accidental stepmom – Page 10 – JM Randolph, accidentalstepmom

Welcome to One and Done Sunday. A picture, and five links that are worth your time. Today with a couple of extra thoughts because of the date.

Superficial snapshot ten years ago: Aida tour, playing Phoenix. I lived there at the time so I got to stay at home instead of a hotel. I was packing up all my stuff to put in storage for probably forever and close out the guest house rental that was the very first place I’d ever lived all by myself.

I didn’t have a TV. I found out about the attacks when our company manager called to tell me the show was cancelled. It’s another post that I likely will never write, but there were things happening in my personal life at this time that made this tragedy seem not out of place.

The rest of the week passed in a stupor. When our run in Phoenix was over and we loaded out, planes still weren’t flying yet. Our company manager did a lot of string pulling and wrote a personal check to get us a sleeper bus that would take us to our next stop in Austin. It was Blink-182’s bus, available because they too were canceling shows, reeling from what had happened.

It was a long drive from Phoenix to Austin. We’re stagehands, so we did what we do: made each other laugh and told stories. We watched The Brady Bunch movie. We snagged a couple hours of sleep. The bus was stocked with snacks and I ate Blink-182’s Cap’n Crunch. Though things got far worse before they got better, speaking personally and globally, this is the moment where I began to heal.

It’s important to me to remember those moments of beginnings.

Fast forward five years to September 11, 2006.

These kids and their Dad and I hopped a plane in LA and flew back to New Jersey and started a life together. We had to get a special written dispensation to carry #5’s butt cream on the plane. I won’t speak for them, but as for me, I have never regretted any of it- the decision, the flight, or the butt cream (though I’m pretty happy he finally got potty trained).

Here are your links:

Clay Morgan is also remembering something different five years ago. The Greatest Teacher I Ever Had.

Funny: Tips for pet sitters by Paul Johnson, aka The Good Greatsby

Myth? No, an honest-to-god good day at the airport. Betty Londergan at What Gives 365

A really excellent picture of goats: Cheryl Zovich, Cur Tales

The best 9/11 post you didn’t read this week: Ten Years ago, Ed Whitehead had a view of the World Trade Center out his bedroom window and forty rolls of film. Perfect Souls Shine Through at Punchnels

That is five. However, given the gravity of the day, I leave you with one more which I would categorize as frickin’ hilarious by one of my favorite blogger/artists ever. Hyperbole and A Half: The Alot is Better Than You At Everything. Enjoy.

When I was on the road as a touring stagehand, many Sundays began at 8am. No, I take that back. They began more like at 6am after about three hours of sleep with me frantically packing all my crap that I had been putting off dealing with until the last possible minute into my suitcase and then trying to find coffee and a muffin and make it to the theater by 8am for box call. We would pull the empty road cases off the semi trailers they’d been stored in and line them up in prep for the load out. Then we’d do a show. Then we’d do another show. Then we’d start the load out. Usually we finished up around sunrise and headed to the airport for the next city, where we would begin loading in shortly after we landed.

But some Sundays were different. They were “One and Done!” Sundays. These were during multi-week stops in bigger cities like Chicago, Philly, San Francisco; we’d do a matinee only and then have 48 glorious hours off until we had to be back for Tuesday night’s show call. We didn’t have to move the show. Nothing needed to be packed. It was like Christmas.

I’m not on the road anymore. The show I’m on in New York has a One and Done Sunday every week. Sometimes I even take Sundays off and then it’s like, double Christmas. Still, I love the spirit of One and Done Sundays-the sense of possibility and of not being rushed.

So I’m starting a new feature here under that name. Every Sunday I’ll post a picture. And I’ll post five links that will totally be worth your time to check out. Nice and easy.

Except today I’m posting two pictures, because I feel like it.