He whispered in my ear at the first dress rehearsal. "Act short. Those heels make you too tall." It was 1979, and I had the great good fortune to be cast opposite Fannie Flagg and Susan Flannery, with the fabulously beautiful Nicky Cortland as my love interest, my first on-stage romance, in a dippy little romantic comedy from the '40s. We spent weeks of post-rehearsal wee hours running lines in the Waffle House together. He taught me about astrology, and made it sound plausible. He told me about New York and what fun we'd have when I moved there. He suggested I get stoned to loosen up for our love scenes, and winked with mischievous pleasure when I got flirty with my first real crush, the untouchable and unavailable Susan. He famously bragged that he had slept his way "straight to the middle." We thought that was hilarious. A few short years later, he was dead of AIDS. My first.
I don't understand why humans who are unharmed by humans want to treat them as others......