Rebecca's Journal

FBI agents Bailey and Gray approached the isolated cabin where the witness for their case had been living for the past month.

“Did we bring everything he asked for?”

“Juggling balls, water balloons, and the complete DVD set of Cirque du Soleil. What a clown.”

“Don’t forget he’s the only clown we’ve ever been able to turn. We finally have evidence against Ben Ursa for racketeering, and if juggling balls will keep Pierot happy that’s what he gets.”

Bailey snorted. “I still don’t believe it, a mobster running a circus.”

“It makes a certain amount of sense. Lots of cash in, lots of cash out, and who questions a few shady characters standing around the edges of a midway.” Gray looked at his watch. “Come on, lets get this check-in done, I have places to be tonight.”

As they got within sight of the cabin door they both knew something was wrong. Without speaking Bailey put down the sack he had been carrying and they both drew their guns. They snuck up to either side of the open door. At a nod they entered quietly. And saw it.

It was a body - horribly mangled. A man would have to be insane to do that to someone. Their witness was lying face up, blood trickling over his clown makeup. Gray swore, this had been his case longer than anyone’s and he could see it slipping away. Bailey took out his phone to call it in.

Soon the area was full of sirens and vehicles. Gray and Bailey sat on the front porch while the forensics guys inside did their thing. That’s when they heard a sound in the brush at the edge of the clearing. Gray put a hand to the gun at his side and called out “Who’s there?” Then the last person they expected to see came out of the woods.

It was Pierot, their witness, bruised and battered, but certainly still alive. Bailey paced urgently while the doctors checked out their star witness, and when he was finally seated on the porch with a blanket around his shoulders and coffee in his hand, Bailey sat next to him and stared. “You need to tell us what happened. Who is that inside?”

Pierot gulped, and huddled smaller underneath his blanket. “That’s Charlie, he’s a friend. We had been working on an act together before all of this. I snuck out to a phone a week ago and called him.”

“Why is he here? Why is he in your makeup? And how did you get away?” Gray asked.

“That was the act – when you see a clown you don’t really see them, you see the makeup. So we were going to wear each other’s faces and then do a reveal. We were still working out the particulars but he came out and brought his makeup so he could learn my face. We had just finished, and I took a short walk to give him some time to prepare himself. He was going to do one of my classic bits for me, to see how it looked. But when I came back, there was so much blood…”

“Did you hear anything? See anything?”

“No, I walked down to the lake and back. The wind was up, I didn’t hear anything.”

“We’ll have to move you somewhere else, with a constant guard. And when we say no contacting anyone from your life…”

“God no! I’ll be quiet as a mouse. Just keep me safe.”

They put Pierot in the back of a squad car and were getting ready to leave when the forensics specialist waved them over.

“This case is weird, man. A human didn’t do this, these are claw marks.”

Gray slumped. “Then this isn’t connected with our case? It was just some random, hellish accident?”

“I don’t know man, but I found this in one of the wounds.”

It was an oddly shaped ring – with small stars on it. The stars looked like they were in a pattern, but Gray couldn’t place it. Bailey looked at the ring and began to laugh. He was laughing so hard he doubled over. Gray looked at him afraid that the strain of working this case had finally snapped his partner.

Bailey wiped his eyes and said “We’ve got him. Oh that bastard, thinks he’s so clever but we’ve got him now.”

Gray looked from the ring in his gloved hand to his partner and back. “I don’t get it.”

“Have you ever seen Ursa’s circus? Do you know the act it’s famous for?”

“Sure the trained bears. But what does that have to do with…”

“All of the bears wear a gold ring on one of their claws. A ring with the constellation Ursa Major.”

“Wait, you mean this is from one of those bears?”

Bailey grinned. “I bet forensics can confirm the claw marks, and when we serve a warrant for the bear cage we’ll find the animal that did it. We’ve got Ursa now and there’s a new charge on the list. Bearing a false witness.”

@@@This is my entry for week 5 of LJ Idol - the topic is “bearing false witness”. I hope you enjoyed my version of a shaggy dog story. I will post a link to the poll once it is up on Sunday@@@

Yesterday I had a core needle biopsy on the cyst in my right breast. It still aches, and will be difficult to ice during rehearsal. Pressure helps too, but if I sit here all day cupping my right boob I think folks may wonder.

This morning I was at the dentist to have root plaining(sp?) done on the right side - they numb up your mouth so that they can scrape at your teeth below the gum line.

Next week I have a blood draw to check my thyroid levels, and the other half of the root scraping on the left side.

After that I would like to be done with needles for at least month. Please? I'll be extra good, I swear.

So today's rehearsal is going to be about not drooling on myself or touching myself too often. Oh yeah, I'm focused.

The voting is up for LJ Idol here: community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/270539.html There were five topics to chose from this week and we were reorganized by the topic we chose so I am in the first poll on the page titled 'current events'. My tribe isn't that large this week so why not read them all and vote for your favorites? The voting is open until Tuesday at 8p EST.

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We ran/stumbled through the first act of the show this morning. It went better than it had any right to go. I am thrilled that our cast is actually that on top of things, and grateful that Josh is the ASM on this show and that he is managing to keep a handle on the craziness that are these shifts. But part of my secret heart wants this thing to crash and burn to reflect the chaos that we've had in rehearsal so far. Ir always comes together somehow, I know. But as long as there are no consequences for chaos, chaos is where we're going to live. <sigh>

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The They Might Be Giants concert on Friday was awesome! They played several of their classic songs, as well as a decent amount of stuff off the newer kids' albums. Two numbers were even sung by sock puppet. There was also an audience participation moment for which they asked the shy and any rock press to simply "get over yourselves and sing". And I really liked the Fillmore, I've never seen a concert there before but the venue is cool, and there is actually parking in the neighborhood. Whee!

Man accused of impersonating Marine at Martinez high school reunion.

How often do we want to be someone else?

How often do we daydream about living another life, about the way people would respond to us if only we drove a different car, had a different job, had received an award for “extreme gallantry in combat”?

Daydreams are beautiful, exhilarating, empty things. They let you imagine receiving the prize without doing the work, receiving the respect without sweating to earn it.

Steven Burton claimed to be a marine. He blogged about his combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, and wore a uniform with medals and honors to his 20-year high school reunion. Imagine what that night must have been like for him. The surprise and respect on the faces of his former classmates; having stories to tell that no one in the room could match.

But he’d made it up. All of it. He hadn’t won any medals. He wasn’t even a marine. He is a banker, living what I imagine to be a quiet, ordinary life. We don’t know when his military daydream began. We don’t know when he decided to step inside his dream and make believe it was true, or when he started telling other people about his made-up past and present. We don’t know when he gave himself medals for bravery in a combat he had never seen.

Where is the line between daydream and reality? When does wearing clothes that in some way aren’t meant for you cross the line from costume fantasy to fraud? With self-help gurus telling us that ‘the secret’ is to imagine your life the way you want it to be and it will happen, aren’t they telling us to make-believe just as hard as we can? Why should we stay stuck in our everyday lives when we can be extraordinary? I can imagine any number of different worlds where I’m stronger, prettier, richer, more respected, more popular than I am now. Does that give me the right to pretend to be something I am not? Who gets to decide what I am?

I think that to wear a military uniform is to claim membership in a brotherhood that is earned only through service, not just the wanting. To wear a Navy Cross and a Purple Heart when you’ve never been in combat is reprehensible.

But, Burton just wanted to be someone else for a while, to play dress up and make-believe and have people look at him like he was a soldier, not a banker. I understand that impulse, and that I cannot condemn.

Steven Burton appeared in federal court yesterday to answer to the charge of “unauthorized wearing of military decorations”. He pleaded not guilty.

What do you think?

@@@This is my entry for week 4 of LJ Idol - the topic I chose is “current events”. I will post a link to the poll once it is up on Saturday. Thank you for reading.@@@

Supernatural is being pre-empted here tonight for the SF 49ers game. This makes me sad. Our CW station is airing it on Saturday instead. Sadly I am too busy to hunt it down in any other fashion so I won't be seeing it for several days. Booo!

The 49ers are playing the Bears tonight; I usually cheer against both teams. Now I don't know what to do.

- Show #2 of my season closed on Sunday. It became the best selling play TW has ever produced which is awesome, I suppose. (In this economy it's fantastic, but the show it topped was close to my heart and that part makes me sad.) It's good it ended when it did, the cast was beginning to get cranky with each other.

- So show #3 began rehearsal on Monday. It's complex and big all over: lots of set changes, costumes, and actors. The cast is really friendly in both that 'awesome I like working with these people' and 'would you please stop being talkative and focus already' ways. We staged through page 12 last night and I felt like my brain was going to melt out my ears trying to keep up with everything. Thankfully the TW resident ASM is on this show because it makes my 'everything' a little smaller, but that also means two of us get brain melty. Only 101 pages to go!

- In the little bit of downtime I had last week I also went to see two other shows: Groundswell at SJRep and American Idiot at Berkeley Rep. I enjoyed them both a lot; it was kind of like having a palette cleanser between courses.

- LJ Idol this week gives us a choice of five topics. I have narrowed it down to two but am still stuck. This is not a week to give me options, point me in a direction and I'll go but decisions are a bitch. In any case, if anyone has brilliant ideas for either "current events" or "who's that trip trapping over my LJ" please holler. I have until Friday to get this figured out.

- Friday night J and I have tickets to see They Might be Giants in SF! I am very excited about that, if a little nervous about giving up a night off to go out instead of just collapse in a heap.

- With Klutz on the horizon and this show being so big I am trying hard to stay focused on one day at a time. If I look too far out I freeze up entirely. But of course, the holidays are coming which require some forethought. So far, these two things do not go together well in my head.

Go here to see Ms.

elisem's brilliant jewelry, now on sale! elisem.livejournal.com/1528096.html I own several pairs of her earrings and have also bought at least one pair as a gift. Her work is gorgeous and on sale besides? Definitely worth checking out. Besides, it'll keep me from buying everything she has. The sale ends on Tuesday 11/10 in the evening.

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It's also voting time for LJ Idol again. It is a friends only vote this time, which means that you'll need to friend the community to vote. The poll is up here: community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/267176.html and I am still in the third tribe on the page named for

lady_hoshi. The numbers of entries are getting more manageable and with this week's topic of "smile" many of them are fun. Read around if you have the chance. Voting also closes on Tuesday 11/10.

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J and I invented a new tongue twister this week. I am not going to explain the conversation that led up to this, though I'm sure you can take a pretty educated guess. In the meantime try saying 'post-coital sticky thigh sweat' five times fast. It has an interesting rhythm to it.

~~~~

Happy weekend to those who have one!

My niece was the first grandchild born on either side of her family. As such, she was the subject of what might have been an overabundance of ‘photo opportunities’. Smile, we’d command her, smiling in the hope that she would mimic us. By the time she was two, Sara had adapted a coping mechanism for photos. If she saw someone with a camera, she would stop what she was doing and eke out a watery, fake smile until her photo was taken. Then she’d resume whatever activity had her engrossed. It became a family game to try to take photos of her un-posed and in her element – smiling or not.

I suppose she’s not alone. In grade school, my brother practiced his smile for hours in front of the mirror before school picture day. There was a small gap between his two front teeth that he didn’t like, and he wanted to be certain no one would be able to see it in his school photo. He succeeded. The tight-lipped smile in his fourth grade picture keeps all of his teeth hidden, but it looks a little plastic all the same.

I wonder how often this happens to us in daily life. The proliferation of digital cameras and camera phones make it possible to capture every single moment of our lives if we choose. It becomes easy to concentrate on what our smile looks like, and to forget the joy of simply smiling.

I know that when I’m laughing or just in a great mood my smile is huge. It takes up more than its fair share of my face and my mouth is a little too open. It looks awful in photos. But why is that even an issue? Why can’t we all just smile with joy and abandon and not care what it looks like?

It’s the sudden, unexpected smiles that are the most fun: the tickle smiles, the punch line smiles, the aced a test, got a compliment, finished a to-do list, I love you smiles. I think we should concentrate more on finding the real smiles in our lives, and worry less about how they’re going to look to everyone else. No one can choose what posterity will think of them, so maybe all we can do is have as much fun as possible and hope that shines through.

@@@This is my entry for week 3 of LJ Idol - the topic is “smile”. I'll post a link to the poll once it is up on Friday. Thank you for reading.@@@

- In the first week of my upcoming show rehearsals, if you count all of the cast members (including the two middle-schoolers who are double cast) as their own people I can have the whole cast in one room at the same time for 5 out of 35 hours. If you count the double-cast girls as one person (ie. as long as I have one of them I'm good) that number jumps to a whomping 12 hours. *headdesk*

- And we still don't have a script finalized to start rehearsals with. On Friday the author said to go back to version A, over the weekend we were pretty sure we could make version B work, and when the Director called on Monday to relay that the author said, oh never mind there's a version C I'm working on. That you should have tomorrow (that being yesterday so tomorrow was today). No script has arrived yet, so we wait in limbo for version C.

- Walking into this show without any significant time off since July is probably going to be very bad for my sanity, and my burn out rate. I'm going to try very hard not to take it out on anyone else though.

- In not-theatre news my Halloween costume turned out really nicely. In fact, I would like to dress like that more often, Halloween or not. A friend took photos, as soon as I can snag them from him I'll post one or two (and then stop with the pictures of me already, I promise).

- No trick-or-treaters came to the door while I was home so I have a bag of mini-snickers to get rid of. In a way that doesn't involve me eating all of them.

- J was gone for the weekend to see his dad, he didn't see the new hair until he got back last night. But he likes it.

- I've gotten better about exercising again. I'm not doing anything awe-inspiring, but I'm fitting 30 minutes of something a day more often than not. I know this is going to fall apart in December when I'll be working two jobs, but one of those jobs will be on my feet and lifting things so I'm thinking that will count. Now I just have to not let the fact that I can't go to yoga in December convince me to stop going now.

- The family Christmas gathering on my mom's side is happening in January so I can go this year. Which will be fun, I generally see the Aunts and Uncles on mom's side more often, but some of those cousins I haven't seen in ages. There's a chance that on that weekend Mom&Dad, J&I, Paul&Kim and all four kids will all be staying at my parent's house. Wheee!

I know the internets are all clamoring to know what color my hair turned out to be. At least all the tens of folks who responded to the poll. But I'm not going to tell you until you go and vote in the LJ Idol poll.

Ok, not really. But the poll is up here: community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/264520.html I'm still in the third tribe down on the page named after Ms.

lady_hoshi and if you enjoyed my post about walking home in the snow I would appreciate your vote. 70ish people took byes this round, so apparently this topic stumped a lot of people, those who did write came at it from all kinds of angles. They're fun to read.

My hair turned out beautifully. I am still catching glimpses of myself in mirrors and doing double takes.

My vanity does force me to point out that I am wearing no makeup at all, so please forgive that. Thanks everyone for the conversation about what I should do, it was fun, and helpful.

Happy Halloween everyone! I am curious to see how my costume plans actually turn out. I'm now going to sit and do my nails while watching the 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi.

Oh and a short PSA - tonight at 2am is the end of daylight savings time - fall back, fall back, fall back.

I have an appointment tomorrow to cut and color my hair. I'm very excited, a haircut is overdue. But I'm a little nervous about the color, because I'm not sure what I want.

I decided it was time to color my hair again as part of me needing a style. So I started thinking I wanted my hair to be copper to fit in with the steampunk idea. Then I became concerned that it would clash with my complexion. I started thinking about auburn - but then realized that anything in the red family of hair colors would mean more careful selection of what colors I wear (the one advantage of mousy brown is it matches everything). I switched to going a dark chocolate brown, but that's not so exciting. Maybe with chunky blonde highlights, but the appointment isn't scheduled for two color things. Then I thought about the fact that every time I've ever given a stylist the option to color my hair anything they've made me blonde, so maybe I should do that. But I've been blonde, what I've always wanted to be was red. And thus the snake swallows its own tail.

Then I thought "Wait, I have the internets. I know many stylish people on LJ, or at least, they all have an opinion. Why not ask them?" So that's what I'm doing.

Here is a very blurry picture of me from yesterday so you can see my current hair color, taken with natural light.

Please tell me internets - what should I do?

Poll #1478050 hair color?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 31

View Answers

Bronze was your first instinct, stick with that
10 (32.3%)

Mmm, auburn is pretty
14 (45.2%)

Dark brown would go with everything, and maybe your stylist can fit highlights in
3 (9.7%)

Blondes have more fun
0 (0.0%)

I don't think you've given enough consideration to blue
10 (32.3%)

Hairy ticky
6 (19.4%)

After college I did a year’s internship in Baltimore. It was as far south as I had ever lived, and I enjoyed the warmer fall and winter weather. Compared to the weather in my Wisconsin hometown, it was positively balmy. Then, in early January, it snowed.

It was a reasonable amount of snow -- about 7” by the time the storm was done. The city shut down and started digging themselves out, and I made extra money shoveling out the front of the theatre and the parking behind the actors’ housing. It was a fun day with the occasional snow ball fight mixed into the work; it felt like home.

But then the next day the schools and many businesses were still closed. Only half the streets were plowed, and most people hadn’t bothered to shovel their walks at all. On the fourth day, just about everything was STILL closed. This seemed truly bizarre. It had only been 7” of snow.

That night, as I was hanging out with some of the other interns, we started telling stories…

My senior year of high school, an early December day dawned slightly overcast and unusually warm. There were storm warnings and many schools in the area had closed just in case, but not mine. I walked the five blocks to school as usual that morning, dressed in only a sweater to take advantage of the nice weather.

During second period I looked out the windows and realized that it had started to snow – a lot. It was coming down in big heavy flakes and the ground was already white. The school was abuzz with the idea that we’d be getting out early. Finally the announcement came; the day would end at 11am.

My brother and I met up at Mom’s office after the last bell, hoping for a ride home, but she wasn’t sure when she could leave. That was when we found out that the school closure wasn’t going quite as planned. The owner of the busing company had made a decision; the roads were too bad. The buses weren’t moving.

Mom suggested that we each find friends who ordinarily bused home who might want to walk to our place, and asked us to call when we got there. Paul and I each found a few friends willing to brave the weather and we set out on the walk home.

By the time we got across the school parking lot we needed to stop, ducking behind a car. The wind was whipping the snow at us, stinging our hands and faces, and it was so strong we had to lean into it to move. Of course, we were all dressed for the mid 40 temperatures of the morning. We discussed going back, but decided that spending any extra time at school was too horrible to contemplate. So despite the cold wind and the snow, we pressed on, ducking behind parked cars, decorative hedges, trees, or anything we could find.

After taking 25 minutes to walk four blocks, we were within sight of our house; cold, wet, and aching. We were hiding behind the last wind break we’d see before our porch. At a signal from my brother we all took off, sprinting across the street and over the extended lawn. The snow was already ankle deep in some places and I could feel the snow seeping into my shoes. I stumbled at least once and fell to a knee, soaking my jeans. I got to my feet with the snow stinging my face and ran blindly for the door.

Paul got there first and unlocked the back door. We all stumbled into the house, and I answered the ringing phone. It was Mom, worried about us. She wasn’t going to be able to leave. Too many students were stuck at the school. She recommended towels and hot chocolate. We made sandwiches for lunch and settled in to find something decent on TV. The walk home that ordinarily took ten minutes tops had been just over a half hour.

The school buses never ran that day. It snowed 9” in seven hours, and continued blowing throughout the night. Parents who had vehicles that could make it to the school to pick up their children did, and everyone brought friends home with them. Not everyone made it out though. A dozen people had to spend the night at school.

As Baltimore continued to wait for warmer weather, those interns who were from more Southern climes were miserable, and tried hard to not step outside at all. I like to think I convinced them that it could have been worse, though.

@@@This is my entry for week 2 of LJ Idol - the topic is “uphill, both ways, barefoot”. I'll post a link to the poll once it is up on Friday. Thank you for reading.@@@

My show this evening was supposed to have a 7:30 curtain.

Instead it began at 8:07.

The Bay Bridge broke yesterday evening, and we had warned the cast and crew about that for the trip home last night, and the trip in today. It is obviously huge news around here - bridges aren't supposed to break.

But one of the actors forgot. His typical commute is over the Golden Gate bridge, not the Bay, but traffic everywhere was a mess due to all the vehicles that were displaced. So he left his house at the usual time which would ordinarily have gotten him here at 6:30. He arrived at 8:05.

I spent a lot of time on the phone: with the actor to get updates on his progress, with the managing director about how long we could conceivably wait to start, with various other staff members to keep them updated. I got to make a curtain speech at 7:35, walking out onstage to tell the audience that we were very sorry, but we were anticipating tonight's curtain to be 8p. (Ordinarily I only make announcements over the God mic, but I kind of felt that asking people to hang out for 25 minutes required a face.)

Thankfully most of the audience stayed, and the show itself ran well. But really - he forgot? I just - gah. Only eight more shows.

- My current show did extend, but it only added three shows. Luckily I only have one more two show day in the run. Of course, that is the day with a student matinee - whee. I'll be curious to see what high schoolers think of this one, there's no sex or cursing to keep them amused.

- On Sunday eight cell phones rang during the first act. Eight.

- The next show, A Civil War Christmas, is starting to ramp up, we had our first production meeting last week. I have been purposely ignoring this show for as long as possible, but I think that's done now.

- We don't have a final script for CWC yet. I think a lot of people have been waiting to get a more final script before diving in, but that means many folks are behind where they'd usually be. And of course the people who are up to date are getting frustrated at the changes that are happening. Good times.

- Oh and the one understudy I have for the current show was diagnosed with H1N1 flu last week. Thankfully he called in sick to the understudy rehearsal we were supposed to have last Wednesday, so he didn't come into contact with anyone else on the show while he was contagious.

I've been planning to dress up for Halloween, though not to put a whole lot of effort into it since I have a show that evening. I had been debating between my ren faire garb and a goth look. I mentioned that to

anteka and she came up with the brilliant idea of doing goth ren faire. Which is awesome! My bodice is a deep green, that over all black would totally work.

So I've been putting an outfit together in my head all day. Mostly I was scheming about how to get a full black skirt by next weekend; I thought I could reasonably pull the rest of the look together out of my closet. Late this afternoon I pulled out my ren bodice to take a look at it and see if there was anything I would want to do to it for the costume.

With the ren bodice in my hands I realized that I bought it nine years ago, and probably haven't worn it in at least six. This realization was caused by the size tags in the back which read "small petite". Yeah, I haven't been small petite in anything for years. Sigh.

But now I'm in love with this idea, so I'm going to call a friend who can hopefully either hook me up with a source for ren garb away from the faire, or might be willing to loan me a bodice for a night. I've got a week, we'll see what I come up with.

- I seem to be getting back into a rhythm of exercising most days. This is exciting to me, and the fit of my pants.

- My breast is still sore from the medical machinations of Tuesday. This morning J and I were cuddling before getting out of bed, and I flinched away from him after he brushed his hand past my right side. He apologized and expressed his desire for me to heal up quickly because "that's my squeezing breast."

- It is voting time for week 1 of

therealljidol . The polls can be found here: community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/261793.html
I am in the third tribe on the page, named after

lady_hoshi . If you have time you should read more of the entries, there are links to all of them in the polls and some are pretty amazing. Remember you can vote for as many as you want.

- Now I am going to cook lunch. Cook as in actually chop things up and use more than one pan to create a meal. This is a serious rarity in my world these days.

- I saw a rainbow yesterday. It was a full arch, with all of the colors showing and it was beautiful.

- I also went to a yoga class yesterday, for the first time in about 6 months. Ouch.

- The show I'm working on extended. That is great for the company and means that it is selling well. But for me it means that once again I'll be closing a show on Sunday and have my first rehearsal for the next show on that Monday. Craziness.

- Klutz had offered me the warehouse job for the holidays again, but with another show coming up I couldn't take it. I did mention that I could work 3/4 time or so in December once I got the show open and gave them my availability, figuring there was no way they'd want someone with a schedule as wacked as mine. But I was wrong. Someone who was already trained who could step in just as they get busy is more cost effective than someone they'd have to train in. So as of Nov 30 I'll be working two jobs for the month of December. This is mostly insane, though having offered the time to Klutz I don't want to take it back. I'm hoping that since the warehouse and stage managing use really different parts of my brain that while I'll be physically exhausted no matter what, that the two different jobs will balance out in my brain and keep me calm. We'll see.

- I went to see Dr. N for my breast today. ( Cut for girly medical things )

- Lately I've been in the habit of rereading books instead of picking up something new. I go through a phase of that periodically, I wonder why.

- I got to attend about 45 minutes of my friend's babyshower on Sunday, and her sister was there doing henna tattoos. This is something I should consider getting the materials for and doing myself, I always adore the way it looks.

- J and I mostly caught up on TV last night, and the fact that Fox is showing baseball a lot for the next two weeks means we should stay on top of things for a little while.

Several years ago I worked on a production of the musical Ragtime. The show is huge; our production had a cast of 28, and a crew of at least that many. With a show that big I was always a step, or several, behind. While organizing something that complex is fun, it’s also exhausting and made me cranky much of the time. Very few things could make me smile with any regularity during that process.

One of the songs in Act II is titled “What a Game”. Father, who is very upper class, decides to bring his son to a baseball game as a way to avoid having a more serious talk with him about race relations. It all begins much as Father expects it to; a gentlemanly afternoon of sport.

At this point in the song there is a stage direction that reads ‘rude gestures’. However, it was written in the score with markings on the staff that seemed to indicate it should be spoken rhythmically. So once the cast had learned the basic harmony in the song, that’s what they did every time we practiced the number.

This, of course, was accompanied by all the rude gestures they could think of. It was a lot of fun. Depending on the intricacy of the gestures, it always made me smile, if not laugh out loud. I was grateful for the silliness in the middle of an otherwise stressful show.

Once we got onstage though, things changed. We had to get ready for our first audience, and that meant no more chanting ‘Rude Ges-tures!’ Since our director didn’t want to offend the audience any more than necessary, it also meant the cast needed to tone down the physical gestures. So we ended up with a lot of fist shaking and hat waving. One person even adopted the very Shakespearean biting of his thumb. The song was still fun, and audiences loved it, but it lost a bit of spark without the shouted ‘Rude Ges-tures!’ and the cast’s inventive ways of giving each other the finger. The silly joy was missing and the song became just another piece of a large and intricate show.

For the crew though, as we continued to deal with the complexities of the show during the run, that silliness would never go away completely. We adopted the ‘Rude Ges-tures!’ and all whispered it at the right time, along with whatever gesture people could come up with. Of course those gestures started to be as rude as possible and have nothing whatsoever to do with the scene onstage, unless miming motorboating a woman’s breasts has some baseball significance I missed. The joy of ‘Rude Ges-tures!’ was still alive for us. But the audience missed out.

@@@This is my entry for week 1 of LJ Idol - the topic is “empty gestures”. I'll post a link to the poll once it is up, probably next Wednesday. Thank you for reading.@@@

I have no style.

That may be harsh. I have a sense of style, yet I don't seem to apply it to my wardrobe/hair/makeup at all. Mostly I wear jeans and t-shirts, with the only excitement being whether the shirts are long or short sleeved, or have a graphic of some sort. I tend to wear minimal makeup and most of what I do with my hair is about getting it out of the way. Over the past few months, this has become bothersome to me.

Several things have led up to this point. Before the move this summer I spent time cleaning out my closets of the things I don't wear, and realized that it was a decent chunk of what I owned. Due to technical issues our closet currently doesn't have doors so I can see all my clothes all the time and I've realized what a mish-mash they are, there's no cohesion to anything. I also was watching a lot of 'What Not to Wear' this summer for background noise, and of course 'Project Runway' is back now. And I just finished reading the book Gothic Charm School by Jillian Venters. I've always been attracted to the goth look, and even dressed up that way for Halloween for a few years. In general I've always been attracted to more extreme personal looks, but have always felt like I don't have the right to do that; somehow on me it would be playing dress up instead of a style. But then, I've always liked how I felt inside the look few times I've tried things out.

So I'm thinking of doing a major overhaul to my personal style. This obviously wouldn't happen overnight, both the time and money factors require this to be a drawn out process. I tend to lean towards the Victorian style of goth and Steampunk which I think overlap in fun ways. I was trying to figure out how to do this yesterday and realized that if I bought new pieces that fit the theme, I could slowly phase my current wardrobe out. Honestly, I'll probably still end up in pants regularly, but maybe it could be slacks instead of jeans, with a button down shirt and cool vest and my hair pulled back into a snood. I have a color palette in my head of mostly browns, blacks, and grays with the occasional bright color thrown in. I'd be aiming for a style that mostly wasn't noticeable as a specific label, but that would have a few specific fabulous pieces for those dress up occasions that would be unmistakable.

But here's the biggest question in my brain - Am I being ridiculous? I'm 36, and while I certainly don't believe that only 20somethings can make statements with their wardrobe am I starting way too late? Can I own this without looking like I'm playing dress up? (I do know the only appropriate response to that question is 'I don't know, can you?') I'm excited by the idea, but a little afraid of the execution. And I know me well enough to be a little concerned about my ability to follow through, though shopping with a specific look in mind might actually be easier.

Have any of you ever tried to overhaul your style?

Introductions tend to follow a certain pattern. People trade names, shake hands, and make polite small talk. I tend to ask a lot of questions when I meet someone new, both because I am curious about people in general, and because it’s more fun than talking about me. After all, I know all about myself already. I’d much rather hear about you.

But then, you probably feel the same way. So it’s only fair for me to give you at least some information. I am a 36 year old female living with my boyfriend in the Bay Area of California. I work as a stage manager for a regional theatre company. I believe vodka makes nearly everything better. My hobbies include reading, watching too much TV, knitting, running, and making lists. I think the world would be a better place if we were all just nicer to each other. Well, and if we occasionally broke out into carefully choreographed song and dance numbers in the park.

More accurately, it's my favorite clean joke. I don't know you quite well enough yet to tell my favorite dirty joke. But I'm sure we'll get there.