So we’re heading into our third week of tour and I think we’re doing alright. I don’t always have internet access at the hotels. (GRRRR HOTELS GRRRR.) And sometimes, even when they do have wireless, the network is incapable of connecting to my Mac so I’d like to give a special WHAT THE HECK?! shout out to the Apple Store. I’ve taken to writing out my blog posts in Word and then publishing them whenever I finally have access to the web. So, there is a definite delay between when I write it and when you read it. What I’m saying is, DEAL WITH IT.

We’re currently driving through the state of Tennessee and let me tell you people, it be a LONG state. We saw Memphis on Monday evening and aside from the cockroaches running rampant on the street (Ah NYC! A little slice of home!), I thought it was a pretty hip town. And by pretty hip, I mean kind of dirty. But it was also real bluesy and jazzy and I had the chance to annoy Margot by belting out “Walking in Memphis” every five minutes. I think she was REALLY into it.

Since we go to a new place every day, if we really want to spend time looking around a city, we can do it for a few hours on the night we arrive or for a little while after the shows the next afternoon. I had had my heart set on seeing the city of Nashville since the day I was hired for this tour. This is because my bestest friend Alayna is from Nashville and I wanted to see how she learned to hold her liquor. Also, it’s because I am a dork who LOVES country music. (SHUT UP.)

Well, we arrived in Nashville yesterday and everyone was pretty tired from seeing Memphis the night before and traffic was bad so NOBODY WANTED TO GO DOWNTOWN. Horrors! I decided that was alright because Rance’s cousin sings in a country duo and she brought her guitarist to the hotel and played a few songs for us and it was SO GREAT! (SO GREAT apparently that I’m going to keep typing run-on sentences!) The music was incredible and it was nice to see some authentic Nashville singer/songwriters in their natural habitat.

Lucky for me, our car broke down again today and we “had” to kill time by walking around downtown Nashville this afternoon while it was being fixed. I went into Tootsie’s, a huge purple bar where there was a pretty decent crowd and live music playing, even in the middle of the afternoon. Apparently, Willie Nelson once got really drunk at Tootsie’s and proceeded to walk outside and lay down in traffic, attempting suicide. Ah! Those country people!

Of course, walking around downtown Nashville was just a small bonus on top of the biggest honor of the day and probably the entire tour: playing two shows at the Grand Ole Opry. According to the ushers, this is the sixth incarnation of the Opry. The original was located on the fifth floor of an insurance building in 1925.

The current Grand Ole Opry was built in 1974 and has since been home to an insurmountable number of country stars. There is a small circle of wood on the stage that was cut out of the original Grand Ole Opry and inserted into the floor of the new one. Within the first five minutes of the show, we gather downstage center in a huddle as we sing. This morning, we were all standing on the circle, the original floor of the Grand Ole Opry and some chills ran through me and I almost started to cry. But then, I saw a blinding light and Elvis appeared and I got kind of distracted.

I loved the pictures throughout the backstage of the Opry, snapshots of all the singers that had graced the stage. I also loved thinking about who had used my dressing room and if anyone else had popped strawberry Starbursts before their show like I had. Dolly Parton perhaps? I also loved the fact that the lights in the dressing rooms detected motion and would snap to life as soon as I crossed the doorway. I amused myself for a good fifteen minutes with this, just by popping in and out of the dressing room, trying to take the lights by surprise. Those lights, they sure are smart.

At one point during a sound check, Rance, Demond and I were standing on the stage looking around.

Rance: You know, I never noticed just how grand this place was until I stepped on stage and looked out and thought, “Wow. This is just…grand.”

Demond: I know what you mean. I never realized how Opry this place is until I stepped on stage and I thought, “Wow. This…is sooooo Opry.”

This made me laugh for a good ten minutes because I am easily amused. ANYWAY, we had a great time playing there and I will probably never do that again. The show itself was full of minor glitches and mistakes but nothing major. We definitely have a rhythm down and I think we all feel a lot steadier than we did at the beginning.

My favorite mishap occurred in the very first week of our tour. Since we are a small cast, we each play a variety of characters, utilizing extremely fast costume changes. Rance plays an array of male roles–the father, the bus driver, the teacher and also, Gladys, the lunch lady. This last role requires an extensive change into drag, complete with huge sparkly pearl earrings and glittery lunch apron. During our very first show, Rance performed his regular costume change out of Gladys’ attire and entered on stage for his scene as the schoolteacher.

Wouldn’t you know, he forgot to change one minor costume piece and he stood proudly on stage, delivering his lines as the masculine schoolteacher with bright white pearl earrings on his ears. It was a sight to behold let me tell you what. In fact, I think the word “unparalleled” is applicable here.

So we’re in our third week, finishing up in Tennessee tomorrow in Knoxville and spending all of next week in the Carolinas, which I am very excited about. Our day off this week falls in Raleigh and I’ve heard that our hotel is across from a Gold’s Gym, which we get free passes to, and a Target. TARGET Y’ALL!!!! The magical place where I can buy a ton of stuff that I didn’t even know I needed! Woo! You can find new pics on flickr! With cowboy hats for all! Peace!