err.

Dear Betty,

I'm sorry that you are insane. Perhaps I take partial responsibility for that, as it was I who mostly raised your nasty little ass, and I accept whatever responsibility that may be. (Even though if any of this is a result of your header off the kitchen counter at the age of 6.5 hours which resulted in your cock eye- that was Brett and not me, so get over it.)
It is also NOT MY FAULT that you spent the first 10 weeks of your life sucking your brothers' penis for all it was worth.
You will never know the repercussions your behavior has had.
(Now that I think on it, perhaps that is why one of his testicles was missing. It no doubt retreated in holy terror to his shoulder blade to escape your cavernous maw. You owe me $260.)
I don't really see where you current behavior issues are stemming from. You suck on your tail, so that urge is seen to. In fact, you can get a good six inches down there. And I think you are abrading the lining of your esophagus with this behavior as the sucked portion of your tail is now tinged maroon with what appears to be old blood.
Not my problem.
You are also fed, and watered, and littered at all times.
Ergo, there is no reason for you to poop in the shower, remove the screens from the windows, and poop on my CareBear cup.
I had to throw it out.
I do not believe that you speak English, you nasty little interloper critter, so you cannot be upset due to overhearing Adam and I ecstatically plot your demise.
I guess you know Maggie loves you. Which she DOES, make no mistake.
And she's not here now.
But she will be back, so I'm going to need for you to just settle down, stop missing your mother, and STOP LOOKING AT ME.

Your former stepmother,

Audra

Sounded AMAZING.

Once upon a time a show started. You weren't sure of this, because what happened was what appeared to be one of the crew wandered out on stage (the fact that he wandered instead of minced was impressive due to the snugness of his britches), sat down and began fiddling with the guitar prop.
Next, Charlie Brown came onstage and gave everyone in the audience a complete set breakdown/tour.
Toward the end of the tour, Durron made a phone call down right.
Finally the cast appeared onstage and sang a rousing number about not being financially responsible while simultaneously having a contest to see who could dislocate their bottom jaw first.
Then everyone left, except for the man with the plaid tights (whom we have now ascertained is definitely in the show), and to celebrate his victory in the "How Wide Can You Open Your Mouth" contest, he sang another song in which he cleverly used the word "glory" a lot because the "o" vowel is one that really shows off that particular skill.
Then he is interrupted by a small girl with two bad knees who at first just wants to borrow a match, but ends up staying for most of the next two hours.
While she is here on this first visit, she enchants plaid man with her daredevil personality by narrowly avoiding setting her hair (not to mention his cardboard house) on fire and letting him see what the crotch of electric blue leggings looks like.
Then Durron comes back and teaches everyone a lesson about how not to be an Indian giver with his bucket of Captain Crunch.
A man dressed as Santa jumps around on the furniture for a while until Durron decides he really should take back his Captain Crunch and get out of there.
Then Charlie Brown sings a song with Joy Newsome who is really talented and wearing slacks. They get a lot done during the song. With the exception of a minor quaffle over where one of the set pieces should live, they manage to rehearse their number, and show Maggie Marlin how well they are coming along with the choreography.
Meanwhile, Durron has been sitting backstage and thinking about how much fun he had goading his friends with his pseudo-gift of Captain Crunch, and is thinking how much MORE FUN it would be to taunt homeless people with the possibility of cereal and then take it away. Especially since it's Christmas, and the poor fuckers might actually think he was giving them a present.
So Santa and Durron and Charlie Brown go downtown and perform a number from "Newsies" for the homeless people, which turns out to be so inspiring that some of them do a dance break and are so invigorated that they really don't mind so much when, during the set change, Durron once again reclaims his Captain Crunch.
At this point, apparently the costumer had sent word backstage that there needed to be some costume re-assignments, so a bunch of the inventory is brought out onstage and fittings take place while the cast sings through another one of their numbers.
Sadly for me, this one really awesome colorful plaid coat was ruled out as an option for Durron, but he did end up getting a really great leather jacket, so that's good.
Then all the lights went out.
Then a woman with a wide stance did the Maureen number about cows. Very well done. During the number, the cranky landlord fellow (who is upset because he married a girl who in the first scene, tricked him into thinking she was rather well-to-do, but turned out to be a homeless person who doesn't have even the sense not to go out in the snow in only pantyhose) arrives and watches for a little while.
He remains cranky and leaves.
Then everyone goes out to Applebees where they really annoy the staff by asking to put like five tables together and ordering a lot of food that isn't even on the menu just before closing.
They sing a song and behave somewhat lewdly while they wait for their appetizers.
Matt James is having dinner on the terrace nearby and is privy to the whole thing, but wisely remains in his seat.
The girl with the bad knees and the blue leggings from before has been participating wholeheartedly in the impromptu recititation of every item any of the cast has ever heard about, but it goes on a little long, so she heads out side to clear her head and take an aspirin. Unfortunatly, Plaid Man follows her and proceeds to make her headache worse by making jokes about her name, "Mimi," and the word "me."
She decides to go home with him anyway because she knows that her costume for Act II is much more comfortable and is anxious to get to intermission so she can change.
Charlie Brown comes downstage one more time with his toy camera and says something about something.
Then a bump cue doesn't happen so we wait a while as the lights fade to black.
I eat some brownie bites.
When the evening resumes, we discover that during intermission, the entire cast has been arrested and, as a result, are forced to perform 525,600 Minutes while waiting in line for their mugshots.
But that doesn't take long, and so the show resumes.
Everyone gets really excited about a new set piece they have found, so they prop it up at center stage and hang out there for a while.
They Joy Newsome and the woman with the wide stance sing a fantastic duet, during which Durron is forced to carry Santa around the stage because he has the sniffles and is being a picky baby about which picnic table he wants to fall asleep on.
Next, Bad Knees drops her bag of cocaine on the floor, and, as her bad knees to do not allow for her to bend down and pick it up, she sings a gut-wrenching solo about how sad she will be now that she is forced to go without it.
Somewhere during all the orthopedic woe, Santa Claus dies, and as a penalty, is forced to strike the largest bedsheet all by himself during the next scene change.
Durron (who apparently had really enjoyed the last number) wanders brokenly downstage and bemoans the fact that is is over. But he proves to be inconsolable, and all he can think of to do to distract himself is to polish the silver. He does such a fine job with the ice bucket that he brings it out onstage and sets it on the up center platform for everyone to admire.
Which they do.
Then everyone breaks up with everyone else, Bad Knees changes into another pair of leggings, and just when, much to Charlie Brown's chagrin, everyone seems to be at odds forever, someone has the great idea of putting on a performance of "Sleeping Beauty," which they do, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Thar's a high wind blowing in this house.

It's a lovely night for walking outdoors. Just be sure you have a light shrug. And a floor length crushed velvet evening gown with drapery-pull tassel straps, uggs, and a sweatshirt your dad brought you from work five years ago. And you're fine.

I am a vision.

Also a top-knot. We have decided in all appropriateness that one can simply not so much as cater the crackers for an even such as that which is going down tomorrow night if one is not sporting a top-knot. Mine is very top. And not in the same spot on my head as my samurai ponytail, which Robyn hates.

Betty is so gross. Who humps wet blue towels after having been spayed? Honestly.

So before I forget about it, someone should write this down. And it will be me, despite the fact that my fingernails have progressed to such a length now as to make me feel like I ought to be on "Dallas," and as such, every word has to be typed twice.

So last Thursday I carted Rich (who makes hotpanties/nutpotti/zitpeepee (some sort of crushed up red dip with feta in it- DEEELISH), Ben (my friend who is the lead bartender/manager of Joe's Inn and let's me do things like snap my fingers and wave my arms from the far side of the restaurant and when he looks at me, I raise an eyebrow and then he brings me a big huge cup full of something that tastes like gummi bears and kitten feelings and I drink it and then feel giggly and tingly and also gets enormous tattoos of skeletons riding putt-putts wearing scarves and allows me to suggest patterns for said scarf, like, since it's a skeleton's scarf, perhaps it should be patterned with heads and forearms--skulls and crossbones for the deceased), and Adam (who- whatever) to the train station. They were all going up to NYC for Adam's bachelor weekend. I was HIGHLY MIFFED that I was not invited. Not really, but sort of. I decided I must have a bachelor weekend, cause it sounds like all you do is go somewhere with the people you like and have them buy you things.

Anyway, we pull into the train station and I am dumping them out of the car when Adam shuts the door and then says through the window, "There's something fallin-------", and then Adam has my car door in his hands. And no longer on my car.

So I, the stalwart Hitler-Pebbles with my lip quivering, raise woebegone eyes to the three cheery boys standing outside my car, and Ben sees my quivering and says, "Don't worry Audra, we will fix it when I get back on Monday." Which made me feel better in the moment. Have since realized that one does not really NEED the outside facing of one's car door. Also it makes me feel relatively close to being a thug and I do like those bouncy cars that thugs have.

But I violently digress.

(Also if you want to know why I am Hitler-Pebbles, come see Little Red Hen.)

Anyway, Adam's rousing bachelor weekend consisted of the standard things. Napping, homemade hummuth, and strolling in the park. Probably also browsing thrift stores and crossing of legs while discussing angles of one's fedora.

But THEN they decided to go to a burlesque show. Which they arrived at too late due to aforementioned naps and only got to see the last act, which turned out to be a man. So haha.

But MOSTLY.

On the last night there (and details are fuzzy due to Firefly tea), they go somewhere, see this woman dancer/stripper/whatnot who has:

1. Taped hair into her armpits

2. Pasties in the form of monkey heads

3. The ability to hold her arms over her head and make the monkey heads spin in circles whilst causing her breasts to clap. (This is not hard.)

4. A Barbie on a small table which she proceeds to light on fire.

5. A large, VERY FULL bucket of water on which she proceeds to sit, strain VERY HARD for purposes of sucking the water INTO her vagina, then hobble quickly over to the flaming Barbie, and squirt the water her vagina is holding in its' mouth onto the Barbie to extinguish the flames.

I am pretty sure this is one of the most entertaining stories I have ever heard that that is more than bears documenting. What a great bachelor party story.

What is that word people use for when vaginas have teeth?

It is a medical word. I need not feel bad for saying it.

Also need to write about Margaret's show which was a very long, emphatic, personally affecting commercial for a sale on Menswear at Sears.

Also Jackie Jones making the best noise ever.

Also Margaret looking like a movie star, some really bad-ass markers, and everyone searching very hard for something on the floor while Billy-Christopher leads Jackie Jones on a tour through the land of the giants.

What else. I'm tired, and distracted by the Divas Concert. But I really liked Maggie's show. Even though I don't usually go to things like that. It was obviously quite well done.

Tomorrow is the Divas concert. And they sound AMAZING. And I very professionally eat Cheez-Its and mutter to Sandy under my breath about how I think they should sing "The Ladies Who Lunch" instead of that Andrew Lloyd Webber medley which won't be over til early March of next year and may cause you to have a seizure. It's like if someone started singing the ABC's in an octave only dogs and Cathy Motley-Fitch are cognizant of while at the same time someone else began tattooing fractions on your face while giving you a lobotomy with an old toe.

And that is not to say it doesn't sound FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC. Cause it does.

But if you know all three of those songs that are in the medley, you want desperately to hear all of them and to follow along with all of them, and then they start singing all of them at the same time in different time signatures like 6/4 and 4/sasquatch time and you cannot follow along, and your teeth begin to bleed.

Sounds AMAZING.

And they all look amazing and there is lots of glitter and ponytails with very fancy names and enough jewelry to fill a box normally used for shipping sides of beef.

Needless to say, I get all worked up and flit around a lot.

I must endeavor not to flit around while I'm seated in my professional page-turning chair.

Also Tom and Paul are coming and sitting in the hole, so I will hear about it if I flit around.

I must endeavor to be the soul of musicianship.

But I am very excited. I am going to see if my mom wants to come see it.

Got goosebumps on numerous occasions.

Georgia Farmer is a very funny lady. She sent me a text message today that I cannot repeat in a public forum and which Adam immediately submitted to textsfromlastnight.com

also

the white man with wheat colored eyes and the dreadlocks at my 7-11 feels it is his duty to father me every time I go in there and buy something.

example: What do you have on your head?

-a tiger hat. it was a gift.

-huh.

-it keeps my hair out of my face.

-some of it.

example 2: You don't need that Monster.

-I need energy today.

-eat a banana.

also

Jeopardy. Suck it, Dorland. (Play on SNL... get it?)

I grow tired of that picture that makes me look like an oompa-loompa. Will perhaps change it to that one of me in the fetching fire engine bouffant.

Also, more importantly, Suprise has now been posted online in all of his nipular glory. I advise having a peek.

Yesterday was fun. And now that I have sat down to type about it I have no memory of what the hell happened before noon.

I'm eating nuts. Turning into my grandfather. And Hannah. So, my Handfather. Or Grandannah.

Nuts, it turns out, have fat that is good for me. I have argued Adam into the ground about this. Or was it Adam? Hard to recall, I argue with lots of people about lots of things.

Anyway, nuts have pleasant mannerly fat. So I am eating a hippo full. Actually. Use your imaginations.

Animal Farm we read yet AGAIN yesterday. For another huge tribe of middle schoolers wearing lots of eyeliner and baggy khakis. They were all surprisingly well behaved though.

Animal Farm consisted of us all processing with great pomp out to our hard wooden stools (except for two members of the cast who had cushy tall stools with backs), me tripping violently over all the connecting wires Tom had rigged up for our reading lights, and recovering just in time to make my goat noise.

I have gleaned from Animal Farm that John Moon has a very impressive profile and fascinating neck veins, that Paul is an amazing donkey, and that I can sit in all sorts of extreme yoga positions on top of a bar stool without toppling over.

Also that Boxer was the admiration of everybody.

Finished my nuts. Big Gulp?

Anyway, read that.

Had my daily examination of Tom's facebook page.

Drove somewhere. Where did I go.

Probably went to the Barksdale to put the laundry in. Oh yes- and then picked up Anna from the airport and ate Mexican food and a giant slurpee while secretly trying to figure out how to steal Anna's amulet.

We return to the Empire. I lay in the floor and watch Wendy steam fabric plates. I am a little dizzy at this point.

Anyway, hoo de hoo de hoo, we all go home. We discover we all need showers. I claim that I must have one as I have not had one for a shameful amount of time. This is quickly agreed to by the other members of the household, which makes me suspect that perhaps I stink.

So I take a shower. I do not condition my hair for the first time in months. Ever since Joseph harangued me into doing it all the time. He was right. But I ran out of my kangaroo conditioner, and last time I washed my hair I tried Margaret's new leave in conditioner spray, but that only resulted in my looking like a overgrown armpit, so yesterday I just shampooed.

No good. Now look like a furry hassock.

Oh well. At least it is clean. Always feel like I've lost fifteen pounds when I wash my hair, due to oil x I suppose.

Also, in breaking awful news, my Ned is ill. Ill with hypertubbia. Robyn and I are going to try to take him on walks.

Decided to go with Adam and Anna to Margaret's show. Not to watch, as I watched it several times before last weekend, and then watched it from onstage four times last weekend, but just to be around people and have good company. Also to bother Chase. Always a good time.

Somewhere in here I drank a chocolate apple cherry martini. Or was that the day before? Was the day before.

But Adam can make a banging CACM. In mine he just pours in half a bottle of maraschino cherries and I am good to go.

Still makes me make a pinched face but I can swallow it.

So I go downtown to retrieve my air mattress from Durron at the Empire. I smile and am rewarded with cherries. EVERYONE IN RICHMOND IS PARKED AT THE EMPIRE. Never seen so many cars illegally parked in my life.

Then drive in a very roundabout winding route to the Barksdale to distribute the laundry. I have a premonition as I climb the back stairs that after all of that driving, I bet someone has already gone and gotten the clothes out of the dryer, as it was nearly 7pm, and many of the castmates are set upon by the vapors if their socks are not at their seat shortly before lunch.

And I am right. That Tom Joad.

But I use my free time while I wait for the Droops to gain instruction in applying makeup to cover tattoos. Learned that. On the resume.

Then the Droops arrive and we all drive to the Tavern. Adam has brought his iPod in the car, so he takes turns picking out a song for Maggie, Anna, and me, in a cycle. My dedications included such Honaker favorites as "Hollaback Girl," and "Don't Make Me Hit You With My Pocketbook."

Then he puts on something featuring violins and haystacks and whining and I crab until it is changed back to Dr. Dre.

We arrive.

The very very necessary couple that ushers there every night, Danny and Beverly, announce they have a gift for me. I get very excited, as once Danny gave me a bag full of strawberries. Which I promptly forgot about and left in my car for a month, but that is beside the point.

So at intermission, Danny opens the door of the booth and tosses in a small plastic bag knotted at the top. I think, "surely you do not toss fresh berries, " and open it. I am deeeelighted. When I was in the show last weekend, I noticed one night Danny was wearing a NEON ELECTRIC BRIGHT FLUORESCENT yellow t-shirt. I announced that I loved it and would wear it every day if I had one like it.

And now I do. :) Made my week.

I think it is a shirt that you wear when you go hunting so you are not mistaken for a bison.

Adam says it is my hi-liter costume.

Put it straight on. Then Chase pointed out that I couldn't wear it in the booth as I would glow like the Star of Bethlehem and pose a potential distraction during scenes of great withering emotional x, so I put on his big black vest over top of it and settled in for Act II.

Please hold. Have to go get Anna and Adam off the porch for Jeopardy.

They said, "thank you, 3."

I love how actors describe objects in their lives in terms of upstage/downstage. Like, "You have a smear of ice cream on your chest. No, no- downstage left. More downstage. Ok,you got it."

So then we all ride back to Richmond, I am dropped off at the Dale to begin the laundry and then to meet everyone at Joe's. Chase and I have decided during Act I that we will both get The Big Breakfast and I will give him one pancake for one slice of his French Toast.

I go upstairs and ask whoever is in the dressing room how much acting is left to go. The boys tell me fifteen minutes.

I start to show my dad's awesome card trick to the very nice boy in the cast who has a pretty smile as well as that fascinating skin condition where you are pretty much made of elastic. SO cool. He can affix any number of clothespins to his face and neck and anywhere on him and it doesn't hurt at all. Might try to develop this friendship so I can pull on him.

But anyway, he seems markedly calm about my card trick and then I find out that he knows A LOT about card tricks. We remove ourselves to the back hallway and he teaches me all kinds of cool stuff for the rest of Act II. Like one tidbit in particular that I will not disclose, but will begin trying to find the right situation to employ immediately.

I put in the laundry.

I go to Joe's. We laugh hard and a lot. Which is wonderful.

Go home, read a novel. To bed.

Slept stiff.

Well, I'll say, as a fan of pretty gowns, that this years Oscar crop looks like a collection of bunchy garbage bags.

Hasn't anyone heard of a hoop skirt?

Today was BEAUTIFUL.

I habitually got out of bed, knifed the mascara off my eyes, bundled all up in my cozies and tramped outside to go do the Grapes laundry. (Which, by the way, I woke up at 7:30 and then slept in til 9:30 and then freaked out realizing that the laundry would not be done by noon! Then caught myself- they do not need their laundry by noon. X giving into to the impracticality.)

So, to resume, I had tramped about halfway down the block and then was struck still by the realization that teh day was beautiful. The sun I could feel on my face, the sky was blue, it was almost warm, and there was a darling breeze.

I smiled cheekily and continued my jaunt to my car. I arrive at the end of my jaunt and realized I must jaunt on, as my car was nowhere to be seen. I find it eventually, and am glad of the walk in the weather.

So I go. I put in the laundry. I go over to CVS to get vitamin water because my eyelashes are disintegrating and my liver has shrunken to the size of a cat nipple due to dehydration. And because Maggie told me that last week when she was dehydrated she felt like a new woman after drinking Vitamin water and Pedialyte.

I get two.

Red ones.

I go back over to the theater and get my book about Elizabeth Taylor going on a diet and Russell's tweed dinner jacket that has been hanging backstage since the heyday of the Confederacy and go back outdoors to sit on the bench and feel the sunshine.

I fall asleep.

I am awakened once by three small girls marching by with their Daddy chanting "BOOGER KING! BOOGER KING! BOOGER KING!"

Their father was not responding.

I am awakened twice by my jam session/trash dumping buddy Tim, who is rumbling by with the grocery cart and is concerned that I have locked myself out of the building. I suppose he thinks this because I am prone drooling on a bench bundled in tweed.

I am awakened once again by Tom Joad ringing me from thirty paces down the sidewalk to let him into the building.

(It is 11:30 at this time. Showtime: 2pm)

I let him in. He forges very quickly ahead, but manners have apparently been instilled and he waits to hold the door. In my opinion, if he wouldn't rush off ahead so much, he would have to spend less time holding the door. But that's my opinion.

I inform him that I will be joining him today for Sealquacking in the conference room as I feel like I have been run over by a cement truck.

We do that. I am then dismissed and I don't know what all went on in the conference room for the next thirty minutes.

I distribute the laundry.

I go home to meet Margaret for the matinee.

I eat a banana.

We go to the Tavern.

We put on obscene amounts of makeup, curl my hair, which by this point in the weekend has the consistency of driftwood, and shiggle into our skirts.

We go downstairs, and do the play, which involves cutting napkins, giggling and giving lots of meaningful looks to Maggie.

Also lots of crying. Which worked out particularly well this time, due in part to my being blocked to stand directly beneath the air duct.

I see my wonderful mother. I love her so much.

My mother and I drive to Qdoba at Vcoo.

We eat, we talk, I open up the women's bathroom to the sight of a substantial woman pooping.

We go to Lowes to drop me off for the carpool.

We watch the audience exit the Firehouse following the matinee of Crumble, Lay on Top of me Justin Timberlake, or whatever it is.

We watch Jackie Jones in her apricot colored top- you all know the one- mince daintily across the street with what appears to be a platter of her oat-fudgies.

Joe Carlson pulls up in his car directly beside us. I divine from this that the Grapes matinee is over. I say, "Joe, this is my mom. We sit in Lowes parking lots."

He nods and tells me he is going across to the Camel for dinner.

He leaves.

My mother points out that I did not ever actually explain what we were doing there. I like this.

Bet he thinks I'm REAL weird now.

I call Katrinah when she is five minutes late. She answers. I have woken her from her nap.

She peels into the parking lot five minutes later. And proceeds to peel right past me. I assume she is doing another lap and then will pick me up. She reaches the corner and takes an abrupt left back onto Lombardy, and then away.

I am glad my mother has not pulled off yet. I flag her down and she drives me down to play practice.

At play practice, I fended off my coma, drank Sunkist, and did HEAVY PARTNERING with Brandon Beckman. Which I so adore.

Then Katrinah drove me home. We are smushed against the center guardrail by a semi that was going to get over like it or not.

We drive down the shoulder for a while.

And now we are are watching the Oscars and Adam is torturing us by chopping onions in the next room. But I will forgive, as he is chopping them to make fancy little pizzas and salad.

Maggie just said to the cat- "you have got to grow your fur back. Cause I am sick of looking at your nipples."