The Reluctant Receptionist

i made the mistake this morning of reading my friend ellen’s blog. i say that it was a mistake not because it’s a bad read—absolutely the opposite, in fact, because reading her blog is like siting down and talking to her: it’s self-aware and self-deprecating and funny—but because it made me miss her and my summer friends just terribly. i’ve said many times that there were a few people i met this summer that i wish i could’ve just brought back to new york with me, plopped them right down amongst the group of friends i have here because i knew they’d get along, and watch what happened.

reading back through the posts she wrote this summer (i’d never read her blog before because, as i said when i first came back, i totally couldn’t be bothered with blogs of any sort while i was away) was like reliving all of the ridiculous things that we all went through, the trial-by-fire that was spending seven weeks singing a billion shows and living and eating with the same group of singers. most of all, i keep thinking about what it felt like to not have to have a day job, how freeing it was to be doing what i wanted to be doing. i keep thinking about how this summer, even when we were working our hardest, felt like playing for seven weeks. it’s not that i wanted to go on to another young artist program when onj wrapped—i was dying to come home, and another week spent away from phong might have meant an amityville horror-style mass murder (after which i would, obviously, drive to brooklyn, change my clothes, shoot up some heroin, and pretend like i hadn’t done anything).

i just wish that there was a way to make a living doing what i want to be doing (you know, um, singing or something like it). because when that’s all i’m doing, no matter how hard i’m working or how exhausted i am, i’ve accomplished exactly what i set out to. it’s so strange the way that days drag when you’re in an office (specifically someone else’s office, at someone else’s computer), and i just find myself wondering how so many people spend a lifetime doing what i’m doing now. maybe if they’re not just doing this job to make a living they’re more invested, which makes the time fly by. i don’t know, though, because, try as i might, i can’t think of another career i could ever be happy doing. and i’ve thought about it, believe me.

i know what you’ll say. that there are ways to make it without temping; that i should be teaching or coaching or…i don’t know what else is out there. and i don’t have a good reason for why i’m not. so thanks for listening to me bitch a little bit.