soaked

i don't really think you can call yourself a new yorker until you've been caught in an incredible, terrential spring downpour. i'm talking about the kind of rain that isn't just like, "oh, look. it's raining." it's the kind of storm that's scary even if you're sitting inside, the kind of storm whose thunder makes you think that it might just break your roof in two. by being stuck outside, preferably walking across downtown manhattan with nothing but a flimsy royal blue dollar umbrella between you and the elements, you truly learn what it means to have sold your car, to have committed to a life lived on foot. i can now, dear friends, call myself a new yorker.

we've been having storms here in new york unlike anything i saw when i lived in baltimore. they're the kind of storms i grew up with in oklahoma: big, imposing things that you can see coming, complete with crashes of thunder and lightning that you think might just strike your royal blue dollar umbrella. except when i'm out in them, i love them. when i'm out in them, i just crank old-school nine inch nails (downward spiral, anyone?) and make the best of a good, fast, wet walk.

by the time i got to rehearsal last night at 440 lafayette (formerly scott's old office, musical theatre works, before it went belly up) my converse were literally soaked through, as were my jeans and t-shirt. and that's with an umbrella. tim gave me a shirt to wear and i went shoe/sockless for the rehearsal. good times.

now i know that all of you, dear readers, are thinking to yourselves rehearsal? for what, robert? you're a star now and you didn't even let us know!? well, not quite. but close. my friend scott from college puts on a cabaret every year at the duplex (next door to stonewall, west village) with his friend tim. there was one duet that the, um, rock-by-way-of-broadway-by-way-of-creed singer they'd already hired couldn't sing, so they asked me to do it. so, yes. my first performance in new york is tomorrow night at the duplex. for those of you in nyc: duplex, corner of christopher street/7th ave (you don't get much gayer than that), tomorrow at 7pm. it's like 8 dollars with a two drink minimum. c'mon, you know you want it.

for those of you not in new york, wish me luck (and help me remember the words).