thediastema's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Skim it. I don't care. Master. I always get needlessly maudlin when we close a big show, and I need to stop that. ~~ The matinee began with Al and myself trying to appear guilty to see if we could get someone to ask what we'd been up to. Nobody saw us except Neophyte, who really doesn't give a damn. Two of the seasonal temps from Concessions are being asked back. The first is the AD's son, Bill*. He's a friend of Al's, about the same age. He has a giant heart-shaped blond head. Already he and I have dirt on each other. Dirt has also been exchanged with Alice*, who has also been extended the invite to stay. Alice has straight hair and glasses, and she used to work for the same dastardly misogynists at The Restaurant. In fact, we missed each other by a few months. Indeed, we have raised many a courtesy cup toasting the good fortune (or perhaps just good enough taste) that prevented the ugly fry cooks from impregnating either one of us. She's also a bishop's daughter, but she has been high more times than I have. Which is not to say that she has to take off even one sock to count the instances. Ginger announced that, in lieu of the program-stuffing duties we can shirk on closing night anyway, it was our job to take down the holiday decorations in the greenroom. I volunteered to do it between shows so that everybody could have Acts I and II that evening to ... okay, to just piss around. Al offered his services (and the obvious advantages of his towering height) as well, and the two of us learned quickly the implications of knocking down the garlands and coloured bulbs in the full view of a dozen fruity "pirates" and "Indians" and several more neurotic stage mothers... "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Later, with ceiling-tile dandruff in my eyes and Hamilton across town in Shan's care, I hoofed it to Subway. I picked up HM's usual club-with-everything-but-green-peppers-and-tomatoes-for-the-love-of-GOD-hold-the-green-peppers-and-tomatoes and my veggie patty-with-provolone-tomato-and-avocado-o-you're-out-of-avocado?-well-I-guess-I-can-live-without-it-then-can't-I? I made my way back to the Cage. Not that I was needed there, of course. But I did have HM's dinner and absolutely nothing better to do with the next forty minutes of my life, so there I was. When I got full I gave Tex the rest of my SunChips. Actually, I first offered them to everybody. No takers, so I just stuck them in Tex's face and he started eating them anyway. Polly and I exchanged a look. I believe Polly and I feel the same weird way about Tex; it is a mix of perpetual annoyance and irrepressible maternal instinct. One could get all pop-psych about it and say we think of him as an office pet, a puppy that follows us around and humps our legs, needy and attention-starved because his father and three siblings died in a car accident when he was five. It's something we never talk about, of course, but we can't seem to help it. We want to coddle him. It is impossible to coddle a giant boil on one's own ass. I was stepping outside to throw away a wad of cellophane and paper "Eat Fresh" propaganda when Four arrived, his usual mess of blond cowlick and button-down and chinos and glasses and thinking deep thoughts about whether to apply for med school and not talking much. We blew each other off for a while; Polly engaged him in a discussion about tonight's-your-last-night-isn't-it and how-was-it-coming-back-to-work and yada yada yada. Tex and I played with SimShatner until we had their attention. We took turns constructing sentences, and after a while I just started hitting "Damn youuuuu!" over and over again. "What's he saying?" said our innocent elder stateswoman. The guys and I grinned. "Nothin'." "Is he speaking space language?" "No, he's..." "Heh heh heh heh heh..." "He's sort of...cursing someone." "Yeah, it's kind of a Captain Kirk...thing that he said." "O...so he's swearing." "Yes." "In alien language." "No." "What's he SAYING?! 'Zazooo?'" "DAMN YOUUUUU!" "O. Is that how aliens say that?" ~~ My call time finally rolled around and I helped my other staff pull it together for one more night of insanity. I bought Concessions a roll of quarters from the Cage, and then mistakenly tried to fend off more of Tex's mock-advances with them. This resulted in a shower of quarter dollars throughout the lobby. Pre-show followed. With the exception of one patron who wished to broadcast the state of her bladder from the Will-Call lineup, it wasn't bad. Probably I should not have yelled at Four, in the heat of the moment, to "Bite Angus!" Because now he wants to know what that means. And...it's bad. For a hint, Iggy and Angus are to Erin as Ren and Stimpy are to M2. I should NOT have told him to bite Angus. During Act I, the rest of my staff was accessible to tackle latecomers, having been relieved of their de-festooning duties, so I felt no guilt over hanging out in the Cage instead on the pretense of showing Four all the incredibly artistic Lego renderings we'd made last week. "And there's Molly..." "Why does she have a jetpack?" "We just thought it was important. There's M2, with a rose from some doting swain..." "Heh!" "We'll just skip mine..." "No, I wanna see yours." "No, really, it's not..." "No, come on." "Fine." "HAH!" "Okay, A., I don't smoke anymore, B., the...THONG!" "It looks just like you." "Shut UP! ...Okay, here's you." "Where am I?" "Italy." "Okay. Why do I have two ice cream cones?" Grin. "Okay, why do I have tie-dye?" "Not my idea. They gave me tie-dye too. I think it's 'cos my parents were hippies and I always used to have..." "Well, my parents were hippies too." God, don't tell me that. I was screwing around still more with RC, hitting the Randomizer button and asking what my future husband would look like. I set my left hand down on the desk without watching what I was doing and my fingers landed in his palm. I apologised, promptly yanked my hand away, and changed the subject. Smooth. ~~ Polly geared up to leave, wishing Four a happy new year. I cleared my throat. "And a happy new year to you, too," Four rolled his eyes. I cleared my throat some more. "And?" Polly looked confused. "Happy...um..." HM hummed the most commonly-sung song in the universe. "YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BIRTHDAY!" I grinned at her. "Mmhmm. Okay, I'm done being obnoxious." "So, what are you doing on your birthday?" the Yuppie asked. I shrugged. "Ginger offered to take me out to find a 'sugar daddy,' but..." He laughed. I continued. "Gimp invited herself along as well, so I'd have wound up with some reject from the Village People." Some more laughs. He started in on the big jar of chocolates Molly had left for us. (She gave me a bag of Sour Patch, knowing I'm allergic. Sour Patch! Molly used to hate me and now she remembers my favourite candy! End tangent.) He began balling up the foil wrappers and pitching them at my turned back. So I called him names. So he threw a chain paperclips. So I threw it at his glasses and called him more names. So he threw rubber bands. So I tied all the rubber bands together and whipped him. I did. Shut up. ~~ The rest of the night went on pretty much the same way, with a little candy sales here, a little stupid teasing there. We wrapped it up and went our separate ways. I had weird dreams all night. He's left us again. I'll handle it, I guess. I harboured no delusions. No. Did I still shave my legs and match my lingerie? You bet your sweet ass I did. ~ETK I've probably mentioned this before, but Pulp totally makes me want to take it off and get it on. Of course, even if Jarvis Cocker simply read a grocery list, I'd still want to take it off and get it on. ROWR! --Laura L. knows exactly how it goes. 23:55 - 29 December, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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