Vainglorious Vicissitudes

My choir director told me about a possible paid gig with a church choir in Oakland.  I dropped by today to audition and somehow ended up committing to sing with them this Sunday.  At nine in the morning.

Nine in the morning. 

Those who know me will understand just how I feel about this.

It gets better.  I'd already made plans to go to Rocky this week, which I am not canceling because I only get to do Rocky a couple of times a year; since public transit doesn't run that late, I can only go when friends with cars are going, and my friends are a sadly infrequently Rocky-visiting bunch.  So, on Sunday morning I will be singing on no more than five hours of sleep, with a throat hoarse from two hours of shouting.

Let's all point at V and laugh, children.

So, yeah, much partying was done by me this weekend. Which was really nice, because performing is starting to be more of an emotional drain than it's worth and it was good to have a place to unwind after each of the weekend's concerts, and people to unwind with other than my fellow choristers. Not that they're not nice people and all, but I really don't have much in common with them and so I can never feel totally relaxed around them. (I suspect some of them would quietly freak if they knew I was bi, let alone poly.)

Friday's concert left me feeling a bit tetchy--having to hang around afterward for a solid hour because everyone else is chatting with their friends and my ride isn't leaving till everyone else leaves always annoys the hell out of me--so rather than join the hunt for a place to eat that was still open, I decided to bum a ride straight to olego's place, and found that I was amazingly not the first person to arrive despite being half an hour early. Some nicely mellow hanging out ensued, including the first game of charades I've played since high school--in fact the whole evening reminded me rather pleasantly of the nights I used to spend chilling with my high school friends, both before and after we went on to college. Wine and cheese were served in abundance; I of course avoided the wine but made sure to sample every single cheese (despite having forgotten to bring any Lactaid), and found the blue and the gruyere surprisingly good, the English Huntsman most excellent, and the chevre divine as goat cheese generally is. *sigh* Also, I discovered that that ankle-length black skirt that flatters me so well flatters just about anyone. Boys in dresses are fuuuuuuuuuuun.

Saturday was even fuller of partying, as the gathering I was dragged along to began in the early afternoon and ran late enough for me to return to it after dashing across the bay for a second concert. The boy who did the dragging happens to be the one fellow I'm seeing (or at least seeing regularly) right now who isn't already acquainted with most of the others; in other words he's part of a completely disjoint social group into which I've now been precipitately thrown, to amazingly good effect. New social circles don't often turn out to be this much fun. (Okay, so it wasn't an entirely new circle--there were a couple of people there whom I knew in passing and who I know are acquainted with some friends of mine, but that's hardly a surprise given that there are, what, three degrees of separation between any two Bay Area geeks?) Anyway, pinball + Zendo + brain teasers and word games + lots and lots of food = happy happy V. And I was highly amused to discover that The Boy's roommates, who he hadn't yet informed he was dating anyone, had figured it out anyway because it was quite obvious he was hiding something. Boys who can't dissemble are adorable.

I seem to be making a lot of generalizations about boys today. I suspect this should be a chapter in the Guide to V: If you are a boy, all you need do is put on a dress and be hopelessly transparent, and I will evince a tremendous desire to take you home and pat you and pet you and call you George.

Come to think of it, that's likely to happen if you're a girl too. The problem is, if you're a girl I'll worry that I'd be coming on too strong if I actually tried to pat you and pet you and call you George--and that's if I've even gotten past assuming you're probably straight anyway. (See, my problems with women run even deeper than being a lesbian sheep.)

This Sunday evening (apologies for the short notice) I'll be singing with Bay Area Classical Harmonies at the Berkeley Art Center. It'll be a short program; we're just doing a few old standards, including Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus and Dmitri Bortniansky's Cherubic Hymn. The way it looks now, there's a small chance I'll end up carrying the entire alto section, so if you've ever wanted to hear me sing classical this would be an excellent opportunity. Directions are here, and the concert starts at 7:30. Feel free to comment or email and request more details.