priscilla/ellie is one of my close online friends from texas. we finally got to meet in real life when we saw rent together in springfield. this account of our adventures was written together by the two of us as an email to the mailing list we're both on.

omgomgomg!!! ahhh!! renata, and priscilla (ellie) are in the same room! how very weird. somehow scary. very, very cool. it all started friday morning, when my mommy and i went to the airport to pick up priscilla and her mommy. of course, we hit an icy patch, spun around, and ended up stuck in the ditch. so we call my dad to come get us out, and then we start panicking like "omg! they're at the airport! ahh!" and we;re freaking out and calling the airport and paging them and they're not answering the pages and we're scared. so anyway we finally get to the airport, and find priscilla (their flight was delayed so we got there just in time), and then her mom is trying to get tickets so they can eventually get back home, and la la la. so then we go out for lunch, and of course priscilla and i are wearing our rent shirts, and of *course* the waiter is a renthead. he told us it was okay to dance on the tables ("that's what the paper is for") and yeah. okay i'll turn the keyboard over to priscilla now. she can have, um, blue writing.

howdy, fellow listies. ellie/priscilla here. our adventure in il was rather amusing. renata has already documented what happened until lunch, so i'll continue on from then. we picked up miriam, because she had to go to school (nelson voice: ha ha!) while renata was "sick" and i played hooky. i still haven't gotten over how wierd it is to realize that these are people i know online, and they aren't psychopathic murderers (except keith). nifty. oh well. we went to springfield with miriam, rent books in hand and mark scarves wrapped firmly around our necks, eagerly anticipating the musical. there were three holiday inns in a row, and we were too stupid to realize which one was ours. after finding the holiday inn *express*, we went to mcdonalds where renata attempted to figure out the tarzan happy meal toy, then was amused for hours once she figured out that the elephant turned when you pressed the birdie. before rent started, there was a pre-show discussion, that involved some guy asking lots of pointless questions to the stage manager (wooo......). he just kind of babbled a lot, and never really said anything. i mentioned that it was jonathan larson's birthday, and he went into this 10 minute schpiel about how remarkably poignant it was. don't get me wrong, i'm sad too. no biting sarchasm implied. when we were all leaving to go to the actual musical, we noticed that there was a 90 year old man sitting behind us, struggling weakly to get up. we all thought "this guy is coming to see rent?!?". back to renata.

woo. i'll review the show later, cuz it will take me a really long time. i'll just mention how i was *always* the first to start screaming, while priscilla was the last to stop. everyone else was just kinda like "er.. is that a man or a woman? i suppose we should clap..." (they didn't actually *say* that, but it was implied. bleah.) so, anyway, stage door. we missed everyone but cary and shaun because i had to buy a hat (so suue me) and then my pen wouldn't work and i was like "um.. can you please hold on one sec?" and i stole miriam's pen to get cary's autograph. then, he kinda blew miriam off :) it was funny. unless you were miriam. ::pause:: and that's about all. until, the next morning.. ::snerk:: and back to priscilla.

it was all renata and miriam's fault that we missed everyone but cary and shaun, btw. i kept telling them we had to go, but i guess their memorabilia fixation is more powerful than their urge to ask matt about the infamous "camera in contact" question. oh well. we can't cry over spilled milk, because that's just plain stupid and i hate idoms, so mwah. back to the morning. i woke up around 11, which is rather bizarre because renata is supposed to be the one with mono, and she woke up at 9. we stayed in the hotel most of the morning and invented a new game that consisted of hitting a pamphlet with a breakfast tray. it's actually rather amusing. miriam and i seem to have a special talent for it. renata's good too, but she shouldn't quit her day job. we then went off in search for rent posters, because miriam and i were jealous of the one renata and trina stole from the library, so we went all over springfield in her bright blue minivan, stopping only for potential rent posters and aberham lincoln impersonators. renata?

::snerk:: she forgot to mention at lunch, when the waitress liked my rent hat, and told us how some of the cast members came there for lunch the other day, and she dropped a knife in one of their laps, and she was *so* embarrassed :) so anyway. we're driving around downtown springfield, which is mostly one way streets, and everytime we saw a store with a rent poster we'd stop the car, jump out, and try to steal it. usually the store would be closed. soo unfair. anyway. the running joke of our trip was how illinoisians are obsessed with lincoln, because every damn thing in springfield is "lincoln center" or "lincoln avenue" or "lincoln apartments" or lincoln something. so walking down the street is a lincoln impersonator. we decide we have to have our picture with him, so we stop the van, leap out, grab a stolen rent poster, run up to him yelling "mr lincoln impersonator! mr lincoln impersonator! can we get a picture with you?!" so priscilla got his hat, and we held the rent poster, and posed in the middle of the sidewalk. i can't wait till *that* one gets developed. whoa, this is getting rather long. erm.. back to you, priscilla?

well, we went back to normal to search for a red filter for my camera because i need one to do an evil assignment of death for photography, so we go to about three different photo shops and finally find one. then we pick up trina and go bowling under multiple aliases. the categories: austin powers, political figures, types of cheese, characters from rent, toy story 2, superheroes, and grease. very amusing. i lost all three games. i'm so proud. then we went to dinner at a chinese restaurant to celebrate the chinese new year, and renata's mom told us all of these enlightening tales about when she taught sex ed to special ed kids, most of these stories centering on a candle in the shape of mr. happy that she got as a gag birthday gift. then we went to miriam's house and i met chuck, the cat that wants to eat trina. seriously. she licks her lips every time she sees trina, and opened her mouth really wide when renata approached. we think she gave her rabies. then we went to trina's house where we saw her evil mac, then went back to renata's house to write this email. we're in now now. we can't go back to then, because we just missed it. does anyone recognize that i'm ripping off spaceballs and doing a very bad job of it? (renata did.) now we're going to leave and watch the matrix. ha!

it's kind of sad when we have more fun playing with the bowling score thingy than we did actually bowling. oh yeah, priscilla forgot to mention that her bracelet fell off when ahhh okay she's taking the keyboard away. here, i didn't want it anyway. ::cries::

i was shaking my hand vigorously after throwing one of those really bad wrist-spraining balls, and my bracelet went flying into the gutter of an unused lane. stealthily, i crept over to the lane and walked over to where the bracelet was. suddenly, i felt my bowling shoes slip out from under me and found myself sprawled out on lane 14. i said to myself, "really smooth there, self". how was i supposed to know they grease the things? i quickly returned to our lane (well, slow enough not to fall again), with my ego wounded more than my bottom. i gave the offending bracelet to my mother for safekeeping after that.

geez, this thing is long.