Beneficial

The benefit performance went mostly well. I had no small amount of stress when I realized that I'd left my boombox at home, so had no backup option for my music should the MP3 player not work with the Musical Blades' soundboard. Which, of course, it didn't since I had the wrong sort of cable. mckitterick put on his Rescuer Cap and ran to Best Buy where he bought the correct cable and we were good to go. He also, bless his heart, bought me a boombox (which we'll be returning today) in case the cable didn't work. The first two sets went great, but on the third set my MP3 player kept pausing during the music. I don't know for sure what happened, but radiantmephit theorized that the (very) heavy bass from the last song caused enough vibrations on the table where the player was resting that it made the player stall. Ah, well. I soldiered on with zills (if all else fails with my music, at least I always have my zills) and made it a short set. The show was running long, anyway.

We skipped out early because I was really fucking hungry at that point, and so missed the last few acts. I also missed picking up my damn veil (which I either left near the table with the sound equipment, or let fall from my bag on the way out the door). That's sad-making, but of all my costume pieces, that was probably the most easily mourned.

It felt good--really good--to dance to music again. No slight intended toward my magnificent drummers of Egotista, but dancing to something other than just a rhythm, and knowing the music well enough to throw in song-appropriate combos and accents is wonderful. I had several people (most notably Daniel of The Rogues) say things like "Wow. That was so much different than what you do at Smoker, and it was amazing. I had no idea." That made me feel really good.

My Best Moment that probably nobody recognized as a Best Moment was when I managed to do a (very gentle and modified) Turkish Drop onto the linoleum floor to retrieve my veil. I haven't done one of those in years because I was starting to bang up my knees. It wasn't as dramatic as the fast drop I used to do, but the whoops and hollers when I collapsed into it were very gratifying.

We skipped out early (apologies most notably to the members of the LMC) so I could get home to fucking eat something already. I hope the rest of the show went well. Ed from the Blades mentioned on F-book that the event raised somewhere around $5 thousand. That's amazing. I was happy and honored to be a part of this production.

And now I have a cabaret costume again. Minus a kick-ass skull-and-crossbones circular veil.