Diary of an Anorexic Thespian (1)

      I am woken from a blissful, dreamless sleep by the droning of my alarm clock. It beeps over and over and over again, until finally I cannot stand the sound any longer. I rip off my nice warm covers, push my feet over the edge of the bed and roll to the floor with a solid thunk. My head hits my lamp, which I cannot even recall placing by the bed, and I swear in frusteration. Fuck. This was going to be a good day, I could tell. Quickly and clumsily I rise to my hands and knees, crawl to the opposite side of my room and pick up my alarm from the floor. The red numbers glare at me, reading 5:00am. I shut it off. Finally, some quiet. Eyes still closed, head throbbing, stomach clenching around air, I sit up and get dressed. After that, I silently stumble up the stairs, turn to my right and go into the bathroom. After my face is washed, my makeup applied and hair brushed, I once again turn to the scale. This morning is not so bad. I am wearing clothes, so I know the weight cannot be relied upon, but still I weigh. I weigh 132 pounds, so I figure that it must be the clothes. It has to be.

      After I am ready for the day, I creep into the kitchen. The clock reads 5:30, so I am right on track. I pull out our white KitchenAid mixer, plug it in and begin today with two cups of butter, six cups of flour, four eggs, two tablespoons of vanilla, three cups of sugar, three cups of chocolate chips, one and a half tablespoons of baking soda and a dash of cinnamon for my own twist on the recipe. The oven is preheated and stable, the cookie sheets are lined with parchment paper, and I am ready. Tray after tray after tray of cookies go into the oven, and the entire time I am beseaching myself to not eat it. Not touch it. It is off limits, because I am a fat fucker. Sadly, at seven, when the cookies are cooling and ready to be packed up in tins, I crack. Fail. Fall. I eat the raw batter from the bowl, mixer, spatula and spoons, licking them all clean. Move on; eat three cookies. Move on; have an egg on toast. Move on; kneel before the porcelain god, trying desprately to choke it all up before it's too late. I am forced to move on when I hear my mother wake up and head for the bathroom. Another attmept to purge, another fail. An epic binge, like the many others before it that had gotten me to this elaphantine size. Before she knows I was in there, I slip out and sit at the table, quietly counting cookies into tins. The actors, band and crew all love me for making them these things. I wonder if they know how much it really costs me.

      When quarter to eight rolls around, I sigh in releif. I don my coat, purse, and shoes, grab the cookies, and go. Mom drives me to the theater, unaware of what has happened this morning. Doesn't know I'd like to cut more than anything else right now. I say I love her, hop out of the car, and open the door that leads to my sanctuary. The theater, the greenroom, the fly floor, lighting crib, spotlight, catwalk, stage, grid, all of it. I love every inch of this old, creaky building, and it is what pulls me through my days, months and now, years. I walk into the greenroom, set my stuff down with a thunk and slam the cookie tins down on the table. Immediately, crew starts filing in from the theater, greeting me as they come.
"Hi, Sam!"
"Hey, Sammy!"
"Cookies!"
"'Sup?"
I smile and open the lid, and they all crowd around, peering in. I announce loudly, "It's chocolate chip today, guys. Your favorite."
I get a lot of thanks, grins, hi-fives and pats on the back. Curtis takes off his hat and put it on my head. A rare privelege; for whoever dons the hat gets a certain amount of social power for the day. I smile, chat, and move out on stage. Today the walls attatched to the truck units must be painted black, so I grab a roller and tray from the sink, get a tin of black paint and a chisel from the tool crib. Once I'm set up, I paint it all for an hour or so. Other people, including my two best friends in the world, come and go. They talk with me, play with me, and a few new jokes are made up. My favorite: 'Come to the dark side, we have the cookies hostage.'
      Crew must be in all black for shows, so we call ourselves the dark side. Actors are light side, and band is in some grey area along with the makeup crew. Many, many jokes find their home in that order of operation, and that's fine with me. Later on in the day, the actors start coming in. The crew has been at the theater for five hours already, and most of the cookies are gone. Tha actors complain, and the crew shrewdly suggests that they show up earlier to help work. That shuts them up. We set up for top of show, I don a bright yellow safety harness, and climb up two stories worth of ladder to get to Fly Floor. M.L. greets me from my right. She is five feet below me, on a catwalk attatched to the side of the theater. There is a ladder leading down from this level of fly floor to it, and all along the walls are pullies and ropes, weights and sticks, used for raising the curtains and lights up and down. She turns to me, headset clamped to the side of her face, and waves. I wave back. The bluelights make her face look funny and pale, but I hardly notice anymore. This is my home, and the bluelights are as familliar and comforting as anything else. I turn to my left, step up a three foot ladder, and then crouch to creep through the ceiling. This ceiling literally hangs over the audience. In fact, I were to step in the wrong place, I would crack through the drywall, fall thirty feet down, and probably take out a few expensive seats with me. To avoid hitting my head, I crouch all the way to the catwalk and sometimes duck even lower in order to avoid hitting my head on the metal pipes that crisscross the ceiling of the ceiling. Bluelights illuminate this area, too, and even thought they're dim I have no problem making my way to my station. Spotlight is my specialty, my niche, just like M.L. always does flies and J. always bosses us around. We all work together very smoothly as a team when we all know where our places are.

      I get to my catwalk, the second one in. I must climb down a three foot ladder to get onto the actual catwalk. It is about halfway through the theater, suspended over the seats by metal rods welded to the ceiling and to it. There is five feet of clearance between it and the ceiling, so I crouch all the way over to my spotlight. I get the new spotlight, because the old one is a pain to use. I did learn to use the spotlights on the old one, and I was very good at it, but it is so big I have to lean halfway out over the audience to open and close the blackout gel and other gels on it. After that, I must hold it still (or move it, depending on what the actor is doing) with one hand while leaning back again to reach the lever that operates the iris. The light is also extremely heavy, so holding it for any length of time gets very painful. The new one, on the other hand, is easy to operate with two hands. It is shorter and lighter than the old one, and the iris and gels are within easy reach of the handhold. I love the old one in a nostalgic way, but the new one gets my vote every time.

      Tonight we are doing a runthrough. That means sitting up there for three hours, waiting in vain for J. to give me a cue. She is the SM this year, and even though I think she's in over her head, I know we'll get by. We always do. After all, the show must go on! I clip my harness, lovingly called 'the umbilical cord' or 'the bondage suit', to a metal rod behind me. Hopefully those things will hold up to the strain of my fat ass falling over the side. I turn on my spot, don the old, clunky headset, and flick the switch to talk.
"Sam on headset."
"Sammy!" J. and M.L. call at the same time. I laugh, and click the switch again. J and ML are sisters.
"How long until we start?"
"Who knows?" J. says, "The actors are very unpredictable. Besides, the guys have an Xbox in their changeroom, not to mention a mini fridge and microwave. They may never come out. M.L., are you working on it?"
"Yeah," M.L. sighs, "Tonight I'm taking the cable from the back of it and hanging it from grid. That'll show them. You know what, why don't I just take the whole Xbox and put it up there? That might be better."
I hear laughing from multiple people.
"M.L., how are you going to carry it all the way up there? Just take the cord. Besides, it's not like Packrat's clothes. If they fall, they're fine. If the Xbox falls, you're buying." J. says.
More laughter.
"Carl on headset."
"Hi Carl." I say, "What's up?"
"Um," He hmmms, "I think we're starting soon. Ben, you on?"
"Yeah" A deeper voice comes through. Ben works at the theater as the technical director.
"Okay," Carl says, "Hey, J. Trivial Pursuit. And, by the way, I lost the game. Ha."
Everyone groans and yells at Carl. Nobody swears, because if you swear over headset you must buy donuts for crew. It's a rule.
"Okay," J. says, "Where were the Wimbledon tennis championships held?"
"Minnesota?" Ben guesses.
"Albequerque?" M.L. asks.
"Somewhere in the U.S., right?" Carl ponders. I laugh and click my set on.
"Wimbledon?" I say.
J. laughs. "YES! Thank you, Sam. I don't know what we'd do without you. Okay, no more. We're starting. Stef, you there?"
"Yeah, sound is here." Stef says.
"Okay, cue sound eleven, 'Stray Cat Strut'. Standby LX one, two, three and three point five. Standby fly one." J. starts giving orders, and I zone out. The play isn't bad, but it is most certainly not good. I don't have any cues for a few scenes, so I can wait.

      A few scenes in, and I still have not gotten any cues. I flick on my set.
"J.?"
"Yeah, Sam?"
"Am I getting my cues today?"
"It doesn't look like it. Sorry. You can goof off or something. Screw with the actor's minds. Make them paranoid."
I laugh.
"Can do. Sam off."
"Bye Sam."
I switch of my set and hang it on the wire behind me. I can have some fun now, maybe play spotlight tag with the extras. To play, all you do is open up the light on a random person. The light is bright and hot, and very uncomfortable. Naturally, they try to get away by stepping out of it. You just keep the light trained on them and watch as they grow more and more panicked, running back and forth in an effort to lose it. Eventually, they squint their eyes and look up at me, flipping me the bird. I just laugh and put an amber gel over it, dulling the harsh light somewhat. I usually chose a few victims to continually bug. It is a lot of fun. 

      About halfway through the runthrough, I'm still playing tag. The actor is new and doesn't even realize that crew exists, nevermind that there is an actual person operating the light. It's very amusing. Suddenly, the light goes out with a large BANG! Sparks fly in every direction, and the pillow I have under my knees almost catches on fire. I hastily pick it up and beat out the spark, then reach over and turn off the light. Damn it! This is the second time this has happened to me. The first time it shorted out, but I almost caught my pants on fire. This time it appears that the bulb is too old. It just blew up. I unplug the light and turn on my headset. On stage, everyone is frozen. They all look up at the ceiling, unsure of where I am. I wave.
"Sam! Sam! Are you okay? Sam!"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay, I'm okay, J. The spotlight blew up, that's all."
"Sam?" I hear Ben's worried voice. "You allright? What happened?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. the bulb blew out. I'm coming down now, we're almost done anyways."
"Okay. See you soon."
I turn off my set, unhook the harness and trek back down to the sound crib. People continually ask me what happened, and even though I'm shaken I clamly answer and brush off their concern. Well, at least I had had some exitement. When the night finally ends, I climb into my car. My mother has come to pick me up, and she doesn't ask about my day. I don't tell her.
That night, I dream of sparks and chocolate milkshakes.