a v. good v-day

It's Saturday night, and I'm at the theater. People have been pouring in the doors since 6:30, and mostly I've been hiding in the dressing room for much longer than usual completing the 758th re-application of my lipstick and at LEAST the thousandth negotiation between the curling iron and an errant curl.

Finally I turned the lights out in the dressing room and committed to the front of the house. I mingle, I take some pictures. I check on the box office. I talk with a few friends who've arrived. And suddenly it's 7:25, and there's been no sign of Mr. Risky Business.

And suddenly I am a bundle of ridiculous girl nerves. They're not is-he-going-to-show nerves or did-he-get-lost or even did-he-mix-up-the-time nerves. They're just straight up cute boy, big crush, how's my hair, IS THERE LIPSTICK ON MY TEETH nerves. Crazy heart-pounding butterfly nerves. So I make a bee-line for our sweet little bartender and tell him that I need to take a shot of something, anything, right this second.

One shot of spiced rum and a chaser of red wine later, I have an awful taste in my mouth, my throat is on fire and my stomach is not even on speaking terms with me anymore. But I do feel just ever so slightly more calm. I'll take it.

Not five minutes later he comes down the stairs into the theater, looking all handsome and undoing all the very hard work the Sailor Jerry's spiced rum had done with my nervous system. But we were in a crazy airline over-sold situation and trying to figure out how to stack people one on top of the other to cram them in the space, so I was running around counting empty seats and sending silent prayers up to the gods of fire codes. With all the madness I barely saw him for a second before the show.

And I'd like to tell you that the performance went by in a blur, and mostly it did, but that would not be entirely accurate since I did spend at least part of the time concerned about the horrendously loud music blaring from the next room over and also worried that audience participation could in fact sprout arms and legs and a mouth and gobble the entire play whole. Let's just say the crowd was very, um, responsive.

After the show we all head out into the lobby to thank people and talk with the audience members as they're heading out, and in those few minutes something happened, the anticipation of which I think had been a great contributor to my necessitating-alcohol nerve level: Mr. RB met my parents. Now, it truly was just that -- a meeting, and a brief one. And I'm glad. It's a little too early in the game for all that pressure. But with my mom in the show and the cast party happening that night, they were both there. And to not introduce them would've been extremely weird. So, so much weird, amounts of weird that would completely dwarf any smidgeon of awkward that could have accompanied the introduction.

With that bandaid ripped off, I was free to get all stoned on his scent and be openly handsy at the cast party. Which is a major sigh of relief, since after a pint of Ghost River golden and a few glasses of wine I wouldn't have really been in control of those impulses anyway.

Of course I could've probably groped him quite inappropriately and quite openly and no one would've noticed, since one of the cast members decided it would be a good idea to take off our poor sweet bartender's pants. In the middle of the living room. WITH HER TEETH.

We've been over this before. I can't make this shit up.

But then, everyone was gone. And then, it was Valentine's Day. And I was eating waffles in my pajamas with Mr. Risky Business. And there was couch napping. And also apartment cleaning, complete with a super romantic stench of onions and beer. AWESOME.

But that was followed by riding the trolley downtown and dinner and wine and a movie and maybe also a little slow dancing. In his living room.

Have you barfed yet? No? Not yet?

What if I told you I can put my feet on his and let him dance me around, since I'm legally a little person? Would that do it?

Thought so.

cheers, elizabeth