I'll give five bucks to anyone who can name the musical that inspired this title. Seriously.
Tonight was the last performance of "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer." Although I will quite humbly admit that my performance on Friday was significantly better than tonight's, tonight went fairly well. And at least I have a little something to laugh about.
Picture this. I'm a single mother talking to a 30-year-old writer. He's my son. And for some reason he decides to follow my footsteps into the writing world. We're discussing the latest pitch he's had with Disney in L.A over coffee and all the superficiality entailed. I pause for a moment. He's frozen on stage, and I go on a rant about how proud I am that he's following my footsteps, that he's beginning to read the articles I'm sending him about all the tragic plights of women from other countries, and even from this one, who have dealt with abuse, rape, exploitation, younameit. After I've completed my rant, I'm supposed to say the following lines to get back into a dialogue with him.
The market is in full swing now, and the breeze from the ocean brings such a relief, it's enough to make you feel that, just for a moment, everything is fine. I can tell my son feels this, too. But he breaks the reverie. Someone had to.
And instead, for some reason, my brain pauses. Words are escaping me. I keep talking, though, because I've been an actress long enough to know that empty words are better than complete silence. So I say something along the lines of:
There's an ocean breeze. There are people in office suits walking by. We feel so perfect in the sunlight. Man those people in suits look busy. But there's such a feeling of peacefulness. Yes. Peacefulness.
Meanwhile, I'm simultaneously trying to find a line, any line, from that particular scene that I continue from. Finally I get it. And I say:
He breaks the reverie. Someone had to. And the scene continues in its normal fashion.
All I can say is: what reverie? My useless rambling reverie? Oh yes, it was just so calming. Those busy guys rushing around us while we're trying to enjoy the sunlight and the ocean breeze are so calming. Yikes.
I honestly could not stop laughing once I got off stage. I thought it was all rather hilarious. So I hugged my scene partner as he made fun of me and I made fun of him back by noting how many "ands" and "uhms" were needlessly placed in his rant about how his perspective of women is completely different because he was raised by a single mother. It was supposed to be a touching moment during which he finally expressed his true feelings about how his mother has shaped his life and he's "uhming" at me. Haha.
Suddenly, my director was in the back room. I held my breath, anxiously waiting for her to rip in on me about how horrible my improv skills are, when she gives me a hug.
Honestly, I don't think anyone noticed that your ramble wasn't a part of the script, she smiled. Plus. Crazy feminist writers probably go on disjointed rants like that all the time.
And we laughed some more.
I'm not quite sure how much money we made tonight, but we brought in $115 last night for the V-day organization and the Rutland Women's Shelter. I'd say that's pretty good, eh?
Though I am sad it's all over--mostly because this performance gave me the chance to get to know a lot of people on a very different level than before-- I'm kinda glad I have my nights back. Seriously. I think I may actually have time to do homework now. Yeah. You know, that thing that college students do at the last conceivable minute because procrastinating is approximately 11.8 times more fun than papers? I should probably get on that. Or I could just keep writing...
So last night was a bit unusual. On a typical Friday night in winter, I tend to spend my time in Brent's room playing video games and calling people absurdly profane names. (It's my way of showing people I love them. Plus, it's always fun to see what new offensive terms or phrases we can create. It's almost like a game. My favorite is probably "oh you stupidly stupid stupid-face." Yeah, that gets the point across.)
Anyways, instead of doing the same old same old, I ended up wandering around a bit and hanging out with people I don't typically hang out with all that much. In the course of all this wandering, I managed to lose a hat and misplace my nalgene (Oh the tragedies of leaving one's safety net! I'm happy to report, however, that both items have been safely recovered!) I also bumped into a number of people who, for some reason, all felt the necessity to compliment me for one thing or another. The weirdest part about it was that none of them were around one another when they were suddenly inspired to shower me with embarrassment.
Now. Let's backtrack. I'm kind of a shy kid. Hence the reason I spend most of my Friday's in the safety net of Brent's room with people that I know well enough to make fun of. Suddenly, I decide to wander out into the great wide world without even my safety blanket (Brent, Payton, and Lexi had disappeared) and I get into a conversation with this one girl who, evidently, is in love with my writing. I sort of brushed it off, considering she had only read one of my longer rants about my travels to Tibet and how it affected me on a spiritual level, and she's really nice. But then she tells me that the first time she read my work was before she even knew me and she enjoyed it then, too. Evidently GMC sends out the Reverie (our art and literary magazine) to prospective students? When did that start happening?
I have work in every one that's been published since I've been here, simply because writing is pretty much my thang. I really can't live without it. And it just feels better when I can actually share the ruminations in my head with others. But I certainly did NOT think that so many others were actually getting their hands on these things, and definitely did NOT think that people would actually enjoy my work on a level where they would want to read more. (She told me to write a book one day. I just might.)
And then I was off to go hang out with Ben and Ronnie and Rachel, a really cool crew that I don't hang out with often enough. Once there, I found out that people actually READ THIS BLOG. I thought they were just playing me at first, but I guess they actually like reading about my perspective of GMC. (That's when I told them that they needed more exciting lives. Just joking folks. Or so you hope.) Anyways, I think that's pretty cool. I mean, I started the blog so that prospectives could get at least one perspective of the GMC life. But I guess other people get to see what my life's all about too. Neat. (Although it does make me wonder how much people on this campus really know about me. Scccaaary. :) )
And then I bump into another group of people that I hardly talk to, and they were all about my performance at the play. It was rather exciting. I mean, I love acting, but I hadn't found the time for it in my schedule until this semester. You can imagine how rusty my skills are when I haven't really acted in three years. The fact that people enjoyed the performance (and that we raised so much money for such great causes) is enough to make me feel that, for a moment, everything is fine. *insert giggle here* No, but seriously, I'm so happy that things worked out the way they did.
I also posted up one of my rants on my online journal and I've been getting tons of compliments on my writing style, lately. What an ego booster. Watch out, I just may become arrogant one day.
Well, then. Now it's time to start preparing for the next play--Speak Truth to Power. It is going to be AWESOME. We went over the script as a cast a couple weeks ago and it's got this independent/underground abstract feel to it that I think is going to be a lot of fun to play with. It's so... beautifully haunting. Yeah. Stay tuned for more info on that one.
Anyways, enough of my rambles. Until next time...
