Her: yo
Me: mlaah.
Her: have fun last night
Me: i’ll try to.
Her: huh

And then I signed off. Ha ha… stupid Amanda and her stupid lack of question marks.

At karaoke on Monday night, we waited around for an extra half hour for Danny’s last song to come up. He sang “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from Les Miserables.

The second time he sang the title lyric, we all got up and left.

With the slogan “Hell froze over” emblazoned on their home page, Apple finally released iTunes for Windows. Now I can organize my music collection (close to five thousand songs or fifteen gigabytes or eight days) like all the other cool people in the world (who use actual Macs), and now I can download songs legally from the iTunes Music Store if I want to.

Tuesday night Heather went to her musical theatre workshop class in Torrance. Apparently some girl sang a song called “Old Friend” from the 1978 off-Broadway musical I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road, and Heather called me after class to tell me that the song reminded her of “our relationship.”

Here are the lyrics, and here is a live recording from KUOW Public Radio in Seattle.

Incidentally, I found out that the main character’s name is Heather, which Heather didn’t even know until I told her. I thought that was kind of cool. And the song kind of reminds me of Joni Mitchell or something. It’s very 1978.

As for its relation to our relationship, I’m not sure how I feel about that.

By the time we started walking around the park and going in mazes, most of the “monsters” (the best part of the Haunt, in my opinion) had apparently given up and gone home. What a let-down.

“Who’s car is that?”

“It’s Dave’s. In G.”

“In where?”

“G.”

“Oh, right here?”

“Yeah. Dave. Dave or David.”

“It’s a guy’s car?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. A guy’s?”

“Yeah, he’s kinda… kinda… quiet.”

Last night was long and full of adventures.

After the show, we had our official cast party at the Depot. It included a great deal of crappy food, so I just had a Diet Coke and some cream puffs. Heather informed me that she really liked my jeans. I asked if she wanted to borrow them sometime, and she said yes. Then I asked if she wanted to go trade pants, and she agreed to that wholeheartedly. So we went into the Amtrak and traded pants, after which her ass looked very hot and I looked very ridiculous. Eventually it got old, and we traded back.

Heather gave me her keys to hold at some point (which is generally a bad idea). I took her car key off the ring and discreetly handed it to Sammi. I asked Sammi to give it to John and have him do something (anything) to Heather’s car. Then I stayed within Heather’s sight at all times and audibly played with her keys so she wouldn’t notice that anything was amiss. A while later John walked up to me, and I took the car key back from him and put it back on Heather’s key ring.

The cast party eventually became boring around eight o’clock, and we decided to figure out what was next. My suggestion was Harbor House in Dana Point because no one else had ever been there. They’d been to the one in Sunset Beach, but not Dana Point.

So we caravanned to 840 to drop off some cars. Heather never said anything about her car, so I asked John what he did to it. He informed me that he didn’t do anything; he thought Sammi had done something and that he was simply supposed to return the key to me. So yeah, Heather got off easily. Anyway, we carpooled in two cars to Harbor House in Dana Point. John, Colin, Kyle, and Heather rode in Sammi’s car, and Donald, David, Danny, and I rode in Chelsey’s car.

Trenton and Jill joined us later at Harbor House, bringing our total to twelve. Our waiter was Guillermo, and he was extremely polite (especially compared to most Harbor House employees) and spoke several languages. We really liked him. He called everyone “friend,” and responded to our thank yous with “it is my pleasure.”

Apparently Harbor House didn’t pay their electric bill, though, as just before we left, the power went out in the restaurant. I don’t think any of us had ever experienced something like that before, and I’m pretty sure the employees hadn’t either. They were walking around holding up lighters to try and illuminate the place. Fortunately we were all paying cash, so we were able to pay the bill and leave. We included a really fat tip for Guillermo because we liked him so much. Just as we were leaving, the power came back on, so they didn’t have to walk around with lighters for too long.

I decided to teach everyone about the clever placement of the two Harbor Houses, explaining that Golden Lantern practically turns into Anderson, so both Harbor Houses are basically at the same intersection in two different cities. “What’s the other street?” asked John jokingly. “It’s PCH,” Heather answered brightly.

Jill went home after Harbor House, but the rest of us (now in three cars because Trenton had joined us) decided to visit Main Beach because I informed them that it was open past ten o’clock. Chelsey (who is twenty) had ordered a couple of beers at Harbor House, so she let me drive her car for the rest of the evening. We drove our three cars up PCH and parked near Main Beach.

For a while, we just messed around on the beach. Some of the group had blow-pops (thanks to Jenn, who brought them to the show as a gift). The boys found a large crevice that looked like a vagina and played with it for a while. Meanwhile, Heather and I went to Diedrich because the sound of waves made her want to pee. I ordered an iced coffee while she used the facilities, and then we walked back to the beach to join our friends.

Donald and Danny had picked up Chelsey and were threatening to throw her in the ocean, and when they finally put her down, she freaked out because her phone was no longer in her pocket. She made us all start looking, but when she turned away, Danny held her phone (which he had taken) up in the air and showed it to the rest of us. After a couple more minutes of “looking,” Danny suggested that he should call Chelsey’s phone to see if we could hear it ring. He pulled Chelsey’s phone out of his pocket, right in front of her, and dialed her number. It rang a few times, and we all stood there watching, wondering when Chelsey would notice that “Danny’s phone” suddenly looked just like her phone. Finally she caught on, and she got her phone back.

As we were laughing at Chelsey, we noticed a large man with long hair and a purpose approaching us. His name was Pascha, and he was most definitely on drugs or schizophrenic. He got right in our faces and demanded a cigarette, but all we had were blow-pops. He made fun of us for having “lollipops” instead of cigarettes, and he called us “the lollipop guild.” He was very scary, and he had a habit of walking up to people as though he was planning to plow directly through them. There were eleven of us and only one of him, but I’m pretty sure we were outnumbered.

He wouldn’t leave us alone, so we eventually left that part of the beach and walked up toward the Laguna Inn to get away from the crazy Pascha. We took the walkway that goes past the hotel and then walked down the stairs to another part of the beach. It was low tide, so there was actually beach there instead of just rocks. Danny told us a “scary” story about being at a similar beach in Santa Barbara and seeing a woman in a white gown standing on the rocks. It was extremely dark, so we didn’t stay very long because we were concerned about encountering more Paschas.

On our way back to our cars, we briefly encountered Pascha again. He informed us that Satan is bad, and we were very grateful.

Next, Sammi’s car and Trenton’s car followed my car up to Top of the World. I even took Third Street so they could experience the unbelievably steep hill. We stood on a cement bench at Top of the World for a long time, looking out at the lights of Aliso Viejo and Laguna Hills below us (to the northeast). “We should really call someone,” Danny suggested. He took out his phone and dialed, and then he asked us all to say “Hi dipshit!” into the phone. We complied, and he informed us afterward that we had just left a message for our friend Matt.

Heather went to Sammi’s car to get her phone, and Danny informed us that the message was actually for Heather (who had therefore called herself a dipshit), not for Matt. We all found that very amusing, and when Heather returned with her cell phone, she reported, “The dipshit message was for me! It wasn’t really for Matt! Danny called my phone instead!”

At some point, everyone got really quiet while looking out over the city. I told them a “scary” story about being at a similar hill in Santa Barbara and seeing a woman in a white gown standing on the rocks.

When we’d had enough nature, we drove our three cars back toward 840. The people in my car raved about what an exciting adventure we’d had, and I secretly gloated because I had suggested every single thing we had done that evening. It made me really proud, knowing that I had introduced almost a dozen people to new places and new experiences in one evening.

Back at 840, we watched John’s home video of the show. I had refused to watch it while the show was still in progress (because seeing myself would have made me self-conscious when performing), so I was excited to finally see it. I’m normally very critical of all shows, including my own, but our show really was enjoyable. It was also a great way to end an eventful closing night cast party. The video ended around two o’clock, and I said my goodbyes and headed home to write in my journal.

When I got home tonight, I finally realized that I don’t want the show to be over.

I always want shows to end by the time they end, and even today I said that I was glad it was over. But our adventures tonight reminded me how much I’ve fallen in love with this cast (and its groupies), and now I’m actually sad that the show is over.

It’s true that I’ll get to see most of these people again: quite often, in fact, if I can help it. But from this point on it’ll require effort. People will eventually start other projects and cease to be available, and the group will slowly but surely drift apart. That feels tragic to me.

I feel very lucky right now. I’m so lucky to have done this show, and to have met all of these people, and to have found a huge, wonderful group of theatre people whom I care about and who care about me too. It’s been years since that’s happened, and I am truly grateful.

Last night during the show, Chelsey’s car sprouted a “Jesus Loves Me” license plate frame, thanks to Heather, some stage crew people (who had the right kind of screwdriver), and me. And when she started her car after the show, she got to hear children’s songs about Jesus blasting on her car stereo. I think she was very excited about all of this.

Last night I talked to Krysta about movies. Her favorite actress is Audrey Hepburn (which makes sense because Krysta kind of resembles her), and she mentioned that I should see Funny Face. I told her I’d add it to my list (and I did), and she said that her “list” is simply the AFI Top 100. After consulting the list (and deciding that I can’t count movies I’ve only partially seen or that I saw when I was too young to understand), I realized that I’ve seen thirty-five:

6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
7. THE GRADUATE (1967)
10. SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952)
11. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)
14. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)
15. STAR WARS (1977)
17. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)
21. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)
22. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)
23. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)
25. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)
26. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964)
30. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)
31. ANNIE HALL (1977)
34. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)
36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)
40. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)
41. WEST SIDE STORY (1961)
42. REAR WINDOW (1954)
43. KING KONG (1933)
49. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)
53. AMADEUS (1984)
55. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
57. THE THIRD MAN (1949)
58. FANTASIA (1940)
59. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)
60. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
62. TOOTSIE (1982)
68. AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)
71. FORREST GUMP (1994)
75. DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990)
77. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973)
87. FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
91. MY FAIR LADY (1964)
95. PULP FICTION (1994)

She’s only seen twenty-something. How many have you seen?