I have a thing about nuns.  Always have — it must have come from seeing Audrey Hepburn in A Nun’s Story at an impressionable age.  So back when I was a teenager I made my first nun’s habit and went in to NYC to a folk music concert.  The first habit was a little iffy, so then I toredown my BFF’s Belgian linen curtains (I shudder now at the memory) and made a new one (and that was before I read GONE WITH THE WIND).  I won’t tell you all my stories, involving a folksinger named Eric Andersen or the fact that I found myself eating a cheeseburger in full habit in a diner on a Friday evening and suddenly realized you can’t have meat on Fridays (this was the mid 1960′s).

I got older, but the nun obsession continued.  My on-line persona was Sister Krissie the impeccably demure, I showed a bunch of people how to make a makeshift whimple (A black turtleneck and a white pillow-case are involved) to serenade my erstwhile friend Maria on her 40th birthday).  I wore one to RT (and sat in the bar in full regalia swigging a beer and singing “Climb Every Mountain” very loudly).  When Harlequin had a Black and White Ball at the Waldorf I came in a nun’s habit.  Ditto for Romance Writers of Australia’s Carnival Masquerade.

And I collect nuns.  My dear friend Lynda Ward knitted me one, Crusie is working on crocheting me one.  I have action figures (Aurelia, Warrior-nun) and salt shakers and wind-up toys and Japanese fashion dolls.  Nun bowling and a boxing nun.  All sorts of goodies.

Which should have been enough, until I heard the local arts group was putting on a production of The Sound of Music.  Nuns?  I was so there.

Audition last Saturday, and I’m in.  I’m Sister Margaretta (“I’d like to say a word in her behalf … Maria … makes me … laugh.”  I get to prance around on stage in a nun’s habit.  Oh, joy, oh rapture.

There will be details.  There will be pictures.  Hell, there might even be a tiny bit of video.  I haven’t acted since I was in high school, though I’ve sung in public plenty of times.  It should be a hoot and a half.

Any of you active in local theater groups?  Am I insane to do this?  (Well, we probably already know the anwer).

In the meantime, bless you, my children.