Virginia is for Lovers

Happy New Year!!! 2007 is starting off with furious working and the aftermath of several tragedies and long days of endless travel.

I am here. Virginia. Norfolk to be exact. The city feels older than San Diego. I feel at home - a bit Midwestern - here, but I think it's because they actually have deciduous trees. The house in which I am staying is a two-story in Ghent, built in the '20's, and occupied by an incredibly sweet couple and their incredibly huge cat, Chai.

Chai and I took to each other right away. He rolled around in front of me like a little sausage, I rubbed his ears, he stuck his face in all my bags, then settled in on the chair in my bedroom to fall asleep snoring and restless. He jumps up on my lap when I'm at the table and my legs almost can't support his weight. Twice now he's jumped up, misjudged the height, and scrambled as he fell back to earth. I have the scrapes to prove it.

Today, New Year's Day, was the first time I actually wandered around my neighborhood. Colley Ave, just down the way, has a great art film theater and several coffee shops and boutiques. I plan to make my way down there tomorrow as well before I go into rehearsals. We are a week in to rehearsals.

Agrippina is a long show with some extensive recitative. Lillian has set the piece in the materialistic world of the 1970's with Agrippina in long, wrap gowns and all of the boys in three piece suits. Nero is played by Jeff Halili, who has a fire and sensuality in his presence and voice that makes him down right scary to watch. In Lillian's concept, the palace is crawling with men we call "Creepies." They are the poison that seeps in and makes mass murderers out of these infamous characters. Dressed in White tie and tux, they wander through the palace, smoking, drinking and inviting drug use to corrupt Nero and throw him over the edge.

All of our singers are very strong and young and seemingly ready for anything. It's great to be among that energy in rehearsals. The room is more sparse than most of my rehearsal room pictures. We are missing most of the props due to a flood accident and so it feels a little like we are starting from scratch. A couple of the singers call the set-up the "maze of music stands," and it is. A labyrinth of stands indicates where singers can and cannot walk as they weave their way through the grills and drops that make up the set. The only real pieces we have in there right now are a series of gold thrones. When the lights hit them on stage they will light up like fire.

My resolution (started early) this year, I want to get back into shape. This involves losing a few pounds and eating healthier as well as exercising and maybe jumping back into some dance classes. I've been good thus far. The openness of my hosts has led me to feel comfortable in their kitchen. I've been making my lunch and buying good foods to keep me going without over filling.. I have high hopes.

In current events, Saddam is dead. That whole thing was very creepy, and I've been without internet or television so I'd been out of the loop when someone walked into rehearsals last week and asked me if I'd heard. Our stage manager pulled the clip up on his computer and I watched through fingers spread across my eyes. I know he was an evil, nasty, horrid person, but I hate that we had a hand in his death. I just can't get behind government sanctioned killing of anyone - even awful dictators. I don't think it's going to help the situation over there in the least.

Gerald Ford died too and that is very sad. He was a great supporter of the arts. I heard rumor that W didn't come to the funeral ceremony in Palm Desert because he didn't want to cut his vacation short. I don't know if that's true, but I wouldn't put it past him. I got in a huge discussion about W's inability to say and do the right thing at the New Year's Eve Party I went to - it seems to be such an easy thing to go on about.

And so we get to New Year's Eve. It was a wonderful and strange experience. I haven't been to a true New Year's Eve party since the Millenium (and that one was crap so I'm not sure it counts... I got stuck on the roof during the count down and I didn't know a soul there . . . long story, just know it blew), so when my friend, Lynne Marie, told me she was having one, I was very excited. Lynne and I knew each other during my Cerulean days in Chicago. She moved to Richmond six months ago, so I was ecstatic when I realized I would have friends out here.

Richmond is almost two hours away, but traffic was light at 7pm on New Year's Eve. Lynne lives in Church Hill so I had the joy of listening to semi-automatic rifle fire at midnight, and heard news of a stabbing down the street right after I got there, but once I was settled in, it was great fun.

Highlights? Reminiscing with Lynne about the "good old days" in Chicago, meeting Lynne's husband's friend from Chicago who had several deep and wonderful conversations with me through out the evening, watching quite a few young-ish party goers do idiotic things that I would have embraced during my college years, but no longer have any desire to attempt, getting tapped on the shoulder by Scott, the director of Cerulean and a long-lost friend and hero, a little after midnight. I think I jumped in his arms - that's how good it was to see him. Umm...realizing that Lynne had put the champagne in the freezer and forgotten about it so we dunked them in warm water and spun them, trying to warm them up fast. We ended up toasting with beer, gin or whatever was available, watching a young man in a purple wig get completely shit-faced, act like an ass around a bunch of people he didn't know, then pass out by slamming his head face-down on the kitchen table, talking to John on the telephone on the front porch while guns are going off in every direction...

I slept on the floor in Lynne and Esam's room and actually delighted in helping her clean up in the morning before I started back to Norfolk. It was so good to see good friends, reminders that my past wasn't as awful as I sometimes remember. I was really close to these people. I think I was also reminded that youth is fleeting and crazy and we all do ridiculous things when we're on our own for the first time - it's part of growing up. Lynne and I actually looked around at one point and toasted to "Never again."

And so now I am apparently all grown up. I had dinner with my host and hostess and one of their friends tonight and she thought I looked very young. She said, "You look like a child but you have such adult responsibilities." She doesn't know the half of it. This opera, especially since it tours, will make them abundantly clear very very soon.

The pic? The exact moment we entered 2007 at Lynne's party.