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Of I Am Not's design.

It turns out, I'm not in a single song. I'm in a musical where I don't get to be involved with the music in any way. (So what's the point, right?) There are two parts for the chorus- the first is before my character makes his entrance, the second is just for those against independence. (My character is on the wrong side, being for it.) All other songs are for specific characters. So I'm left saying lines like "New Jersey votes yea." and "I'm sorry, John." and an impassioned speech about God which is actually just one bullet point in a long list.

I asked the assistant director: "Was my singing voice that bad?" "No", she said, "We didn't think of that at all. We just thought you were right for the part." Which could be the whole truth. Or it could be how she says "Yes, you stink." while trying not to offend me.

I did mess up pretty badly. I keep running the song through my head, over and over, every single day. Messing up that song is going to be one of those things I regret for the rest of my life, like what happened at the Beauty and the Beast audition and that time in the Academy where I didn't know the religious stuff I was supposed to know and reading that haftarah in shul where I got up and couldn't remember the trup and the time I started crying to get sympathy in seventh grade and the times I was violent and the time in fifth grade I thought I was going to be performing in a concert but I wasn't and the time in second grade I sang a song out loud and the time in first grade I rejected a friend because of peer pressure. Mistakes don't go away. I keep thinking of all the ways that audition should have gone, what piano music I should have written up to accompany it. I know exactly why the rhythm seemed weird, and that it needed to switch the number of beats each measure: 4,4,5,3,3,4,2,4,4,…

Moshe got the main villain. (He doesn't like calling him a "villain", preferring "rival".) I'm so jealous. So I said to him: "I'm so jealous." And he said: "Don't be. It took me five plays to get here!" Which is a good point. I have no experience, Moshe has lots. They can trust him. They certainly can't trust me.

I recognized some of the faces at the first rehearsal from Beauty and the Beast. I was happy to see Jerry there, who I'd sat next to in those rehearsals. I was disappointed, when that show fell apart, that I'd never gotten a chance to say goodbye to him. Which is probably silly- I shouldn't get emotionally invested in people I just happened to be sitting next to. Still, he also got a pretty tiny role in this thing. It's doesn't have to be so lonely at the bottom.

With such a simple part, I need some opportunities to make myself feel better. So every time someone asks me "How are you?", I'm going to respond, "Very good! I'm working on my second computer game, having finished the first.". That's something I could never do before- present myself as a person who's actually moving somewhere. And any time that piano isn't in use, I'll jump at the chance to improvise while pretending I don't care if anyone listens. Er, I mean- while not caring if anyone listens. Silly me, did I say "pretending"? I'll just go hide in that corner now.

One opportunity which isn't just imagined is that I get to spend more time with Moshe. That'll be fun.

But I dunno, I'm disappointed. I know I can do more than this. I'm not just a random guy, I'm Mory the gamist and sometimes-composer. The idea I've gotta swallow is that that doesn't mean squat. I'm not entitled to anything at all. I've gotta build myself up from scratch, find opportunities and work at them until I have made something of myself.

Or at least gotten a new set of embarrassing memories.