The Reluctant Receptionist

tonight marks the beginning of our second weekend as a band of traveling troubadour-ian purveyors of new music. (wow, if i’ve ever written a sentence that sounded more like i should be on my way to comic-con i don’t know what it would be.) i’ll go home during lunch today to pack an overnight bag (which, of course, would be like any sane person’s week-long-trip bag. what can i say? i need CREAMS and LOTIONS.) so that i can leave straight for the train station from work. then i’ll hop on the easy amtrak to philadelphia (easy assuming it’ll be on time), arrive at 8, hopefully get picked up from the train station since it could be a long walk and i have no idea hwere i’m going, then sing a show of really cool, weird music starting at 9. we haven’t talked at all about this tour, so let’s take a quick, um, detour.

what i’m talking about is george and ruby’s new shindig for their company “rhymes with opera.” since they aim to put opera in unconventional spaces, so far we’ve sung in a restaurant/bar (which had a great stage and a great PA, but unfortunately was surrounded on five sides by sound-deadening material. you know that you’re in trouble when your backup band—a saxophone quartet—says it can’t hear itself.) and an art gallery that was running an installation of televisions showing pictures of televisions falling out of windows. tonight’s show is in the basement of a punk rock/hippie commune on the edge of the ghetto in philadelphia, and our new york shows will take place in a subway station and a hotel. unconventional? yeah, methinks.

so anyway, i’m leaving for philadelphia tonight, then will stay with robin after having drinks with my friends courtney and kate, whom i haven’t seen in easily a year and a half. two years? god, i’m getting old.

speaking of getting old, my birthday is two weeks from wednesday. what should we do? you only turn 29 once.