tavie.com

Tired. Coffee. Good. Cold. Bad. Coffee. Hot. Good.

Today was the first day I wore my winter coat.

This coming weekend will be good. Will see Scooby-Doo with Gina and Erica, Cheryl and Mike, Nina and Jim. Will see my little love in A Winter's Tale. Must remember to get scrambled-egg scarf from Mint Manor.

This past weekend was scrumptious. Bundled into Gina's car with her and me mum. Got to Toronto in 8.5 hours including stops for food and gas. Fell into bed and slept (except for Gina, who, typically, got no sleep at all!!). Woke up and met Kitana and my friend Tommy the Canadophile, who was also in town to see Mark's play. Had breakfast at the Golden Griddle (b.y.o. S&M gear!). Finally learned about peameal bacon. It's delicious.

Then we actually had time to walk around the city at leisure, shop, sit around drinking coffee. That was wonderful. Got myself to Lush, my favourite bath-and-beauty chain (discovered it in Australia, and there are locations in almost every major city you can think of... OUTSIDE the U.S.) and stocked up on bath melts and bath fizzies and weird soaps. Went to a drugstore where Tommy bought 32 boxes of a candy called KinderSurprise. That's a lot of candy. The rest of us all bought issues of Toronto Life with Don "Yummmmmy" McKellar on the cover. Then we went to the Second Cup to get coffee.

This was my crucial mistake.

Right after we got coffee we went to the theatre to see Mark in "Fully Committed", the one-man play by Becky Mode about a reservations receptionist at a posh Manhattan restaurant. We all used the facilities before sitting down, but I also took the opportunity to buy Gina a cookie and get myself a bottle of water. (On TOP of the coffee I had just drunk.)

Then we sat down, after some tense moments involving Gina's purse in the orchestra pit and waiting for Toronto Steph to show up. Finally the show started, and we were lost in the magic of seeing MARK! LIVE! He was brilliant. He was schizophrenic. He was magnificent. He was Mark at his very best-- I don't think I've seen any of the Kids in a solo project that has featured their talents as well as this one featured Mark's. It feels as if this play was written for him. He does almost 40 different characters, and although at first the device of hearing and seeing him talk to himself in different voices is a bit jarring, you soon accept the convention and see all the different people that Mark is creating. It was delicious. It was perfect.

Well, it was almost perfect.

The hard thing about one-man shows, especially when you're seeing them in the front row, and especially when you've driven 8 hours to get there just to see them and don't want to miss a single moment, is having to pee. I am the girl who is notorious for having to get up at least once during every movie and every flight and every show. I am Sir Pee-a-Lot. About half an hour into the 85-minute play, I had to go to the bathroom.

I won't detail my agony. Suffice it to say that I held out, that there was much squirming and knuckle-biting, that dear Kitana's sympathetic glances were an immense comfort to me, and that my physical discomfort was not enough to ruin the show for me. Such is the power of Mark. Certainly, I dashed out of that theatre as fast as anyone has ever dashed after Mark had taken his final bow, but not before being one of a four-person standing ovation. (Which is always fun, by the by. Heh. Me, Gina, Kitana and a woman behind us in the second row were the only people standing. Hee hee.) Mark saw us when we stood, bestowed upon us the Flash of Recognition, gave me a deep nod and bowed again. Mmmm.

Afterwards we had our traditional meal at Marhshall's, and then came back to catch him outside the stage door after his second performance. I am not a fan of the stage door and generally try to avoid it, but this was the best stage-door experience I'd ever had. There was a group of Mark fans standing around also but our groups didn't merge. Pity.

Mark attended to them first, but before signing their playbills, he called to us, "Were you at the afternoon show?!"

We said that we were.

"Were you at the second show?"

Busted!

That was funny. But we did come back, just for him. And he came over, and he kissed me, and he was silly and funny and performed for us like he always does when I see him with a group of people. And I remembered to make "introductions", pointing out Toronto Steph was from the newsgroup, to his delight. And he acted especially charmed to meet my mum.

We admitted we had gone to dinner during the second show, and he did his impression of the comparatively lackluster second audience. The first words out of my mouth were actually something like, "Why are you so good?" I said when he did his Zagat and it turned out to be Lorne that we all lost it, and he said that's when he realized we were in the audience. "I noticed the disproportionate laughter," he told us. For who else would go into hysterics at hearing Don Roritor-as-famous-restaurant-critic?

GINA!!!!!!!! asked about Ade's paper and Mark told us he'd been swamped with press for the play, particularly morning shows, and regaled us with his impression of a morning-show zoo crew. But my favourite part of the conversation came when I rather childishly demanded that he try and do his next show in New York. "You know I'll come to see you, but we're tired!" I whined. To which he replied he would call his agent: "My Tavie wants me on Broadway!"

His Tavie.

Fluttery, fluttery sigh.

After some more chitchat, during which he painstakingly directed us to a potential dessert locale, we parted ways, glowing happily in the chill. We returned to our hotel, where Kitana brought her VCR so that we could all watch The Documentary together.

Wonderful, wonderful, a thousand times wonderful.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:06 AM | shower me with attention