I don't know how to spell that. But the man playing him here is very dear and kind and round and has a curly, bouncy ring of graying hair around his head, all bald on top. He was wearing generous wrinkly plaid shorts and a pair of glasses that had vivid yellow lenses.
We are the only two in the house right now. And you sit in this house, in whichever parlor you choose, and you can hear crickets. The crickets kick-off at noon here. Crickets and the occasional torrent of motorcycles driving by. He wandered into the room and said my name and asked me where my hat was and then sat down on the heavy yellow couch and started talking to me. And we talked. I talked to someone I didn't know a bit for about half an hour. And I got around to enjoying myself.
He has three sons. The youngest of which begins his senior year of high school on Wednesday. He loves his family very much. He also thinks there is an alarming number of richoldwhite here.
We discussed how there isn't even anywhere here to get a soda except the rehearsal hall, and how the house where all the courtesans are staying is called "the sorority house" and how they all get on their outfits and get drunk like they are going to go somewhere. Perhaps northeast Haddam? To watch the new shelving units get installed at the liquor store? He finds them entertaining.
It was just very nice.
Then he went out to rehearsal and came back three minutes later with an ice cold Diet Coke. Massive amounts of love.
Anyway, I am now alone with all the lace and cherubim, and the US Open is on tv, which makes me inexplicably happy. I think though, it's because I like watching tennis with my Dad and I watched the US Open my first couple of weeks at W&M.
Between 12:30 and 12:45, one at a time, the entire female ensemble of Camelot walked by the window. You can tell which ones the actors are because they are a. under 70, and b. all wearing their NYC clothes and dark large sunglasses.
So I, in direct opposition to their maidenly attire, put on my snowflake pants and a ponytail and walk down behind the theater to sit on the dock. I sit there, I read "Brave New World," which I'm pretty into, and am lying on my tummy gripped by the depths of a particularly interesting chapter, when someone throws a rope on top of me.
So I roll over.
There is an enormous yacht pulling up to the dock 1 foot behind my ankles. The man on board says, "Sorry! I was aiming for the pileon/pilon/(how the hell do you spell that) not you!"
Well, he missed. So I sit up, he hands me this elaborate knot 4 feet in circumference that I am instructed to loop around the thingy. I loop it.
I observe the entire of contents of Westminster Canterbury processing single file across the wooden bridge leading to the theatre. Just in time for the matinee. I observe a small boy with a bright orange inflatable guitar and matching bright orange hair rocking out in a drainage ditch. I observe his sister stealing his guitar.
I observe many old couples sitting in lawn chairs by the river. The women are all dead asleep and the color of traffic cones and pennies and their husbands are either sketching (which I found endearing) or reading, or staring at the procession of old folks going into the theater and thinking they sure are glad they are not going to the matinee.
I decide I am about to turn into an Audra Fritatta and decide that the lure of putting my feet in the water trumps the slight threat of snakes or ticks or falling in in my flannels, so I take off my shoes, stuff them in a crevice and climb down the rocks underneath the dock to get to the water. I arrive. I leave almost immediately because the instant my toe touched the water all of my blood ran out of my ears and my foot fell off.
So I walk to the center of the meadow and sit on the largest, most elevated manhole cover I have ever run across. I begin to resume my book, but then notice that right next to me, mid-field, dozens of white folding chairs are being set up for a wedding later today. I am about to offer to help when I notice two other women hurrying in my direction. One has verrrrrrrrry long poorly cared for hair (I know this because it looks exactly how mine looked when it was super long) and is wearing woven tie-dyed skirts and fringed shawls and holding two camo-print feathers with red tips. She is also holding a small leather purse. Her companion is wearing flip flops, has on spotty blue toenail polish and a black cocktail dress with a wide white satin sash. Also bright red lipstick. And one of those hairstyles that is obviously "trendy."
The Duchess of Split Ends and Feathers shouts to a person a few feet behind me, "I'M JUST SCATTERING SOME TAR!" I swear she said tar. She proceeds to walk round and around the chair area dribbling her "tar" out of her pouch. Blessing the area I suppose. I decide not to move even though I'm bound to get blessed on sitting where I am. Couldn't hurt.
I do a crossword puzzle.
I look up. Feathers has now broken out a red ceramic urn and has given it to Sash to hold. She lights whatever is in it on fire, and then together they walk the same path around the chairs, this time with Feathers using her army print feathers to fan the smoke into the air.
Fascinating. I almost asked what that was for. Might go back and do so.
So now I am sitting in a pink chair.
The Barksdale chair department would go batty for all these chairs. Chairs, and side tables, and elegant couches. PROPS. I can't look at anything anymore without evaluating it for it's potential use as a good prop.
Philia and I stood in the kitchen and conversed this morning. That's all there really is to say about that. She made a salad, I made a peanut butter bagel.
And this peanut butter you have to stir. It's good. Still. Open-minded Audra, open-minded.
There may be another one of these before the evening is out.
Also I love screen doors to walk around porches. I'm giving serious thought to mashing my face into that screen as hard as I can for two minutes and then seeing how much of a waffle I look like. I've got at least an hour before rehearsal is over.
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