#schmergo

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The Virginia Museum of Fine Art

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Sometimes I feel like I’m the only slightly socially anxious extrovert. I do best in large gatherings but get nervous hanging out with just 1-2 pals.

Unfortunately, I’m painfully aware of the fact that most people hate loud chatty theatre kid types like me, but I love being around people so much that I get extremely excited and my Personality (derogatory) comes out.

I prefer events with 10+ people so that when I feel myself becoming annoying during a conversation, I can scuttle away like a crab and join a new conversation, diffusing the overwhelming intensity of my Personality amongst several different people like sprinkling spices on a large communal pot of stew instead of dumping it all on one person.

If I come over to your house, I WILL feel the entire time that you are trapped in there with me like you’re an innocent kid who fell into my zoo enclosure and I’m the terrifying and unpredictable gorilla that will get shot if it makes the wrong move, even though it is your house and you are the one who invited me over there.

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Did anyone else have toys they were scared of as a child?

As a little girl, I loved to collect and display vintage porcelain dolls on my bookshelves like museum exhibits and would just happily look at them. My older relatives would pass them down to me and my mom would find them at yard sales.

I also had a doll from the 1950s in traditional Scottish attire whose eyes had fallen out and I kept her in a box under my bed and forced myself to take her out and stare at her periodically because she really scared me but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by looking at her less than the other dolls.

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Dug out my high school yearbook to find an old club photo, and I’m realizing that a lot of classmates and teachers signed it saying that I’m one of the most “inspiring” people they know.

This is, of course, extremely nice, but it also makes me feel some type of way because the term “inspiring” often connotes overcoming odds and obstacles, which, to my knowledge, I have not done. I just hope they’re not trying to nicely say they admire my plucky determination to succeed despite the lifelong hindrance that is my hair!

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By the way, I just came back from Disney World. It was rad.

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Whenever I tell people that I dream of playing as many versions of Cinderella’s stepsisters as possible, I have to mention the mildly deranged illegal production of Cinderella I was in when I was 12.

I used to go to this small drama camp as a kid that was entirely run by one nice lady, I believe named Carol. We would put on abridged minimalist versions of popular musicals at a local church with only one week of rehearsal. These weren’t licensable junior versions. Carol created them herself.

She wrote the scripts to include the major plot highlights and famous lines from the various musicals and she arranged and accompanied all of the songs on the piano herself. We did Annie, Mary Poppins, the Wizard of Oz, and, the year before I came, Peter Pan. These shows were definitely illegal, but they were so small that nobody really noticed, and they were a ton of fun. The camp was also extremely affordable, so nobody was getting rich off of it.

But Cinderella, my final production with them, was next-level. When I arrived for the first day of camp, I was curious to see if it would be the Disney version or the Rodgers and Hammerstein version.

It was both. And neither.

Carol somehow wrote an almost entirely original book for Cinderella that used the best songs from both the Disney and R&H versions. That meant that I, as a stepsister, got to sing the “Stepsisters’ Lament,” a peak song if you ask me, but adorable little kids playing mice also got to sing “Cinderelly, Cinderelly.”

The one thing about combining both versions is perhaps an overemphasis on the Fairy Godmother, because the songs “Bibbidy Bobbity Boo” and “Impossible” are both no-brainers to include. But somehow, things worked out perfectly there, too, by splitting the role.

See, we didn’t just have a Fairy Godmother.

We also had a Fairy Godfather.

I was 12, so I didn’t quite get the joke, but as an adult, I’m obsessed with the implication that Cinderella got her dress, slippers, and carriage through some kind of vague affiliation with the mafia.

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Today is the birthday of BOTH my husband and the National Park Service! Let’s compare what the two have in common!

* Stunning natural beauty

* I like to make social media posts about them

* A positive selling point for the USA

* Helps you meet new challenges and get a new perspective on things

* Born in the 20th century

* Often encountered in Washington, DC

* You always learn something new when spending time with them

* I personally think they deserve more funding

* Has a dedicated police force devoted specifically to surveilling them

* Wait

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For April Fool’s Day, I told Facebook that I bought a house.

A lot of people didn’t read the whole caption or click through the pictures before commenting their congratulations.