Back to RENT!

The state of emergency was lifted around noon on Thursday. Thank the sweet Lord! And then my heart was light again.

Friday was the night my entire office was coming to see the show. As well as my best friends from high school, one which I haven't seen in like 9 years, one of my old roommates, and one of my best friends. So throughout the day I kept getting those pangs of nervousness that jolt through your stomach and make you emit a high-pitched sound by accident. My coworker in the next cubicle over kept saying, "ummm...are you ok?" "Yeah I'm...fine." It felt like Preview night all over again.

I left work as everyone yelled "good luck and break a leg" in excitement, rushed home, took a shower, scarfed down a piece of pizza, and went to the theatre hella early around 5:30. I put my make-up and hair on, the process which I dread the most b/c it takes effing forever, then walked around the set along with no one there running my lines and blocking. As cast members started arriving, we were all greeted by hugs all around, "OMG I am SO glad to see you!" There was so so much energy in the dressing room I felt suffocated. People were jumping and screaming and yelling and singing and so happy that I got even more nervous and had to pop some tums and ginger.

When we all gathered in the green room, everyone recounted my immature behavior about the snow. And thankfully, they were laughing about it. And I apologized again for my hatred towards the world last weekend and felt lucky to be around people who still love you regardless of things like that. Before we went on, Jeremy enters our dressing room, "Genitalia!" as he exclaims to warn us whenever he is coming in. "You know what I wish you would do? That high note you used to hit in rehearsals during out tonight." "What part?" He sings through a chunk of the song in a high-pitched voice and reminds me. "Oh yea! I'm always too out of breathe by that point hahaha but I'll see how it is tonight."

So, the show began. And I kept my breathe in Out Tonight and did what Jeremy wanted. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his shadow jumping up and down and accidentally hitting everybody around him. At intermission, I took off my boot and noticed a pain throbbing in my ankle. And the side of my left foot was bruised and swelling. Shit. When the eff did I do that? So I was brought a bag of ice and as I walked into the green room, I see Jeremy sitting on the couch with a bag of ice on his left ankle. Apparently he twisted it merely walking in La Vie. The guy flips all over the place and he sprains it while walking. :) Ironic. "It's b/c you made me sing that note Jeremy. It was either the note or our ankles."

The show went surprisingly well for not doing it for 2 weeks and I rushed out to the lobby to see everyone. Sue and Dave and Rachael greeted me with pink flowers and we talked for a LONG time and I missed them. And Rachael is the same as she was in high school and I regretted not keeping in touch with her. Dave doesn't really do the theatre thing and was asking me questions like, "So, do you guys know each other? Like the people in the cast, do you know each other?" Lol. So cute. But I'm glad he came and Sue later on told me he was comparing our cast to a sports team. :) My coworkers cheered as I walked towards them and my boss handed me more pink flowers :) I felt kind of dumb holding all those flowers, like a big old diva or something and wanted to put them away in my bag and not have everyone see me holding all of them. They loved the show and as much as I felt weird that they had watched me touch my crotch and what-not, I think it was good that they saw what I had been working on outside of work for all these months. That I'm not this quiet little, mousy girl that's so sweet and innocent. Barb and Lehrone were there as well, and Barb gave me a hand-painted box that said MIMI on the cover. It had fake cigarettes inside that said, "B/c you're so hot." I also got to see Nora, who I haven't seen in forever and saw that she was wearing her leopard coat :) It was good to talk to her and Sarah. I briefly ran into others like Jenn Kelman who I love, and some that I didn't know were there like Mardian and Gill and the Goldsteins. And then afterwards, we all went to Stanleys and we took a bunch of pictures and ugly pictures and cute pictures....why is it so fun for me to take ugly pictures?

When I got home, I checked my email on my ipod and saw I got one from a mother of a child at the daycare I used to teach at. Saying she was going to bring Madi to the show on Saturday. Ummmm...Madi was 3 when I taught her. She is now 6. So I emailed her and as much as I wanted to see them, I told her it wouldn't be a great idea to bring a 6 -year - old to RENT. I probably would have traumatized the child. Ummm...Mommy? What is Miss Kristin doing?