Well, this has gone by TOO QUICKLY!! Here we are (thank you Andrew Byrne... :) ) one show from the end of this run. It feels really surreal. My brain is telling me that I should be keeping my journal current on all of the things that are happening so that I never forget these moments, but my body is telling me in every spare moment, "Sleep. Sleep. Sleep." I'm glad that I'm not in my early 20's anymore for many reasons, one of which is the fact that I now (mostly) listen to my body. In fact, my body also told me to eat the spare piece of apricot, sugar plum, blueberry and black plum tart that was in the kitchen. What? I had to cook for my cast! There was one extra piece and I am part of the cast, so it was mine. Alllllll mine......

Great, now they know what they're getting. Oh well. I don't think they read the blog anyway. :) If they do they'll all know and they'll still have to wait till Thursday when we have our FINAL performance. You know when I'll have time to journal about all this stuff? After we close when I'm in that post-show down phase where I walk around the apartment picking things up and putting things down and forgetting why I walked into rooms. Am I the only one who does that? It happens when I'm distracted and processing emotions. My husband always has a little smile on his face and watches me as I walk around. After about an hour of it he'll say something cute like, "You don't even know what to do with yourself now, do you?"

Um, no. I'm not sure what happens next. I've only planned for this far, so I don't know at all. I do know that I'm going to a wedding in Florida next weekend for a dear friend who has finally found her prince. :) He's sweet. Also from a far-away land. Just like mine.

Well, I'm still in show mode, so I'll say this much. I cannot read ANY reviews of the show until it's done because it would make me too nervous. I'll spend the morning after closing with a bloody mary clutched in my paw and the URL(s?) under my clicky little finger. Maybe I'll ask Liza to come over and read them with me. She not only plays my best friend, we are very close, both in relationship and proximity.

I'll even make her breakfast AND a bloody mary. :) Maybe she'll help me pack again. That girl is all-knowing and all-powerful. Who KNOWS what I'd do without her sense and smarts and friendship.

Oh, now I'm getting all sad-faced about the end of the show. I'm going to miss everyone so much.

I don't want to get too melancholy, so I'll end with another story. This one is really really good.

I just totally wrote out a story about my very first love, the boy from Germany whom I met when I was 17, but that's too personal for the internet. It's also not as funny as another horror story...

O.K. Here goes...

When I was about 18 years old, I did a community production of Mystery of Edwin Drood. I was in the chorus and so I helped the audience vote for who the murderer was at the end of the show.

O.K. Store that in your brain and fast forward. Please join me again in the food court of the mall for a little adventure...I was working at the restaurant and this guy came up to me and gave me the weird look. You know, the "I might know you" look. I didn't recognize him, but he recognized me. It was maybe late November early December.

This was my current situation with guys: I had a boyfriend in Germany who agreed that if we needed to, we could see other people because we lived across the ocean from each other; I had just ended (on Halloween...well, ended for the first time) a relationship with an older R.A. whom I met during a study group with his roommate at his apartment (he was adorable...and a little hung up on this other girl who had a boyfriend...oy... we had a messy on-again, off-again relationship for a few years. Mostly off...with a bit of making out...I broke it off with him over email when he sent me his new address. It was back in the early days of email...messy...did I mention, messy?)

So anyway, boy at the food court came up after eating and slipped me a note that said something like, "I remember you from the show at the Playhouse...can I talk to you later?" It had his number and name on it (turns out I knew his sister pretty well in high school...), and I was in a very WTF mood, so a few days later I called and chatted with him. He asked me out on a date and we went to Perkins and had dinner together and talked a lot. He seemed nice. A little intense. Very interested in me. He said that I'd worked his section during Drood and he'd noticed me and how pretty I was. He said it was kind of awkward for him in the moment, because his girlfriend was at the show with him, but he never forgot me. Me? Well, how sweet.

In any case, it was a pretty successful date and he called me a lot after that to chat and stuff and wanted to plan another date with me. I had made a bunch of Christmas cookies that I wanted to deliver around to my friends, but otherwise I was pretty busy, plus, I started to get a sort of funny vibe from him, so I asked him if he just wanted to come with me on that jaunt. He was excited to come with me and met me at my house where we got into my car and he went with me ALL OVER Duluth delivering Christmas cookies...even to the home of the R.A. with whom I had just ended it...I was nothing if not people-pleasing at that point in my life...

There were a lot of guys on that delivery route that I kind of had the hots for, so it was nice to be with a guy that seemed to like me that might make them jealous (hahahahhahahahah...o.k. I'll admit...my young naive thought-process was a little bit skewed at that point. I was just laughing so hard I couldn't type...). Anyway, to be honest, I was a little bored of my company towards the end of my date and sort of thinking in my head about what one of the guys for whom I'd had the hots had said to me when I gave him his cookies when something drew me to full attention.

"What?" I asked of the guest in my car, for it had registered that he'd said something red-flag worthy. He said, "I said I think we should be together forever."

I gripped the steering wheel. I got really warm. I wanted to roll down the windows and let in the -20 degree north winter air. "Um," I said, "I'm kind of in a place right now where I'm kind of dating around. I don't know if I can be with only one person." What I meant was, I don't think I can be with you. As I discuss in the show, I wasn't dating around (I am terrible at that...I mean, utterly miserable...), I was pining around which is much different. I certainly wasn't ready to settle down at 18 years old. Oh wait, he'd said something else jarring, so I steered myself back out of my thoughts and into the conversation.

"I just don't see why you'd need to be with anyone else when I know that you and I are meant to be together forever."

"Um. I...well..."

We sat in silence on our SECOND DATE as I pulled around the corner to my home on Peabody St. and towards his car. I said that I couldn't commit to being with one person, gave him a peck on the cheek, shook his hand and wished him a good night and happy holidays. He called a few more times, and I kind of blew him off.

I ran into him about 6 months later, right before summer and he told me he had just gotten married a few weeks prior to that to someone he'd met at some kind of party earlier in the year.

Woah. So, he wasn't looking for a girlfriend, he was looking for a wife. Well, I dodged that strangely trajectoried bullet.

That was a weird one. And on that note, 4 days till our closing show. Goodnight!! :)

The Home Stretch...

What a week! Things are ramping up for opening night (day!) on Saturday. I am ridiculously proud of the cast and team that I have on this project. I mean, it's kind of awesome how it's all come together. Everyone's so kind and generous and happy to be involved. Me too.

I just wish I could get a little more sleep, but I have to say, when something this big is happening, it's a bit hard to turn off the ol' brain at night. I'm doing my best. :)

To take my mind off of it and to zone a little bit, I'll give you guys another guy story that wasn't put into the show.

I was in a messy messy relationship with someone who's name I absolutely can't mention, so I'll call him...ummm....Zach...Uh, yeah. Zach. The story isn't really about him anyway, which would irritate him greatly, but oh well...some of his story is actually in the show...

In any case, he had just broken up with me and I was depressed and working in the mall food court. For those of you who don't know, I worked for MANY years at an awesome fast food Chinese restaurant in the mall which is now closed. I was having a busy Saturday, thinking about all the crap that was going on in my life and ruminating about how I would probably always be alone, when some guy came up and ordered some food. He had an accent, which always perked my ears up...Many of you know my first boyfriend was German, I went to a few formals with a lovely Norwegian gentleman in high school and I ended up marrying an Australian...I guess it's sort of a "thing" for me. Hee Hee...

I couldn't tell where his accent was from, so I (newly single) was daydreaming about who or what he might be and where he might be from...and suddenly he was in front of me again. Maybe he needed more sweet and sour sauce? That must be what it was...I asked him if I could help him and he said that he'd like to take me out to dinner and a movie that night!

WHAT THE HELL? Seriously!?? That kind of stuff NEVER happens to me.

I have to say, I was still pretty depressed about my ex, but I said yes, with the condition that I could go home, shower and change and meet him back at the food court at 5. He agreed. Said he'd be waiting right by my restaurant and that he would see me later.

I can't even remember the rest of my shift, besides the fact that I told EVERYONE AT THE MALL who I knew, that I had a date that night...with a guy who had an ACCENT! At the end of my shift I raced home (well, I always raced home...I have that problem in cars...) told my mom and sister about it and changed and ran back up to the mall. He took me to dinner at Applebees (this was Duluth...there weren't too many options...plus, it was just a first date...) and we sat and talked.

Well, it turns out he was Italian. His job was peculiar: people bought planes through his company and he was paid to fly them back to Italy. He was on his way back with a plane when he was grounded in Duluth by weather and had to stop. He was from a family that was famous in Italy for their photography equipment. Think: the B&H of Italy. He was wealthy and cute, in a professorial kind of way. He was older than I was. I was, I think, 20 or 21 at the time and he was probably in his mid-30's. He was intrigued that I was in school to be an actress and I probably said too much about my recent breakup...I invited him to my improv show later that evening, but he said that he had to check in on something at the airport and couldn't make it...Then, as he was sitting there and talking to me about his job, he INVITED ME TO FLY BACK TO ITALY WITH HIM. He said that he was headed straight back with this plane and then had about a week in Italy before he had to turn around and come back to the U.S. He'd be glad to fly me over and have me as his guest and then return me to home in about a week.

Um, what?

I mean, WHAT?

You have to understand: I was 20 years old. I had no idea what to do. It sounded like the best adventure I could ever possibly have. I mean, ever! The saddest part was that I couldn't wait to rub it in the face of my ex. In any case, I told him I'd consider it and let him know...

After dinner, we went to see a terribly crappy movie (Spawn I think...), during which I did my best to keep from falling asleep. (I'm bad with that and movies...ask my husband...) I repeated my invite to the show, which he again declined, but we exchanged numbers and I promised him I would call him the next day to set up another dinner before he left town.

I drove downtown to the Holiday Center for my improv show on CLOUD NINE! It wasn't so much that I'd been invited to Italy, it was more that someone liked me even though the cute boy that I had thought was the best I could do (oh, 20 year old Kelly, come here, let me give you a reassuring hug...it gets better...you're worth it...hang in there...) had dumped me in the middle of quite an intimate moment and showed no signs of wanting me back...Oy.

I won't lie, I did rub it in the face of my ex at the show and consulted all my girls about whether or not they thought I should go to Italy. I'll admit, at this point, I could see merit in the argument that after he set the autopilot, there was the distinct possibility that he could rape me and shove me out over the Atlantic Ocean to plummet to my death, but what were the odds of that happening, really? (I think I was too sensible even at 20 for my own good...)

I went home, talked with my mom about it. She said, go. I said, really? She said, yes. I said, I'm going to obsess about it a little more. She said, o.k.

I called him the next morning and set up another dinner date that night. I spent a goodly portion of that day with my ex talking it out. Ugh. What a horrible experience. I wanted to patch it up at least a little bit because he and I (of course) had to work with each other on-stage and I wanted to make sure there were no hard feelings. I wanted to make sure there were no hard feelings? I was so delusional. He broke up with me during...well, anyway...that was sort of back in my whole people pleasing days where I didn't want to say a bad thing to anyone. I was a big fan of being "friends."

So, I left my ex's house and went to meet the Italian gentleman at Perkins this time, where he asked me again if I wanted to go to Italy with him.

I looked him straight in the eyes, smiled sweetly, and said, "I really appreciate the offer. I'd love to!"

Just kidding. The first sentence was the same, but then I said, "I don't think I can." I told him some sort of crap about not being able to miss school and starting rehearsals for a show (that was true, The Betrothed)...but what was going on in my head was, I don't know you. How could I take this chance?

I know I made the right decision, but sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd said yes. Maybe now I'd be married to a 50-something Italian guy with lots of little bambinos and a killer red sauce recipe.

Or maybe I'd be dead on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

I guess we'll never know...which I don't mind...I don't regret my decision one bit.

He kept in touch with me for the next couple of years via postcards (in one he actually told me I looked like Helen Hunt...I don't see it, but thanks!) and the earliest incarnation of email, and I kept in touch with him as best as I could at 21 or so...

Everything happens for a reason, and I think he was to remind me that even if the cute, talented, funny guy didn't want me anymore, at least someone did.

On that note, I leave you, readers to mull over your pasts and think about anything you wonder about. Come check out the show this weekend. It's going to be a blast....