Paradox of Mandy

I have so much to say! I don't know where to begin. I want to first make a list so I can cover everything:
Wild
J.J.
stupid email/regret
school?
A1C 7.1
birthday

So those are the major things I want to talk about. I don't know if I'll get to all of them. I don't even know if I'll be able to get to all of them in one post. It is kind of a lot. A freakin' lot, actually. Like huge aspects of my life I don't talk about that much because I thought I was over them. Like JJ. And Wilds. And having a Hemoglobin A1C of 7.1. And my sister's birthday. And going back to school. And worst of all, the stupid email I sent and how I am feeling regret over something I know, I KNOW, in my heart was the right thing to do. And there are very few things in my life that I know in my heart were the right thing to do. Mostly because I don't believe in people knowing stuff in their heart. Your brain is what knows stuff. Your heart has other responsibilities. I know because I work in a Cardiology office.

Oh, and also, I'm sort of worried that my anonymous stalker might be this guy named Travis. So if it is, you are so totally busted, dude.

So I went to a show tonight. This particular show has been referred to as a "Wild" for about the past 30 years. Or so. I'm not really sure how long. Actually, I could find out right now. I will. Just a moment
.
.
.
.
So, I asked my brother, who is here in Yreka with me tonight with my folks. And Chachi, the dog. And he was in the very first Wild. Which was called "Monkey Business." And he seems to think that he was eight when he did that. And his now 38. So yes, for about 30 years, every year, there has been a show at the Siskiyou Performing Arts Center in Yreka, California, called a "Wild." Or "The Wild." Tonight I saw lots of people I recognized and knew. One of them was my old friend Trish Kimball's dad. Some others were the Bennetts and the Colts, whose sons I went to school with from preschool to high school and who are very good people. I was comforted in a strange way to see these people. I also saw J.J. last name deleted in case she googles herself. She is the reason I still act. She is also the reason I often consider never acting again. She is one crazy New York Jew-turned born again new age Christian. Like I said, I don't know where to begin. I'll begin at the beginning. As I remember it.

With my first Wild. I was eight. I was precocious. I could sing like a little demon. I was put in to a Wild. That particular Wild was called "Paradox of Wild." I still have my little tiny t-shirt from it. You see, it is a play on words because there were two docks on the stage. A Pair of Docks. And also, there was a skit with two doctors. Also a pair of Docs. Get it? I sang a Shirley temple song with my dad called You Gotta Eat Your Spinach, Baby from Poor Little Rich Girl (1936) I just found this horrifying link that plays the song for you. So just imagine me, at eight, singing this song

spinach song

This is extremely strange, writing about this. But it is a really awesome thing for me to get out. Because there is no one who would get it all. So why not put it out there. For people to see.

So I sang this song. God, there is so much to this story. That is the beginning. Now I don't know where to go from here. So I wasn't smart enough to get into GATE. Which was Gifted and Talented Education. This was a big shock. Because my brother and sister were WAY smart enough to get into GATE. But I didn't pass the tests and I had, at eight years old, actually come to terms with this. I thought this meant that I could actually be "normal" and "popular" and have friends and fun like my brother and sister never did. I was actually quite happy not being smart enough to be in GATE. I remember the test. I remember Mr. Gillespie asking me how many days there were in the year and I said. 364. Because the year before I took the test was a leap year and I knew there were 365 days in the year but that this year there would be one less than last year. I just didn't know that the year before there were actually 366. But he just marked that one wrong. And he gave me a piece of paper and asked, if I needed to find something on this piece of paper and it was hidden, how would I found it. My mother tells me this story. I don't remember this part. She says that when my brother was asked this question he drew a line ________ around the entire page laterally and then longitudinally around and around, tight lines in a big maze like box. My sister did the same but with circles. And I started in the middle and then scribbled all over the entire page with not rhyme nor reason. Much like the way I am writing this, I suppose. Ha! This is a story my mother tells which is supposed to be illustrative of they differences in her children. In how we think. Or who two of us think and how one of us doesn't at all. And this is the story I've been listening to my entire life. Which I don't exactly blame for my lack of focus or goals but which I could tell a therapist if I wanted an easy way out.

So I didn't get into gate, is the long and short of it. And I was fine with this. I was a little disappointed. I admit. I admit a part of me was sad I wasn't as smart as my brother and sister. Or a lot of the other kids in my class. But I thought I had potential in other areas. Like the arts.

So I jumped on stage at eight years old. And Mr. Gillespie saw me. And it just so happened that he was bringing his fifth grade GATE class to Odyssey of the Mind the following year. And they were to put on a musical. And he needed some talented, if not gifted, kids to sort of, what's the word....Or phrase...Stack the deck? I guess? So he came up to me, immediately after the show and said something to the effect of, "Why aren't you in GATE? Would you like to be?" Now I was going into the 4th grade. Not only did Mr. Gillespie think I was talented enough to be in gate, but he thought I was talented enough to be in 5th grade gate! Wow! How flattering. I agreed. One thing to my parent's credit in all this. They never thought I wasn't gifted and talented and if I had wanted to be gifted and talented they would have made the school put me in the program. And when Mr. Gillespie asked me, they left it completely up to my eight year old mind to decide. I realized that I really did wanted to be gifted and talented. Or at least talented. And slightly gifted. So the next year I helped write, directed and starred as Templeton in the Jackson Street School's Gifted and Talented Education program of Charlotte's web. This is the song I wrote. I still remember the dance steps I made up. It is to be sung to the tune of George M. Cohan's "Harrigan" from the musical "Fifty Miles from Boston." Which I happened to have known from a big book of songs my dad sang when I was a kid.

T-E-M-P-L-E
T-O-N Spells Templeton
Proud of all the rotten blood that's in me
Bite the tail of anyone who's agin me

T-E-M-P-L-E
T-O-N You Seeeee
Never once has a cat ever come close to catching me
Templeton!
That's meeee

Because Templeton was a rat. In case you didn't know that. Anyway. We won the regional Odyssey of the Mind competition in Redding, Ca. So we went on to Fresno for the State Competition. And we got 4th place. So we didn't get to go on to Washington. But we almost did. Part of the competition was these series of tests that we had to go through individually. Turns out, I was way smarter than any of the 5th grade GATErs so I was invited to be in my own class level gate the following year. Which would have been the same program I had just gone through as a fourth grader. I declined. I hated the teacher. He was an asshole. I still don't like him much. So that was my year in GATE. It was a lot of extra work. I was more interested in being popular. Plus, the boy I was obsessed with moved back to yreka from Sacramento and was living right across the street. I was beside myself. I would obsess about him for the next 5 years. And that, my dear readers, is another story altogether.

So anyway, back to theater. I was now considered talented, if not gifted, and was encouraged to act and sing in local shows. J.J. last name deleted ran a children's theater kind of program during the summers starting when I was 12 years old. I will make this part of the story shorter, even though it is a monumental part of my development. The summer of my 12 year, as I was turning 13, I played Hermia in J.J.'s production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Lots of other stuff happened that year. Crazy things. Things you would not understand even if I explained them to you. But J.J. was a very difficult woman. She made kids cry, often. She would put my makeup on for me and tell me how great I was. She would tell other kids they were worthless and stupid. Little kids. Like 8-9-10 years old. She was crazy. We would rehearse starting the week after school was over 5 days a week for 5 hours a day. She would keep us late and lecture us while the kids parents were waiting outside to drive them home. She would cry and break down during the tech week of every show I was in with her and threaten to cancel the show because of our incompetence. I did 5 plays with her, I think. Starting with A Midsummer Night's Dream, then Romeo and Juliet, then Julius Caesar and then two productions of A Christmas Carol. Those two were better because adults were in it and she couldn't brow beat them as much.

I could go on and on about all the crazy things she did and how she made me feel like I was the most talented person in the world and in the next breath make me feel like I am merely competent but missing something that I will never have because I just don't have it. I will add this one tidbit, because it has stuck with me for 15 years. She told me my biggest strength was my consistency. This was glowing praise coming from her but to me it was a punch in the face because I knew that the only thing anyone really cared about was raw crazy talent. Not consistency.

The last time I saw J.J. was almost exactly 10 years ago. It was at the dress rehearsal of my senior project in high school. I wrote a one act play that was put on with a whole night of one acts at the same theater I just went to tonight and the same theater I had been in all those plays with J.J. and the same theater that I had first stepped foot on when I was eight years old. It is cheesy to say it was my second home but it actually was. For our senior projects we had to have a mentor. I asked J.J. to be mine. We had a few meetings about writing and about adapting plays and about theater in general and I actually learned a lot from her. She was my mentor in a real way, not just in a Senior project, I had to pick someone, way. But she could only come to the dress rehearsal because she was doing a show at the time. And the order of the plays was changed at the last minute. And I had told her she didn't need to come until some time and then the order was changed. And she missed watching my final product. And this caused a huge dramatic scene outside of the theater between myself and J.J. when she got there. And she told me congratulations on my scholarship and that she hoped I had a great life and walked away in a huff. And I laughed. Outloud. And she turned and was so offended she got tears in her eyes. And then turned and walked away. In another even huffier huff. It was hilarious. And that was the last time I saw her.

10 years ago. So coming to see this Wild tonight was really weird. She was there and she talked to me like we were best friends. And she told me that the next time I am doing any plays or anything up in Ashland to call her and let her know and she would "schlepp" up there to see it. And she probably would. And she would praise me above and beyond what anybody has ever said to me in my life and I would eat it up. Because I've always wanted her approval.

I don't know if I can go into all the other stuff I was going to write about. My friend that I met and dated briefly and then dumped is leaving for good on Tuesday and I emailed him today to say goodbye so I could have some strange sense of closure. Actually, he is the reason I went to see this show in the first place. I took him to Yreka a few weeks ago. And my dad was rehearsing for this show and I mentioned that it had been years and years since I had seen a Wild and my dad said that I should come to this and I said maybe I would and my friend said, "yeah, she will want tickets, two of them." So my dad sent me two tickets. And the plan was to go with my friend. But then I had to end that friendship. But there were those tickets. So I went with my brother. And it was awesome. The Best Wild Ever. As they say.

And the part about the hemoglobin A1C is just really good news from my doctor's appointment last week. My A1C has been steadily declining and this is the best indication that my management of my diabetes is going really really well. I feel like I've just won a prize. But it is because of what I've been doing for myself. And it isn't a prize. It is my own prize for myself.

And the birthday part is because today is my sister's birthday. Happy birthday Anonyma! And I already talked about going back to school briefly in my last post so the rest of that will have to wait for another day. Because it is late in Yrekaville.