I hung out friday with Joey. It was pretty good. I think we’re going to bike a bit around, so I got my bike out of storage today.

It’s sad to hear that his mom has passed away due to lung cancer. Both my paternal grandfather and my paternal grandmother’s father passed away due to smoking related problems. Makes me nervous about being in rooms filled with smoke. As I type this, my lungs are hurting even.

I was finally able to eat a full meal after tryouts on friday. Don and Michael Cheney and I went to a restaurant after and chatted about things theatre related. I had a gardenburger.

At lunch with Joey, I told a waitperson for the first time that I was vegetarian. I’ve been doing okay, but I’m not yet eating very well either way. I made the veggie sandwich things for everyone tonight. The boys basically didn’t touch them. Mom ate two. Jerry cleaned his plate but seemed miffed that there wasn’t a dead animal on the table. Much like the salads, I didn’t manage to make them as good as before.

I got up this morning and made a run to Powell’s to try to find a copy of the out of print Rowse modernized versions of “Two Gentlemen of Verona” but couldn’t find any.

After that, I decided to head up to U.P. to check on my PO Box and get my bike out of storage and drop off some stuff. Actually, the first thing I did was to head into Tacoma to try to find a copy of the Rowse text at the bookstore near the Dome, but they didn’t have any either. I thought about heading down to M’s to visit, but started to feel very anxious that I might see A. there, or at least when she didn’t want me to be there, so I didn’t go. Probably better to make sure I call ahead to M’s for a while.

I cried in the car most of the way back down here to my mom’s.

Turns out that A. called shortly after I left, but didn’t leave a message, or my brother didn’t remember the message. I tried to call back to her new number, but there was no answer or answering machine. I found out by calling to leave a message at her pop’s that she hasn’t been able to move in yet. Shit, that sucks. I guess she was heading off to her girlfriend C’s and didn’t know if she’d be back until tomorrow, so I figured that might really mean she was going to go play, so I didn’t try to track her down.

It’s so hard to know what to do.

I picked up some of my altar stuff form the storage place too. I’ve started to try to make the bedroom here a little more friendly. I want to ask about getting a separate phone line put in so that I can check my e-mail and stuff, and maybe even get calls after 9pm without waking everyone up. I’d also like to have a little desk so I can hook up my computer and work on getting A’s computer back up and running. A bookshelf for my books that I’ve got would be nice too, although I haven’t been able to read much since I got here.

I got more than a couple hours of sleep finally last night, instead of struggling to be okay with it.

I’m trying so hard to not slip into despair. This is actually going pretty good, considering how it could be, and all I can do is try to have fun and not focus on the stuff that’s all messed up. I have an appointment with an endocrinologist later in the month to talk about the possibility that I’ve got clinical depression or something out of balance.

I need to get some rehearsal/warm-up clothes tomorrow. It’s been a long time since I’ve needed that, but at least we aren’t going to be required to wear tights like we used to be for class and for a play or two like “Wayward Saints” or “Jack’s House” where it was non-stop.

I also miss being able to listen to streaming music. I’ve been having to leave the radio on all night, but I wish I could listen to CDs during the day or as I’m going to bed. I could hook up the computer, but I don’t want to listen to the damned fan all night. A little cd clock-radio thing would be nice.

When I’ve been in the car I’ve been hearing songs on the radio and I’ve been furiously scribbling song names and artists on a bit of paper as I wiggle down the road trying to write. I keep thinking about making a playlist of songs about how I feel or trying to make some kind of playlist based on a kind of chronology of my relationship with A. ending with some song like “I’ve got high hopes” or something and including “Here comes the sun,” “Hello, I love you,” “True Companion,” and a bunch of songs that I’ve associated with the relationship in some way or another.

The only place I can listen to CDs on this floor is at the computer. There’s a CD player in the living room, but I would really like to listen in private sometimes. My stereo is far too big and it doesn’t have a way to plug earphones into it so that I can listen loudly at night.

I talked to Joey and asked how long it was that he and Linda were apart when she went off to college and he said it was 4 years before they got back together. Everyone at auditions was mystified at how old I was, since I look so much younger. How old is too old? Is there a time when it is too late?

All I can really do is try to have fun, and let come what may. It is so very hard, but I know it’s what I have to do to cope. What will happen, I cannot control. I’ll go crazy if I try.

I have some great ideas for the play, mostly for a particular part in the play. I hope I get to use them. I mentioned one of them to my mom, and she seems to not understand the same kind of humor.

I described what I did for my monologue an she didn’t seem to get that either. I didn’t have anything prepared, since I haven’t done anything in forever and only found out that day about the auditions, so I originally thought about doing some emotional transition through Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s 5 stages of grief, but that’s not quite good for a comedy is it?

So, I went in and Don said he thought I probably didn’t have a monologue prepared “or did I?” so I went into this spiel about how [remove my coat] I’d wanted to do something appropriate [remove my scarf] for the play. Then, I was talking to one of the other guys that wanted [remove my pullover sweater] to do Valentine and he’d mentioned how disappointed he was that Don had decided to instead to [drop my pants] The Full Monty! At this point, I had Don laughing outloud. Then, I did this part where I was embarassed about the whole confusion, and tried to explain it away by talking about Olivier’s quote about how “If it doesn’t make you nervous, it’s not worth doing anymore” and started to giggle. Then, I kept laughing, harder and harder, until I heard some [imaginary] noise backstage and slammed to the floor and did a bit about being scared.

Anyhow, so, I bounced around the stage and whatnot. Not a real audition piece, but it worked out okay. It was kind fun. It makes me wonder what I could do if I really set my mind to prepare something. I remember the auditions for Moonchildren. I did a monologue about a jilted lover that replaces his former lover’s K-Y with Tiger Balm that had Don and the stage manager Aaron laughing like monkeys.

I also had fun during the second night of auditions. I got to read some of the Duke’s lines and I’d managed to start feeling much better about being on stage. I was able to center my voice more, which I think made it sound much better. I was also able to read for Lance again, which was really cool because I took in a stuffed gorilla as Lance’s dog Crab which I’d wanted to do for the previous night but didn’t manage to do. Luckily the girl that had the gorilla the first night (perhaps it’s her safety blanket?) was there with it again the next night.

I’d thought about heading out to get a stuffed animal, a retractable leash, a crutch for the staff and some dr seuss hat, but didn’t end up having time to do that since I had to head out right after getting back from hanging out with Joey. Anyhow, it worked out well enough. Don commented on my way out to the other people there that I knew he liked that sort of thing, since the guy I was reading with clearly thought I was nuts.

I had a dream that I was in rehearsal and Don asked me to actually pull back on what I was doing. In the dream, I did a double take and then did a victory dance. I think that’s a good goal for this production. I’m going to get him to tell me to pull back, by Jove!

I’m going to keep trying to come up with ideas and things. I think that’s what I should do anyway, but it will be like a personal kind of milestone to get to that point in a rehearsal. I remember so many times during Wayward Saints that I wanted to do something differently but I was too unsure to speak up, especially about the speech with Scapino where the direction was that I would have believed the stuff about being the greatest actor, but that was all wrong. The whole point was that I specifically didn’t believe it, and when I finally started to do that on stage I noticed the audience started to get it too because they were nodding in agreement.

Joey said a couple things that kinda surprised me. Apparently, Wayward Saints is a lot of people’s favourite show that have seen a bunch. I know I struggled through it a lot, but it was good. I know it could have been better, but clearly I’ve been changed by it since I still identify with the character a lot, even if I identify a bit with a slightly modified arlecchino. He also mentioned that McClelland came to see it twice, which apparently he never does. That’s pretty cool when the reviewer voluntarily goes again, and does it outside of normal behaviour.

At any rate, this should be a fun experience to do this play! I sure needed something like this right now.