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Back in Business I'm back at work. I've been back since Tuesday. I thought I was well enough to return on Monday, but decided I'd better take the extra day to rest. Wise decision: I nearly collapsed in the process of walking down the block to McDonald's for lunch. From Friday evening 'til Tuesday morning, I basically did nothing but lie in bed. I have not been so sick in years, and to be honest, I still don't feel totally well. Paranoid individual that I am, I can't help but worry that the illness might have been something more than just the combination flu and sinus infection that I thought it was, but the antibiotics seemed to work towards making me well, so hopefully, it isn't something more dreadful. I'm fairly certain that the Baby Jesus doesn't want me working on a daily basis way the fuck downtown. Or if He does, He does not want me living so far the fuck uptown. (I'm pretty sure the grown-up, crucified and resurrected Jesus feels the same, but for some reason, people around me are always talking about how the Baby Jesus feels about various things, so I figure I'll perpetuate the trend, despite a slight nagging concern that doing so might be just a teensy bit blasphemous. We do NOT want to piss off the Baby Jesus, and we especially do not want to piss off the Baby'Daddy, because I don't fear much, but THAT kind of cosmic whoop-ass? No, thank you.) So Tuesday morning, I ransacked my room three times looking for any small plastic card that would prove I am me. I could not find my driver's license, my credit card, my MetroCard or my work ID, so my departure for the office was delayed by, oh, about two hours while I panicked and threw things around, cursing loudly all the while. (They all turned out to be in the pocket of the trousers I was wearing on Friday, but since I had a delirious fever on Friday, I couldn't remember what I was wearing.) Eventually, I arrived at the office, where I discovered once again that my boss did not have time to meet with me regarding the project I've been heading, so I sat here all day and did basically nothing. (Actually, that's not quite true, I worked on a set-list for the night at Brandy's. For Mardi Gras, it was, at least in the beginning, a dreadfully quiet night in the bar, so I played down-tempo mellow tunes and was surprised at what good voice I was in, particularly considering I'd spent the prior three days lying in bed with a violent hacking cough. Around midnight, the crowd picked up, and we had quite a lot of fun 'til about 2.30 or so in the morning, when things slowed down again. No, I had no business going to my piano bar gig so close on the heels of such a major illness, but I felt obligated, since I only have one more week left, and besides, it was fun. And then, I drank too much of too many different things before leaving the bar around 4.30, so I had that disgusting toxic feeling in my sinuses (emblematic of a hangover combined with insufficient sleep and still being somewhat drunk) when I woke from my little nap to return to work in the morning.) Wednesday was yet another over-taxing day. I started off well and would have arrived at work in a timely fashion, except that all trains above 168th Street were being held because of a sick passenger at 168th. When the trains began moving again, they were woefully off-rhythm and moved at odd speeds with intermittent stops in strange places. I exited the train I was on at 145th and waited through two more trains in rapid succession before finally getting one in which I could sit down -- I was far too exhausted, having been mostly awake since 7 o'clock the previous morning, to stand from 181st Street to Broadway/Nassau on a lurching dirty subway train. I got to the office just in time to check my e-mail, confirm that my boss still didn't have time to speak to me, and head to church to sing the first of two Ash Wednesday services. I was effectively in the office for three hours, from my return at 1.30 in the afternoon 'til 4.30, when I went to sing the next service, which was supposed to be Evensong, but was actually an absurd hybrid of Evensong and Eucharist. What moronic clergy-person couldn't decide which to do and decided we should combine the two for a nearly two-hour scream-fest?! If you're concerned that some people can't make it to the noon Eucharist, do another at 5.30 or something, but for God's sake (and mine), DO NOT hybridise and bastardise perfectly good services which should stand on their own to create a nightmarishly long and tiring service through which NOBODY wants to sit. Bad churchmanship makes me angry. (I like to think it makes the Baby Jesus angry, too, but that's probably petty and silly, as I'm sure He has more important things to worry about, like defeating the anti-Christ, who's currently living in the White House.) So when ExhaustingChurch was finished (And how bad was the music? I don't even want to talk about that. Herbert Howells's Gloucester Service has never made me sad before, and I've never been involved in such an imprecise and bland, despite being terrifically over-wrought, performance of Purcell's "Hear my prayer, o Lord".), I trudged back to Broad St. to board the M train and go to band rehearsal in Brooklyn. We have climate control now. This makes me very happy. So do cold spinach noodles with sesame sauce. So do well-written songs performed skillfully and soulfully. So does working with such talented folk who are so very interested in making this work. I alternated orange juice and beer throughout rehearsal, and somehow managed to stay conscious 'til we reached the last song, at which point I was on my last legs. I don't know what time I left Union St. station, but it took FOREVER to get home, and by the time I arrived there (after midnight), I wanted desperately to cry, but I was too tired, so I just went to sleep, instead, only to wake this morning and head back to Wall Street. I should have had a seat on the train immediately, but for the fact that there was a man lying on one of the bench seats asleep, taking up about three people's space. Somehow, I restrained myself from walking over to him and prodding him with the end of my umbrella 'til he woke. I had elaborate visions of myself looking every inch the elitist piglet that I am, striding over to him in my unpolished two-hundred-and-some-dollar shoes, towering over him (at a safe distance) and poking him in the gut with the point of my blue and red Nautica umbrella 'til he woke, then delivering a stern rant at him about how he's lazy and pathetic and some of us are working three jobs and practically never sleeping more than four hours a night in order to make ends meet, put some money aside and pursue our life's ambitions, and there's no excuse whatsoever for him being a lazy dolt and a parasite sucking the blood of society and inconveniencing people who have REAL reason to be exhausted...But I didn't. Apparently I'm enough of an asshole to envision the scene in technicolor, but not enough of one to actually carry it out. At least not yet. So here I sit. In my office, at my desk in my weird little not-cubicle wearing too much DKNY and passing the time by 'blogging mundanely (a redundant expression). I haven't done anything resembling productive work in about three weeks. Perhaps my boss will have time to speak to me today. r
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