And at your door we stand

Boy oh boy. So- yesterday I had tickets to see the final dress rehearsal at the opera. I've been in contact with the lighting designer, shown him my portfolio, and he invited me. I invited my aunt to come along with me. It was at 11 am, and there would be no late seating. So, while I'm getting ready, and getting my stuff together (because I was staying the night at Lyricus' school, o I was trying to remember everything I might possibly need), I'm sort of chatting online with John, and I ask him to look up directions for me. Specifically, I said, hey, can you look up directions to the Met for me. Bad word choice. And I kind of knew it. but I ignored it, and so at 10 40, was in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oops. I caught a cab crosstown, but didn't have enough money to do more than that, so I hopped on the subway, got off at Lincoln Center, and ran. And didn't make it. I was sitting down in this late seater area, watching the monitor (I got there during the overture. So, basically, if the train had come two minutes earlier, I might have made it. Damn) and this woman comes and watches with me for a minute, then turns and asks if I got there late. I smile ruefully and say yes. She disappears for a minute (which I think nothing of, and turn my attention back to the screen) and reappears with another ticket, one to a private box. So, I got upgraded, which was awesome. It was beautiful. I'm glad I read the synopsis, as it was all in Italian, but you could kind of get what was going on. Mark Morris did the choreography, which I loved, and the lighting was beautiful. For most of it, I couldn't tell where the light was coming from at all, it was all just illuminated, luminous. There were a few moments that made me catch my breath. I'll talk more about it later, I'm on the train right now, and I just want to write these things down before I forget.

My aunt took me out to lunch afterwards, to a diner, and we talked about various little things. The cats, the show, my roommates. We talked about the overpass collapsing in Oakland. It's funny, if I were there, I'd be interested, and it would be a little worrying and inconvenient and such, but not that huge a deal, I think. But since I'm not, my first reaction when I heard (which was John text messaging me, saying "Oops, sorry, part of the bay bridge onramp collapsed" Thanks, asshole, great way to tell me) was huge worry. Which part of it? How were my parents? and all my friends there? What happened? When? Was anyone hurt? Because I'm not there, anything that happens becomes a much bigger deal. I wonder if that will ever change, if I'll ever get over being ultra-protective of MY bay area. Who knows.

After lunch, I caught the wrong subway train, and wasted some time correcting that. I got to Penn Station about 3 minutes before my train left. I'm a big fan of the Quik Trak machines, you just put in your card, say yes, that is me, and print. It took about 30 seconds, and I made the train. Lyricus met me at the station, and we went and killed some time, he gave me the soundtrack, we wandered over to the theatre. The run thru went well. Some of the actors are really good. Some of them are kind of feeble. But it's going to be a good show. After the rehearsal I went to a diner with him, one of the actors, Trevor, and his friend Noah. It was one of those great casual things. I didn't feel out of place even though I only really know one of them. There was good relaxed conversation about people I don't know, and some that I do. They talked a lot about music. They played around a bit with spoonerisms. The only one I really remember was what's a day celebrating tubular marsupials? Tuby Roosday. Ha. Good grief. It was entertaining.

I slept on a futon on Lyricus' floor. My crush on him is pretty much back. It went away this summer because he's pretentious and in some ways very young. But he's growing up a bit, and somehow he's less pretentious when talking about theatre than he is when talking about politics. Or something. Maybe he's just in a different context here. Anyway. He's very cute when he sleeps. With vulnerable abandon. I slept great. It felt like the most sleep I've gotten in weeks. He had the alarm set for 10, but we both woke up a little before then, got dressed, and walked over to the space. We set up the stage and seating, and I laid out my light plot. I think. I mean, I've got 24 lights at most, 16 at least, so I'm having to be really careful and creative in how I place things, but I think I figured out a good system. I'm hoping that there are gobo's and gobo holders that I can use. I suspect that there aren't, but man, that would make my day. Anyway. We went back to some other place on campus, and did a paper tech, talking through when cues happen. Jamie, from the Revels, came up to me while I was there, and I didn't recognize her at all for a few seconds. Terrible. It was good to see her. She had to run, but I'll see her when I'm here next, between thursday night and saturday evening.

Lyricus drove me to the train station, I called Jill to keep me amused while I waited. She's going to get here (okay, CT, really, but still, this coast) on the 26th. I'm excited. Mimosa and ET are here the 19th-23rd, and I think Dante is supposed to be here now? Or in the next couple weeks? So May is the month of people I know from Elsewhere. It's also a really poor month for me. A large part of my income is being reimbursed for money I already spent, traveling to the show that I did for Matt, and I'm getting money back for the train up to Lyricus. And maybe a tax return? I hope so, but there was some weirdness with filing online. That's the last time I try that. Also, it�s the last year my taxes are simple enough to try. Now I've got all these crazy deduction things to worry about. I'm not looking forward to that. Stupid independent contracting. Oh well.

I really love this whole taking the train thing. I love that here, it�s a pretty normal way of getting around, and I love this ride down the Hudson. I love how quintessentially New England it looks, and how the trees are starting to leaf and bloom now, and there are people fishing here and there. And I'm just gliding serenely past it all.

The rest of today is going to be slight madness. I have to take the subway home, pick up a package, deposit a check, pay rent, find the keys to Dixon, go back over to the Bowery and return them, and then Devlin's band is playing tonight, and I'd like to go see them. Lots of back and forth, though. I haven't eaten yet, and I'm not really sure when that'll happen. Maybe I'll spend a little time at home, and then just go to the 7 for 7 thing and drop off my keys then, and skip Devlin's band. That would be fine, and it's not like Devlin's expecting me to be there. Who knows. We'll see how tired I am when I get home. I'm pretty tired now, but trains tend to be soporific, so who actually knows.

Ha! So I just finished writing, and completely forgot that the music I'm listening to had to do with the computer being open and on, and I closed it. Oops. Tired and absentminded in deed.