Hosting New Yorkers

My buddy Nate, who’s going to grad school at Columbia right now, stopped in to South Bend for a bit on Monday. It was really good to see him and his wife. I hadn’t talked to him very much since around Christmas.

On Monday, right after he got here, we headed up to campus and went to the DPAC so he could visit a couple of the Theatre Professors who are here for Summer Shakespeare. One of the professors noticed that I had lost some weight since the spring, which I felt good about until he told me it means I probably need to get resized for my costumes. We also stopped by the the scene shop to talk to the carpenters, and I got to see my buddy John who just got back from studying in France for the semester. After meeting up for dinner with some of Nate’s friends, we came back to the house and played Rock Band with John and his girlfriend. I was a little embarrassed because I didn’t have really much else to entertain them.

Today we had lunch with those same friends and then mostly hung out and talked while Nate’s wife went for a run. It was interesting to hear about what grad school is like for him. It sounds like his first year is going really well, and that he’s pretty happy. Talking with him definitely makes me excited about auditioning for grad school. I guess I’m not exactly sure if that’s what I’m going to do, but it seems likely.

In other news, I just got my schedule for the first three weeks of the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival. I’m going to be pretty busy. This year I’m playing two parts in the Young Company show. We are doing The Deceived, an Italian comedy that was source material for Twelfth Night, and I am playing a horny Spaniard and a stomach-thinking Servant. I’m in the Ensemble for the Mainstage, which is obviously Twelfth Night.

If you’re curious, here is the website for the ND Shakespeare Festival.

Back from Jersey

Well the weekend in Jersey was a lot of fun, and it was great to be able to spend time with Jane. With nothing going on here, I’ve really missed her.

I got in around 7 on Friday night. There was a little bit of delay because of rain, but most of the trouble that was causing was further north, so I was only pushed back by half an hour. Jane’s mom and brother were at the Baccalaureate Mass that night so Jane and I just got to relax and watch Frasier. We ordered Chinese food, because Jane swears up and down that the Chinese in Jersey is better than the stuff in South Bend. An astronomical accomplishment. It was nice to just hang out for a bit, and not get thrown immediately into the family festivities that would follow.

Saturday was the big graduation. Chester, Jane’s brother, had a much nicer ceremony than I did because he had a class of only about 60 guys. I don’t mean having a class that’s a fifth the size of mine makes the ceremony better because it’s shorter so much as it makes the ceremony nicer because you have other options for venues aside from a hockey arena. Chester’s ceremony actually took place in a very pretty little church near the high school.

After the graduation, we went to the party at the Hilton where, apparently, Jane had held her sweet sixteen party. I got to meet a whole slough of friends and relatives that I hadn’t met at Thanksgiving, and luckily for me I thought, the one’s I had met at Thanksgiving were very nice to me. There were probably 70 people at this party, so it was quite the event. The party included a killer dinner, featuring delicious ravioli, and a pretty solid DJ. I wasn’t too sure about breaking out the dance moves for the Baker family, but I think it went over pretty well, and there are actually few times I can get Jane to dance with me for very long, so I was glad that she was up for it this time.

We stayed over at the hotel that night and the next day had a poolside lunch before coming back home. Jane and I had both spaced on swimsuits, so we were only able to put our legs in the water, but it was a gorgeous day, so it was still nice. The highlight of the afternoon seemed to be the man who flashed everyone at the pool in a failed attempt to change from his swimwear (boxers) to his shorts.

When we came back to Jane’s house we did more Chinese for dinner and watched Airplane, then afterwards we played Disney Scene It and then Scrabble with her mom and aunt. It was a pretty wild night.

This morning was my last day there. Jane actually had a test in one of her classes, so she had to go to school. I went with her and was just going to hang out in the library and finish Fool until she was done, but unfortunately I was thrown out of said library long before Jane’s test was over. They claimed that the Library didn’t open until 8, but seeing as it was 7:59 when they kicked me out, I think they could just tell I was up to no good.

Once the test was over, and we got back home, we didn’t have time for much more than lunch and heading to the airport for my return trip.

Overall the trip was a great time, but it was a bummer leaving Jane and coming back to an empty house. I kept getting asked whether I thought Jane’s family was crazier than mine, but I don’t think that her family really had a shot at that. Not in one weekend at least.

Speaking of which I should probably go; I have someone who I need to wish Happy Birthday!

Move Accomplished

I rented a pick up truck from Uhaul on Tuesday, and got a couple of friends to help me haul everything the treacherous nine blocks between my old house and my new house. And by “everything,” I mean three trips worth of stuff. Sounds a little ridiculous right? I think we could have made it in two trips, except for the fact that you really can’t leave anything in the house. I had a bunch of random chairs from Othello that I could have lived without, but of course, I’m sure we’ll use them in the new place.

I spent most of Wednesday cleaning, but I had to take a break to walk downtown and get them to keep the water on in the new place. I’ve had a lot of walking to do since school got out. I think the walk was about 30 minutes, which I don’t think is a terribly long amount of time to get downtown. The drawback is that coming this way has me an extra half hour away from the grocery store and the bank I use, but that isn’t the end of the world either. On the way back from the water office, I noticed a Catholic church probably only ten minutes or so from the house, so I’ll probably go there, at least over the summer.

Today, Thursday, I had the final walkthrough at my old place. I was really stressed about that, probably from a less than ideal experience when we moved out of our rental in Alaska, but it ended up being really simple and low stress. The guy even gave me a ride back over to my new place. On the way he was jokingly giving me a hard time about getting a house from a different landlord, but when I pointed out where my stop was, he said “I didn’t even know this was a student house.” So I think he gets it now.

The new place is pretty sweet. We have four bedrooms, all on the second floor, along with one tiny bathroom. That’s really the big drawback; we’ll have to see how that works out. The first floor is all hard wood. Well, hard wood looking, I’m not sure if it’s legitimate or not, but it passed the sock sliding test that Jane requested. We have a large entry way connecting to a living room area with bay windows connecting to a dining room type area and then a gorgeous kitchen. I’m really excited because this house has a garbage disposal. Not to mention about three time the counter space of the other place. We have porches on the front and back of the house, with a decent sized backyard that’s fully fenced in. Now I just need to get a croquet set! The basement of the house is creepy as hell, but that comes standard with these places; if nothing else, it’s big.

I thought that some of my roommates were coming in this week, but I haven’t really heard much from any of them, so that was clearly a miscommunication. Hopefully they’re not planning on coming in this weekend, because I have the only keys right now, and I won’t be here suckas!

I’m going to New Jersey to see Jane tomorrow. Technically I’m going for her brother’s high school graduation, but I’m much more excited to see her. It should be a really fun trip; I’ve missed her a lot.

And on a COMPLETELY unrelated note:

I rented Throne of Blood, which is Akira Kurosawa’s take on Macbeth, and it’s making me strongly consider dressing as a samurai for Halloween, because it’s probably the only way I could ever sport one of those cool flags. Of course that’s only the plan if for another year in a row I don’t have the bod to get away with dressing as Atlas.