The Rose Room and 7-11

It occurred to me tonight that I can write blog entires from the warmth of my little rose bedroom then mosey on over to the one BS hotspot and post them whenever I want. Even late at night apparently, since “You can walk the streets at any time in BS”. Or so I’m told. So different than Capitol Hill, where I worry about walking from the metro after 11pm.

We just had our third night of rehearsal. I’m so happy with the cast I chose. It has already settled into that place where I can’t imagine having cast anyone else in these roles, which is a really good thing.

I had put together a breakdown of the Louisiana accent, based on some books I have and the knowledge I retained from my classes with our goddess of accents and dialects at school, Mary. I wanted to have her check it over first, but have not been able to reach her and am pretty confident that nothing on the sheet is incorrect. I even included all the phonetic breakdowns of all the vowel substitutions, and was happy to realize that I remembered nearly all of my IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). I couldn’t remember exactly how to draw the symbol for the “th” sound, so I kind of made up a little thing that looks like the symbol for woman. I know it is something like that. And none of the cast actually knows IPA. But it made me feel well trained to do so anyhow.

I have had glorious amounts of time during the day to do work like this. Oh for a day when I can spend all of my time directing, and preparing to direct! It is so nice to walk into the rehearsal space and feel really, truly prepared for the evening. I wish it were par the course rather than a luxury. Most of the time though I am having to run from some day job or another, and preoccupied with whether I am even going to make it on time.

Someday.

Tonight the woman with three kids brought her ten year old to rehearsal. Adorable kid, very attentive and patient, and when he got bored he’d go to the corner of the room and practice karate. Almost made me wish I had one myself. Then my ovaries started to hurt again and I rethought that urge.

More on the rose bedroom – I am staying at a B&B here in town where they have generously put me up as a sponsorship for the show. It is a charming room. Indeed, very pink, with a rose motif. Because it is still off-season, I am the only one here during the week, which is a little spooky at night when I am all alone in a big house with a restaurant filled with humming refrigerators downstairs. My host said I could help myself to anything from the kitchen whenever I want. Last night I ventured past the meat slicer (really) to one of the giant refrigerators, and hunted for twenty minutes to find some bread and already sliced swiss cheese. I am not sure it was worth the effort. Because I am on a bizarre eating schedule now, I am always hungry after rehearsal, and no restaurants are open this late (this late being 10pm. Oh for a Tunni’s or Amsterdam falafel right now!) So, needless to say, the 7-11 across the street is my friend. I have already sampled every variety of baked chips (they have Baked Lay’s AND Baked Doritos) and tonight I tried the soy chips (yeah, soy chips in West Virginia). My stomach is still growling. But I can’t do the 7-11 again. The counter guy there is starting to give me funny looks.

I need to just buck up and get a good meal before rehearsal at night, but I still have this funny thing about eating alone in sit down restaurants. Coffee shops and places with counters are fine, but places where you sit down and order make me feel lonely. It’s silly, I know.

Lots of alone time here. I’m not used to that. It’s good for me I think, but hard nonetheless. I am used to being able to sit down with a beer after a rehearsal (and a Tunnicliff’s tuna melt. Mmmm.) and more importantly – having people to sit down and share that beer with. I feel a sort of general loneliness here that I have not experienced for a while. The same kind of feeling I have when I have traveled for a while on my own. It’s not a bad thing, just different. And the best thing that comes out of it is an awareness of how lucky I am to spend most of my life surrounded by friends and colleagues that I adore. I miss them all right now.

Oh, but notice must be paid to my one house companion, “Toast”, a big orange cat. He is usually asleep on my bed when I get back at the end of the night, but I haven’t seen him yet tonight. Maybe I’ll go find him.

Meow.