Hanging On And Trying Not To Vomit

We opened the show!!

But that’s not where this story begins….

The night before we opened the show – also known as ‘The Night I Didn’t Sleep A Wink and Dreamt About Being Naked On Stage And Forgetting My Lines’ - I was speeding home in my Yaris and almost hit a man who was biking.

On the Freeway.

HE WAS RIDING HIS BICYCLE ON THE FREEWAY!

Now, I’m going to make a judgment call and guess that he was homeless. He looked exactly like Red Skelton’s Freddy the Freeloader. He was in a patchy tweed jacket, a beanie that was cocked to one side, and he was missing a few teeth. (Yes, I was able to see all that as I flew by at 80…ahem…65 mph.)

But the thing that caught me by surprise was his face. It was not the face of someone who had accidently taken what he thought was a sidewalk but turned out to be the entrance ramp to the 101. It was the face of someone who might as well have been biking down a sidewalk lined with daisies and ice cream.

His joy was unbelievable.

His head was tipped back and he was grinning a charming (and toothless) smile while his legs were moving at the speed of light.

He didn’t seem phased in the least that cars were narrowly missing him and for a brief moment I wanted to pull over and join him.

But I didn’t. Because my mom taught me that I should never get on the back of a strangers bicycle when he’s speeding down the freeway.

Anyway, back to opening night…

It was all going well, the nervous hives were under control, the armpits were fully deodorized, and I had remembered almost all of my lines. (If you ask the playwright I’m sure she will disagree.)

But with about five minutes of the show left I suddenly felt like I was going to get sick.

Not sick in a nervous way but in an “I think I ate some bad chicken” sort of way.

I stood there, holding a gun (you’ll have to come to the show to find out why) and when the other character asked..

Are you going to shoot me?

I wanted to say…

No, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to throw-up on you.

I frantically searched for an exit or a strategy to get me off the stage.

You can’t leave!!

I thought to myself.

You have LINES…and a big finish!

As the characters swirled around me and I tried to breath through my nausea, I thought about that man on the bike.

Lately I feel like my life is just like that crazy bicyclist (minus the missing teeth and the cute patch jacket.) It feels like things are speeding by me and I’m on a bike, trying to hang on and smile.

I have been living with a big ball of fear and stress bunched in my stomach for a while now. And finally, at the end of the first show, it was dissolving and trying to come up through my esophagus.

I know some of you really want this story to end with me spewing all over the stage in front of a lot of people.

Sorry to disappoint...it doesn’t.

It actually ends with a big breath, a bow, and a BIG glass of wine.

Oh yeah…and this.

And this.