December 29, 1999

IF PARSLEY WERE DAILY... Day Two. Well, 12:45 a.m....so Day Three technically...but I'm still up so it's Day Two. And if it's 12:45 a.m., this entry should be a real treat. Andy's mom got us all tickets to go see The Buddy Holly Story at the Shubert Theatre tonight. I thought about crying as soon as I spotted the actor playing Buddy, but I thought I'd hold out until the end. We had front row balcony seats, but at intermission we snuck down to the front row. It's good that I didn't cry until the end because apparently, the entire cast enjoyed my tears. I tried really hard to control myself, and I think I was almost successful. But the thought of the Big Bopper guy and Ritchie Valens and Buddy dying at such young ages and at the height of their careers was too much to handle. When the finale of the show--their last performance at some festival in Iowa--started, I couldn't stand it and I allowed myself to cry. In fact, I'm a little misty right now just typing this. I cry a lot. The older I get the more I cry. I used to just get really sad. I remember being about seven or eight and thinking about old people...I'd think about them until I got myself good and worked up and sad, but I wouldn't cry. I seem to have lost that mechanism that allows you to block tears when you don't feel like showing them, because pretty much nothing stops me from weeping openly if the mood should strike. The morning of the rehearsal dinner for my wedding was also the morning after my bachelorette party. Some of my bridesmaids and I were going to get our nails done after a trip to McDonald's for breakfast. When I got into Colleen's car for the trip, all of the pressure that had been building up in the months before our wedding came to a head, and I started to cry for no apparent reason. Someone tried to stop me, but Colleen waved her hand at me. "Just let it out, sister," she told me in a no-nonsense tone. "Cry all you want. Just let it out." I gratefully accepted her offer and she guided me through the rest of the day, even ordering breakfast for me when I couldn't speak. Andy and I were eating in a Burger King one day when an old man came in alone and sat directly in my line of sight. "Oh no," I said. "Hurry up." Andy looked over his shoulder and immediately understood. As a rule, I don't like to see old people at restaurants by themselves. It makes me too sad. I dream up all sorts of horrible scenarios--fragile octogenarians shattered by the loss of their lifelong companion...the grandpa everyone forgot...so if there are old people in restaurants, Andy knows to seat me facing away from them. I'm not saying they shouldn't be there...I want all of the old people to be out having fun...I just don't want to watch them. But this old man came in after we were seated, and he sat five feet away from me. I was doing fine until, about halfway through his meal, he pulled his medicine out of his pocket. Then tears started falling down my cheeks and splashing into my ketchup. He had so many pills. He set them all out on his tray and took them one by one, washing them down with his senior-citizen-sized coffee. "Andy!" I whispered. "He has so many pills! What do you think is wrong with him? Should he be driving? Oh, at least he remembered to take them with food!" So after the show we had to wait for Andy and his mom to get our coats from coat-check, and by the time they emerged from the line, members of the cast were filtering out and standing around with us. As our little party stood on the sidewalk outside of the theater, debating whether or not to go to Ed Debevic's, I noticed one of the cast members pointing at me. "And THIS girl," he said, "CRIED for the ENTIRE ENDING." Oh no. "Me?" I asked innocently. "Yeah! We were talking about it backstage and we said we musta been good if we made you cry." He wouldn't have been so gleeful had he known the emotional constitution of the person he was dealing with. Wanna be notified when I update? Send mail and thou shalt receive!