2003-11-09 - 9:33 p.m. - Halloween week and a Super Nova in the making - Wade McCollum...I LOVE HIM!!

OK, here’s the second entry for today to cover the last couple of weeks. Once I got down from the floating feeling I experienced after meeting John Cameron Mitchell, I had what I have come to call my "neighborhood weekend". I finally met the people who live on the corner across the street from me in this lovely craftsman-style home. I met one of them after I had come back from a walk and he was standing on the porch. The other two I met at their porch sale that weekend. All are very nice, and I guess they use the back door much more often than the front door – thus my lack of seeing them for almost a year!!!

On the evening of 10/25, I went to a potluck dinner at another neighbors’ house whom I had delivered homemade cookies a while back. They are two gay men – both retired and have been partners for about 5 years or so. Not to stereotype, but they do have such fine taste in furnishings – I loved their house. I really believe I need the Fab 5 to help me in a "Queer eye for the Straight Gal" episode. I’m sure more than half my clothes would end up on the floor in the good will pile (no – not my Madonna outfit!!!!), and they would completely redo my bedroom and study – both of which need help desperately. Anyway – back to the potluck…I met another gay couple (lesbians) who live down the street from me. They all are really nice, and it’s great to finally be meeting some more people after living here almost a year. I feel more part of it now. I’m hoping to someday organize a progressive dinner party where you start at one person’s house and move on to the next for each consecutive course. Given that I don’t have a lot of seating, it would either have to be a fairly small dinner party, or I could just do the cocktails where you’re more likely to stand up anyway. I think it would be a great post-holiday thing to do since most people are tied up with holiday parties during December.

On that Sunday, I planted a bunch of tulip bulbs and talked with a few more neighbors I hadn’t seen in a while – thus the "neighborhood weekend". And for the last week in October, I was out every night. I had our bimonthly poetry reading and dinner gathering at my friend, Dan’s house. Dan read a hysterical poem about the gorilla that escaped the Boston Zoo for the second time – they finally caught him at a bus stop. His name is Little Joe, but he is anything but Little. After his first escape they built a better retaining wall and had rock climbers try to climb it – well Little Joe was able to scale it without any carabeeners (spelling??) or ropes. Just goes to show how stupid we really are at times. In any case, Dan’s poem was hysterical as many of his are.

On Tuesday, 10/28, I went to a preview of the musical "Bat Boy" and thoroughly enjoyed it. The lyrics are hysterical and the play itself is a bit silly. But the best part of it was who played the starring role – Wade McCollum. I swear, this guy is going to Broadway someday…he is nothing short of amazing. The paper even said that he’s a "star in the making". For me, he’s more like a super nova. I absolutely love him…if he was just going to be a fly on the wall, I’d go to watch him. As Bat Boy, he is so interesting to watch – especially when he is more "bat" than "boy". He obviously does a lot of yoga because he would do these amazing contortions with his body and really look like a bat. He also had the animal mannerisms down, which made it really fun to watch. I’m planning on going again sometime before the run is over. Afterwards, they had cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and a karoke contest. I partook in the food and drinks but just watched the singing with my friend. It was a lot of fun, and all for $20.00! Perfect for my budget! I was hoping to talk with Wade and tell him about meeting John Cameron Mitchell, but I didn’t get a chance given that many others were talking with him. I did get a chance to speak with Michael Abbott, Jr. who played Rick Taylor/Lorraine and Mr. Dillon (many actors played more than one role and often changing from one to the other right on stage). I told him how much I enjoyed the play, and he said that they’d get better and to tell my friends to come. "get better??" I thought it was already marvelous, but then again, I’m sure with their first run through, there were mistakes and missed cues here and there, but not enough for an audience member like myself who knew nothing about the play to notice. It’ll be interesting to watch it again.

The following night, it was me who was acting – back at the haunted house. I had to be an alien and make believe I was dying as the people walked though with fake guns and shot at me. It was a lot more physical than I thought it would be – I had sore muscles the next day – it felt like I had done a long session of aerobics! The funny thing is, I always saw myself more as a Scully or Mulder – not an alien!! My last evening of the haunted house, I worked behind the scenes rattling chains on this wall as people walked down a hallway of the Forbidden Temple. My favorite role is still the dead "walk around" character. I did that a few more times the previous weekends and really freaked some people out by staring at them and not blinking. At times I had to turn away because I would start to smile and/or laugh at their reactions. All in all, Halloween lasted a lot longer than one night for me this year, and I really enjoyed it.

Halloween itself found me dressed once again as a punk rocker since I have mostly freshmen who haven’t seen my get-up. I was told I looked like a student, and given that I’ll be 40 in a little over a year, I took it as a compliment. I went to my former residence for a potluck and enjoyed seeing the kids dressed up for trick or treating. It was SO COLD that I stayed at the party to answer the door rather than going out with the kids. Saturday I went down to Corvallis to work at the state water polo tournament so I didn’t get back home until about 10 p.m. or so. I think all my running around Halloween week made me completely exhausted last week – I could hardly keep my eyes open after 9:30 p.m.! And given that it’s after 9 p.m. now, and this isn’t an especially exciting entry (save for seeing Wade McCollum once again on stage), I’m going to call it a night.

Hopefully I’ll be more regular and can write more reflective stuff rather than just a run-down of what’s been going on. But for myself, I had to get it in my journal so I’d remember the moments of these last few weeks.

30-something - 2005-03-01
the holding back the the flow of tears - 2005-02-20
song survey - 2005-02-15
song for the day...or perhaps the year... - 2005-01-25
something new - 2005-01-24
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