Beginnings

OK, I wasn't sure I was going to do the blog thing, but once I got a subtitle for the thing, it pushed me over the edge of indecision. The subtitle is thanks to Barron Reinach, with whom I have been playing squash once almost every week for the better part of a couple of years. One of the nicest, crankiest New Yorkers I have ever known. (I can say this because I consider myself in the club most days. And I hope Barron's reading this.) We have more than squash in common, a couple of people that we share in our lives in different circles. Anyway, thank you Barron. So our adventure. Steve and I are embarking on not one, not two, not even three, but at least four major changes in our lives in the next year. We figured we should just pile them all on and get them over with. First off, we're moving out of New York, place of my birth, where I have really lived since I came here for university in 1982 and where collectively Steve and I have spent about 60 years. My sister has informed me she just can't picture it, she can't imagine me living anywhere but New York. So that's one. Two is not only are we leaving New York, but we're moving to the mid-West, Cincinnati to be precise. Yup, Cincinnati. Home of P & G, Macy's, Graeter's Ice Cream (pretty damn good), the Reds, and most topically, the College Conservatory of Music (known less formally as the Cincinnati Conservatory) where I have accepted the position of the Weinberger Chair of Acting in The Lyric Theatre. This means I'll be teaching acting to the opera and musical theater students in what is one of the finest conservatory programs in the country. That's me, Professor Goldstein. I'll also be directing operas and musical theater pieces with the students. I'll still perform around the country, and hopefully locally in the Nati (Do they even call the city that?), as they want someone who still works in his/her field. But I'll be spending a lot of time in the company of students, hopefully learning from them as much as they learn from me. I applied for the job because my friend Robin Guarino runs the opera fellows department, and basically she wants company out there, so she recruited me. So that's two. Three is not only are we moving to a small mid-Western past-its-prime-but-on-the-verge-of-a-comeback (Didn't anyone see the NY Times a couple of weeks ago? check here and here ) city, but we plan on buying a house for the first time. We've been very close to finding the one, but haven't quite hit the nail on the head. So that's three. Four's the biggie. On Monday next, Steve and I leave for India to begin the surrogacy process at Rotunda Center for Human Reproduction in Mumbai. We will be leaving a little genetic material there, to complete a cycle of IVF and hopefully have a baby (Or maybe two. Help.) by the end of June or so, 2010. Though we're going next week to Mumbai, we're holding off the IVF and embryo transfer to the surrogate until the end of October/beginning of November to try to stack the deck in our favor, so that we'll be parents at the end of June. Therefore, school will be out, we'll have the summer to get into some sort of groove, and then school will begin again in September. I know, 'mann tracht un Got lacht' (Man plans and God laughs.), but we'll at least try to do this on a schedule which would be helpful. Some people are saying we should wait, do it in a couple of years, get settled in Cincinnati first, but I feel we just aren't getting any younger, we'll feel all out of sorts in Cincinnati anyway, we might as well have something to distract us. So that's the beginning.