Yesterday was one of the fullest days I've had in a while. Even considering that it was rather longer than usual (18 hours). Actually, literally it wasn't a very full day; all I had to eat was four slices of quiche (two for breakfast, one for lunch, one for dinner) and an English muffin. Doesn't it seem like Aretha makes references to "Running Out of Fools" on a lot of her songs, even though it isn't a very well known song?

Once again I started Saturday by writing a French composition about fifteen minutes before its technical due date - this time about Quand faire en jour de pluie - Alyssa sez it's great how taking a language reduces all of us to five years old. Listened to Handsome Boy Modeling School, which has so many good bits, not least of which is the album art. And Do the Collapse. Matt Rubin banged admittance and barged in to form a circle of tall skinny white boys with me, Joel, Jacob, and his Yale friend Andj(rew) - a brief conference on rock music rehearsals and why you should never date a girl who drives stick. Matt also displayed his wax-sealed invitation to a somewhat questionable "super-private" party in the WRC, for his discretion, radiance, and poise. Ahem. While Alyssa huddled on the couch. Then we set out, into the brilliantly sunny day, an hour later than might have been advisable. I was able to get in a good 45 minutes of practicing before I was kicked out of the practice room because of a blasted recording session. (Shamefully, the best I've done this week - I'll have to make up for that tonight.) With nowhere to go, I peeked into Charles' drumming workshop, to see what had been going on (Alyssa was there for quite I while; I had not been invited, which I'm not sure about.) Then I lighted on a lovely chance: Alison perched in Kohlberg reading Jewish Mysticism, which she put down to chat for an hour or more about, well, you know, classes, religion, living, travel, people. We haven't really talked in a long time. Maybe since last year? Well, we agreed to be friends - still, or again, or better.

Then it was 3:15, and time to figure out logistics for Cabaret orchestra rehearsal - phone and e-mail tag with Borrebach and Rubin, and in the end a confluence of constraints and factors - car location, performance length, recording session interminability, ease of transport - led to the happy decision to rehearse in Olde Club instead. So Danny Loss (I could have linked to him if I only had the energy) drove us over to the barn (some oldy accompanying - what was it Danny?) and we talked about Carmen. I popped upstairs for sticks, (where they were listening to Carmen), and rejoined Matt. A moment of musical catharsis - blasting "Born to Run" out the windows as we drove up the fieldhouse entrance behind a car that was moving too slow - then amusing first rehearsal: jack conducting with a pencil, I ran upstairs to get cowbell and woodblocks as needed, the pianist spent most of the time playing around with the Juno, chairs in the audience from the vagina monologues pushed around to serve as music stands and so forth. Most conveniently, Matt and I just stuck around after that rehearsal to have our next one. The Blechers showed up with my lunch quiche, and Aaron Goldman not much later than that. His contributions (on bass!) were most appreciated; he seems like he'll be good at coming up with interesting countermelodies and stuff, even though Matt instructed him just to do flat triphammers at times. We mostly just ran through stuff - Radical Honesty, Inflight Announcement, Save the Homos - although we spent a while toying around with "Metamorphosis" (Joel's insect tune), partly because it took a long time to figure out they weren't in the same key. Jacob, who had been sitting there trying to read, but confessed to me later that he liked the way we sounded, described it as a cross between the Doors, Dire Straits, and something else (Billy Joel? GbV?), which seemed most applicable to that song. Anyway, it was just good to play through them again. We're going to try for Rose Tattoo in two weeks.

Elena showed up towards the end, anxious to get to the Vagina Monologues early - it was a reasonable concern, but turned out not to be a problem, since apparently Lang concert hall is large enough to contain as many people as fit in the lobby, even though it seems extremely crowded. We were pretty far back, but good enough for a straight view of the series of cleaned-up women in red and black. Standout performances from Louisa as a repressed old NY jewish woman, Khadijah, who made "coochie-snorcher" as serious as it needed to be, and Sam Bartner with her show-stopping litany of sexual moans. Others were all at least decent, although some of the material was much more poorly written. The range of topics covered, though substantial, sparked discussion later of what was left out (and what was included - a rant against inconsiderate tampon manufacturers?) More recently added pieces, about Afghani women and birth, were not nearly as compelling as most of the others; in general the poetic ones don't come close to the effect of the more narrative, conversational ones. Overall though, the production was really great, making good use of the interstitial material and remaing for the most part consistently enjoyable and entertaining.

After that, performers duly hugged, I came home to figure out what was next on the agenda, learned I had missed a Gabestyle dinner. Rather than make hashish brownies with Joel, Jacob and Rae, I decided to heed an invitation from Brigid and Stef to vote for a video, even though nobody in the triplet was answering her phone. When I arrived, Brigid, Elizabeth, Kara and Crescent just had as well, and we launched into some speed scrabble and password (cookery?). After Ben showed up and persuaded us for long enough, we finally picked out a movie and started watching it, an hour and a half late. "The Big Lebowski," which probably would have been my second choice (after "Brazil") and which I enjoyed more than the other time I saw it. For all its flaws, you can't really complain about that movie - it's just fun and quirky and has good music. And good characters, especially. Not long into it, Stef, Kate, and Felicia appeared as well, so that there were nine of us in Brigid's tiny little room, all piled on top of one another. This continued and increased after the movie, when a few people left and the rest of us continued wrestling and reconfiguring ourselves amid verbal sparring, attempts at nicknames, VagMons analysis, riffing as Porn Star puts it.

Eventually, we were able to overcome our brownian inertia and get outside; we being Brig, Stef, Ben and myself - Zabby (sorry?) had decided to stay inside, as she discussed on her site. Gradually making our way towards the amphitheatre, we took turns inventing activities - from the handslapping game from COBS (I sacrificed my jacket for the cold ground), to Stef's idea of amusement (putting me in a bush, watching Ben perform compulsory pelvic thrusts at a tree), to Ben's music video game (we dance as he sings "Sledgehammer" and "Like a Virgin.") Brigid starting singing "Oh Darling" (substituting Ester's name where appropriate), and we ended up singing through most of Abbey Road, especially the second side medley, cobbling together lyrics remembered from our collective childhoods, scatted guitar parts, tap-dancing rhythms. Before we turned in ("golden slumbers fill your eyes…"), Ben started up "Twisted," so I took over and performed that a little. Walked back and it was 4:30. That stuff is both more fun than it sounds and almost not as fun as it should be for all the concentrated effort we put towards having fun. We kept quipping "Hey, we ought to be drunk," but it's just a reminder of the kind of pure abandon that works best without substances, in the childlike way. Anyway.

forget about your sorrows
forget about your heartache
life is nothing but a shadow
without your sunshine