(no subject)

[sanura]

Since Chanticleer allowed some time to hang out on Monday evening after their gig, I ditched the opera closing-night cast party and walked Alan around campus, from Brown to Shepherd and back. I showed him our set (and waxed rhapsodic about the show), exclaimed over the surreality of the lighting and the sky in the Sallyport and quad, went past my favorite arch-and-tree corner of the Huma courtyard, explained the construction, and described my deep love of columns. We made it back to Cherokee around midnight. We gave him a tour of the house and we lay on my trampoline and evaluated the sky, and I made fun of him for not knowing how to jump or play trampoline games. Stephan came over to get his paper copyedited. That was fun, although it took far longer than it might have, because I kept getting distracted by the need to show Alan classic rock, and he was reading over my shoulder. He declared me a good copyeditor (he proofs Chanticleer's programs, which he says are terribly written).

Stephan went home to crash, but we weren't sleepy, so it was 3:30 before we got tired of youtube and itunes. I must say, he may be the most comfortable couch companion ever, though perhaps he shares the title with Grant. I was reminded, rather than of my traumatic reaction to my last experience with him, of why we hung out so much and stayed up so late together in the first place. He was very careful and sweet, and in the couple minutes the subject came up he assured me he'd learned his lesson and didn't want me to be uncomfortable. I did have a little freakout on the phone with Stephan after he was gone, but I slept okay.

I did wake up an hour before I wanted to, and was short of breath and nervous all morning. It was not helpful on my Archi field trip, a tour of a steel-frame, glass-curtain-wall construction site. The familiar and comforting smells of gypsum, sawdust, caulk and metal helped a little. When I got to my scenes coaching, I fell apart a little bit again. However, Bob seemed to perceive there was something awry with me, and patiently dealt with my flaky performance and concentration.

Alan woke up and came over just as my coaching ended, so we made the most of the daylight. Mama drove us to Patu, which he liked (I was still too tense to eat much), and then dropped us at Shepherd so he could see Stude (which is where Chanticleer will sing when they come) and Duncan. We toured the campus in the light, hitting everything but Lovett College. We jumped a little on Wiess's trampoline, but I was terrified he would fall off (he wasn't very good, and it hasn't been that long since Peter mangled himself). He was fascinated by the acoustic focus of the tile circle behind the altar of the chapel (as am I). He carries a very good piggyback, as I found out. He also liked the Hanszen deck, and our conversation turned a little meta when I mentioned to him that I'd been on the phone with him there once. He asked what we'd talked about, and by a couple of syllogisms we discussed my odd pavlovian problem quite calmly.

He tried to do the whole thing barefoot, but he's not quite in shape for it, so he trailed slightly tenderfooted after me on the way home. We watched some Street Scene, made some cookies (I had to improvise, since the chips were gone after Charlie's birthday), headbanged to some Happy playlist (though carefully, as he has ten stitches on the back of his neck from a recent surgery), and lounged around on the couch in front to the computer listening to cool music.

Eventually it was dinner time, so we walked to Ruggle's and made plans for Stephan to come get us and find Star pizza when we got back (not that we were still hungry, but I figured that's one Houston treat Alan should have). It was a rather idyllic walk, though I have a skewed sense of idylls. The headlights passing the other side of the tunnel of liveoaks made a stream of whiter light slanting through the sodium-lit tree cathedral at the same angle as it would be if there were stained glass windows between all the trees. There was a spider the size of my palm dangling a foot above the ground in my path, which I didn't notice, and he freaked out and grabbed me out of its way, while I waved my hand above it trying to figure out where it was attached, and then he held my hand the whole rest of the way home. I was amused.

We listened to the more interesting tracks of the Chanticleer albums he brought to give me, once again lying in a pile on the couch, and he told anecdotes about the circumstances of recording. He plugged his iPod into my speakers and showed me the tracks they recorded but cut from the album (much cooler, gritty gospel rather than cheesy christmas pop). He played me his baritone swan song (he sings primarily alto in Chanticleer), the Vaughan Williams mystical songs he did with Kristina (from the Western Wind) and her ensemble, and I hardly recognized him from the recordings I have of us at Smith. The tessitura was so different he sounded like a tenor. Then we went through all the recordings from Smith, and nostalgized a bit (and cringed some, too). That brought on a curiosity about other things I'd recorded, so I had to pull out the Spectrum, which he loved, and the 6-tracks-of-Ryan a capella rock arrangements (he thought That's The Way was gorgeous). We hung around lazily in my mom's room and started a trade of backrubs (he's pretty good, though more relaxing than intense unless he really tries), waiting for Stephan.

Stephan finally showed up and we got Star pizza, with which Alan was properly impressed. With a stop on the way home to get coke and skittles, and a trip by Stephan's to get my DVD of Bagby Beowulf, we came back and tried to read through some madrigals. It was great fun, and Dan showed up for awhile, and then Dan and Stephan went off to play together and Alan and I read through some of the medieval rep he's supposed to learn for their Christmas gigs.

It got late, and they left, and we watched some Beowulf before the battle with sleep became hopeless. I got him a sheet to put on my bed, brushed my teeth, and almost crashed on the couch before I remembered I still owed him a backrub, so I went and got him, put him on the carpet, and fixed most of his knots (with a few minutes on each of his hands, for extra). He wanted to try again, when I told him his backrub had been very light, and a different angle works wonders. I kind of melted onto him and fell asleep before I realized it, and he sat there patiently until he started falling asleep too, at which point he went to bed and I hauled myself wearily to the couch.

I skipped my morning classes today to take him to Starbucks and then the airport, and it's not been very long, but I already miss him. It was that way after Smith, too. Ah, well, back to real life.