Sorry!

Wow, has it really been over a week since I posted last? Sorry about that, folks. I know you're all just riveted by my witty repartee and are devastated when you don't know what's going on in my life (read: you probably aren't either of those things). I do have some things to tell you, however!

Last week passed much without incident. I met up with Court, Aaron, Nick, and Court's roommate Lindsay and her boyfriend Stewart (or is it Stuart?) to watch Edward Scissorhands on the pier in Hoboken. It was a lovely night, if not a slightly strange movie selection. Nick and Aaron managed to get lost in a town that's all of a square mile, and instead of walking into the park (which they were right next too), they managed to walk 14 blocks in the complete wrong direction, apparently never wondering why they hadn't yet reached the river that they started off next to. Hooray for non-geographically inclined friends!

The next big exciting thing that happened was Court's surprise 25th birthday party. Matt did a splendid job planning and executing this party, which took place in his apartment, and had Court completely fooled into thinking they were going out for a date night. We had a grand old time, and it didn't even matter than Matt's oven broke and he couldn't cook any of the food he had pre-made.

Sunday I decided to attend mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Midtown. Yes, I know that it's touristy. Yes, I know that I probably passed two dozen perfectly good Catholic churches on the way. I just wanted to go someplace different, and I enjoy being in cathedrals. Mass was nice, and very quick. They were doing 4 masses back to back with literally about 7 minutes turnaround to get over 1000 people out and another 1000 in. I appreciate that kind of efficiency.

This week marked the beginning of my boss Aaron's vacation. I am now the de facto Company Manager for Atlantic Theater Company. At least that's what I'm calling myself. This is the precise point in the year in which the CM is least needed, so it's not a huge responsibility, but hey, I'll take what I can get. I have a long list of things to do for this week while he's away, and I'm making really solid progress on it, and should be done by Thursday no problem, just in time for me to take my own vacation to Ocean City, MD with the fam! Yes, I know, I've been away a lot this summer. What can I say, trains make it so easy to travel!

Tonight was both informative and very fun. Let me explain why. First, I, along with fellow Atlantic interns Parker, Ayla, and Diana attended the American Theatre Wing's Theatre Intern Group panel on General Management and Budgeting for Broadway, with guest speaker David Richards of Richards/Climan, Inc., a Broadway GM office (and a successful one to boot). Basically, in this hour long talk, David unveiled the mysteries of GM-ing a show for Broadway. Guess what? It turns out that it's not really a mystery at all. Commercial productions work basically like private equity. And with all of my Blue Tip experience in private equity (my dad's energy private equity company, for those of you who don't know, for whom I worked last summer), I understand that beast pretty well. So today, for the first time, I felt like I could make sense of how a show gets put on, at least in a very global way. It was exciting!

After the panel, I headed uptown to meet James, Stephanie, and Mrs. Augenbaugh for dinner. We had a lovely time, sitting outside at a nice restaurant called Isabella's. Lot's of good gossip about the goings on in Oakmont, and good food and good wine. I thought of you Shannon, while I enjoyed some honey-vanilla creme brulee!

Before I end tonight's entry, I have to vent about the MTA's most recent failure. Today, I will admit it, I left a little late for work. But, I managed to catch an elusive B67 bus, and thought that was a good omen and would put me back on track. Oh how very wrong I was.

So I arrive at the (do you know which stop by now? No? Ah, well maybe next time) 7th Ave stop and walk down to the platform, where I immediately know something is amiss. Instead of the several dozen or so people milling about in the 2-4 minutes between trains, there were, without exaggeration, 500 people standing on the platform. I knew instantly that I was going to be late to work. So I worked my way down the platform, trying to pick out a good spot without too many people standing around. I found a spot and I waited. And waited. And waited. No trains came. After about 15 minutes of waiting, a little G train comes trundling by, and is summarily ignored by the still-growing horde of people, all of whom want to go to Manhattan on an F. Well, by this time, about 3 F trains had gone by in the opposite direction. Perhaps the F was held up? Well, I don't know about that. What I do know, is that over the next 30 minutes (yes, 45 minutes after I arrived at the platform) 2 more G trains came, by, and 9 more F trains passed in the opposite direction. Finally, the fat body politic of the MTA stirs itself to make the following announcement (bearing in mind that there were no signs or any other way to communicate this message), "There will be no Manhattan bound F trains at this station. Take a G." There was a palpable feeling of disgust on the platform. Of course! Take a G! Why hadn't we thought of that! It only goes to Queens! Let's all go to Queens today! Yes, you can transfer to the A from the G, but it's not terribly convenient, and no one would do it unless they knew they had to. Which they had to, when those 3 empty G trains came by over the past 45 minutes. Predictably, when the next G train came by, it was swarmed by angry commuters, dumbfounding the passengers already on board, and leaving behind about half of us left on the platform. I finally got on the next G train (5 after I arrived), and made my normal-ish commute to work. But I got in at 10:45. MTA, you disappoint me.

Goodnight!