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March 16
So – the spring play. It’s my third year on costume crew, and next year I’m going to be Costume Goddess, aka head of the costume department. The play is The Good Woman of Setzuan, and it’s better than I thought it would be. It’s set in China, so we’ve been doing a lot of mandarin collars and frog closures. I can now sew frogs onto a shirt faster than anyone in the Western hemisphere. The play is about three gods who are trying to prove that good people still exist in the world, so they give some money to a prostitute who is poor but good. She keeps trying to help people and gets herself into debt, though, so she invents a male cousin of hers who can say no. When she’s dressed as a man, she’s ruthless and logical, but as soon as she’s a woman again, she lets herself get in all sorts of trouble to help other people. Eventually, it’s clear that she can’t both be good and survive, so the play ends with her on her knees, begging the gods to help her, which they don’t. My friend Lizzy is starring, and she’s really terrific. All the man/woman switching means a whole lot of incredibly quick costume changes for us, though. I was up until 1:30 writing Personal Anthology entries the night before last, but that wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Poor Alex, who’s head of costumes this year, was only getting three hours of sleep for the past four nights. Thursday night she had a headache and was getting wobbly on her feet. She kept saying, “I’m going to hyperventilate . . .” as we were frantically sewing Velcro onto Lizzy’s shoes. Last night I tried to make her take a nap while I finished the costumes, but she said she was fine. I didn’t believe a word of it, of course, since she couldn’t even get through the sentence, “Really, I don’t need to,” without tripping over her tongue. We both got some sleep backstage between costume changes – I’m beginning to think that a costumer’s most useful skill is not stitching, but catnapping.
And this morning I did what I've been dreaming about doing all week - opened the window so the sun came in, turned on the radio, washed my hair, shaved my legs, and took a bath. With bath salts. I feel much saner now.
Feeling: tired but satisfied. Eating: I made an omelet Song in my head: Reading: Fishished Swordspoint - oh my gosh! I'm dazzled, I really am. Maybe part of it is that I know the author, so I have more fun guessing what she was thinking when she wrote certain parts, but her dialogue is still running through my mind a week later. I've read a couple of scenes so many times I have them memorized. Listening to: the lawnmower and the birds Link for today: the blue dress I'm making (slowly) for Christine Quote for today: "Screw you and your false bottom." Andy, one of the props guys, after his sister pointed out that one of the cups in the play was supposed to have a false bottom. I don't think he realized how funny it sounded. Highlight of my day: taking a bath March 23 
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