Mister Savings Accounts is skint. Does this give you schadenfreude-flavoured pleasure after my last post?
Actually, it’s just my pocket money account that’s drained, but it was worth it. This weekend was a heavy social time, starting with a Friday Gang dinner, then a night out on Saturday with Liz and Patrick to one of the city’s subterranean vault venues, where people danced happily, casting shadows through underwater lighting.
Sunday was the first gig for the Edinburgh Gay Men’s Chorus, a singing group I joined a few months back. It was the last thing I imagined myself doing, but…
When people ask me if I miss acting, the only thing that comes to mind that I miss is singing. So this is giving me an outlet for that without all the crazy lifestyle that goes with the career — which I honestly don’t miss at all. I finished with that and retired, fait accompli. (My theatre department is having a reunion in June and I’m going, and while I look forward to seeing everyone again, I’m really happy to be where I am now instead.) But singing in harmony with people is fun, and even though I’ve just been doing it as a lark and really have nothing at stake here, it was rewarding to have the payoff of a public gig. And since the venue was a pub, we naturally stayed on and bevvied it up.
Then in the afternoon I got a call from my friend Tim. Bizarrely, I’d been thinking of him just the day before as I listened to a song by his band, Van Tramp. I was mentally kicking myself: “I think of him as one of my best friends,” I thought, “but the last time we were in touch was sometime last year.” Well, Sunday his band was in town to open for the Sugababes. Not only was that a score for the band, it meant he and I got to hang out after.
I went to the stage door, where the giant rock’n’roll trailers were waiting, along with some of the fans. A stereotypically unhappy doorman didn’t know anything about where the band was, but a text message from Tim let me know to go around to the lobby, where the remaining fans were trailing out (most of them chubby women or little girls wearing sparkly pink hats, strangely). So I got to see my bud again, as well as introduce him to a couple of my chorus mates and meet one of his band members and his label manager. The manager was a bit shaken that they’d sold out of all the albums they had — which were supposed to last for the whole tour. I figure that’s good bad news!
Then last night I went to see my friend Callum sing at a showcase for the music program he’s in. He was really, really good.
Once again, even though it’s not a pre-condition of my friendships, somehow very talented people keep ending up my life. I would like them even if they weren’t gifted, but it’s just too easy to like them when I can be a fan of their work as well.
So a lot of stuff is coming together lately, for me, for groups I’m in, and for people I care about. Yay!
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