Robert Manners

Not a Well Woman

Sorry for the silence, kids, but that cold is still lingering. Imagine what it was like when I had the cold during that goddamned heat wave. I just can't handle heat, it makes me weak and pissy and uncomfortable. And then the heat-wave stimulated my allergies, so I had a head-cold and sinusitis at the same time, all while sweating and weaving and dying from the heat. To top it all off, the cold and heat and sinuses conspired to give me migraines, which are my least favorite things in the world. I hate migraines more than I hate Madonna and the Republican Party put together.



All this would be bad enough during my regular life, but now while I am so busy it has been pure torture. Not as busy as I could have been, of course; for example, I had to give up the gym for the time being — I learned, at rather an awkward moment, that with the cold/heat/allergy triumvirate in action, getting my heart-rate up instantly resulted in a mind-shattering migraine episode... and so not only is exercising out of the question, and not only do I have to move slowly and pretend that my head is made of spun glass, but I can't even masturbate... might as well just kill me now.



Still, the other events of my life continued unabated, exacerbated by the horrible heat... the endlessly tiring GSR meeting on Wednesday; an absolutely torturous Musical rehearsal on Thursday at which I spent a good deal of time lying on the floor and gasping in between bouts of singing and dancing; on Friday I called in sick and spent the day in bed sweating and moaning and finishing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (I didn't care much for it... it wasn't as engaging and entertaining as previous installments, though it was certainly suspenseful and imaginitive and furthered the plot a good deal), but then went to Le Bateau Ivre for Shiloh's birthday that evening; then a family reunion on Saturday, the Chinese part of my family, few of whom I know and none of whom were worth getting out of bed for (but then, I would consider anybody less thrilling than, say, the entire cast of Frisky Summer 4, would not be worth getting out of bed when one has a cold, heat prostration, and allergies).



Fortunately, on Sunday, the heat-wave broke... and though it was sunny and lovely out for the whole Pride thing, it wasn't killingly hot. I didn't go to the parade, I had to take Grandmother to church and I had a rehearsal at 1:30, but I did walk through the festival on my way to the Living Sober Sobrie-T Dance at the War Memorial, which was a lot of fun and not as tiring as rehearsals since I didn't dance or sing (though I got to watch others dance, always a pleasant pastime, and spent a lot of quality time talking with some favorite friends and a particular favorite crush).



Then yesterday was our first and only full dress rehearsal, with makeup... not only putting on my own makeup in an entirely different manner than usual (I am trying to appear as "Marla the Drag Waitress" instead of as the well known glamoureuse Marlénè Manners, so went for a kind of Asian Mod look with black eyeshadow and China-doll lips and rouge), but also painting my fellow waitress Madge and giving a hand to the third, Midge, who was being painted by Cookie Dough (who is supposed to be our manageress). The dress rehearsal itself was okay, we ran through it fairly well considering that we were in our most cramped venue and kept knocking into each other, both onstage and backstage. It was a good thing we had it, though, since a lot of issues arose around costumes that we can now resolve.



Anyway, the carousel of activities is going to continue for the next week, and all I want to do is lay down and sleep. But tonight is our first blocking rehearsal, finally running through the whole thing on the stage we'll actually be using; there will probably be another last-minute rehearsal on Wednesday, and then our first and only tech rehearsal with sound and lights and whatnot on Thursday.



Also during this time, my boss expects me to turn out an entire newsletter and mail it to all thousand faculty members (yeah, that'll happen), on top of the usual letter-writing and phone-answering I do here. There will, no doubt, be errands to run for the household, as well. And driving from one spot to another in traffic.



Then comes Friday and Saturday, which are going to be long, long, long days at the Living Sober Western Roundup Conference, at which I foolishly committed myself to various activities, aside from and including the two performances of the Musical, activities that will prevent me from either coming late or leaving early. I will be taking naps in my car, I guess. And, like the Pride dance, it will be entirely worth the effort involved.



And then it will be all over, no more rehearsals, no more events, and I can finally get some rest. All I have to do is make it to next Sunday.



I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...