Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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I’m always preaching about how i find beauty in imperfections, and there were three distinct beauty marks on my part in the show. Two of them were ugly and misplaced, but one of them was shining and perfect – it reminded me of that mole on Cindy Crawford’s lip.

The first mess-up that mars my memory of the show is my classic blunder on opening night, where i totally forget the second verse of my solo song. Normally i love to make mistakes while solo on the stage, because then it’s solely my job to fix them, but in this situation i was trapped because my accompaniment was a taped piano. Even though i made up a whole verse on the spot, and even though i hardly ever broke character in the process, i felt trapped by the piano pounded forward while i was still spinning my mental wheels in the mud.


The second blunder was totally the opposite. In our sneak preview Laurel started a scene with the wrong monologue … one that came later in the scene after i made a crucial entrance where my hand would be injured for the whole of the play. With half the cast on the stage, we were sent into a panic. The intelligent thing to do would be to wait Laurel’s monologue out, and then replay the part of the scene that came beforehand, but with so many people present we could hardly communicate our intention. As it was the scene just blundered along without me, and i was left to my own devices to get my hand injured onstage and then get my ass to center to talk to Laurel. Everything got done, but it was sloppy and could have been pulled off without a hitch if everyone had thought it through better.


My favourite mistake was with Laurel, and it happened twice. There are a handful of scenes … three or four short exchanges … that hinged solely on Laurel and I. We would have total control of the stage on which no one else could intrude until we resolved our lines. In one instance i dropped a line, and in another she dropped hers, but both times we maintained eye contact and fixed things. Once i had to go back and redo a line so the audience would hear it, and Laurel stood ready with her response. The other time the ball was in Laurel’s court and i let her know that i wouldn’t say a thing until she gave a line to let me know where the scene stood. Both times the transition from lines to mistake to fix to lines was so smooth that the rest of the cast had to ask what happened afterwards.

Laurel never loses control of the stage; it’s a skill i could stand to learn a bit better.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2636091/

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I have this idiot clear red poker visor on right now, because our director Bill had this obscenely large box of them (frightening only because it implies he had some sinister use for them in the show that never came to fruition) and he had the entire cast and crew pick one of the garish colors out from the box during our strike. Honestly, it’s sort of like always being under a red spotlight, because it casts the same glow the lighting gels do, and it washes out all of the red coloring of my hands when they’re in the light. Maybe Bill meant to say we’re always under the spotlight, or maybe he just wanted to get rid of thirty ugly poker visors, or maybe he just wanted his whole cast to look silly as they trudged home from the show.

There was this idiot kid dead center tonight. I talk to the audience once at the very beginning of the play, and once at the end; at the beginning i am in character and warming them up to the sort of show they’ll be seeing, and at the end i am totally myself, telling them that there is no happy end to be found. The ending is hard to find humor in, as the primary cast stalks up to the front of the stage one by one to remind the audience that there is no happy end. Tonight i walked forward for my solo bit of the epilogue, and that kid was right there. I remember him from orientation …, he wore this idiot blue visor with all of his chunky dyed blonde hair sticking up behind it, and he kept trying to break dance at night even though he was awful at it and he was getting in everyone’s way. It struck me that he mocked everything because he wasn’t really a part of any of it.


Tonight i walked past him and he wasn’t laughing with me but at me, and not in the way an audience is meant to. I just said my line to him and walked away. “Unhappy endings were expected too…” I had the stage, i was a lead in a play with my own song and my name listed first in a program, and he sat there in the audience and tried to have power over me with his hollow little laugh – as if i was supposed to see him mocking me and just break character and forget all of my lines and break down and let him win. But, he had nothing on me, because no matter how much i might have hated being in this play every night, when i’m on stage i am in charge.

He wasn’t wearing his visor, though. And i’m sitting here, wondering what else i have in common with him.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2635971/

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Eek. There’s something wrong in a relationship when one of you has been head over heels the entire time, and the other one is continually warming up to the other. Eventually warm turns to hot, and head over heels after all those months comes off as pretty damned cold. Or something. Didn’t Alanis Morissette write an album about this feeling? Don’t i own it…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2635520/

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Yesterday on the phone with my aunt, she off-handedly asked what i’d be giving up for Lent this year. My family isn’t the most strict in terms of Catholicism, but on my father’s side they all go to church every week or two and make sure to observe all the major holidays and the rules that go along with them. So, they honestly practice Lent – giving up something extravagant like chocolate (i’ve always known it to be a food item with them (rather than buying new cds, which would be more apropros for me), but i’m not sure if that’s a symptom of my own family or Catholicism as a whole). I replied that i didn’t even realize Lent was upon us, although subconsciously i’m quite aware that the whole purpose of the Mardi Gras is to have one last wild night before heading into Lent. She clucked in reply that i should watch out lest i wind up in hell, and though she meant it light-heartedly its intended effect was felt.

Am i to think that i’m really going to hell because i didn’t give up chocolate for a month? While i realize such a practice obeys the letter of religious law, you have to obey the spirit as well, and obeying the spirit of the law is more important. I have a laughable line in my play where i implore to the gods “Well, good will, for instance, might do instead of love? Or, good sportsmanship instead of justice? Instead of honor, outward propriety?” I gave the line with a chuckle for nearly a month before my director stopped me in the middle of it one night and asked me to tell him what was going on. After some mulling on my part i realized that i wasn’t offering up my “insteads” as a joke to the gods, but as a reality. I am taking the stance that to ask that we always love our neighbor is asking too much, but that we should at least offer him our good will in hopes that we get it in return.

Somewhere in there is my feeling on Lent. I won’t begrudge my family their religious practices, and i’ll be mindful of my frivolous nature during Lent, but you can be sure they’ll all be on a chocolate binge when it’s over, and that shouldn’t be the point. Giving up something you like for an amount of time shows a commitment to your god, but actually changing your habit as a result of true self reflections shows that you’re really honoring him.

Plus, i don’t really like chocolate to begin with.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/02/2571340/

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Nearly a week passes with nary a word from my fingertips, and i’d hope you’d be worried about me. I mean … when i flew to Florida for four days i nearly cried when i last closed down my Blogger screen, and here i am flitting around Philadelphia with hardly a regret? Well, it didn’t work out quite that way… although that was the net effect, wasn’t it?

Last Thursday i was sick. I was totally fine on Wednesday, and on Thursday i was sick. Actually, i’ve been sick for about as long as i’ve been dating my girlfriend, on and off. (That’s sick on and off, not dating on and off). Last Thursday was awful, though. I slept on a tiny green room couch for hours, i dragged my feet through my acting class, and i slept through much of my rehearsal until finally it was my turn to rehearse. Thankfully, my director Bill drove me home, as while i spent the whole day sleeping in the theatre several inches of snow accumulated.


Friday was more uneventful, though i did lose my voice in my first class (that was rather unexpected). The eventful bit was having a largish fight with my darling girlfriend, in which i was a big meanie the whole time because i was convinced that i was supposed to break up with her. It’s funny how in a situation like that my spine is the last thing to come into play; i told Matt i was going to break up with her, i steeled myself against easy reconciliation, and i tried to burn bridges before they could be recrossed. So much for that. All we wound up with was a really hurtful fight that will always be a mark against me. Good job, Peter.

Perhaps as a result of the intense back and forth on Friday (or perhaps it had to do with the small amount of vodka i consumed that night), i was sick on Saturday. Very very sick. Every time i would fall asleep i’d wake up two hours later having soaked through my clothing and the sheets in sweat. My temperature kept spiking and falling, with each spike bringing on a spectacular headache and on the way up or down from it a tremendous amount of sweating or chills. What a spectacular way to spend a Saturday.

By Sunday my body was out of ideas of what to do with itself. Unbeknownst to me, i was completely dehydrated (which was indicated by the fact that i couldn’t muster the nerve to touch solid foods like crackers or granola bars), and running a 102degree temperature. Somehow i crawled my way to rehearsal (a grueling journey for someone in the shape i was in), but once i got there i was a total wreck. I’ve done full dress rehearsals with high fevers before, but i was sweating and shaking and in no shape to sing or do anything else. Plus, there was the coughing. It hadn’t seemed like the central element of my sickness the night before, but it felt pretty damned central at that point.

My director Bill (aka: Guardian Angel) told me that he wanted me to go to an emergency room and come back healthy Monday or Tuesday, so into the scene came Mother. Mother picked me up, carted me to her emergency room, where i had lots of blood taken from me in addition to a trip to x-ray (they wheeled my bed there… wheeled it!). And, the pinnacle of fun and enjoyment was when i was given an IV and hydrated with two litres of saline. I came home that night in better shape that i had been in, and in the possession of Robotussin with Codeine. Yeah.

The capper was yesterday – the day i had earmarked for “catching up on my soap operas and blogging like a whore.” And that didn’t happen, because i was back in the ER, because my chest films showed i had pneumonia! Whee! This time my ER visit earned me my very own room, lots of wonderful breathing treatments, two more litres of hydration, a hospital issue turkey sandwich, and lots of warm blankets.

So, erm, yeah. That’s my excuse. I’ll shut up about my life now. Just wanted you to know that, um, i’ve alive. Which had been in doubt by some people lately. Love ya!

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/02/2555824/