Glad Tidings For Comfort and Joy

"You’ve heard others say it, maybe you’ve said it yourself. 'It was the best thing that ever happened to me.' The 'it' to which these people are referring is a crisis. Some sort of meltdown."

That's how the sermon started. . .

"We all know what it’s like to experience a crisis, to be forced to the bedrock of our existence as our world comes crumbling down around us. " he continued.

It wasn't long before I was wiping tears off my face, as he talked about losing his father at a young age and how good that was, and then I was wiping ropes of snot onto the back of my hand and wiping it off on my socks. Yeah, you think I would have used my sleeve, but I had a really pretty sweater on.

One moment I thought I was going to break out into sobs, and I took a deep breath and some spit got into my lungs so I had a coughing fit instead.

Comfort and joy, my eye. Oh, and after slipping back in to my own vacant pew, once I'd settled myself in the men's room, I started all over again just because it was communion Sunday. In addition to anything else, that means an extra organ piece. Mama's an organist too. Has been for about a hundred years . . .

It was awful. Next time I see the pastor, I'm going to stick my tongue out at him.

After that, and a couple of glasses of wine for lunch. . .ok, three glasses of wine . . . I went to the command audition for Forever Plaid. You know that crying your eyes out does nothing helpful if you're trying to trick directors and producers into thinking that you might, maybe with the right lighting, pass for a twenty-something. But it didn't matter because it was just a formality. There was nobody else being considered! Yep, I was cast without auditioning.

I still had to go though the motions though. I sang my song, as if I couldn't have cared less . . . of course I didn't care at all. I just wanted to get stoned.

Then I sang with the other cast members, and, oh my God, was it good. Heaven perhaps. The bass wasn't there, maybe we can just do the show without him.

"So. . ." they say, "let's have him read. . .what the hell." So everybody up, stage manager reading for the bass, and it's Frankie's final speach. It's huge. It was great. I could tell that they all thought it was amazing how much I got in touch with the emotion of the scene, at an audition! Ha! I wonder if any of them knew how much crying I'd done. Yeah, I blew them away.