"Converting all your sounds of woe into hey nonny nonny." -Much Ado About Nothing

Today, I HURRRT.

The entire day I felt like I had a great big furry rabid raccoon inside my stomach, and the only way to keep the raccoon from escaping and tearing innocent bystanders to pieces, I had to trap it inside me by gritting my teeth tight and allowing it to tear me to pieces from the inside out.

And it HURRRRT.

***

Alright. I'll give it to you straight. I didn't get the part I wanted in a play I auditioned for. "Much Ado About Nothing".

...yeah. I know what you're thinking...

"Are you KIDDING me?! What the heck is wrong with you?! I thought your mother had died or something! Yeesh! You no good, melodramatic little bleeder!"

I know. I know. It sounds silly to me, too. I mean, there are so many worse things that could happen to a person. That are happening to people. And I choose to get pouty over a play while there are millions of people walking around without shoes or food...

But...this still SUCKS.

I love Shakespeare. My love of soccer came and went, my passion for ballet flickered and died, my dream of becoming a world famous bagpipe playing-unicyclist-underwater basket weaver lost it's appeal, but Shakespeare...oh, baby. That boy is here to stay.

A few years ago I saw my first Shakespeare play. Macbeth. I intended to go, sit in my chair, promptly fall asleep, wake up to clap at curtain call, then go home and sleep some more.

I was in for one helluva night.

Never before had I been so shaken by a play. By the time it was finished, my whole body was pulsing with electricity. That night, I laid in my bed for hours, looking into the darkness and wondering "what the crap is happening to me?!" The madness, the injustice, the pain, the grief, the honesty, and the beauty of all that had been portrayed came together to...oh, I don't know. Reshape my soul or something. I couldn't believe the effect that a PLAY was having on me. But I knew it was good. And I knew that if theatre were ever to have a place in my life, it would be to do for others what Macbeth had done for me. I wanted to show people something real and make them feel alive and change them.

Shakespeare had given me a buzz, and I wanted more.

And so the frenzy began. Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Much Ado, The Merchant of Venice, a Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, etc...all these stories had that same magic, and the more I read, the more I wanted to do it, to be in a Shakespeare play.

So you can imagine my delight when my drama director announced he would be putting on a Shakespeare play this year.

Long story short, I let another play in before Shakespeare. One of my favorites. Harvey. I played Veta. It was wonderful. I auditioned for Much Ado About Nothing. Beatrice. My audition rocked. I got a callback. My callback rocked.

I didn't get a part.

I suspected I would not get Beatrice. I knew I could cope with that. I had not suspected that I would get nothing. I simply loved Shakespeare too much. Laura ending up with nothing was unthinkable. Incomprehensible! Heresy!

But it happened.

So, yes. It sucks.

But if I really love Shakespeare as much as I say I do, am I really going to let this be the end?

Really?

I'm not going to be bitter. I'm going to be envious for a while yet, and I'm sure there is going to be some more pain...

But I WILL not be bitter.
For Will.

Fin.

"Let's take a look. A book look." -Strong Bad

(Picture courtesy of Pinterest. Oh, Pinterest.)

For the past 3 months, I feel like I haven't done any reading for myself, not really. I mean, Lord of the Rings was marvelous, My Antonia was rather beautiful, and Harvey was fun to read over and over...

and over...

...and over...

...and...

ooo-vvv-eee-rrrrrrrrrrr...

But I decided I needed a break from reading the required stuff and just the required stuff. I decided to celebrate "Read A Couple Of Hype-ey Books And Just Hope They Don't Completely Suck" week with The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

And I am pleased to say that I was pleasantly surprised.

I mean, for one thing, the John Green book was autographed by John Green.



I seriously considered stealing the book and giving it to Sister-in-Law-Liz for keeps. Maybe I ought to. Hmm...all I'd have to do is buy another copy of the book, switch out the covers, peel off and relocate all the stickers, duplicate the signature...

Holy crap. It's totally doable.

Anyway, felon-ous contemplations aside...these books really didn't suck. They took me two days a piece to finish, each a lovely, easy breezy read. Both were pretty well written (The Fault in Our Stars is so clever. John Green writes some of the wittiest dialogue I've ever read) and were darn good stories. I realize they are far from perfect. I had several issues with The Night Circus (mostly with the romance aspect. 'Twas much too fluffy. It practically ruined the whole book for me. However, the parts that weren't nasty love bits were so magical and fantastic that I could forgive and forget and keep reading). The real appeal was how easy it was to get completely sucked into these little worlds. I didn't have to think hard to understand what I was reading. Hours would pass without my notice. The escapes were absolutely mindless.

Sometimes it's good to be without your mind for a bit.

Oooh. How Proverbal.