I love Songs for a New World. I love its message of hope. I love the tight harmonies, the amazing voices in the cast, and I love the lighting design. Simply put, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never been a part of anything like it. And it’s an honor.
We open tomorrow night, and for once, I’m actually ready. My costumes are finished, everything else I was supposed to do (for this show, it was minimal; I had to make a 95 lb. high school senior look like she was about to have a baby in, like, ten seconds, a feat that I accomplished with cotton batting, muslin, a six dollar bra from K-Mart, hot glue, and safety pins…pure genius) is done. As far as tech goes for me, it’s pretty simple, which is good. I don’t have any really fast changes; my hair and makeup don’t have to be insane. I don’t have to create enormous, droopy, false breasts made from a nursing bra and two of Sam’s sweaters. What I do have to do is remember the words to these songs, and to remember the alto line. Here’s my dirty little secret: I’m not really an alto. I’m a soprano with a freaking huge range. But in nearly every choir I’ve ever sung with, I’ve sung soprano. And sopranos? Sopranos sing melody. Sopranos have it soooooo easy. Because we just pick the top note and sing it. Even if it isn’t the melody, it’s easy to pick out: it’s the highest note. Duh. But altos have it rough. The alto line frequently consists of no more than three notes, no more than a half-step apart, and we’re the ones with the weird, dissonant notes. So this show has been really hard for me to learn, because I’m trying not to sing soprano out of sheer habit AND to remember which of the three notes I’m supposed to sing when. It’s tough music, but gorgeous, and I’m crazy about it. It’s a challenge. I needed that. Also, it has given me some much-nee
ded perspective and empathy for my alto sistas. I feel ya, hons.
I’m completely carried away, giddy, one might say, with my costumes. My mommy made them, then I covered them with glitter and hot glued marabou trim to them. (Is there anything hot glue CAN’T do?) They are completely preposterous, hilarious, and, in their own weird way, beautiful. I’m so completely tickled with myself in them; really, I am.
You see, here’s the thing: last night, I put on a pair of pants I haven’t fit into since high school. And you know what I felt? Complete disbelief. I fit into the wedding dress from my first marriage. More easily than I did then, actually. (I'm thinking a party is in order: I'll wear the dress, we'll dance in the streets, and celebrate my liberation from the Ghost of Husbands Past. Margaritas will be served, and there will be Dancing Boys. I'm recruiting Mike and Charlie. So step to it, boys.) It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve actually done this. I’ve lost nearly sixty pounds. That’s, like, a fourth grader, right? I’m thinner now than I have been since I got back from my honeymoon with my ex-husband. That’s a reference point for you. (After months of crash dieting to fit into a wedding dress, then hopping into a car with a college boy who could survive, seriously, on nothing but Coca-Cola and Cheetos, you tend to slip up from any healthy eating plans.) So…since 2003, I had been gaining weight, then I met Husband, who was all, “You are so beautiful and it doesn’t matter what you weigh…here…have some cake,” and then I got PREGNANT, and God only knows how I managed to gain any weight at all while I was throwing up constantly, but somehow I gained a billion pounds. Granted, he was a nine pound baby, but still…it was pretty impressive. When Sam was four weeks old, I was so depressed and miserable that I had to do something, so I went to Weight Watchers. I will never forget that day: it was freezing, and I was wearing maternity pants and one of Steve’s shirts, and a bandana over my hair. I sat in the back of the room, nursing Sam (which is what I did ALL THE FREAKING TIME) and thinking this would never work. And you know what? It did. It totally worked. I have sixteen pounds left to lose to reach my goal weight, which is what I weighed when I was a sophomore in high school.
What’s weird about it is that it’s hard for me to see myself. I can’t look at myself and see, “Oh, I’ve lost all this weight.” I have to look at the clothes, the numbers, the measurements. I have to look at how people treat me differently. Sometimes it makes me really mad, because I’ll walk into a store and people are SO much nicer to me now, and ask if they can help me find anything. Before, I was invisible. It’s a real eye-opener. Kind of like when Tyra Banks wore the fat suit as a “social experiment” but a little bit less offensive and a lot more real.
Some things haven’t changed at all. Husband, for example. He’s glad I’m happier and healthier, and that I’m going to probably live a lot longer, but there has been no change in his slavish devotion to me, and he has never ONCE said that I look “so much hotter now,” which I had been dreading. To say that would be to negate all the things he told me when we fell in love, and he would never do that, because I don’t think he believes it. He is one of those rare, beautiful people who really does see what is inside a person, and it really didn’t matter to him what I weighed. He loved me the first time we rolled our eyes in unison to something Dumb Girl said. Then our eyes met, mid-roll, and I knew I had found my soul mate: someone to openly mock stupid people with for all time. I’m sure we’ll be in a nursing home one day, and I’ll turn to him and say, “Did you see how tacky Florence’s shoes are?” and he’ll snap his arthritic fingers and say, “Whore,” and I’ll look deep into his eyes, reflecting our many beautiful years together, and I’ll say, “Who are you again?” We were truly made for each other.
But I digress.
My point is that I’m unable to look at my own reflection and think, “I look hot.” That’s simply not something I’m able to do. Sure, I can say that my hair is kicking major butt, or that I have outstanding fashion sense, but I remain the harshest critic of the overall package. After so long, I just can’t think of myself that way. Yesterday, a creepy guy at CVS was hitting on me and I genuinely believed that he wanted to know where I got my bumper sticker. (Malaprop’s in Asheville) It just didn’t occur to me that he was interested in me until he asked if I was single. It’s a whole mindset thing, you know? I usually have a baby attached to me, and men don’t tend to approach that. But when I put on the costume of a character who is beautiful (albeit in kind of a skanky way), I can see it. I can see how far I’ve come. And I can see that I’m never going to go back.
Kirstie Alley was just on the cover of People magazine for having gained back 83 pounds after quitting Jenny Craig. Well…of course she did. Jenny Craig doesn’t teach you HOW to eat. They give you food, prepackaged, and tell you, “Eat this and you’ll lose weight.” Well, sure. But what about the real world? How can you learn healthy eating habits when everything is done for you?That is also my problem with Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook, “Deceptively Delicious”, in which she includes recipes for sneaking vegetables into your family’s meals so they don’t know they’re eating something healthy. While I think, sure, if you’re making macaroni and cheese anyway, why not stir in some butternut squash puree, but here’s the problem there: once your kids grow up, and go into the real world, they’re going to continue to eat the way they were raised to eat. But no one is going to be sneaking veggies into their food in the dining hall on campus, or in their first apartment. Teaching your child to eat fruits and vegetables is the job of a parent. Period. That’s what you’re supposed to do so that you kid will grow up strong and healthy. Sneaking spinach into brownies is not only, you know, gross, but it isn’t going to help your kids learn healthy eating habits. Sorry. Okay. I’m done with my vegetable tirade…
The thing about the weight loss is that it has allowed me to do something I never thought I would be able to do: to stand on a stage in a really short skirt and really tall boots and feel completely confident. Yes, I know I look ridiculous. But it’s my joke this time.
Come see Songs for a New World. The music is amazing. And after sixteen months, so are my legs
We open tomorrow night, and for once, I’m actually ready. My costumes are finished, everything else I was supposed to do (for this show, it was minimal; I had to make a 95 lb. high school senior look like she was about to have a baby in, like, ten seconds, a feat that I accomplished with cotton batting, muslin, a six dollar bra from K-Mart, hot glue, and safety pins…pure genius) is done. As far as tech goes for me, it’s pretty simple, which is good. I don’t have any really fast changes; my hair and makeup don’t have to be insane. I don’t have to create enormous, droopy, false breasts made from a nursing bra and two of Sam’s sweaters. What I do have to do is remember the words to these songs, and to remember the alto line. Here’s my dirty little secret: I’m not really an alto. I’m a soprano with a freaking huge range. But in nearly every choir I’ve ever sung with, I’ve sung soprano. And sopranos? Sopranos sing melody. Sopranos have it soooooo easy. Because we just pick the top note and sing it. Even if it isn’t the melody, it’s easy to pick out: it’s the highest note. Duh. But altos have it rough. The alto line frequently consists of no more than three notes, no more than a half-step apart, and we’re the ones with the weird, dissonant notes. So this show has been really hard for me to learn, because I’m trying not to sing soprano out of sheer habit AND to remember which of the three notes I’m supposed to sing when. It’s tough music, but gorgeous, and I’m crazy about it. It’s a challenge. I needed that. Also, it has given me some much-nee
ded perspective and empathy for my alto sistas. I feel ya, hons.I’m completely carried away, giddy, one might say, with my costumes. My mommy made them, then I covered them with glitter and hot glued marabou trim to them. (Is there anything hot glue CAN’T do?) They are completely preposterous, hilarious, and, in their own weird way, beautiful. I’m so completely tickled with myself in them; really, I am.
You see, here’s the thing: last night, I put on a pair of pants I haven’t fit into since high school. And you know what I felt? Complete disbelief. I fit into the wedding dress from my first marriage. More easily than I did then, actually. (I'm thinking a party is in order: I'll wear the dress, we'll dance in the streets, and celebrate my liberation from the Ghost of Husbands Past. Margaritas will be served, and there will be Dancing Boys. I'm recruiting Mike and Charlie. So step to it, boys.) It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve actually done this. I’ve lost nearly sixty pounds. That’s, like, a fourth grader, right? I’m thinner now than I have been since I got back from my honeymoon with my ex-husband. That’s a reference point for you. (After months of crash dieting to fit into a wedding dress, then hopping into a car with a college boy who could survive, seriously, on nothing but Coca-Cola and Cheetos, you tend to slip up from any healthy eating plans.) So…since 2003, I had been gaining weight, then I met Husband, who was all, “You are so beautiful and it doesn’t matter what you weigh…here…have some cake,” and then I got PREGNANT, and God only knows how I managed to gain any weight at all while I was throwing up constantly, but somehow I gained a billion pounds. Granted, he was a nine pound baby, but still…it was pretty impressive. When Sam was four weeks old, I was so depressed and miserable that I had to do something, so I went to Weight Watchers. I will never forget that day: it was freezing, and I was wearing maternity pants and one of Steve’s shirts, and a bandana over my hair. I sat in the back of the room, nursing Sam (which is what I did ALL THE FREAKING TIME) and thinking this would never work. And you know what? It did. It totally worked. I have sixteen pounds left to lose to reach my goal weight, which is what I weighed when I was a sophomore in high school.
What’s weird about it is that it’s hard for me to see myself. I can’t look at myself and see, “Oh, I’ve lost all this weight.” I have to look at the clothes, the numbers, the measurements. I have to look at how people treat me differently. Sometimes it makes me really mad, because I’ll walk into a store and people are SO much nicer to me now, and ask if they can help me find anything. Before, I was invisible. It’s a real eye-opener. Kind of like when Tyra Banks wore the fat suit as a “social experiment” but a little bit less offensive and a lot more real.
Some things haven’t changed at all. Husband, for example. He’s glad I’m happier and healthier, and that I’m going to probably live a lot longer, but there has been no change in his slavish devotion to me, and he has never ONCE said that I look “so much hotter now,” which I had been dreading. To say that would be to negate all the things he told me when we fell in love, and he would never do that, because I don’t think he believes it. He is one of those rare, beautiful people who really does see what is inside a person, and it really didn’t matter to him what I weighed. He loved me the first time we rolled our eyes in unison to something Dumb Girl said. Then our eyes met, mid-roll, and I knew I had found my soul mate: someone to openly mock stupid people with for all time. I’m sure we’ll be in a nursing home one day, and I’ll turn to him and say, “Did you see how tacky Florence’s shoes are?” and he’ll snap his arthritic fingers and say, “Whore,” and I’ll look deep into his eyes, reflecting our many beautiful years together, and I’ll say, “Who are you again?” We were truly made for each other.
But I digress.
My point is that I’m unable to look at my own reflection and think, “I look hot.” That’s simply not something I’m able to do. Sure, I can say that my hair is kicking major butt, or that I have outstanding fashion sense, but I remain the harshest critic of the overall package. After so long, I just can’t think of myself that way. Yesterday, a creepy guy at CVS was hitting on me and I genuinely believed that he wanted to know where I got my bumper sticker. (Malaprop’s in Asheville) It just didn’t occur to me that he was interested in me until he asked if I was single. It’s a whole mindset thing, you know? I usually have a baby attached to me, and men don’t tend to approach that. But when I put on the costume of a character who is beautiful (albeit in kind of a skanky way), I can see it. I can see how far I’ve come. And I can see that I’m never going to go back.
Kirstie Alley was just on the cover of People magazine for having gained back 83 pounds after quitting Jenny Craig. Well…of course she did. Jenny Craig doesn’t teach you HOW to eat. They give you food, prepackaged, and tell you, “Eat this and you’ll lose weight.” Well, sure. But what about the real world? How can you learn healthy eating habits when everything is done for you?That is also my problem with Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook, “Deceptively Delicious”, in which she includes recipes for sneaking vegetables into your family’s meals so they don’t know they’re eating something healthy. While I think, sure, if you’re making macaroni and cheese anyway, why not stir in some butternut squash puree, but here’s the problem there: once your kids grow up, and go into the real world, they’re going to continue to eat the way they were raised to eat. But no one is going to be sneaking veggies into their food in the dining hall on campus, or in their first apartment. Teaching your child to eat fruits and vegetables is the job of a parent. Period. That’s what you’re supposed to do so that you kid will grow up strong and healthy. Sneaking spinach into brownies is not only, you know, gross, but it isn’t going to help your kids learn healthy eating habits. Sorry. Okay. I’m done with my vegetable tirade…
The thing about the weight loss is that it has allowed me to do something I never thought I would be able to do: to stand on a stage in a really short skirt and really tall boots and feel completely confident. Yes, I know I look ridiculous. But it’s my joke this time.
Come see Songs for a New World. The music is amazing. And after sixteen months, so are my legs
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