Playing dress-up.

Lately I'm back to that old familiar feeling of doing my job and at least two or three others (that's right, at least one of them is filling in for my PI). I know exactly how I would do things, if it were up to me, but it's not. So I'm left cleaning up other people's messes most of the day, and working late to get my own stuff done at night.

Sometimes I feel like the janitor who works in the theatre, watches the rehearsals, and gets to try on costumes at night after everyone's gone home.

I used to play dress-up with my friend Mary who lived around the block. Didn't everyone have a friend like that? Her aunt had a huge collection of old clothing, and her family left us alone in the basement to entertain ourselves.

The clothes were all too big for me, not to mention the shoes, which were ridiculous. There was no way to actually walk in them, so we'd kind of stick our feet in and drag them around. It makes me laugh just to think about it.

We used to play things like School and Restaurant.

Which is funny, since those are the two places I've actually spent most of my adult life.

Playing dress-up didn't prepare me at all, whatsoever, for actually dressing up, going to school, or going to restaurants (much less working in one).

One might argue that it prepared me psychologically for the experience, or some such nonsense, but Mary apparently didn't reap any great confidence from envisioning herself in school- she's struggled with agoraphobia her entire life.

So it's kind of fun in a bittersweet way to think:

"Wow, here's more evidence that there's no question that I could do this job"- the bitter part being the caveats:

a) maybe, as Playing Restaurant is to Actual Restaurant, I don't really know what it would actually be like?

b) if someone would even interview me for one.

It's like rehearsing for a callback audition, before you actually get the call:

You're trying to tell yourself it's good practice no matter what, that you should think positive, that you'll be sorry if you waste the time you have now to really give it your all. Part of you thinks this could be your best work ever, and it's too bad nobody's here to see it. Maybe by the time you get to the audition, you think, you'll have used up all your spark.

But it's hard to keep your mind on the rehearsal. You keep staring at the phone, wondering if you're wasting your time.