Catching Up

Mood: Busy
Song: Mr. Brightside - The Killers
Units of Caffeine: 3

Okay, so I would like to try to write in this thing more than just a few times a year. I would like to say that I’ve been busy, but that excuse just doesn’t work for me. I mean, not too long ago, I was working a full-time job, taking graduate-level classes, working on my thesis, and stage managing a show – and I still found time to blog. Now, my job combines all of that into one convenient package and I work in a theatre. So, it would seem that I would have more time to write, right? Uh… not so much. I wish I could say what a typical week is like, but I don’t have a typical week – it really all depends on what is going on in the course of the week. But here is what last week was like:

Monday:
Got into work at 7:30. Because K had the day off, I left work at 12:30 to spend the afternoon with her.

Tuesday:
Got into work at 7:30. Left at 7:00 only to go to a rehearsal from 7 to 9:30.

Wednesday:
Got into work at 7:00. Had a late meeting that went until 7, after witch the artistic director of the theatre invited me to go to a tech rehearsal of the opera with him. I wasn’t about to say no. I got home around 10.

Thursday:
It was opening night. I got in a 7:30 and didn’t get home until about 2:30 in the morning.

Friday:
At 7:00 a.m., I wake up to K shouting at me – our car had been broken into the night before. With very little sleep and a hangover, this is how I started my Friday.

Yes, there are some special circumstances that took place this past week, but there are special circumstances EVERY week. And yes, I did take half a day off on Monday, but that isn’t normal, either. I guess the hardest thing from a schedule like this is finding time to do those things that just need to be done, like grocery shopping or laundry. K, of course, helps when she can, but she just got into a show that rehearses every evening except Fridays and Sundays. It’s because of this that I’ve been having a hard time with my in-laws.

They moved up here last Spring and are pretty much fully retired. But because they are retired, they have a lot more time on their hands. Time in which to bother their daughter and son in-law. I am very happy that they want to have an active role in our lives – and no, I’m not just saying this. My parents are the polar opposite of my in-laws: I haven’t seen my father in over a year, I haven’t seen my mother in over a year and a half, and I only talk to them on the phone a few times a year. Given these two extremes, I prefer my in-laws. I can’t tell you how many times my parents have hurt me with their ambivalence, and they don’t even care. Once my in-laws moved up here, we promptly went back to the weekly Sunday family dinner. I think this may be a traditional Italian thing. It’s nice and all, but takes a rather lengthy chunk of time out of the day. And, since they’ve retired, it’s easy for them to lose track of time. Whereas, if they were at my house for dinner and they were working, they would leave between 8 and 8:30. Now that they are retired, there has been one or two instances in which they left closer to 10:00. When this happens, all I can do is look at the clock and think about all the things that I need to do before I go to bed.

Thankfully, I think K & I have gotten them to agree to do the Sunday dinner thing every other week. (In my perfect little world, I would like to narrow it down to once a month, but what we have obtained is a small step toward a greater goal, so I am perfectly happy with it, for now.)

So, this past week has been hectic. (I feel that all of them are hectic, but since I haven’t blogged in a while, I have to begin somewhere.) I was caught off guard on Wednesday when the artistic director asked me to go to the opera with him. You see, although I work about ten feet from his office and see him every day, I had not yet gotten the chance to have a real conversation with him. It’s always been a quick “Hi” there and a “How are you doing?” there, but nothing more than skin deep. So, I thought he was joking a little. My supervisor quickly assessed the situation and whispered, “The a.d. just asked you to the opera, right?” (I nod my head in affirmation) “Do you have plans tonight?” (I shake my head “no”) “Then your answer is YES!”

So, that evening, we head off to the final rehearsal of this opera, which I find is being directed by one of the a.d.’s friends. This director regularly directs for the Metropolitan Opera in NYC and is an instructor at Juilliard. While driving to the opera house, the a.d. asks me the typical questions: what theatre have you done? Where did you meet your wife? Etc… I tell him about NY and TX and The Rocky Horror Show, and ask him the same questions. And, through this conversation I find out that he has worked with Tony Kushner, among others. Which brings me to one of the perks about this job - - I may not make a lot of money, but in the short period of time in which I have worked at this theatre, I have met some pretty well-known theatre folks. Every once in a while, I will be sitting in my office, doing my thing, and then someone like John Aylward will come in and ask me where the production manager is or something. Just a few weeks ago, I had a really nice conversation with Steven Dietz and his wife. Of course, when these moments happen, I feel like I regress back into high school, and feel like I’m the nerd who has somehow found my way to the “cool kids” table in the school cafeteria, and don’t know what to say. This is how I felt all night at the opera. I’m actually quite thankful it was an opera and not something like dinner, in which I would have to be “on” for conversation. This is something that I really need to work on! Anyone have an recommendations on how to become a little less introverted and a little more social???

Thursday night, my theatre opened the biggest show it had done in years. It was so big that it took over four years to complete. So, Thursday night was a HUGE deal. I helped with the pre-show reception and after-show cast party. I always like doing these things because, although it’s a lot of work and it goes really late into the night, it’s a lot of fun – (and the only part of any job I’ve had where you can let your hair down and have a few drinks.) The only thing that sucked was that the party went so late into the night that the bus route to my apartment stopped running and I had to take a cab – (WAY to freaking expensive!)

This brings me to Friday morning: with only a few hours of sleep and a nasty hangover, I had to deal with a crisis: my car had been broken into. Thankfully, there was no damage done to the car and it didn’t appear that anything was stolen. However, K and I realized that we had quite a bit of sensitive information in the car, (i.e. account numbers, social security numbers, etc.) So, we spent the entire morning on the phone with banks, credit bureaus, fraud protection agencies, etc. It was hell! And since I had done this just two years ago when our house was broken into, I knew the REAL pain in the ass to come out of this: We wouldn’t have any access to any of our money for 5 to 10 business days while our money is in limbo between accounts. I real bummer as this weekend is my 6-year anniversary with my wife. Thankfully, K and I found a few ways of getting our hands on some cash, so as not to affect our plans. But, quite a few of my bills are going to be late this month, as I have no access to on-line bill pay and no checks. And all this because some ass-hat decided to break into my car. Oh well, at least it wasn’t like the aforementioned situation in which our house was broken into – that REALLY sucked; we lost quite a bit in that robbery, and it cost us a lot of money. This is only really costing us time. But, like I said, time is something that I don’t have a lot of as of late.

Well, today is laundry day. (I haven’t done any since before I went to Boston early last month.) Gah!! So, with this blog, I again start a new day, in which to being writing more regularly.

Cheers!