The Caffeine Diaries
Okay, so I'm doing Holidailies again this year. When it occurred to me shortly before Thanksgiving that I hadn't signed up for it, part of me was all "Dang, this will be the first time in the past five years that I don't do it." And then...promptly forgot to go see when registration was opened. Until I swung by on the Monday after Thanksgiving, while starting my morning with cheap hot chocolate and a pumpkin orange muffin and was all "No way, registration starts today and posting doesn't even start until the sixth? Rule!" And promptly signed up. Maybe this sort of rigorous posting exercise will get me back in the momentum of posting on a regular basis. We'll see, eh?
Anyway, today in my ongoing quest to do things for cheap-or-free, due to my ongoing lack of a job (::sigh:: yes, still, I am in the ranks of the ridiculous unemployed), I attended the Columbus Gay Men's Chorus's holiday show. Well, it shouldn't have been cheap-or-free, but I am a subscriber to a e-newsletter that happened to have a giveaway of various tickets if you commented on a blog post about doing holiday shopping downtown. (I commented somewhat fictitiously, as I totally do something like 70% of my shopping online if I can help it, about how I was looking forward to going to the local craft fairs and buying delightful handmade gifts for my loved ones. Then today, when I planned on going to one of aforementioned craft fairs with Zav, it started to snow, like, a lot and we almost got in a wreck picking up pizza for lunch and Zav was all the way out in the suburbs and I was all "don't drive in if it's a mess, because we almost got in a wreck getting pizza, which it turns out is delivered for free" and so she stayed out in the suburbs and I punked out on walking IN THE SNOW for nearly a mile to look at many of the crafts that were at the Tiny Canary Market three weeks prior. Anyway.)
So I won a set of tickets to this show tonight, which was delightful, except that Teo was less than enthused about the idea of sitting in one spot for two hours and listening to music with no narrative thread. (Though, he'd have been even less enthused if I'd won the other set of tickets, which were for Disney's High School Musical on Ice.) So I started round-robin-calling my female friends, and found another unemployed friend who was all "free? festive? count me in" but not in the opportunistic way that makes it sound. So her fiance drove her over and we walked to the church and settled in for some delightful choral interpretations. And they were. Except that at one point they had to incorporate my most despised concert situation, the multiple-movements-in-one-piece scenario.
Maybe I'm alone on this, though my friend agreed with my assessment during intermission. I happen to find it unbearably awkward, every time the music stops and there is this deathly silence and you're aware that most of the people around you are sitting on their hands to keep from clapping, because the director just told you not to, but, like, get on with the next piece already. The pauses are under ten seconds, I'm sure, but they feel like they stretch on for eternity. Occasionally, in the pin-drop-detecting silence you're positive you're about to sneeze or something. It's a silence that is physical and oppressing. Then the next movement starts and you're relieved for a second, until you find yourself not so much listening to the prettiness of the music as trying to detect some recognizeable form of the song title, to see where you are on the interminable list. At least it's somewhat easier with choral music. I've attended instrumental concerts with the multiple-movements-in-one-piece scenario where I desperately wished for paper so I could write frantic notes to my seat partner all "did that percussion bit sound like 'rainfall' to you? Are we on section three or four? WHEN DO I CLAP NEXT?" So you're a bit ahead when you've got words, but it still distracts from the concert, mentally restraining yourself all "okay, not during this ridiculous silence, nor the next, but after that is when I applaud." Too much pressure.
That being said, the rest of the experience was pleasant. They only sang one song I actually do not like, though it was a very pretty arrangement of it, and they did both "Santa Baby" (my solo song from my high school choir days) and "All I Want For Christmas Is You" (ahhh, show choir), so that was delightful. The ASL interpretters in particular were wonderful, very joyous and expressive. The percussionist totally mesmerized me when he busted out the marimba parts. I enjoyed chatting about my friend's fiance's German family's Christmas traditions (they maybe have one of those giant wooden spinning nativity scenes that I covet except not realistically because I have nowhere to put it, but still). The whole evening was delightful, a perfectly festive way to cap a day and a half of decorating for the holidays and feeling a skosh overwhelmed that there are less than three weeks until the day. (Ack! That's the first time I said that out loud!)
Anyway, today in my ongoing quest to do things for cheap-or-free, due to my ongoing lack of a job (::sigh:: yes, still, I am in the ranks of the ridiculous unemployed), I attended the Columbus Gay Men's Chorus's holiday show. Well, it shouldn't have been cheap-or-free, but I am a subscriber to a e-newsletter that happened to have a giveaway of various tickets if you commented on a blog post about doing holiday shopping downtown. (I commented somewhat fictitiously, as I totally do something like 70% of my shopping online if I can help it, about how I was looking forward to going to the local craft fairs and buying delightful handmade gifts for my loved ones. Then today, when I planned on going to one of aforementioned craft fairs with Zav, it started to snow, like, a lot and we almost got in a wreck picking up pizza for lunch and Zav was all the way out in the suburbs and I was all "don't drive in if it's a mess, because we almost got in a wreck getting pizza, which it turns out is delivered for free" and so she stayed out in the suburbs and I punked out on walking IN THE SNOW for nearly a mile to look at many of the crafts that were at the Tiny Canary Market three weeks prior. Anyway.)
So I won a set of tickets to this show tonight, which was delightful, except that Teo was less than enthused about the idea of sitting in one spot for two hours and listening to music with no narrative thread. (Though, he'd have been even less enthused if I'd won the other set of tickets, which were for Disney's High School Musical on Ice.) So I started round-robin-calling my female friends, and found another unemployed friend who was all "free? festive? count me in" but not in the opportunistic way that makes it sound. So her fiance drove her over and we walked to the church and settled in for some delightful choral interpretations. And they were. Except that at one point they had to incorporate my most despised concert situation, the multiple-movements-in-one-piece scenario.
Maybe I'm alone on this, though my friend agreed with my assessment during intermission. I happen to find it unbearably awkward, every time the music stops and there is this deathly silence and you're aware that most of the people around you are sitting on their hands to keep from clapping, because the director just told you not to, but, like, get on with the next piece already. The pauses are under ten seconds, I'm sure, but they feel like they stretch on for eternity. Occasionally, in the pin-drop-detecting silence you're positive you're about to sneeze or something. It's a silence that is physical and oppressing. Then the next movement starts and you're relieved for a second, until you find yourself not so much listening to the prettiness of the music as trying to detect some recognizeable form of the song title, to see where you are on the interminable list. At least it's somewhat easier with choral music. I've attended instrumental concerts with the multiple-movements-in-one-piece scenario where I desperately wished for paper so I could write frantic notes to my seat partner all "did that percussion bit sound like 'rainfall' to you? Are we on section three or four? WHEN DO I CLAP NEXT?" So you're a bit ahead when you've got words, but it still distracts from the concert, mentally restraining yourself all "okay, not during this ridiculous silence, nor the next, but after that is when I applaud." Too much pressure.
That being said, the rest of the experience was pleasant. They only sang one song I actually do not like, though it was a very pretty arrangement of it, and they did both "Santa Baby" (my solo song from my high school choir days) and "All I Want For Christmas Is You" (ahhh, show choir), so that was delightful. The ASL interpretters in particular were wonderful, very joyous and expressive. The percussionist totally mesmerized me when he busted out the marimba parts. I enjoyed chatting about my friend's fiance's German family's Christmas traditions (they maybe have one of those giant wooden spinning nativity scenes that I covet except not realistically because I have nowhere to put it, but still). The whole evening was delightful, a perfectly festive way to cap a day and a half of decorating for the holidays and feeling a skosh overwhelmed that there are less than three weeks until the day. (Ack! That's the first time I said that out loud!)