And yet another:

Expresso...really, really, fast coffee.

So today was a lesson in humility. Funny how the word "humility" is the root of "humiliation".

I cannot, absolutely cannot, dance.

I can shake my ass in a club. I can do a few sensuous strip tease moves and wiggle my hips and run my hands through my hair...I can even do a decent hip-swivel-turn and the Lawn Mower and a little move I like to call "The Crank". But put me on stage, ask me to do a kick-ball change, and suddenly I'm--and yes, this is really, really horrible what I'm about to say, so you should probably stop reading--suddenly I'm Christopher Reeve...post traumatic horse accident. No, scratch that, I'm Christopher Reeve's love child with Elaine Bettis. I'm freakin' Chrislayne Rettis. A fish that has just been snared and is flopping around in the bottom of a dinghy, sucking nothing but burning, dry air into its parched little gills has more grace and style than I.

It's not that I don't try. And it's not that I don't have confidence that I can do it (eventually...after some sort of lobotomy or perhaps brain washing or maybe gene splicing). It's just that, plain and simple, I suck. And I'm not saying this to get sympathy. My attempts are quite laughable, actually. You'd laugh the way you'd laugh the at Autistic kid who's been taught to say, "Nice ta-ta's" to every girl that walks by (true story)...you'd think it's funny at first, and then, when you really applied some brain cells, you'd realize it was just plain sad.

That's me...in jazz shoes.

So, needless to say, I'm a little well, yes, embarrassed, humiliated, and maybe show-up-to-work-in-my-underwear ashamed, but I'm also a tad freaked out. This character that I've created is one of my best. She's a culmination of a few years of ups and downs and a new maturity in my acting, and my voice (thanks to my new voice teacher) is better than ever, and for all "intensive purposes" (ha!) I should rock this show (if I do say so myself). But then, right in the middle of everything, I have to move this body, Fastrada's body, and I feel like all the hard work I've done up to this point will be overshadowed by my grotesque two left feet.

"That one girl was good, but she sure can't dance."

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm afraid it will ruin my entire character, or ruin the experience of the character for the audience. Now, I know that I'm being dire to some degree, but really, people, I'm not sure you're understanding me here. William Hung could dance circles around me. Kevin Bacon would have given up on me and gone looking for another preachers daughter to corrupt. I make the Star Wars kid look like a fucking ballerina (sorry, Heather.)

Big sigh...I think I'll go eat something fatty to cheer myself up. Oh great. Yeah. That'll help me move better.

Okay, I think I'll go eat something fatty to cheer myself up.