The show that I'm currently music directing was selected as one of the few Baltimore groups to perform at a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit at the Hippodrome this Sunday. The event will tie in with the 62nd Annual Tony Awards, which will be telecast on the big screen at 8 pm.
If you're not doing anything, you should come. It's definitely not a shameless plug for the work I'm doing. Come out to support a wonderful organization and see the Tony Awards with people who take theatre super-seriously. The event is only $15 at the door, and there will be food tasting and a silent auction as well if you want to spend some additional coin.
If my camera stops being a douche, I'll post pictures from the event next week. It's bound to have some "heavy hitters" from Baltimore there.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Baltimore Pride.... no, not that kind.
I have this morning ritual where I try to put off getting out of bed as long as humanly possible by watching the Today Show and bargaining with Al Roker through the TV. "5 more minutes, Al.... I'm just waiting until Al Roker makes one more bone-headed comment and then I'll get out of bed, I promise!" (The things one does when they live alone and aren't held accountable by anyone for their complete and utter weirdness) This almost always results in a 15 to 20 minute rush to pick out something to wear that's suitable for work, brush my teeth, wash my face, find my phone and keys which have invariably hid themselves inconspicuously during the night, and get out the door. I try to turn Matt and Meredith and Ann and Al off during this time, but sometimes, something is coming up which hinders me from pressing the POWER button on the TV.
This special little scenario became happenstance on Monday when they announced that the cast of Cry-Baby on Broadway would performing live in Rockafellar Plaza. I sat on the edge of my bed, half-dressed, toothbrush-in-mouth watching these amazing dancing boys do an entire tap number with license plates strapped to their feet and got a little twinkle in my eye every time they turned around to reveal the "Baltimore County" emblem on the back of their jailhouse jumpsuits. It was a fantastic number. It made me proud of things I have no reason to be proud of: John Waters, 1950s Baltimore, etc.
I get super excitable, however, when at least two of my worlds collide. When THREE of my worlds collide like they did on Monday (The Today Show, Baltimore, musical theatre), my head explodes in happiness. I seriously cannot wait to see this nonsense. I read a few reviews. The Chicago Tribuneseems to think it's campy and trite. The NY Times thinks it's precocious. I think I'm going to hear one reference to Baltimore and lose my nut. Especially when it's not Homicide: Life on the Street or The Wire or The Corner or anything else characterizing Baltimore as a city dead to drugs and gangs. Who's taking the train up to NY to see it with me?
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Real Estate for the Young and Clueless
The Maestro and my Brother-from-Another live in this adorable historic neighborhood on the northeast side of town called Mayfield. It has beautiful, historic houses on wide, tree-lined streets. If you're actually inside of Mayfield, you'd never believe that you were inside Baltimore's city limits. Think Homewood or Guilford for the slightly less loaded.
Every year, Mayfield's Community Association hosts a home and garden tour, where about 10 different familes open up their homes and/or gardens for residents and guests to walk through, observe, ooh and ah, etc. The 2008 home and garden tour was a few rainy Sundays ago, and The Maestro and I went with his recently ex-other roommate.
By the time the 10th house rolled around, we were all a little tuckered out, but it was well worth the wait. It was a gorgeous house with breathtaking views of Lake Montebello. Best of all, it's also on the market. I spent the rest of the day begging The Maestro to buy it. And much to the chagrin of everyone with whom I interract on a regular basis, I've been talking about this house ever since. Just for giggles, I sent the listing to my mother a few days ago. She responded yesterday with the results from this website. You can plug any address into this bad boy, and it gives you the property's stats (i.e. # of beds/baths, square footage), something it calls a Zestimate (estimated market value), a tax assessor's estimate, bird's eye views of the property from Google Earth, neighborhood information, previous sale and listing information if applicable, and even more cool stuff that it's pretty impossible to list all that it does.
What's even more fun is that you can plug any address into this, so it's a good way of getting an informal value of your property if you own and are thinking ahead to when you're going to sell next. I'm not a real estate junkie. I'm young, I just happen to like what I like. Seeing all of the statistics for this house that's been the subject of my daydreams for the past few weeks helps put things into perspective for someone who's otherwise unsavvy to the ways of the real estate market.
Go to zillow.com to start playing.
Every year, Mayfield's Community Association hosts a home and garden tour, where about 10 different familes open up their homes and/or gardens for residents and guests to walk through, observe, ooh and ah, etc. The 2008 home and garden tour was a few rainy Sundays ago, and The Maestro and I went with his recently ex-other roommate.
By the time the 10th house rolled around, we were all a little tuckered out, but it was well worth the wait. It was a gorgeous house with breathtaking views of Lake Montebello. Best of all, it's also on the market. I spent the rest of the day begging The Maestro to buy it. And much to the chagrin of everyone with whom I interract on a regular basis, I've been talking about this house ever since. Just for giggles, I sent the listing to my mother a few days ago. She responded yesterday with the results from this website. You can plug any address into this bad boy, and it gives you the property's stats (i.e. # of beds/baths, square footage), something it calls a Zestimate (estimated market value), a tax assessor's estimate, bird's eye views of the property from Google Earth, neighborhood information, previous sale and listing information if applicable, and even more cool stuff that it's pretty impossible to list all that it does.
What's even more fun is that you can plug any address into this, so it's a good way of getting an informal value of your property if you own and are thinking ahead to when you're going to sell next. I'm not a real estate junkie. I'm young, I just happen to like what I like. Seeing all of the statistics for this house that's been the subject of my daydreams for the past few weeks helps put things into perspective for someone who's otherwise unsavvy to the ways of the real estate market.
Go to zillow.com to start playing.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Seeing Sex with friends and family and eating alone
Last week was a rough one for a number of reasons. By the time Thursday rolled around, I honestly just wanted to lie comatose for the weekend, but alas, that is never an option. I had to turn down two really cool social invitations, and I did it the flaky way (by simply not responding to the e-mails... not out of apathy, but rather absentmindedness). I played with the fleeting, yet still irrational, thought of getting some sort of social secretary to make sure that no more e-mails/invitations/whatever slipped through the cracks. Then I looked at the summer schedule of my other half, The Maestro, and quickly got over myself.
I've totally begrudgingly given into the hype that is the Sex and the City film. I loved the series. It was a bonding time I had with my mother when I was in high school, from seasons 2 through the end. Just like everyone else, I didn't want it to end when it did, and cursed Kim Catrall for forcing the idea of a film adaptation into a stale mate. Then I went to college and got a grown up job and a condo and got over it. But when they started filming, I totally got excited again, and have been anticipating May 30th probably more than my own birthday for the better portion of six months. A few different invitations to see the movie with lady friends went out, but my brother-from-another-mother gave me the stink eye and told me I had to go with him. Not that I wouldn't have anyway, but I definitely got put in my place. Since my mother was in town, I invited her as well, for old times' sake, and also since I hadn't really seen her since she'd been in town despite the fact that she'd been crashing on my couch.
Around 10 am, I sent texts out to a few others I knew were interested in seeing it in Baltimore that night. I went on Landmark's website, mouth already watering at the thought of sipping a cosmo while watching Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte do the same from the other side of the screen, and then my heart fell. At 10:30 am, every single showing at Landmark that night through the 10:30 pm showing was sold out. A cursory search through other theatres yielded the same result. In a panic that my opening night screening of SATC wasn't going to happen, I put a call into my friend-that-knows-everything and he suggested that we get tickets at the Rotunda. Since they don't have online ticketing, he figured it wouldn't be able to sell out. Great planning. I was still going to swing by on my way into the city for happy hour and buy the tickets early so that our faces weren't cracked at 10:15 when we showed up at the theatre.
Of course plans never work out the way you want them to. I sat on northbound I-95 for over an hour, wound up not going back to my office as planned, and was still going to be late for my happy hour date at Brewers. My friend swung by the Rotunda and picked up tickets for us, and at 6:30, the 7:30 showing was already sold out and there was a line around the theatre. Phew. It looked like my instincts were right. Three or four Resurrections and a detour through downtown to usher my mother into Hampden later, we were sitting in a packed theatre with my mother, and some out-of-town cousins. I felt so apologetic that they had to experience cinema in Baltimore at the Rotunda. I really wanted them to see Landmark... because that's the Baltimore I want people who aren't from here to think of. The Rotunda, however, is more like the Baltimore that I probably experience from day-to-day. Not that I'm ashamed or anything. I just attempt to assert a little more class into outsiders' perceptions of the city. So all that to say, the drunken man sitting on the other side of my friend shouting random nonsense at the screen was probably more entertaining than most of the movie. It was good. I'm going to see it again with other girlfriends. But it wasn't what I was sitting on pins and needles for. And when J-Hud's catchy little "All Dressed Up in Love" came on, I wanted to jump out of a window, or run out the theatre screaming at the very least. Maybe I shouldn't have read the liveblog of the movie over on Jezebel that day? The one good thing about being slightly annoyed at the movie is that I don't want to see a designer anything for at least a year. The Maestro's off the hook for buying me any expensive designer handbags. I'm sure that's a load off of his shoulders.
.........
By this morning, I was really on people overload. That's not to say I hadn't had a good weekend. I got to see and spend time with family, old friends, new friends, see a movie, drink homemade margaritas. The weekend was full and overwhelming. I stayed in bed until noon... watching Meet the Press and Chris Matthews... thoroughly annoyed by the politics that Tim Russert allows people to play on his casualty of a show, but amused and relaxed nonetheless. I decided that I was hungry for breakfast food, but didn't feel like driving into the city, so I threw on jeans and a t-shirt and headed up the street to IHOP with a book that time has refused to allow me to finish. I started taking quiet time to myself when I moved out here right before my senior year in college. If I skipped my 8 am class, I didn't have to be to school until 2 on some days, so I'd grab a book and sit at Starbucks and read and journal for hours just to detox from people. I guess some people don't need to detox from people, but my friends have always been and will always be drama queens. And the people that aren't my friends, but that I have to interract with on a regular basis are the same as well. As a result, I need moments in the week to not see people, not talk to people, to just be. I used to have a complex about it. When I lived on campus, I refused to go eat if I didn't have people to eat with. I would rather starve for days than sit in a dining hall and eat alone. Now I relish those moments, because they never happen.
So I anticipated there being a wait and made small talk with the hostess, a girl I'd done a show with a few years back, and fiddled on my phone. When I got seated, I discerned what I was going to order right then and there, and then cracked open my book. While I was quietly observing the people around me, like I do anywhere I go, I still enjoyed the peace of not having to make conversation, not having to break down the happenings of my week to anyone, to be out and about without having to give that much in return to the world around me for just a little bit. As I left and paid my check, the hostess noted, "You always come in here alone." For a second, I reverted back to that college freshman, afraid that someone would think she was a loser and had no one to sit with. I made a funny face and responded, "Yeah, well, you know, I live around the corner, and uh, I'm just being lazy on a Sunday. hehe." Unscathed by my neurosis, she asked about theatre-type stuff, and we chatted for a few minutes. I told her to have a good summer, and as I walked out to my car, I came back to my senses and stopped apologizing for wanting a few moments of peace and quiet to myself after a long, hard week.
.........
It's my mother's birthday today. If anyone can guess how old she is in the comments, I'll give you a prize. Thank God for good genes.
I've totally begrudgingly given into the hype that is the Sex and the City film. I loved the series. It was a bonding time I had with my mother when I was in high school, from seasons 2 through the end. Just like everyone else, I didn't want it to end when it did, and cursed Kim Catrall for forcing the idea of a film adaptation into a stale mate. Then I went to college and got a grown up job and a condo and got over it. But when they started filming, I totally got excited again, and have been anticipating May 30th probably more than my own birthday for the better portion of six months. A few different invitations to see the movie with lady friends went out, but my brother-from-another-mother gave me the stink eye and told me I had to go with him. Not that I wouldn't have anyway, but I definitely got put in my place. Since my mother was in town, I invited her as well, for old times' sake, and also since I hadn't really seen her since she'd been in town despite the fact that she'd been crashing on my couch.
Around 10 am, I sent texts out to a few others I knew were interested in seeing it in Baltimore that night. I went on Landmark's website, mouth already watering at the thought of sipping a cosmo while watching Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte do the same from the other side of the screen, and then my heart fell. At 10:30 am, every single showing at Landmark that night through the 10:30 pm showing was sold out. A cursory search through other theatres yielded the same result. In a panic that my opening night screening of SATC wasn't going to happen, I put a call into my friend-that-knows-everything and he suggested that we get tickets at the Rotunda. Since they don't have online ticketing, he figured it wouldn't be able to sell out. Great planning. I was still going to swing by on my way into the city for happy hour and buy the tickets early so that our faces weren't cracked at 10:15 when we showed up at the theatre.
Of course plans never work out the way you want them to. I sat on northbound I-95 for over an hour, wound up not going back to my office as planned, and was still going to be late for my happy hour date at Brewers. My friend swung by the Rotunda and picked up tickets for us, and at 6:30, the 7:30 showing was already sold out and there was a line around the theatre. Phew. It looked like my instincts were right. Three or four Resurrections and a detour through downtown to usher my mother into Hampden later, we were sitting in a packed theatre with my mother, and some out-of-town cousins. I felt so apologetic that they had to experience cinema in Baltimore at the Rotunda. I really wanted them to see Landmark... because that's the Baltimore I want people who aren't from here to think of. The Rotunda, however, is more like the Baltimore that I probably experience from day-to-day. Not that I'm ashamed or anything. I just attempt to assert a little more class into outsiders' perceptions of the city. So all that to say, the drunken man sitting on the other side of my friend shouting random nonsense at the screen was probably more entertaining than most of the movie. It was good. I'm going to see it again with other girlfriends. But it wasn't what I was sitting on pins and needles for. And when J-Hud's catchy little "All Dressed Up in Love" came on, I wanted to jump out of a window, or run out the theatre screaming at the very least. Maybe I shouldn't have read the liveblog of the movie over on Jezebel that day? The one good thing about being slightly annoyed at the movie is that I don't want to see a designer anything for at least a year. The Maestro's off the hook for buying me any expensive designer handbags. I'm sure that's a load off of his shoulders.
.........
By this morning, I was really on people overload. That's not to say I hadn't had a good weekend. I got to see and spend time with family, old friends, new friends, see a movie, drink homemade margaritas. The weekend was full and overwhelming. I stayed in bed until noon... watching Meet the Press and Chris Matthews... thoroughly annoyed by the politics that Tim Russert allows people to play on his casualty of a show, but amused and relaxed nonetheless. I decided that I was hungry for breakfast food, but didn't feel like driving into the city, so I threw on jeans and a t-shirt and headed up the street to IHOP with a book that time has refused to allow me to finish. I started taking quiet time to myself when I moved out here right before my senior year in college. If I skipped my 8 am class, I didn't have to be to school until 2 on some days, so I'd grab a book and sit at Starbucks and read and journal for hours just to detox from people. I guess some people don't need to detox from people, but my friends have always been and will always be drama queens. And the people that aren't my friends, but that I have to interract with on a regular basis are the same as well. As a result, I need moments in the week to not see people, not talk to people, to just be. I used to have a complex about it. When I lived on campus, I refused to go eat if I didn't have people to eat with. I would rather starve for days than sit in a dining hall and eat alone. Now I relish those moments, because they never happen.
So I anticipated there being a wait and made small talk with the hostess, a girl I'd done a show with a few years back, and fiddled on my phone. When I got seated, I discerned what I was going to order right then and there, and then cracked open my book. While I was quietly observing the people around me, like I do anywhere I go, I still enjoyed the peace of not having to make conversation, not having to break down the happenings of my week to anyone, to be out and about without having to give that much in return to the world around me for just a little bit. As I left and paid my check, the hostess noted, "You always come in here alone." For a second, I reverted back to that college freshman, afraid that someone would think she was a loser and had no one to sit with. I made a funny face and responded, "Yeah, well, you know, I live around the corner, and uh, I'm just being lazy on a Sunday. hehe." Unscathed by my neurosis, she asked about theatre-type stuff, and we chatted for a few minutes. I told her to have a good summer, and as I walked out to my car, I came back to my senses and stopped apologizing for wanting a few moments of peace and quiet to myself after a long, hard week.
.........
It's my mother's birthday today. If anyone can guess how old she is in the comments, I'll give you a prize. Thank God for good genes.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
"Excellent customer service is our goal!"
I try not to talk about work anywhere but work. By work, I mean my day job. Mostly I don't talk about it because I'll sound clinically depressed or deranged or homicidal. By day, however, I enjoy my co-workers and try to find the humor in the small things. In short, I laugh to keep from crying.
This was too funny to not share, however. It's an addendum to an e-mail that I received from a sales rep. If you knew this person, you would understand in an instant that this was written without a hint of irony or sarcasm.
Occasionally, for a split second in time, I like my job... and it's because of exchanges like this one.
This was too funny to not share, however. It's an addendum to an e-mail that I received from a sales rep. If you knew this person, you would understand in an instant that this was written without a hint of irony or sarcasm.
"Please note, client is demented and may not be able to express her comfort level accurately."
Occasionally, for a split second in time, I like my job... and it's because of exchanges like this one.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Pleasant Surprises
...I was pleasantly surprised by quite a few things over the long weekend. In chronological order, they are as such:
1. Someone gave something back that didn't belong to them: The poltergeist in my house that has been stealing my stuff returned my favorite mascara on Friday when I got home from work. Granted, it returned it to the spare bathroom that I never use so it can't even depend on my assuming that I just misplaced it. I know you exist, you stuff-stealing poltergeist!
2. I saved a whopping $3.50 on beauty products: I had a EUREKA! moment on the way home. I never get manicures (much to my mother's chagrin) because they don't last that long since I abuse my hands on the piano at least 15 hours a week for rehearsal. I got one a few weeks back for a black tie I was attending. My nails then deteriorated into this awful state of half-crimson-enamaled for weeks because I couldn't find my nail polish remover. I tore my bathroom apart. I knew I had some last summer for the last time that I was on stage, but for the life of me couldn't find it when I actually needed it. I was being cheap and stubborn and refused to buy knew stuff when I knew I had nail polish remover sitting someplace, mocking me, ready to be used that once time a year when I actually needed it. And then, as I was driving home, the heavens opened and revealed to me that the nail polish remover had been sitting in a box (a BOX! not a bottle... no wonder I couldn't find them) in my bathroom drawer that I open every morning... going unidentified because I bought those nail polish remover wipes that you can use once for all ten fingers and then throw away. Elated, I removed my nail polish as soon as I got home... spared from looking like a spaz for the rest of the weekend.
3. Some things never change. As I posted earlier, I went out with some old college friends to see a mutual friend's band. It was seriously quite an amazing reunion. Old friends and new, expected and unexpected. Everyone was so happy to see each other. And even though the tickets were $14, the drafts were only $3.50 and there was a Smirnoff brand rep walking around giving away free shooters for the hour and a half that we were there. But all in all, seeing old friends lifted my spirits and the night was (mostly) just as it should've been.
4. Just like Monopoly: Because I was running late getting into the city (between applying my new found mascara and removing my spaz-tastic nail polish), I wound up driving into Federal Hill, contrary to my plans. Refusing to drive around, wasting gas, for an hour looking for parking (not like I had the time to do that), I decided to bite the bullet and park in the garage. When it came time to leave, I put my ticket into the payment kiosk, and the parking was free! All of that yacking and moaning and the City of Baltimore let me park in a bustling metropolitan area for free for a few hours.
5. Old traditions with new friends: I still remember all the words to Moulin Rouge.... and I found a friend who will sing along with me.
6. Some things will always make me melt: I still haven't found a flavor at Pitango that I don't like. You should go and try to find one that doesn't make your mouth water, too.
7. Luckily some families are even more dysfunctional than mine: We onDemanded The Savages on Sunday... both having wanted to see it since it came out in the theatres. First of all, I think whomever does the opening credits for all Fox Searchlight films just goes out of their way to be obtuse. Laura Linney (as always), however, made my heart sing... especially when she called herself a "theater person" when the Nigerian man asked her what she did for a living.
Here's to all of the other "theater people" out there... who have no other words to define themselves.
1. Someone gave something back that didn't belong to them: The poltergeist in my house that has been stealing my stuff returned my favorite mascara on Friday when I got home from work. Granted, it returned it to the spare bathroom that I never use so it can't even depend on my assuming that I just misplaced it. I know you exist, you stuff-stealing poltergeist!
2. I saved a whopping $3.50 on beauty products: I had a EUREKA! moment on the way home. I never get manicures (much to my mother's chagrin) because they don't last that long since I abuse my hands on the piano at least 15 hours a week for rehearsal. I got one a few weeks back for a black tie I was attending. My nails then deteriorated into this awful state of half-crimson-enamaled for weeks because I couldn't find my nail polish remover. I tore my bathroom apart. I knew I had some last summer for the last time that I was on stage, but for the life of me couldn't find it when I actually needed it. I was being cheap and stubborn and refused to buy knew stuff when I knew I had nail polish remover sitting someplace, mocking me, ready to be used that once time a year when I actually needed it. And then, as I was driving home, the heavens opened and revealed to me that the nail polish remover had been sitting in a box (a BOX! not a bottle... no wonder I couldn't find them) in my bathroom drawer that I open every morning... going unidentified because I bought those nail polish remover wipes that you can use once for all ten fingers and then throw away. Elated, I removed my nail polish as soon as I got home... spared from looking like a spaz for the rest of the weekend.
3. Some things never change. As I posted earlier, I went out with some old college friends to see a mutual friend's band. It was seriously quite an amazing reunion. Old friends and new, expected and unexpected. Everyone was so happy to see each other. And even though the tickets were $14, the drafts were only $3.50 and there was a Smirnoff brand rep walking around giving away free shooters for the hour and a half that we were there. But all in all, seeing old friends lifted my spirits and the night was (mostly) just as it should've been.
4. Just like Monopoly: Because I was running late getting into the city (between applying my new found mascara and removing my spaz-tastic nail polish), I wound up driving into Federal Hill, contrary to my plans. Refusing to drive around, wasting gas, for an hour looking for parking (not like I had the time to do that), I decided to bite the bullet and park in the garage. When it came time to leave, I put my ticket into the payment kiosk, and the parking was free! All of that yacking and moaning and the City of Baltimore let me park in a bustling metropolitan area for free for a few hours.
5. Old traditions with new friends: I still remember all the words to Moulin Rouge.... and I found a friend who will sing along with me.
6. Some things will always make me melt: I still haven't found a flavor at Pitango that I don't like. You should go and try to find one that doesn't make your mouth water, too.
7. Luckily some families are even more dysfunctional than mine: We onDemanded The Savages on Sunday... both having wanted to see it since it came out in the theatres. First of all, I think whomever does the opening credits for all Fox Searchlight films just goes out of their way to be obtuse. Laura Linney (as always), however, made my heart sing... especially when she called herself a "theater person" when the Nigerian man asked her what she did for a living.
Here's to all of the other "theater people" out there... who have no other words to define themselves.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Friday Night Exploits
One of my dear friends from college (whom I don't see nearly enough) has an awesome band. They're playing tonight at The 8 X 10 in Federal Hill. If you have nothing to do tonight, are in Baltimore, and for some reason are reading my cute little attempt at a blog, you should definitely come out and see them.
Fed Hill definitely used to be one my dream neighborhoods. I used to go with a little more frequency immediately after I became legal to hit up places like dog-friendly flavored beer brew pub Thirsty Dog and chic martini pad Sky Lounge. As I get older and less tolerant of life's minor annoyances, however, the parking (or lack thereof) has really hindered my ability to even attempt to enjoy Federal Hill. It's sometimes hard for me to believe I actually used to daydream about living there. It also doesn't help that people are, apparently, getting the shank for being good citizens in the neighborhood.
So for tonight, to see some college friends and hear some good music, I'll probably park at my beloved's house and take a $7 cab ride to Federal Hill to avoid the grief.
Fed Hill definitely used to be one my dream neighborhoods. I used to go with a little more frequency immediately after I became legal to hit up places like dog-friendly flavored beer brew pub Thirsty Dog and chic martini pad Sky Lounge. As I get older and less tolerant of life's minor annoyances, however, the parking (or lack thereof) has really hindered my ability to even attempt to enjoy Federal Hill. It's sometimes hard for me to believe I actually used to daydream about living there. It also doesn't help that people are, apparently, getting the shank for being good citizens in the neighborhood.
So for tonight, to see some college friends and hear some good music, I'll probably park at my beloved's house and take a $7 cab ride to Federal Hill to avoid the grief.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
