New York City.

There was one scheduled event requiring the watching of clocks and hoping the trains ran on time. We attended a matinee of the Broadway production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. My Kid has wanted to see this show ever since it opened a short time after her first Broadway birthday excursion to see Disney’s Beauty and the Beast when she was six going on seven– The Disneyfication of Broadway is shallow and disgusting and hateful except on a day that you have the honor of accompanying several six-year-old girls dressed in glittery yellow princess dresses into a grand theatre to sit in velvet plush seats and hear the live music that brings tears to your eyes because once you had a baby and now you have a princess in your life.

The theatre is part of my life so it is not out of character to be willing to pay for tickets. But, I really didn’t want to see The Little Mermaid (There are lots of Broadway shows I’d rather spend my money on like August Osage County, which is supposed to be amazing —but probably not a good choice to for the celebration of a 9-year-old’s birthday.) especially after I saw a promo for The Little Mermaid and learned that the fish moved about the stage on heelies and roller skates. (We may as well go to Disney on Ice!) But, it’s the show my kid wanted to see. I have been dropping hints for years; “You know, my kid wants to see The Little Mermaid and I don’t, so if anyone is going I’d gladly pay for a ticket and send my kid with you,” to no avail. So when she said she wanted to go for her birthday. Well, it was just that easy. We let her invite one friend to go with us. We didn’t find out until we went to buy the tickets that this show is going to close August 30, so I’m glad I didn’t put it off until we can go to the half-price ticket booth during the off-season, which is what I have been saying ever since it opened. An added bonus that thrilled me when we got to the theatre–Faith Prince was playing the role of Ursula the evil octopus and THAT was fun to see! (I guess she didn’t have anything better to do. Lucky Me!)

After the play we ate an early dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp, the Forest Gump movie themed restaurant in Times Square (again the birthday girl’s choice not mine.) Then we walked to Dylans Candy Bar to purchase some trademarked and themed sugar products. There was much discussion of Dylan’s Candy Bar within the 3rd grade ranks at my daughters school this spring, ever since two of the boys in her class made the excursion and returned with tales of this place. We were in mid-town Manhattan but we may as well have been at Disney World.

Fortunately, my child is a healthy and sane and the things that were most important to her about her birthday were the cake, her friend and one new toy, a Ripstick, (a skateboard like piece of outdoor sports equipment that makes her use up a lot of energy perfecting her balance).

She made her own birthday cake from a mix. Pillsbury Funfetti, the kind with colored dots throughout. We cut it into the shape of a 9. Then she frosted it a lurid blue-green teal and decorated it with gummy sharks and Swedish fish and the piece de resisdance, a barnacle covered rock made out of an ice cream scoop of cake covered with flowerets of pink frosting. “It’s just like I imagined!” She was so proud of that cake. It was the highlight of the day.

La Familia Dimitri

We took My Kid to see La Familia Dimitri at the New Victory Theatre in Times Square. I’m so glad we did. The Clown Dimitri, even in his 70’s is still charming and adorable and his offspring, all in their 40’s, are fit and accomplished performers with careers of their own who came together for this international tour were a joy to watch.

The Dimitri family alternated between hard-won skills and novelty gags without the shrill hard sell of so many American variety entertainers.

I know there is more support in Europe for this sort of thing which doesn’t take away from the fact that the Dimitris are an amazing family! Yet I wonder how much easier it must be for performing artists to develop in a country where there are grants and support. They have a chance to breathe and practice and learn new skills without quite as many worries about basics like health care.

In his own show, Lorenzo Pisoni talked about his dad falling wrong during one of his performances “and after eight months of chewing asprin finally going to the doctor and learning he had broken his back and it had healed badly”. How could someone who makes their living as a physical comedian let something like that go for so long, I imagine, unless he happened not to have health insurance at the time of the accident. Hmmm. That was a bad fall. Should I go to the emergency room or the doctor? No. If they find something they will want to operate and that can only lead to bankrupcy. Better not to know.

So Larry Pisoni doesn’t do his Lorenzo Pickle act anymore but the 72-year-old clown Dimitri of Switzerland is still going strong and all three of his children are performers and still making new work in their 40’s.

I also think of frumpy Susan Boyle, 47-year-old youtube sensation, who shocked the “Britain’s Got Talent” by having a beautiful singing voice even though she didn’t look like a 21-year-old supermodel.

Watching the Dimitri family play their instruments together between feats of circus prowess, I thought of how many hours they had spent making music together apart from the hours spent learning their circus skills while they were growing up and how rare it is to be able to build that kind of time into the hurried, penny and minute counting chopped-up, scheduled days that form the backbone of culture in which I am raising my child.

Such a long exhausting week I was afraid I would forget to show up at the theatre for my own perfomance

By Saturday I was so exhausted I was afraid I would forget to show up for my own performance in “Clownical Trials” at Theatrelab. It has been a very long week.

It began to go south a week ago Saturday at 8:00 am when the buzzer rang while we were still asleep. It was the Verizon repairman there to check the phone line that enters our apartment in the bedroom. We hadn’t had phone service for over two weeks and this was the third repairman–the first to arrive before 2 pm.

Early Sunday morning I had to get My Kid up and dressed and to her religious education class as per the Friday e-mail informing us that the regular “first Sunday of each month” class was THIS SUNDAY MARCH 29–big surprise to me and to many others… (because of Palm Sunday festivities on Sunday April Fools Day). We joined My Kid’s friend and her mother to hear the PS 8 choir at an event but it ran long and My Kid had been promised “Monsters vs Aliens” so we left and bought our tickets at the Court Street Theatre an hour early. We went across the street to a deli for sandwiches but by the time we had eaten and The Husband had hooked up with us and we returned to the theatre with our tickets only to discover there were no seats together except in the front row four feet from the screen. My Kid produced tears and we left although her friend was willing to stay so we didn’t get to see it together. We exchanged our tickets for the next show pushing back dinner and homework and started the week tired:

Unaware of the week that was about to unfold I wasted energy walking from My Kid’s school in Brooklyn Heights to the McBurney Y on 14th street in Manhattan where I took two Pilates classes and got some writing done before returning to pick up my child after school. After she played in the playground for a while we caught a train to Grand Central Station meet up with The Husband and go together to our appointment to have our taxes done by someone we’d never met. Our previous tax preparer, the only one we’ve ever used (our lives were simple and we did our own taxes when we lived in Seattle) passed away. The tax man we met does pro bono work for small theaters and he was so nice that I didn’t go through the shame of failure I usually experience when my work as a “performing artist” is examined and graded on the income tax report card. That made me so happy.

Afterwards, there was still the chore of dinner (I just don’t understand why The Husband and My Kid can’t be satisfied with a meal of “Odwalla Super Protein” and a banana–like me.)

As a reward for sitting through the tax meeting My Kid was allowed to choose the restaurant. When she saw the lights of Times Square she thought immediately of the Bubba Gump Shrimp theme restaurant! At least there was no line to get in on a Monday. Happy child with her light up theme beverage glass changing the license plate sign that says, “Run Forrest Run” or “Stop Forrest Stop” to control the attention of the happy jokey servers. I would have preferred to slink into dark booth for a quiet sip of wine and decompress…

Then it was Tuesday. I spent several hours sorting through some old papers at home before running out of time and going to pick up My Kid from school. Two of the mothers on the playground were commiserating over the hair of one of my daughters friends. The experienced mother told the other mother, “That looks like a nit”. The lady in Borough Park was called. An appointment was set for that very day. That evening I got the call from the mother of My Kid’s friend (who had hosted my child for a playdate the previous week). Positive!

Mobilize! I woke up at 3 am and researched lice on the internet until dawn. On Wednesday morning I called the lady. We went after school and paid almost as much as we had paid the tax lawyer for her to comb the vermin out of My Kid’s hair which hangs down to her butt.

On Thursday I changed all the bedding and spent FIVE HOURS at the laundromat washing more than 12 loads of laundry. Coats were sent out to be dry cleaned. All the stuffed animals and couch pillows went into plastic bags for two weeks. Or stuffed animal jail as My Kid calls it. Thursday night there was a 4-hour rehearsal at Theatrelab for Jef’s remount of “Clownical Trials”

Friday morning I was again the Y for Pilates and swimming. I’m trying increase my stamina. I had time for one hour of Jef’s three-hour afternoon workshop between before returning to Brooklyn Heights to catch the Brownie Girl Scout ceremony (at which the experiences lice mother identified nits in the hair of yet another friend of my child!)

Saturday for me was all about spending time with My Kid and The Husband and making sure meals were consumed before I left around 4 to make the 5 o’clock call for the 8:00 pm performance. I can’t say it was our best family day. We were all tired and cranky. None of us had slept well for days. I have my own mixed up life. The Husband has a “real” and therefore stressful job in Manhattan and My Kid is under pressure to “read more” of the books she doesn’t like and should be taken out for a bit of a run–like a dog, ideally twice a day.

After the performance there was a reception with some interesting creative types, but I was done being awake by 11:00 pm. (I took the L to Williamsburg to change to the G because the A and the C weren’t running. I was home just after midnight.) The younger performers went out for more drinks and conversation. Another time I would have joined them. But, this Saturday I was too worn out by the mommy part of my clown life.

A New York Election Night

I was a nervous wreck all day. My Kid was home from school so I wasn’t able to hike around the city checking out the energy of the lines outside the polling places. I can go walkabout on my own, but My Kid requires a destination.

Finally, around 6 pm I got her on the Q train heading to Times Square where I’d heard people were gathering. There were people with Obama signs gathering in the center of the square. That was interesting to me. But, we went into Toys R Us. I bought my kid a toy stuffed rabbit and a tube of sugary goo from Candyland in advance payment for patiently waiting with me.

I half hoped that the election would be such a landslide it would be called right at 7:00 pm when the polls closed. That’s what I was hoping for when rushing out of the store. No such luck. Early southern states with 5% of the vote counted were going for McCain and I got scared.

We joined the crowd in the triangle watching the ABC broadcast on the big screens and the backs of Cokie Roberts in blue and Donna Brazile in red and two, non-random white men but I didn’t know who they were. My Kid was the only little kid there smack dab in the middle of Times Square, most other parents had more sense. She kept asking when Daddy would be there. But, Daddy was delayed at his office. Times Square wasn’t so crowded that he couldn’t find us. When he joined us we watched some more. I tried to tell them I could have stood there in Times Square cheering the small victories and waiting for the final result all night and if they wanted to eat dinner they needed to take the initiative. I was willing to leave Times Square after Obama won Ohio. We walked towards Rockefeller Center. We ate at McCormick and Schmicks. My Kid was having desert and we were waiting for the check when we heard screams in the kitchen. The restaurant was almost empty and the manager had just announced that the doors were closed, no more new customers, they could start their closing chores. Then we heard shouts from the kitchen and all the waiters moved towards the bar where a silent TV glowed election information. A waiter asked and the manager gave permission for the sound to come on. “The lady’s crying.” We’d already moved our desert and coffee to the bar and I was crying.

After McCain’s concession speech we left the restaurant and went to Rockefeller Center to watch Obama’s victory speech on the giant TV’s. So many cheering people. So many honking taxis. So much happiness!

My Kid was melting. We had to go home.

When we came up out of the subway station at Lafayette we could hear drumming and cheering. It was a scene in the street between Ralph’s corner grocery and Moe’s bar. So many young adults dancing in the streets. The Husband was carried My Kid home while I took a quick detour to check it out. When I got home I made The Husband go out and check it out.

So much happiness.

There were police but they were just hanging out. There was nothing for them to do, everyone was so happy. All the mob did was dance and cheer.

Every time a car went down the street it would honk and everyone would cheer.

We lay in bed listening to the waves of cheers that continued till 3 am.

Such a happy night!

Getting a little stir crazy

My kid is happy as a clam to watch Sponge Bob and eat Halloween candy on this day off from school due to Election Day. Before I found out there was no school, I thought I would work off my Obama waitin’ nerves walking around Brooklyn and Manhattan checking out the lines at various polling places. This morning I saw an event happening in Times Square and I thought My Kid and I might go there (My Kid does love Toys R Us Times Square and in fact when she was little she thought Toys R Us WAS Times Square)

But,

We’re still in the apartment.

And

I’m getting a little stir crazy.

Women’s Theater Project

Yesterday I received an e-mail, forwarded to me by Kendall Cornell. The Women’s Theatre project was papering their Off-Broadway house for a play about a clown. So I went. It was a much nicer theater than the ones I usually get to play. The stage was large and the grid was jam-packed with lighting instruments. Most of the primary people involved in the production listed a Yale degree in their bios. That theatre seemed out of my reach and yet the play was obviously written by someone who is not very old and reminded me of shows we produced at Annex Theatre in Seattle where, incidentally, quite a few company members had gone to or would go on to Yale.

After the play, “Aliens with Extraordinary Skills” by Saviana Stanescu (MFA, NYU); directed by Tea Alagic (MFA, Yale); featuring Natalia Payne (BA, Yale); Set Design by Kris Stone (MFA, Yale); Costumes by Jennifer Moeller (MFA, Yale); Lighting Design by Gina Scherr (MFA, Yale); Music and Sound design by Sarah Pickett (MFA, Yale), I walked alone to the Times Square subway station.

My heart raced, as I looked at the marquees and the after theatre crowd brushed by me with their playbills in their hands. I was remembering my very first trip to New York. I took the train from Washington D. C. (where I had an internship in the Women’s Division of the Democratic National Committee when Geraldine Ferrarro was running for Vice President on the Democratic ticket with Walter Mondale) to visit Kathy McNenny, who I knew from home. She was attending Julliard and living in a room, not much bigger than her mattress, in a very scary building in Hell’s Kitchen across the street from Studio 54. I was afraid I would be raped every time I got on the elevator.

I saw 6 shows in about 48 hours. I went with Kathy and her boyfriend to see a play at The Irish Rep because a friend of theirs was in it. There was a lot of real dirt on the stage. I saw ” A Chorus Line” because I had always wanted to see it. I had received the album as a birthday present in grade school and had listened to, memorized, and performed, for my drama class, a deeply felt rendition of “Nothing” (just like all the other high school theater geeks my age). After “A Chorus Line” I went directly to another theatre to see Whoopi Goldberg’s late night performance, because Kathy told me that was the must see show everyone was talking about. I was blown away proclaiming that we would soon hear of her in Montana. “The Color Purple” was in movie theaters the next year. As soon as I woke up I went directly to the TKTS booth in Times Square to see what I could see. I wanted to see “Sunday in the Park with George” because I wanted to sing like Bernadette Peters, even though my voice teacher was always telling me not to (apparently I had a lovely voice of my own or some such drivel…) But, there were no TKTS tickets for “Sunday in the Park with George” so I got a ticket to “Forbidden Broadway” and went and sat on the ground outside the box office of the theatre where “Sunday in the Park with George” was playing and waited with a few other people until curtain time to see if there were any returns. I blushed with pride when someone in the ticket line, told me I looked like a real New Yorker and not at all like a tourist, sitting there on the ground and scribbling in a notebook, in my dark oversized coat full of pockets. The woman in the ticket booth told me she had some obstructed view seats but they weren’t worth it because they were way off to the side and you couldn’t see the amazing set come and go. So I waited until almost 8 o’clock and then ran down the street to use my ticket to “Forbidden Broadway” which I didn’t find funny since I wasn’t familiar with most of the shows and certainly none of the personalities being parodied. I went to Greenwich Village to see “The Fantastiks” because I adored that musical, having seen a such sweet chamber production of it in Missoula, accompanied by two grand pianos (or one grand piano and a harp–anyway it had been beautiful) and ever after wanted to be a good enough soprano to sing the role of “Luisa”. I believe I also saw “Le Cage Aux Folles” on Broadway that weekend. (“I Am What I Am” is a favorite song and I harbor a fondness for drag queens. “Pricilla Queen of the Desert” is one of my favorite films.) Between the shows I walked around and ate bagels and slices of pizza. My first bagel in New York was schmeared with an enormous amount of cream cheese and the man behind the counter said something to me that made me think he gave me extra for good luck on my first day in New York. All the money I had went for theatre tickets. No restaurant meals, no drinks. I didn’t even know at that point in my life that I ought to buy food or wine or a gift for my host who I actually never saw after joining her for the one play. She was so busy with classes and rehearsals. She told me when she first came to New York she tried to live in Queens (where the rent was lower and the rooms were bigger) but it was just too far away.

If Queens was too far away from Broadway, how very much more difficult must it be to get there from Missoula, Montana. Although both Kathy McNenny and JK Simmons succeeded. They represented the only two ways I knew of to get to New York. JK Simmons didn’t go to New York until after he had his Equity Card. I knew this because his brother David was a friend of mine and his father was my freshman advisor at the University of Montana. I also knew that his skills included the ability conduct an entire orchestra! (He was very nice to me and invited me out for a drinks with the cast after I sent a note backstage, via an usher, letting him know someone from Missoula was in the audience, when I saw the touring production of the short-lived broadway musical “Doonesbury” in which he played a small part and understudied most of the others. –It was during same fall term of my political internship as that first trip to New York.) The other way to get to New York, as I understood it was to get into a school, scholarship necessary. Kathy McNenny was able to do this after first attending the University of Montana. I remember other drama majors, eager to get on with their lives after college, talking about Kathy’s decision to go to Julliard where she would have to pay for another bachelors degree, instead of going to the Globe in San Diego which offered her a full-ride, an MFA and an Equity Card. But it wasn’t in New York.

Kathy knew what she was doing and I was not in the same league. In high school she was a competitive swimmer with a near perfect GPA, president of the Thespian Society, in the select show choir and involved in many other organizations that involved having her photo in the high school year book. She taught swimming lessons and visited schools as Captain Power for the local utility, possibly the only paying costumed character gig in the entire region. When she was a senior and I was a junior, she played the title role in our high school production of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”. I played one of her pupils who grew from child to adult under her tutelage. I was the only actress who did not have to bind for the first scene and had to stuff my bra for the last scene. That pretty much says it all.

Mommy Camp went off with a bang and I am exhausted

Thank goodness today’s scheduled group Mommy Camp was cancelled because I am exhausted and I have to work the Macy’s Fireworks VIP audience tonight.

We decided on the way home from Coney Island yesterday afternoon that we did not need to get up early today and rush to the Painted Pot to decorate knickknacks in yet another fun-filled activity during our Mommy Camp Summer-Kick-Off Week.

On Monday we met at noon to see the 12:30 showing of Wall*E at Cobble Hill Cinema, afterwards we had pizza in a restaurant and spent the rest of the afternoon with water balloons (some of us until after 6pm) at Peirrepont Playground on the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights. On Tuesday we Met at Melody Lanes Bowling Alley at 10am (I ducked out to meet the cleaning lady at my apartment–she never showed–so I made phone calls about clown stuff and paid bills–she is here now with her mother–how embarrassing for me) and returned to meet the group again at Pierrepont Playground where we stayed until after 6pm. Then I brought My Kid and her friend home for a sleepover. We walked to Ft. Green from Brooklyn Heights through Fulton Mall, stopping at Cookies to buy cheap plastic walkie talkies CUZ WE NEEEEEED THEM FOR OUR SLEEPOVER!. At home we made tacos. The girls had fun cutting up tomatoes and lettuce with plastic knives. Then at 9:30 we went outside and walked to Fort Greene Park looking for fireflies. Two were captured. Many never made it into the jar, then one of the two prisoners escaped. The other was granted clemency and freed. The girls desperately needed a bath and so they had one. They were asleep by 11:30. But we had to get up early because I had a 9am appointment in Brooklyn Heights. I was late. The kids played Ninetendo in the waiting room. Then we met up with the others and took the train and a bus to Chelsea Piers to go ice skating. But, none of us had checked in advanced and the rink was closed to the public. So we went, as scheduled to the water playground next to Chelsea Piers and then (as a quick Plan B) to Dave and Busters in Times Square where everyone ate greasy food and the adults drank overpriced tropical drinks and spent too much on games for the kids. Afterwards we returned My Kid’s friend to her apartment where her mom had been home all day with a sick 4-year-old, a baby, and less than 24 hours to pack camping gear and clothes for a family of 5 before a flight to Colorado the next day. My Kid and I again walked home from Brooklyn Heights through Fulton Mall. (Meanwhile Enthusiastic Mom took her son to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium and they got home at midnight) I think we ate Chinese take-out. I think we watched “So You Think You Can Dance” on TV. I was beginning to wonder if the week of fun would ever end. Nope not yet. Next on the schedule–Thursday morning we met on the Q train for a trip to Coney Island; Astroland unlimited ride bracelets, Nathan’s cheese fries. Sand and Sea. And the inevitable melt-down. My Kid was too short to ride the pirate ship but her friend was tall enough. So My Kid got to play some games and win some MORE stuffed animals to add to the clutter in our apartment.

Enthusiastic Mom had e-mailed us a spread-sheet schedule of the week’s planned activities. The kids were all supposed to wear the same colored shirt each day (so they would look like a group just like real day camp kids) which they took seriously. Monday was white, Tuesday was red, Wednesday was blue, Thursday was yellow. We discussed changing plans, but unfortunately our kids are old enough to read and in fact had been studying the schedule. The children would not allow us to deviate much from what had been printed. (Thank goodness they were also exhausted by Thursday night so we could cancel today–which isn’t really a day of nothing since it is the 4th of July and that involves at the very least schlepping out somewhere to stand with a crowd to watch the fireworks and then schlepping home in the dark and possibly rain.) That’s why we still had to go to Astroland at Coney Island even though we had spent the previous afternoon at Dave and Busters in Times Square. They are effectively the same thing from a spending money for nothing point of view.

All in all it was a good week. But, I will be glad to get back to My Kid’s version of Mommy Camp which is much more like homeschooling with reading and writing, math and science, and art (what can I do that’s what My Kid said she wanted…) But, we’ll be going to Montana for two weeks and accompanying My Husband on a business trip to Toronto in August so I don’t know how many days of this brand of low-key educational mommy camp she will actually get.

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.