Hello Amorous Congress-Stick

The rugged and please-be-in-sight…

Forever ago, but since Emily is done with her 6 week leave of absence from NYC…I have been thinking about some of the places we had explored together over the past winter.

Lil’ Frankie’s was a labyrinth of a restaurant.  We were weaved to the back most room (at least I don’t think there could have been anything else beyond the five minute walk from the front door to where we were seated…).  It was tight, and there was a 20 something mix of people at a table to our back…a mix-o-gays table in front…and next to them…a family table including screaming kids under 8y/o  (LOL/FML).  Wine was ordered. The rugged and please-be-in-sight-at-all-times-as-I-daydream-about-marrying-you-in-VT wait staff oddly added to the decor/vibe (which I will describe as ‘conservative Italian tranny on the DL’).

^E.D. nurses on our way to dance off dinner

^ Emily picked bOb bar for dancing.  Turns out, it’s a pretty stellar Reggae Club in the LES…and worth repeating a night for future dancing fun!

^ Get another round/break from dancing moment

^Smiles of Alisia and Rebekah.

^ that 3:something AM photo you don’t ever want to see on facebook…

…a ‘wow’ factor had capped the night.

Getting into classical recital music can be hard…even for me.  So when Ali told me she was mixing all kinds of oboe variety music into her masters recital, I was like, ‘eh, I might come check it out’.  (Jest:  I always will take the time to support my friends’ ventures baring any real time conflict)

Ali looked beautiful in her formal gown.  The reed she made for the night orchestrated glorious tones from her oboe.  She opened with a simple oboe/piano duet by Francis Poulenc.  Ali included various other pieces.  Two highlights were with a piece of hers of structured improv…and another with her using a loop track playing a piece her masters instructor actually wrote years ago.

She closed her recital with an atypical quintet arrangement.  Quintet in G Minor, Op.39 by Sergei Prokofiev has an interesting background on how it came to be composed.  It was also very interesting in movement development.  As this piece echoed it’s last night, a ‘wow’ factor had capped the night.

Also having a ‘wow’ factor was the cake at her reception following the recital.  There was a decorated oboe on her cake!  Completed with an oboe reed.  It was very endearing to see her parents put such cute thought into this and surprise her with it at the reception.  

Instead they had a comical stare down.

Last weekend I FINALLY got to meet up with one of my best friends, and my oldest friend, Michelle.  Though we stay in tune with each others’ life- face to face time has not happened since 2009.  

With an extra day to play with in D.C., I was not just passing through on a weekday, or locked in a studio, or at a lecture seminar…I was free to plan as go-with-the-flow as I wanted.  We tentatively made plans for the National Zoo on Saturday afternoon.

Meeting up with her and walking through the zoo felt as natural and easy as it had the last time we got together.  Our friendship was forged long ago about both the big and little stuff, and we’ve weathered the times of change, growth, and circumstance within our persons and thus our relationship together as friends.  Seeing her sparked a full weekend of flooded memories of the journeys and pathways I’ve traveled with the people I’ve had around in my life for years.

I usually walk the National Zoo alone when I have free time on a weekday in D.C., and with all the times I’ve been there I’ve never been in the Avian House.  It’s always been closed for one reason or another.  Not this day though!  

The highlight came when we entered the outdoor flight deck.  As we walked inside, there was a long pathway up to pathway split, paired with a fence circling the exhibit.  Right in the center, and like he was a guard, stood this black bird starring us down as we walked in.  Naturally, I went up to make friends:

Much to my surprise, he was unfriendly…especially when one tried to put their arm around him for a picture.  He literally almost poked my eye out and took my finger! 

Michelle took this observation and decided not to go near him.  Instead they had a comical stare down.

…happiness through all of these new experiences…

In the last few weeks, I’ve met a plethora of new people (in addition to sidetracking an excuse to see great friends of mine who are in the area/visiting the area where I’ve been).  I truly love seeing old friends…the ones who have known you 10 years, have been around to see you grown into the person you are, along with the thick/thin situations guiding your (and their) psychosocial development.  

However all of these new (and familiar) hellos have been paired with goodbyes.  I’ve grown up a lot in the last few years to know that my irrational fear of the permanency of the goodbye is not necessarily true (usually not).  What I have not been able to tame is the beast of mild abandonment felt through goodbyes (with friends who are geographically distant from the rest of my life).  I originally use to subdue these feelings with a hop in my car and a free day to wake up early for a road trip to block out time for an afternoon/evening with a friend…but since leaving undergrad and selling my car…that option is not available.  Adversely, I’ve tried to ‘fake it until I make it’ mentality to reassure myself I will always have what I’ve cultivated in love/friendship with my family.

I’ve probably met a few dozen new people in the last week.  I have this mix of internal conflict of my guarded self (while trying not to portray myself as guarded) and the permeable self (my long ago friends have)…welcoming new beginnings whilst treasuring a full heart and mind of memorable moments…getting so fixated on where I’ve been with the most influential people in my life, whilst continuing forward with the new people…past, present, future, blah.

…I think I’ve more become emotionally exhausted than anything else, and still without an immediate person I can run to and vent my thoughts, emotions, and CRAZY analyzable situations.

…….I also have been wondering in the last month, how someone surrounded with so much love and smiles feel so alone…

Changes are coming…Canadian clerkship, HIV clinic in Africa, new apartment in a month, possibly finally going to sign up as a corpsman…there will be happiness through all of these new experiences as they pass and approach my calendar, one after the next.

All I know is that writing in my Tumblr felt good…I need to make more time to reflect in writing as I had been.  <3

…sharing the enjoyment of the little things together

A few weeks ago, we decided to have a ‘suburban’ night out.  We hoped some train out to Queens…and started at the batting cages.

Em:

Rebeks:

I affiliate Panera to undergrad.  There was a branch in the middle of Pitt’s campus, and I use to frequent it with the exfiance and best friend once a week for lunch.  Visiting a Panera brings back great memories, and reminds me of Pittsburgh laugh-out-loud lunches with friends.

Their Mediterranean sandwich and veggie soup was outstanding.

On the way back to the train to Manhattan (for margaritas close enough to our house we could walk stumble take a cab home quickly), we crossed paths with ‘Winegasm’…how could we NOT stop in for a glass of wine?  (Read: two pitchers of Sangria).  

We then got to our local Margarita house…and despite the creepy man who stalked me to the restroom twice…we shared great laughs about the simple reflections in life.

Those are the best times- sharing the enjoyment of the little things together.  *heart smiles*

I will one day again…

In the last year, a growing number of friends have gotten engaged and married.  I can’t help but to chuckle at the irony of being one of the first of my friends to be engaged to someone…and then perpetually being single for 4 years, watching each of them grow a love with someone I once cultivated with a figure in my life.

Truly I’m happy for them.  Seeing them achieve their dreams and love, and define what that is together makes my heart warm.  It reminds me of what I use to share, and maintains the fantasy I will one day again find it with someone.

Erin and Andrea’s wedding:

Kike and Tom’s wedding announcement photo:

Greg and Josh…my most recent friends who’ve gotten engaged:

It’s my 3 year plan…

My birthday is here in just a few hours…and I find myself looking back to where I was last year.  I was still new to NYC…did not know anyone here except for a friend who he and I share a complicated past together…I had a big weekend planned with out of town friends…then it turned out snowing in PA, cancelling their departure.  I then called the NYC friend to see if he and I could get together for even just a cup of coffee whenever he was free but he was uninterested in the offer and was too busy during the time frame.  (Which hurt for a lot of reasons, but the fact we use to live less then a 5 minute walk from each other compounded it moreso.)  I spent the weekend feeling disappointed by cancelled visits…and a direct few days being reminded of my past short comings in a post emotional entanglement.

A year later, I see my friendship with NYC Boy differently.  It’s grown in ways I appreciate.  I still am reminded how he does not want to get to a place where he finds himself trusting a part of his heart with me…but there have been a lot more growth with our in person interactions.  It’s not as cold as years past.  Granted we still play the silly/incredibly stupid game of ‘I don’t see you here’ at the unexpected run-ins, but I think I am going to grow a pair and step up to work on this weird repair of our in person crossings.  

Over the weekend, I was catching up on some personal emails…and I had to pass off a project with said friend and place my previous responsibility into someone else’s hands.  I feel bad…afraid he’s going to read it as a means of me bailing on him…but at the same time I have to keep in mind how he reminds me all the time this area is a professional interaction, not personal…but I know there’s a little of both, whether he or I actually chose to admit it.  

We still click how we did from day 1, when the brief moments we’re letting our guards down and hearts semi open.  I cherish these few moments we forget what happened and just take the moment for what it is…not what was/could be.  It’s amazing in those moment to see my friend in him…not the guarded shell of one he can act like.  As the last three years have gone by, he still resides in my heart in a way I don’t think I could let go.  

I’ve had big people (bio parents, exs of several years, a best friend) in my life where I’ve let go and 1, 3, 5, 10 years have gone by and I don’t feel a longing sense to bridge the vast lull in our past friendlationship.  In my world, my residual thought and love of him speaks profoundly.  I will keep after being present as/where I can, in hopes we’ll mend our friendship again.  I think once this happens, he and I will have truly healed from the pain we caused each other in the past…and allow ourselves to honestly and without hesitation open to our future spouses.

It’s my 3 year plan…to fix this by the time we’re 30.

For my birthday, what I cherish most is the time a person takes to just share the present with me…make dinner, play a board game as we chat, split a bottle of wine and lounge.  This is what makes me most grateful for another year past.  A year back I was alone…this year I have a few hospital friends, a schoolmate, and a handful of musician friends in my nearby physical world…people not hours away.

I look forward to my random dates with each of these people this next week…and I an going to extend myself and ask for a night just for funsies and nothing deep or serious with my ‘NYC friend with a history’.  The worst I’ll get is- a ‘no’; the best I’ll get is- to share a laugh together in a time we blocked off for each other.  

…Achordial Brio’s taped interview…

Last week, Achordial Brio’s taped interview on Tym Moss’ show, Artists Exposed, aired.  It was a to listen to us talk about our backgrounds, how we met, and hear our music play out with a less than ideal single microphone situation.  

We were asked if we wanted to share our time with anyone we’ve worked with.  I felt it was great to give a friend, an oldie but a goodie, a different platform to have his name heard.  Will, an awesome stylist and merchant, talked about his work guiding us for a cohesive performance look, in addition to briefly touching upon his ideas of personal fashion.

Tym is a big personality, seems to know a plethora of people throughout the theatre community, and is as nice as pie.  I appreciated his time, his interest in what our music is, and felt validated through his enthusiasm.