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This is what a storm crow looks like.

Mystery Nutcracker went relatively well. My "husband" in party scene, who also happens to be the Dance Master kept saying, "hmm isn't it mysterious?" all throughout party scene. It got to a point where I was alternately stifling laughter and setting him up for "hmm, mysterious" responses. The orchestra, which happens to be composed of students, sounded much much better than in all the rehearsals. We were all happily surprised that they played everything together and well. There were a couple of shaky points in rehearsal where literally half the orchestra was playing a measure behind the other half, and there was just no reconciling it. In those situations, we would usually half cringe and laugh uncomfortably. But during the show there were no such incidents. Thankfully.

The shows on Sunday went very well also. This time they were regular Nutcracker with canned music. And even though it's so much better overall to see a show with live music, I felt so much more secure with our usual music-from-CD show...even if it does reveal our company to be a little low budget. My last Rat Queen run went well, and I think (but who really knows) the audience appreciated my Swan Lake death. Both a cute little ballet joke and a possible foreshadowing of the future for BTM (yikes). Nothing beats the stone cold silence I got during the second run of school shows. For those, I chose to die in more pop-culture way, so that everyone can get a laugh, even for the "only nutcracker" ballet viewers. The first week was the time-honored cabbage patch dance move. There were a few chuckles and sniggers for that. But the second week, which was this past Thursday, I did the robot, and then died as a robot, then died as the rat queen. As I was standing there, letting my robot arms swing and go limp, I thought I heard a cricket or two. Or maybe a pin drop. Or a tree in a distant forest fall.

Not even a pity chortle. Oh well. I got paid ten dollars for that show, so my robot moves were worth something to someone.

Anyways, the first show on Sunday I had a little fan club out in the audience. I was actually really nervous to perform because they were only seeing me once. In the past my parents would see almost every show I danced in (their choice, not mine. Cross my heart and hope to die). So the one time only deal got my nerves a-janglin'. But everything went pretty well. Afterwards, literally everyone was offering to get me food. With another show looming so incredibly close, I couldn't have eaten much even if I wanted to. But the lack of vittles was such a hot button issue that I found it quite humorous. I pretended to swoon from hunger and there were hundreds of "are you sure you're okay?"s. I'll have to remind everyone how eager they were to feed me then the next time I want to go out to eat.

But here I am now, safe and sound in good ol' Tallmadge Ohio. It's freezing, there is snow on the ground, and the sun set at about 4:45. Already a recipe for depression. On the drive back so many crappy things happened, I really hope that it's not foreshadowing something. There was an insane wreck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, so we were stuck in traffic for about an hour and a half...with no exit in sight. So there was no escape. This made my Dad extra happy. Then we hit another wreck once we crossed over the Ohio border. So we took the long way on all the back roads. In the midst of all that, I had a conversation with my ex which ended with him hanging up on me in a huff. It started out nice, and he was comforting me. But I'm not sure how it ended up so shitty. Oh well, I'm not letting it bother me too much because there is so much personal growth and self-improvement that needs to be attended to.

Tomorrow evening my sister and her boyfriend will be back in the states. This means my schedule will be full of family and doing things that can only be done stateside. I hope a few of those include things I can only do while here, like going to eat at a Jimmy John's or Swensons.

That's all for now. Until next time.