~Saturday~ I spent some time at work today working on a digital scrapbook for my boss’ retirement gathering, which will be on Thursday of this week. I made good progress on it.
At around 5:30, I took a walk up and down Hillsborough Street, where this was going on:
I just chuckled and kept walking trying to remember who exactly that was, and then it dawned on me that he’s the conservative Republican United States Senator from N.C., with whom I’d actually exchanged mail about fairly recently on the matter of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Of course, by then it was way too late to deliver my retort: “Wait, let me put a dick in my mouth, so that you can tell by looking at me that I’m not a Richard Burr supporter.”
On the way back up the street back to my building and where I parked, I ran into my friend Jen, who was—let me put a look of surprise on my face—in the Beer Garden, where I think it was $20 to “taste” as many different and as many “of” each kind of beer they had all afternoon.
She was with her friends Jason and Ryan, and they were ready to leave so the four of us walked the rest of the way up the street. Jason and Jen stopped to pet a dog and speak with its owner, and Ryan said to me, “I don’t think either one of them has any idea how badly I have to pee.”
I spotted some outhouses up the street at the next corner, and when I pointed them out to him, he took off running. I didn’t know it at the time, but I could’ve said, “There’s an app for that.”
I went to the 8:00 performance of Nearly Lear at NC State’s Titmus Theater. OMG, what a fantastic play! I absolutely loved it. There was a lot of the “breaking the fourth wall” during the play, starting at the very beginning, when the narrator character told that audience that the play was going to be “kind of intimate.”
“And to that end, we need to get to know one another a little better,” and with that she went out into the audience and traded introductions with someone in the second row. “Hi, I’m Norris/Noreen (her character’s name, whom she had already explained was a gal playing a guy in order to get a jester position in King Lear’s court),” she said. And while she was talking to him, which was near the door to the theater, a couple came in late, and she turned to them and said, “Come on in. We’re just getting started.” They took a seat right near the guy she was talking to, and she said to him, “Tell them what they’ve missed so far.” And then she waited while he did.
A couple of my other favorite things included a scene in which she’s trying desperately to get the audience to understand how hard it was (supposed to be) raining. She had this ridiculously jacked up umbrella with broken hinges and one side hanging limp, and she gets louder and louder saying things like, “It’s raining hard. So hard. Pouring. Driving, rain.” and then added dramatically, “It’s the worst storm in the whole of English literature!”
Then, she took a squirt bottle and started spraying the hell out of her head. Getting her hair all wet, and her face, and screaming, “Raining. Raining!” “Terrible rain,” and she took off into the audience spraying the hell out of that bottle, climbing up over the rows moving up the theater spraying and spraying, “Oh you wear glasses, sorry,” she said, and then sprayed it right in the person’s face.
Two other things especially cracked me up and then I’ll stop—because I know you’re getting the gist that I loved this play—at one point she was playing one of King Lear’s three daughters and the character was being very sly, and she said, “…but I’m just a girl in sheep’s clothing.” Well, I just howled at this. But I was the only one that laughed, so it was loud. And since they’d kept the front row essentially empty, although I was on the second row, I was virtually “right up front.” So, when I laughed like that, she just stopped, turned, and looked right at me and said, “THANK you!” as if she were so grateful that somebody got her allusion.
At one point she was playing three characters all talking to each other. She was a master of facial expressions and she used those and particular mannerisms of each of the characters, so it was very clear most of the time, which character she was currently “in.” In that respect, it reminded me of The Mystery of Irma Vep, if you’ve ever seen that, and which I also just absolutely loved.
The final thing that I thought was just a hoot was toward the end of the play. I didn’t remember that almost everyone dies at the end of King Lear. So, it got near the end and everyone was still alive, and she stopped and said to the audience, “Now wouldn’t it be nice if it all just ended here? It would be, wouldn’t it? But it can’t! This is one of the T-R-A-G-E-D-I-E-S. It’s a tragedy, ladies in gentleman. It can’t end like this. Bad things, really bad things have got to happen first.”
Here’s a minute-and-a-half clip of her, if you’re interested:
I met Joe at The Borough after the play, and then we made our way over to Flex. While walking over, in front of Flying Saucer, two guys walking by us said, “Excuse me, can you tell us where Flex is?”
“Follow us,” I said, “That’s where we’re going.” In the entry way while waiting to pay, we introduced ourselves, and their names were David and Jeff, and they were in the process of moving here from Virginia. We chatted with them a while once in, as well.
Although there was a porn star there tonight, it wasn’t as horrible as it usually is when there’s one there. He was actually pretty friendly and seemed to be more playful and into making sure others had fun, as opposed to most of them who are all about some “mirror work,” meaning their own bodies, and their exaggerated sense of “movie stardom.” With that said, I still didn’t go anywhere near him.
This was NC Pride Weekend, which is normally in June, for historical purposes, but it’s so damn hot in NC in June for the parade and other outdoor activities, that it’s been moved to September.
Ironically, today’s late headlines: Saturday’s heat sets a record, the story which starts out, “Saturday’s high temperature of 98 degrees blasted past the record for this date,” WRAL meteorologist Kim Deaner said. The previous Sept. 25 high was 92 degrees in 1986. Saturday was the 91st day of 2010 to top the 90-degree mark.
So much for cooler in September. No, Virginia, there’s no such thing as global warming. And it’s called “climate change” now, Missy. But I digress…