11.23.02 – Raleigh, NC; Asheville, NC; Greensboro, NC

i have the asiatic death flu. every time i turn my head at an angle the whole world begins to spin, sort of like drunk spins only without the alcohol. there’s a mall across the street from the motel, so i walked over there in seach of cold medicine this afternoon. wandering (weaving, really) thru the mall amongst all the christmas hoopla, it hit me how NORMAL everyone else looked. i mean, they were spending saturday afternoon going christmas shopping, with their friends or family, wearing clean clothes (i was wearing my load-out sweatshirt from the beginning of the week, which didn’t seem dirty until i looked at it in the sparky clean mall full of new clothes) and perky hair and after shopping were going to go home to their houses and cook dinner and be NORMAL. i’m tired of this gypsy lifestyle. i want to have a home to go to. i want to leave my shampoo in the bathroom and munch out of the fridge whenever i’m hungry. whine whine whine. being ill is the quickest way to make me into an 8-year-old at heart – whimpering for someone to bring the remote and make me soup.

11.19.02 – Greenville, SC; Charlotte, NC

countdown to thanksgiving: 8 days to andy, ashland, cooking dinner, walks in lithia park, and a cozy weekend without tour life, motels or fast food. will someone wake me when it’s next wednesday?

11.16.02 – Marshall, TX; Lake Charles, LA; New Orleans, LA; Atlanta, GA: we are experiencing technical difficulties

i have this eerie feeling that eudora is eating some of my email messages lately. i see it download four messages, say, and then can only find three new ones in the inbox. if it appears that i’m ignoring you, don’t take it personally, and maybe try sending the message again. given that one of my biggest pet peeves is narrowly missing phone calls, this now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t email stuff is driving me bonkers.

11.11.02 – Shreveport, LA

i love him because he wears moccasins in the winter.

wynona ryder in Mermaids. i love this line because her reason is so completely arbitrary, yet it’s such an integral part of her love for this boy. it’s the little things, trivial things, even, but concrete details that you love about a person, like moccasins in the winter.

i love him because he cried at the end of The Hobbit.

this is an audience participation post. send me your “i love him/her because…” please.

11.9.02 – Jackson, MI

on war and peace and smutty novels:

everyone on the tour gives me shit for reading war and peace (i am, as usual, the resident literary nerd). i got into tolstoy the easy way, thru smaller novels, but war and peace really is magnificent – i’m not just being pretentious. i admire tolstoy because he’s one of those writers who has a style that no one else has ever managed to emulate, yet he’s inspired generations of writers with his attention to detail. and i just figured out who, exactly, he inspired. see the passage below:

After talking for a little while in the general circle, Speransky got up, and going to Prince Andrey, drew him away to the other end of the room. It was evident that he thought it well to interest himself in Bolkonsky.

“I have not had time for a word with you, Prince, in the engrossing conversation into which I was dragged by that excellent old gentleman,” he said, with a smile of bland contempt, by which he seemed to take for granted that Prince Andrey and himself were at one in recognizing the insignificance of the people with whom he had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrey. “I have known you for a long while: first from your action with the serfs, the first instance of the kind among us, and an example which one would desire to find many following; and, secondly, from your being one of those kammerherrs who have not considered themselves wronged by the new decree in regard to promotion by court favor, that has provoked so much criticism and censure.””

“Yes,” said Prince Andrey, “my father did not care for me to take advantage of that privilege; I began the service from the lower grades.”

“Your father, a man of the older generation, is undoubtedly above the level of our contemporaries, who condemn this measure, though it is simply an act of natural justice.”

“I imagine there is some basis thought even for that condemnation,” said Prince Andrey, trying to resist the influence of Speranksy, of whom he began to be aware. He disliked agreeing with him in everything; he tried to oppose him. Prince Andrey, who usually spoke so well and so readily, felt a difficulty even in expressing himself as he talked with Speransky. He was too much occupied in observing the personality of the celebrated man.

“In the interests of personal ambition perhaps,” Speransky slowly put in his word.

“And to some extent in the interests of the state,” said Prince Andrey.

“How do you mean…?” said Speransky slowly, dropping his eyes.

now, the same passage, re-written so that the characters are of opposite genders and are meeting, say, at a cocktail party full of powerful business tycoons:

After talking for a little while in the general circle, Angela got up, and going to Andrey, drew him away to the other end of the room. It was evident that she thought it well to interest herself in him.

“I have not had time for a word with you, Andrey, in the engrossing conversation into which I was dragged by that excellent old gentleman,” she said, with a smile of bland contempt, by which she seemed to take for granted that Andrey and herself were at one in recognizing the insignificance of the people with whom she had just been talking. This flattered Andrey. “I have known you for a long while: first from your action with the Deluca account, the first instance of the kind among the firm, and an example which one would desire to find many following; and, secondly, from your being one of those partners who have not considered themselves wronged by the new decree in regard to promotion by nepotism, that has provoked so much criticism and censure.”

“Yes,” said Andrey, “my father did not care for me to take advantage of that privilege; I began the firm from the lower ranks.”

“Your father, a man of the older generation, is undoubtedly above the level of our contemporaries, who condemn this measure, though it is simply an act of natural justice.”

“I imagine there is some basis thought even for that condemnation,” said Andrey, trying to resist the influence of Angela, of whom he began to be aware. He disliked agreeing with her in everything; he tried to oppose her. Andrey, who usually spoke so well and so readily, felt a difficulty even in expressing himself as he talked with Angela. He was too much occupied in observing the personality of the celebrated woman.

“In the interests of personal ambition perhaps,” Angela slowly put in her word.

“And to some extent in the interests of the state,” said Andrey.

“How do you mean…?” said Angela slowly, dropping her eyes.

see? instant smutty novel. at the end of this scene they slip off to the ladies’ room for a hot, steamy sex scene before their respective spouses can notice they’re missing. it’s his attention to physical detail that reminds me of a smutty novel. he sketches out subtext in the flick of the eyes, in the way that a teacup is lifted or a head is turned. i don’t have any smut handy to use as a comparison, but i imagine that the curious could find plenty on the internet without too much effort.

11.10.02 – Jackson, MI

it’s the subtle changes in the body – they happen in small degrees, unnoticed, until one day you realize the body you’re in has changed. my palms are yellow with calluses, the sides of my index fingers are rough and callused from turning bolts. by the end of the week the dirt has ground so deep into my fingerprints that it takes scrubbing my hands with a nail brush to get them clean at the end of the day. they are laborer’s hands now. my legs are marked with bruises of many shades, many vintages, from purple to brown to yellow. the knob on the back of my shoulder sticks out further, my elbows are pointier, my arms are larger at the bicep and smaller above the elbow. my ribs show more clearly, the jeans hang lower on my hips.

the internal changes are harder to track. have i gotten stronger? tougher? gentler, more patient, more diplomatic? more demanding? the body is elastic; it changes with life’s demands. bruises and scrapes heal, fat replaces muscle or vice versa. i don’t know if changes to the personality are as reversable. we take experiences into us and move forward with those as a part of our new selves. it’s harder to take an inventory of our internal selves. i’m a little bonier here, a little softer here, bruised over here and callused here.

11.7.02 – Nashville, TN

i think i hit my low point on the tour this week. had an ugly altercation with an actor on the tour on tuesday – i grouched at him for being late, and he publicly ripped me a new asshole. being an empath sometimes makes me very good at my job – i (usually) have a subtle understanding of what people feeling and how they need to be approached – but other times it makes it hard for me to deal when someone aims as much wrath at me as this guy did. this particular occasion it was just enough to shove me over the edge into emotional breakdown territory for the rest of the day. i’m over it now, and he did apologize later, but i have to say i’m not sorry that he’s the one who’s quitting and leaving the tour at the end of this week.

on a lighter note, the loyalty of a good friend is priceless:

Well, you certainlyfuckin’lootley ARE NOT a bitch and that guy can smell my dirty underwear and drink spoilt milk before what goes around gets back to HIM!

hee hee. hannah lights up my world.

11.8.02 – Memphis, TN

[BEGIN RANT]

i hate memphis. i hate the south in general. and in particular i hate the buttmunches at the main office who book us at the cheapest possible hotels in the middle-of-fucking-no-where, such as tonight’s gem: la quinta inn next to the memphis int’l airport. i asked the guy at the desk if there was anything to eat within a half-mile radius of the hotel. they sent me to a gas station at the outer confines of my distance limit. in spite of the fact that my trusty danger-antenna was screaming out don’t walk here alone! in big red letters, i walked down the dark road to the gas station – which turned out to be a shack the size of a hotel room, with bars on all the windows, where one had to purchase items thru a small window with a sign reminding customers that the attendant had less than $50 in the cash register and was behind bullet-proof glass. i didn’t even bother to buy anything, just high-tailed it back to the hotel. every time an airplane flies over the entire hotel shudders. i wonder if the pizza man will even deliver here.

[END RANT]

11.6.02 – Louisville, KY; Memphis, TN; Birmingham, AL; Chatanooga, TN, Nashville, TN

i’ve got a little technological rain cloud following me around on this tour, so it’s been a few days since i’ve been able to turn my computer on. blog entries are piled up in my notebook again, but i’m short on free time in the hotels at night.

i took a walk thru downtown nashville today. it’s nice to be in a town with some life for a change, and to walk the streets and think of all the music history that has been made in this place. nashville has that sense of gilt-edged glamour tinged with desperation that you find in cities that collect a lot of stars, and the associated star seekers. walking into downtown i went over a bridge that crossed very high over the river. the city in front of me was backlit with the late afternoon sun, and the sky was the first blue we’ve seen in weeks. the air was mild, almost warm, and walking into a lively city lifted my spirits. i suddenly felt very small on that bridge, but small in a seeing-my-little-space-in-this-world kind of way that that was this strange moment of enlightenment for me that to some extent defines description. anyway, it was a good feeling. after shopping at a run-down walgreens and then making dinner on a slice of the Worst Pizza Ever i walked back across the bridge in the dark, and my spirits had apparently sunk with the sun. i’m terribly moody these days. this was a rough week for the tour – everyone is over-fatigued and homesick and disillusioned with the purpose of our tour (bring theatre to children? make money for our producer?), tempers flare easily, and moods swing wildly. h-o-m-e-s-i-c-k. i don’t really have a home to be sick for, but i’m sick for the homes i’ve loved in the past. and the home i’m looking forward to creating when i get done with this tour.

the hotel we’re staying in has a giant guitar shaped swimming pool. no kidding. and one wall in our hotel room is mirrored, floor to ceiling, right next to the bed. how kinky.

10.31.02 – Charleston, WV

onomonopia

lolita

16th c. tart

el nino

stage manager barbie

rock

genie

belly dancer

alien

southern belle

dead girl

coca-cola can

rubix cube

halloween is my favorite holiday. i’m not doing anything particularly fun this year, as i have an early morning call for a show, and well, i’m in a strange town and all the haunted house stuff seemed to be back in Michigan, but it’s the little things that make me happy anyway: the ambiguously gay redneck (i don’t think it was a costume) at the hotel desk gave us all little packets of halloween candy; walking thru a shopping mall this evening and seeing fairies and punk rockers and human ketchup bottles going about their normal business, as if there is nothing out of the ordinary about wearing a foot-high mohawk or a heinz label. and i love that split-second reaction when you glance at someone and think, “is that a costume or do they just look like that all the time?” there were a lot of people around downtown tonight dressed in suits and conservative clothing, carrying little american flags and saying things like, “i hope my pictures come out!” at first i thought they were just going as republicans for halloween, but it turned out that a political rally with president bush had just gotten out at the civic center.

my college roommate, lauren, always celebrated halloween by popping out of bed and putting on The Monster Mash first thing in the morning, a tradition that i dearly love her for. this morning i was halfway thru load-in before i realized that i’d missed the monster mash ritual, and it made me sadly nostalgic for the our dorm room in toyon hall from sophomore year. that year lauren and val and i went out dressed as devil with a blue dress on, baby spice and el nino, respectively. monster mash came on the radio later today while we were driving to west virginia, but the trouble is that monster mash always makes me want to jump up and boogie in that only-when-no-one-else-is-looking sort of way, and i was in the driver’s seat, so….