Day 5 -- Friday, March 5

I didn't bring my script down to the table-read today. I guess I didn't know there would be one. There really never is one on the last day. We read through the whole script. When we got to my first line, I couldn't remember it exactly, so I leaned over to look at Amy Pietz' script. Just as I saw the first word and it all came back to me and I was about to speak, Amy jumped in and said my line! I thought, "Wow, that was rude. You really could have given me a couple more seconds to say my line. I am here, you know." But then, as I looked closer, I saw that it was now actually Amy's line! So they stopped re-writing my lines and just started giving them away. I couldn't believe it.

We continued reading. I was left with two little three-word lines, which basically eliminated me from the script. Why didn't I memorize them sooner? Maybe that's why they gave them away. I totally blew it. I should have worked just a little harder. Today is tape day after all. This was the end of the process.

I went back up to my room in my house in Binghamton, New York, and sat down on the toilet to look over my script. My friend, from college, Glenn Kessler, was sitting next to me on a little stool and I was telling him about the cut lines. Then I noticed outside the door that there were a bunch of people in my room milling about chatting, as if some sort of party was going on. I slowly pulled the bathroom door shut and said to Glenn, "Why are there people in my room?" Before he could answer, my alarm went off. Dream.

Despite dreams to the contrary, tonight's taping was a big success (and no one saw me sitting on the toilet). Since the table reading, I had felt the impact of the cutesy couple steadily waning. It is normal for jokes to seem less funny day after day of re-telling, but the kissing and the giggling of Billy-Bear and Cindy-Doodle were almost ignored as the director, star, and writers focused a lot of attention on the exchange between Caroline and Cindy. True, that was where the meat of the scene lay, but I started to become resigned to the fact that our cutesy stuff was not that funny.

The audience loved Billy-Bear and Cindy-Doodle. Our opening bit got some nice laughs. The giggling and kissing was effective and funny. Meredith did a great job with her exchange with Caroline. They gave a lot of the punch lines to Caroline, but Meredith held her own. And then upon my return, our closing bit got not only a hearty laugh but resounding applause. So it felt great.

All told, the week was fabulous. The people on the show were very nice. I had a great time hanging out with my other little guest stars. And then, lo and behold, even the performance turned out to be very fun and rewarding. You can't ask for more than that.

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