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The Indian peacock has iridescent blue and green plumage, mostly metallic blue and green, but the green peacock has green and bronze body feathers. In both species, females are as big as males, but lack the train and the head ornament. The peacock "tail", known as a "train", consists not of tail quill feathers, but highly elongated upper tail coverts. These feathers are marked with eyespots, best seen when a peacock fans his tail. Both sexes of all species have a crest atop the head. The Indian peahen has a mixture of dull grey, brown, and green in her plumage. The female also displays her plumage to ward off female competition or signal danger to her young.
Peacocks are often considered to be quite flamboyant. This particular one (we call him Henry) isn't quite so. He comes around every day and we give him some bird seed. His tail feathers aren't all big and luxurious this time of year, but still, he's a pretty bird. If you have gathered one thing from the previous chapters, you probably know that I'm not the most flamboyant person myself. Though I do partake in one particularly... let be open the thesaurus... oh! peacockish activity.
Theater.
My first taste of the stage was in an elementary school knock off of the Little Mermaid. From this, I learned that a. There were commercials for that blue tuna character advertising their fish stuff, and that they often said "Sorry Charlie!" and that the adults in the audience would presumably find it hilarious when a character says that to a person dressed as a tuna, and b. I LOVE to sing and dance (that was one of my lines in the play. I put a lot of energy into it).
After that, I moved on to stages that weren't the school gym. Thus far, I've played in "Dear Edwina Junior", "Once upon a Mattress", I had a break from theater after that, then I did "Oklahoma!" as Jud (this was the kid version so I didn't play the really creepy guy), "Phantom of the Opera" as a background dude, and currently my school is doing "Fiddler on the Roof" (Don't worry COVID wise, we're just practicing and will delay the play until after the disease is defeated... if it's defeated).
From my experience as a very lackluster actor, I've learned a couple things.
There is one thing I learned about myself. I have a sort of reverse stage fright. I'm fine with performing in front of large crowds, they never feel like they're watching me, like some people feel. It's like, there's no face to it, I just see a crowd of people, watching a show that isn't mine. And I suppose there being other actors helps, because it sort of evens out the attention, feels like a sort of fair fight between the watcher and the watched. I suppose it helps that I'm not usually a main actor. When it's just a couple people watching, however, I can feel they're eyes on me. I know they're judging me, literally, because this mainly happens in auditions. That's probably why I never get big roles.
Enough about myself. Another thing I learned is that the audience is much less attentive of what's going on then it feels. Like, there was this one time in Dear Edwina Junior (the hola hello part, I think) that Edwina forgot her lines for a bit and everyone was just sort awkwardly dancing in silence. But, after asking the audience (My mom) if they noticed that, they said they just thought it was how it was supposed to go. That's the thing, most of the people watching don't know what's supposed to happen, so they just assume that what they are seeing is correct. It helps that most people can't see what's happening on the stage very clearly.
I suppose there are times when something just goes so wrong that everyone notices, and those are the worst times. There was a point in Phantom of the Opera that a girl was singing these really high and operatic notes, when her voice cracked and she faltered. after going backstage, the girl cried. And for good reason, too. This was her senior year, her big sendoff and goodbye to our high school's play, but she flunked it. There were no do overs here, she had no second chance (Also there's just this sort of... I don't know... Animalistic sadness someone gets when they fail something, even if it's miniscule. I've certainly had nights o' plenty crying over a math problem I can't solve). And worst of all, it was out of character. Her friends consoled her-who better to console someone- and she did great for the rest of the play.
I got the rabbi, by the way. It wasn't the role I wanted, but it'll do. there's these guys who are the sons of the music teacher, and they always get big roles. I'm sure it's not nepotism though. It's not because their dad has control over the theater, it's because their dad has control over the theater and is skilled in music and has given his sons the perfect opportunity to study music any time. I will be honest though, it does make me a little peeved (That guy doesn't even look like Tevye!).
Anyways, If you see one of these majestic creatures on your travels, don't pet them. They bite hard.
