recitalzeit!

the recital was yesterday. the recital that i've been planning since june, that tom and i have been throwing ideas around about since we sat on his deck at the shore, drinking beer and planning, months and months ago. and it's over. it's always a weird feeling, a kind of brook sheilds-ian post-partum depression, when a performance is over. it's as if you have this thing to work towards, to look forward to for so long, then it's over. it's a little piece of history and how you've done is how you've done, for better or for worse. luckily, yesterday went pretty well, so i feel like it's for better. i also have this bach gig at st. david's coming up with hilary (we're singing together a lot lately. it's fun. and we always seem to get in trouble.) so i have something to look forward to again.

what was so amazing about the recital, besides the fact that tom and i got through the whole thing without falling all over each other, especially on the song "fury," which is basically the 20th century version of die erlkonig without the nice schubertian vocal line, is the turnout we had. a nice handful of tom's parishoners came, and a ton of people from baltimore, including some nice surprises: most of the ladies from my office and ron and scott from gay life. i'm sure that people thought i was just being corny when i told them, "thanks so much for coming; thanks for your support." but really. i had horrible visions of the audience being comprised of hilary and tom's mom. not that they wouldn't be a good audience; we just could've done the recital in our living room and saved everyone some driving. but that didn't happen. people came down to bethesda and sat through my sometimes-difficult-to-listen-to recital (not difficult because of the way i sang it, thank you, but because some of the music was a little out there). and for an afternoon i felt like a singer again.

karen came up to me after the recital, smiling, and said, "i don't think i'll ever look at you the same way again." funnily enough, it's the same thing that ron said to me. and it's true, i guess: you know someone in a certain capacity, be it as a columnist or as a receptionist, and then you find out they can do something if not incredible then definitely bizarre. and your view of them is tinted. so now the people in my office have seen what i do, really, besides answer phones. and i think that maybe they're a little closer to understanding me.