The Reluctant Receptionist

i’m wondering when i’m going to recover from this weekend. i’m thinking that probably by the time we go to emily’s wedding in late august i’ll have made up for lost sleep. maybe not, though, so i need to be sure to pack my concealer for my under-eye circles. (reminder to self: buy concealer for under-eye circles.) this isn’t to say that this weekend wasn’t great, though. it was.

friday, i left from work to catch a train to philadelphia, where rhymes with opera was putting on its next-to-last show. george picked me up from the station at 8, and we went to the venue, where the other act was already playing. we walked up to the house—yes, it was a house—where we met robin. i was in the middle of telling her, rather loudly, not to have her friend come and meet us when i turned around to see the audience glaring up at me from their seats on the floor. let me tell you, if patchouli hate-rays could kill. the show itself was interesting: i fucked up all kinds of entrances, getting so wrapped up in my “acting” (as opposed to acting without quotes, which is what real actors do) that i forgot to come in. so that was fun. we got through it, though, and the basement full of philadelphia hipsters (not to mention robin, kate, and courtney) were an appreciative crowd. in robin’s friend’s words: “tell robert he needs to get a manager.” afterwards, i went for drinks with kate, courtney, robin, and george, and caught up. it was awesome.

george and i drove to nyc on saturday after brunch, had a rest, then went to the times square subway station where we met the rest of rhymes with opera and did a quick show. yes, you read that right: we sang in the subway. it wasn’t my idea. we did it, people had fun doing it (if not hearing it, as we were roundly ignored), and we lived.

ricky was in town staying with us, so after some rousing guitar hero we went to a new club called “santos party house” downtown. let me tell you, i didn’t think that clubs like this existed anymore. i thought they went extinct with the death of the roxy. i was wrong. this place is insane. will i be going back there? probably about as often as i went to the roxy, which was exactly twice in eight years. but it was a great adventure.

sunday morning, after dragging myself through church (and somehow sounding no worse for wear) we went to lunch, then finished up our RWO tour with a show at the gershwin hotel. if you ever hear about a show going on there, go. it’s a fantastic venue: an in-tune piano, comfy couches, friendly staff.

so if you’ll excuse me, i’m off to collapse another rehearsal for another show.