self-portrait

This is me today, straddling several worlds as I write quickly before heading off to a rehearsal. Wearing capable, comfy stage manager clothes for work, but made-up and packin' a pretty red dress for tonight's gig with Something About Reptiles- which will be a fun thing to do after way too long without a show to play! Hair freshly dyed ("Paint the Town" is my hair colour, and a damn good one, if I do say so myself), health returning, thank god- and I passed my 2 music tests with marks in the B range, so thank goodness for that!

rehearsals

Autumn is a good time for rehearsals. The cold, wet, changeable weather makes people want to stay indoors and work. It's so much harder to rehearse in the Spring, or Summer. I spent a very enjoyable few hours this morning polishing up the vocals of the "Emperor's New Threads cast at the Russian Hall. They all sound better than they did last year, as if they all learned to use their voices over the summer. How I envy them, not because they get to sing my songs (!), but because they get to sing at all! I haven't been, lately, and I miss it so much. Ditto playing the squeezebox, but I guess I'll be doing plenty of both soon enough, at the Pumpkin Patch. For those who don't know, I tend to spend much of my Octobers entertaining at the Richmond Country Farms pumpkin patch. You get to wear orange, and a cowboy hat, make up a nickname for yourself (I'm Accordion Allie, natch), sing the same 5 hokey tunes over and over all day, and get maybe 2 short breaks if it's not too busy. It's also tons of fun, did I mention that? Although I think it takes a certain kind of person to enjoy it. A masochist, maybe.
Anyway, the "Emperor" rehearsal was a dream. The cast kept saying "Oh, we're so happy to have you here!" and I kept replying "You guys have no idea how happy I am to be here!" It's a tiny cast of three plus my mom is the stage manager, and Peter and Melody Anderson (the writer/designer and the director respectively), as well as being two of the most talented theatre pros in town, are also two of the sweetest. We broke for lunch at 1:00, and Mel had snuck in and set the big kitchen table in the Russian Hall's kitchen with a fancy tablecloth and candles. She'd brought in delicious mac 'n cheese (it's a running gag in the show), salad and drinks, so we sat around and had a candle-lit lunch and laughed a lot and I thought sometimes working in theatre is every bit as fun and amazing as I thought it would be.
Nose update: it's not a Staph infection, and I have a nifty saline spray to combat the inflammation. Let's hope it goes away soon. It's not so much the sore nose I mind, it's feeling so tired and run-down that bites.

It's another world.

I'm starting to realize that there are many East Vans. There's the one I live in, where the Drive is a funky street to eat out and buy great clothes, a rough-edged but warm-hearted neighborhood that I love. A neighborhood I can walk around, even late at night, and feel pretty safe in. And then there's this other East Van, where some of the kids in my show live. A place where you get beat up if you walk down the Drive. A place with rival gangs that can trap you between them, so that every walk is dangerous. A world where the streets aren't safe, and home may not be any safer. Just now, after I wrote that, J & I were standing on the balcony watching some totally looped guy stumbling around in the bushes outside the apartment across the street. The other day, there was a completely stoned woman passed out on our lawn. "It's gotten worse in the last year or two," said J, matter-of-factly. So these two worlds are closer than I sometimes think. I love where I live, the raw mix of it all. But it breaks my heart to know that it's a place of terror for other people. And seeing the violence, the drugs and the poverty spilling over- I can understand why so many flee to the suburbs or to smaller towns to raise families. It takes it out of you, to stay.
One family that has stayed are my friends G&T, and their son Sebastien, who I looked after for almost 8 hours yesterday. Here's a typical East Van scenario: I took the little guy to a park close to his home, where he played joyfully in the playground while a homeless guy thrashed in his sleeping bag by the empty paddling pool and a dead cat lay stiff by the garbage cans. Thank goodness he's too young to see too far beyond his tiny bubble yet! I forgot how much fun kids are- it's so amazing to belly-laugh with someone that young- to look into their eyes and share a joke, even though you can barely share language yet. My face was tired from laughing. He plays his ukelele and sings: "Maman! Papa! Alisooooooon!" while he rocks out- it's so great.
I'm still fighting this nose infection. My latest self-diagnosis: some kind of Staph infection. One hopes not, especially since I was around a small child yesterday. But it might be, so I'd better get it checked out, because if it is, it's not gonna go away on its own. I'm usually so lucky with my health- it really drags you down, feeling blah all the time.

my nose feels like a radish.

Yes, my nose may look normal, but to me it feels like a swollen, fat, just-about-to-burst beach ball. I've never had this before- is this what sinus infections feel like? The bridge is so tender...I have to look after little Sebastien tomorrow-what if he hits me in the schnoz? I might have to wear a face guard!
The tests keep on comin' at school, and I parry and thrust, keeping my head above water...at least I think so. Test results in a few days!

...and me without my camera!

I took a Mental Health Day today and did a lot of nothing in particular. Or, rather, nothing related to school or The Play. Met up with Mom and strolled around the East Vancouver Farmers' Market for a while- it's apple season and the crisp, tart, juicy apples there taste nothing like their insipid cousins at the supermarket. Then over to the Russian Hall to record a cd onto a minidisc for The Emperor's New Threads. (I wrote the music for that last year and they're touring it around BC again this Fall.) Then we walked to a travel agent to try and book our flights to Mexico in the Spring for Mal's wedding. After a huge walk to get there, they were closed, but it didn't even matter because just being out on a day like today was bliss. A fierce wind last night blew away all our clouds and the air was fresh and just cool enough. And for me, being active and walking miles is some of the best medicine there is. But I was a dunderhead and forgot to bring my camera, so this blog will have to remain photo-less for the time being!
It was interesting to be at the Russian Hall, back in "Emperor" mode after all this time. (we rehearsed it last January, so it's been a while.) Made me realize that I miss being a music director- it's been a while now since I've had any MD/composing gigs and my soul (and my bank account) is feeling the lack. We'll see what the new year has in store, I guess.
Anyway, that's it for me right now. I'm going to be present in my own life today and stop staring at this screen!

Yikes!

That was a long, exhausting day. I rolled out of bed blearily, still tired. Zombie-lurched to school, clutching my hot-water-with-lemon. Not one, but two tests to get through in Jazz Theory! (I think I did well in one of them, though.) Then workworkwork on my script and homework, and off to a terrible rehearsal in which the kids stumbled around on the stage like the living dead, and their director freaked out on them for not working harder. And to top it all off, I stuffed my maw full of sub-par Chinese "food" and sucked down 1 and a 1/2 danishes, craving starch and sugar so much that it was worth the guilt that always follows. Why is it so easy to sabotage a healthy diet?
However...
My sweetie is concocting a delicious-smelling chicken stock in our tiny kitchen. The scent wafts through the apartment and makes me feel better (has anyone actually proved that chicken soup has curative properties? It would make a great thesis. And think of all the great "research" that would have to be done.)
My mom took pity on me and gave me a lift to rehearsal today, saving me from the rain.
And best of all, I have two days' break from school and rehearsals!!!
(sorry, this isn't a very eloquent post. And it's kinda whiny. But that's just how I be today.

I should be doing my homework...

...but I don't wanna.
Jazz Theory is slowly making sense to me, like a dim light in a dark tunnel slowly flickering on. But I'm not sure the faint light will withstand the harsh wind of a quiz, to take that metaphor WAY too far! It's also hard for me to learn late at night, the traditional time for students to work. I only absorb info before about 9pm. After that I may as well hang up the ol' spurs, because nothing's gonna stick in my brain.
Tonight, my mom & I met the parents and half-sister of my brother's fiance, Naomi. We had sushi, which is a great way to break the ice, all that finger food, soy sauce flying everywhere, etc. I had met N's half sister before, on a very drunken night a year or so ago- she's great, as is everyone we met tonight. I am so lucky with my family. All the really crazy ones are a long way away, in the UK. Poor Malcolm, though. Finally getting hitched (the first one of our generation) and my mom and I are so not into weddings. My mom is the woman who promised me she would never wear old-lady polyester pantsuits if I never had a white wedding. And I enthusiastically agreed. I am very fond of my future sister-in-law, but I just don't understand the whole need for a big wedding! I don't. At least they're getting smart and marrying in Mexico, so it's a combined tropic holiday-slash-wedding. (not to be confused with a holiday slasher wedding, which is much different, and bloodier.) Mind you, I will probably cry as much as the next person when Mal says his I do's. If J & I make it to 10 years, which is pretty likely as it's only 5 months away, we'll have a nice little party to celebrate and that will be that.
My theory is that everyone has one performance in them, and for most people, it's their wedding. Hence the histrionics. J & I perform for a living, so...
Anyway, in other news I survived my first rehearsal with the crazy at-risk youths last night. I still hate stage managing but I think I'll survive. I don't know why it's so easy for me to be bossy when I'm a music director and so hard when I'm SMing. Actually I do know- it's 'cause I have waaay more confidence when I'm MDing. Please gods make me more assertive. And let me pass my music quizzes tomorrow. I'll sacrifice a nice goat or something, ok?