I'll Try Anything Once

In true Shari form I decided tonight at 9 pm to try a story for the famous Wordsmiths Unlimited. The deadline is tomorrow. Typical.


Well, here it is....be gentle.




Contradictions



His father was a pedophile, his mother was a saint. His gypsy-wanna-be sister traveling with the tickey-tackey circus, refuses to speak to her recently evangelized brother. His high-school sweetheart wife lolls on the bed in a daze of 4 Oxycontin and 6 Schlitz beers. Their free love ideals of the 1960's have slowly morphed into a prison of indifference- the new millennium of hate.

His once knobby knees now threaten to give way under his enormous weight, increasing by the day on a diet of fried jumbo shrimp and diet soda. His perfect teeth glare their whiteness through his gritty 5 o’clock shadow that last saw a razor last Tuesday at 1 o’clock. The reading glasses that he needs to see the computer screen are thrown haphazardly on the bedside table, releasing a plume of dust from the pathetic vase of silk roses. He curls his nose at the stench that emanates from everything in the room - Unwashed sheets? Cat hair? Urine?

His or hers?

No children, just 3 miscarriages. No joy, only disappointment. His broken heart shows itself more often than not with its fists. Why can’t he feel empathy until after the fact?

His emotions are a glassblower’s jackhammer.

Childhood hopes were dashed a long time ago, working like a dog in the fields since he was four. Unemployment is his right. His only privilege. He will make this work. Something will finally go right for him. Long hours of idleness will eventually lead to the get-rich-quick idea of the century.

The internet, with it dichotomous world of porn and astrological love charts, pain and recipe-sharing chat rooms, has got to have something for him. How do these people do it? Make a million on cheap t-shirts that say "Fuck Bush"? Run a consistent business re-selling beany babies?

Maybe his brother has it right. Maybe you just give your life over to something bigger than yourself. Confess your sins to the world and let it all go. Will it all stop?

A smile creeps to his lips. A starving jackal of a smile, furtively dancing with a sneer. He had it. Just what everyone needed. This was going to be his meal ticket.

The digitized Confessional Booth screen-saver.

Bless me father, we all sin.

What We Did This Weekend - Hairspray

I am now officially crazy in the work department. When you think it can't possibly get any busier, you are often proven wrong.

This weekend was spent with the girls - home, finally, for an entire weekend! I also have Grace for an entire week, so things are also quite busy on the home front.

But so busy as to not go see "Hairspray"!

The girls were excited because Linc was being played by Zac Efron, a young hottie that they all have a thing for at the moment, and I was excited because I just love, love, love this musical. I think they did a wonderful job. I haven't been to a movie when the crowd actually interacted with the characters on screen since I was really little (and terrified) in the middle of a theater full of yelling and fist-pumping "Rocky" fans. That was just weird.

The best part was seeing it through the girls' eyes, though. They were amazed at the prejudice and the fact that interracial relationships actually posed a problem. When I told them "There was a time when black and white people could not dance together on TV," I might as well have told them "Before you were born the sky was a light shade of green." It was wonderful to see.

Sophie told me before the movie started that "That guy that plays Danny in Grease is going to be in it -dressed up like a GIRL! You know who I mean - that Johnny Revolta guy?" Then, later on that evening when we were home, she started belting out the song "Good Morning Baltimore". There was only one little problem....she sang it "Good Morning Voldemort". Mixing out movie metaphors a bit?

The rest of the weekend was spent doing laundry and mowing the lawn. No good picture opportunities - sorry!

A Fancy Night at the Thea-tah

Do you all remember me telling you about my brief relationship with the Ringmaster of the Let's Pretend Circus?


Damn. I love saying that. Just seems so fitting for me somehow.


I check up on his career every so often by searching for him on Google. He keeps busy in the Seattle theatre scene and seems to be doing pretty well. The last time I checked I discovered that he was going to be the Pharaoh in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat".


I have never seen "Joseph" and the kids were gone, so I thought it would be nice to sneak into the theatre undetected and not only see and enjoy a show, but also satisfy my curiosity about him.

I have not interest in being with him, but when one can just spy so easily...it's hard not to quench that. Plus, it is really nice sometimes to be reminded of the fact that at one point I had a fantastic sex life. You know?

Megan and I got tickets for Friday night. The kids were gone. We both needed a break. .

We met at my house after work and drove her minivan (the VW bug was too dangerous in the rain) toward Seattle. Traffic was terrible and we spent the beginning of our night stuck in the worst traffic jam ever. Megan is a worrier - something that just does not come naturally to me - so I think this part of the evening was horrible for her.

As usually is the case in worrisome situations, everything turned out just fine and we arrived at the theatre with 5 entire minutes to spare.

I had read on the website that it was a small theatre, and I started to really get the picture when we were crowded into the minuscule lobby with all of 15 other people while waiting in the Will Call line.

Our tickets noted that we were in Row B.

Row B. Isn't that a bit CLOSE to the stage to go silent and undetected?

Megan had mentioned that she felt we were really close, but she had tried all possible combinations and could not come up with worse seats....

Well, Row B could easily be following 26 rows of AA, BB, CC, etc. Right?

Right?

Alas, that is not right.

There were approximately 10 rows of seats facing the stage, two rows in a U-shaped balcony and three rows bordering the right and left sides of the stage. We had the great luck of being in the "Left" section on the side of the stage.

And did I mention there was no such thing as Row A?

Um, yeah.

We were smack dab in front of the center part of "Stage Right" (or left? I always get confused). And when I say smack dab, let me tell you that the stage is only two steps up from the floor. And the first step is incredibly close to Row B. So close that when I crossed my legs my foot jutted jauntily over the step itself - and this seemed to be discouraged - as spelled out a few different times in the playbill.

So there I sat, uncomfortably upright, wondering aloud whether we should just cut our losses and flee right then and there. Then I stoically stated, "No. No! We paid $25 each for these tickets. We ARE NOT leaving."

No sooner had I taken my stand when it all started. There was dancing, there was singing, there was sitting on the stage directly in front of me by all actors besides him (thank God). If I would have been in Seat 14 Row B RIGHT, however, I would have been even more screwed in the "let's try not be noticed" category. He seemed to be continually dancing, singing or sitting on that side of the stage for the entire performance.

I sat through almost the entire show with my crazy curly hair up in a hair stick ,with the thought that if anything would give me away in a crowd, it would be my semi-out-of-control hair. So up it went. I was sure that my 6 foot tall frame or my trademark giggle would NEVER give me away. Oh no, not in a million years.

And it actually seemed to be working. He was on the other side of the stage. My hair was controlled. I laughed softly into my hands.

And then the end of the play came.

And the standing ovation.

I really, really did not want to stand up. I'm too tall. I'm right on the side of the stage. And...damn....he switched sides of the stage for the curtain call.

But sitting seemed to make me even stand out more, so I stood. "Great," I said to Megan, "Now I have to be all tall and stuff."

And then my hair stick began to slip. Curls popped out, one at a time at first, then more and more rapidly - poing! poing! poing! It was everywhere.

Megan said I actually whispered, horrified, "Oh god. There is goes."

And then I started laughing.

I'm pretty sure he had seen me at almost immediately when I stood - even before the hair accident. But I could not look. I was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face. Megan joined in and it was all over. My cover was blown into infinitesimal bits.

I think it should have been called "Shari and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" instead.

What We Did For Many Weekends

Many, many crazy things are afoot right now. My girls have been gone to Montana for two weeks and that always makes me very sad. This year my group of friends have all done a fabulous job of keeping me entertained and distracted.

The first distraction was the all-weekend multi-family garage sale. Saturday was spent completely goofing off and not being good sales people. I, seriously, made $9. I blame it completely on my ridiculous co-salespersons.....




This is John, my real life co-worker. I "just happened" to catch him relaxing on the pile of pillows with his Shape magazine, his golden challis and a bejeweled apple. If my yard were the Garden of Eden, John would have been Eve. (slut.)

Speaking of sluts (ohhhh! just kidding!) Natalie was encouraged to pose seductively with the neighbors hot rims (she was employed in the "Rim Job" department). The fairy wings were added to give this hard core shot a bit of sensitivity and playfulness. She is totally going to end up on a grease-smudged mechanic's calendar somewhere....


Many beers and sunburned cells later this fantastic little guy dropped by our garage sale to peruse our wares. He happened to also be a meat salesperson, selling steaks and things from the back of his freezer truck. We sold him nothing and spent all of our profits (that were not spent on beer) on steaks. He was a bit uncomfortable, I think, with the level of friendship that we felt we deserved with him, the meat man. The man of meat. Ha.

Throughout the next week I was kept busy with random things, all leading up to a rollicking night out with my co-workers Daniel, Candice and John. John is leaving for Pennsylvania for a job with our company and I'm a bit irritated that he is going. It's against all my plans and I don't appreciate his lack of forethought on my account.

We all met at Daniel's house in Capital Hill in Seattle. Capital Hill is a community that is mostly gay and lesbian and therefore has the best nightlife around. Daniel and his boyfriend were wonderful hosts. I served up wonderful margaritas with little "S" limes on top (because my name is Shari and Shari starts with an "S"). It's really all about me. The best thing is I made a few bucks due to the tip cup that someone thoughtfully placed on the kitchen counter.

During the imbibing of the margaritas we also played a screamingly exciting game of Jenga as demonstrated by John's face in the following picture:

The best part of the night was when we actually went out to the gay bar ("Neighbors"). I once had a lesbian roommate for a few years and had been indoctrinated into the gay bar scene - so I suppose I knew what to expect. John, as it turned out, did not know what to expect.

I warned him early on not to wear the "metro" shirt in the picture above, but he thought I was being a brat. There are many things one should listen to an older woman about....shirt choice in a gay bar being only one of them.

We descended to the lower part of Neighbors into what was dubbed "El Noche Latino". Sounds promising, right? Oh si, es muy bueno. Many gay hispanic men were milling about in button down shirts and squished straw cowboy hats. John seemed to be doing quite well until I noticed him staring at the buxom girls across the bar.

"John. That's a man."

"What!!? No it's not! She has boobs."

"Yeah. Well the part that might matter more is still a man."

"No way!"

I was ready to give him the blow by blow (so to speak) regarding transgender individuals when I was rudely interrupted by the beginnings of "La Noche Latino's" drag show. If you have never seen a drag show I suppose it could be relatively confusing. And not just because of the gender issues.

Why is it that it is important to dress up so extravagantly and lip sync popular songs?

I do not know the answer to this question, but I will admit that it is quite entertaining. The best part of this particular show was the look on John's face through the entire thing. The first guy (who was actually dressed as a guy) was most of the way through his song when John said, "Hm, he's a really good singer." The lip syncing thing hadn't quite hit him yet.

I could have just sat and watched his face all night, but we decided we must go upstairs and check out the dance floor. Daniel and I immediately dove into the fray, leaving John with Christopher, Daniel's boyfriend. Unbeknownst to us, Christopher also left John. Poor guy...he was standing in the middle of the gay bar for a good 20 minutes all by himself with his Paul Bunyan-esque looks and metro-sexual shirt.

It's amazing he was still there when we came off the dance floor.

He seemed to be a bit disturbed by the guy dancing in the cage and the adorable little man that passed us by dressed in only white satin underwear - a white handkerchief tied jauntily around his neck offsetting his cowboy hat beautifully - to check his own ass out in the mirror to our left. But by far the most disturbing to John was when he was surreptitiously pinched in the side and hit on by a very available and interested-in-some-Paul-Bunyan-roleplay man.

"I'm straight!" John literally yelled at the poor man.

Oh, it was a great evening.

I could go on and tell you about the most recent weekend, but I have to stop this at some point. I think a new post is in order.....