Thursday, February 11, 2010

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Saturday, February 06, 2010

What I Get Up to in My Sleep

Last night, I dreamed that my dear friend and fellow Janmom, Cathy, was directing a musical at some snooty boarding school. It was some kind of weird version of "Bye Bye Birdie". She hired me for some reason or other. I was kind of a consultant, and was supposed to be there in case anything blew up. Anyway, it starred Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. I cannot stand Sutton Foster, although I'm sure she's a lovely person. She cannot act her way out of a paper bag, and has one of those faces. It was driving me batshit, so Cathy, friend to the end, canned her. Unfortunately, she recast the role with Terri Hatcher. I just decided to bite the bullet, and we resumed rehearsals.

For some reason, the cast brought their own costumes. In act one, Hugh was in a very nicely tailored grey suit. By act two, it degenerated to this:

One afternoon during lunch break, I was sitting in the cafeteria enjoying something or other with lettuce on wheat, and gazing at a moving picture ala Hogwarts. It was a bucolic scene with rambling wildlife. Hugh was at the table next to mine reading his director's notes. He gave a little snort and read out loud, "Keep the nice grey suit, because it makes you look smokin' hot. (Yes, Cathy wrote that) Get rid of the floods. This is per Rima, who should know, because she looks at you like 17, 563 times a day." He looked at me and said "17, 563 times a day?" I said no, but I have some friends who do. He said "Really? Who?" I mentioned that Kristin has access to various photo sites that are not open to the general public. He was intrigued and asked if she could get him in and I said I was sure they could work something out. Then I said "Of course, there's Lizzy. She has what, 350 pictures of the two of you together?" He said "You know Lizzy??? Wait, of course you do. EVERYBODY knows Lizzy. It's part of what makes her Lizzy!" (He really does know Lizzy)

So then I showed him the above photo on my laptop and said "I just thank the gods that you didn't bring the Mickey Mouse shoes. Look at that. That's a guy who needs a 'kick me' sign on his back". He scrunched up his face and said he wanted to fill his car with shaving cream, and that he didn't realize that outfit was so incredibly dorky. He said his friend designed it. I said that was pretty obvious and that I didn't care if his grandma made it for him, ditch it. So he said okay.

Then he said that he had heard of a charity that the students were involved in, and did I know anything about it. I told him yes, they find books that don't have any pictures of mustaches or ducks, and they draw them in. He is totally into charity and causes, so he got all excited. He said "Do you think I could talk to Cathy about getting the whole cast and crew involved?" I said "I think that's what she's doing right now. Let's go see." So we went up to her office, and indeed she had a stack of books that she was modifying. Hugh and I each grabbed a pen and started going through pages, drawing in mustaches and ducks where there were none before. Cathy had gone through "Make Way for Ducklings", and put mustaches on all the ducks.

That was it. Then I woke up.