August 23, 2001
Happy Birthday, Kymm!!!! Now will you believe I love you? ;)
The sidebar is longer than the entry. Yesterday's missive left me so fried that I'm going for the fluff today. I'll think about all that other crap tomorrow. Tomorrow *is* another day, you know.
Two weekends ago, I'm sitting in a bar in Stamford, Connecticut, wearing way too much makeup, a purple wig, and a cowboy hat. And no, that is not my usual style of dress. Peter wouldn't take me back to where we were staying to change out of my fairy getup after that day's performance of Midsummer. Everyone else is cleaned up because no one else had stage management duties to attend to after the show.
Anyway, I'm sitting at one end of the table with my friend Richard who plays Philostrate and he's talking to Theseus, Duke of Athens (well, he's talking to the actor who plays Theseus, so that's what we'll call him, shall we?). They're chatting about Kansas since Richard grew up there and Theseus went to school there. I'm just sitting in between them, trying to make myself as unnoticeable as possible, which, considering I'm 5'11, have glitter all over my face, and am wearing a purple wig covered by a cowboy hat, is not going to happen. Basically, I am Peaseblossom without the magic powers and since Stamford, CT is not a hotbed of cutting edge fashion, I'm going to be noticeable no matter how low I slouch in my seat. Locals are twisting their necks into new and interesting shapes to get a look at the freak girl. And most of them are not smiling. Hell, while Peter, Richard and I were walking to the bar, some guy actually called me ugly. Lucky for him I was wearing a disguise or else he would have suffered the full blast of my Medusa-like appearance -- the wig covered up the snakes.
Out of the blue, Theseus stops reminiscing about the prairie, turns to me, and asks, "How old are you?"
I've had just enough to drink to make me attempt coyness. "How old do you think I am?"
"Twenty-four."
"You're flattering me, right?"
He grins, lazy and lopsided. "Well, kind of."
"Do I look like the kind of girl who needs to be flattered?"
"I thought all women liked flattery. You don't?"
"Not when it's obvious."
"Okay. Okay. I don't think you're twenty-four. I figured you were like twenty-seven, or something."
"Try thirty. How old are you?" Theseus has a goatee and he's a bit chubby, so I'm pegging him around my age.
"Twenty-four."
I think he's making a joke. But he's not smiling like he's making a joke. "Get out of here. Really?"
"Really."
I look a little closer at his face and his skin is unlined. The beard and the extra weight make him look older. The waitress comes over and everyone orders more beer. When I place my order, she squints at me like I'm "special" and shakes her head. I start thinking, "Peter, I am ready to leave," really hard. When mental telepathy doesn't work, I try to catch his eye so he knows I'm ready to cut and run. I'm not particularly keen on hanging around much longer and playing one-woman freak show for the locals. Besides, the "ugly" comment that got hurled earlier is starting to leave a bruise on my already fragile ego.
Peter simply ignores me. How you can ignore a very tall girl with hair the color of grape KoolAid, I don't know, but Peter manages it nicely.
Theseus and I sit in companionable silence for a while after the waitress leaves. He's still looking at his beer when he says to me, "You know, I've always liked women who were older. Twenty-nine, thirty. My first girlfriend was twenty-eight; I was nineteen."
I didn't know the Duke of Athens was such a smooth operator.
Ah, but I am flattered. It's not every day that I'm dressed like Andy Warhol's vision of Elizabeth Taylor and still manage to have a twenty-four year old boy hit on me. If you can do it, I highly recommend it. Suddenly it doesn't matter that everyone else in the bar is eyeing me up like I am exactly what is wrong with this country.
Theseus flirts with me for the rest of the tour. I'd say it was the wig, but I only wore the purple hair that one night. Of course, I did wear a mop on my head the next weekend so maybe the poor boy just has a fetish for older women in strange hairpieces.
7 Deadly Sins and Other, Less Fatal Diversions
Pride:
I can't say I'm not more than a little proud that I got hit on by a younger man while looking like I escaped from clown college.
Envy:
You know who is lucky? Stephanie, my friend from 7th grade. She wanted to be a swinging corporate raider from the day she left the womb and piddling soul-searching and creative impulses have never once caused her to veer from her destined course of conspicuous consumption. Perhaps that is because she has no soul to search.
Wrath:
Forget Linda. What I really want to do is kick Teddy's ass. I'll his expand his consciousness for him.
Sloth:
How long do you think those dishes will sit in my sink before they either clean themselves or dissolve?
Avarice:
I need a new fall wardrobe.
Gluttony:
Still no appetite to speak of. And even if it had returned, the very thought of going out tonight for All You Can Eat Sushi with my writer friends would have chased it clean away. Man, I used to love All-You-Can-Eat-Sushi, but due to an unfortunate incident involving spicy tuna roll, tonight I will be ordering Miso soup and some rice and keeping my face studiously averted from everyone else's black lacquer plates.
Lust:
The Belz, rocks, baby.
Book:
Tune:
Crush:
Task at Hand:
Coming up with something to do with my Creative Writing class, which meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 11:40 to 12:30.
Don Quixote is still tilting at windmills.
Robert Earl Keen -- "The Front Porch Song": This old porch is just a long time, waiting and forgetting. Remembering the coming back, not crying 'bout the leaving."
Not quite an obsession. Definitely not lust. Still crushing on Fenton. Still worried that I am a bit too susceptible to the power of suggestion. I mean you have no idea what Fenton looked like in that show -- black socks pulled up to his knees, knee-length shorts, a Shakespeare t-shirt, gigantic glasses from like 1972, and the most ridiculous hat. At one point, he was wearing a ruff and a lampshade. Then again, I spent most of the show in overalls with a mop on my head. Besides, he is really sweet and he was so nice to me and helpful and fun. It's definitely an "I admire you and want to be your friend" kind of crush.