For feeling as badly I do, emotionally and physically, I feel like I managed to put on a good, solid performance weekend. It was rather surprising. So long as I stayed out on stage, and stayed "on" when I was backstage, I did fine. The minute I dropped character for half a second though, I crashed.
Friday I spent most of the day doing laundry and sleeping. All things considered, and seeing as I ended up with a pretty high (for me anyway) fever, the OES meeting went off very well. It could have been better, but I was sick, so I'm not complaining.
Saturday went quite well out at Fair, but I must have done something like 5 costume changes. It got a little ridiculous. I started out at the opening tableau in my borrowed mourning, which I never did get around to fitting but it managed to look quite good anyway. Mr. Dickens didn't call on us, so we did the bit we had planned and expended on it on the platform a little latter in the morning. First though I went and got myself a new corset. Not that I should have been spending money on a corset, but it's a Christmas gift to myself and I really needed something pretty and sexy. I ran into a friend who asked me to do a Little Bo Peep sort of window with her that afternoon, so after changing out of mourning (for the second time) and into my Bella dress, I went and did the window. That went quite well. We looked absurdly cute and had a grand time. I ended up missing the costume contest, but that's ok. The afternoon was somewhat less chaotic. I was able to spend a bit of time with a couple of friends who were visiting for the weekend, have port and chocolates with some other friends, and just relax and work the streets some before I changed out into Mrs. G. Of course, I was still running a fever, so getting out of the wool dress when I did was a huge relief.
I ended up doing my best to avoid the Sekmet awards (Dickens Fair Oscars), and caught a little of it at the end. It turns out my cast won for best ensemble performance, so that was nice. After we closed, a whole bunch of us went back to my house and a little party. It was actually a huge amount of fun. We ate Vietnamese food, mulled wine, made gingerbread, and listened to scary 60's Christmas music that sounds like something 57 women in skimpy elf costumes should be doing a synchronized pole-dance to. Gotta love the good people at Ultra Lounge.
Anyway, Sunday morning I got up and made a huge fritatta for everyone, and when I went to put my shoes on, found a nice fresh little gift my cat had left for me. I was pretty sure I'd seen a mouse in the house, but to find it's poor lifeless corpse splayed out next to my boot was a bit much for a Sunday morning pre-fair. Thank god there were boys and people with stronger stomachs in the house to get rid of the body. I freaked out and did the chick-with-a-mouse dance on top of my footstool. Truly pathetic. A note from the cat (or the Great White Huntress as she shall henceforth be known) on the matter:
Dear Mommee,
Hear iz a nize mousie for ewe, Ey hope ewe lyke it. Maybee wee can share it wyth all the nyce pepole who came to see mee last nyte. Ewe need to feed thym lots of nyce things. I worree about what you eat, it's not good.
Luv,
Maya
I still felt like crap on Sunday, mouse and all, but managed to push through my performance quite well. We got called on for the tableau, which went very well, and I was able to torment Mr. Dickens with a fork and fill in on the platform more than usual, and even got to ride on the bosuns chair in my hoops again. The final for the costume contest went really well, and much to my amazement I got an award from the Costumers Guild for excellence in construction, which was very nice. Mrs. Gaskell has lots of nice things to say at the tea in the afternoon. A customer who had stayed for our discussion on women's education and social reform actually came up to Thena and I and told us how lovely she thought the whole thing was and that we had given her a lot of think about, she wasn't aware that ladies had such forward-thinking ideas. It was quite nice, and I wished I hadn't forgotten my cards. I might have gotten her to pick up one of Mrs. G's books and actually read it.
The day ended, as last days will, a bit sadly. A small little game I decided to play (more with myself than anyone else) didn't result in anything at all, which ended up being quite disappointing, if not unexpected. But I did get to have dinner with an old friend and crush, do a bit of catching up, and overall it was a pretty ok day. I'm just exhausted this morning, and still feel like hell. I now have lots of congestion to go with the fever and aches and everything else. At least that usually means it's getting better and there are drugs I can take that will help. Yay drugs!
I just hope my cat hasn't murdered anything else when I get home...I don't know who I'll get to clean up the bodies.
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