"I'm Still Here" (FOLLIES)

Oh my gosh, I actually went through the weekend with no kind of volleyball--no association or play, which has not happened in a LONG time. I mean my Saturday and Sunday had no volleyball, period. I didn't even see anyone that is associated with that part of my life, it was weird. But I did have a great weekend. I started my Saturday off by doing the start of some serious cleaning on my bathroom and kitchen. I didn't really mention too much about the situation of my apartment. For the past five months there have been leaks in my bathroom and kitchen that has caused part of the ceiling to fall. Every time it looked like it had dried up, there would be more leaks coming from some other source. There were problems with my neighbors upstairs at least three floors up that was checked and corrected, but every time one problem got fixed, another one would pop up. It was a little irritating yet I was pretty calm but it was my roommate who was really understanding. Anyway, they finally were able to get into the last apartment where a problem could be after many, many attempts to get access (don't even get me started on that one), and they got it fixed so after a week or so with no more leaks they were able to start repair on my ceilings. So at the end of the week, the paint had finally dried and I could start the process of putting my bathroom and kitchen back together again. Five months of ceiling disaster, ugh.

After I did my morning beginnings with the bathroom, I met up with Trisha and DMT. DMT, also known as Michelle, is an old friend that Ngoc and I met on the rush line for CHICAGO back in the spring of 2000. She eventually introduced us to Trisha and the start of crazy theatre adventures began. She is visiting from Alabama and we decided to do some karaoke. We had not been with DMT for some karaoke in a long time, and for three musical theatre crazies it was a perfect time to seriously belt out so many great theatre songs. And it was a blast. No one can understand my "Good Morning Baltimore" like they could. DMT had other plans for the evening so after a quick bite, she left us and we decided to catch a movie, "Waitress." It was a cute movie with Keri Russell and just made you appreciate the power of change in your own life and how not to take that for granted because not a lot of people have that chance. At least that is what I got from it. Then it was totally raining when we came out of the movie theatre which was so not supposed to happen.

Sunday was supposed to be about some tennis play but because the rain the courts were not available for play. So I did some shopping and continued on my cleaning project (scraping and painting leaves a lot of dust and chips). I met up with DMT for a matinee of GREY GARDENS. This is one of the new musicals this season that I've been wanting to catch and so glad that we did. She got the student rush tickets pretty easy and we were sitting on the front row center, totally awesome seats. It was such an interesting play and I wanted to see it for Christine Ebersole's portrayal of characters, Edith and Edie. By the end of the show during her passionate number I was completely drawn into her crazed world and I was pushed to such emotion that it was heartbreaking. Very few performances truly move you and this is one for the books, and next month she'll get to put another Tony Award into her collection that she's already received for this role.