act one: the dinner
nick and megan invited me to eat with them at the chalkboard before we went to the ballet last week. some friends of ours from kansas city had organized an entire group to come with them for an overnight stay. it mostly consisted of fancy people from the KC ballet, including the artistic director of the company and several other board members besides mark and dave. also on hand were some fancy people from the ballet here. did i know this at the time? well duh, of course not! quite by accident, i managed to get seated at the VIP table. this became clear to me as dave and mark insisted i sit with them, then began to introduce people who got up to make little "hey let's get cultural and appreciate each other" speeches. every single person at my table except me had a little speech. uh, can we say jittery? i was introduced as a theatre director and future sister-in-law of megan. of course she was showed off as one of the dancers, though she is still out of shows from her injuries, and nick was getting asked all about their impending wedding. let the hobnobbing begin!
holy crap, i thought, i'm surely going to embarrass SOMEONE here sooner or later simply by opening my mouth to speak. inadvertently humiliating people is one of my specialties. i don't need tricks to do it; this sort of thing just comes naturally to me. did the boys sit me with themselves so that i would feel more comfortable amongst these strangers? i can only hope my face didn't look like "oh shit, what does make face look like?" as i was being introduced to my table mates. dave is just as goofy as me, however, and we managed to navigate dinner without any major faux pas. the funniest thing that happened was when the KC guy asked me about my theatre company - seems that director translated differently to someone professionally employed in the arts - and i had to explain that i direct shows, not that i have my own company. KC guy was intrigued by some of the pieces i've done, asked a lot about thom pain (yay! one of my favorites!) and said that he really wanted to see it done there, and we compared a few notes on his hometown of seattle. thankfully, i could properly joke about rain and actually knew about some of the arts organizations and their current offerings.
whew. crisis averted. i think. time to get on the tour bus and see the ballet.
act two: the show
personally, i find the idea of giving my opinion on a ballet somewhat intimidating. in theatre it's easy for me to say to myself that the audience has every right to critique a show based on what they've seen, but it's been much slower getting over that hump in other arts stuff. what if i say how great a dancer was only to find out that everyone in the company hates them? do i have any clue as to what constitutes a fabulous ballet? do i sound like a fucking idiot every time i take notice of things? it's a total feeling of quoi for me - i mean, like, QUOI?!?! it shouldn't have even been an issue for this show. the spring and fall triple bills are the time for the shorter, more experimental pieces. last fall they did "in white" and this past weekend the theme was "in black" as a contrast. in my opinion, these two shows are the best part of the season and should be considered far less stuffy overall. the audience looks different than at the full length ballets, usually being more diverse and several years younger. my logical brain tells me that i paid for my (free) ticket just like anyone else, that i have the good sense and taste to make an observation if i like. my twitchy not-good-with-people side tells me that i'm a freak who's going to insult the piece which is the most revered.
yep. leave it to me to actually like the first part of the show; the one that the dancers hate with a passion. trust me to rag on the piece that they love to dance. count on me to say something like, "i couldn't help be distracted by the buttcracks i was seeing because that lighting in the last piece made the men's costumes look like hooker night at dancing with the stars". okay fine. so my way with words is less than stellar at times. or maybe it's too stellar and i should learn to temper it in front of the people most directly involved in a project. whichever it is, i wasn't insulting the dancers themselves. they were fine and good. even better than good when it came to the second part of the show. i admit it - the middle part of the show was so frikkin' great that i cried for the first time ever at the ballet. it was absolutely stunning! afterwards, when megan was chatting with some of the other dancers backstage, i even told rupert that he should be very proud of himself for his performance. (no, i did not tell him i cried. pffft.) other than that, i mostly tried to remain silent... mostly because that whole hooker comment managed to sneak out of my mouth before i knew it. whoops. thank goodness he wasn't in that piece.
me and nick and megan went out for sushi with some of her friends. now, here's the thing about me meeting new people. on the outside i seem quite easygoing about it. i laugh and cavort and chatter away. but really? it's sheer torture. making new friends is not fun for me, so imagine the idea of socializing with people only randomly. furthermore, they weren't just random people that evening. these were all somehow connected to nick or megan or dave or mark or someone else i could alienate and cause distress. by the end of the night i began to wonder if i shouldn't just get drunk, thereby giving myself (and those whom i love) an excuse for my behavior. ack.
act three: aftermath
i woke up the next morning happy and refreshed. what a fun evening, right? let's cook eggs! let's get motivated and clean the house! let's get out and see people and do stuff and be fabulous! woohooooooooo!!!
sitting at my desk, i sprinkled some turmeric on my breakfast and started getting flashbacks of the previous night. see, whenever i meet new people, especially when it's lots of people in a short time, even more especially when i exchange more than "nice to meet you" with them, i go back over it the next day. i listen to the evening in recap form, pondering what we discussed and so forth. i review some of the conversations and think about what they said so that i can more readily remember them when we bump into each other again.
this is a very bad idea.
inevitably, the next thing that happens is "new people hangover" strikes. this is a condition in which you mentally go over the previous night/day/hour realizing all the reasons why the new person or people that you met hate you. it all happens inside your own head in the most irrational way. you're sitting there doing something completely ordinary when your entire body freezes up for a second. you make an grunting noise of some kind and shudder. you wonder who should get the first apology call from you for whatever it is you're sure you did and said. for those of you who have ever had a blackout drinking night come back to you in unfortunate flashes, i can tell you it's very similar to that.
so i'm sitting there just trying to eat my eggs when my brain give off a little snap. ugh. grunt. for fuck's sake, i'm a total pisser, aren't i? oh jeez. JEEZ! do megan and daiva think i have terrible taste in ballet? was nick ashamed to admit i'm his sister? should i have pretended to have a speech impediment to garner sympathy? my shoulders go up by my ears, my head goes down towards the floor. my posture goes limp and my socks become an instant dust mop as i shuffle around in my pajamas. i decide not to answer the phone or leave the house. ever. again. no, this isn't a case of moodiness. it is, finally and officially, some hysterical case of me saving the world from myself! serious brooding is in order, yes?
epilogue: final analysis
on sunday, i went to help scott and margot with some lighting for theatre tulsa. when i relayed to margot my "here's why they all hated me" status, she laughed. seems as if you ALL get that same overwhelming feeling after the new people experience. so i take much comfort in knowing that maybe those fancy people went home and thought about what jackasses they were, too. perhaps we all shuffled about in our socks muttering and shaking our heads in disgust. sure! it could happen! there could be legions of people out there who need buttons that say "will you PLEASE be my friend?" you never know.
culture does funny things to a person.
what i have NOT done since the end of lent:
buy new shoes! can you believe it?
4 comments:
See, I just always assume that everyone I meet loves me. It's much less stressful that way.
When I meet people, I am often overwhelmed by how nice or funny or smart they are or whatever. And afterwards, I feel like I talked about myself way too much and didn't ask enough questions and was basically a yappy bore. Bah.
See? I'm doing it again right now! Bah!
Yeah. Sometimes I'll say things I'd said the night before out loud to myself, to hear how they might have sounded. Sometimes this happens while I'm walking down the street.
liz, i should try this. then again, everyone DOES love you. bitch.
mary, yap yap yap yap yap.
janice, never do that! that's how you turn into the human dust mop at home. and out in public, no less? i would simply scream a big "ACCKK!" and stop moving entirely. in fact, i did that once at the fabric store and ended up rocking back and forth somewhere near the batting.
Post a Comment