2008 -I was asleep before my head hit the pillow







Day 1
It is kind of cold and very rainy. We are sort of waiting for jess and beau to arrive so we can officially park. My trapeze got soaked on the coach. I feel a sickness coming on. I wish I had patched the roof. How did everything get to be so fucked up? Fresia can read her own fortune cookies. I wish I wasn’t alone. I wish I had planned better. I hope I can get out of this new hole. I really want happily ever after. Whatever that is. Wow, I freak out too easy………………..Today set up, the show, balloons, was a little tiresome and hard but amazing!!! Oh boy how uninteresting and vague. But wait we took the orange a-frame ladder and ratchet strapped the extension ladder to it!!! Cool and Scary.
Day 2 a theatre, dressing rooms with show biz lighting! I hung 20-30 feet of cable from a catwalk talk about grueling and shitty. The Latino men tell me they will help me do rigging cuz they are experts.
Day 3…. Well I have it! A title. Today I walked into the building maybe 15 feet high’s is a steel fairground barn thing but there is a cement floor. So I use my baby trapeze and span sets .A 4 spans set day easy set up. Only a ladder! Easy work easy money!!! Anyways I am rambling. Back to my epiphany for a title “Adventures in Aerial Artistry”
Day 4 Note to self, batten down the hatches. I had a soup catastrophe today. Words cannot justify this tragedy; In short somehow yesterday I managed to assemble a splendid Jewish chicken soup. I put it in the fridge to eat today. On the jump to Barnwell sc. The fridge, which I did not lock, flung open, probably when I made that Mario Andretti turn to get diesel…. In conclusion the soup bounded out of the fridge on to the floor… bounded out. sort of. Actually on my floor I have 4 -10 ft aluminum poles and 1- 12 foot pole made out of ¼ or better aluminum and under that a carpet and under that a rug and under that floor…so the soup landed all over my trapeze rigging stuff and wait there’s more… the pot the soup was in had a class cover…yup another1 casualty, so I look inside the trailer and I see soup, glass, chicken, carrots everywhere. It was a major mess and a lot of cleaning…. for dinner I am feasting on chili ramen with a kind cabernet sauvignon.
Day 5 Wings and Thangs. People are proud of their vernacular slang. Interesting, That was the sign for an eatery on route. Drama is abundant on a touring small show. One day stands with a circus is just begging for human tempers to ignite, but it is only day 5.
Day 6 Today was Laundry day. A successful 90 minute nice laundry mat minus baskets Kind of a drag. Rigging was off a basketball hoop, kind of sucks. The highlight of my day was almost dropping the extension ladder on my face and then leaving JW an sbd and then laughing about it with jnw!!!At least it was only that. Tonight dinner was hunks of Jarlsburg and a glass of cab. Oh yes the Latino men were overheard by myself and CM on how they would have rigged there aerial apparatus and swung really high. Whatever. .….I don’t see them anywhere at set up time. Is talk cheap?
Day 7 There is a lot of infidelity in the circus. Circus is sexy. Some people have an amazing union and must be together, I so admire these team/duos. I am not one of them. My husband doesn’t want to play circus guy unless he is a musician. So I am on the road solo. . That is rough.Today jnw and djp and moi walked to town. How great, exercise! We ate Chinese food and went eyelash shopping and bought groceries. On the way back to the lot we saw a Jewish Cemetery, how bizarre we are in a totally black community. The cemetery is called Beth Or. In conclusion the first week ran smoothly and I am working my ass off.
Day 8 The “Performance Space” was very small we set up everything and packed em in. Rigging was intense and I almost had a melt down BUT jnw saved the day. I used the show beam clamps; they are very heavy so I couldn’t climb with them. I threw my rope over a rod and jnw pulled them up. It was a little scary but a success.
Day 9 Today JW decided I should get up and jump with the show. Perhaps I had him pegged wrong! Maybe he is not an enigma perhaps he is a little eccentric! All show owners have their idiocentric ways. This day was my first day of ease during the show. I only had one bout of hysteria. I wonder why I am such a mental case? It was all because of parking, I lost it because I wasn’t parked or told my assigned spot. I think that is hysterical. Everyday is the same but a little different. We get up, drive to the next town, park, check out the building, unload rigging, set up trailer, hang rigging, blow up balloons, do shows, tear down. Interspersed are tea and coffee drinking eating bathing sleeping shopping and talking to friends and loved ones working on my writing and sometimes working out.
So if I realize the only things that change a tiny bit every day are parking and rigging I guess I’ll quit snapping and falling apart. Brilliant. Wow, like talk about time and space management. If people looked at their lives like a bunch of separate but connected events perhaps they could plan effective stress free days. I remember something really sweet my brother Josh said about my dad. They were shopping at Lee’s the local grocery store. They were waiting for some pastrami to be cut. Josh said, “OK while they are getting your pastrami, I’ll run and get the arrugala” Earl said, “no first we will do this and than we will do that “ Mono tasking is brilliant. We can multi task computer related tasks.
Make dinner and set up a meeting while downloading a file. Planning a menu or counting balloons in your head while doing an aerial act is oops
Day 11 I missed a day. Sunday day 10 was a pretty cool stress free day and it was payday. Today was one of those non-stop action packed days. I got lots accomplished. I deposited money in my bank, finished recovering my little trapeze. Jnw made some major awesome Mexican food and I stuffed my faceDay 12 Today was an almost perfect day, until I fell and almost broke my ankle, face and wrist.
Day 13 an adventure in purple spanset rigging….got new cool glasses