Chaperoning. Yellow Boat.

I chaperoned a high school dance tonight. I will write more later because I am tired, but I wanted to make sure to get my food and exercise written down before I forgot what I did and what I ate.

About the dance: it was a blast! I love being around high school students who are encouraged to be themselves while also respecting the adults around them. Occasionally, a student will say something that I would never have dreamed of saying to my teacher, something that borders on, or straight up is, disrespectful, but I never feel like I have to strong-arm my students into behaving appropriately. For the most part, they just do what they are supposed to do.

This dance was a good example. We had to break up very few couples who were dancing too closely, and I feel like they were mostly Academy kids because I didn’t recognize them. They complied without much cajoling. Only one couple worked their way across the floor where they thought they wouldn’t be spotted. When they were spotted, they simply stopped the grinding and recognized the fact that they were defeated.

The other part about chaperoning a dance at Burris is the students do the work. They came when they said they would and did the set up, which cracked me up. I remember the few dances I went to in high school. The cafeteria or the gym were essentially transformed into dance halls and the picture sets were elaborately wrought. These students strung about ten strands of lights through the weird sound barriers hanging from the ceiling and called it a dance. The picture area hay, since it was Sadie Hawkins, was supposed to be supplied by a girl with a stable. She was sick, so they went with the Friday the 13th theme of bad luck and put a ladder and an open umbrella in the back ground. Pretty low-key. Just like I like it.

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Exercise: walked the dogs 2 miles, rode my bike from RB to Burris to house back to Burris and back home

Food: pumpkin bread, two eggs, milk, Clif bar, apple, Puerto Vallarta potato enchiladas, chips, and salsa

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On Saturday, I went to see David in the Yellow Boat, which I will also write more about later. It was the best play I think he has been in. In fact, it was amazing.

The Yellow Boat is a play based on a child’s life with hemophilia and eventual death from AIDS related complications. I loved the way IPFW chose to portray this play, too. They used a raked, hard wood flooring covered stage with minimal scenery and costuming. Compared to other interpretations I found online, I liked IPFW’s because it forced the audience to enter the mind of the child and to imagine the different scenes. They used ribbons, fabric, and boxes for props, which increased the feelings of nakedness and isolation experienced by the main characters, Benjamin and his parents. It made me cry for about the last third of the play, from Benjamin’s infection with HIV to the end. In fact, the way they chose to show his infection impacted my emotional response, and it was clever to use black ribbons along with the red-blood ribbons to show the HIV entering his body. I was moved in ways I haven’t been since I saw Where the Wild Things Are.

Interestingly, I found a book online called Theater for Young Audiences. In it Maurice Sendak talks about the initial reception of his book, but one of the plays included in the book is The Yellow Boat. I assume the author includes plays that are not typically thought of as plays for children, and Sendak’s input about his experiences support the inclusion of plays with difficult subject matter since Sendak’s books typically delve into territory deemed unsuitable for children.

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Exercise: walk the dogs 2 miles

Food: banana, juice, decaf caramel macchiato, swiss cheese and pickle sandwich, some M&Ms, veggie burrito at Chipotle, chips and guacamole, Izze Grapefruit, decaf Americano