What a difference 8 years makes

This weekend has been all about nostalgia! On Friday, our friend Thomas Nealeigh and his lady Alice rolled into town from Hollywood (by way of Washington DC and Ohio!) to bring their professional side show Freak Show Deluxe to Coney Island. Thomas was a first year grad student at Tech when I was a senior and Marcus was a junior. The three of us and our fourth member, housemate Kristin, were inseperable. The guys had a radio show on Sunday nights, The Reverend Tommy Gunn Show featuring Mad Weasel Love (that's Marcus). And, given that we lived in what was technically considered a brothel, the "ho house" jokes flowed! (5 or more unrelated, unmarried women living under one roof in Louisiana is considered a brothel. That's why there are no sorority houses. A little trivia for ya!)

Fast forward to Friday night. I haven't seen Thomas since 2003 when he visited me at Cornell. I was directing a reading of one of his plays for our student production group and he came up to do a workshop with them. Marcus and I caught up with him and Alice at our subway stop and it was like nothing had ever changed. Except, that is, for the fact that Alice and I are both quite pregnant (theirs is due Dec. 31) and we are all 7 years older. It was so much fun to see Thomas and Marcus together again, playing off each other like always. And today we finally got to see a live performance of Freak Show Deluxe! It was great fun. A guy swallowed swords, a girl layed on a bed of nails and Marcus stood on her (they called him up from the audience), lots of crazy stunts. I got to staple a one dollar bill to some dude's chest. Never done that before! It's so good to see Thomas getting to do what he loves and it's especially nice that he has Alice to help pull it all together. (She is the road manager and stage manager. And did I mention she's 6 months pregnant? She's amazing.) My only regrets are that we didn't get to see Grennan, their 2 year old son (He was chillin' with Grandma this weekend) and that Kristin wasn't there. (she's in Atlanta being fabulous)

The pictures above are:
1. The 4 of us (and our babies to be).
2. Thomas and Marcus today at the Freak Show.
3. Thomas and Marcus at the "ho house" Christmas 1998. We all dressed up and did a photo shoot. Cause that's how it was at our house.