"The time has come, to talk of many things..."

Once again, I know, it's been so long since I last found the time to write and post on this here blog o' mine... Alas. It's not for lack of things to write about... No, it's certainly not that. In fact, it's probably the exact opposite.

I know, I know, it's not exactly news to hear that I am "busy" here (or wherever I seem to be!), but maybe I can make my busyness in to some form of "news" to share - I mean, isn't that what this blog is all about?

Well, I guess I'll start a few weeks back... Probably just a mere few days after my last post on here, I decided that living in the suburbs of St Louis County in a two bedroom apartment with three (albeit lovely) roomates/co-workers was driving me INSANE. So I made my great escape to the city.

Yes, that's right, for my two days off in the last week of July, I booked myself a room for a night at The Hyatt Regency Downtown St Louis Riverfront, and spent a glorious 48-hour date with myself in the city... It was definitely among the best choices I've ever made...

ABOVE: My hotel, as viewed by me at dusk on Sunday evening as I walked through the Riverfront-Archway park to take myself out to dinner in the historic 'Laclede's Landing' area...

BELOW: Sunday Morning in my hotel room; Upon being dropped off downtown by my generous co-worker/roomate Adam, SnoBear and I checked in to our hotel room and got excited about our KING-SIZED bed!!!

BELOW: The View from my hotel room. Thank goodness it was this good, because later this evening I would be stuck in my room during a black-out with nothing to watch but the thunder and lightning and storm outside my window... Well, thank goodness for this view and for the bottle of red wine that I packed!

AND BELOW: This picture (of the famous St Louis Archway) was taken by me while standing right in front of my hotel. Yes, that's what they meant when they said riverfront!

So for my first day (of my two-day long date with myself in the city), I first made my way over to a great little neighbourhood called the Central West End. Which made me think endlessly about my new friend Jon, because he was the one who told me about this area in the first place. I eventually found myself at the St Louis Cathedral Basilica, where I spent at least an hour or so... You see, I've never really been a religious person, but I absolutely love churches and sacred spaces, I just sort of lose myself in their beauty and safety... Or rather, maybe I find myself...

After my visit at the beautiful Cathedral Basilica, I made the long, hot and sweaty(!) trek through the nearby Forest Park (bigger than NYC's Central Park) to the public Art Museum. Granted, walking for 45 minutes at the hottest time of the day in late July in St Louis might not have been my best plan... When I arrived at the art museum, I went to the public restrooms because I was so hot and sweaty that I had to go in to a stall and I actually took my dress off and literally wrang the sweat out of it. I looked as though I had been dumped with a bucket of water! (I only wish it had've been water - I was sooooo hot!!!)

Anyhow, I spent some time with an incredible exhibit of photographs by Gordon Parks... With the help of good ol' Wikipedia, I will tell you that "Gordon Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was a groundbreaking American photographer, musician, poet, novelist, journalist, activist and film director. He is best remembered for his photo essays for Life magazine and as the director of the 1971 film Shaft." Basically the exhibit was totally inspiring and reminded me how much I love photographs and people's stories.

After the Art Museum in Forest Park I made my way back downtown to my hotel, but just a mere few blocks away from my hotel I heard something... A protest or rally maybe? I followed the sound and it turned out to be a sort of 'Block Party' sponsored by one of my favorite St Louis radio stations (The Beat 100.3 fm) showcasing young talent in a 'youth against violence' sort of effort. How apropos for me to end up there, hey?!?

So, after spending some time listening to the young MC's do their thang, I ravenously made my way back to my hotel room where I showered (okay and had a glass of red wine and called my best friend Devon in Toronto for a quick chat) and then made my way to take myself out to dinner in the historic 'Laclede's Landing' area. The walk to the landing was lovely; It was sunset and I walked through the park below the archway. Then I sat on a patio in the historic, cobblestoned Landing neighbourhood (think like 'Gastown' in Vancouver) and treated myself to a lovely meal. I walked home (okay, yes it was dark and I walked home alone through the park, but I'm fine so what of it?!) and just as I returned to my hotel room, the power went out in my hotel! So I had no choice but to sit by my window and watch the thunder and lightning while sipping my red wine and doing pretty much nothing... I think it was a blessing sent from The Universe!

The next day I had to check out of my hotel around 11am, so I did but I was able to leave my bag in the custody of the concierge for the day because Adam wouldn't be picking me up until 9pm that night, after my crew returned home from work. I made my way to my favorite place in St Louis - The Missouri Botanical Gardens! I spent a lovely few hours there before heading to 'The Loop' (a hip sort of neighbourhood) where I caught a matinee of the movie 'The Wackness', which I loved.

My '48-hour date-with-myself' ended with me making my way back to my hotel to collect my bag and to wait for Adam to collect me. Then I took him out for pizza as a thankyou for driving me in and out of downtown and enabling this oh-so-important date with myself to happen!

As I write all of this, I am actually on another sort of 'date-with-myself'... The aforementioned date happened during the last weekend in July, I think, and was followed with what feels like a real whirlwind of our last few weeks of full-time performing in August. And now we are just doing weekend shows. We had the weekdays off last week and this week. So this week I decided to treat myself to a four day 'date-with-myself' in New York City! Okay, it's really just four days in NYC because I have been spending quite a bit of time socialising with others while I am here.

Tomorrow, Friday, I will fly "home" to St Louis for our last three days of shows, then it will be time to pack up and head back to Toronto. This time next week I will have been home (at my real, Toronto home) for two nights already! Oh my! It's all happening so fast, I can hardly see the trees for the whirlwind, or, uh... whatever! My life is a whirlwind. But next week when I am back in Toronto I think that I will have some time and I will do some more long-overdue writing and reflecting and picture posting on this here blog of mine!

But for now, this will have to do!