They won't let me back in

If you're going to be in Raleigh this weekend, come on by Forrest Hills Baptist Church for the service this Sunday.  We're doing the Christmas Cantata so it's going to be a really cool service.  All singing, all the time.  We even have an orchestra playing with us this time.  The dress rehearsal was Wednesday night.  If you don't think that's going to provide much content for my triathlon blog, then you've never been to my church.  I love singing in the choir.

The rehearsal went pretty good, everything sounded fine.  Afterwards we got to socialize for a bit.  I ended up talking to one of the violin players (first mistake) who kept calling me "sir". I didn't slap him.  I consider that a moral victory.  I knew the guy lived in Boston and was just home for the holidays.  I was shocked when I found out he was only a sophomore in high school.  I thought he was a student at Berklee.  This kid has serious mad skills.

I think there should be a Southern Redneck Exception granted to the "no cursing in church" rule, especially when you're talking to kids. Every now and then you want to drop a "holy shit" or a "fuck you, no way" when you hear something unbelievable.

Case in point: I got to talking with this one dude that seemed pretty cool.  Until he mentioned he was only in the 8th grade.  I can't remember the last time I had a decent conversation with an 8th grader ( have to check the restraining order).  But that little revelation definitely deserved some cursing.  I actually used the phrase "when I was in college - wait that was before you were born" and then wanted to cry.

The french horn player only has one semester left at  UNC.  Finally somebody who won't call me "sir".  But wait, our rehearsal ended at 9 and after 2 hours of singing and an incredibly long work day I was completely exhausted.  She had to get back to Chapell Hill for another practice.  Yep, I can't hang with that.  The only thing I'm starting at 10 pm is a blog post.  My fraternity has a chapter in that school of music and I meant to ask her about those guys.  I can't keep up with these young people.  Soon enough they'll be coming after my job too.

The one bright spot was a couple of girls - one in the choir and a floutist.  Juniors in high school and headed off to my alma mater Appalachian State to be Music Ed majors.  We got to talk about ASU some, but I didn't get warn them about the guys in my fraternity there.  I should explain that I am in Phi Mu Alpha, a professional music fraternity that primarily attracts music majors.  Now, since these are church girls I can't decide if I should have advised these girls to get in good with these guys or stay the hell away.  They seemed like nice kids.

I do have a small solo in the cantata.  It's only a couple of lines but I got a lot of comments about it from the rehearsal.  This is going to be a fun performance!  I love bringing in the Christmas holiday directly from the church.