Tour Whore, July 7, 2012

Here is How I Go to Sleep

by Cameryn Moore

Here is how I go to sleep:

Stretching my legs long under the cool sheets, feeling the answering throb in the tender soles of my feet. They’re sore from 8 to 10 hours of walking around Fringe. I walk for fewer hours at smaller Fringes, or places that have smaller line-ups, but I still move around a lot, and my feet feel it. I’ve got Birkenstock heel cups in my boots, that helps a lot, and it gets easier with each passing week of Fringe. Still, I don’t stop asking around among volunteers for a trade of foot rubs, and every night when I ease the boots off my feet, let them breathe and slide against the sheets, ahhh…

Here is how I go to sleep:

Saying my lines in my head. My show Phone Whore opened this week at Zoofest, and even though I have performed that show over 120 times by now, I still have to revisit the text from time to time. Last night I drifted off somewhere between my favorite ass man and the regular who calls me for two hours at a time, two or three times a month. (He was a regular at the time that I wrote the play, but no longer. Man, I miss that guy.)

Here is how I go to sleep:

This pillow, it’s not enough. Why did I leave my pillow bag in the car? They said they had pillows, they said not to worry, so I left it out there, and now it’s raining and dark and that is too far to go at 3am, and this pillow is like resting my head on one of those flat bags of brown sugar.

Here is how I go to sleep:

Chewing on my midnight snack, which at the Fringe usually ends up being at around 3:30 or 4am. Some days I don’t have anything once I leave the house, either because I am lacking time or money, so by the time the show is done and the after-party is done, I am RAVENOUS. I will eat pita chips and hummus, or Doritos and tomato juice, anything crunchy and salty, really, chased by an apple, if I have some.  But, see, I’m exhausted, too, so sometimes I find myself nodding off with food in my mouth. 

Here is how I go to sleep:

Alarm set--> oh nine three oh, six twenty-seven, that’s not what I typed, so tired, why won’t my fingers work, zzzz…. WHAT, WAIT, gotta set the alarm, OH NINE THREE OH, there, zzz… GAH, finish it, am or pm --> pm, wait, am, no, pm, zzzz….

Here is how I go to sleep:

Splayed out flat, praying for a breeze. Some billets have good climate control—here in Montréal, I’m situated in a half-basement environment that is pretty well protected against the hideous mugginess that seems to creep across the city between 4 and 7pm every night. And other billets have shitty climate control—in Vancouver last year, the morning sun blasted through the floor-to-ceiling windows every morning, waking me up with a combination of both invasive light and hothouse conditions. Even a bedside fan can help (note to self: get one for next year), and I wind the sheet between my legs to keep me from having to touch my own sweaty skin.

Here is how I go to sleep:

Listening to the fucking happening in the next room over, or down the hall. I don’t care, I like to hear people fucking, it’s kinda comforting, and if I’m not quite asleep, I entertain myself trying to picture who my billet mate might have dragged into the bedroom, based on the soundtrack that I’m getting through the wall.

Here is how I go to sleep:

Okay, show at 12:30, call at noon, start putting makeup on at 11:30,  travel time and parking, 11:15, I need to eat breakfast and get some coffee, make that 45 minutes, that’s 10:30, shower and check internet, 9:30, 10 minutes for the snooze button… fuck, I need to get up in four hours?!

Here is how I go to sleep:

Smiling, snuggling down into an impossibly comfortable hotel room bed. I pay for lodging maybe two or three nights out of 200 when I tour, and I always feel a little bitter about it, but when I climb into that bed, it is always so good! I can hear the truck gears grinding as they shift down to brake on the steep highway a quarter of a mile away; I like that noise, makes me feel road-weary and happy all at once. I didn’t pick this hotel for any reason except it was close to the off-ramp and it didn’t look too sketchy. But the beds never let me down. I own this space, no one will walk past my bed to the bathroom at some weird hour of the night, and I can sprawl across it, diagonally, if I want, there is lots and lots of room.

Here is how I go to sleep:

Alive and vibrant and buzzing underneath the sheets, not really ready to go to bed yet, but I have to make the attempt. I just spent an hour and a half talking with someone amazing, we talked about the shows we’ve seen, and the show of mine that they’ve seen, and creativity and body politics and authenticity and Fringe gossip and marketing strategies, and yes, these are the conversations that I want to have over and over and over. They keep me awake at night, in a good way.

Cameryn Moore is at Zoofest and will be at the Winnipeg Fringe July 19-29

camerynmoore.com