I Quoteth:

"It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

Woody Allen

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Original Off-Broadway Cast, "The Wild Party"

Tuesday 5 June

Stage Fright.

I can't tell if it's due to the exceedingly dark pot of Starbucks Verona coffee I just brewed (imagine that, an employee of the largest coffee chain in the country who can't make a decent frickin' pot in his own house) or if the fact that I'm vibrating is a carry over from the brushes with greatness I experienced last night.  And oh, how great they were.

Melissa, Steve and I had all ordered tickets to a New York Theatre Workshop benefit concert to be held at Studio 54, June 4, starring none other than our beloved original Broadway cast of RENT.  While the three of us all too readily agree that the RENT phase of our lives is over, done with and ready to be tucked away into scrapbooks and shoeboxes, there was no way we were going to pass up the chance to cap it off by attending a fabulous five-year reunion party.  Hell, we weren't about to pass up anything the promised us Taye Diggs up close and personal.  Hello.

A tad wary of encountering some of the less-than-normal and more-than-frightening RENT regulars from the student rush ticket line days, the three of us kept our eyes peeled for an escape route if we so happened to run into someone whose presence would send us running.  Luckily enough, the crowd was surprisingly freak-free.  Even Joel, the scary lawyer guy who had seen the show over three hundred times the last I'd seen him and hogged all the space under the marquis of the Nederlander on the rainier nights we squatted out for our precious $20 front row seats, seemed to be missing.  Mel and I exchanged looks of puzzled pleasure.  After reuniting with a few of our non-freak friends from our days on the line, we found our seats in the balcony section and went through our complimentary NYTW gift bags that came with everything but a cookie that says, "No Day But Today."  No wait, I'm wrong.  They did give out "No Day But Today" cookies.  Because we all need one of those.  A tad random, yes, but should be a hot eBay item.  At least our seats were dead center, if a little high up.

(Me) "So, this is Studio 54?  This is what it looked like?"

(Steve) "Yes, well it was a theatre before it was a club."

(Mel) "So, this is where people did coke and had sex..."

(Steve) "Well, I mean, they took the seats out and all that.  Although, I think they kept some of them at the top."

Mel and I take a look around our seats.

(Mel) "I hope these aren't the same ones."

(Me) Nodding in agreement.

The lights dimmed and the curtain speech was given.  Now you have to understand, for most of us in that room, regardless of how "over and done with" our respective RENT obsessions we were, seeing the original cast reunited on stage performing their original roles would be equivalent to a room full of 1960s teeny boppers seeing all four Beatles performing "Twist and Shout" for the first time since breaking up.  For many of us, the show itself, but even more accurately, the original cast of the show represents something very deep that's different for each of us.  For me, I was immediately thrown back to sophomore year of high school.  While Jesse L. Martin and Wilson Jermaine Heredia sang "I'll Cover You," it was like there was a projection screen above their heads flashing images of my too long for my hair type hair cut, my first boyfriend, Michael, me trying to get through phys. ed. by thinking of how RENT was something I had over everyone else who wouldn't talk to me in that class, the excitement of my first few trips to New York City and how open and free I could feel there, of me coming out to my mother while my dad was out of town and having Anthony and the rest of our "RENT friends" supporting me through it.  It was almost surreal.  My mind was playing a tug of war between an intense longing to go back to and never having to think about those days again.  Good or bad, there was so much feeling and experience going on in my life at that time and I was reminded of it all within the first ten minutes of the concert.  By the time it was over, I felt like it had just begun.  Like I had been dreaming the entire time.  As we stood and applauded and yelled while the fifteen cast members took their final bows, I realized that the curtain was not only closing on stage (well, it actually wasn't ... there isn't a curtain in that theatre, but hey, let me get through my fucking metaphor) but also on an entire chapter of my life.  When I turned 20 this year, as much as I joked about having an early midlife crisis, I honestly didn't feel ready to look forward into my 20s and let go of my teens.  When I was sixteen and in the midst of my RENT phase, I couldn't wait to finally be 21 and on my own in this city where I could live my life as freely as I wanted. 

But as much as I looked forward to that day, it was still only a far away intangible idea.  Like the thought of graduating high school when you're halfway through your freshman year.  Intellectually, you know it's going to happen.  You even know the precise amount of time between now and then.  But you don't actually understand it until you're in the middle of a football field in a blue gown next to a teary-eyed girl whose name you know yet have never really spoken to and thinking, "holy shit, I'm graduating high school."  When I turned 20, I had that moment where your entire body realizes that you're entering a new phase in your life.  Everything you've learned and experienced over the past five years gets tucked away into the corners of your mind.  There are an entirely new set of rules in which to live by.  I wasn't ready to accept it.  Fuck, I had just gotten comfortable with the old rules, now they're going to change on me?  Hell, I'd rather just grip as tightly as possible to what I've already gotten used to.  No changes for me.  No thank you, sir.

But, as I've learned over the past six months, you can only hold on for so long.  Eventually, your fingers are going to have to give.  You then have a choice.  You can choose to turn and face the direction your life is heading or you can keep your back towards it and stay stationary as the rest of the world plows forward leaving you wedged somewhere between now and then.  I continued applauding along with the rest of the crowd as the lights went down on both the stage below and on the stage of my life I'd been so reluctant from which to exit.  In the semi-darkness we began to gather our things and as I went to pick up my bag from underneath my seat, I inhaled a breath, leaned over and took a bow. 

(Mel) "Oh my God, there's Chelsea Clinton!"

(Me) "Where!?"

(Mel) "Right there!  Wow, she looks so good.  She grew up so nicely!"

(Me) "I know!  She's not ugly anymore!  We should go tell her."

(Mel) "Right."

I mean, technically it would be a compliment.  In some strange, fucked up way.  Regardless, Chelsea Clinton had been sitting in our section with her secret service body guards the entire time.  Despite the fact that I really don't have an opinion on the girl whatsoever, it was still pretty damn cool to see her.  After mingling around the upper lobby of Studio 54, the three of us walked out of the theatre complete with an already rolled out red carpet.

(Me) "Aw, they didn't have to do that."

There was already a decent crowd waiting around the front of the theatre for a glimpse of our beloved cast.  I was prancing around the sidewalk talking to old friends as well as people I had never met before in my life and was about to do the same with a very cute guy I happened to spot on the other side of the crowd when Mel grabbed my shoulder. 

(Mel) "Cynthia Nixon is right behind you."

My heart stopped.

(Me) "Where!?"

She turned me around 180 degrees.  There, as if there was a halo of light surrounding her, was Miranda fucking Hobbes.  In the flesh.  And a pair of absolutely fabulous strappy sandals.  I couldn't speak.  I was literally frozen to my spot.  I immediately fumbled through my brain for something more intelligent to say to her than, "oh my Gawd, you're Miranda!" but the effort was futile.  I was stunned like a deer in the headlights.  I had met some pretty hefty celebrities prior to this and have always prided myself on being quite the smooth one in those situations but this was something totally off the map from anything else I had experienced before in my life.  People say that before you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes.  Well, apparently when you see a lead character from your all-time favorite show, you get entire seasons.  My brain was a jumble of "I have a lazy ovary," and "if you're friends won't go down on you, who will?"  I ran back towards Melissa for help.

(Me) "It would be corny to yell, 'I go to Charlotte's acting school,' right?"

(Mel) "Yes.  You definitely should not say that.  And you definitely should not refer to Kristin Davis as 'Charlotte.'"

(Me) "Good point."

While my brain continued turning to mush, as quickly as my second season boxed set flashed before my eyes, Cynthia "Miranda" Nixon was on her way down the street and turning the corner onto Eighth Avenue.  I missed my chance. 

(Me) "Fuck!  She left!  She left before I could meet her!"

(Mel) "Well, at least you saw Chelsea Clinton."

(Me) "Fuck Chelsea Clinton!  That was Miranda!"

Pissed and disappointed as I was, I suppose it's better that I didn't meet her.  When you get to be as die-hard a fan of Sex and the City as I am, the four characters become your friends.  If I had met Cynthia Nixon as opposed to meeting "Miranda," it would have thrown off the entire illusion.  Yes, probably better to not have ruined the fantasy.

Like fuck it is.  Shit.

Shit ... or "curses!"  as Mel and I would say now.

It was one of those things I had heard in passing that made me crack up for at least four blocks.  Someone had actually said, in place of "dammit" or "shit"  or "fuck," they exclaimed, "curses!" to express the fact that something had just pissed them off.  Just like the witch in the Wizard of Oz.  Not usually one to bite off other people's schtick, I thought it was brilliant and immediately threw it into heavy rotation.

(Me) "Miranda is turning the corner!  Curses!"

It's brilliant.  See, I'm laughing right now.

The thing I love most about hanging out with Melissa is the fact that when you say something funny enough to really make her laugh, she's very willing to be extremely generous with the laughter.  To the point where it makes you feel like Bob Hope reincarnate.  When you do succeed in making her crack up, it's a very ego-lifting thing as striking that chord with her is almost like archery.  You've got to hit the bull's eye of her very specific blend of humor.  Most of the time it happens when you're not even trying.

Once Anthony finally emerged from the theatre and we gave our hugs and kisses to each other, the three of us turned the corner onto Broadway for our twelve block hike back to the car.  As we passed by the Broadway Theatre, former home of Miss Saigon, a group of four hipply dressed gay men walked by in the opposite direction.  Usually oblivious to any sort of flirting aimed in my direction, I couldn't help my shock when I heard one of the guys utter what I can only describe as a sound of approval in my direction.

"I was just 'mmm-ed' at!" I gasped like a four year old child out of pure reflex.

Melissa stopped and laughed for a good two minutes.  Once I realized what I had happened, I stopped and laughed, too.  Of course, I was so into the fact that I had hit Mel's laughter target that I'd completely forgotten to check out the hot guy who actually did the "mmm-ing."  The one time I notice it I forget to notice him. 

Curses!  Foiled again!