A Bit of a Catch-up…

A lot has happened since Thanksgiving.  I have received a full bill of health from my surgeon. The cardiologist has determined that I do not have any defects in my valves, and although I have high blood pressure, with a change in medicine, everything will be much better.  And so far, it has been improving.  I still get winded, but I recover much quicker.

I have since done another opera.  Rigoletto was wonderful, although it still was more difficult than I thought it would be.  Climbing stairs and running around was bit more taxing than I had hoped.  I need to really push harder in exercising and getting back into shape.  But I do recover faster now, and that is a good thing.  And now I’m working on Elixir of Love for March.  This is one that I have been looking forward to doing for ever.  And what great music this opera has.  It is wonderful.  I have also been rehearsing for a show with Salty Dinner Theater, “Arthur and Lancelot: For Love of Guinevere.”  It is a fun Valentine’s day version of the Camelot story, and I get to play Merlin.  It’s been a lot of fun to prepare.

I also directed my first show for Holladay Arts Council.  It is a reader’s theater production of “Dear Liar.”   It is a play that chronicles the letters written between George Bernard Shaw and Beatrice Stella Campbell, the actress who originated Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion.  It is a wonderful play that chronicles the love these two people built over forty years.  So, I’ve been busy.

For a little over the last year, I have been reviewing shows for Utah Theater Bloggers Association.  It all started out as a way to get free tickets to see shows.  Anyway, UTBA has been around for two years now, and at the annual get-together of UTBA reviewers and staff, they announced a reboot to the website, and some new features that are coming up for UTBA.  Then at the end of the evening, they said that they had talked about giving out awards, but decided not to do that.  But as they were going through stats and looking at what had happened over the previous year, they said that there was one person that they couldn’t help but recognize.  They said that this person had done a lot to make UTBA what it is and to improve the quality of what UTBA is now.  They felt that they needed to award the reviewer of the year to… Tony Porter.  It was a great shock, but a very pleasant surprise.

I wrote 22 reviews, with at least one review each month of the year.  They also said that the quality of my reviews helped to raise the bar on the website.  It was a very nice honor.

 

Quote of the Day:

“The only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, side-stepping responsibility, and pushing their luck!  ~Author Unknown”

Over the River and Through the Woods….

So my goal of posting every week has not worked out so well.  Even after starting back up following my fun adventures in medicine, I have missed a week.  Well, if you can’t be a good example, …

I’m gaining more stamina.  This past weekend we went to the symphony to hear Berlioz’s “The Childhood of Christ.”  What a fantastic piece of music!  And the Utah Symphony and Chorus did a fantastic job!  This really should be performed more often.  It has not been heard in its entirety since 1984(?) under Joseph Silverstein.  It is a beautiful piece and the harp/flute trio in the third section is one of the most delightful things Berlioz ever wrote.  I have come to really appreciate the genius of Hector Berlioz.  What an amazing composer.  It is said that his instrument really was the symphony orchestra, and I am more and more convinced of it the more Berlioz I am exposed to.  The Symphony Fantasitque had been one of my absolute favorites since I first heard it, and I was lucky enough to perform as part of the off-stage chorus in his “Roméo et Juliette” last year.  It is all incredible music.

Then on Saturday, I went bowling for the first time in years, and went out to dinner with friends.  It is the most exercise I’ve since I got out of the hospital.  With all the walking on Friday, and the bowling and walking we did on Saturday, I got quite the workout.  But I’ve got to prepare myself for the first weekend in December.  We’ve got tickets to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional and we are planning on taking Trax and then seeing the Christmas lights.  So that means walking across Temple Square to the Conference Center and then walking around looking at the lights.  More walking than I have done in a long time, even before the surgery.  So I need to bump up the activity level in preparation.

I have lost 20 lbs. through all of this so far.  Not much in the grand scheme, but a good start.  I don’t want to back track.  I just want to keep moving forward. I subscribe to Men’s Health and every month they have what they call the “Belly-Off Club” article that features someone who has lost weight and kept it off and how they did it.  This month I wanted to shoot them.  They featured someone who lost 120 pounds in three months(!), but, as they say “while rapid weight loss is not usually healthy, he has kept it off.”  Well, whoopty-shit for him!  This guy started exercising twice a day for two hours a day.  I don’t dedicate anything in my life that much time except my family.  I could never do that.  That is what is called an obsessive/compulsive personality.  More power to him, I guess.  He is now a personal trainer, but I bet he has not much of a social life.  If getting rock hard abs means giving up my playtime, I’ll settle for a more manageable weight and a slightly soft middle and get to play with my friends and family.

I hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving, and a wonderful holiday season.  I will be posting more in the coming weeks.  I am so thankful for all of you who read this and who take the time to care about me.  You mean a great deal to me, and I cherish the friendships that I have.  God bless you all.

Quote of the day:

"Thanksgiving. It's like we didn't even try to come up with a tradition. The tradition is, we overeat. 'Hey, how about at Thanksgiving we just eat a lot?' 'But we do that every day!' 'Oh. What if we eat a lot with people that annoy the hell out of us? – Jim Gaffigan”

Bonus Quote of the Day:

"Thanksgiving is a magical time of year when families across the country join together to raise America's obesity statistics. Personally, I love Thanksgiving traditions: watching football, making pumpkin pie, and saying the magic phrase that sends your aunt storming out of the dining room to sit in her car. – Stephen Colbert"

Oh, look! A diamond!

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about all the shows I’ve done over the years and what I’ve let slip through my fingers because of what I’ve let myself become.  Surprisingly, I got a lot of roles when I was a little younger and not quite as heavy, but still overweight.  I did roles like Sky Masterson in “Guys and Dolls",” Adam Pontipee  in “ Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,”  Daddy Warbucks in “Annie Warbucks, “ and The Pirate King in “The Pirates of Penzance.”  These were all roles that I never would have been cast in if it had been at any other theater company.  The owner was a larger man, and I think he saw things differently than most people.  Anyway, I got some really great roles, and a lot of romantic leads.  Audiences didn’t seem to mind.  But I know that I didn’t get many roles at other companies because of my size.  I don’t audition now for many companies unless I know someone involved because I know that I won’t get many of the roles that I want.  Plus there are all the shows that I might get cast in but could never do because of my size.  Shows like “The Andrews Brothers.”  I’ve never seen a full production of it, but the premise is three guys on an island in the Pacific are helping with the USO show.  They are not talented and each have their own quirks.  Then suddenly the news comes that the Andrews Sisters, the headliners, are stranded in quarantine in Hawaii, so they are convinced that they have to impersonate the Andrews Sisters, in full drag, no less.   I want so badly to play one of the parts, but I could never do it as large as I am.

I would love to do other shows, too.  “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, abr.” But I’d never be able to do it physically.  Tons of other shows.  I need to get this girth off me so that I can move better and do the physical stuff.  As you’d see if you came to “The Tempest” moving around stage sets off a torrent of flop-sweat.  It’s not pleasant for the actors I work with or for me, but also not so great for the audience.  I know that I don’t look appealing when this happens.  It was much worse when I was doing dinner theater.  Standing around a bunch of people dripping while they are eating is not good.  Most people were polite and didn’t say anything.  I did my best never to be standing directly over someone.  But one show I had a guy who thought he was a real comedian, and decided to make jokes at my expense.  I didn’t appreciate it, and I know the people at his table felt uncomfortable.  I hated that night.

And so, here I am at age 45, twice my ideal weight and doing little more than blogging about it.  Every once in a while I get a wild hair and try something like cutting out some indulgence or really watching my calorie count. But I don’t get that bang for my buck, as it were, to keep up with it.  Plus I have created such a busy schedule for myself that I don’t make time to do the things that I need to do.  I don’t have the inward drive to do it.  I hate where I am in my own shell, but lack the drive to break out of that shell.  And I don’t seem to get any encouragement from anyone.  My friends have all come to accept who I am, and don’t push me to change.  I need to find less polite friends! 

But maybe my blogging about all this and hearing (or seeing?) myself write all this same stuff over and over again will finally get me to put the remote down, get off the couch and haul my sorry ass across the house to the treadmill or stationary bike for some MUCH needed exercise.  Heaven knows I need it.  I know I need it and so do all of you.

Quote of the day:

“I don't exercise. I'm Jewish. If God had wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor.  --JOAN RIVERS”

One Midnight Down…!

And we hit the one month mark before the opening of “The Tempest.”  I have a hard deadline of being off-book by this Wednesday, and I’m getting scared.  It’s not that I don’t have the general idea of what it is that I’m saying, or that I don’t know most of the words in the right order.  But it’s Shakespeare.  You need to be word perfect (as opposed to WordPerfect, which would make you an aging and obsolete, though superior, word processing suite).  There’s a reason he put those words in that order.  And with The Tempest, you see Shakespeare near the end of his career, writing in a more developed style and not sticking to the strict iambic pentameter of his earlier works.  And I’ve been a cotton headed ninny muggins lately. and have not been able to concentrate.  This tends to make it difficult with memorizing your lines and getting the whole thing to a point where you can really start to act.

The diet is a total bust right now.  I’m not even trying.  I’ve just been too stressed.  And no, knowing that stressed spelled backwards is desserts does NOT help!  It’s something that I just need to get my resolve back to tackle.  I can feel it building, but it hasn’t burst forth yet.  My gut has, but not my resolve.  It’s summer and I should be excited to get outside, but I don’t have decent shoes or any exercise clothes.  I have one pair of jeans that are about to fall apart on me.  Clothes shopping sucks when you’re a fat pig.  Pretty much everything sucks when you’re fat.  I don’t understand these people that fight for “fat rights.”  I mean I don’t think anyone should be mocked for any reason, but to say that being fat is like being black or gay is just plain stupid.  I don’t need a law passed to feel better about myself.  I need to put down the damn fork and get my ass off the sofa!

The biggest problem I have right now to really exercising is pride.  Any time I start any kind of physical activity, I spout sweat like a rain bird!  If I can do this in the privacy of my own home, it’s not such a big deal.  Out on the streets, it’s more of a concern.  In a rehearsal, it’s down-right tragic.  I know I would be so much happier in so many way if I just kicked myself into gear and exercised.  But I am a huge (no pun intended) creature of habit.  And my habit has been to lounge around.  Well, it’s got to stop.  Or start, rather.  Whichever it is, this tub o’ lard has got to get moving.

Quote of the day:

“I don't answer the phone.  I get the feeling whenever I do that there will be someone on the other end.  ~Fred Couples”