Day 137: Cambridgeport

To the left you'll see a photograph that, to me, nearly looks like the corner of an oil painting -- but no, it's the view from the window of the garret (rather large garret) I've been sleeping in for the past few days whilst homeless.  On an adorable street in Cambridgeport.

This morning I woke up at a reasonable hour, thanks to the many (and reasonable) hours of sleep I was able to obtain last night.  There was talk of going to Provincetown for the day (on the Cape), but given the schedule of the ferry, and my reluctance to run around so very much on this particular day, the morning's hours were instead quietly passed drinking coffee and writing.  Later this afternoon I needed to help some of the boys move more things into their new place, so we took a bit of a tour of BCS and their new place culminating in a drive-by ice cream pick-up from Toscanini's.

The evening ended with a viewing of Rumors, which E.'s brother had just finished translating into DVD format.  Rather, it ended with some barbecuing, some singing along to the guitar (visitors' hazard in Medford!), and then the viewing of Rumors.  Lovely Sunday.

Day 131: The Real Alfalfa Farm of Topsfield, MA

Another beginning of the end -- Rumors closing performance, to great success!  To me, the whole thing felt odd because I was feeling rather tired and essentially chugged a coffee just beforehand, but that didn't stop me from giving it all that I could -- and man, so did everyone.  Some of my favorite bits happened tonight.  I had originally been plotting to try to steal some of "Claire"'s funny one-liners -- as she always beats me to some of mine (or rather, I forget them and she saves me!) -- but then I thought of something funnier, and replaced "...Cookie's walking around like a elephant" with "Cookie's walking around like a honey badger."  Really it was for our stage director, who apparently was too busy stage directing to catch it, but which made BNap ("Claire") nearly die of laughter on stage.  Having not quite recovered from this, I was caught unawares and she stole my next funny one-liner ("Cookie blew up the microwave, what else?"), so I decided she wasn't getting the last word and not only stole but rewrote her next "steal-able" line (also my cue): "You know what this night is beginning to remind me of?  -->Platoon. Weekend at Bernie's."  We had a blast at the performance and at the cast after-party at our producer's -- what a good crew.

BEFORE Rumors, which was a matinee showing today (not until 3p, though), my car-ful (the OG's: "Pudney", D., and E., plus the addition of my mom) decided we would finally go to find the holy grail of our route from Boston to Georgetown: the wine at Alfalfa Farm.  Pudney had discovered long ago that no, this landmark on the route was NOT a lowly dairy farm, but rather that they also produced wine.  So she called them up on one of our rides ("Hello? Is this Alfalfa Farm?"), and made sure we could come in for about 45 minutes prior to our performance.  The wine may not have been up to our expectations (which were VERY high, granted), but the experience was a great way to kick off the last performance of our tenure as amateur actors.

Technically Alfalfa Farm was not quite the kick-off to the day, which was brunch at Rosebud with E. and his parents and my mom -- which was lovely. Rosebud was also the coda to our day, after the cast party, where we had decided to check out the Sunday night karaoke scene.  Mostly we just chatted as we were so wiped, but D. got to sing some Gordon Lightfoot (one of the songs that will always remind me of this summer, "Sundown"), and I took a crack at the Supremes song I'd been wanting to do for a while -- really under-played in my opinion, the song "The Happening."

Day 130: Outstanding Pizza

Today marked night three of the play, and day three of my mom's visit.  It started out with a another venture to Veggie Galaxy, just down the street from my place -- and this time it was for a brunch visit with a friend who had met my mom before.  Thought it would be nice to all get together again.  I must say I was more impressed with the (amazing) veggie pot pie from the first visit than I was with the attempt at breakfast.

Today was also the biggest crowd at the show, by far.  Something like 50 people?  I know that doesn't sound like many, but given the size of the theater, it certainly felt like that many.  Ride coordination is getting to be a bit of a juggling act, but so far, I think that everyone who has needed to get there has gotten there -- and I've gotta hand it to a specific pack of MIT first-years who rented a zipcar and filled it, not to mention spilling over into two additional vehicles (one being mine).  So amazing that so many people showed!  But really, who could resist coming to see a show with such an amazing cast [pictured on-set, above] and crew?

I'd say overall, Act I still best the first night (such amazing -- ! -- energy), Act II ruled Friday night, but the whole package was brought today.  It'll be interesting to see what new bits we can bring to the show tomorrow...

So at this point you might be wondering why the title of the post is "Outstanding Pizza."  Well friends, that is because this is the slogan of the pizza which has been frequenting our rehearsals all summer long (Georgetown's finest), and it made its way into our performance tonight thanks to Z.  Unbeknownst to me (and to Z.), some hungry foraging friends of mine managed to eat the leftovers some time later this evening at my place.  It seemed a fitting tribute to our summer spent partly in Georgetown.  And now we owe Z. pizza.

Day 129: Small-town bar take-over

I feel that my life recently has been thoroughly re-defined by this play.  I still do all of the other things I normally would do -- go to work, go to chorus practice, hang out with friends, eat meals, etc. -- but all of that has to be fit in around Rumors, and after this week, we're done.  [Not to mention the fact that after this week I will be driving around the country like a maniac / preparing to move across the country for a couple of weeks, but I can't even begin to process that yet.]  I also feel that this blog has perhaps suffered, as a large portion of my time is no longer being spent in Cambridge, but rather in Georgetown, and therefore I have fewer new, exciting details about Cambridge to divulge.  But we'll just assume that discussing our post-play take-over of a small-town bar is just as interesting.

First -- a note on night two of the play.  I hate to say that it suffered a bit from the "sophomore slump" -- but Act 1 did, at least.  Act 2 was worlds better tonight, however, once we had our energies going.  It's funny -- the crowd was over twice the size of the group last night, yet we couldn't get anything from them for a while.  Or maybe I'm just perceiving things in a skewed fashion because I was so exceedingly baffled at getting ANY kind of decent response yesterday.  A strange world.

After our stellar second act [from which S.B. took the above shot!], however, nearly the entire (perhaps it was the entire) cast and crew headed to a place nearby (the only place still open, at 10pm on a Friday night!) in Georgetown for a drink.  We ended up staying for quite a while, such that we lost some soldiers by the time it was time to meet some Calliope folks at the Charles Playhouse for karaoke to celebrate the birthday of one of our regulars.  Pudney and a friend of hers made it out, however, which was fantastic!

Day 128: Opening night

In my head for I don't even know how long today has been the song "Opening Night" from the Producers. "Will it flop, or will it go?!" An exciting day on so many fronts.  First, my mom came in this afternoon, and she decided she had it in her to come to our opening performance (thank goodness--I'm convinced it was her laughter that got the crowd going! her, and a few other key presences which really made it for us).  So thrilling -- I can't really describe another sensation quite like having no idea how something is going to go.  Sure, last night's dress rehearsal was our best yet -- but that didn't necessarily mean it was objectively _good_.

After Mom got in, I showed her my apartment, and then we left shortly after to do a drive-by near MGH (where both of tonight's cops work, in their day jobs :)) and picked up D. and S.  The drive to Georgetown was certainly interesting with our crew, and once we got to G'town there was a flurry of hair and makeup behind the stage, somehow much of which was caught on film by G., who brought a very nice camera in to document (above, you can see me as Chris Gorman through his lens).

And then it was time.  My character is the first to appear on stage [I'm now having flashbacks to an 8th-grade production of Peter Pan -- not the standard version, but an adaptation -- in which I played Wendy, also first on stage I believe, opening with a scream, perhaps?] -- and it was electric.  Such a cool feeling.  Dear world: if you ever have a chance to do community theater, do it, because it's a helluvalotta fun.  And SHOCKING.  If you'd have told me three months ago that a performance like tonight's would have been possible, I would have laughed at you.  At any rate, it was a great time, and hopefully we can continue the energy for three more nights!

The after-party tonight involved a mad dash back to Cambridge to try to meet up with some people for karaoke.  Most had already bailed, but a few of us enjoyed ourselves, and D. and I managed to sneak in for one song, "Walking On Sunshine" -- _almost_ as upbeat as I was feeling.

Day 127: Stage fright

Tonight was our final dress rehearsal for Rumors.  Although we were Pudney-less, I felt that it was finally the first night that, had there been an audience, we would not have embarrassed ourselves.  Part of that must have been due to the fact that since it was finally a closed set (that is, all entrances done through the correct stage exits and passageways, etc.) and all of the house lights were down (leaving our director and all who were watching from afar in near darkness), it felt Much More Intimidating.  Funny that having the lights OFF makes it more terrifying -- but it finally felt like really being on a stage!  It's been a long, long time.  I think it must have been the stage fright this all instilled (at least it did in me) that got us going and knocked us into perspective!

In recent rehearsals, one of my favorite on-stage presences (BNap), who plays my best friend in the show, and I have been playing a game called "steal-the-funny-one-liner".  And when I say "we" are playing a "game", I mean she is taking over my lines when I forget them.  And I have a lot of potentially funny non sequiturs (at least seemingly so -- does "sucking his thumb" perhaps prime "I can't believe I'm paying a baby-sitter for this night? Only Neil Simon can know for sure...).  Meaning that many of my one-off lines are very difficult to remember, unless (apparently) you grew up with the GTW, a la Nappa, and have just decided to memorize the entire play.  So, when BNap stole one of my less punchy "Oh who gives a shit?" lines, I finally just gave up and countered with "Apparently not me."  This is gonna be fun when we start doing it for real, tomorrow!

Day 125: Bike Un-Borrowers (Bike lights, big city?)

Bright lights -- big city.  Well, at least, bike lights, big city.  Always useful!  And brought to me by mine truly, E.E.  That is, upon arriving home from a long day at work only to dart off again to another full-length dress rehearsal (the life of a community theater actress is clearly not that glamorous--though it's a helluvalotta fun!), I found E. outside my apartment installing two lights on to my beloved Yoshi.  Having great friends around is like the opposite of having "borrowers" at your house -- and Yoshi certainly appreciates it.

Post-bike-light-installation, our lively troupe of four (D/E/"Pudney" and I) headed off to dress rehearsal #2.  Though it ended up being an extraordinarily late night (sadly prohibiting me from attending the birthday gathering of a former classmate -- happy birthday, Jak!), it was by leaps and bounds our best performance (the gap between Thursday and Sunday was huge -- but we closed an even bigger one tonight).

Tomorrow night we have off, and then final dress rehearsal on Wednesday.  Then it's four days of performing!  Thursday through Sunday.  Turns out my mom will be in town for all of it -- she definitely would have come to all of the productions of plays I was in as a kid, but she should get an award for continuing that tradition into my adulthood!

Day 124: The Cambridge garden party

Today marked the beginning of one of the ends of summer -- that end being the production, and therefore finale, of Rumors.  And by that, I mean that today marked our first full dress rehearsal in Georgetown.  Well, nearly full; there were a few stray "threads", if you will, such as some evening gowns-turned-shorts-and-a-t-shirt and faulty walkie-talkies!  But overall it seemed worlds beyond the rehearsal on Thursday, which was a pleasant surprise.

This weekend's chaos left little room for error, but somehow in between the dress rehearsal and the garden fête this afternoon (more on that in a minute), there was some room for a quick oil change and finishing the cookies!  Almost vegan, not quite; still haven't quite figure out the whole baking-without-eggs thing.  Ok, so not so vegan at all, though the butter substitute worked like a charm. [Sidenote: apparently, upon a quick google search, bananas can sub for eggs.  Must experiment.]

At any rate, I arrived at M.'s house (where the garden party was being thrown for T's birthday, partially organized by me -- i.e., me being the constant source of harassment and verbal berating asking them to come to the damn thing) later than I had hoped but earlier than I had expected, allowing me to help prep a bit and to bake some of the cookies at her place.  It was a really nice afternoon for an outdoor Cambridge garden party. [M.'s place is exceedingly well-suited for throwing such gatherings -- beautiful outdoor garden mostly maintained by the two landlords, who live upstairs, and to some extent M. herself, I expect, with plenty of space for grilling and sitting or standing around, chatting.]  Eventually many of us devolved into devising some strange antics, some of which involved wearing bright sunglasses, hats made of plastic bags, and tiny spatulas (so cute!) for decoration; the antics may also have involved creating some videos of upside-down talking heads.  No further comment on that one.  But the moral of the story is, it was a relaxing end to a long week (fortnight? month? summer?), and presumably one happy birthday was had.

Day 117: Suburban foraging

Sunday practices in Georgetown are now a regular part of the week, and I find it quite relaxing to get up on the early side for a Sunday, pop into Toscanini's for a coffee top-up, and swing by to grab various members of the crew for the drive up 93 and 95.  On the occasions when D. is with us, these mornings often bring foraged goodies into our lives during Act 1 (his character only shows up in the middle of Act 2).  Today we were in for a treat - may apples.  Rumor has it they are somewhat elusive and difficult to find around the Cambridge area, though apparently the suburbs of Georgetown were more forgiving; fact has it they are extraordinarily sweet. To eat them, you squeeze and suck out the juicy innards, which are so saccharine they remind me of Gushers (those things are like crack).

Treat #2 of the day was that the old-school members of the GTW (see the sign behind the may apples in the above pic?) were throwing a picnic complete with swimming pool and bocce ball (which S., our director, and I threw down at).  I could only stay for a bit because I had to high-tail it back to Cambridge to get to the second practice for the Mercury Orchestra chorus, which was being held at the Masonic Lodge in Porter Square.  So neat all the places being in this group is showing us!

The afternoon was complete with a bit more urban foraging in the form of nabbing some peaches (and pears, I believe) en route to a friend's place for dinner, where others had foraged some mushrooms for dining (S.B. made an amazing casserole with chicken mushrooms - was to die for).  Rounding out the evening with some guitar sing-along-ing made it a pretty much perfect Sunday.

Day 114: Alfalfa Farm

For some reason, the phrase "Alfalfa Farm" just seems to roll off the tongue so readily -- and it is our welcome sign on the way to Georgetown, location of the stage where we will perform Rumors in two weeks (! - just two weeks!).  Alfalfa is to Georgetown what alpacas were to Kokomo for me as a child.  Each time my dad would take us to Westfield to eat at his favorite buffet (oh yes, buffet), we would pass the alpaca farm just before arriving in Kokomo on the way back.  Home sweet home... and that's what Georgetown is beginning to feel like, a bit.

Alfalfa screams hippie to me a bit, which is fitting for today, because I finally decided to try to purchase some vegan "replacement" items for my cupboard -- or rather, for the refrigerator at work.  Apparently it's never a good idea to buy soy-based fake cheese product (never again), but almond milk is still OK by my book.  D. was displeased with my ranting about the horrors of replacing cheese, but that was ok, because the result was that he used some _good_ fake cheese (apparently tapioca-based Daiya shizz) to create vegan pizza for the whole cast -- some sort of win-win going on there, I think.

For me, the biggest down-side of having rehearsals in Georgetown has nothing to do with gas money or mileage on my car or time -- but everything to do with missing (or being disastrously late for) B11 LBK at the Asgard. Tonight we missed the singing entirely, though we didn't miss the band, and I chatted with them and hung out at the Asgard for a while before calling it a night.  I sometimes find myself thinking that my rent really isn't too high when I consider I got live-band karaoke for free across the street from my house every Thursday.

Also -- whoa. I just realized when mapping Alfalfa Farm that it's not a farm.  It's a winery.  Well, then.

Day 110: BSO behind the scenes

Never thought I'd be the type of person to wake up at 8am on a Sunday bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but it's happened.  Sundays in Georgetown for rehearsal are fab-o, and we stepped it up a notch today.

Rehearsal itself was a bit sluggish today compared to last week.  Our first attempt at running through Act 2 off-book was not as glitch-free as our first attempt at Act 1 -- and most of us had to resort to using scripts.  But it was great to get everyone there for Act 2, as we had spent less time on it thus far.

The second part of the day involved a foray to Crane Beach in nearby Ipswich -- my take was that it was nice, but next time I'd just drive a bit farther and go back to Ogunquit/York beach (this was pretty close to Georgetown, in its favor) -- free to park there and fewer folks around. Again, nearly none of us had brought bathing suits, but BNap saved the day by having a car full of dirty laundry -- one piece of which was the t-shirt I'm sporting above, touting the same radio frequency as D's (different cities, though; funny).

Part three of today was great.  I was stoked to find out earlier in the week that Mercury Orchestra, a local/community-based group that is quite a bit larger than Calliope, was looking for choristers to accompany the orchestra for Daphnis et Chloe, Ravel's longest piece of music and only ballet (it's short for a ballet, only about an hour).  The choral accompaniment is stunning -- and apparently REALLY HARD!

The first cool thing about the whole ordeal is that my name was on a list with a security guard at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, allowing me to enter its under-belly and poke amongst the scattered music stands that are always floating around where there are orchestras.  Got a big twinge of .... -- well, something more pleasant than food poisoning -- being in that atmosphere again, the basement of a symphony hall.  Felt like a big production and reminded me of singing with the Kokomo Symphony Orchestra as a kid in the KCC -- we would always accompany their biennial rendition of the Nutcracker.

The second cool thing about this schtick is that the conductor is fantastic.  Whole different style from what I've become used to -- and it's always nice to start with chorus only before trying to put the whole thing together.

And the coolest thing is that the music and the singers are beautiful -- and we get to perform this beauty in Sanders Hall.  This blog -- and this summer -- have turned into a sort of feschrift for the arts, and I like it.

Day 109: And to think that I saw it on Newbury St.

Happiness is walking out your front door into your favorite coffee shop on a Saturday morning at 8:30, finding that a close friend has also arrived (freshly back from Germany, no less!), and having an unplanned 45-minute long conversation.

It is not minding the fact that you're working on a Saturday and having no plans at all after, but making it up as you go along. Today was a breath of fresh air.  Eek, I'm sounding rather trite today, eh?

This evening, after a brief stint at a barbecue this afternoon, I met up with the brothers E. to run lines on Newbury St.  [The phrase "run lines" has become a part of my daily vocabulary, but I still think it sounds like I'm into hard drugs every time I say it.]  Sitting on Newbury St. and people watching somehow feels quite like Harvard Square.  Maybe it's all the brick?  Anyhow, the Saturday evening patrons of Newbury St. Starbucks were treated to a double-feature (that is, simultaneously doubled, not in sequence) of some buskers and a trio of aspiring thespians doing our rendition of Rumors -- the whole of Act 1, I believe -- on the patio outside.  We later finished Act 2 in Beautiful Medford, making it an early night before our now-weekly Sunday morning gig practicing on the stage in Georgetown.

Day 107: Out-of-towners

Today was just another summer 2012 Cambridge Thursday, complete with work (new computer today!), some downtime at home, rehearsal in Georgetown for Rumors, and live-band karaoke after.

Several the usuals were away this week (out of town), so I had no high hopes for turn-out -- but though the crowd was small it was certainly punchy!

Since our own locals were being out-of-towners elsewhere, it only seemed reasonable to interact with some non-local out-of-towners in Cambridge.  P. had already begun to do this by the time E. and I arrived from rehearsal, with someone in town from North Carolina on business.  He was a great karaoke fiend and sang us his son's rendition of the song "I'm sexy and I know it" (hockey-themed: "I'm Gretsky and I know it"); though I was a bit worried when at the end of the night he told us, "I drive better when I've been drinking than when I'm sober.  My wife's always telling me, oh you gotta drive -- better start drinking!" -- just before driving to his hotel five miles away.

Before the end of the night, we decided we'd probably be best off ordering some pizza at Cinderella's, and were somehow approached by the table next to us, a group of brothers visiting, originally from Chicago, spanning nearly a couple of decades in age.  When I mentioned I was from nearby Indiana, the youngest expostulated that he went to school in Indiana, at the best school of the state -- Notre Dame.

I laughed and countered that no -- that school was located in Bloomington, to which he responded with an inflammatory remark by inserting a particularly flexible adverb in between "best" and "school" to describe IU.  After that I was not so interested in conversation, particularly after one of them made some about assuming one of our crew had "just met me tonight."  Perhaps an upshot of the evening was just that I felt lucky to live in a place where the out-of-towners don't make me wish I lived elsewhere?  The Cantabrigians I know are pretty great.

Day 103: Small-town pubs

Our second rehearsal on-stage in Georgetown--and our first rehearsal off-script--was a big success, though we did take nearly three hours to get through the first half of a 90-minute play.  Highlights included the initial orchestration of a prat-fall trip my character gets to make, finally seeing the physicality between lots of the pairs of actors in the play, and the scene where my character gets to hide in the bathroom and drink double vodkas with her best friend.


After rehearsal, E. and I headed to have a snack with "Ernie" (2.0 -- the original cast member had to bail!) to a pub around the corner.  We ended up shooting the breeze for a couple of hours, while people wandered in and out. It's always funny to me to walk into an establishment that is clearly more designated for drinking than for eating purposes and find, e.g., a stroller inside.  Anyhow.

E. and I rehearsed lines in the car all the way back home, and weren't quite done chatting so we enjoyed the nice weather in his back yard in beautiful Medford for a while.  When I got home, V was there, and we ended up hanging out for hours.  Really nice Sunday.

[As an aside: I'm not going to lie... after our rager, we seem to have encountered a bit of a Rock Band problem which is continuing, and we just left it set up in Z's room while he's away in Japan.  Above you see an alternate use of Rock Band as an addition to audience participation during Bollywood films from the 70s.  I believe it's probably a good thing we didn't have it set up all year long, else we would have gotten very little done otherwise.  V. commented that they should just put Rock Band rooms on 14-hour-long flights to Japan and the flights would feel approximately 30 minutes long.]

Day 100: B11

A slight ode to B11 seemed to be a fitting topic for Awesome-Cambridge-Thing-#100.

Upon reflection, I felt it would behoove me to estimate the number of times the crew has been to Asgard in the last half year or so since the glory of live-band-karaoke was unveiled to me.  The first time was before the creation of this blog -- end of February -- when I went for a friend's birthday party and was shocked find the venue was across the street from my house.

The second time was the following week, when I couldn't resist and stopped by (by myself, mind you) on the way home after drinks for a friend who was going away.  Never underestimate the siren song of karaoke.

Since I really avoid doing estimation when exact count can be done (this is probably something that hinders me drastically in many walks of life, particularly in doing science), I have counted, and the exact number is actually 18 -- I'm pretty darn sure about that, too.  No error bars required.

That mean 18 nights spent with Boyan and the B11 crew.  They were in fine, fine form this evening -- and so were we!  Huge crew amassed for it -- out-of-town folks, folks from the cast of Rumors, regulars, irregulars, many!  Even ran into some long-lost friends.  The combo of rehearsing for Neil Simon's brilliance and then following it up with crooning Sting (well, tonight it was Sting) to Boyan's groovy guitar is something I'm really going to miss... What a perform-y summer -- And cheers to B11.

Day 99: 5 Horses + 45 more days

A week of rehearsals this has turned out to be - Sunday/Wednesday/Thursday (tomorrow) for Rumors, and Tuesday for Calliope.  Lines are to be learned for Rumors by the coming Sunday -- I counted and Chris (my character) has something like 200+ of them, so it's been quite the work week in that sense.  Ah, the real job is also going ok.


To reward a job well done, E. and D. and I headed out for one drink after practice tonight, and ended up at a place unknown to me until today -- Five Horses in Davis Square, which contains multitudes (of outdoor seating).  Strange that Harvard/Central/Inman/Porter just don't, really.  Shay's and Charlie's in Harvard -- oh, and Daedalus --, the Field and (I guess we'll count) the Tavern in Central, nothing that I know of elsewhere really. Davis somehow seems homier and cozier than the other areas.  Especially during the winter, when the lights are out... I remember how surreal the first Cambridge snow that I experienced was, in December of 2008, and I have a strong association of it with Davis Square.  The snow was blanketing it as I went with classmates to see something at the Somerville Theater (ok, that part wasn't so magical -- it was the Slutcracker).  I believe we did snow angels - but we also had driven to the show for whatever reason, so we had the joyous experience of navigating through thick flurries.  That was also the night before I drove home to Indiana for winter break, of course, which ended up taking 19 instead of 15 hours due to the 8-10 inches covering the ground.  Somehow worth it, I think.  See Blue Yoshi (i.e., my blue Toyota Corolla) above, covered in snow. Not in Davis Square, but in front of my old place on Columbia St. near Central.

How did this post end up being about snow?  Anyway, the 5 Horses pub was great because we got to sit outside, we invited our waitresses to sing karaoke with us (and now I'm remembering they suggested we go to the Rosebud, maybe on Mondays?, for karaoke), and I got a little more Davis under my belt.  Oh, and today was the last day in the double-digits. Ahoy last six weeks of Cantabrigia.

Day 86: The Importance of Being A Local

Nothing makes you feel more like a local than coming back and feeling more comfortable in your own skin in the city you live in than in the place you came from.  This happens to me whether I'm coming back from my home town in Indiana, my family's stomping grounds in West Virginia, or (in this case), a mountain in New Hampshire.  Was so tired after the trip yesterday that I managed to spend the entire afternoon in bed finishing the second season of Downton Abbey followed by crashing pre-midnight through to the next morning.

Today was simple: work, rehearse for play with E. at S's place (director-on-two-of-us so that we could do scene focus), at then meet up with my roommate and a friend of ours who had also been up for the weekend in NH at a bar/restaurant near my place (Miracle of Science).  This now makes the 4th or 5th time in a row that I did not get carded at MoS.  For some reason, I have an irrational hatred of being carded.  At worst, it means that if you forgot your ID (which I don't), you have to go get it or talk someone into just letting you in -- and at best, it's a compliment that you look young.  But I hate it.  Typically if I'm there with older folks (than me), not getting carded is the norm, but recently it's been because I _am_ the older folk -- and I like it.  Was there a few days ago w/ J. and M. and arrived early, ordered beer, no carding.  Then when J. and M. arrive and order food in addition to beer -- they get carded.  Tonight, I arrived to meet V. and G-Dog after they were eating.  V's passport was out on the table -- but still no carding for me.  And that, friends, is the importance of being local.

All of this is still a diversion to say that I am going to miss this place a ton.

Day 83: Fireworks on the Charles

Happy Fourth.  To celebrate, I skimmed about three hours off my work day, attended a Neil-Simon-themed bbq (which involved quite a bit more rehearsing than I had anticipated), and then moved on to the night's entertainment -- watching fireworks drunk.

First stop was All-Asia -- on the way to this fine drinking establishment, I happened to run into a woman I hadn't spoken to since freshman year of college, when she lived across the hall from me in my honors-college-floor freshman dorm.  Nuts.  She's apparently doing a music PhD in NYC and is in town for the summer to accompany the Boston Ballet School.  Pretty sweet, eh?  More on that later.

Upon arrival at AA (ironic), there was no live music of yet (always a plus for All Asia), but by the time T. arrived to join Bnap and me, they had arrived in full ska-terrible form.  Such terrible form that it caused a) Bnap and I to become rather drunk and b) T. to leave.  No matter!  B and I headed to a friend's house (she's a graduate student RA for the MIT undergrad dorms, lives right on the river), played with a really cute baby, and then eventually rejoined with T. in time to watch the lightning-storm-esque fireworks from Mem Drive.  Brilliant.

After, I was coerced (my words, not theirs) by both Bnap and M. to walk down to the hotel down the street to sit outside and chat about life.  Which ended up being mostly chatting about abortion and psychiatric disorders.  Go figure.  Yay America, Yay Boston, Yay fireworks. EOM.

Day 73: Rumors -- A Farce

As I have previously mentioned, it has come to pass recently that I have some pretty great friends who are truly going to make this play thing happen.  The play is called Rumors, and it's a farce by the lovely Neil Simon.  Today marked the final night of try-outs, again at S's house, and might I say that there is so much talent involved in this!  I was blown away by so many performances over the course of both nights.

For me, today was a bit of a farce in itself.  I had some tasks that one would think might be simple -- go to the doctor's office because my eye seemed to be acting up, pick up some cat food, pick up a prescription.  But for various reasons, any simple task I engaged in seemed to have about a thousand barriers keeping me from accomplishing.  I'll take the cat food for example.  As many readers may know, my cat (Jack) is obese.  Not mildly chubby, not just kind of fluffy -- utterly obese.  Therefore I do my best to keep him on a strict diet of just over half a cup of diet cat food per day, fed to him over the course of the day by my wonderful roommates and me.  However, it is rather difficult to procure this cat food, and I don't like the idea of switching up on him briefly, so I try to carefully plan to stop by the vet the weekend before he's about to run out.

Needless to say, I didn't get around to that this time, and he needed cat food NOW.  So I found a pet store near my work that has a vet in-house (which, apparently, is required for the sale of "prescription cat food").  This cat food is seriously just like all other cat foods except that it's a little harder to chew (supposed to be great for the teeth), is higher proteins, and is lower in carbs.  Sigh.  I am getting frustrated just re-telling this story so I will abridge.

How to buy prescription cat food in 25 steps or less

1. Call store;
2. They will tell you to fax the prescription;
3. Call your cat's vet;
4. The vet will fax the prescription;
5. Go to store;
6. They will give you a prescription card;
7. They will point you to the prescription cat food;
8. The woman might start to say to say "it's in a turquoise bag" and you will tell her "oh, yeah, I buy it all the time, thanks";
9. You could even get two bags;
10. You go to the cash register;
11. They check the prescription card;
12. You leave;
13. You get home;
14. You open the bag. It's dog food that was mixed in the with cat food and in a nearly identical bag.;
15. You look dumbly at your cat who is starving.;
16. You call the pet store;
17. The pet stores says you can exchange, no worries;
18. Your house is far from the pet store, but the pet store is on your way to your play auditions;
19. You pick up your friends from their house in Somerville, and then you drive to the pet store in north Cambridge by where you work;
20. You bring in the dog food;
21. You go get the cat food;
22. You un-pay for the dog food;
23. You pay for the cat food;
24. Eventually you get rid of the friends; (:))
25. You give your cat the cat food.

Addendum: Then you go sing your usual live-band-karaoke song.

Day 72: Solstice Acrobatics

The summer solstice certainly let us know when she came this year.  After weird weather all winter and beautiful, clear days randomly placed through early spring, summer finally hit hard on her arrival day, with Bostonians and Cantabrigians practically swimming through the humid, 97-degree air.  Tonight was night 1 of try-outs for Rumors (more than after tomorrow), and thankfully S. (director who was hosting at his place) had access to two window-unit ACs and a fan.  At least when it's that hot, even the non-sweaters amongst us are in no luck and we can all be gross together.

After try-outs, I joined up with a friend whose girlfriend is an acrobat -- more precisely, she is fantastic silks and trapeze artist.  Somehow she was supposed to be performing at the Plough and Stars -- a bar I go to occasionally, and which often has live bands, but in which I could not imagine a whole acrobatic troupe performing.  Particularly in 97-degree swampy heat.  But -- there was!  Including a bar-dancing clown (terrifying to me to dance on a slippery bar... but was fantastic to watch!).

At the end of the acrobatics, I had a text from B.Nap (who had been at the auditions earlier) to come join up for karaoke at Highland Kitchen.  I really like Highland Kitchen.  It has a great feel, adult spelling bees on Tuesdays, and apparently the light fixtures look like sex toys, according to E. (I have never even attempted to verify this myself, nor do I ever remember to check when I'm there, and I'm pretty happy with that state of things!).  However, it is located atop Winter Hill, and I am not typically located atop Winter Hill.  That said, I was already so icky at this point of the night, and since I had biked from home to the Plough, I decided a quick nip up a silly hill for karaoke would be worth it.  Which... I *think* it was.  Right?  Song of choice was "Walking on Sunshine" - which yes, have done many times, but seemed so very appropriate for the evening.