In Which Dark Humor Lightens the Load

Please indulge me while I mine my recent traumatic experience for comedy gold. (See previous post.) It helps me cope.

Yeah, so the first words out of my mouth were pretty intimidating. I said, "Are you serious?!" (True.) Had them quaking right off the bat with the old "Really? Ski masks? You guys are SUCH a cliche." (Not true.) That was pretty much the last time I spoke without being spoken to.

So one of them orders me to turn over, then presses a pillow on my head. The next thing he said was "Mffffluer jnafvn aowur?"

I said, "Um, I can't hear you. There's a pillow on my head."

So he removed the pillow, and said, "Where your jewelry at?" Then he put the pillow back on my head, and I said, "Mffffluer jnafvn aowur."

So the other guy says, "Move the pillow, Dawg."

(Quick note to Captain Crawley of the Charles City Police Department: Their names were Dawg and Dawg.)

And I told him where my jewelry was at, but they were pretty disappointed. I shop at Kohls.

"Where your GOOD jewelry at!"

"Hey, you'll have to talk to my husband. I've been asking that same question for ten years."

I didn't really say that. There was a gun in the room. Actually two. They had mine, too. The problem was, I don't have any good jewelry. So they took the rings from my wedding finger and moved on to the next item on their Christmas list.

"Where your money at?"

"I don't have any."

"WHERE YOUR CASH AT?!"

"I only have a dollar because I went to Costco and they only take American Express which, as you know, I don't have, so I had to pay in cash and by the time..."

"SHUT UP!"

"Okay."

See, this is what they didn't understand. We never have cash. We put everything on credit, then pay it off each month. You get air miles that way. And pretty soon, I'm gonna use a few thousand of them. But anyway, they didn't like that I only had a dollar and moved on.

"Where your safe at?"

Okay, see, we don't have one of those either, and by now I'm worried they'll think I'm lying, so what did I do?

"I'm really sorry, but we don't have a safe."

I APOLOGIZED to the frustrated robbers for not having a safe. So one of them finds some weewhacker filament and ties my wrists and ankles, then leaves the room. Well, damn. I got out of that in like three seconds. But I didn't have anywhere to go (out the window didn't occur to me for some reason) but I didn't have time, anyway. I hear one of them coming up the stairs so I QUICK QUICK tried to tie myself back up, but I couldn't manage to get my wrists behind me and tie at the same time, so I got caught, and I held up the orange filament, and I said, "I'm sorry, this came loose," then lay back down and put the pillow back over my head in what I thought was a very polite and helpful manner.

He didn't get mad at me, thank GOD, and the other guy comes in and says, "What's the pin number on your credit card?"

Sigh. I don't have a credit card with a pin number.

"How you get cash?"

"Well, see, people pay me with checks, then I go to the bank and put some of them in my checking account and some of them I cash out so that I can buy whatever I need from the..."

"SHUT UP!"

"Okay." (By now, we have whole pillow thing worked out.)

"Where your ATM card?"

Sigh. "Well, see, I put my ATM card in my jacket pocket and then I gave that jacket to my mother and she found the ATM card in the pocket but by then I had left Florida, so..."

"SHUT UP!"

"Okay."

"You give me a pin number for this credit card right now."

"I don't have one."

"RIGHT NOW!"

"0385."

(Note to any armed robbers reading this: ha ha, I made it up.)

Then they wrapped me in duct tape (because weed whacker filament, they learned, was no match for me), and had they not wrapped OVER the weed whacker filament, I would have got out of that, too (no, really, because there was a knife sticking up in the wisher washer drawer and I was able to...oh, never mind. It didn't cut through the filament. Foiled again.)

And they left.

And now I answer the door with a gun. I need to talk to the UPS guy and work out a doorbell code. He just delivered some flowers, and doesn't need a trigger happy armed robbery victim answering the door with a gun. Neither do you. So if you come see me, ring three times in rapid succession and when I say, "Who's there?" say 0385 and I'll let you in after my Doberman Pinscher frisks you in that special way he has.

Kidding.

I don't have a Doberman.

Yes, I do.

Okay, I don't, but I'm going to get one. Maybe two. Don't rub meat on your crotch before visiting.

Thanks for your good wishes which have made me feel GREAT. I'm no longer avoiding the phone. I'm still me, and one of these days, I'll look back on all this and think, "Why the hell DON'T I have good jewelry?"

In Which I Live to Tell the Tale

I'm telling you this so you will know what happened and that I am okay.

On Wednesday, December 21, my husband left for work at 7:40 am. At 7:45, I was roughly awakened by two masked gunmen who told me to be quiet or they'd kill me.

This story has a happy ending. You can keep reading if you want to.

I didn't have a chance in hell to grab the gun in the bedside table. They pinned me and put a pillow over my head within seconds. I felt the gun barrel at my temple. They tied me with weed-whacker filament, then left the bedroom to search the house. I got loose in three seconds but they already had the gun, so I had nowhere to go, no way to protect myself.  There was no phone in the bedroom. They came back in and were not pleased to see me unbound. This time, they wrapped me in duct tape.

They did not physically assault me. This was about money and jewelry. They got very little of both. After they left, I managed to get to the front door by scooting down the stairs and over the floor on my buttocks (my poor buttocks), then waited for the UPS man, and IF he came, hoped he'd hear me.

Four hours later, the rental car was found abandoned with the key in it, and the police had it towed. The tow company notified the rental company, who notified my husband. He found me naked and bound on the kitchen floor. The police came, they left, legal wheels are turning.

Those are the facts. Here's what I keep obsessing about:

Besides being shaken up, I'm really, really disappointed and angry. I'm 99% sure I know who did this. I don't know if he was one of the gunman, but he was involved. He was a worker my husband felt sorry for because he was always desperate for cash, so G paid him to do some yardwork at the house. He cased the place, called his ex-con friends, and planned it. I'm sure of it.

My husband put out a hand to help someone, and that someone turned around and did this. In the words of the Wicked Witch of the West, "Wotta world, wotta world."

I was bound for four hours, and had some time to think about a thing or two. Perversely, I found myself framing the narrative. I was getting the story ducks in a row. When I realized what I was doing, I was ashamed of myself, because WHO DOES THAT? Who slips from a harrowing reality to snap the moments in a story formula?

Well, I do, I guess. I'm a storyteller. That's what storytellers do. It was coping mechanism, I realize now. It was okay to do that. I'm still doing that. I'm doing it right now.

I'm taking the practical steps, too: I have an appt for counseling, I have an appt with the shooting range, and I'm trolling for a German Shepherd. G and I had a beautiful Christmas with my step-daughter and her husband, who cooked an AMAZING meal and were overly generous with their gifts, and wonderfully generous with their love. Right now, I'm doing pretty good. And one of these days, I'll find the proper way to elevate the experience so that it becomes part of a larger narrative, one that celebrates big hearts while mourning the need to keep them caged.

Your emails and snail mails are welcome. I may not answer if you call. I will later, though. And I'll tell you everything.

In Which MISS PALMER Gets a Nibble.

So I get this phone call, see. It's from a Chicago actress, Carmen Roman. (She can be seen as Dr. Gabriella Reyes in BOSS with Kelsey Grammer on Starz Network.) I didn't know her. A friend had passed along my play, and in her words, "I want this for myself." She says she knows a backer or two, and wants to produce a workshop or (gasp) production in New York.

Bells ring, clouds part, heavenly light fills my universe.

"Sure," I choked out. "Whatever you want."

The play she's talking about is MISS PALMER'S SCHOOL OF PENMANSHIP AND CIVIL BEHAVIOR. It's the one I've been working on for months. I gave it to my friend, Tim Monsion, and asked him to pass it along if he liked it. He gave it to Carmen, who is arranging a reading in NYC.

Here's the thing. I've been mass-submitting my plays since August. In September alone, I submitted my work to 50 various venues. I got a few nibbles, but no hits. I've been shopping FULL PLATE COLLECTION for two years. It found one production at the North Street Playhouse in Onancock, VA (June 2012) and semi-finaled a couple times, but it's rough out there. There are 100 playwrights for every legitimate theatre, and each of those playwrights are probably submitting more than one work. It takes an original voice, theatrical execution, and a resonant story to float to the top. Heck, you're lucky if you even get your plays read, much less vetted. Even then, few theaters are going to take a chance working with a playwright they don't know. That's where your network comes in.

If Tim hadn't handed this play to Carmen, she never would have read it. And even if nothing happens, I've made a new friend. She said she'd be happy to read anything I write. That's a major score in my book.

I have hope but no expectations about this project. I've been in this business long enough to know how quickly a nibble can be spat out. And that's okay. Because these are my people. And I like it here.

Thanks, Tim, for passing along my play. And thanks, Carmen, for filling my universe with heavenly light.

In Which I Concuss Myself While On Stage

If you're an actor, you know the moment.It comes soon after your lines are embedded, and that heady impulse to 'play' squashes all reason. Instead of walking the line,  you trip the light fantastic. Instead of being in the moment, you create one. One leap into the unknown, and you either fly, or crash and burn.

I crashed and burned.

It was near the top of Act II of KIMBERLY AKIMBO (playing through Nov. 5 at the Little Theatre inside Theatre IV.) I was sitting on a bed. In a moment of sudden exuberance, I threw myself forward and face-down, and cracked my forehead on the foot board.

I mean CRACKED. I saw stars. The audience groaned. I managed to turn upstage to my fellow actors and stage-whisper, "I'm all right." I sat back up, the fourth wall still intact. And for the next ten minutes, I heard audience members whispering to each other about the angry, plum-sized knot that was growing, right before their eyes, on my forehead. Talk about being pulled out of a scene. My little stunt almost pulled them out of the theatre.

It's been a few days and all is well. I don't see double and I know that the President of the United States is Abraham Lincoln. (Ha ha. Just kidding. It's Osama Bin Laden.) I'm trying to figure out what the teachable moment is. I've come up with these possibilities:

1. Just because you're feeling loose, that doesn't mean you should try new things. Recall the lesson of Icarus.

2. Consider your fellow actors. You're not up there by yourself. Unless you are. Even then, you might not want to fly too close to the sun.

3. Remember that time in 1999 when you fell on stage and the whole theatre shook? Yeah. That time. Disasters come in threes. Just sayin.

4. You're not 30 anymore. You're slower, and your instincts are duller. When you throw balls in the air, they come down harder and faster. Be prepared to duck.

On the other hand, the theatre is a playground. And they don't call them "plays" for nuthin. There comes a time in every performance when you leave the ground, whether you want to or not. Instead of concentrating on your lines, you start to listen. Instead of waiting to speak, you hear what other people are saying. You stop moving because you're supposed to. You move because you have to. And yes. Once in a while, you soar. And there is nothing like it. NOTHING.

Which is why there will be another fall, another head crack, another run-in with the fourth wall. But as long as I walk away with a beating heart, I'll strap on another pair wings, and hope I don't molt and slip on my own feathers.

Please come see KIMBERLY AKIMBO. Tkts 804.282.2640. 

In Which The Mister Loses the Squirrel Wars

As far as tragedies go, this one isn't going to inspire an epic poem, but I know a certain husband who feels like he's lost a war. He planted this tree himself, and each year, watched with loving eyes as the tree grew, blossomed and gave fruit. He made plum jam and gave jars of the dark, rich spread to family and friends. He nurtured this tree, and now look at it.

He blames himself. "I must have pruned it wrong," he said, shaking his head. But I have a different theory.

Squirrels.

The Mister and squirrels have a history, and it isn't pretty. Each July, when the plums come under squirrel siege, The Mister bursts from his husband suit and becomes GRAHAM ASTON, SQUIRREL KILLER.

Don't worry, he hasn't killed any, but not for lack of trying.

Last year, he spooned blood from a rump roast into baggies, and hung them from the branches of the plum tree. His theory was that the squirrels would get freaked out by the animal blood, and stay away from the tree. It worked for me. But it turns out the squirrels aren't afraid of rump roast blood.

Then he gathered a few round, tinfoil pie plates, passed string through a hole at the top, and hung the pie plates on the branches. His theory was that the squirrels would get freaked out by the reflective flashes when jostled by a breeze. They just waited until the sun went down to chow down. As for a breeze, do you remember last July? If you felt a breeze, you called NBC12 About Town.

Then Graham and I went to Wal-Mart, ostensibly to buy refills for the electric toothbrush, but really to buy a gun. That's when I realized how far the situation had escalated. My peace-loving husband had blood lust.

"You're not really going to spend $120 on that BB gun, are you?" sez I.
"Uh," sez he.
"Please put it back."
He put it back. Then he picked up a another gun. "But I'm really going to spend $30 on this one."

Once home, he removed the screen from the balcony window, aimed the business end of the gun at the tree, and waited.

"Would you like your meals out here?" I asked.
"Sure."

I heard a lot of "pfft" from the gun and a lot of "damn!" from the Mister. Apparently the sight "was off." Then he picked up an antique gun we had sitting around and fired it. Or tried to. The cartridge casing blew up in the barrel and backfired. The wad grazed his face, but didn't take out any flesh or optic tissue.

"That was close," he said.

And now the tree is split down the middle, all its green plums littering the ground. Graham is sad.

The squirrels are not.

Me, I just live here.

Postscript: Last night, we saw an owl the size of bookcase carry off a squirrel. Mother Nature: 1. Graham: 0.

In Which Mother Nature Gets it Wrong

Mother Nature needs a make-over.

What good is natural selection if the top Mom keeps doing her same cruel thing eon after eon? Even Betty Crocker evolves once in a while, as she should. As we all should. It's called "keeping up with the times." When was the last time Mother Nature bent a little to accommodate today's busy moms?

Allow me to personalize. I have this son, see, and he's a sophomore in college, and even though we live in the same city, I hardly ever see him. He's busy. And I miss him. I'm over 50 now, and for the first time, have a little time on my hands. Oh, the wisdom I could impart! The shoulder I could offer! The cookies I could bake!

The irony, of course, is that I was supposed to be doing all these things for the last nineteen years, and I did, but I was personally ambitious and distracted. I wanted to write books, act in plays, be in movies, all very competitive (and soul squashing) careers. And I did all those things, and it's been great, but it's all added up to, well, a few dollars and a squashed soul. (Do you hear a little "Father and Son" by Cat Stevens playing in the background?) Self-actualization, as it turns out, is overrated.

So I was wondering how Mother Nature got it so wrong? Why give women babies when they're young and ambitious? Why not save the whole mommy thing for the over-50 crowd? I was an okay mom then, but if I were to have a baby now? I'd rock it. And I threw my back out trying to pick up a toddler, I could afford a nanny to pick him up and hand him to me! And under this new dystopian family plan, young women would take care of their aging parents without having to worry about their own families, because they wouldn't have any. Everybody wins!

I'm going to pitch it the next time I get down with God. The obstetric arts would have to expand to accommodate all these late-in-life pregnancies, but I doubt they'd mind. New demands means new money. The insurance companies would hate it, but they hate everything.

I'm going to go to lunch with my son now, and try to pry a few details of his life out of him. Just think—under my plan, I'd be seventy-five and he'd be taking me to lunch. I think I'm on to something here.

In Which I Binge

I joined a yahoo group for playwrights and I love it. It's playwrightbinge@yahoogroups.com. Playwrights share submission opportunities, successes, rejections, and gory tales of the trade.

I'm fairly new to the site so didn't know when I joined that September is Binge Month where members are challenged to submit at least one play per day through the month of September. Each time we submit, we're asked to include a link to the theatre so others may submit as well.

At first I thought, what the what? Why would I share an opportunity with other playwrights who might be better than me? Aid the competition? What is this, Candyland?

Then I started getting a dozen emails a day from members sharing websites and opportunities, and I have to say, it's a wonderful thing to see artists helping artists. It's contagious. And good for the soul. I salute. More to the point, I'm in.

Since September 1, I've sent a full-length play or a short play to 23 places, and I learned about all these opportunities from members at playwrightbinge. Sure, I've had a few rejections, but I also got a few tickles. A short play semi-finaled, and an artisitc director in eastern VA is interested in my musical comedy. Yay!

I go into rehearsals (as an actor) on Sept 20 and my time will no longer be my own, so I'll have to stop, which is probably a good thing—give these submissions time to either come back or go on. Most of them will come back.

But maybe a few will go on.

Postage. Persistence. Patience.

And playwrightsbinge.