The Reluctant Receptionist

i’d completely forgotten how enthralling blogs are when you’re at the office. when i wasn’t working (like, ahem, the last three months) i could barely be bothered to even clear out my google reader, and the blog entries would pile up 900 or 1000 deep, until reader just told me that i had “1000+” unread blogs. this means that in any given week at the office, when i’m sitting here at a desk, i’m sifting through a thousand or more blog entries, everything from my friends’ updates (the only one of which who actually updates, i’m sad to say, is jessica) to techno blogs (which means i can keep up a conversation with near-strangers about the politics of apple computers for thirty minutes.) to gay news and opinion blogs. it’s no wonder i feel that by the time news has reached the television it’s soooooooo five minutes ago.

and so i’m back here in office-land for a second day in a row. as temp jobs go, this one really couldn’t be better. there’s stuff to do, so i stay a little busy, but none of it is hard or physically taxing. then again, none of it is sifting through excel spreadsheets or mindlessly filing. still, i got home at 5:30 last night completely exhausted, with just enough time to eat the dinner that phong made us (who’s the housewife now! i’ll see you in hell, billy, but i’m going to have some fun before i get there.) before i had to run out to cendrillon rehearsal in astoria. i can’t tell you how much better it is rehearsing in astoria than in hoboken (or, gasp, newark). not that hoboken isn’t lovely, but i don’t have to buy a separate train ticket for these rehearsals.

i tried not to fall on my ass too violently, but this was our first music rehearsal. this role is completely new to me (as in, i haven’t even sung it with a piano, much less had a coaching on it because i’ve been unemployed for three months and coaches don’t take payment in chocolate chip cookies, even the most delicious ones made with love), and i had to get up there and sing it in front of everyone with a conductor for the first time. did i completely fail? no. but it was sort of a personal crash and burn, as you musicians will understand. anyone else would’ve thought, “feh, that was fine,” but we can never live up to what we really wanted. so i left rehearsal vowing to practice even more (don’t ask me where that time is coming from, since i’m working again and am in rehearsal every night from now until curtain) and sing more spaciously and not be scared and not fall back on old habits, blah blah blah. singery bullshit.

the fall has me feeling all the things i usually feel in the fall. it has me nostalgic for college, for the security that we had at depauw. it’s made me nostalgic for dinner every night in the dining hall at longden, when everything was paid for, when the biggest thing i had to worry about was hiding my smoking from amanda (she honestly thought i’d quit, only to find me sitting on the back porch smoking a benson and hedges 100. why was i smoking a benson and hedges 100? i have no idea, honestly. nor do i know why i smoked for ten years.) and going to theory class at 8 o’clock in the morning. i look back on it and think, if i could add phong into that whole crazy time, it would be the best time in my life. at least, nowadays, we all still have each other to get through things like three months of unemployment and figuring out where the money for my insurance is coming from.

it’s hard for me not to over-romanticize college. sure, i had no real responsibilities, but i also went to a crazy, tiny, liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere and was one of three gay people. so i think about that, how it actually was, and it balances out my need for a make-your-own waffle from the dining hall.