Early evening

Is the week over? Oh, well. Actually, ended up getting to concert early because I managed to catch an earlier bus to Bellevue. I lived there for two years, over 20 years ago. Places sound familiar, but I don't recognize anything, except the major landmarks that haven't changed. I had a car then, too. I drove a lot, knew my way around. It's pretty: very verdant, lots of trees. I thought about how many more options you have for places to live when you have a car.

The songs went okay. We had the accompanist today.  I told him later about how I feel his playing elevates the music and how I sometimes listen to the CD from Finland to hear he and the accordian player together. Finally put my money where my mouth is, even if it is gushy. He was gracious. Besides it's all true, I enjoy listening to him play. Had to run off, right after that. Managed to figure out where the bus stop was, it was pretty fast. Made it to rehearsal on time. We barely got through our scene once in that hour. At least we talked about transitions and were in agreement about things. I had my lines down more or less, but that was my worse run-through. I just am not connecting what I want with the words, and it's like I'm just reading them, and not in a particularly interesting or believable way. This is why I'm taking acting classes. I hope I improve before the show. It's bad.

I finally committed to a monologue. Now I'm cutting it. I tried to time it using a clock with a second hand. I think it's two minutes, three minutes wouldn't make sense. My nose is stuffed and so I read this bad, too. I'm not a good cold reader, thankfully, I don't think we will have to do that for the audition. I'm crossing my fingers. It's weird, I can cold read poetry ususally, but not text. I want to include an emotional transition. I need to do it for the play, so it will be good practice. I think I know where I need to start that now. We were playing the ending pretty subdued and then I was suddenly supposed to exit excited, but it needs to start earlier, it doesn't make sense to just suddenly be there. It needs to build. I'm liberated a page or so earlier and it needs transition from there. Also, the director told me I need to soften my face, but I don't think my face softens. I even tried thinking of cute babies and puppies while watching my face in the mirror...all I can think to do is to hold my face more tense earlier and then let it go "normal."

On the bus coming home, the air-conditioning was blasting, and my stomach felt like a fist because I hadn't eaten all day, and all I could think about was that I wanted to get off of the bus. We got stuck in traffic because a wire on one of the bridges had to be repaired. I almost got off and walked, but I was carrying my bag of winter clothes, my book of music, my performance clothes and shoes, and a full bottle of water. It was cumbersome. It would have been a long walk. I just put on a long-john shirt even though it was almost 80 degrees outside. I still have it on. And when I finally ate, I ate too much, too fast. Now I just want to nap. More work on this monologue first. Sorry, I lied about one post per day. (Everytime I audibly sigh, on purpose, I hear George laughing in my head, in a high-pitched, nervous, maniacal way.)