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I got a ticket to go see Eartha Kitt at Blues Alley tomorrow night! Eeeee! I really regretted not going when I saw that she came to town last year; so yay, regret begone!
I saw her live once before: when I was a teen my mom took me to see the musical Timbuktu!, a magnificent remake of Kismet with an all black cast--still my favorite musical experience ever. She played Lalume, and when she first walked on the stage and said simply, "I'm here," she brought down the house.
So Eartha Kitt has always been my ideal of what presence is all about. And Melba Moore played an absolutely adorable Marsinah. What sucks is that they apparently never made a recording of Timbuktu!, which I would dearly love--I keep searching to see if anything ever turns up--I just can't believe someone doesn't have a recording somewhere of it. It didn't get great reviews, but I thought it was terrific. And I may have been 15, but I was brought up on musicals, and my parents had taken me to see the original Hair on Broadway and Richard Kiley in The Man of La Mancha, so I knew something of what I speak.
Anyway, tomorrow night I'll get to see how being 79 Is Done. I'm gonna be prepared.
Next Friday, my dear friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mererid is flying out here and then we're taking me Blue Pearl down to Florida for a few days to Clearwater Beach, Sanibel Island, and Siesta Key, for the softest, silkiest sand and shell-combing bliss. We'll watch spring as it's starting in the south lands and slowly spreading up here on our way back up. We will maybe visit my koalas again and stop in Chapel Hill, because no where is spring done better than in Chapel Hill.
Because my boss is wonderful, I'm also working out taking some unpaid leave time from work to get delving-in time to work on the dissertation and see if I can get it cranked out this year. I've never been in a position to afford unpaid leave before and I have the amazing privilege to have a boss who said, "The dissertation is more important--take what time off you need." I never got that from anyone I worked for on campus, not that any of it was paying enough that I could do that. But now I'm getting a chance to reap, something many people never get. I'm a little terrified I'll fuck it up, because there's no excuse now. It is up to me.
So I'm still working things out with the business office on how much leave I can take, how to cover my benefits, and still work reduced hours because I do like being around my colleagues and don't want to lose touch. Also, I gotta keep my plants watered--everyone else, too, would miss my office garden if I let it go--I keep geraniums, hibiscus, jasmine, and calandivas blooming throught the year--they do much better than my plants at home. And I've got to get a chapter and part of a second ready to workshop on the 10th of next month. January or bust on this doctorate thing--I'm on the move.
I'm still dealing with some coming out weirdness with a colleague that I told some of you about, but I think it's going to be OK. I'm not closeted at work, but not everyone has caught on and this one was caught by surprise because I know she wasn't picking up on things. But we were getting to be friends; she was telling me about what life was like being followed around by KGB in Uzbekistan when her husband, who also works with us, was already over here, and questions about my relationships came up, so yeah. She seemed much more normal last we talked, so I think she's adjusting.
Socially, I went out to dinner last weekend with a friend I hadn't seen in a while that I met during my Xena fandom days and catching up was good and we're going to try to keep more in touch now. The woman I went on the date with a couple weeks ago doesn't seem to be interested in me date-wise, and hasn't recipircated any invitations to me, but we've been keeping in touch by email, so we're slowly developing a friendship.
But the rest of this weekend until the concert, there's still so much cleaning to do. I've been living in this little efficiency for a decade now and there's crap piled on crap and I can never get it in order in here, but I've got to cull stuff so I can find the books and notes that I can't get to right now./-: Oy. Next year, after I finish the dissertation I'll finally get to move to an apartment and hopefully be able to actually have room to put things away, have an aesthetic touch to my home again, feel like I'm giving my kitties a good amount of room to roam in--they are such amazingly good cats, and be a decent host again.
And I don't say it often enough, but I couldn't do it without my flist. I'm no rugged individual, but my life has improved so much the last few years, and the friends I've made here and the old friends I can keep up with now on LJ have been a huge part of that. I still need to get in the habit of updating more often. Thanks for being here, all of you, my dear flist. <3
I saw her live once before: when I was a teen my mom took me to see the musical Timbuktu!, a magnificent remake of Kismet with an all black cast--still my favorite musical experience ever. She played Lalume, and when she first walked on the stage and said simply, "I'm here," she brought down the house.
So Eartha Kitt has always been my ideal of what presence is all about. And Melba Moore played an absolutely adorable Marsinah. What sucks is that they apparently never made a recording of Timbuktu!, which I would dearly love--I keep searching to see if anything ever turns up--I just can't believe someone doesn't have a recording somewhere of it. It didn't get great reviews, but I thought it was terrific. And I may have been 15, but I was brought up on musicals, and my parents had taken me to see the original Hair on Broadway and Richard Kiley in The Man of La Mancha, so I knew something of what I speak.
Anyway, tomorrow night I'll get to see how being 79 Is Done. I'm gonna be prepared.
Next Friday, my dear friend
mererid is flying out here and then we're taking me Blue Pearl down to Florida for a few days to Clearwater Beach, Sanibel Island, and Siesta Key, for the softest, silkiest sand and shell-combing bliss. We'll watch spring as it's starting in the south lands and slowly spreading up here on our way back up. We will maybe visit my koalas again and stop in Chapel Hill, because no where is spring done better than in Chapel Hill.Because my boss is wonderful, I'm also working out taking some unpaid leave time from work to get delving-in time to work on the dissertation and see if I can get it cranked out this year. I've never been in a position to afford unpaid leave before and I have the amazing privilege to have a boss who said, "The dissertation is more important--take what time off you need." I never got that from anyone I worked for on campus, not that any of it was paying enough that I could do that. But now I'm getting a chance to reap, something many people never get. I'm a little terrified I'll fuck it up, because there's no excuse now. It is up to me.
So I'm still working things out with the business office on how much leave I can take, how to cover my benefits, and still work reduced hours because I do like being around my colleagues and don't want to lose touch. Also, I gotta keep my plants watered--everyone else, too, would miss my office garden if I let it go--I keep geraniums, hibiscus, jasmine, and calandivas blooming throught the year--they do much better than my plants at home. And I've got to get a chapter and part of a second ready to workshop on the 10th of next month. January or bust on this doctorate thing--I'm on the move.
I'm still dealing with some coming out weirdness with a colleague that I told some of you about, but I think it's going to be OK. I'm not closeted at work, but not everyone has caught on and this one was caught by surprise because I know she wasn't picking up on things. But we were getting to be friends; she was telling me about what life was like being followed around by KGB in Uzbekistan when her husband, who also works with us, was already over here, and questions about my relationships came up, so yeah. She seemed much more normal last we talked, so I think she's adjusting.
Socially, I went out to dinner last weekend with a friend I hadn't seen in a while that I met during my Xena fandom days and catching up was good and we're going to try to keep more in touch now. The woman I went on the date with a couple weeks ago doesn't seem to be interested in me date-wise, and hasn't recipircated any invitations to me, but we've been keeping in touch by email, so we're slowly developing a friendship.
But the rest of this weekend until the concert, there's still so much cleaning to do. I've been living in this little efficiency for a decade now and there's crap piled on crap and I can never get it in order in here, but I've got to cull stuff so I can find the books and notes that I can't get to right now./-: Oy. Next year, after I finish the dissertation I'll finally get to move to an apartment and hopefully be able to actually have room to put things away, have an aesthetic touch to my home again, feel like I'm giving my kitties a good amount of room to roam in--they are such amazingly good cats, and be a decent host again.
And I don't say it often enough, but I couldn't do it without my flist. I'm no rugged individual, but my life has improved so much the last few years, and the friends I've made here and the old friends I can keep up with now on LJ have been a huge part of that. I still need to get in the habit of updating more often. Thanks for being here, all of you, my dear flist. <3
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