In the beginning... there was Rosa!

Sorry about the subject line. I just wanted to let you know that I could still work Rosa's name into just about anything.

Actually, this entry isn't about Rosa. (You can all stop cheering.)(Honestly.)(I mean it.)

This weekend, I went to visit Karrie at the hospital. She had told me, before she went in, that my pre-surgery visit had made her feel less nauseous - and what better vote of confidence is there, really?

I couldn't park at St. Joseph... because I'm cheap, basically. I parked down the street at Taco Bell and had a 7-Layer Burrito just to prove I was a customer. (The man who invented "Customer Parking Only" can blow me.) And I walked through the rain, ignoring how wet I was getting - heck, I like the rain - all the way to the hospital. On my way, of course, I noticed that the parking lot was open and you didn't have to pay and I'd just parked blocks away for nothing... except that I love 7-Layer Burritos.

I walked into the hospital like walking through glue. I remembered having my arm put back together here. I remembered the nurse wheeling me out to Rosa, who waited by her car, ready to bring me home and make me a fried-egg sammich... God, I loved that woman. She used to work at St. Joseph Hospital... what do I love now? She won't talk to me. She won't let me talk to her, not unless I want to go into full-stalker mode... and I don't think I'm ready to do that.

It was hard walking in there.

I went into the gift shop and started giving the stuffed animals the "hug test". This test was developed years ago, back when I'd get Rosa stuffed animals. What you do is you hug all the animals to see which one either a) makes you feel all warm inside (which is when you buy it) or b) hugs you back (which is when you run!). The warmest one was this big kittie... $26!

Was I ready to spend $26 on a stuffed animal for this girl? Oh, the hell with it, I thought, and bought it. I also bought a pack of peanut-butter M&Ms... you know... cause they're good... right?

Karrie couldn't eat the M&Ms ("I'll save them for when they break you out," I told her.) but she loved the kittie. Of course. It passed the "hug test". We sat and watched a little TV and I watched her fade in and out as a result of her morphine drip. I stayed there for about 90 minutes. This is a long time for me to sit in a hospital without restraints.

It was good to see her, though. I spent much of this weekend in a very dark loneliness - the kind where you want to pick up a hooker just for conversation, you know? Now, I'm not saying I visited Karrie out of loneliness, any more than I made the many phone calls I did, but that it helped punctuate that loneliness with a little light. She and I have the strangest relationship... it keeps creeping towards "relationship" like an iceberg... I keep feeling like I'd better duck. Before I left, I held her hand... and I thought of a year ago at the Newport Beach Brewing Company, holding Rosa's hand across the table... and I wanted to run.

Sunday night, I was back at rehearsal. The costumer was in and we were fitted. Let's just say that, after measuring me, I was left with one thought - I'm a fat fuck.

Performances are only a month away - and I haven't even begun memorizing my lines. So, last night, I started recording them. I recorded them on the PC so I could play them from my PC and so I could download them into my MP3 player. Later, I'll make a CD out of them. My own voice... with a bad British accent... over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over... wherefore art thou, Grand Canyon?!

The woman who plays my mistress needs to take a week off in the midst of the run and, so, will have an understudy. Her understudy came to last night's rehearsal... and I wondered if there was some way I could break both of my legs! Is it too much to ask that the women I kiss on stage be beautiful?! Huh?! Well?! Not only would I NOT kiss this woman if I didn't have to - I wouldn't shake her hand! I mean... ICK!

Lucky me.

The woman who plays my wife was sick - she got the thing everybody else has been fighting, that I just got over. In one scene, we're supposed to kiss - but I wasn't about to kiss her because 1) we're only in the third week of rehearsal and 2) she's sick, for Pete's sake! Well, we got to that scene, we got close as if we were going to kiss but wouldn't kiss because she understood I didn't want to be sick, and... she kissed me.

... Maybe I'll get so sick I'll have to drop out of this play!!!!