In Which Cinderannie Auditions

Well, well, my birthday has come and gone, and so has Thanksgiving and the two weeks my family was here. With all that having happened, I’m not sure what to write about. I think I’ll just write about whatever scattered events come to mind.
First, a little about my birthday. My grandparents were here all day, and we went to the Magic Kingdom and to Epcot. At the Magic Kingdom, when we first came in, there were cast members turning a jump rope for kids to jump, and I took a turn and jumped 20 times. Grandpa Richard jumped in while I was jumping, jumped several times, and jumped back out again! I ask you, how many people over seventy can do that? I asked him at one point during the day how old he felt, and he said that right then he felt fifty, but when he was biking he felt thirty. I have come to the conclusion that the number one attaches to oneself is completely immaterial. For instance, I felt about sixteen throughout that day, despite it being my twentieth birthday.
I can’t remember what rides we rode on, because I’ve been on most of them several times, but I remember that we rode the Liberty Belle steamboat because Grandpa Richard really wanted to ride it to see how it worked, and that we went on the Haunted Mansion and Grandma Sally didn’t particularly like it, and we didn’t ride Splash Mountain because we didn’t want to get wet. We got sundaes at the Plaza Ice Cream Parlour, and the person taking orders had everyone in the whole shop sing to me. And we went to Tom Sawyer Island, and Grandpa Richard let me wander off my myself for a little and that was fun, and then we came back and shopped at the candy store in Frontierland and they bought me lollipops and Jelly Bellies, and we ate lunch at the Plaza Restaurant, and eventually took the monorail to Epcot. The food and wine festival was going on there, and we wandered through the countries, sampling whatever food looked best. And it poured down rain and got very cold, and my grandparents bought me a rain poncho so I would not freeze. And we watched Illuminations.
Oh and my father called me while we were on the monorail but it was so loud that I couldn’t hear him at all, so he called me back a little later once we were at the park. He was in Mexico at the time. I was glad he called.
(I’m sorry this is coming out so weird and choppy. I haven’t felt very well since yesterday and my brain has gone away somewhere else. Bear with me, and skim whatever gets dull.)
Oh! I know what is an important thing to write about!
I was sitting at a table in the Main Street break room during my break and I heard some custodial guys who I knew talking. They said something about auditions for the Disney fairies! My ears perked way up. They were teasing each other about auditioning.
“Why don’t you audition?”
“Because I’m not between 5’ and 5’5”!”
I am 5’3”. I was halfway to their table before I knew I’d stood up.
“Okay, back up about three sentences,” I said. “What’s this about auditions?”
My friend Richard explained that he’d seen a poster for them in the Fantasyland area, around the Entertainment base. That night I searched and searched for it – I felt so self conscious wandering around the Entertainment area in my custodial costume – but couldn’t find it anywhere, so I asked Abby (my roommate, who’s in Entertainment) about it when I got home that night. She said it was a type-out audition, so no movement was required, and told me when it was. I later found a poster – it was in the elevator, which is why I couldn’t find it. I was very excited at first because I knew that one of the fairies looked like me – but unfortunately, when I looked it up, I found that that fairy wasn’t one of the ones being auditioned for. I didn’t look especially like any of them. But it couldn’t hurt to try anyway.
The auditions were the Tuesday that my family would be here, at 9am and 7pm. I wanted to go to the morning ones, so that I could have the rest of the day with my family not worrying about it. I wasn’t sure whether to dress professionally or casually (and I always end up deciding wrong for any event where it’s unclear…), so I decided to bring more than one outfit so I could change based on what the others were wearing.
I had been going to get up at 6:30, to get to the morning audition at 7:30 (we were supposed to arrive an hour early but I wanted to give myself even more time) – but I got so little sleep that I slept right through both alarms I set. So I had to go to the night one. I was just glad that there were two audition times.
I spent a glorious day at Epcot with my family, and then at 4:30 I left them to go to the audition. It was at the Animal Kingdom rehearsal facility. I arrived as somewhat of a wreck from running around Epcot, and had brought clothes to change into and a hairbrush and such with me, thinking to get ready in a bathroom before going in. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a bathroom in the building, or if there was, it was past the hallway where lots of girls were lined up and I felt far too self-concious to past through or ask one if there was a bathroom. So I went to a building that was next door (bringing the flattering casual clothes I had packed with me, since all the girls I saw were dressed casually) and wandered around it – it was an office type building, and I simply endeavored to look like I knew where I was going, and no one stopped or questioned me. That building was like a maze. “There’s got to be a bathroom here!” I thought. “This is ridiculous!” Finally I found it. I changed, and combed my hair, and put on make up, and generally got myself feeling very pretty, which is good for my self confidence. I was a little worried upon leaving the bathroom that I wouldn’t be able to find the exit of that maze of cubicles, but it was actually quite close to where I was. I must have walked about four times farther than I needed to in order to get to that bathroom.
I put my stuff back in my car, and went back to the Rehearsal facility, and got in line. Fortunately, the girl who got in line behind me looked friendly, and we ended up talking to each other throughout most of the very long line. Another girl in front of us joined in our conversation also. She was a very – what is the word? – forward? brusque? – no, that’s not right; I can’t think of the word. At any rate, she said what she thought, positive and negative, without any beating about the bush. She was the sort of dynamic personality that is bound to have personality conflicts with some people. But for me, it made her extremely easy to talk to and I enjoyed her company very much. Give me a person who says whatever comes into her head rather than a person who makes up pointless small talk. It’s much more interesting and, for me, more comfortable. She had short red hair that matched her personality perfectly.
When we got to the front of the line, the three of us turned out to be numbers 500, 501, and 502. The girl in front of me (I never did find out her name) was at first quite pleased with being the one to get 500 – until we realized that because of the way they were dividing us into groups of 50, she would be separated from us.
A few groups before us, a girl came out of the audition crying. At first I think we all felt sorry for her – until she called someone on the phone and started talking to them, hollering and swearing about how it was so unfair and they always pick the same people for face characters and on and on. I and the red-headed girl, at first without making any actual reference at all to the girl on the phone, started to talk about how you have to be patient and persistent when it comes to auditioning, that you can’t let yourself become bitter about not getting parts because then your cynicism and pride will just come through in your personality and auditions and you’ll never get it, you just have to keep trying, and know that some parts just aren’t right for you and accept that but keep trying for all different things. At one point the red-headed girl said with a smile, “I feel like we’re warding off negative energy.” And we were. We had to keep repeating to each other what we knew was true so that we wouldn’t be affected by all the negativity coming from the poor girl on the phone.
Eventually the red-headed girl’s group was called, and we wished her luck. A little later it was our turn. We were supposed to line up by number – this was easy for me, since I was the first in line. We waited, lined up in another hallway, for it to be our group’s turn to go in. I was nervous and very excited. I was just standing there smiling, and thinking that it would be a relief to get some of this energy out by running up and down the hallway a few times, and the guy who was taking us in asked me if I was okay. It’s so weird – when I’m just plain nervous, it doesn’t show that much, but if I’m a little nervous + excited by the fact that it’s a significant event, I look like I’m traumatized, even if I’m actually very happy. This keeps contributing to me not being able to give blood, because I have always wanted to, and think of it as a significant event (perhaps because of the association with Christ’s blood being given for us), and although I am not afraid of needles and can get a shot without flinching, as a new experience it makes me slightly nervous – and then I look like I’m traumatized, I get an adrenaline rush from the excitement which makes my pulse be too fast, and they don’t let me give blood. But anyway, I assured the man that I was fine, and a few moments later we went in.
All we did was stand in lines of ten, talking to each other while music played and they looked us over, then switch, the front line to the back and everyone else moving up, until they’d looked at all of us. Then they called out the numbers of who they wanted to see. I wished that I could have not been in the first line. I didn’t like having to keep waiting knowing that I’d been evaluated right off. I would rather have had the anticipation, to imagine that perhaps I’d caught their eye while a few rows back and now they were going to see me in front – but anyhow it didn’t work out that way. And when they called the numbers, I didn’t get to have the anticipation of “oh, my number’s coming up! Will they call it?” because I was 501, the very first number, and I knew from the moment they started with 503 that neither I nor my new friend were called back. So we waited for the rest of the numbers to be called, and then left.
I have a love-hate relationship with auditions. I always wondered what exactly the phrase “love-hate relationship” was supposed to mean, until I realized that auditions are the one thing that it’s true of for me. I love the theatre atmosphere, the anticipation, the togetherness of all the nervous people waiting together and reassuring each other. And I hate that no matter how unlikely I tell myself that it is that I will get a part, I can’t help hoping and dreaming and imagining. My brain makes up stories and visions for everything. And then when I hear the “no,” in whatever form it comes, it’s a loss – a loss of all the story I had created, of my part in that story.
I think the hardest part of this one for me was the thought, “If I’m not a fairy, what am I?” If the one part that I was the exact height range and body type and personality for, I wasn’t fit for, what was I fit for? I knew that this didn’t really make sense – I didn’t have to just look like a fairy, I had to look like the specific fairies they had, and I had gone into it knowing that I didn’t. But I still felt it. But there, reassuring me, was a whole chorus of quiet, steady, persistent voices in the back of my head that talk to me at times like this, gently repeating their wisdom until it penetrates into my mind. Voices telling me that this is not where my significance comes from, and that they have all felt this way before too. Z, telling me that I’m part of God’s story. Don, ruefully pointing to his sticking out ear and telling about times he’s felt inadequate – and then repeating, “I am a blood-bought child of God.” Pastor Louie, talking about when people have criticized him for what he does or how he preaches, and describing, with pauses to be able to continue speaking without getting choked up, the grace of God in choosing us. I don’t know where I would be without my church – or my family, who encourage me in all my endeavors, and never tell me that it can’t be done.
So thus ends the chapter of me trying to be a Disney fairy. But extension Entertainment auditions for college program are December 5th… (dun-dun-dun!)

In Which Cinderannie is Surprised

Well, on the 29th of October, I was working from 7:15pm-1:15am. I had spent the few days before that getting things ready – doing some cleaning and errands and miscellaneous things that needed doing, so that everything would be ready and done before both my birthday and the start of National Novel Writing Month. So I went to work fairly happily, knowing that the next day would be spent entirely with my grandparents, at the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. And it just got better. I had my favorite zone to sweep in Tomorrowland – the one with the Fantasyland bridge – and I had my favorite trash run. That’s the bag trash, with the lightweight cart, where I get to go inside Space Mountain. So work was great, and the manager gave me a card and a little gift bag.
When it was nearly midnight, I took my gift bag and card and went over to a little wishing well off of a path that no one ever goes on, and I watched on my watch as it turned midnight, and my birthday. The way I think of birthdays is a little odd. It is my (in this case) 20th birthday starting at midnight. But I don’t turn 20 until I wake up in the morning. And I am not officially 20 until 7:54pm, which is my birth time. So yes, that’s how it works. Because I’m crazy. So once it was my birthday, I opened the card and the bag – which had candy in it. And then went back to finish my trash run.
When I arrived home, at nearly 2:30am, I was walking up the stairs and the thought occurred to me that perhaps my roommates would yell Happy Birthday or something when I came in. But I thought probably not. They were usually in bed at this time. As I unlocked the door, I noticed that the top lock was locked too, which was unusual. “I wonder if they locked it just so that they could hear when I was coming,” I thought, but didn’t take the thought very seriously. So I went in.
“Happy Birthday!” all my roommates yelled, and squirted me with a good deal of silly sting. And I went and looked around the apartment which was all decorated with crepe paper and confetti and banners. And then we had cake that Abby made, and they got birthday candles – we aren’t supposed to have candles – and we went out on the deck to light them and sing so we wouldn’t set off the fire alarm. We were lighting them when we noticed a security person in a golf cart right below our deck. Oh dear. In a giggling panic we gathered around the candles trying to block the glow, and they sang,
“Happybirthdaytoyou, Happybirthdaytoyou, HappybithdaydearJoanna, Happybirthdaytoyou!” and I blew them out, and we dashed back inside, cracking up laughing and hoping that security didn’t come knocking at our door. Which they didn’t, and we just ate our cake happily. And then I went to bed, at nearly 4am.

More to come…

In Which An Important Revelation is Made, and Cinderannie Muses on Her Strange Thought Processes

First, an update on things pertaining to the last post. I did get my car started, and also have now gotten a new gas cap (a gift from my grandfather) and changed the oil. So my car’s all good now. My shoe I never found – it did look rather beat up and dirty so perhaps someone thought it was abandoned and threw it out. And then I lost the other because I left it in the Toontown breakroom and even though I knew right where I left it and came back first thing when I got to work the next day, it was already gone. So I had to buy new shoes, but my sweet mother gave me money for them.
I have to add a bit of interesting story to the tale of the shoes. I didn’t tell you about this before because I am not the only one in my family with an overactive imagination. But now that it’s over I can tell the whole thing.
A few nights before I lost my shoe (or maybe it was just the night before? I don’t remember), I met a young man from England, another custodial, Andy, down by the custodial clocking-out place. He and I got to talking and ended up riding the bus together. He was talking about various musicians he liked, most of which I had never heard of. Then he asked who I liked, and I said he’d probably never heard of them.
“Try me,” he said.
“Skillet, Flyleaf, Red…” I started to list. And he said,
“Skillet!” and started to sing, “And I rest in the wonder of your love… We sing that in our youth group!” Well! So then he told me all about the youth group he helps lead back home. It was so comforting to hear someone talking about church.
When we got back, I got off the bus first because it stops first at Chatham and Andy lives at Vista Way. So I told him goodbye and went home. Then, a little later when I’d taken a shower and gotten ready for bed and was checking my e-mail and Facebook, I discovered a Facebook message from him saying that I’d left my shoes on the bus, and to call him so I could get them back! Since it was about half an hour after he’d left the message I decided to message him back instead of calling, in case he had gone to bed. The next day we arranged for me to drive by and get my shoes. I was going over there anyway to use the internet. So I went and got my shoes, and ate a strawberry he offered me from the carton of strawberries on the counter, and I felt like he wanted me to stay longer but I wanted to have time on the internet and also time to get ready for work, so I said goodbye and left. And afterward I didn’t know what to think. He was nice, and tolerable looking – and from England! – and I really didn’t feel attracted to him. But I never – or very rarely – feel attracted to someone in the “like” way when I first meet him. It always grows out of a friendship or at least having known them for quite a while. And it’s so frustrating around here (and even in some ways at home), because it seems like if a guy and a girl get along then the expectation is that they get to know each other through dating, but I don’t want to date someone unless I’m possibly going to marry him, and I can’t know that without getting to know him first! So it’s like I have to decide in the first days after I meet a guy whether I like him enough to marry him, and my default reaction is “No, I don’t want to marry this person” – but then I feel guilty, thinking, “well of course you don’t want to marry him now, he’s a stranger, you can’t just write off every guy you ever meet like this” – ugh, it’s terrible. Honestly I’m usually very relieved when a definite reason comes up why I couldn’t marry the person anyway, because then I don’t have to feel guilty for writing them off. Because there have only been two guys in my whole life who I knew for sure that if they wanted to pursue/marry me, I would say yes (and one strong maybe). And sometimes I feel guilty for being too picky or something.
Man, none of this monologue has been about Disney at all. I’m sure you’re all bored to death. But I wanted both to get these thoughts out and to share them with you so that you can share your thoughts and advice on this matter.
So, back to the tale of Andy. We had seen each other around a bit and always said hello and talked. (Well, mostly he talked. He’s very talkative. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it depends on what the person talks about and whether they are talking because they like the subject or just to hear themselves speak.) It was nice but I was still nervous about the possibility of him asking me out, and trying to figure out whether I should be not writing him off.
And then I gave him a ride home the other night, because I had driven, and it’s faster to drive than take the bus home. And as we were driving, we were talking about our plans and dreams about the future. And he said,
“Oh and I just got permission from my girlfriend’s dad to ask her to marry me!”
Well, talk about an “Oh” moment with a capital “O”! The amusing thing was that I felt like I should be sad, but actually what I felt was unqualified relief. So thus ends that aspect of the tale of Andy, although hopefully the friendship will continue – more freely, since I now don’t have to worry about the liking/marriage/romance aspect.
Okay, that’s all for the moment, but soon you’ll get a very enthusiastic update on the greatness of the past week. I thought you might like to read this in the meantime, though.

Oh, and Rad, GB is a Disney-loving man from my church who my family has known – oh for ages, I think. You know, maybe you should all introduce yourselves to each other in your next comments. Various ones of you keep asking who the others are.