Tonight, we start the second week of Little Mary Sunshine. Opening weekend came and went fairly uneventfully - uneventful in the good sense, mind you. My cold had been fairly well taken care of by opening night, thank Jebus. (It's still lingering in my nose, but I'm not as fried as I was when it first came upon me.) We had a brush-up rehearsal last night. I shudder to think how insanely hot it will be in the theater tonight, especially considering that I'll be wearing a full Mountie-like costume under stage lights, and that if the weather will be anything like last night, it'll likely be 80-some-odd degrees. Oy gevalt.

Tomorrow is the return of the annual work tradition of bringing rugrats to the office. This year, it's Chili's grub instead of In-N-Out (the holy grail of burgers), and instead of hiding in a cubicle, I'll be singing Billie Holiday songs (?!?!) and "Mack the Knife" while people are grubbing on fajitas and boneless buffalo wings. Yes, I've been drafted by the house band again - as if I didn't have enough on my agenda. We've rehearsed a little bit this week, so I think I can fake my way through it. Who'm I kidding? Like anyone will poke their heads up from their feasts of southwestern egg rolls and chicken lettuce wraps to notice that it's not Muzak being piped in.

Seems like almost everything lately in my life has been musically or theatrically oriented, or both. Dean Shivers, the male lead in Little Mary (and a great baritone/tenor), recommended a voice instructor (a Juilliard graduate) who teaches classes at City College of S.F. I've just mailed in the paperwork necessary to take classes there in the fall. Hopefully, I'll be able to get into this class. Two songbooks I just ordered (of musical theatre songs for baritones/basses) are en route to me. Dino thought I'd do great with a number from Guys and Dolls, "More I Cannot Wish You." It got me to dusting off the copy of the '92 Broadway revival CD I have. So now I've had "The Oldest Established" and "Luck Be a Lady" and "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" stuck in my head for days. For it's good old reliable NA-than / NA-than, NA-than, NA-than DE-troit!

Also, it looks like I'll be discussing that idea of a one-man show with my pal Jessica next week. I've done nothing concrete to brainstorm or scope out logistics on it. (Well, because mainly I've been expelling germs, sleeping, working and crooning in earnest lately.) But Theatre Bay Area is having a seminar on creating solo pieces next month, so I think I'll sign up for that. Jess is more wired-in on resources - she makes a living in theater, whereas for now I'm only a dilettante - so I'm very interested in what she'll have to say.

Oh, and my trip to New Orleans has been booked for end of July. If I can handle this sweltering week in the Bay Area, perhaps I'll have a fighting chance to schlep through a week of ultra-humid midsummer NOLA conditions. Air conditioning, air conditioning, air conditioning.

I guess I should've known it would come to this. Long hours, exhaustion, bad food, lack of vitamins. I woke up yesterday feeling approximately as if someone lit a road flare and stuck it down my throat. Goddamit. Just the exact wrong time for this to happen. So I'm waging a fierce offensive - echinacea, Cold-Eeze, Throat Coat, Advil, megadoses of vitamin C. I left work early today and just groggily woke up from a period of deep, steamy sleep. And 2 days till opening night. This does not make my job any easier. Well, at least I have a valid reason for NyQuil shots tonight.

There's a reason they call this "hell week" in the theatrical world. The show opens Saturday. Are we ready? All I can say is, we have to be. No choice in the matter. But are we ready? The cast members all have great voices - especially the leads - and are good actors to boot. Yeah, but are we ready? OK, pass the tequila so I can drown that fucking italicized inner voice.

Little did I know a 3-hour rehearsal replete with false starts, miscommunications, extracurricular histrionics and ennui you could cut with a paper knife would be the high point of my evening. All I wanted at 10:30 in the p.m. was to cruise over the Golden Gate Bridge and hasten home, and instead it was a clusterfuck. Due to some alleged construction - I say alleged because I didn't actually see any guys with orange vests or hard hats or flood lights who were, you know, doing anything - the traffic was suddenly, and poorly, shoehorned into one lane.

Once that was negotiated, I decided to go grocery shopping. I arrived at Safeway at 10:45 and their automatic doors would not open for me. But that fucking Safeway always closes at 11. Shitbags locked me out. I could feel my irrational anger at stupid little things build ever so nicely. So off to Albertsons I went, to get a trunkful of frozen entrées in anticipation of hell-week-so-no-time-to-cook grubbin'.

Got home, unloaded the food, got to my bedroom... and was serenaded by the sound of my computer, which was running for lord knows how long. This was after I sent a very clear email to my sister and brother-in-law, telling them to please shut down my PC when they're done using it. I don't get it. They speak English. They understand commands and requests. Do I need to put a joy buzzer on the power button so they never turn on my PC in the first place? Unnnnnnnngggggggghhhhh.

Puny mortals, tremble at my blind impotent rage over petty minutiae that won't mean a thing tomorrow. Woe betide the chump who actually pisses me off for a good reason.