it's a good thing

let me just go ahead and write my usual "what a weekend!" post.

what a weekend! friday night i went to phoenix, a bar that scott called a "dive bar" but was actually a lot nicer than any bar in baltimore. when i think dive bar, i think, you know, some bar in fell's point that's in the back of someone's house where you have to hold the bathroom door shut with your foot while you pee. where natty boh's in a can are two dollars. or, even better, i think about the drinkery, the pre-stonewall spot at which i spent many a falling-down-drunk evening. wait, that just made me sound like an alcoholic. let's try it again. "...at which i spent one or at the most two falling-down-drunk evenings."

much better.

anyway, phoenix was far from a dive bar; but it was much less scene-y than the other gay bars i'd been to in nyc, bars like splash--er, i mean "SBNY"--xl, g. all those chelsea bars where gay guys stand around in a circle wearing tight t-shirts judging each other. having been to phoenix, however, and then saturday night to dick's--yes, it's a gay bar named dick's--with perri, i was happy to find normal gay bars with normal people. well, as normal as gay guys in new york get, at least.

perri and i walked into "dick's" and looked around: we were the youngest people there by a good 15 years (and i'm being generous). 80s diva music was playing on the stereo; red light bulbs hung over the pool table. the bar still smelled like stale smoke even though smoking's been banned in new york for years. "is this ok?" perri asked me, turning around. "it's perfect," i told him.

yesterday i taught my first voice lesson since moving to new york. on top of that, it was the first time i'd taught someone who had never sung a note in their lives outside of the shower. shockingly, it didn't go so badly. i had pictured myself trying to kill all this time--what do you do with someone who can barely match pitch for an hour??--by talking, talking, talking. i didn't have to, though. we had plenty to work on and he was a very nice man. he chose to sing "to dream the impossible dream" and went home to work on it for our next lesson. fun. oh, then i gave my friend andrea a coaching, for which she insisted on paying me. now, i love being paid. but when i've been friends with someone since college i get all weird about it. when hilary reminded me that today's the day i have to buy a new metro card, however, i felt less weird. thanks, andrea.

in other news (if you're still even reading by this point--jesus christ), it's my last week at my temp job. that's right, ladies, my old job at hopkins helped me get a new job at mt. sinai, doing basically exactly the same thing i was doing at hopkins, but with a little less responsibility. and so i get to say "LATER!" to corporate america again, as i'm once again welcomed into the fold of academic research. i get to wear jeans there. and go for walks in the park on my lunchbreak. and have my health insurance paid for. it's a good thing.