Well, That's Embarrassing

            Back in 1999, I auditioned for a local production of The Pajama Game. I had been out of the community theatre scene for a couple of years, but I was taking voice lessons and singing a lot—in choirs, at weddings, even in a Christian rock band (that’s material for a another post entirely). Much to my surprise, they cast me as Babe Williams—the spunky union leader at a pajama factory who gets romantically entangled with the new boss. In the movie she was played by Doris Day. At 28 I had played dozens of character parts, but I had never been “the lead” in a musical. A voice teacher once said to me, “You have the voice of a leading lady, in the body of a character actor.” Lovely.

            I was beyond excited to finally have my big chance. The rehearsal process was wonderful. The group was incredibly friendly and welcoming. The director was a dream and my leading man was talented and supportive. I worked my tail off. I never drove my car without practicing my music (back in those days we had tape players in cars). I was early to every rehearsal and had my lines memorized before anyone else. I had something to prove—mostly to myself. I always knew I could do it and now I finally had my chance.

            The best director I ever had, Jim Steinmeyer, used to remind us of PEACE before we went on stage. PEACE stands for Pacing, Energy, Action, Concentration and Ease. It’s great advice onstage or off. If you can manage those five things, you can get through almost anything. Unfortunately, during one of the performances of The Pajama Game I lost my concentration for a moment. As Mark, the Music Director said later, my brain took a trip to The Bahamas and didn’t even bring back presents.

I saw my brother sitting in the front row of the audience and remembered that I had offered to pay for a ticket and have it waiting for him at the front desk. Busy with preparations for the show I had forgotten to do it. So instead of my mind being completely absorbed in the show I was thinking about my brother and the very strong likelihood that he didn’t have any cash in his wallet. I was singing the very funny song called “I’m Not at All in Love” with twelve women in the cast when the words left my brain. Poof. Gone. There I was, center stage, singing a song I had sung hundreds of times and all that came out of my mouth was, “La, la, la.” 

This is what it was supposed to sound like.

            I smiled through tears as the audience politely applauded and ran off stage. I wanted to find a dark quiet corner to hide in for the next few days. Tim, my leading man, was waiting in the wings for me. He wrapped me in a bear hug and said, “You’re going to be fine. It’s over now.” Then he took me by the shoulders and looked me square in the face, “Let it go and do the next number.”

            As I look at the words on paper, they seem pretty ordinary, but at the time they were just the words I needed to hear. I managed to pull myself together. I took a few deep breaths, changed my costume, and met Tim on stage for our next number. It was a song called, “There Once was a Man” and it was the one I had the most trouble with in rehearsals. The rhythm was very tricky and it made me very nervous even under the best of circumstances. But by then I had regained the concentration I had lost in the last scene. Tim and I nailed the number. This time, the applause was genuine—it was the best we had ever performed that very difficult song.

            Despite all of my preparation, I screwed up in a very public way. I wanted to dissolve in a pile of self-pitying Jell-o. Fortunately embarrassment isn’t fatal and neither are most mistakes. I regained my focus, put the mistake behind me, kept going, and put on one hell of a performance.

This post was written in response to the Red Dress Club’s new writing prompt about writing memoir: “This week, we want you to imagine that after you have died and your daughter/son will be given the gift of seeing a single five-minute period of your life through your eyes, feeling and experiencing those moments as you did when they occurred. What five minutes would you have him/her see? Tell us about them in the finest detail. Let’s have a maximum word count of 700 words for this post.”

Red Dress Club Meme: Wicked Stupid

 Here's another post inspired by The Red Dress Club's writing meme. The assignment this week is to write a post that begins with the phrase, "I could never have imagined..." and ends with the phrase, "and then the world shifted".  Please feel free to leave comments and criticism. 

Wicked Stupid

I could never have imagined how stupid I would get. I knew I would gain weight, feel nauseous, have weird cravings, and have to go to the bathroom ALL THE TIME. The stupidity however, was the side of pregnancy that I was not prepared for. That and how unbelievably exhausted I would be. I’m sure it’s mentioned in What to Expect When You’re Expecting. I’d look it up, but I’ve forgotten where I left the book. Maybe I gave it to Good Will. Maybe I lent it to someone—but I just can’t remember?

That’s the problem with the stupidity I developed during pregnancy. It never went away. The location of What to Expect… is just one of the things I’ve forgotten over the years. Along with the name of my second grade teacher—I can remember first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth grader teachers. But not second. I wonder why. Did something traumatic happen in the second grade? I had a reunion last year with some folks I went to elementary school with and I was astounded at the detail my former classmate Kerry could remember. She doesn’t have kids—coincidence? I think not.

I was out to dinner with my family recently. I ordered chicken piccata and my husband said, “It’s been ages since I made that.”

“You’ve made chicken piccata?” I said.

“Yeah, I used to make it for you when we were dating.”

How could I forget that? I love chicken piccata. More importantly I love it when people cook for me. I had no memory of it whatsoever. I could remember him making buffalo chicken and black bean burritos, but not chicken piccata.

Last week at rehearsal I had to shuffle a couple of small speaking parts around because of the way the vocal parts were assigned. One of the people I needed to get in touch with wasn’t at rehearsal—fortunately her husband was.

“Phil, can you ask Gerry if she can do the part of Mrs. Shelley on page thirteen?” I asked him.

“You already did,” he told me.

“I did?”

“Yes,” he said. “You sent us an e-mail.” He laughed at the look on my face and added, “You’re getting old.”

Phil may have a point. Certainly I’m not getting younger. But I think it’s motherhood more than age that’s responsible for my fading brain cells. My great aunt Dorothy was sharp as a tack into her nineties—she never had kids either.

Most of the pregnancy symptoms (silly word—it’s not like pregnancy is a disease) went away as soon as each child was born. The heartburn went away, my ankles returned to normal and the smell of coffee no longer made me gag. The need to pee all the time got better—but my poor bladder never quite recovered from being used as a trampoline for ten months (that’s right ten not nine—I carried Owen for 41.5 weeks that’s ten months on my calendar). My sister warned me that it never really comes back. At least, I think it was my sister. Someone who has had children warned me.

When I was wheeled into the operating room for my c-section, I looked forward to meeting this little person who had made himself so comfortable in my body. I also looked forward to being little less tired and a little sharper. Then the whole world shifted.

Young Love

...I am so not ready to deal with this

An absolutely terrifying thing has been happening in my house lately. I knew it would happen eventually, but I never expected it to happen when my kids were still in elementary school. My boys have been talking a lot about a strange and murky topic: girls. For the longest time I was the only “girl” in their lives. I am the lone female in a house with one man, two boys, and two male cats. As my friend Sara says, “I’m an island of estrogen in a sea of testosterone”.

With Valentine’s Day almost upon us, my dear sweet eight-year-old boy has been weighing his options about how and if to tell his sweetheart how he feels. Frankly, I’m damned if I know what to tell him. When I was eight, girls noticed boys and boys ignored girls in favor of collecting bugs, playing baseball and making fart jokes. Apparently the little guys are more sophisticated these days, so he’s been trying to figure out how to give her a Valentine without the entire third grade noticing. Owen only sees Melanie* at outdoor recess—which they haven’t had in ages thanks to Snowapalooza 2011.

He’s also very confused about the feelings he’s having. He keeps asking, “I don’t know why I like her. Is it because she’s pretty? She’s a good person too—she was citizen of the month.” I’ve tried to explain that there isn’t always an explanation as to why we’re attracted to a particular person. It’s just something that happens. This is not a useful explanation to give a kid as analytical as Owen. He is a boy in search of concrete, scientific data—and as adults we know that in matters of the heart, there is no such thing. I only hope that being a “citizen of the month” means that Melanie does not laugh at my little guy if he works up the courage to give her that valentine.

I think a lot of this mushy-lovey stuff has come up lately because of my younger son, who seems to be something of a “chick magnet”. Before he reached the first grade two separate girls had already informed him that they intend to marry him. Now it seems that at the tender age of six he has a girlfriend. Here’s a conversation my husband overheard the two boys having last week:

Owen: James, do you have a girlfriend?

James: Yeah.

Owen: Who is it?

James: Annie*

Owen: How do you know she’s your girlfriend?

James: Because she told me.

            Girlfriends? I’m not ready for this. Aren’t girls still supposed to be icky? I thought all the questions that Owen had when he was preparing for First Communion were hard to answer. Theology is a piece of cake by comparison! Last week Owen told me that a classmate of his kissed a girl on the bus. I said, “But you’re only in third grade!”

            “It was last year. In second grade,” he reported.

            “Oh my God!”

            “You’re not supposed to say that.”

            “Trust me honey, God totally understands why I said it.”

*Names have been changed to protect the adorable

Recess: A Red Dress Club Meme

Today I'm linking up with The Red Dress Club for the following assignment:  write a short piece in which a character told a joke and a character cried. The piece has to be maximum 600 words and must be able to be read aloud in no more than 3 minutes. If you have the time, I strongly recommend you peruse some of the links you find at the Red Dress Club. It's amazing how many talented writers there are out in the blogosphere. Please enjoy my little piece of fiction. Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome. So is praise--I LOVE praise!

Recess

            Jeremy took a deep breath to calm himself. He flattened down his wiry dirty blond hair, straightened out his Lego Batman tee shirt, and approached the other boys.

“Can I play too?” he asked. Jeremy held up his Pokemon deck. “I brought my cards with me.”

            Usually Jeremy just looked for interesting rocks on the playground during recess or watched the other kids play. He wasn’t good at sports. No matter how much he practiced at home, he couldn’t catch a ball and he tripped over his own feet when he ran. Lately he noticed some of the boys bringing Pokemon cards to recess. Jeremy had lots of cards and hoped they would let him play.

            “Sure,” said Seth. He was in the third grade too but seemed a little older. The kids at school all liked him. Seth wore tee shirts with the names of rock bands and pictures of skateboards on them. He seemed to be the leader of this group of Pokemon players.

            Jeremy sat down on the pavement with the other boys. “You wanna hear a joke?”

            “Sure,” said Seth.

            “What’s a banana’s favorite gymnastics movie?”

            “What?”

            “A split! Get it?” 

            “That doesn’t make any sense,” said another boy named Ryan. “Wait, do you mean gymnastics move?”

            “Um. I’m not sure. I’ll have to get check my magazine.”

            “You got that joke out of a magazine?”

            “Yeah. Boy’s Life.”

            “Boy’s Life? What is that? Some kind of homo magazine?”

            Jeremy had trouble breathing. He looked from Seth to Ryan not knowing what to say. He didn’t know homo meant. But he could tell from the way Ryan said it that it wasn’t nice. He loved getting his Boy’s Life magazine every month and his favorite part was the joke section.

            “Lay off Ryan,” said Seth. “It’s a magazine for Boy Scouts. Just ignore Ryan. He thinks he’s cooler than everyone else. Let’s play.”

            “It’s okay,” shrugged Jeremy. He was happy to still be able to play with the other boys. Ryan gave him mean looks part of the time, but he didn’t say anything else to him.

            It was the best recess Jeremy had all year. For once it didn’t matter that he was bad at kickball or that he sometimes cried when he fell down. He found something that he liked to do that other kids liked to do. It was worth putting up with a few mean looks from Ryan.

            When the bell rang, the boys gathered up their cards. Jeremy couldn’t hide his excitement and said, “Are we going to play again tomorrow?”

            “Maybe,” said Seth. “Bring your deck.”

            Jeremy smiled as Seth walked into the school until Ryan started talking again. “I can’t believe he’s letting you play with us. Seth must feel sorry for you. If you come back tomorrow don’t tell anymore of those homo jokes,” said Ryan.

            Jeremy felt his face get hot. He had such a great recess and this boy was going to ruin it for him. He wished Seth were still here. Maybe he’d stand up for him again.

“They’re not homo jokes. They’re Cub Scout jokes,” Jeremy said quietly.

“Same thing.”

Jeremy felt a part of his brain melt into anger. He loved Cub Scouts. It was the only place he fit in. He didn’t care if Ryan said bad things about him, but he wouldn’t let him say anything bad about Scouts. Jeremy made a fist, but hesitated. Ryan turned his back and walked away before Jeremy could strike. A tear slid down his cheek and Jeremy quickly wiped it away before anyone could see.



This is a work of fiction that was inspired by the jokes my boys read in Boy's Life magazine and my absolute terror that I feel when I think about the possibility that my sweet, sensitive children might run into a real bully one of these days.

Sugarpalooza 2011

       

            As the mother of boys, I feel like I spend an awful lot of time in the role of enforcer: “do your homework”, “no horsing around in the living room”, “flush!”, “eat with your mouth closed”. Sometimes it seems like I am so busy setting boundaries and doing what needs to be done that I forget to enjoy time with them and just have fun. And really, what’s the point of having little boys if you don’t get to have fun?

            Some time ago we hatched an idea of making dessert pizzas with my best friend Julie. Children will forget to wear a hat when it’s 10º out, they’ll forget to wash their hands, and they’ll forget to put their toys away. They will not, however, forget the promise of a giant sugar fest. After being hounded reminded a few times, I set a date, invited Julie and started preparing for “make your own dessert pizza night”.

            First I made giant cookie dough “pizza crusts” using Nestlé’s Toll House cookie recipe (without the chocolate chips). I divided the dough into five large cookies and baked them for about ten minutes. Don’t over bake because they’ll be going back in the oven later. Then I gathered “sauces” (raspberry jam, strawberry jam, and caramel), “cheeses” (white chocolate chips & mini marshmallows), and toppings such as pepperoni and sausage (mini peanut butter cups & Rolos), and anchovies (Swedish Fish).

The chefs at work.

            After each of us made the perfect pizza I popped them back into a 250º oven until they were all melty and gooey.

Their creations.

            Then we argued briefly about how much pizza each kid could eat. Fortunately, this is serious sugar and the boys surrendered after a half a pizza each.

A not-so-flattering picture of all of us.

            I’m posting this today to remind myself to spend some time having fun with my kids as we have yet another snow day. How many days until spring?