Those of you who know March of the Falsettos can sing along in your head.
Lots to blog about, this may be scattershot and might be more than one post.
I’ve been low-level sick for about a week. Last Tuesday (a holiday), Susan and I went outlet-mall shopping out on Long Island. Fun, but it was very cold and blowy, more than either of us had been expecting, particularly since it had been quite warm just a couple of days before. We went around lots of shops, looking at clothing (I bought a North Face jacket) and furniture (bought nothing, but took pictures of possibilities for replacing my living room sofa and my recliner). But as the day went on, I felt more and more punky, and once I got home around seven, I took my temperature. (I had to remember how the contact thermometer worked, this took some research, and I made notes for the next time). It was like 102! Argh. But my gut feeling told me that a night of sleep would probably knock it back down, which it did.
But it was clearly a sinus thing and felt like a reaction to pollen or mold in the air, exacerbated by the blowy cold we’d subjected ourselves to, and that turned into irritated sinuses and post-nasal drip, which irritated the back of the throat, causing a cough. (Who am I, Miss Adelaide?) So that’s been going on, and on Friday, I got my COVID booster, so the weekend was a lot of me laying around feeling bleccch, even though I managed to get quite a lot done. (I’m prepping the house for Christmas, and have been moving bookcases and little pieces of furniture to make room for the tree. Or trees. I’m putting up three this year!)
Anyway, it’s a week later, and I feel better, but not great, and this past night, woke up coughing so badly I had to get up. My body was acting like it had to throw up, but in a respiratory, not digestive, way, so I suspect there’s a giant glob of grossness stuck down far that needs to come up, but it didn’t. Luckily, I had some cough syrup, took a capful and went back to bed without further issues.
I hate being sick, of course, but it’s extra annoying when you’re definitely under the weather, but not enough to actually call in sick or stop doing stuff. And when it doesn’t go away quickly.
Speaking of digestive stuff, I’m going in Monday for a ‘spelunking’. Let’s see how that turns out. I guess I should pick up some lime jello for the Sunday prep.
I did get to see my buddies in BHT’s She Loves Me in their first weekend of performances. (the run is now over) It’s a charming show, which I did not know except for the basic plot and various encounters with “Vanilla Ice Cream”. It was beautifully cast, well sung and quite delightful. “Vanilla Ice Cream” made far more sense in context than it ever had in cabaret, and (as expected) my buddy Lauren was a delight in the role. I won’t name everyone, but it was really fun, and I will point out that my buddy Renee had some choice featured moments, was very funny, and I hope she gets more opportunities like that.
I will say that the tech wasn’t great. The cast was miked, and the miking was not working well, constantly distracting – either off or too loud or catching someone’s costume swish-swishing. I’ve conducted two shows in that space with that group, and we didn’t mike (I’ve never conducted a miked show) so I’ve never had to deal with the trial and tribulations of it. I will say that a show that old probably wasn’t written to be miked and probably didn’t need it.
Next up, VLOG’s Death Takes a Holiday after Thanksgiving. I’ll be working the show, so will be attending the final dress so I can see it.
OK, here’s the petty part. I’m not gonna name names, but anyone involved will easily figure this out and that’s fine. I’d posted some video clips of a production I was recently involved in, and I heard through a third party that the pianist was irked that I hadn’t listed him in the credits in the videos. Well, I’d listed the principal cast and the directors, but not the chorus or the musicians, and he wasn’t the music director or the only accompaniment. I’d thought it was a silly ask and he hadn’t approached me directly, so I ignored it.
I just this past week got notice that the clips I’d posted had been pulled from Youtube for copyright violation, because he’d reported them. Whoa. So my reaction has been extreme annoyance, but also maybe a hint of compassion because in order to be that petty, he must really be invested in something which I think is pretty trivial.
I described this to my shrink yesterday and pointed out that one reason I don’t stand up for myself as much as I should is when I do take a stand (even something as trivial as this), it often blows back on me disproportionately. I know I’ve lost at least two conducting jobs because of something that happened that could have been addressed by a little frank conversation, but no one bothered to have the conversation, they just decided to label me as problematic and write me off.
The solution here I think is to follow the Four Agreements, particularly “be impeccable with your word” (here meaning stand your ground when you have reason to) and “don’t take anything personally”. But I will say that every performer and collaborator needs to realize that being a squeaky wheel doesn’t necessarily mean getting the grease, it means getting canned or not rehired. And that’s something that both the pianist and I need to keep in mind.
Ooo, I have to talk about an MM romance book I read, The Fall by Tal Bauer. I’d read other books by Bauer, his ‘guys falling in love’ stories are often set in a context of political intrigue and spies and guns and stuff and are quite often batshit crazy in a wonderful way. I hadn’t gotten to The Fall before because it’s set in the world of hockey, which I don’t care about, but it’s not about hockey. It’s basically a time travel/loop story (which I love), but one of the interesting things is you never do find out whether it’s actually time travel or just brain damage.
I won’t spoil too much, but our hero, who was a promising young hockey star, is currently not playing very well, can’t figure out why, is miserable, his team hates him, everything is crap. He’s in a game with some other team, and does kind of note the other team’s captain as being a good player and respected. And he gets slammed on the ice and is knocked out cold.
And he wakes up in a strange bed and next to a naked man (he’s never slept with a man) and it’s the captain of the other team who kisses him and says “morning, beautiful, ready for coffee?” and it turns out it’s a year later! And somehow he’s managed to get traded to the other team, fall in love with this guy (he wasn’t actively gay before, hadn’t been much of anything and had been kind of squishing that part down), and is suddenly playing fantastically. But he can’t remember any of it and he doesn’t want to tell anyone because he doesn’t want to be taken off the ice and he doesn’t want his new boyfriend (who he’s discovering is quite wonderful) knowing that he doesn’t remember any of their relationship.
And then an awful accident happens and he wakes up and he’s back to a year ago and can only kind of remember what he just went through, but the question then is was any of that real and can he make it happen again, and most important, change things to avoid the horrible accident.
This isn’t a good book – I found the writing really over-the-top and he spends so much time miserable and angsting and it’s just too much – but it’s a riveting one and I was always dying to find out what happened next and how it would resolve. So… especially if you like time loop stories, check it out.
I’m picking up Christmas stuff now, and really enjoyed Yours for the Season, an MF romance by Uzma Jalaluddin. Our heroine is an overworked lawyer of Indian descent, with a meddling Muslim family, who meets an up-and-coming chef and events occur. Not only is it a delightful and mostly quite funny story, the South Asian non-Christian point of view is really interesting (yes, it is a Christmas book).
I’ve seen three holiday movies so far, two of them Sapphic! Under the Christmas Tree, Christmas at the Ranch, and A Merry Little Ex-Mas. They were all fun. Under the Christmas Tree has some great co-stars (Enrico Colantoni, Wendy Crewson, Rikki Lake) and Christmas at the Ranch has my adored Lindsay Wagner (big Bionic Woman fan back in the day) as the least Meemaw-ish Meemaw you’ve ever seen. The Ex-Mas one is fun and features Jameela Jamil as the ‘other woman’, always a plus. I don’t mind Alicia Silverstone, but even playing a mom with grown kids, she still has that girly persona, it’s odd. But these were all worth the time.
Oh, I also finished the computer game Dispatch. Highly recommended and too short.
Yep, that’s it for now, I think I got it all in. I’ll go on about house stuff later, including TOILET SEAT DRAMA.
The Toast Point Page 