Down Memory Lane in Search of Fame

I just signed up at a blogroll of Mormon Mommy Blogs, including people who aren't Mormon, but who have decent content. And then I realized that I was bored with my title, hadn't updated my blog since last Sunday, and basically I needed a blog/writing makeover.

As we can all tell, unfortunately this post isn't it. Because of course my mind blanked.

But I wanted to sign up because hey, I'm voyeuristic, and like to read other's blogs, and I hope that other's are out there like me, because I love for people to read my blog, even if they don't know me.

I guess this relates to how I always wanted to be "discovered" as a child, and make it into the movies. Like most children out there, I was convinced that I had a secret talent, a hidden charisma just waiting for the chance to break out in front of the whole world. I didn't want this for the money, or even just the fame alone; I wanted it for the appreciation of my (supposed) talent.

I even tried out for the Church acting list thingy that they keep, and then cull people from for Church videos. I memorized a long speech that Anne of Green Gables made to Marilla about picking flowers with all the students one spring day. I copied that beloved speech out into my journal (a green one, that I named Laurel [I was going through a "I talk to my journal, and she has a name" stage), by candlelight. Because hey, I was nothing if not a romantic child. Spots of wax even dropped onto the page.

Then I delivered it to them in all my mustered charisma and Anne-ism.

I even listed one of my talents as screaming, and they asked for a sample, and I went to the end of the room, and screamed with all my might at them. And yet for some inexplicable reason I never received a phone call asking me to be in a church movie, preferably as the starring role.

Some things just remain mysteries.

So because of some over-active lungs and imaginations that I was actually Anne of Green Gables stuck in the twentieth century with normal brown hair and no Gilbert, I was never discovered.

Years later I had a close brush with everyone-loving-my-talent when on a whim as a sophomore I tried out for the one act plays East High in Salt Lake City put on every year. I searched and searched for a good monologue to audition with. Because of my previous Anne experience, I steered away from trying to pick my own "good" monologue and then somehow picking the longest and most boring speech in the book instead, and so I searched through collections of monologues.

And then I found it.

It started, "My roommate steals my cigarettes. She steals my cigarettes, and this creates a rage in me...."

Yes, I knew that despite the fact I was a good Mormon girl, and had never actually touched a cigarette, and that I was auditioning for a highschool play, I truly resonated with this monologue about my errant roommate.

So I memorized it. And the night before I had to deliver it, my family was at the dollar theatre, and I saw a girl throw her empty cigarette pack in the trash. So I asked my step dad, who as a convert and had once smoked was used to dealing with such evil items, to get it for me. He complied, and then that night I cut a straw down to the size of a cigarette and placed it in the empty pack, which I then nested inside a manila envelope in my backpack.

The next day at school I spent the whole day envisioning the powers-that-be somehow deciding to search my backpack and finding that criminal evidence, and how I would recite to them my monologue, and explain it was an essential prop, and just dearly hope that they couldn't arrest me (or whatever other consequence my over-stretched imagination came up with) on the basis of having cigarette paraphernalia alone.

I safely made it to my audition, with the incriminating pack still untouched.

At the audition, everyone delivered a monologue they had prepared, and the rules were there was to be no clapping in between any of them.

So when my turn came, I walked up there, pulled out my straw "cigarette" from the pack, crumpled the pack and threw it down in rage and horror, and began, "My roommate steals my cigarettes, she steals my cigarettes, and this creates a rage in me...." (Ok, so that's actually all I remember anymore; I'm really not trying to just leave a dramatic ending).

At the end, everyone in the room clapped, including the people I was auditioning for. Yes, they clapped me off the stage. And the person who was casting people picked me for her own play she had written, as the starring role.

Man, was I famous, and appreciated for my acting ability at that brief moment. Yes, I got to play a girl named Epicurious, who was putting on a cooking show with her friends, the Cynic and the Stoic. And the Stoic liked me, and we kissed at the end of the play. Which was actually the first time I kissed anyone. But I need to stay on topic, so I won't go into how everyone stood around us, and gave us kissing tips the first time we practiced the kiss, and I wanted to melt into the floor and die, or how he decided he was gay shortly after, or how the guy who played the Cynic did marajuana every night, and still managed to pull a 3.92 gpa for all four years of highschool. Nope, I'm Mrs. Stay-on-topic.

And then I was given an award at the end of the year for best upcoming actress, and they all loved me, and it was wonderful.

Until I decided to up and randomly go to a Boarding School, Wayland Academy, in Wisconsin instead because they sent me a recruitment letter and a scholarship and financial aid, and I had spent the half of my childhood that I wasn't wishing I was Anne of Green Gables wishing that I was going off to live in England with my fictional great Aunt, who would send me to boarding school, preferably all of this occurring in the 19th century.

So I left my loving crowds, who promptly forgot all about me, and then I was nobody again, at least in the acting/fame department. I even tried out for plays, but they kept on giving me weird roles, like a Hot Box dancer in Guys and Dolls, or the drunk actress in You Can't Take it With You. And I'm basically sure I was the only person in that entire school who had never drunk alcahol at all, and I had to pretend to be wasted on stage, including off-key singing.

The things I do for a little recognition.

But I was never appreciated again like I had been before. And it's all gone downhill from there; now if my mother and sister Camilla alone comment on my post I feel like my little circle of fame has widened.

So...if we can remember back that far, before I drove you all down my memory lane, I've signed up for this list of Mormon Blogs, and although my acting possibilities of fame are over, perhaps I'm just coming into my writing possibilities.

Because all the time I was waiting to be discovered, and become an actor, I was also an avid journal writer, and planning to someday publish them, and become internationally as well-known as Anne Frank. And now I have my shining chance to make it good.

Oh, my faithful readers, most of whom I've either roommated with or are family, prepare to be intimate with a famous person. Or at least to read a lot. I'm pretty sure at least one of the two will happen.