Long nails make typing loud.

Today the clouds were so brilliant. All day. And they kept changing from new brilliant to new brilliant. I wanted to be above them. And among them. And I smiled at them. And noticed I was smiling at clouds. Which made me feel more like smiling.

Today, under duress, I ate an entire pint of what was supposed to be brown rice with my right hand.

So I can do that.

I have an evening of souffles planned for next Wednesday. That is very exciting.

And I think I'm right when I say that yes, marshmallows can be roasted over a grill. If anyone knows different, chime in.

It is nice to be a girl.

...

My Usnavi AND My Hugh Laurie AT THE SAME TIME AND I DIDN'T SEE IT.

nevermind life.
nevermind ice cream.

Fizz.

Well, I have successfully been hit by a car.

And I'm fine. Will have (gleefully) a lovely bruisy gash on my left thigh to show everyone next weekend. Hope it lasts that long. I know you're excited, Ginnie.

But was really nothing serious.

Really, Mom. And Moms 2-10.

LA is kind of blah. In my personal opinion. Looks like somebody with a relatively mediocre imagination decided to build a city out of Legos. Neutral-toned Legos.

I got off the plane from Chicago Tuesday night. Got on the plane to LA Wednesday night. Planes feeling to me for the moment like elevators.

Watched America's Next Top Model on the flight out here. Realized with shock that I don't care about it anymore.

Then promptly at dinner tonight Jake's surprise dinner guest turned out to be one of the casting directors for ANTM.

I debated becoming obsessed again and decided against it. He said if I'd been here a couple of days earlier I could have helped him work the castings tomorrow.

Oh well, that means I'm stuck going to San Diego instead.

I'm going to explore the dickens out of this hotel. Cannot remember the name of it right now. But Joseph has EVENTS to attend, so I am going to be trolling around by myself and hopefully playing in the ocean.

Jake is VERY good-looking. Smiles now, twinkles. Happy he seems happy.

Ryland is a love. We have been singing The Secret Garden and Little Shop all day. After we overruled Joseph's penchant for Alice Ripley and Renee Fleming.

We performed "238" in his den for our own amusement. Four or five of you might know what I'm talking about.

We went to a delectable establishment where you can acquire for $1.50 two cookies of your choice with the ice cream of your choice serving as filling sandwiched between them.

My body almost went into shock. I realized I hadn't had ice cream since July.

Then we went to a boutique that sells all the fancy designer duds for almost free and Joseph and Ryland played dolly-dress-up with me. Some of these hemlines. Absurd.

I am now back at their apartment (which is lovely), as I think I am coming down with nuclear bronchitis and would rather spend the evening watching any of their glorious array of dvds than sit at a bar and watch them drink those drinks that look like tall thin glasses full of swamp.

Chicago is BEAUTIFUL. I'd been once before but it was very cold and when I am very cold I enjoy everything about as much as I enjoy necking with a shark.

But this weather (according to my two friends who live there) was the nicest in months.

I walked and walked. That is, I have decided, my favorite way to see and learn new places. Just get dropped off in the middle of nowhere, be told which way is east, and then be left for dead.

I examined all of downtown, was almost run down by a Segue tour, napped in Grant Park, walked for miles along the Lake, which was the most beautiful blue-green water I have ever seen, staggered up and down Navy Pier, then came out onto a beach. Right there in the middle of a huge city. Saw a production of Cabaret in a giant theatre full of red crushed velvet and glittering enormous crystal chandeliers.

Every time I see a production of "Cabaret," I violently want to be in a production of "Cabaret" for the next two weeks. As any of the girls. Or the monkey.

Sat beside a lovely older couple who three minutes after sitting down struck up a conversation with me that went on for forty-five minutes and culminated with them asking if they could take me out for dinner following the show and me giving them information about the Barksdale Theatre and Spelling Bee.

There were enough tears during this curtain call to comfortably house a whale for a month.

I am told by my friend Michael who is in the show that after curtain call most evenings, the sobbing cast members usually adjourn to the neighboring bar and drown their sorrows and try to forget the horrible experiences they had living through World War II.

Wanted to remind them: Act.

Drove to Indiana. Because at one point during my driven tour with my friends, the driver informs me that "Indiana is only a few blocks that way." I bite my lip, then go ahead and ask that he drive me over there just so I can say I've gone.

Didn't have time to work in Wisconsin.

Saw Hyde Park. Saw where the Olympics main stadium will be built if Chicago gets to host them in 2016. This will be like the Olympics being held behind 7 1/2.

Saw so many boats. The boats looked like they were cars in a parking lot.

Walked and walked.

Found a Barnes & Noble. Went in and read an autobiography I've been curious about but didn't want to spend the money on. Managed to complete it in a brief enough time that no employee got suspicious.

Rode the Red Line to a friend's apartment where I ate burritos and sausage and sat in the floor. Played cards. Miss playing cards.

Swang in some swings. Talked to Riley, which was great.

Went to the zoo. Saw a lion, a tiger, a leopard and a snow leopard. Got very excited I was seeing a lion because of "The Lion King." Between Riley and myself there was a lot of squealing, pointing and exclaiming "OH LOOK!"

Requested that I be driven to Buckingham Fountain. Which is lovely and the last time I was there was not in season and was therefore just a giant empty cement pot.

But this night it was lit up beautifully. And the view from its east side is wonderful. I got a very lovely gentleman to dance the waltz with me in front of the fountain.

Then. THEN.

I brushed my hair and teeth, put on my new newsie cap that Sam gave me because it makes him look like a baker, and we all went out to a swing dance club.

And THAT WAS FUN.

It is one of those things that terrify me. Being somewhere where I might be approached and spoken to by people I don't know, or asked to do something I don't really know how to do.

But did it. And got asked to dance lots of times, once by an attractive (though rather red-faced) man who said the following to me:

1. I got into dancing because I like the ladies, and they find dancing attractive.

2. You just turn off your brain. I'll do it. (secretly kind of worked)

3. Most women have a hard time turning off their brains. (Kiss my grits, asshole.)

And I had FUN. And I learned lindy-hop. And I want to learn more.

And I learned I like cranberry juice. (Adam and Maggie- there will be further discussion on this point.)

And I just loved that all these great people meet every night at all these different bars in the city and go upstairs and just dance and enjoy each other spinning and twirling and sweating to awesome swing music.

Also there is apparently blues dancing. Which, from what I can tell, involves a lot more grinding.

Next time, perhaps.

Oh, all the boys are back now.

Dixie and Pretzel have to go out to poop.

Cousin pizza.

Winking drunk Korean woman.

"IT'S SNOWING!" scream all the women in Jean Ferre. It's not.

Fiber 1!

Yesterday evening Sam and I went for a drive. Our first order of business was to ride by Gillette's castle and see what their hours would be so we could be there bright and early today.

We drive through several herds of deer who are very accustomed to automobiles and will stroll up to the window and ask you for a light.

We twist and turn and wind and wend and finally arrive at a nearly abandoned parking lot where we find a sign saying, "Closes at Sunset." It is about seven minutes shy of sunset at this point. Literally. We decide to do the castle at light speed.

This is the castle that was built by the old eccentric character actor in the 1920's. He lived there alone, in the dark, then died and willed the castle to whoever was smart enough to do something cool with it. So it's a state park.

This castle is made of jaggedly cut stones and very tall and angular. It is VERY creepy and in the dark/at Halloween would be the most ultimate place for a party ever. We peer in the windows. It looks sort of like Irene's house.

The view off the back terrace is staggering. Some river. I think the Connecticut one. And just trees and screaming wildcats and water as far as you can see.

I felt like feudal lord Honaker.

So then it's dark.

We leave, and decide to follow the signs to the "scenic route." This "scenic route" turns out to be a winding twisting narrow hill of death. There are signs that say "SCHOOL BUS X-ING." And a street called, "Bone Hill."

We stifle our sobs and turn around. We drive to Chester.

There is a Chester in every state I have visited in the past five weeks. This Chester is adorable. And quaint. And I don't say that deroggatorially. Isn't a word. Is now.

All of the shops and restaurants in this Chester (which stretches on for four blocks, honest) have signs on the doors that say, "Open By Chance."

Which is awesome. The strange boy with a hawk nose and pretty eyes who I don't know on the orange couch agrees with me.

Philia is sitting next to me eating soggy soy crisps. Which reminds me of Maggie.

Soggy.

I've got another Starbucks option I'm going to try. I'm getting recommendations.

What did we do after that. This is becoming a record for me to remember this trip, so sorry if it is getting tedious.

Oh- we drove to Middleton because we were animals and starving and that was our best guess at where we could find the nearest Burger King. Thirty minutes away. But we were right.

Then we come back to the house and assemble in the grand parlor with half the cast and two of us watch Mad Men while the rest of everyone cackles and makes jokes and is VERY disrespectful. I swear. Adam, some people. The associate choreographer and I were the only ones demonstrating appropriate reverence.

Then eleven o'clock strikes and the entire cast evaporates. Here in Connecticut everyone goes to bed at 7:30 pm every night, so 11pm was a real stretch.

Today, Sam and I got up early and drove to Mystic. Which was really lovely. Sailboats and displays of pandas. They have a small drawbridge that works by dropping these two enormous ivory colored cubes of concrete to one side. When the bridge is going to open a bell shrills and all of Mystic becomes hushed. They watch.

Everyone there was SO KIND. I went into the army surplus store on the main street because I am all about getting a pair of those baggy pocketed camo pants, and the old man behind the counter was so dear. He had a slight gap between his front teeth. Or was that the man in the parking lot booth, who, when I informed him that when we arrived, there was no one in the booth to give us a ticket, smiled and said, "Well, then you just drive right through. We can't very well penalize you for my not being in the booth, can we?" This boggled Sam's mind.

We got very close to some ducklings, talked to a large brunette woman in a bright pink mumu walking her bichon frises and then climbed a very tall rusty staircase that followed the side of a hill. I was sure at the top we would empty out into an asylum. One of those asylums with spacious lawns where the allow visitors to see their inmates and have picnics and pretend their are not locked up. But it turned out to be nursing home. We then walk until we find the huge Victorian house that had clearly suffered a massive fire many years before. Sam laughs and takes pictures of this house for his mother. A concrete wall has been erected around this house as well as a wire fence. I suppose to prevent people like me from going inside and looking for cats and pretending to be a ghost. If it had been dark though, I'd have tried to climb.

We then lunch at Mystic Pizza. Which is not where the movie was shot but is still covered in stills from the film and shows the movie on loop.

This pizza was good. It was not even approaching Artichoke or Papa Johns.

We watch some men fishing. That was my favorite part of the morning.

We drive back, collect the courtesans and Philia and whoever it is that is sitting on that orange couch right now and drive to the Haddam Neck Fair. We have obtained the Fair itinerary from the Company Manager earlier and are very excited by the contents. Let me show you:

11:30 am- Ox Pull

12:30 pm- Skillet Throwing Competition

1:30 pm- The Baby Show

3:30 pm- Multiple Birth Contest


Not even kidding.

So we are all expecting tar pits and corn cobs.

We arrive.

Acres of parking, Ferris wheels, the scrambler, so much livestock, fried dough, etc.

Crowds.

The first thing we do is raid the bunny tent. There. Are. So. Many. Cute. Fat. Round. Baby. Bunnies.

Sam took a lot of pictures. I grinned a lot.

Also huge angry chickens.

We pet the camels, the llamas, the ponies, the sheep.

We eat oil.
We examine the tent that features locked cages full of the prize-winning pies, and the prize-winning snaps, and the prize-winning floss.
I get sick and drive Sam's car back to Victorian England.
I discuss groceries and pigs with Carol. During this discussion I decide not to google any of the actors/choreographers/etc. I meet while I am here until after I am back to New York. That way I won't find out anything that might shock me, like, oh, I just spent the afternoon sorting socks with Chita Rivera.
Then a bunch of us drive almost to Rhode Island to see the movies. We are the only ones in the theatre. It is very thrilling to shout at the top of your lungs things like, "GUYS, I'M GOING TO GET A SODA, BE RIGHT BACK!" in a movie theater.
I wore my 3-D glasses on my way to get a diet coke because I had noticed on the way in that the carpeting in the theater was dark purple with moons and comets and stars. I thought this might be fascinating to view in 3-D. But I only tripped a few times, so the experience wasn't all that I'd hoped it'd be.
OH. And MOST importantly. I learned how to milk a cow.

Pseudolos just bought me a soda.

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.

Walk.

It has only been a few hours since I wrote, but I have seen so much. So as not to forget-

I went to sleep last night on a lima bean shaped couch in front of an arc of four floor to ceiling 12ft. windows. Romance, art. Sculpture. The amount of gilt and brocade and cushioning in this house is staggering.
Sam said he has been waking up each night he has been here on the dot of 3:58am gasping. And Sam DOES NOT WAKE UP DURING THE NIGHT. He's like a mummy. We all here think this is the ghost at work. I did not wake up during the night, but I did have a night of horrible peculiar dreams one right after the other.
I got up at eight. With a horrible crick in my neck, because as we all know, lima beans only curve one way.
In the daylight, East Haddam is beautiful. It is a little chilly, and the Connecticut River is about three minutes from the door. And it's so lovely. There are little white boats everywhere on it. And just so we're all clear, the Goodspeed is really the doll-house version of the Barksdale. I know this because when we walked through the parking lot at 9am there were several cars of the old folks pulling up and hefting their old woman cargo out onto the pavement. The matinee is at 2:30.
I'm considering going, but it's "Camelot," and I did want to be available for my thirtieth.
We walked the short loop and the long loop. The short loop goes around from the actor housing to the theater and back again. It is very quiet, riddled with dead frogs and snakes, and reminds me of that area behind the Swift Creek Mill Wawa that you pass on the right if you go out of the Wawa the back way. Only much more elaborate and wealthy.
Then we did the big loop. I sweated and panted and gasped. Climbed so many mountains. Many wide golden fields with yellow and lavendar flowers. Tom would love it up here. The big loop is about four miles. We saw a large pile of horse poop, which we enjoyed because we enjoy horses. The minute we got back in the kitchen one of the Proteans, who runs this route every morning and is therefore built like a very very sturdy ox said, "Oh- did you guys notice that huge pile of fresh bear poop?"
Good.
As we neared the end of the loop we passed the church, and the graveyard next to it. I wanted to go into this graveyard because the newest stone looked to be from the mid 1800s and some of them were so faded and lichen-covered that I was curious to see if there was any visible etching anywhere. There was. They said things like, "Annabel Southton, Wife. b. 1403 d. 1407."
So that was all fascinating. I ran my fingers over the words on the tombstones and imagined the people carving it so long ago. And realized, well, we'll all be dead pretty soon now." Time fast.
Each house here has a plaque (in some cases, a green piece of construction paper in a black plastic frame in others) stating when the house was built and the name of the original occupying family. This is cool.
We pass the sweet shop, which of course is closed. They sell lots of stuffed animals in there. And Doug & Melissa items. Also a large antique barn that looked a whole lot like Class 'n Trash in Ashland. They have a large wooden leopard wall hanging that Sam is pretty sure he's going to sneak out one night and steal.
Except that will be a challenge because in all of our four miles I maybe saw 1 streetlight.
I am now sitting at a mahogany table beside lace curtains listening to all the Proteans and Sam wandering around the house warming up. They all have rehearsal in about five minutes, and to get there they have to walk across the side yard and jump a ditch.
Tomorrow we have big plans. There is the East Haddam Neck County Fair. I know. I'm hoping for lots of ponies, piglets, and necks.
Then we are going to see this place called Gillette's Castle, which was apparently built by some man who got the lead in some big show a few years ago and decided with his paycheck he would build a castle in Connecticut.
We are going to Mystic for lunch. Most exciting.
We are going to go find a ladder and go upstairs into the turreted room and climb up into the attic playroom of little girl ghost Emily who died a horrible death and now spends her time waking up the male ingenues of Goodspeed productions at four in the morning.
But I just found out that one of the women in this show, I think the one playing Sam's mother who carries her dog around with her, is insisting that we all gather in the ante-parlor tonight to watch Mad Men.
I squealed.