I was packing up props last night after the opera rehursel, just singin' to myself and the musicians milled about, worried about their instruments.

"Hey, they lock the theatre while we're gone, don't they?"

The drummer was talking to me.

He has a long ponytail of straight, sandy-blond hair, thick straight eyebrows (which is always a strange weakness of mine), a good tall build verging on lean and a certain balanced assurance around him which is oddly alluring.

The drummer is *hawt*, and I'm not ashamed to say so. He's the type that'd have a girlfriend, though, so I admire from a distance but don't develop an infatuation.

"Yes," say I, turning to look at him and egads!

He *looked* at me.

I mean, not just looked, but it's looked like he was studying me intensely while he spoke to me.

It was kind of unnerving. He's probably the type the doesn't know it, but sets girls' hearts a-flutter.

And his gaze didn't stray, but fixed intently on my face.

It was weird.

"Yes," I said, quickly regaining my composure. "And even so, there will be someone always in the box office, so no one'll be able to get in without getting past them first."

"Okay, good," the drummer replied, as I looked by him at the lovely set of green stained wood panelled drum set clustered just infront of the cyclorama. He gave a little laugh. "I'm just paranoid, because that's my livlihood. Student grant money, you know."

"Aye," said I, thinking about my tools and my steel toed boots, my paints and my drafting supplies. "I know what you mean."

He glanced over his shoulder at the drum set, and the bassist who was carefully putting his upright bass into it's carrying case.

"It'll be alright here, man," he said. "They lock the theatre."

And then the conversation was over.

But man, that gaze! Oi vey. I better not spend too much time around him. It would be bad for me, I think.

I get the distinct feeling he looks on my like a child, too, which wouldn't be healthy for my self-image.

I'm really trying to stop hanging out with people who hurt my self-esteem, or make me feel bad about myself.

So far not a lot of luck, but I'm working on it.

.

Rosie.

Before&After