The Long Short Weekend
2004-10-04,

Our first weekend of La Mancha is over with. All in all, it went well, especially considering my battle with my cold. It turns out that adrenaline did in fact win out over the virus, for the most part. Sunday was a little shaky, and my vocal crack toward the end of the hymn at the end was easily mistaken for an emotional break. I swear though, I was somewhat sharp for "To Each His Dulcinea", mainly because I had a very hard time hearing the orchestra. H tells me it's a professional peeve, and that your layman in the audience wouldn't have noticed. I was definitely having difficulty staying mentally connected to my voice through most of the show, however, and I didn't like it. I was too tired to be miffed about it.

Overall, though, things went well. Friday had a few glitches, but nothing glaring or hard to overcome. Saturday was our best day so far, performance wise, although the audience seemed to have more of an emotional reaction on Sunday. Maybe everyone was feeling more touchy-feely after church, who knows? Every night so far has gotten a standing ovation, and rightly so, even if only for Gary, our Cervantes/Quixote. He's been doing marvelously, even in the face of exhaustion. Did I mention that he's still recovering from back surgery? A real trooper, this man.

I've managed to find some normally hidden well of grace and wit in the face of these accolades I've been getting from my performance. People really don't want to see me grinning uncomfortably and mumbling something about how I'm really not all that good, anyway, when they just want to say 'thank you for singing pretty'. So I've been sucking it up and being as charming as I can manage. It's easier with strangers cos I don't have to worry about long-term repercussions, save for the possible weren't-you-that-guy-in-the-show while at the grocery store or somesuch. I guess I've managed to somehow sharpen my wit somewhat, as I'm not tripping over my tongue nearly as much as I would have expected in the face of public scrutiny. And you may or may not have noticed, I really do think about this stuff too much. One day I'll just learn to go with it and be much happier in the end.

Now it's rest and recover and hopefully I'll have this cold completely banished by Friday. There's to be no brush-up rehearsal this week due to a massive multi-school wind ensemble concert on Wednesday that required us to dissemble the set. This makes me nervous somewhat, as we'll be jumping right back into the show after a four-day gap. I'm reasonably sure that everyone's solid enough to keep his or her game face available at a moment's notice, but you never know. They're going to be recording the show on Friday, which to me sounds like asking for trouble. Luckily they're planning a back-up day of Sunday. Let's hope it's not needed.

Meanwhile, The Baby is on its way to Colorado, for partial translation and launching to China soon after. We got the last bits of info together on Sunday and H sent it out with DHL this morning. We should hear from the agency in ten days or so (I think) letting us know it's been sent overseas, and in about six weeks we'll hear from China as to what our registration date will have been. That will be our official 'six months to a match' date (assuming processing doesn't get any faster by that time). Egad. Slow as this process has been, it suddenly seems to be rocketing toward us. The theory is that we'll be building ourselves a new master bedroom in the basement to make room for the new addition, but we're still figuring out what our finances will be with the addition of this new job I've got, from which I have yet to receive my first paycheck (coming Wednesday). More on the subject to follow.

-- End Transmission --