(no subject)
I'm gonna do a day by day of my trip:
Saturday: set my alarm for 2:45 so that I could leave by 3:30, slept through it, woke up at 4 and didn't leave till 5. Got to Austin, parked in the closest parking I could find which was definitely NOT long term (oops! - I'll pay for that later!) and ran in just in time to catch my flight. In LA that first day I slept, then visited with Stace. We got my application for the Zachary competition in LA sent off, and she bought a new phone. Mad props to Stacey for being on morhpine yet managing to write me a pretty kick ass resume in like 40 minutes.
Sunday: brought Stace to sing in the Chorale for the Verdi Requiem at Disney Hall, afterwards ate with Stacey - stole Angela's ashes from the green room.
Monday: went to the mall, where Stace made me buy warm clothes even though I didn't really like them that much (which I was very thankful for later), and had dinner with Stacey :)
Tuesday: Let Stacey sleep till 4 cause I was afraid she was wearing herself out trying to entertain me. Then I got to watch the Verdi Requiem. The soloists were good and the choir was better, it was pretty kick ass. Afterwards we went out with Stacey's little brother's and one of their girlfriends. They are all precious and so sweet... the way they love their big sister. Such good boys.
Wednesday: Goodbye's with Stace not too hard because I know I"ll be back very soon - like March 29thish I think. Flight to Chicago. Got to the airport and I had left my phone at Stacey's house. Went to check in to the flight, and the machine kept telling me I couldn't and to see an attendant. So I do, and he says - "oh right, this isn't working because your flight left two hours ago" I was like "nuh uh its for 2:20" Well come to find out it was for 12:20 and I'm an asshole. So I had to take one at 5 which put me in Chicago around 11 - where Marjorie's boyfriend picked me up and brought me to the house of the lady who sang "Thank you for being a friend" on goldengirls.
Thursday:oh this day is another laugh out loud one.
So the plan is 1:00 see Quinn sing in Carmen
2:18 meet Sam at the train station. I end up getting in town early cause Cindy (golden girls) has to go downtown for something anyway. I go to the public library - copy the music I need for my audition, and I'm dicking around in their library catalogue, looking for cool music, as well as blogging a bit. Well Meghan leaves a message to - if I can- meet her at 1 oclock, I get this message at 1:00, and off I go running down the streets of Chicago until I forget where I'm going, can't find the address so I whip out my laptop on the sidewalk to check the blog again and find the name of the place. Needless to say, I don't get to see Meghan after all. I dick around for a while in the mall, then I catch a cab to meet Sam and get there around 2:25 - worried as shit, because I don't have my phone and how the hell am I gonna find him in Union Station. I see a sign for lost and found and think to myself - I lost my Sam, and there he is checking out a locker. Sam and I went by the opera and Quinn got us backstage where we watched him sing Escamillo in the LOCAA version of Carmen, (he was fantastic - definitely the best part of it, I also really liked one of the mezzo's voices - she was Frasquita maybe? I can never remember which one ends up being the lower voice) anyway so that was special. After that I saw David Daniels roaming around backstage - but he didn't recognize me, and honestly I wasn't sure it was him, so I'm not that offended. I had to ask one of the makeup ladies after he left. I think maybe he's lost weight. Hey! So have I!
Anyway so then we went and spent some time with our friend Richard who is in the hospital and really sick. For a couple of hours. Then I think we went to Greek Town, and then Quinn's friend Gray - who is very funny and very much fun and entertaining, dropped us off at home.
Friday: FINALLY got my freaking phone in the mail, and got to contact all of my people I had been neglecting since I got in, because of lack of communication. Made Richard some gumbo with no spice, then Sam and I headed into town. I was just gonna drop the gumbo off at the opera house with Gray, but ended up meeting up with Meghan there, then dragging she and Sam to the hospital with me so that I could give Richard his soup, because Quinn wasn't gonna get a chance to see him that day. That man is such a sweetheart to me, here he is sick and in the hospital, and I come in and he starts telling everyone in the room visiting him how beautiful I am and what an amazing talent. I got so flushed. It's just so weird to hear, because nobody at Baylor really seems to give a damn. Anyway he's just super sweet, he's a super sweet man, who loves to help young singers, and he's sick and that makes me sad. It also makes me sad because my Stacey is sick, and I really don't want her to be as sick as he is, and I know that she doesn't want to be sick, and Jesus Christ why is it that cancer attacks the most wonderful people in the whole world? Okay so back to the story - Meghan was a super good sport about meeting up with me just to be dragged to see a sick person she didn't know, and after the hospital we caught the Metra to go meet up with Amanda and Summer at Bennigan's for st. patty's dinner. I couldn't drink cause of my audition but it was really good to see Amanda and Summer. :) I wish we had spent more time together which brings me to
Saturday: The plan was to go to my audition, then check into a hotel and party like a rockstar with all of my chicago peoples. Yeah but Friday night Sam and I couldn't find anything of a decent price online, not to mention my 60 dollar voucher hadn't come in the mail yet, so that plan fell through. Besides, Richard had told me he wanted to hear every detail of the audition after it. So get ready, then Cindy tells me I shouldn't go downtown to get my eyebrows waxed, I can get it done really cheap in Oak Park. So I'm like - cool so I go to the place she says, and its a little asian girl, and I say "Okay look, my eyebrows are shaped funny see? they have this point on them, and I do NOT want you to take it off, I want it to stay there, it is the only arch my eyebrows have, and I NEED it" So, she waxes my eyebrows, and takes off the point, exactly like I asked her not to do. I was so fucking pissed off. Really? You took off the point? The one I told you that I NEEDed? No tip for her ass. I really wanted to walk out without paying anything at all. I mean after all, it is MY FUCKING FACE you know? Like - I had an audition in 3.5 hours and you just messed up MY FACE. You know, the thing that I wear on the top of my body, on the front of my head that everyone sees? Maybe I could grow them back real quick? It took everything I had not to scream and cry, but I didn't - I just kept making Sam stay in conversation with me about other things. So I get there and warm up and Quinn comes to see me, and brings me down to the audition room and I start with Io Son L'umile and they pick Je Dis - which is cool because they are doing Carmen, and the fact that they liked me enough to want to hear Je dis AGAIN, even though they had had a performance the night before of it, AND the day before. Afterwards to waste some time before we thought RIchard would be awake, we went to the greek restaurant again, and had OUzo and OUzo and some octopus and tarama....m mmmm. THen to the hospital, sat with Richard for a couple of hours, with the plan to find a place to party with my friends afterwards. I was REALLY tired though, and Richard's nephew offered to take us all out for a drink. So of course we went. My little Meghan couldn't meet up with me, and by the time I got in touch with Amanda I was too drunk to make sense. My tired sorry ass ended up passing out around 12:45 while Quinn was driving Sam and I back home.
Sunday: got up still pretty drunk, Quinn brought Sam to the train station and then bought me breakfast at IHOP. Then he sat in the airport with me till I had to go, while I showed him pictures of Marjorie and listened to Mardi Gras music. The plane ride was long but uneventful, and when I got to Austin safely. I got all my luggage, and then couldn't find my car, so I ran around with way too much luggage for way too long looking for it.... really really having to pee. But I didn't feel like dragging all my stuff inside, so I just dealt. I finally find my beautiful little car, (New Orleans Proud to Swim Home I've never been so happy to see you) and went to leave. ... remember how last saturday I didn't have time to find long term parking? Yeah well... it cost me 135 bucks to get out of the parking lot. EGADS! mind you I still had to pee. So I drive to downtown Austin, and find a hotel, because I don't feel like going to a cheap bathroom, I feel like going to a nice one, because I also need to shed a layer of clothes, because of the temperature difference between Chicago and AUstin. So after I relieve myself and shed, I go to the concierge desk to ask where I can get some good sushi nearby, (so I can eat some decent food before I go back to the land of really fatty food that still manages to taste like ass). He gives me directions to a place a couple of blocks away and I head over there.
I walk in looking like utter crap - wrinkled I HEART NOLA t-shirt, sweatpants but with big snowboots, my hair still a hairspray, matted mess from not washing it after the audition, and then sleeping on it. I'm walking around looking for a plug for my laptop, and I notice two guys at a table trying to figure out what my shirt means. They do figure it out, and then they ask me if I'm a musician. I say yes, and they ask if I'm in town for the conference. I told them no, I had just gotten off of the plane, and they asked me to sit down with them. I said sure, and they asked me what I played. I told them I was an opera singer and so on and so on, until we ended up eating a bunch of sushi together - the guys WERE there for the conference, a british singer/songwriter, and his friend that lived in Texas. They were really fun AND ended up buying me dinner. It was an awesome end to my spring break.
I'm going to bed now.