(no subject)

Without a computer in my room here, or a TV, and with the rehearsal schedule winding down (we now are into dress rehearsals, meaning I have the morning and much of the afternoon free), I'm discovering I have much more free time than I thought. I should find some brochures on Charleston and start poking around the city, but I'm also finding myself with much, much more reading time than I've had for years. I only brought four books with me, since I didn't foresee this problem. I just finished off the second, which was Lying Awake, by Mark Salzman. A good small book, quieting (well, it's about a nun.) Right now I'm in the middle of Renee Fleming's autobiography, which I borrowed from someone. And it turns out that I'm allowed to get a library card since I'm a temporary resident. I have a pile of want-to-read stuff (for example, I haven't read Robin McKinley's last book) that I hope the library has.

It's just an odd feeling. I have only one thing to concentrate on - the opera. The last time I had only one thing to concentrate on was biking across the country, and frankly, that takes more hours a day than staging an opera, so there wasn't time to read.

Also, I have discovered a pulpy women's mag that I actually like. Cosmo's too interested in stereotyping men, Marie Claire's too focused on make-up, Shape's too interested in making me feel bad about myself (although I found a wonderful goat-cheese risotto in a Shape magazine) and People's too obsessed with boring details of celebrity lives. But Oprah's great! Always a few recipes, some advice column stuff, some inspirational stories, generally some cheesy-relationship fluff, and this month had a fairly sizeable interview with Jon Stewart. What more do you want from a pulpy women's mag?

Maybe fortified with that kind of fluff I'll dare to finish off Under the Banner of Heaven, which I freely admit I've been avoiding.