Suburbs of Our Discontent

I spent a little time Googling myself this morning. Yes, this is an exercise in vanity. But it's also an exercise in self-flagellation. Not to mention potential self-protection: I Googled myself a few years ago only to discover that a student reporter at an obscure Southern University had quoted a graduate student at her institution with my same name as saying that God didn't exist. After ruling out identity theft, I figured she had seen some of the godless feminist scholarship I'd been producing and decided my name was a good fit for her atheist "source."

Anyhow, this morning revealed a host of goodies from my past that are only now available for the world (okay, me) to see, since archived College newspaper articles are going online en masse. It was like a trip down memory lane with all of its potholes.

I spent most of my higher educational years doing plays, and now, if I want to dredge up any of my painful reviews, I can do it since they're etched in internet stone. The reviewer for my first theatrical turn Freshman year as Prudence in Beyond Therapy was not a fan of my "somewhat monotonous" performance. Neither was the reviewer of my Tecmessa, who compared me to a child whining for an ice cream cone. (Ouch. Talk about slings and arrows.)

But I did run across this gem from 1986, when I was in a production, put on in a dorm basement, of Romeo and Juliet:

"Caroline Bicks threatens to steal the show as the Nurse. Her ceaseless babbling and uncultured mannerisms are as amusing as they are skillfully executed. Her gesticulation, when not bordering on mugging, is equally entertaining."

Now this guy clearly understands great theater. Except that, looking at his description of me, it's not clear that I'm actually acting. In fact, I think this is a description of me after too many Scorpion Bowls at the Hong Kong. Or at my friend's dinner party last weekend. Or....wait a minute. Is this guy following me?