Aorta stop eatin' junk food

Dad’s surgery was “smooth and easy” according to the surgeon—who may or may not have been referring to the fact that the hospital shaved my dad from the neck down before they poked him in the aorta—and he’s now recovering/waking up in the recovering/waking up room as we continue to stuff our faces in the waiting room.

You might say he’s on the mendo from his endo. But please don’t. Never say that.

Aorta lern my lines

When you got up at 4:30 and had to pack for a day of sitting in the waiting room at the hospital surgery center and you remembered to bring all the important stuff. So that’s good.

Dad is having what’s literally called a “re-do” on a five-year-old abdominal aortic aneurism surgery that had recently started leaking. Two weeks ago he had an exploratory aortogram—which it turns out does not, unfortunately, involve someone showing up at your door in tap shoes and an aorta outfit to sing Happy Birthday or a Valentine’s Day song—and he’s having the surgery today as the final gala event in his five-day 80th birthday celebration.

To complete the circle, I’m sitting in the waiting room memorizing my lines to Aortahoma!

I’ve somehow reached a point in my life where I unironically think to myself, “I could really go for some 5-Hour Energy and prunes"

Also: Harold has a really disjointed monologue on pages 61-62.

Things I’ve accomplished today:

• Had my first formal voice lesson in 30 years, and already determined some bad habits I can start working on unlearning
• Went to Target and bought only what was on my list
• Did my first leg workout since I started running last spring ... and freaking KILLED my legs without sacrificing proper form
• Accepted a very romantic marriage proposal from one of my 934 freakishly hunky gym crushes as all the rest of the guys in the gym struggled to mask their jealousy through forced smiles and wan applause*
• Attended a Full Monty line bash where I remembered more of my lines than I’d expected
• Sat down and actually played the piano for the first time in months as an overture (for lack of a less obvious metaphor) to my New Year’s resolution to practice with specific regularity
• Made it to my 11th day without having Diet Coke
• Wrote a blog post that doesn’t use the word “boobies”
• Oops
• Didn’t kill anyone intentionally
• Did some laundry without expecting a gold star on my chores chart
• Boobies
• Oops again

* This one is a total fucking lie

Full Monty line bash!

So far we still have all our clothes on, but you never know. The script is pretty compelling ...

There is always one scene or maybe even just one page of a scene in a show that is freaking impossible to memorize

Mine in Fuddy Meers is the Sisyphean stuff-of-legend Act 1 Scene 7a. (Its wacky-hijinks sequel, Act I Scene 7b, is thankfully so easy for me that it practically memorizes itself.)

As with every actor, I fully subscribe to the time-honored practice of leaving my script open in the passenger’s seat of my car and then setting it closed on my desk at work, secure in the knowledge that the words through their sheer nearbyness will magically learn themselves into my brain. But Act I Scene 7a REFUSES to comply. 

But I will break you, Act I Scene 7a. I’m neither intimidated by nor afraid of your attempts at fearsomeness. I will wear you down and when you’re off your guard and least expecting it, I WILL break you.

(and, scene)

Most runners run with music

Rock ‘n’ roll, maybe. Or (I’ll deny this if you say anything) disco. Or (nobody’d believe me if I tried to deny this so I won’t even waste my time) show tunes.

But me? Noooo.

I’m about to spend 3.22 miles listening to the pulsing, motivating beat of my own voice, hopefully driving my lines for Fuddy Meers deep in my head:

You’ll know if it worked when you come see the show.

Here they are

All the words I say in Fuddy Meers, hopefully in order:

Scene 2:3 is a doozy for me—for everyone, actually—so as you can see here that I broke it up into more manageable chunks. The show runs the entire month of June. So I’ll be running lines every second of every day the entire month of May. Except, of course, when I’m telling everyone about it on here.

Doing lines and Diet Coke

Wait. That might have come out wrong ...