Thanks for reminding me about Princess Leia, Erik! In 1996 some of us Gappers (me, Erik, Cheryl, Alyse, Christine...did I forget anybody?) went to this Halloween party at the Rat in downtown Binghamton. (Was it a Hillside event? I don't remember.) That was the first time I ever got drunk without a family member present! (February '94, with my aunt, Greenwich Village.) I dressed as Princess Leia a la Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope, for you newbie jerks)--I had the whole cinnamon-bun hairstyle, and I wore a white turtleneck and a white sheet as a skirt. Over the course of the night, two or three (drunk) guys asked me where my gold bikini was. (Return of the Jedi, duh!). Instead of taking that as a come-on, I just assumed that they were dorks. Which they probably were, but in any case, I had a good time. The floor was really sticky, I remember.

And speaking of Halloween '96...that was when I went to Rocky Horror with Christine and Shannon to see Jord and Dave. Wow, that was a long time ago... Shannon and I went in customary bra/half-slip attire, while Christine favored her "demented Harlequin" ensemble. Dave tried to put his Frank N. Furter boa down the front of Shannon's and my bras. But the highlight of the evening--in retrospect--was the Minucci appearance. Christine was looking around the theater during the pre-film proceedings and said, "Oh, there's my friend Dan--he's dressed as a cowboy." I turned around and said, "Ooh, a cowboy..." And thus my obsession began. Wow. I am laughing so hard inside my head right now.

Anyway, back to the present... Today I sang in a mock audition in my opera workshop. We didn't get to finish, so I get to sing again on Thursday. I guess that's a good thing... Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to the student health center so they can take a look at my throat. I can sing okay, but it still hurts a bit when I stick out my tongue, and I get vocally tired easily. I just want to make sure I don't have some sort of bacterial infection--I mean, strep can even go to your brain and you can die! I guess I'm just trying to play it safe. This is my career I'm talking about!

Okay, have to pee...

Current music: "I Want Your Sex"--George Michael
(Okay, there's a reason for that...One of the other arias we heard in class today featured the line, "I love your sex" in Italian. Of course that meant "gender" (women, specifically), and referred to love in the emotional sense, but the whole class cracked up. That was funny. I guess we singers are just big ol' nerds...)