and and AND---

i bought myself new shoes. it's my birthday present to myself. i'm SO excited and i can't WAIT for them to come in the mail!

cool, right?

rather lahge update

okay, blog. i really, TRULY am sorry that i started you and i've let you go. it's just that there hasn't been anything super important to blog about lately. i'll get better, i promise.

we're SO close to having an apartment up near the city. i'm so happy about it. it's all i need in my life right now. truly. once i have that, i feel like everything else can fall into place.

i have less than a week and a half left at my wonderful job at music together-- after which i will be unemployed, but who knows, anything could happen. and then in the fall i'll be TEACHING music together classes in manhattan, which i'm looking forward to a LOT. i'm apprenticing in classes for the summer semester (only 6 weeks) and had my first two classes this past wednesday-- lots of fun, and i'm really looking forward to getting better as a teacher. i've been thinking that working with children is really one of the best things a performer can do -- working with completely uninhibited human beings who just want to have a good time... sounds good to me. i'll also be getting my groove on with all this dancing and jumping around... which is good not only as a skill set but as exercise as well. so it's all a win-win-win sutuation.

growing up is a neat thing. over the past year or so i've started paying attention to growing up... noticing things that i'm learning along the way about everything. maybe i'm doing this late in life- who knows? but i have become much more conscious of the way i treat people, the way i communicate, and the consequences my actions have on my world and other people's worlds. i'm not saying that i've lived BETTER this year or made BETTER decisions, but i have been living more consciously and understanding things a little better. i'm starting to look at life in a different way, and i think that's really cool. it wasn't a conscious effort, but i'm noticing it now as i look back on the past year or so.

i'm really enjoying getting to know me.

okay... how emo was that?!

change of topic- i have myself on google alert (of course -- i'm in the public eye!). so over the past couple of months i've gotten alerts that people have written about me in their blogs! pretty cool, and so far all positive, for which i'm very grateful. here are my three favorite quotes from three of said blogs:

"I wanna to be like Stearns!!!"

-and-

"Stearns Matthews is ... awesome. He just graduated from a Choir Conservatory and has his own cabaret show.

It was almost like watching porn."

-and-

"Mr. Matthews is an intelligent performer who ... has a very natural and unaffected presence that lends itself to material that's comedic or dramatic, classic or contemporary."

people can be so kind.

and so i start my journey into the world with these lovely, lovely comments in mind. i think things are gonna be okay. better than okay. good.

i'm a star!

i. am. job.

i'm sad to be leaving my job at music together. what if i were SO SAD to be leaving it that i pulled a mrs. doubtfire and dressed up as an old lady and they hired me? what kind of hijinks and hilarity would THAT be? i just think it would be rather wonderful.

that's all.

sorryboutit

hi, blog. i just wanted to let you know i haven't forgotten about you. i really have a terribly busy life and i just haven't had time for you in the past couple of days. but i started you and i will finish you (that's what she said).

michael and i went to a wedding last night, and it was really a lovely evening. but the girls who sat behind us were so inappropriately dressed that i didn't know what to do with myself. this is what it looked like- it looked like one of them had won a radio contest and the prize was that she invite five of her besties to ride in a limo with her (provided by the radio station of course) to whatever trashy trenton club and they'd go there and dance trashily and get tanked all night. you know those contests? they were all wearing those silly dresses that go to mid-thigh and every single one was either bright red or some other attention-stealing color... i thought i was going to go blind looking at them. i was appalled.

chick #1- "look around. we're like, the hookers of the whole party."

this was at the ceremony.

chick #2- "yeah, i know. i'm wearing like, red, and nobody's even wearing colors."

after the ceremony:

chick #3- "i'm jewish, and there was WAY too much jesus for ME in that wedding."

the wedding was in a presbyterian church.

so they were very silly. but the wedding was lovely overall, and we saw some old friends that we hadn't seen in a while. so that was really nice. and the food was wonderful. we didn't even have to stop at mcdonald's on the way home (ha).

in other news- i'll be teaching eight music together classes a week in the fall. look out manhattan, here comes stearns.

all right blog, it's time for me to take a nap. who's excited for the tonys this year?

first big thing.

i was just invited to sing in a benefit for kids with HIV/AIDS. lovely. the theme of the evening is that it's all men singing in it, singing their favorite diva songs from the musical theatre.

how. perfect. is. that.

before the parade passes by? very possible.

i shall call you... blog.

well, hello world. i have decided to start a blog. one reason is because several people i like are doing it and i have repressed fear of not fitting in (thank you, middle school). i'm kidding (mostly). the real reason is because i used to write in a real live JOURNAL- like anne frank style (too soon?), but the trouble with that is that it just becomes all about feelings and not about memories. you know? i look back at journals and even blog-type things from long ago in my life (and by long ago i mean... 2 years) and i don't even know what was going on in my life because i was too busy writing about the FEELINGS of it all. like- instead of writing, "dear journal, i'm hopeful about a budding relationship," i might instead write out the lyrics to "maybe this time", and the page would be stained with tears and chocolate. well, you can't stain a blog, and the goal of this is to chronicle actual momentous things in my life. chronicle being the key word. in other words... this is not a meisner journal. i have several of those and they can stay right where they belong- in the closet, with scads of other things that should never re-enter my life, like murses, manpris, and of course, my turtle shell glasses. seriously.

so... now that we have formalities out of the way... what do i write about? any requests? my very busy and interesting life as a famous singer? :-) if you read this, write a comment so i know who you are. or you could just troll (who knew that was a verb?!).