Today is my mom's birthday. Happy birthday, mama! (I called her birthday in
to the local oldies station, and she won a gift certificate to her favorite
restaurant, so it's already a good day for her.)

Tomorrow is opening night for the play. I'm really, really, really
not thinking about it or else I'll freak. Especially since one of our
actor's father died last night. He's said he's going to perform, but of
course we're all worried about him.

Becca comes Saturday! Yay! There will be much rejoicing! And pr0n! Rejoicing
and/or pr0n!

I is stupid. There's a commercial for these new two-slot air fresheners
where they extol that with their twelve varities of scents you can create
"over fifty" different possibilities. I ranted at the tv that 12*11 is 132
different possibilities--a lot more than fifty, so why didn't they say there
were "over a hundred" possibilities? And then I realized last night that I
was doing permutations instead of combinations and felt like a total idiot.
Of course the number of combinations of two items from a set of twelve (no
duplication), is 66, which is slightly "over fifty," but far less than a
hundred. Mea culpa. My combinatorics prof would skin me alive.

Blah, blah, not dead.

Play is...progressing. Aieee, the stress of having to have the whole
thing memorized versus just accidentally knowing it because I've heard it so
much. (Seriously, 90% of the play is me talking with one other (random)
character. So, I have a *ton* of lines.) Tonight we faux finish the walls!

Bathroom is being renovated. I have a new cabinet and sink. Dark cherry and
white porcelain. Tres chic, tres elegant.

Discovered old college friends are posting over on Xanga. The auto links to
Amazon are kinda cool, but I like LJ's commenting, friends page, and lack of
advertising better.

I so want an icon of Angel and/or Angelus that says, "My soul is pasted on,
yay!"

The play is over; the play is over; glory, glory, hallelujah!

Number of rehearsals: too many too count
Number of paper bags used per show: five
Number of apple cores used per show: one
Number of times I missed with the cottage cheese: once
Number of times I heard about it: fifteen
Number of times I was asked where I found my second act costume: twice
Number of times I cracked up onstage: once
Number of times somebody else cracked up onstage: twice nightly
Number of roses received: one
Number of death threats received: none
Number of death threats made: two dozen
Number of co-stars killed: none
Amount of giddiness from being onstage: unquantifiable

Well, it's official. I now have a cold. I'd been trying to fight it off,
but the orange juice and zinc tablets seem to have been too little, too
late. And this is just the worst possible time to have a cold, too. We
open (the play) in two days. I know my lines, but how much good will that
do if I have no voice? Last night I went from normal voice at the beginning
of the night to creaky, raspy voice at the end--and today, I'm starting off
with a voice that ranges from slightly under par to almost shot. I can just
imagine how great I'll be sounding at the end of the night. I can't even go
to bed tonight and dose myself up good on cold medication unless I want to
call in sick tomorrow--we left the theater at 11:30 Monday night and
midnight last night, and it's a half an hour drive from town (theater and
work) to home. Add in the fact that I have a meeting at work at seven
thirty tomorrow morning, and that even Day-Quil tends to knock me out--and
well, let's just say that if I took anything much stronger than an aspirin
tonight, I doubt I'd be able to haul my carcass out of bed in the morning.
Of course, if it does get worse tonight, I may just go ahead and call in
sick tomorrow--I can spend my day swallowing pills, napping, and sipping
soup and tea. If I tried that Friday, I'm afraid I'd be too bleary to be
any good.

Jeeze. It wasn't enough that we're dealing with a main character who drinks
his way through rehearsals, pouts over the smallest slight, and didn't start
learning his lines until last week? Or a director who's afraid of pissing
off the head of the theater because she's new and he's an old-timer, so she
didn't just tell him to get the hell out so she could cast someone else? Or
a head of theater who insists that he'll learn his lines, don't worry, and
refuses to listen to the director's complaints? Or the fact that we (the
other cast members) knew that we had to beg and plead just to scrape up
enough people to fill the roles in the first place, so we haven't been
complaining too loudly about all that he's done because we don't know who
could replace him? The fact that our lights and sound booth operator will
be out of town so we've got a newbie in the booth? The fact that we have no
propsmaster, so we've had to make, scrounge, or buy all the props ourselves?
The fact that our backstage--I hesitate to use the word manager, but as
she'll most likely be the only person back there, I guess it would
apply--has been to one rehearsal only, and left before we started last night
because she was mad at our head of theater? All that wasn't enough, but
now I gotta be sick too? (Not that I'm the main character or anything, but
I am onstage most of the time, and I have probably the best memory for the
script as a whole, so I've been put on special alert to prompt the others if
the forget something. Something that will be not at all obtrusive if I'm
croaking like a frog and they keep having to ask me what in the heck I just
said.)

I both want this play to be over with and also still a month in the future.
I think, in a month, we could have a really good show. As it is... Well,
to quote one of my character's lines: I'm doing my best, okay?