He responded.  The first two words of his message?  “It’s okay.”  After 18 years of guilt and regret, those two simple words made a huge change.  He said he’s doing well, and is happily married, and to tell my parents and brother hello.  Mom’s going to shit when I tell her. 

I have no idea if we will actually keep in touch or if that will be the end of it, but I am so glad that I took the chance.  And if it hadn’t been for Facebook, I probably wouldn’t have.

So, yeah.  August of 1997.  A very special month.  I was in a production of “Hair” at the Academy, and started rehearsals for “Damn Yankees” at the Meadville Community Theatre.  Those of you with good memories (or ridiculous obsessions with every detail of my thrilling life) will remember that “Damn Yankees” was the show where I met my soul mate and future husband.  He never did come to see me in “Hair”, though. 
So, “Aquarius” – still one of my favorite songs from the show. I loved it.

And “What A Piece of Work Is Man.”  Gotta love Shakespeare set to music.

My co-angel may look a little familiar.  That’s Tim – he played Joseph.  So, yeah – he’s the one whose clothes I ripped off as Mrs. Potiphar.  Also, he was my off-stage trumpeter when I was Mazeppa.  Like I said before – loyal group of people.  And yes, that’s a wig I’m wearing.  My hair hasn’t been that long since college.

So, that is my little trip down memory lane.  I promise I’ll stop torturing you all now and get back to the fibery stuff you are used to. 

Rizzo’s reprise of “Greased Lightning”, originally done by Rosie O’Donnell in the revival:

“Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee” – Rizzo at her bitchy best:

And finally, “There Are Worse Things I Could Do”, still one of my favorite songs:

And yes, I do still have my Pink Ladies jacket.

I promise, tomorrow will be the last of these.  Hopefully, I’ll have some knitting done to show you soon enough.

By the way, thank you all for the lovely birthday wishes.  It was an awesome evening with the most fantastic man on the planet. 

This little video trip down memory lane this week has stirred up some things in my mind (You’ve gotten clips – I’ve watched significant portions of shows.  Including some you haven’t seen yet, and some you won’t.)  (Nothing embarassing, just non-musicals that are harder to “clip”.).  A combination of that and hitting a “milestone” birthday (i.e. one ending in a “0″ or, in my case, “5″) has made me think about a lot of things from my past.  I’ve been looking up old friends on Facebook.  Yes, I’ve been sucked in.  I don’t hang out there much, and I don’t do the whole “Send X to Y” thing, but I do like to see what people are up to.

Out of curiosity, I looked up The Name.  The Unfinished Business.  The High School Boyfriend.  Bob was a year ahead of me, and we dated from my sophomore year until the middle of my junior year.  He was my first great love.  My parents adored him, I loved his parents.  My friends loved him, everyone thought we were perfect together.  We were inseparable.  Until.

Until I realized that I was 16 years old, and I just wasn’t sure I was ok with everyone around us deciding that we would be married after college.

Until I realized that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, let alone who I wanted to spend it with.

Until I panicked.

Until I broke up with him.

I’ll admit, I handled it badly.  Really, really badly.  How badly?  See above re: I was 16.  I told him I wanted to break up, and he asked me to give it another shot.  Try it for a couple of weeks.  I agreed.  I realized a couple of days later that it was a mistake.  I told him I was done.  He was PISSED.  And hurt, I’m sure.  I can’t blame him – I really f’ed it up.

It was bad enough that I broke up with him.  (Hell, I had people I barely knew telling me I was an idiot.)  But then, I made the critical mistake.  I started seeing someone else.  Someone I had been friends with while I was still dating Bob.  But because it was close to the end of the school year and Bob was about to graduate, Mike and I decided it would be easiest to keep it quiet.  Because, you know, things like that NEVER come to light in high school.  So, of course, word got out.  And EVERYone was sure that we had been fooling around behind Bob’s back.  I was a pariah.  People I’d been friends with for years wouldn’t speak to me.  (It didn’t help that Mike had briefly dated my best friend earlier that year.  Even though she had broken up with him, crossing that line wasn’t really cool.)

I never wanted to hurt Bob, and in trying to avoid it, I made things worse, over and over again.  I was an idiot.  (I know, I know.  16.)  I went to graduation that year to see another friend of mine, and I ran into Bob and another friend afterward.  I tried to congratulate him, and he just said “No.  Just… NO,” and walked away.

My senior year kind of sucked.  I was still pretty much a pariah.  I knew a couple of people who were still in touch with Bob.  In study hall one day, one of them mentioned him.  I asked how he was doing, and Rick said, “Well, he’s finally stopped twitching if someone mentions you.”  I half-laughed, until he looked at me, and I realized he was serious.

I moved away from home after college, but my folks lived there until after Kris and I got married and still keep in touch with a lot of friends in the area.  They knew people who knew Bob, and one day Mom told me that friends had mentioned that his name had been in the paper – he had gotten married.  I was happy for him, and I still am.  Every once in a while, I’ll get nostalgic and start Googling names.  His always ends up on the list of names I check.  It’s not at all that I’m still in love with him, because I’m not, although I do still care for him, and want the best for him.

So, this week.  I’ve been on Facebook, and I even reconnected with an old theatre friend (she with the antennae from the “Gypsy” clip, actually).  So, out of curiosity, I searched his name.  He’s there.  He’s not in Pittsburgh any more – he actually lives not far from some friends of ours.  For a brief, brief moment, I considered clicking on “Add as friend”, but I didn’t.  Part of me would love nothing more than to get in touch with him and find out that he had forgiven me for being, essentially, a 16-year-old girl, but I’m not willing to take that risk, even 18 years after everything happened.  I did find out via Google that he has a blog.  I read a couple of entries, and it’s so him.  Smart, funny, quirky.  And from what I can tell, happy.  So, I think I’m going to let sleeping dogs lie.

But I will do this.  I am sending, out into the universe, my apology:  Bob, I am sorry that I treated you so badly, and that I hurt you so deeply.  I hope that you have moved beyond that hurt, and that your wife loves you the way you deserve to be loved.  The way I couldn’t all those years ago, when I was young, and stupid.  I’m thirty-five now, and I know how dumb I was.  If I could go back in time and talk to me at 16, I wouldn’t tell her to stay with you, because I know I am meant to be with Kris, but I would tell her to respect you enough to be honest and up-front with you.  I wish you nothing but peace and happiness in your life.

And now, for the two of you who are still reading… the Wikipedia list of “On this day in history”. This is just the highlights, though. You can see the whole list here.

Events

• 1789 – The office of the Attorney General of the United States of America, and the United States Post Office Department are established.
• 1890 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially renounces polygamy.
• 1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower the nation’s first National Monument. (Mashed potatoes, anyone?)
• 1950 – Forest fires black out the sun over portions of Canada and New England. A Blue moon (in the astronomical sense) is seen as far away as Europe.
• 1957 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends 101st Airborne Division troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation.
• 1996 – U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty at the United Nations.
• 2005 – Hurricane Rita makes landfall in the United States, devastating Beaumont, Texas and portions of southwestern Louisiana.

Births

• 15 – Vitellius, Roman Emperor (d. 69)
• 1725 – Sir Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer (d. 1803) (Well, THAT explains some things…)
• 1739 – Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin, Russian statesman (d. 1791)
• 1896 – F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist (d. 1940)
• 1918 – Audra Lindley, American actress (d. 1997)
• 1921 – Jim McKay, American sportscaster (d. 2008)
• 1924 – Sheila MacRae, singer & actress
• 1931 – Anthony Newley, British actor and singer (d. 1999)
• 1936 – Jim Henson, American puppeteer (d. 1990) (Still my idol.)
• 1941 – Linda McCartney, American singer (d. 1998)
• 1945 – Lou Dobbs, American journalist
• 1946 – “Mean” Joe Greene, American football player
• 1948 – Gordon Clapp, American actor
• 1948 – Phil Hartman, Canadian actor (d. 1998)
• 1958 – Kevin Sorbo, American actor
• 1962 – Nia Vardalos, Canadian actress
• 1964 – Rafael Palmeiro, Cuban-born baseball player
• 1971 – Kevin Millar, American baseball player
• 1982 – Morgan Hamm, American gymnast
• 1982 – Paul Hamm, American gymnast

Deaths

• 1980 – John Bonham, British musician
• 1981 – Patsy Kelly, American actress (b. 1910)
• 1982 – Sarah Churchill, British actress (b. 1914)
• 1984 – Neil Hamilton, American actor (b. 1899)
• 1991 – Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, American children’s writer (b. 1904)
• 2002 – Mike Webster, National Football League player (b. 1952)
• 2005 – Tommy Bond, American actor (b. 1926)

Holidays and observances

• Guinea-Bissau – Independence Day (declared, from Portugal, 1973).
• New Caledonia – Territorial Day.
• England – Our Lady of Walsingham.
• South Africa – Heritage Day.
• Barcelona, Spain – La Mercè the festival for Barcelona‘s patron saint. A lot of art and musical activities.
• Trinidad and Tobago – Republic Day (1976).
• French Republican Calendar – Châtaigne (Chestnut) Day, third day in the Month of Vendémiaire.
• Kings Day – Celebrating Birthday of Rajadhiraja, Sriraj.
• Feast day of Rupert of Salzburg in the Roman Catholic Church, Holiday in Salzburg.

And 35 years ago, I was born.  Although that hasn’t made it to Wiki. 

So, happy birthday to me!  Dinner tonight with Kris at the Melting Pot, and then a quiet night at home with the love of my life.  Sounds like a good birthday to me.

This was the second show I ever did at the Academy Theatre in Meadville, PA.  Great little community theatre, zero budget, but a good crew of enthusiastic, loyal volunteers.  This was our production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”, in August 1995.  I played Mrs. Potiphar, as you will see:

The next August, we did “Gypsy”.  As far as I’m concerned, one of the best musicals ever written.  Great story, great characters, great music.  I had the AWESOME fortune of playing Miss Mazeppa.  For those who don’t know the show, Mazeppa is one of the three strippers who counsel the soon-to-be Gypsy Rose Lee about how to make your act memorable.

And no, I didn’t actually play the trumpet.  There was a guy in the wings who was playing a real one. 

Today, we’re back at my high school.  This first clip is from April of 1989 – my sophomore year.  The school musical that year was Bye Bye Birdie, and through some weird happenings, I ended up being cast as Kim.  This was my very first number in the show.  And I even change clothes onstage while singing!

“How Lovely to Be a Woman”:

Oh, and Kir?  No smartass comments, missy.  You’re on that video too, don’t forget. 

Junior year, we did Anything Goes.  I LOVED that show.  We had such fun, and the guy I played opposite was a real sweetie.  There was some major crap going on during that time, and the musical was a nice distraction.  I’ve got two clips from that show.  The first is “DeLovely”, which was my first foray into any form of ballroom dance:

And second is “Easy to Love”, which holds the distinction of being my very first stage kiss:

I hope this wasn’t TOO torturous for those of you who watched the clips, because there will be more of them in the upcoming days.  Consider yourselves warned. 

ETA – YouTube links will be back as soon as I re-rip the scenes.  I think the videos were too big, and they were screwing up when streaming them.

ETA2 – OK, looks like I have them working.  Had to dial down the video quality a bit is all.