T is for Tiger

Today: Home again (You didn’t even know I was gone, did you!)

Okay, so here’s the deal. This past week I’ve been out of town. First, driving to Memphis, TN, then to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. It’s been enlightening and relaxing, for the most part. Here’s a re-cap.

Wednesday night: While on a rather intense caffeine-high, I find out that I’m leaving for this whole adventure a whole day early. Panic sets in as I arrange for a replacement at work on Friday and get my other chores done by other people (this includes laundry and dishes—thank you Jonathan and Jimmy). I talk far too long with Evan on the phone about just about everything—sounding something like a coked-out philosopher mixed with a 10 year old sociologist.

Thursday: Went to work, like any other day, then came home having found the dishes and the laundry done (thanks again, minions) and re-clothed for a rehearsal, a party and a 14 hour drive. Made my way downtown, met up with Jonathan and John, had rehearsal, which was good, then went to this party at Sala that my friend Nat was partially promoting. It was cool, but the people were kind of snobby. I’m glad I wore my cowboy hat. That’ll show ‘em. Then Jimmy picked me up and we started the drive.

Jimmy drives the first leg: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Wake up: 6am Friday morning: my turn to drive. Drove to Roanoke, VA, hopefully to meet up with our friend Marisa, but alas, she thought, like me, that we were going to be breezing through the NEXT morning. Oh, well. We ate breakfast in a quaint little greasy spoon and then pushed on—not before I bought a little something called ‘chow chow’ that I’ll try to implement in my cooking in these next weeks. The people in Virginia are warm, even though the accent in Roanoke is really heavy.

Jimmy drives again: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Wake up: 2:30pm, Friday: My turn to drive. Drove through a bunch of TN. Nothing interesting to report, although I exhausted my tolerance for show-tunes during this first day of the trip. Bad sign. We switch again about 3 hours later.

Jimmy drives us into the ghetto—I mean, Memphis! We get kind of lost in and around Memphis several times over the course of the next few days. For a small city, they have very few signs and the ones they do have make little to no sense. I mean, there is this road, the 55, and at one point it splits off into 3 different roads, all named 55: 55East, 55North, 55 South…funny thing, though, none of them GO the directions they purport to go. Anyway we finally found our hotel, which was trashy. Don’t stay at the Super 8 outside of Memphis. It’s gross. The first room we had had bad lights in the bathroom and a leaking faucet and smelled of…well, decay. They ‘upgraded’ us to a room that was slightly less horrible, but Jimmy and I vowed that we’d find better digs for our next audition experiences—sorry, Gordon, you’re not allowed to make travel plans for the rest of us. Jimmy and I decided to find food, so we drove to down town Memphis. I asked the attendant at the parking garage where we might find Vegetarian food, and she gave me a look that could have suggested I had asked ‘where do you go if you like to eat aborted fetus?’ I was not at home in Memphis. After walking for a while, and asking around we had dinner at I think it was the Paradise Café, though I’ll be corrected as soon as I figure out what it really is. It was on Beale st. The food was alright. I had vegetarian lasagna that was huge and a salad that was huge. There was live music, which was decent. And then a guy at the table next to us started smoking. It was so tacky and classless. I mean, yeah, I understand that the laws down there are from the bronze age, but, Jesus—there are people performing there, don’t they deserve a clean working environment? I just don’t understand those allowances. After that, we went to the Peabody center—a mall that serves as the cultural center of Memphis. Blah, I’ll stop bashing it in a minute, I promise. I was just really unimpressed with this place—a place that’s supposedly really musical—I don’t know, I guess I expected to feel I was among friends, not a complete outsider. I was in tower records and asked a rather punky kid where I might find a coffee shop, and he said, not knowing he was condemning Memphis to “SUCKS” status, that there was a Starbucks upstairs.

Jimmy had by this point gotten ill from something he ate at the smoky restaurant.

We went home, Jimmy picked up Gordon and then I fell soundly asleep.

Saturday: We tried to use Saturday as a day to find something we liked about Memphis. We visited with Gordon’s friend from Springer Opera House, I helped her with her monologues and then went to find where the UPTA auditions were being held. It was another ‘getting lost in Memphis wishes it was fun’ moment. We finally found the place, 4 miles outside of the city proper, and then went home. I took a nap and then jimmy and I went to find food. Luckily we found probably the only sushi restaurant in Memphis and ate like pigs. It was a really great moment. We went home and fell soundly asleep (after picking out outfits for the next day and being silly about ironing).

Sunday: Auditions went well. Lots of call-backs for me, a few for Jimmy and Gordon, due to his Union membership, had none. I felt bad, but I was too busy to really do anything about it. The set-up was similar to a lot of these that I’ve been to, so I really wasn’t worried. I ran into a BUNCH of people I knew and it was really awesome to see them. I also made a few new friends, which was cool. We left after the auditions, packed our stuff, and moved drove off.

Jimmy takes first leg: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I woke up about 7am and drove for several hours. We stopped in Orlando for food and saw my friend Tyson. I love him. He looks great and seems very happy with how his life is going. I wish we stayed in better touch.

Then we drove to Ft. Laud. It was a pretty easy drive, though we didn’t get in until 9:30. Mark’s new house is nice and Paul seems healthy.

The first night, we had dinner and then went back to Mark and Paul’s house to sleep. It was so nice to sleep not in a car—even if it was on an air mattress. The next morning, we went out to South Beach, which was lovely. We had lunch at Cafeteria—an offshoot of a New York restaurant. I have to say I like the Miami one better: more space, and the al fresco dining provides great people watching—the boys in Miami are succulent. We then walked the beach—well, I walked the beach, the other two hung out somewhere for a couple hours. It was a warm day and I think I got a little sun. Then we went home, changed and went first to dinner, then saw Capote, which was amazing. Phillip Seymore Hoffman deserves the Oscar.

The next day we met up with Mark’s (and now my) friend Melissa for lunch at this Mexican place, and then I joined her in picking up her daughter Nichole and taking her to a go-see for a photo shoot. I was asked if I could do yoga—which, um, yes, I can do—and was invited to be photographed for the shoot. We’ll see how that goes. I may be in Key West in another week.

Anyhoo, we then went home, I love Nichole, I was dropped off at Marks, and we went to Miami again to get dinner before seeing Verechai with Cirque du Soleil. We were originally supposed to go to this Brazilian grille place that serves all kinds of meats on sticks—obviously something I would be into, right? Well, they were supposed to have this grand vegetarian buffet as well, but we got there and for upwards of like 30 dollars, I was expected to eat off a really plain and quite poorly appointed salad bar—with nothing warm that was vegetarian. FUCK THAT. We left, which I know disappointed Mark, who had had his heart set on showing this place to Jimmy—though I know they’ll go back at some point. We ended up at this Italian place near the Cirque tents. The food was fine—if the portions were a little on the small side.

Then we went to Cirque—it was great. I mean, I think the lack of cohesive story kind of bugs me, I have to admit, but the people are so skillful and so dramatic that it almost makes up for that problem. It’s really a beautiful production, though, and I really wish I was a trapeze artist.

Then we went home and the next morning I got on a plane at 6am to get to work on time. The day was hell, and though I made good money, I was exhausted and kind of scatterbrained all day.

So that’s my week away. It went well, and we’ll see what comes of the auditions I went on, and I’ll see how long I can stand not being in a hot environment—I’m kind of living vacation to vacation lately. But it’s worth it. I work hard, I deserve it.