Back on Track!

Whoa.

It's been a busy couple of months.  It always seems like February, March & April are the busiest time for me, which seems sort of odd.  But then again, I think it's always been like that since I was a kid - Spring was always full of shows and projects and the last minute push by teachers to cram a year's worth of knowledge into a few short months.  So I guess it only makes sense that the tradition continue into adulthood.  It sure is exhausting sometimes, though!  Gives me a reason to appreciate summer, I guess: no lessons, no church, no need to set an alarm on the weekends (ah, what I wouldn't give to have one day where I'm up later than 6am for awhile!).

The most recent news is that I've gotten back on the bike!  Finally all healed and warm enough to give it another go.  My office recently moved up the road to the other side of the George Washington Bridge, so I no longer have to trek up and down that treacherous hill to Edgewater.  It's actually kind of perfect that our new office opened right about the same time the cold finally broke, as the bus options that go there are a big sack of ass, and it's actually faster to bike there (ridiculous, ain't it?  Although, if you can see the traffic on the bridge in the pic to the left, you might understand why).  I'm easing my way into the new commute, but so far it's been a nice ride.  It's mostly uphill on the way to work (a series of long, manageable hills instead of one big Oh-my-fucking-god hill) and a nice downhill coast home.  This is the opposite of what my commute used to be, and MUCH easier to cope with that way.  Often times I was too tired at the end of the day to climb that damn hill and would end up just taking the ferry, which was the more expensive leg of the trip to begin with.  Oh well.  It's a new year, a new commute, and I have no ferry to wuss out on, so I'm hoping I will be able to stick with it more this time around!  That and I really need to lose a good 20-30 pounds which this and the lack of food options anywhere close to our new office should hopefully take care of.  Check out the pic of the Manhattan from the GW bridge at the bottom - amazing that there is actually greenery on the coast of Manahattan, isn't it? 

I did lots o' singing this winter.  My church choir sang at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, Long Island in February, then at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (the massive Episcopal cathedral in Upper Manhattan) in March, and we are about to embark on a trip next weekend to sing at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. In addition, I sang the part of Obadiah in the oratorio Elijah with my church and the Rye Presbyterian church in March, had my first concert with the semi-professional chorus I'm singing with in March, just finished up Holy Week sing-o-rama yesterday at my church and another church in Bronxville, and I'm currently rehearsing the choruses for both the Britten War Requiem & Mahler's 8th for a series of concerts I'm involved in at Lincoln Center in June.  Whew!  I'm king of exhausted just listing all of that, frankly.  I got through it all unscathed and even managed to sound pretty good most of the time (I think).  Now just another month and and half and I'll be done with lessons and church for the summer.  Not that I don't love what I'm doing, but I'm ready for a break!  

I'm really finding myself loving choral singing more and more.  As a vocal student, the emphasis is always on opera, which I enjoyed, but never really saw myself doing.  It's much, much harder to make a living at choral singing, of course, which is why I guess why most classical vocalists become opera singers, but I'm really happy just getting to sing in lots of different venues, with the occasional solos (although they can really never be frequent enough for my liking), and having my day job to keep me grounded and pay the bills.  As much as I hate my day job some (most) days, it gives me the security and freedom, oddly enough, to do what I really enjoy doing without having to worry about paying the bills.  I think I've found a good balance!

Nate is doing well for himself, too, so much so that I haven't had more than a few hours here and there to see him since, well....really January.  Which is great, I'm glad that he's finding a lot of work, and both of them Broadway shows, especially in this economy, but it would be nice to remember what he looks like occasionally.  He was the Production Assistant on the play God of Carnage through mid-March, and then as soon as that one opened (literally the next day) he started The Norman Conquests.  Carnage was hilarious - it's all about these 2 couples (played by Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini & Marcia Gay Harden) who get together to discuss a schoolyard fight between their two boys and devolves into basically a 90-minute tantrum between the 4 of them.  It was a hoot, and got rave reviews, not to mention that Nate really had a blast working on it.

Norman Conquests I haven't seen yet (seeing it this week), but it's actually 3 plays that run in repertory (meaning, a different one plays each night), and then there are 3-show days where the whole trilogy shows.  Apparently, each show stands on its own, or if you see them all together they interlink - like an exit from one show is an entrance in another.  Sounds like an interesting concept, so I'm getting ready to see all three this week.  The show opens Thursday and then he will essentially be done, except for training as a sub for the stage management team, and then I get him back, for a little while I hope.  

It's tough being the husband of a theater person.  On the one hand, you really want him to be working as much as possible, because it's good for his career and for our pocketbooks, but on the other hand, the hours are long and hard on a relationship.  Luckily ours is strong enough that we always manage to make it through.  That, and I'm enough of a hermit that a little time alone doesn't bother me too much, as long as I know it's not a permanent arrangement.  

The kitties don't always cope as well with an empty house, and get very upset when we're not home much. Titi for example, is meowling desperately in the other room trying to get me to come pay attention to her.  So I guess I best get to it, if I know what's good for me (ie: If I don't want the 3rd pile of vomit on my bed in the course of a month).  Ah the joys of pet ownership...