Lesbian Dancing After The Show: An Improviser's Non Improvised Life

The Pregnancy Diary: Fuck You, Marlboro Man

Friday January 25th 2008. I'm still pregnant. My stomach has been patted inappropriately three times.

Rainy darkness. Rain hitting the skylight hard in the bedroom. The phone rings. It bolts me up. I hold back hurling. I glurb out the name of my company on the phone. The chirpy woman asking me to renew my website for another 14 years. I glurb happily. No thank you, but thank you for calling me!

Hang up. Run to the bathroom. Hurl.

From that moment on, the day takes an expected turn for the worse. Starting with frantic emails from people I really don't have time to soothe, as my stomach with baby is going Mom, did I mention that I fucking HATE whatever you ate yesterday?

Running back and forth to the bathroom with just enough time to answer the phone and hearing that an upcoming location for a webisode was cancelled. An entire crew and actors will be stranded.

Throwing on a rain coat without an umbrella. Walking the five or six block radius of the SOMA to offices asking, Would you mind staying open on a Sunday?

Wet. No Umbrella. Desperate, wet black woman in the SOMA asking for a business to open up for "Lord knows what." The answers are obvious before I can even ask. One place would not even let me inside of the doors to get out of the rain.

Wet. Cold. Angry. Disillusioned. Cold. Wet. No umbrella and pregnant.

AFLSWB = "Asking For Location Shooting While Black" No...it's not a black thing! It's not! It's a "Cold Wet Chick with No Umbrella Thing" It has to be! It just has to be!!

Please god...let it be.

If there was a time in the world where I would have popped open a bottle of wine and lit a Marlboro Light and sat on the couch listening to David Bowie? This would have been the time. That day. The moment that building called me up two days before a shoot and said Sorry. The guy who you were going to pay can't let you in.

Into the pack of smokes.

I'm PREGNANT! I just can't. It is horrible. This monkey on my back.

The Horse to the Marlboro Man.

The fucking Marlboro Man. That cat has been riding my smooth brown stallion-like back since I was 18.

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I remember the first day I had a smoke: San Quentin Prison 1984.

They had lost track of an inmate while I was working with Geese Theater Company. They put the inmates in the yard until they could find the missing guy. We had to walk through the mass of men.

We get to the space. Set up our gear. Counting every piece of equipment to make sure we leave with every single piece of equipment. We wait around. They had already found the guy...but the wait was incredible. Finally four men show up with a lot of riffles and firearms. One correctional officer stares at us. We have seriously put him out of his way:

Correctional Officer: The Guns are here. You can perform now.

I look at my hands that are devoid of fingernails. I have bitten them all off months ago. I had taken to chewing on the sides of the nails and the skin. There was really nothing left there either.

Me: (to the Artistic Director) May I have a smoke?
Him: You don't smoke.
Me: I do NOW.

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I get home from the emergency location scouting. I call my husband to see if we can use his offices in Oakland. No go. I call my friend Jon. His place is too far away. I cannot turn any of the theaters I work in, into realistic looking offices.

I call up the Theater Bay Area Offices. Been a gold Member since lord knows when. I guess Gold Membership help only comes in the form of a magazine.

I look at my hands that are devoid of fingernails. I have bitten them off YEARS ago. I don't want to take up chewing the sides of the nails and the skin again as that just makes my worker hands look all the more gnarled.

I start digging through my desk to see if there are any smokes there. I find myself hunting for a butt or one that might have spilled out into the drawer. Then I stop. I just stopped.

Wet. Cold. Angry Black Woman. Without an Umbrella and Pregnant.

For the love of god. I'm pregnant. What is more fucking important here?

Fuck you, Marlboro Man. FUCK YOU. The ride is done. The horse goes back into the pen. You have ridden me long enough. Put this horse out to pasture. They Shoot Marlboro Men Horses. Don't They?

I dry myself off with a towel. Turn on the heat. I go into the kitchen. I get myself a bagel to munch on. I come back and turn on Blue Jean by David Bowie really loud and dance around my home office with my bagel.

Fuck. You. Marlboro. Man. Fuck. YOU!

Baby seemed to like dancing and bagels. First time that day my stomach did not cramp up. I sit down from expending anger and dampy coldness and think to myself: This will work out.

It did all work out in the end. I found a location at the last minute.

And it all worked out without having the Marlboro Man strap a saddle to my ass.

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Today, I write this with a pack of Timeless Time Cigarettes on my table.

I've come a long way, baby.

Pony up, Marlboro Man.

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