shopping.
yes, doug and eric, two of the gay guys in our ensemble, volunteered their time to make me over. trevor and romich tagged along for shits and advice but ended up trying things on by the end, once they saw how well i was doing. no mom, i didn't buy any pink. yes amy, what i did buy is pretty fierce. i've gone from 185 when i got measured for my costume for this show, up to 199 in late february when we left columbus, down to 169 a few weeks back and today, i'm 175. have my clothes changed at any point? nope. i'm willing to admit this much publicly - i still wear some t-shirts from back in college when i was 220. so yeah, my shirts are pretty much falling off my shoulders now. well, we went to the westfield shopping mall on powell and market. ate in the food court first, which was actually the most upscale food court i'd ever seen. i had salmon risotto with asparagus, parmesan and a lemon aioli. yeah, i know, right? in a food court!?! best $16.70 i've spent eating in a mall. then, the expedition began. i had never stepped foot in a zara before, but it's actually pretty sweet. got a fitted red (which, if you don't know, is my favorite color) t-shirt that actually shows my frame, slim fit dark-colored 34 jeans (never owned 34s in my life) and a nice jacket for the cool evenings here in san fran and into the rest of the fall. took our party across the street to gap, once the mall closed at 7. i was stunned that the first outfit doug and eric sent me into the fitting room at zara worked. so now, i was fully comfortable and open to their expertise. tried on all sorts of things in different combinations at gap. shirts, khakis, jeans, shoes, you name it. we were among the last in the store when it closed at 8:30. settled on a pair of keds (primarily brown and white with some red trim), some ankle socks to go with the keds and 3 more shirts of varying colors (red, blue striped, brown/gray checkered). $330 well spent, and i felt that i had instantly lost weight just by putting on clothes that fit. put on my digs and hit the town sunday night. karaoke bar, sugar cafe. the five of us sure had fun. $115 of drinks later on my card and after singing "hey jude" with doug (so much fun harmonizing on that song), i cabbed it back to my apartment and played video games with matos until 6:30 in the morning. awesome sunday. total confidence booster. and many kudos to doug and eric. can't wait for round 2, which'll feature more in the way of accessories, before we leave sf.
ok, i should probably go back to where i left off at the end of the last post. nearly three wednesdays ago, i did indeed have dinner back in nyc during our layoff with my buddies kiernan and mac. great catching up with them. but unbelievably, after we walked back to kiernan's apartment and dropped him off, mac and i ran into...well, put it this way. in a city of several millions, what are the odds you'd run into one of the guys in dreamgirls on 54th and 8th? yep, we ran into douglas. and the greatness of that wednesday night is what has spawned our thirsty thursdays that will occur for the rest of the tour - the first of which being last thursday that galvanized my shopping spree. oh life. doug was on his way to meet a couple of friends, so mac and i went to a bar, the three of them joined us for a drink before heading to snug on 51st and 9th. had never been there before but totally want to go back. doug turned me on to a new drink - disaronno and cranberry, and the rest is history. we met some girl who claimed to be a bebe model, at which point she would strike a pose. that was the only coherent thing she could say all night. i mean, she was cute. maybe not, bebe cute. but definitely drunk off her ass. one guy was way too forward with her - i mean, sticking his hand up her dress kind of forward - and to the best of my knowledge, it was the first time i actually feared for a girl when she stumbled out of the bar and that guy sketchily followed mere seconds ago. hopefully, she's all right. in any event, we made friends with some of the guys who were playing darts and played until 4am. i don't think i've ever played darts and neither had doug, but the alcohol brought out our competitive juices, and we played as if we were darting champions. doug and his buddy got the best of mac and i overall, but we were having so much fun by the end that we didn't care about score. ended up at some diner (i think it was olympic on 48th and 8th), then i walked back to chelsea by 5. fun times.
the next night, i did go to mike's housewarming on 92nd and 1st. he and jenn have two cats - igby (as in goes down) and maeby (as in george michael's cousin on arrested development). super cute. saturday was awesome. got up at the asscrack of dawn, and 8 of us in 2 cars drove up to saratoga. deringer, on his drive up from princeton, bought 90 beers and enough ingredients for 3 gargantuan muffaletta sandwiches. i had never bet on horses before, but i had a great time. 11 races (we just missed the first one, so we only bet on 10), one every half-hour. people downing beers, picnicking, just having a great time. it was a gorgeous day, and i actually turned the $100 i started out with into $113. obviously, nothing to write home about, but i had a roller coaster day. up to start, down in the middle, then up on the last race. so i was happy with my $13 surplus. stopped at cracker barrel on the way home and had a wonderful drunken dinner. needless to say, we had two DDs who were quite responsible. the other six of us were complete drunkards. definitely took me back to my college days. we started drinking at 1 in the afternoon and kept polishing off beers when we got back to my apartment in manhattan until 1am. 12 hours, 19 beers. still 6 shy of my record in one day (ski trip, vermont, january 2006), but still a shit-ton of beer. let's say that i spent the majority of sunday recovering instead of going to the frying pan (it was raining anyway). played a lot of settlers of catan, an old game that we just recently discovered. if you're looking for a strategic board game to pick up, i highly recommend it.
monday, aug 23 saw me on a plane to san francisco. we're playing the curran for 5 weeks, and tonight begins week 3. in a 3-bedroom with matos and tom. 66 cleary court, apt #1001. sick view looking south over sf. and an arguably sicker apartment. the people who normally live here are awesome. there are heated floors here, a clock made of forks and spoons, and all sorts of cool accessories - i mean, anti-slam drawers, small balconies in each of the 3 bedrooms as well as the living room, a sweet indoor/outdoor thermometer. i could go on and on, but i'll continue making you jealous. in fact, we had a little party our first sunday night here and invited over some cast and crew. our first intention was to obviously host a good party and have fun, but a close 1b in terms of intentions was to make everyone jealous about our sweet pad and how much better it is than their crappy hotel rooms. both 1a and 1b succeeded. anyway, the curran theatre is actually a pretty small theatre, reminiscent of our time spent in columbus and back at the apollo. backstage crossovers are nonexistent (got to go across downstairs), although our backs are directly up against the wall like at the apollo. oh right, i'm back to playing onstage. my summer conductorship has come and gone, as sam is back at the post. it does feel good to actually play the show again. in fact, having 3 months off from playing it has given my mind time to come up with some embellishments i could add to the actual score. don't worry, it didn't take long for sam to tell me to cut it out and keep things simple. =) sam is, however, taking the 14th and 15th off, so i will get 3 shows to conduct here, as darryl will come back to play the show. perhaps the most comforting thing is putting my wig back on. it's been so lonely for so long but now, i'm shaking my head like a crazy person onstage like old times. i've got some friends here who i haven't seen in quite some time, which is nice. amy tao ('07), peter behroozi ('06) and lacey whitmire ('05) are all currier buddies back from harvard who are out here in school - peter at stanford, amy and lacey at ucsf. peter's coming to the show this coming thursday, hopefully i'll get to see lacey (she's on rotations), and amy and i have already hung out twice, the best being yesterday. she just started her second year of med school and had never been to coit tower, which overlooks the city beautifully. it was 78 yesterday with nary a cloud in the sky, so the view was absolutely picturesque. we probably climbed 7,369 steps to get to the tower (only a slight exaggeration), but it was totally worth it. rolled back down the hill and straight into fisherman's wharf. awesome sights, smells, sounds. sea lions frolicking about. and the wonderful tastes of in-n-out. yes, i know that rhymes. we hit up in-n-out for an appetizer of animal fries before heading to an italian place she had found on yelp that had four and a half stars. for some inexplicable reason, it was closed on labor day (wouldn't you want to take advantage of the extra tourists and locals out on the holiday?), so we doubled back to in-n-out and completed our meal with burgers and a shake. even picked up some groceries at a trader joe's for our respective kitchens. ah yes, seven hours of bliss. i always love hanging out with amy, and i hope that her upcoming exams and the rigors of med school don't preclude us from meeting up again.
that pretty much sums things up so far. other sf highlights include the tonga room, for sure. been there twice already, the first being more important in that we bade farewell to kaitlyn, one of our wardrobe gurus. she's off to toronto to join south pacific. angela and gene in wardrobe are also leaving in san fran, as is bob bones, one of our assistant stage managers. anyway, the tonga room is amazing. in the fairmont hotel, at california and mason. hawaiian/polynesian theme. live band on a boat in the middle of a large pool, into which it rains every 30 minutes. yes, and there's lightning. although the drinks are expensive, they are tasty, and most come with umbrellas (poor kaitlyn ended up with at least 50 umbrellas hidden in her purse by the end of the night as a practical joke) and pineapple slices. hell, one drink even comes IN a pineapple. that pineapple royal became with the $16.50 i paid for it once the bartender handed me a spoon to dig in and devour the pineapple. definitely recommend it if you're in the city. but go there asap. apparently, someone wants to buy the place and turn it into a condo. utter lunacy, since it works so great as a bar. but money talks, so go now if you're in sf anytime soon. also, wow - you ain't seen hills until you been here. when we landed on monday, i thought it would be wiser for me to take the company bus into town and then to walk to my apartment from the last stop. a few folks are staying at the corinthian on van ness and mcallister, down near city hall. no true hills yet, coming from the airport. the third and final stop was the steinhart on sutter and hyde. why did i skip the second? because it's the nob hill suites on powell and pine. and lordy, getting to and from those suites in a big-ass bus was something to behold. at one point, the bus driver labeled one hill as the "whee" hill. i was confused at first, thinking he meant "wii" or something. he then clarified by saying that everyone goes "whee" when he drives down it. he timed the lights well and gunned it about halfway down. my butt literally left the seat, and many of you know that i don't do roller coasters or crazy shit like that. i was not happy with that bus driver during that. but the more massive hills here take up several blocks - i mean, could be a dozen or more. so at the very least, i hope to have some stronger calves after 5 weeks. ok, that's it. i worked out with nikki right before writing this post, and i've been craving a protein shake. i'm choosing protein over proofreading, so if i misspelled something or wrote something that doesn't make sense, bite me.
No comments:
Post a Comment