Thankful

I had kind of a bizarre day today.  But it was a day of being thankful. (It was also a really long day. It's really late... or really early....)

First, I was thankful that I don't live in a Law and Order episode.  You see, I learned last night that I was supposed to wear rhinestone earrings for a show I'm in that I had tech for today... But I don't have rhinestone earrings... or pierced ears (yeah, I know, that makes me a freak, but the idea of getting holes in my ears never seemed appealing enough to put it on my to-do list).  So the choreographer wonderfully suggested I wear eyelash glue with rhinestones left over from one of the costumes.  Which was a great idea.  Except I don't have eyelash glue either.  None of this information is at all relevant to my story, except to say that it was imperative I get myself to a drugstore before tech rehearsal today to get some eyelash glue.  So I walked the 15 minutes to CVS, where I saw a very nervous-looking, wild-eyed man dressed all in black with a big black overcoat outside the store.  He was fidgeting and kind of pacing, looking like he wanted to go into the store but like he was trying to get up the nerve to.  He made eye contact with me and quickly averted his eyes, looking almost scared.  He made me nervous, and I almost turned around and walked away, but I really needed the eyelash glue, and from that CVS it's a half-hour walk to the next closest major drug store.  So I went inside.  He immediately followed me in, and I hung back letting him go in front of me because he was seriously giving me the creeps and no way did I want him behind me.  As I picked up my basket and glanced at him, I realized he had his right hand underneath his coat, gripping something at waist level, and his left hand looked to be bracing the object on the outside.  He stood and scanned the aisles.  Perhaps I've seen too many crime shows, and perhaps I have an overactive imagination.  Most likely he was just an unwell man clutching something perfectly harmless.  But I also trust my instincts, and my instincts said get out of that store ASAP because it totally looked like a mentally unstable man was clutching a gun, and I didn't really feel like finding out if I was just being silly.  So I put down my basket, hurried out the store, and walked 30 minutes to the next drugstore.  I'll never know what I avoided or didn't avoid, but I am thankful that my day wasn't a Law and Order episode.

Next, as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, I let out a squeal of happiness and was thankful that Stratford Festival's wonderful production of Hamlet last season is being screened in movie theatres here.  I loved this show.  It was awesome.  You can read some of my thoughts about it (and my favorite audience member at the performance I saw) here.  I've thought about the show numerous times since seeing it and can't wait to watch it again, even if on screen rather than in person.  It's a performance every Shakespeare-lover should see.

Then I was thankful that I get paid to dance today and tech a show as a performer rather than a stage manager.  I get paid to play a character I've fleshed out and given a backstory and a name, and it was my job today to dance and act.  That's such a wonderful feeling.

Then... well, then I was really bummed because my phone went haywire and decided it was a brand new phone that had never been activated (it's not) and it needed to be set up from scratch.  I have horrible luck with phones.  I've had them stolen; I've dropped them two feet and had the screen break and the home button fall out; I've had them die from water damage as a result of making a phone call in the rain...  So I assumed my three-month old phone was permanently on the fritz, but even if it were salvageable, there was no way I could set it up again from the no-WiFi theatre or on the way to the train station.  SO, at midnight, I had no way of checking train times for me to get home.  So rather than walk to Penn Station, I decided to take the subway to get me there faster.  Bad idea, because there were no subways for 20 minutes, and the fancy schmancy ipad-like touch-screen on the platform that's supposed to tell you how far away the subway trains are wasn't working.  Finally, after 20 minutes, my subway train came.  AND THEN... then I was thankful that I'm not on drugs....
 

A group of middle-aged, very high, very large, very masculine, all with beer bellies and not-so-great-at-looking-like-women cross dressers in various states of dress, all higher than a kite and appearing to be on a variety of different drugs with a variety of levels of mental presence, were on the subway train.  They looked like they'd probably started their evening a day or two ago, and I was smiling at how they all seemed so close despite not being really checked in, and thinking they would make great characters, when one started having a seizure, violently shaking and slipping to the floor, and half of them stared at him with a glazed over expression while the other half kept saying, "Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry," as if saying his name over and over might not only bring their friend to consciousness but might also help them break through their own haze as well.  One picked up Harry's feet (in what I think was an effort to keep him from falling to the floor, but the effort was too uncoordinated to do much good).  As passengers looked helplessly around and asked if anyone could help him, a young policeman who was in the car (with no partner around) came forward, and as I caught his expression, which through its composure seemed to flash a split-second "Oh-no I've never done this before--hold on here we go" thought, it struck me that as everyone else in the car sighed a breath of relief that it was no longer their responsibility, this young man to whom everyone looked to save Harry was probably dealing with his first instance of seizure-on-the-subway, and there was no one around to help him.  He of course took control and calmly asked the man's friends to help him with positioning as best they could -- though when the policeman bent down, the others in the group started saying, "No he's fine. He just needs a moment. He's back," when Harry was clearly neither fine nor back. Meanwhile the car was divided into people who gawked (most of them) and people who stared at the floor, not wanting to see (very few of them) -- and me, who got off to walk the last 12 blocks to Penn Station, leaving the end of the story for someone else's eyes... and wondering whether the real story there was Harry and his friends or the young partnerless policeman.

So anyway, I got to Penn Station and JUST made my train.  So did a lot of drunk people.  Including a couple who had a popcorn fight on the train, throwing popcorn everywhere, and at everyone, before the wife declared that her husband was only allowed almond-milk, half an avocado, and three strawberries for breakfast from now on. (She first told this to a woman at whom she threw popcorn, but then she said it to her husband, and then, in case anyone in the car hadn't heard yet, she said it a few more times for everyone else's benefit.)  Oh, and he can have kale.  Lots of kale.  So her husband proceeded to yell, "WHO HAS KALE?!" at the car for the next five minutes while they threw more popcorn.  So then I was very thankful that I'm never a sloppy drunk yelling at a train car about kale while throwing popcorn.

Then I got home at 1:12 AM and was worried because my fiancé was nowhere to be found in our apartment, and with me not having a working phone he had no way of getting in contact with me and I had no idea where he was in the middle of the night and none of the gazillion colorful post-it notes I have on the table were notes from him telling me where he was, so he clearly hadn't been home yet....  But then I logged on to my computer and saw a Facebook message from him that he was at some afterparty for the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame Induction and chatting with some former member of Chicago... so he was doing A-okay.  So I was thankful for that.

Then my phone started magically working.  And I was thankful for that.

And then I checked the mail area downstairs and saw a care package from home -- with homemade brownies and homemade muffins and Treasure Island and The Count of Monte Cristo and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and a yummy-smelling perfume called "Sunswept" that smells like vacation and all sorts of lovely stuff....  And I was very thankful for that.

So, in conclusion (because that's how you begin all final sentences of essays when you're in the second grade, and it's 2:47 am, so my cognitive functions are pretty much on level with a second grader's), I am thankful that I didn't get shot, that I can watch Hamlet again, that I get to dance as my job, that I don't do drug cocktails, that I'm not a crazy popcorn-throwing, kale-ranting drunk, that my fiancé's not lost, that my phone is working, and that I have the best ever parents who love me and send me care packages.  Oh, and I'm thankful for that Reese's chocolate peanut butter in a previous care package.  Because that's what I'm eating.