Firsts and Fourths - Bye, Bye, Birthday Month

Nameplate by my office door arrived - I'm official and my location is even in Braille.

It is the eve of the end of my 40th Birthday Month (unless I generously extend that to the official end date of February 4), and I find myself surprised by some friends asking me why I have not posted a blog update recently. Well, the academic year has been picking up quickly and is in full swing. So the workdays have been long, complicated, busy, fully scheduled (mornings into evenings), and with the entire campus population back, it is back to professional life for me in "adult day care," i.e., everyone around me is sniffling and coughing and sneezing and taking real sick days (as opposed to snow days). So it was inevitable that I would start to feel under the weather too. To recap the last few weeks as I sip my hot tea and medicine, here are some facts of my life in St. Louis to add to the blog update:

• First speech for all the Resident Advisors at the end of their spring training week. I thought I was under-prepared, but apparently I was a hit.
• First meet-and-greets with the Student Government Association, the Cultural Student Organizations, and several other campus departments - all continues to go well, and everyone has been pretty hospitable and gracious, and yes, my task/to-do list keeps growing every day.
• I was introduced to the entire campus in the school's newspaper, featured in its weekly "Let Us Introduce You" page 2 column (and then quoted again in the weekly highlights on the Op-Ed page 4) in its first issue of 2011. Let me explain the stern photo...the interview included me naming some favorite TV shows (including shows that are no longer on the air, like "The X Files"). The photographer saw the draft copy and thought I should give a spooky pose in addition to the dozens of "hi, nice to meet you" poses with me smiling. Unfortunately, the whole section of the interview about favorite TV shows was edited out in final copy, and the Photoshopped Mulder and Scully never appeared, so the introductory photo feels a bit more disconcerting than I would have wanted. Oh well. So far people have been OK with meeting me, so maybe the introduction was made well enough and I was not as scary as I thought I appeared. (Sorry, Tyra, I will not...be...America's...Next...Top...Model.)

After the continuation of decidedly wintry weather, I experienced my first practically balmy spring days in St. Louis since my arrival in December - two consecutive days of daytime highs that reached into the forties (40-43 degrees), a week after this screenshot. Phew!

• First time I was ousted from not one but four different San Francisco check-ins on FourSquare. I've made up for it by maintaining my "mayor" status at several St. Louis locations including "St. Louis," "St. Louis University," my building on campus, my office, my temporary apartment, the closest freeway exit ramp, the local gas station, my great tailor, the campus bookstore, my yoga studio, and even the Missouri History Museum. Phew. Take that, FourSquare ousters!
• First Sunday mass in St. Francis College Church: a big Gothic cathedral that felt cavernous but warm: full of happy Catholics (who all seemed Midwesternly tall - I was once again the shortest person in the room).
• First time eating in local places like Baileys' Chocolate Bar, the BBC Asian Bistro, Bissinger's Chocolates, and Spaghetteria Mamma Mia (the Italian food here was decent and cheap, but sadly no ABBA music piped in as the name may have suggested).
• First time seeing theater in the Missouri History Museum, and then a week later first time sitting in a packed audience to learn about urban decline, urban renewal, and local neighborhood history from a historian who characterized St. Louis as a city with the culture and demographics of the South but the organization and design of the North - a great lesson to me as I continue to apartment-hunt!

Impressive: very intelligent autobiographical theater (with original music and songs) in the Missouri History Museum.

First time in the St. Louis University Chaifetz Arena, and not for basketball, but for the touring Cirque du Soleil production, "Dralion" (also my first time seeing that particular Cirque show, so that is another one crossed off that list). I even survived the four clowns that mucked around throughout the show (yikes - scary)!

The first time I have ever known a campus bookstore to be closed during the first week of classes, due to snow and ice and wind that prevented a lot of people from coming to work, and over 900 schools being closed. So why was I in the office?!?

 

A typical winter day: snow blowing outside, as seen through an office window with the SLU fleur-de-lis.

Almost feels like I'm back in New York City with the wind and snow - the scene with a residence hall tower on campus.

• My first time refilling the in-office coffee machine that makes coffee, tea, lattes, cappuccinos, hot chocolate, and even a "Milky Way latte" (yum!). 50 cents in the coin can for each cup - just think of what I am saving on coffee runs from the dining hall or Starbucks!

My happy "fueling station" by the photocopier. A welcome oasis from the winter weather in an office building that stays notoriously chilly.

• My first time seeing the St. Louis Symphony perform in the gorgeous Powell Hall venue. And not just any concert, mind you: but my fourth time seeing the amazing Tony Award winner, Idina Menzel in concert performance, on the local stop of her orchestral symphony tour. And holy moly did my girl deliver: left the audience stunned with an a capella, off-microphone "For Good" from Wicked (and stopped the show cold with a rapturous double standing ovation for that number alone), she has honed her in-between-songs patter with more focused funny anecdotes than the last time I saw her do this show in San Francisco, she demonstrated her five-octave range and tremendous belting ability with everything from classic showtunes to new American composers, and yes, even her Lady GaGa number from Glee. Her presence just glowed to fill that space: absolutely resplendent in a shimmering purple dress, barefoot and fancy-free! Oh yes: she sang it, sold it, blew the roof off of it, tore it up, spit it out and left us all wanting more!

Chandeliers in the lobby of Powell Hall - used to be a movie theater.

Interior house ceiling of Powell Hall.

Sadly, no meet-and-greet for a Celebrity Sightings photo, but as Kathy Griffin would say, "Sold out, motherf*&$@#s, sold out!" That's how we do it.

• First time seeing a show at "The Rep," The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (which doesn't actually do shows in repertory - go figure). It was no Vanessa Redgrave on Broadway (very intimate small studio theater and I felt the emotional and intellectual pacing was uneven in delivery), but quite good nonetheless.

Joan Didion's genius acted out in a solid one-act, 97-minute, one-woman show.

So that's my update for now and my recap of the final half of my 2011 Birthday Month. I'll end with these ever-poignant lyrics from Jonathan Larson's RENT because Idina Menzel encouraged the entire Powell Hall audience to sing along with her to this number and I have found myself humming it to myself every day ever since - a nice mantra to face the new year, to deal with new challenges, and to greet each new moment.

There's only us
There's only this
Forget regret - or life is yours to miss.
No other road
No other way
No day but today

There's only yes
Only tonight
We must let go
To know what's right
No other course
No other way
No day but today

I can't control
My destiny
I trust my soul
My only hope
is just to be

There's only now
There's only here
Give in to love
Or live in fear
No other path
No other way
No day but today

The campus will thaw soon enough, but for now, this is a typical serene still of the place.