ACTING AS IF (as if...)

Okay so I'm sitting back on the porch beneath a Carolina blue sky - except I'm in Tennessee - and listening to a woodpecker furiously going at a Hickory tree. That's hard wood, fella, and that woodpecker will be at this a long, long time if he/she really wants to make an impression.

Beside me is a cup of coffee, a bottle of water, the cigarettes I quit smoking, and my cell phone. Nearby are tomato plants, a basil plant, and several feet away? My trusty dog, Barry. Just inside is a quiet house, waiting for the arrival of well over a dozen grrrrrls from the "Act Like A GRRRL" theater-camp, who will roost here this afternoon with movies, popcorn?, some billiards, and mucho satisfaction after last night's standing-ovation opening night of their performance, "Act Like A GRRRRRL."

The show was amazing. Girls and young ladies from age 12 to 18 presented their talent, their energy, and their soul before an audience of friends, peers, parents, artists, and the curious. All of the material is original: they wrote it, sang it, read it, spoke it, danced it. There were tears and there was laughter and many, many rounds of applause. To see and feel the energy of this troupe - who only had four weeks to create this masterpiece - was to have a brief, personal invitation into the feminine mystique; except this show? These grrrrls? They let us in the mystique so that it was mysterious no more. What a nice thing to do for us: people at large, being let in. Not often does this happen, be it male or female.

Can you a see a troupe of boys/men bonding in four weeks, writing new music and poetry and verse, and then performing it, vulnerable, for all of us to see and hear?

WAIT... Maybe we can... My friend Andrew and my friend Ross? We're thinking: why not "Act Like A Boy?" Not "Act Like A Man." We got told that, too, for years, only to miss the kid stuff, as in, being one. Now, decades later, we want to. Be one. We're seriously considering it.

Only, it dawns on me, if Vali Forrister, founder of Act Like A GRRRRRL, will allow it - there are copyrights and such - then maybe we can do this. Except this leads to another question: will we, as men/boys, have to ask Vali, a grrrrrl/woman, permission?

Interesting...