Oh by golly; or, BS does Christmas

Christmas Eve! The holidays snuck up on me this year, probably due to the fact that I was working up until two days ago, so everything seems to be happening very suddenly. For example, wrapping presents! Well. Wrapping one, and writing IOUs for the two I haven't yet finished, because nothing says Christmas like an IOU in a box. 

What else says Christmas? My mother watching 2012 political ads promoting the Republican Presidential candidates, all of whom seem to be increasingly crazyface. Ron Paul has apparently ripped off a Ford Truck commercial. This is the latest news from the S house this afternoon. This holiday season, I am most thankful for politically progressive parents, especially my blog-reading mother. I wish as many people paid this much attention to political goings-on, as opposed to repeating the hated words: "I just really don't like politics." Well, yes, most people don't like politics, but as the goings-on of the government affect us on a daily basis, we should be involved, or at least aware of what is going on.

But I digress. It is Christmastime, and I am a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant looking to celebrate. I should point out right now that it has been a long time since Christmas represented anything terribly religious (the birth of Jesus not being anywhere near the most important event in Christianity--that distinction belongs to either the death or resurrection, in my opinion--and said birth not having even occurred on December 25, in any case), but rather a time of year to gather with friends and family and do nice things for each other. Colored lights, hot spiced wine, and animated holiday specials are also involved. To that end, I would like to share with you, dear reader(s), a list of my five favorite movies to watch at Christmas time. Aaaaand awayyyy we go:

1. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

A friend of mine once told me that, as a child, he had never seen the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas. "We had a VHS tape of all of these Christmas specials--Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman--and Charlie Brown was the last one, but the tape ran out five minutes from the end of the special, which made it really depressing: 'You suck, Charlie Brown. Go die. Aaaaaand, scene.'" I always thought the last five minutes felt a little tacked on, myself, but I do appreciate the character of Charlie Brown and his disillusionment with the modern commercialization and commodification of Christmas, and Schroeder's squabbling with Lucy Van Pelt over "Jingle Bells" makes me giggle every time I watch it. Charlie Brown, congratulations: you have made the list.

2. The Snowman (1982)

The Snowman, based on the children's book by Raymond Briggs, is the first video I remember watching as a child every winter. It is not, strictly speaking, Christmas-specific, but where stories about children befriending magically animated snowmen are concerned, I prefer this to the old Frosty the Snowman cartoons. As a child, I watched this 20-minute-long animated short on a beat-up VHS tape my parents had owned since, I assumed, the invention of the VCR. As an adult, I sought it out on DVD and now make friends and family watch it every year at wintertime. The plot, which follows a young boy and the snowman he has built as they sneak out of the house without waking the boy's parents, fly through the air to a snowman dance, and meet Father Christmas, is told entirely without dialogue, but through music. "Walking in the Air," the song which accompanies their flight to the North Pole, is still one of the most gorgeous pieces of music I have ever heard.

3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)

Firstly, I am absolutely not talking about the 2000 live-action film of the same name, starring Jim Carrey in the title role. That movie was awful, and does not even deserve to be considered in the same league as the 1966 TV special. So, to the explanation: I will confess to occasionally exhibiting Grinchlike tendencies during the holidays--a bit more subtle than Ebenezer Scrooge, I am less apt to "Bah Humbug!"than to wince at the noise from screaming children opening their toys, saying, "Oh my God, will you please shut up?!" This year, however, I am living with a roommate who is brilliant at living with a Grinch and insisted that we put up Christmas decorations, including multicolored lights with candy canes hanging from them, two days after Halloween, thereby effectively forcing me into the Christmas spirit. Also, we bake a lot, and baking makes me think of winter holidays. Since then, my heart has apparently grown three sizes from its previous two-sizes-too-small, because I cry at just about everything remotely sentimental. So, there. This is probably my favorite of all the Christmas TV specials, and not just because I find the stop-motion claymation specials from the 1960s and 70s incredibly creepy.

4. Peter and the Wolf (2006)

I am aware that Peter and the Wolf is not, strictly speaking, a Christmas film, but for some reason I always find myself watching it during the winter holidays, possibly because it is set during the Russian winter and features several characters who are animals and believe they are people? I guess? Either way, as the daughter of two musicians, I have always been aware of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, been able to sing all of the themes and identify their corresponding instruments, and have watched/listened to about a thousand different versions. Suzie Templeton's 2006 stop-motion animation is my favorite of all those I have seen. Maybe this preference is due to the fact that this version removes the traditional narrative voice-over, thus de-cluttering the story and allowing the music to move the plot along. I do know that I like the ending, which is unlike any Peter and the Wolf I have ever seen, and which tends more towards gritty realism than tacked-on happy endings. Either way, this animated short is stark and funny and sad and beautiful, and I look forward to forcing my friends and family to watch it with me for many years to come.

5. Nativity! (2009)

This one is a bit of a late edition, as I just recently had occasion to watch it when it was made available for Instant Streaming on Netflix. And oh. my. God. Martin Freeman, whom I have long considered to be The Perfect Human Being, stars as Paul Maddens, a failed actor-turned-primary-school-teacher, who has developed an antagonist relationship toward Christmas after being chucked my his girlfriend on Christmas Day but is nonetheless selected to direct a group of misfit students in the school's Nativity play, assisted by a character best described by the words "idiot man-child." And then everything goes horribly wrong. I laughed until I cried, and then I cried because it was all so heart-warming (again with the unexpected warming of my cold, black heart), and then I laughed a little more. I have loved Martin Freeman since he was Tim Canterbury on The Office, and I'm so pleased that he's finally getting a bit of international recognition with the success of Sherlock and the upcoming Hobbit films. So, Nativity? Watch it. The DVD isn't available in the United States (I've looked), but it is on Netflix.

And now I must be away, as it is about time to order the Traditional Christmas Burrito from the local biker bar/Mexican restaurant. No, I am not joking, except about the "Traditional" bit. My family, you guys. My family.

Living la vie boheme; or, Life imitates art

At last! After two weeks of sitting shivering in my makeshift home-office in front of the heating vent, fingerless mittens on, a scarf wrapped twice around my neck, and a blanket over my lap, I have located the source of the draft in our apartment. Unfortunately, all this gets me is a sense of accomplishment, since the draft is coming from our laundry room and I can't actually do anything about it. Later this week, I may stop by JoAnn to pick up some fleece to block the space between the door and the floor, because this is going to be ridiculous come Thursday.

A slew of knitting commissions rolled in suddenly a couple of weeks ago, and now I'm rushing to finish them all before Christmas. So far, the benefit of living in a cold climate seems to be an increased appreciation of warm hand-knit goods. In addition, there are two finished pairs of fingerless mittens about to be listed on my Etsy shop, and several purses worth of fabric to cut and construct. The sense of productivity helps my mood during the holiday season which, as usual, has its difficulties.

Here's the thing about the holiday season: every year, it seems as if society is scheming to make us all self-loathing between Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day. It's clearly no accident that the holiday season inevitably marks a sharp uptick in the amount of advertising money handed over to every major television channel by online dating services and weight-loss companies. The strategy is brilliant: as we head into a holiday characterized by gift-giving, we are told, as individuals, that we are somehow less complete because of our lack of material possessions. How do we regain our feeling of self-worth? By seeking out romantic relationships. What do we feel makes us more desirable to others? Weight loss. The  extreme self-denial required by most fad diets advertised on television leads to a feeling of physical emptiness, and to fill that void we purchase more material things, and so forth.

This is, of course, a long-winded explanation of (although certainly not a justification for) the utter Grinchiness I have been dealing with at work in recent days. Listen, I understand that most people don't have home phones any more, that text messaging has made us a more casual society, that fewer people are aware of the basic rules of etiquette, blah blah blah kids these days and their haircuts and their rock music, but there are a few important things to remember when working in an administrative setting and dealing with telephones. The doctor is in:

• When answering a telephone at your place of employment, please state its name, as well as your own name. This eliminates the need for the inevitable awkward "Have I reached the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? May I please speak with Albus Dumbledore?" exchange, in which the caller has not reached Hogwarts, but instead the Royal Philharmonic of Durmstrang.
• If you have questions, please ask them one at a time and allow a reasonable amount of time for a response between them.
• Never start a sentence with "I'm sure you're a lovely person, but . . . " because the second half of that sentence is rarely anything short of a thinly-veiled insult.
• It is rude to hang up on someone. It is rude to hang up on someone. Even if you said goodbye, if you cut the other person mid-sentence and did not hear them say "Goodbye" as well, you have still just hung up on someone. And you may just be a terrible person.

Do you know who I love so far, though? Every single person with whom I have spoken in Scandinavia, and most in Switzerland and Belgium. Attention, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, and Belgium: the next time I have a party, you are all invited. Germany, you can swing by, too, but try not to start any fights--I've got my eye on you.

This new life as an Employed Person/Actual Productive Member of Society (as opposed to my previous state of Embarrassing Drain on Society) is nice, though. I'm tired almost all the time, but I'm insanely productive most of the time while still managing to cut down majorly on my coffee intake and sleeping the recommended number of hours per night. As a pleasant side-effect to getting enough sleep, the desire to punch someone in the face occurs far less frequently, which is important for reasons of I Don't Need An Assault Charge On My Record Right Now. At the moment, life feels a little bit like an indie comedy film, something between Garden State and Harold and Maude. And maybe a little bit like La Boheme, since I can't really afford to turn up the heating much above 65 degrees and, sometimes in my knitting, I make flowers that "ahimè, non hanno odore." My voice teacher said in my last lesson, "My God, so you're actually Mimi, huh?" Yes. Pretty much.

A sense of accomplishment; or, BS attempts productivity

I baked tonight, as anyone who has interacted with me at all via social media can tell you. And the thing about me is, when I decide to do something, it's rarely half-assed. In this case, a decision to bake in celebration of the completion of Boheme's iTunes recording and imminent opening (Saturday night! Saint John Cantius! Get yer tickets!) turned into nearly four dozen cookies and fifteen blueberry muffins. Another (little-known?) BS fact: I don't often eat much of my own baking. With the exception of loaves of bread, I generally make things for the sense of accomplishment it gives me, have two or three, and give the rest away. This was especially true during the rehearsal period of Hansel and Gretel last fall, when I lived alone and suffered from a significant amount of character bleed that led to much baking experimentation.

It's been a long time since I've shown my face here. Depression (in retrospect, probably circumstantial and due in large part to my state of unemployment) is to blame, of course, but I'm not going to go into that in any depth, as the brilliant Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half recently dealt with the same thing and addressed it more brilliantly than I could ever hope to.

Very suddenly, though, I'm feeling all right. Last week I visited my parents--which is, let's face it, an excuse to see my grouchy sixteen-year-old cat rather than an expression of my desire to return to the small town where I attended high school--and it was nice to get out of the apartment for a while, however nice said apartment is (and it is--Stephanie just decorated for Christmas, so it's all very homey). I drank coffee and read a book and considered going to see a high school production of Phantom of the Opera before experiencing a return to sanity and subsequent decision to not see Phantom after all.

Oh, Phantom of the Opera. My relationship with that musical is fairly complex. Here's the thing--despite the fact that it is the bane of every single opera singer's existence ("What do you do?" "I sing opera." "Oh, like Phantom of the Opera?" "No. Not even."), I actually sort of enjoy it. The music is pretty and easy to listen to in the first half and, given half the chance, I would play Carlotta in a second because she's hilarious. The whole thing is written to be a complete spectacle, which is why I would have loved to see it in Las Vegas last spring had I not gotten so sick during my time there. But the writing is just cruel, especially to the Phantom and Christine--the approach to the Eb in the title song is about as difficult to sing as anything. Never mind the fact that I worry about a seventeen-year-old soprano singing a high E in the first place, even if it is within the reaches of her range. So I thought better of it. Also, my mom didn't feel like going, so we went to dinner instead.

To get to my hometown and back, I took Amtrak, and had the wildest of all possible times on both trips--at least as far as train travel is concerned. On the way there, I sat a few seats away from a toothless and possibly drunk man who had apparently fainted in Union Station while waiting to board the train, and who spent a good deal of the hours-long trip attempting to engage those of us around him in awkward conversation and having a very loud and vulgar conversation with someone who I believe to be his . . . girlfriend? wife? I know it isn't polite to eavesdrop, but, honestly, even with my iPod in I couldn't help but overhear him as he shouted down the phone about how, yes, he loved her more than his previous what-have-you, and that's why he was going to get a tattoo with her name, and he was going to get the tattoo of his ex-wife's name removed as soon as he had the money.

And then on the train ride back, I contracted what might have been food-poisoning and vomited in the train car's restroom. There are some places where no one wants to worship at the porcelain altar, and the Amtrak train's restroom definitely makes the top three. The girl sitting next to me on the train was extremely nice about the fact that I repeatedly had to get up and go to the restroom, and after we finally arrived in Chicago, a very nice man saw that I was exhausted to the point that I was completely unable to lift my suitcase and did it for me, asking me if I was feeling all right, but none of this makes up for the fact that a pair of nice-looking Amish (or possibly Mennonite, given where I was coming from) gentlemen undoubtably heard me performing reverse peristalsis and probably assumed I was some drunken young English suffering the earthly consequences of the previous evening's sinful behaviors.

And I would most definitely be asleep by now, but while baking I forgot that I was also doing laundry, so the dry cycle began much, much later than I had intended and now I'm waiting until I hear it finish so the sneaky Polish dental students upstairs don't steal my socks or, whatever, I know they actually would never do that, but I like to know where my panties are. There's so much more to tell, such as why I am actually paying attention to when I go to bed--which is that I am employed and it's a Guy Fawkes Day miracle. I won't say just now what it is I'm doing, but needless to say, it involves phoning both Russia and Italy on a semi-regular basis and, no, I'm not in the Mob.

I think I'll just let (those of) you (who don't know me in Real Life) wonder about that for now.

Tick-tock goes the clock; or, BS gives an update on the state of BS

I just took two Chlorpheniramine Maleate pills and a Tylenol PM, so this post is a bit of a race against the clock--how many words can BS manage before she loses consciousness? Coherent thinking is already a bit of a challenge (but isn't it always, really?), but if nothing else, there's a possibility I'll get a laugh out of this in the morning.

(That makes one of us.)

The last time I sat down and wrote an entry here, I was finishing up my first temp position. Tomorrow, as a matter of fact, I am headed off to start a second position--underemployment is a sad, sad, way to live when you're in your twenties--and this time I will be taking inventory of public parking spaces for the company that manages the city's parking meters. What this means, as I have been led to understand it, is that I'm basically being paid to take a long walk on my own while occasionally writing things down, and, what's more, during my favorite season. The ungodliness of the hour aside (because, really, 7am is cruel), I'm actually pretty excited about this assignment, given that the four days I work are nonconsecutive. As long as no one mistakes me for someone who writes parking tickets, this should be just fine.

What else, what else? I learned that my upstairs neighbors are Polish dental students at the nearby university, and that they occasionally have get-togethers in our house's back yard with their Polish dental student friends, where they sit around speaking Polish and doing Polish things, like cooking sausages and drinking vodka. I had made a batch of cookies on Friday evening, which I brought out to share with them since it's good to get to know one's neighbors, in my opinion, and to reassure them that you are not some weird recluse who sings opera at inappropriate hours of the night and barely leaves the house except to buy coffee to enjoy while reading biographies about manic-depressive Dutch painters, of course you are not. In fact, I had meant to bring some of those cookies to a friend's house the next day, since she was doing a Mary Kay product demonstration, but the baked goods were, it must be said, annexed by Poland. On the whole, though, I must say, well done, Polish-speaking, vodka-drinking, potluck-having housemates, you kids definitely know how to throw a party, and the back yard wasn't even too disastrous-looking the next day. Although--it must be said--there has been a charred hamburger sitting on one of the multiple outdoor grills back there for probably three weeks, and I have no idea where the cover that goes to that grill has got to, and frankly, I'm a little afraid to ask.

It's autumn, so of course I'm baking again. Some day I will branch out from chocolate-and-butterscotch-chip cookies, but for now they're pretty delicious. I have some ideas about cinnamon-raisin bread, and there's got to be a recipe in one of the four zillion cookbooks we have sitting around the apartment. The Roommate and I obviously can't manage to eat six dozen cookies on our own--or, I guess, we could, but it wouldn't be very good for us--so I have been bagging them up and bringing them to the baristas at the Starbucks near my apartment. As it turns out, giving people baked goods is generally a good way to make them like you--at least temporarily, and only as long as you're actually okay at baking.

Aaaaaand I've started to go a little cross-eyed, so that plus the knowledge that my alarm is set for six means that I should probably climb up into my bed and wait for sleep. It figures, I guess, that the one night I actually have things to talk about--the show I'm in, the production of Lucia di Lammermoor I saw last night, how much it warms my cold black heart to see protestors carrying their homemade signs to Occupy Chicago on the Blue Line train--also happens to be the night I'm teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. Well done, universe. I salute you.

- - -

E.T.A., four minutes later
Tagging these things is always such an adventure. I briefly considered adding a tag called productive member of society, but after about forty-five seconds of deep thought, I decided that anything I could discuss there could also probably be filed under the heading of grown-upitude. So there you go. I have also added a tag called almost unconscious, which I suspect will see a lot of action in the coming weeks/months/LIFETIME.

I'll get you a copy of that memo; or, BS's long-standing affair with office supplies

It's nice to know that, if this music thing doesn't work out, or if it at some point becomes something which no longer makes me happy, I have a promising and enjoyable career option in office work. Because I've been temping for a nonprofit this week, and, you guys, the love for alphabetizing which emerged when, as an eight-year-old, I categorized and alphabetized my parents' VHS collection (and then alphabetized the categories), has not diminished with age. As a temp, I have basically been given free run of the office supplies, so since Monday I have been merrily filing invoices and collating documents and making piles and putting sticky notes on things.

The four or so of you reading this, I'm sure, are probably thinking, "God, what an unrepentant dweeb this BS character is. Who actually looks forward to arranging things in alphabetical order?" Answer: I do. Also, sticky notes are the best.

In all seriousness, though, the best part of finally being assigned to a temp position is that I feel less like a useless drain on society and more like a Competent Grown-Up Human Being who pays bills! and wears trousers! and goes on coffee runs while her superiors are in meetings! One day I did wear a skirt to work, but after a particularly harrowing lunchtime venture to the staffing agency to drop off my tax documents in which the wind repeatedly blew my skirt up above my knees and I traversed the sidewalks of the Chicago Loop clutching at its hem like Paranoid Marilyn Monroe, I thought better of that decision and went back to slacks the next day.

It has been nice this week having some occupation to take my mind off things going on in the rest of the country, which, frankly, terrify and confuse me. On Wednesday night I sat wrapped in a blanket watching the DemocracyNow live broadcast of the nonviolent demonstration against the execution of Troy Davis (the link, as if any of you were unaware of the case after its coverage this week), wondering exactly when we as a country began executing prisoners whose guilt could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt--and before the question is asked, yes, I am aware that a second man was executed that same night in Texas, but although I believe that the death penalty is heinous and immoral no matter what crime it punishes, I cannot find myself feeling upset over the death of a man who confessed to a hate crime and, just prior to his death, admitted that he would do it all again if given the chance. I have also been, in my spare moments, following the protest on Wall Street, of which I have seen almost no media coverage, which surprises me, given the extreme importance of its message: that it is wrong for the government to grant tax breaks to the richest 1% of Americans while offering no such amnesty to those living at or below the poverty line. Sometimes I check the status of bills which would affect educators in my home state (including my parents and sister) on the Michigan Educator's Association website, but mostly that breaks my heart. I am ignoring the Republican Presidential Debates as much as is possible in a 24-hour-TV-news culture, and not just because I burst into hysterical giggles whenever anyone says "Santorum" (if you don't understand why that name brings out my inner thirteen-year-old boy, and if you have a strong stomach, Google it).

The world is disappointing, I'm realizing a little bit more every day. Is this what growing up means? As we get older, do we just gradually accept that the world isn't as shiny or logical as we thought it was? And my response to this overwhelming sense of disappointment is, I'm finding, to find joy in small things: sticky notes, opinionated kittens, pretending to be a secret agent, pluots, fingerless mittens.

Promise I'm not dead; or, This is mostly a list

I rode the Red Line back north from rehearsal tonight before taking a cab the rest of the way home and had a nice chat with one of the Boheme chorus baritones--I was telling him about how I spend so much time alone, and how for a couple of weeks I was insanely productive, baking bread and cleaning all the things and basically being very housewifely for someone who is neither married nor planning to be, but at some point I was just bored with no one to share ideas with.

Anyway, here are a few unremarkable things that have happened to me since I last wrote anything here:

1. I have knitted two pairs of fingerless mittens and started on a third, which are pink. Pink.
2. As an experiment, I tried Greek yogurt with honey, because I wanted to know what all the fuss is about. And the verdict is: acceptable. It certainly breaks up the monotony of a diet composed primarily of granola and prunes. I am an old woman at 25.
3. I have gotten my roommate addicted to Doctor Who. I started her on the first episode of the fifth series, and she likes Matt Smith. The Weeping Angels episodes gave her a nightmare, which means she is human. In related news, I have cried watching the two most recent episodes of Doctor Who.
4. The Tigers clinched the AL Central Division. I bought two bottles of wine, because it is going to be a long postseason.
5. My mother visited me today--yesterday? Saturday--and took me grocery shopping, because I am, if not destitute, then at least underemployed. At the deli counter, I asked for provolone and the man working there asked me how I wanted it sliced. I was very confused. Um, with something sharp? Into slices? Then he clarified that he was referring to the thickness of the slices. I have never been asked that question at a deli before. It made my whole day feel surreal.
6. While my mother was here, we ate lunch at a diner in Boystown, where we were served by a very friendly waiter who showed me his tattoos (I was impressed) and gave me Halloween costume advice (I was grateful).
7. I spend a lot of time reading in the Starbucks near my apartment because it is one alternative to sitting in my apartment all day watching trashy reality TV. Recently, a barista's name and phone number were written on the side of my cup--I don't even know, I'm pretty sure it was a prank played on the owner of said cell phone. I sent a text to the number pretending to be an undercover CIA agent, because I am a Grown Up and that is what I do when I receive an unsolicited phone number. If anybody knows what "The mongoose has left the henhouse" means, there is probably something very wrong with you, because I made it up.
8. I have never seen a mongoose, or even a picture of one. I only know they exist because of a 1980s cartoon adaptation of Rikki-Tikki Tavi my family had on VHS when I was a kid.

That's all for now, I think. It's almost 4:30 a.m. now, so clearly I can't be bothered with being witty. I just wanted to put it out there: "I am alive! I am not dead! I hope life gets easier soon!"

More of the same; or, Yeah, whatever, I guess

My recent neglect of this blog has been pretty shameful, I'll admit.

But, in all honesty, nothing much has been going on here, so there wasn't a whole lot to report, apart from my newly rediscovered love of formulaic dance films (Step Up 3, you gorgeous thing, I am looking at you) and my continued unemployment, so there you have it.

I've sent out resumé after resumé after resumé over the past few weeks with very little response, although I do have one "recruitment seminar" on the retail end of an incredibly successful company tomorrow afternoon, so fingers crossed that I don't get lost in the shuffle of potential employees. I'm sending out about seven more resumés and cover letters tonight for administrative positions, and hoping that this dry spell of mine (in many aspects of my life, not just professionally) is winding down, because--here's an unsurprising revelation--housewifery is not really my bag. That's why I was never really showed much interest in the "wife" part of it. But lately my life has involved emptying the dishwasher, doing laundry, baking bread (which, actually, I haven't done in a week or so, so I'll make that a weekend project), and watching a lot of trashy reality television--and to that end, why has no one told me about Dance Moms before now? It's like Toddlers and Tiaras except infinitely more horrifying, and it absolutely exemplifies everything I hate about whitewashed upper-middle-class suburbia--so obviously I can't stop watching.

A recent upper respiratory virus managed to coincide with a bout of fairly severe depression, which, if I'm being fair, is probably caused at least in part by this feeling of not having anything to do during the day, so at least depression hasn't hampered my fast and furious distribution of resumés. If anything, it has caused me to send out more applications, since the resulting insomnia gives me more time to do so. Insomnia, by the way? Also not my bag. So I've got my fingers crossed that something will turn up, even if it's part-time and for minimum wage, because I'm pretty much over this constant feeling of ennui.

It occurs to me now that if I had both a) more money, and b) more patience, I could take up playing video games. The patience part has historically been my problem, though, especially when there are zombies, constrictive time limits, or jumping puzzles involved.

(The Oxford commas just keep on coming)

I'm going to be honest, I really just want to add to my "dreams" tag, so I'll mention that the other night I made the mistake of drinking alcohol and then taking cold medicine, which resulted in a pretty spectacular and unsettling drug-dream in which Draco Malfoy and I were told we were staying in a nice hotel somewhere in the continental United States with a bunch of other students (in this dream I was still a student, but I'm not sure of what, or from where), but soon realized that we had instead been tricked into participating in some sort of experiment where we were kept in a full-scale replica of Rome's Ancient City, given cannons and gunpowder, and watched to see how quickly the group could create its own society from nothing and then how quickly that society would unmake itself. So, yeah. That happened.

But returning to the subject of things that are Actually Happening in my Real Life, and on a more positive note, the newest man in my life is a potted rhododendron named Irving, who, despite my complete lack of a nurturing instinct, seems to be thriving in his little spot on my bedroom windowsill, right beside the Waldorf and Statler beanies I bought at Disney World forever ago. I don't know how he does it, but he seems to have figured out a way to not only reach toward the sunlight, but even grow, even though I continually forget to water him. So there's one thing I'm doing well right now--Irving. Irving is all right.

Things to never say to a musician; or, BS has had enough

After another weekend at home (prescriptions to refill, cats' medical appointments to attend, &c., &c.), and another round of, "You are 25 and still don't have a real job, what are you doing with your wasted life?", I think it's about time for a nice little fireside chat.

I'm sure, of course, that the few people reading this who know me in Real Life (I am thinking first and foremost of my parents, who are unwavering in their support, for which I am intensely grateful) are, for the most part, those who are, if not flag-waving fans of my decision to pursue an unconventional career path--that is, music, the performance of--at least tolerant and supportive of said choice. The thing is, it is a choice. It is, in fact, my choice, and as a card-carrying, 100% certified rational adult capable of weighing the multiple possible outcomes of a given situation and making a decision based on the various pros and cons of each possibility. Keeping that in mind, I would like to remind those of you who have a professional musician/artist/writer/haver-of-creative-thoughts-and-not-necessarily-steady-income in your life, of a few simple things.

First of all, it is never, under any circumstances, appropriate to make comments to someone who is embarking on a less-than-conventional career path what their "real job" is. It is also not okay to ask someone who has recently received a graduate degree in an artistic field something along the lines of, "If your degree is in art/music/creative writing/whatever, why aren't you looking for a job in art/music/creative writing/whatever instead of temping as a receptionist?" Statements and questions implying that a musician or artist's career is somehow invalid, and that the pursuer of said career is either immature or naive for choosing to perform or create rather than, for example, manufacturing No. 2 pencils or packing shipping crates, is widely regarded to be incredibly rude.

I don't presume to be an expert on other people's lives, either personal or professional, but I am most definitely an authority on the subject of my own, which is why I take offense when, say, a family member laments that I wasted money going to graduate school, and that I don't have a "real education." Because here's the thing--although it is true that my B.A. and M.M. are in music performance, which is not a field of study out of one emerges ready to take a six-figure job, and attain the American Dream of a house, a mortgage, and a white picket fence, I did, during that time, attend classes covering subjects other than music, thus expanding my range of knowledge. Furthermore, while studying I was also working to help pay for my education, and the experience I gained in those positions, particularly in the field of administrative and clerical work, has provided me with a skill-set which will help me pay rent and bills while I pursue my actual goal of making a living doing what I love.

And here's the thing--it's not as if my ambition is to become the next Lady GaGa or whoever, or to make a zillion dollars and retire to my own private island. The fact is that there are plenty of other people out there, although you may not have heard of them, who are supporting themselves through classical music performance. I don't necessarily want to be rich or well-known or glamorous; what I really want is to not spend the rest of my life working fifty to sixty hours a week, fifty weeks a year, at minimum wage, and hating myself because I've chosen financial security over what I truly believe to be my vocation.

And if, in the service of that ambition, I end up needing to pull a few odd jobs to pay the rent, well, I'm not too proud to do that, either. The thing is, although it's not what I see myself doing for the rest of my life, I really do like administrative assisting, I like the smell of office supplies and the feel of paper, and good God, do I like to alphabetize things (everyone has a hobby). I don't mind temping during the week while I'm auditioning on the weekends, and I actually sort of enjoyed waiting tables and working as a barista. Performing may be intellectually and spiritually fulfilling, and without that I would most definitely shrivel and die--but there is something immensely satisfying about spending eight hours at work before leaving smelling of sweat and barbecue sauce or coffee, skin greasy from perspiration but at least knowing that you did something that day.

So, yes, until I either reach the point at which endless auditions begin to pay off with actual jobs on a semi-regular basis, or performing no longer makes me happy, I am going to continue to pursue the things which give meaning to my life, and do whatever I need to in order to make that possible.

Tripping hither, tripping thither; or, BS explores

I stayed up past 1 a.m. last night baking my first-ever loaf of bread. And it was . . . my first loaf of bread.  As can be seen in the photograph above, she is not the prettiest girl at the dance, but, despite being dense and a little crumbly, this loaf tastes pretty good with a little bit of peanut butter spread over the top. I'm going home this weekend to attend a baby shower, and plan on returning with gluten flour (in addition to the second bookshelf I need desperately), which will, I hope, assist in the rising process, as that proved to be my biggest setback as a baker-of-bread. Oh, and maybe the mix needs a little more water, since the dough felt a little dry when I was kneading it.

The Roommate came home early last night, so we actually had a chance to chat as I was working on my bread. It was at this point that I realized that unemployment is turning me into a housewife. as she took off her shoes, I proudly exclaimed, "I did laundry and a load of dishes! And I'm baking!" I then proceeded to knit a baby blanket as I waited for my bread to rise.

In all fairness, my sudden retreat into extreme domesticity probably has something to do with the fact that I haven't made any actual friends (or acquaintances, or people at whom I nod when we pass on the street) in Chicago. Living with The Roommate is ideal--we operate on similar schedules, since she's a chef and I'm an insomniac, but keep opposing shower schedules, so there's never a race to the restroom in the morning. However, this also means that I spend a lot of time by myself--knitting, watching old episodes of Kitchen Nightmares on YouTube, drinking iced chai while I finish the A Song of Ice and Fire series--and I'm beginning to get tired of myself.

The other day, I finally had my "Oh God, oh God, oh God, what have I done?!" moment, and although the same exact thing happened when I first moved to Seattle, I was completely blindsided when it happened in Chicago. Suddenly, I was unable to stop crying, even when I left the apartment to read the letters of Vincent Van Gogh in the nearby Starbucks--in fairness, Van Gogh probably wasn't the best choice when I was already feeling weepy, since I kept reading sentences that sounded as if I could have written them and beginning to choke up again. So, back to alternating between GRRM, Sherlock Holmes, and Jane Austen.

Also: I broke a shoe at IKEA last weekend. Time to look for a new pair of decent dress flats.

It's sort of ridiculous, actually, how I managed to ruin that pair of shoes. I was neither running nor jumping nor lifting anything heavy. Instead, I was eating a spinach-filled crepe at the third-floor cafe before Mom and I headed over to look at textiles when the strap snapped off. I cut the straps off both shoes, hoping to salvage them, but without the Mary-Jane buckles, the shoes were too big and my feet blistered. So I threw them out.

(Millionaire Matchmaker is currently reminding me why I neither want to live in New York City nor date a millionaire. So there you have it. Thanks, trash television! And, God, this show's so sleazy.)

Since my IKEA shoe mishap, I have been traipsing about the city in the running shoes I bought before running a 5K in 2008, and, while normally I would never wear sneakers in public (Italy and high-maintenance singers, what have you done to me?!), I have to admit that it's much more comfortable than teetering down the sidewalk in heels. A few nights ago I walked over to River North, where I ate deep-dish pizza among the families of tourists seeking the "authentic Chicago experience." And yesterday, I made the trek to Wicker Park, whose legions of hipsters made me feel as if I was back in Seattle. I told two separate Red Cross canvassers that I can barely afford rent this month (mostly a lie), and a pair of Greenpeace canvassers that I spoke no English, only Italian. I do love walking--it's probably my favorite solitary activity, especially once the temperature dips below 80 degrees, and in Chicago the neighborhoods are so close that it's easy to walk from one to the next.

So, that's that. Bring it, Chicago. And, if you've got the time, bring me a job, too, please. I'm ready to give you a chance.

I'll show you around; or, BS arrives in a new city

So here's a fun little quirk of psychology: since arriving in Chicago, my sense of the Italian language has returned. Thus far, I am unsure whether this has more to do with the predominantly Italian-American population of my neighborhood, or with the fact that the last time I felt so completely foreign in a city was last summer in Florence.

I have been moved into the new apartment for just over thirty hours, and it's strange how completely different to Seattle Chicago has been so far. My neighborhood is small and relatively quiet, about halfway between where the hipsters used to be and where they are going. Walking down the street I see a lot of families and young couples with dogs. I am, at least, pleased to be far from the high-volume hubris of the city's businessmen--I never could stand to hear businessmen talk about themselves and the money that they make, and, at least so far, I have met people my own age. For the most part, I've kept to myself the past two days, and in this way the reticence of the big city suits me: when I feel like interacting with other people, I go to the local coffee shop for an iced chai (the best I have had--ever) or to the organic greengrocer, but for the most part, I am left in peace to read my book.

I did have an interesting interaction with a cab driver last Thursday, however. For whatever reason, I seem to be the person who gets the pit in the slice of cherry pie, the eggshell in the brownie--and the craziest of cab drivers. In Seattle, for example, I once caught a cab outside of the opera house and, leaning over to the open window, asked the driver, "Are you free?" "Thanks to Mister Lincoln, yes," he replied. Well. Yes, please, let's have a discussion about the history of slavery to go with my overpriced twenty-minute drive back to the north side, please. Other drivers have attempted to engage me in conversation as I sat in the back seat, attempting to impress me with their knowledge of the local music scene once they learned I was a musician by trade, once even during a 4 a.m. ride to the airport. But, oh, this one--she wins the award for Craziest Cabbie, because at the conclusion of this taxi ride, I ended up with a religious tract.

The main point of this story, I will say at the outset, is that I should just learn to shut up, because that is when the crazies descend. I got in the cab. She asked where I wanted to go. I told her. She had no idea where it was, so I, with my limited knowledge of the outer neighborhoods of Chicago, attempted to explain it to her. And then I noticed that she was playing an Evangelical sermon on her radio. Oh. God. Here is where BS becomes an idiot:

BS: Um, who is the speaker?

Driver: Oh, that's Pastor Chris! He's an inspiration.

BS: Oh.

Driver: When he preaches, the dumb speak, the blind see, and the lame walk. [She proceeds to detail the miracles performed by Pastor Chris, and proselytizes to me on the subject of speaking in tongues] Are you a Christian, ma'am?

BS: Um. Yes?

Driver: What church do you attend?

BS: Well. At the moment, none. But I'm a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and attend whenever I can. [this is, true to my name, BS--but there was no way I was admitting to this woman, who was swerving in and out of Chicago traffic, that I don't believe in a Hell]

Driver: Jesus is coming back, you know. Very soon.

BS: Um.

In the end, I was lucky to escape with only the added burden of the thickest religious tract I have ever been given--actually a daily devotional from last year, but, as my driver assured me, "The word of God is eternal." [Disclaimer: I am not actually an immoral, godless heathen, but I also do not appreciate being witnessed to by someone whose job is to convey me from Point A to Point B in the shortest amount of time possible. If that makes me a terrible person, I freely accept that label.]

And, oh, I meant to write a bit about What I Am Reading Right Now. So here's that:

A Feast For Crows! The fact that I am tearing through this book even though I like it so much less than the previous three volumes of the A Song of Ice and Fire series (A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords). This is partially due to the fact that this book and the next volume were originally meant to be released as one, but the plot and characters got away from Martin and he decided to separate them geographically. It's a cool idea, but all of my favorite characters were relegated to the fifth volume. Nevertheless, there's a satisfying amount of crazy included in A Feast for Crows by virtue of Martin's decision to allow a character who is very possibly insane to dominate the narrative. I'm purposefully not giving away any plot points because I don't know anymore what is important to the larger narrative and what isn't--so, dear readers (all, what, four of you?), please read this series. Please. I would love to talk about it with you.

But, God, I feel dull tonight, and my thoughts are scattered. More thoughts on the adjustment period later.

Return of the 36-hour day; or, BS is back in the Midwest

My parents' cat Max makes the most terrifying noises. Some day I must remember to record them for posterity, because those are the strangest sounds I have ever heard coming from a cat.

This means, of course, that I have returned to the Midwest after two years in Seattle, and while I'm desperately missing the friends I made there, it is nice to be back in a geographic location which is, if not ideal, at least familiar. There was a thunderstorm this afternoon, my first in over a year. At first I wasn't sure what was going on, why my cat was suddenly so agitated and clingy, or why it felt like someone was moving furniture above my head. I looked out at the skylight at that point, at the water-blurred glass and dark sky, and it all made sense. The storm moved south, so by the time I drove north into town the worst of it was over--not the most impressive display of nature's pyrotechnics, but it was a nice welcome back to my hometown.

Because I never learn, I pulled another all-nighter on my return trip to Michigan. Mom forced me out of bed at nine on Sunday (dreadful after a weekend of packing and panic attacks and a final performance of Dido) so we could return the rental car, have brunch downtown, and bus back to the apartment. At dinner, I remembered that Thai food is something which never lives up to the expectations I have for it, and the grease from the vegetable fried rice made me queasy. As my final illegal act as a resident of Seattle, I rode to the airport on the floor between the seats of the moving truck, my legs tucked up against my body until we reached the terminal. I checked in three hours before my scheduled departure and, because I am an unrepentant dweeb, I watched YouTube videos on my laptop until boarding was announced.

I knitted a slipcover for my laptop, by the way. It looks like this:

The finishing is pretty rough (I'm lazy and wanted it finished before I returned to Seattle in June), but for a project knitted without a pattern, I'm pleased with the way it turned out. There will undoubtedly be a Laptop Slipcover Part Deux knitted sometime in the near future, after I finish the gorgeous fingerless mittens I've been working on (slowly) for the past couple of weeks. As it turns out, a cross-country move hampers productivity significantly. Regardless, here's a Hipstacam photo of the left hand:

 

Someday I will have free time again (ha! ha!) and start taking custom orders. Until then, I have the right-hand half of the coziest red fingerless mitts and some kind of for-a-baby project to keep me occupied (since I've been invited to a friend's baby shower on the 17th--why must everyone my age begin procreating? I'm not old enough for this, right?).

The past few days I have been sleeping almost constantly, and the cats are more than content to keep me company. I arrived at my parents' house around noon on Monday and almost immediately fell asleep--until 6 p.m. I was up until 7:30, then fell asleep again while watching the Tigers game (it was just as well--they lost). I woke up again at midnight, read most of The Hunger Games, and went to bed around 3 a.m. Yesterday I slept until 2:30 p.m. After the show, the stress resulting from Opa's death, and moving, I suppose my body was starved for rest.

I must be off now, though, to buy some supplies for the Super Mystery Project I'm planning to make for Dana's baby girl. Must get to JoAnn's before closing time. Next time on How Inconvenient!, an update on the (too many) books I'm reading.

Last days; or, BS prepares for another transcontinental move

What is the opposite of an Indian Summer? Is there a word for this phenomenon? Because there is clearly a serious heat wave affecting most of the United States right now, but here in Seattle we are bundled tightly in our sweaters and scarves and hipster-chic fingerless mittens--except I'm not sure if hipsters still wear fingerless mittens. Maybe by now that's passé, although skinny jeans are apparently still not.

I digress.


It is cold as hell in the Puget Sound area, which has apparently not gotten the memo about it being the middle of July. The Seattle PI reports that we have had a total of 78 minutes of summer so far this year,  "summer" here being defined by temperatures exceeding 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Translation: I have five days left to spend in this walk-in refrigerator, and I cannot wait to get back to a part of the country where there are seasons and they make sense. Also, I miss thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are cool.

Tuesday Paula and I conducted our last Seattle shenanigan, since yesterday she flew to New York to surprise her gentleman friend. We picked about a thousand pounds of raspberries outside the house where I was cat-sitting (except it was probably more like two pounds, but we did fill two colanders, which we then emptied into a giant bowl), and then ate most of them while we sat around the kitchen table reading back-issues of Time. We are clearly very exciting people. Paula decided to re-enact a scene from her childhood, and also from the beginning of Amelie, and I immortalized it through the magic of Hipstacam:

And then we saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part deux). You guys. YOU GUYS. There is a movie theater just north of Seattle that is not only 21+, but which has waitstaff who will bring you food and grown-up beverages during the film. We split a pitcher of sangria because we are classy ladies like that, and cried like little girls during the sad bits. I still hate the Epilogue more than anything, but, as it turns out, the narrative functions better as a film than it did as a book, and also Alan Rickman is a genius. On the drive back to the University District, we were nearly run off the road by someone who swerved into our lane at 70 miles per hour without signaling, which, sadly, is the type of driving I have come to expect in Seattle. We didn't die, which is the important part, but I did yell a few rude words.


My apartment, meanwhile, is in a state of chaos at the moment. My parents arrived Wednesday morning to help me pack, but between practicing for the piano proficiency exam (again), work, and Dido, I haven't been able to contribute as much as is necessary. How does one acquire so many things in a two-year period? I packed up two garbage bags full of clothing to donate, as well as a mess of canned food, a box of books I'm never going to read again (sorry, Mary Barton and Shopaholic Takes Manhattan), and nearly all my kitchenware. Yet, still! My apartment is filled to the top with cardboard boxes full of things that need to go either to my parents' house or to the new apartment in Chicago, and the messiness of it all makes me dizzy. I could clearly never do any of this on my own, so thanks be to my parents for being better at moving than I am, and for helping to keep me motivated during this stressful process.


It has occurred to me, meanwhile, that the Oxford comma, which I never used before it was stricken from the Oxford Manual of Style, and now I use it all the time--twice in the last paragraph alone! Curiouser and curiouser.

One small step; or, BS tries to focus on the little things

First things first: I rode the Church Lady's bus again today. Her braking and accelerating technique is incredibly unsubtle and the road along which the route travels is badly in need of repair, but, in my opinion, it's all worth it when your bus driver looks like Dana Carvey in drag.

It has been the longest and most stressful month of my life (I exaggerate, of course, since I have said this about once every quarter since beginning graduate school), but it is finally opening night of Dido and Aeneas, and I couldn't be more pleased that the rehearsal period is over. There is a unique set of challenges associated with performing outdoor opera in a damp, temperate climate--most notably, I have obtained my first Washington mosquito bites during the past week, and I am still working on perfecting the crucial skill of Not Walking Into A Cloud of Gnats While Singing. Our director is no further along in that regard than I am, and on Wednesday night during the dress rehearsal, a gnat flew into his eye and, we can only presume from the amount of swelling that then took place--the poor thing ended up in a makeshift eyepatch, which I suspect he secretly loved despite the irritation, since it made him look slightly more like Wotan. That was the first night it really felt like the opera (or Dido, in any event--we'll see about Savitri) would come off successfully. I suppose the costumes made it feel more "real," rather than just another rehearsal we trudged through--we're dressed in togas (shockingly comfortable), with the chorus in masks that make them look like slightly menacing statues. This is also my first time performing opera without shoes, and there is something entirely unique about singing an aria while running barefoot through the grass. My feet were hopelessly damp by the end of the rehearsal Wednesday, but it was nice to feel the grass squishing between my toes. I believe I mentioned this in my last entry, but anyone in the Seattle area who's interested in attending can find further information here at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra's website, and tickets can be pre-purchased online at Brown Paper Tickets, or at the door (which is not really a door, obviously, because we're outside) prior to the show.

In light of the crushing stress of the past few weeks, life offered me a small consolation this morning: at the Starbucks near my apartment, the baristas accidentally double-marked my cup (once when I ordered, and then again when my drink was rung up), and I wound up with two double-tall caramel macchiatos instead of one. It's a simple mistake on the part of the Starbucks staff, but for all intents and purposes, I am considering it a blessing from the Beverage Gods as a reward for my patience, and for not punching anyone this week.

I didn't go to the midnight showing of Harry Potter last night, mostly because I am a grumpy old lady who needs her rest and, after all, too old to be frolicking with all those young whippersnappers late into the night. I did wear my Slytherin scarf today, though, and Paula is bringing me a Harry Potter cupcake because she went to the midnight showing last night and I am pretend-making her feel guilty about that. Also, hey, free cupcake.

Relatedly, I would really like to buy this, but I really don't have the money right now.

I haven't got much more to say, I'm afraid, so I'm just going to leave a full recording of Savitri here for anyone who would like to listen to it (and, more importantly, for me, to help me forget that a patron in the library honest-to-god, just pronounced "Wagner" incorrectly--ha!)

That's all for now. This interview's over.

Bigger on the inside; or, BS escapes

I've been thinking a lot about escapism lately. This is, I'm sure, at least partially due to the fact that I'm feeling a bit trapped at the moment in one of those in-between places I was talking about a couple of weeks ago. Doubly frustrating is the feeling of being trapped not only situationally (a few obligations to complete before I can move on), but also physically (it being obscenely expensive to get from Seattle to anywhere else, and me being poor). How does one fulfill the need to "escape" without actually being able to escape, particularly when one is so tired of one's surroundings?

Books have always been my way out of "real life," I suppose. My family didn't have any sort of video game console when I was young, even though Nintendo and Sega and Playstation were all released during my early childhood (unless you count Atari, which I don't, really, although my four-year-old self thought Astro Grover was a massively cool game), but we did have a lot of books--most notably the entire collection of Agatha Christie mysteries, for which I was probably too young but which I slogged through anyway because I loved Miss Marple. I was bored a lot in elementary school, and my teachers used to send me on my own to the library when I finished my schoolwork early (which was always) and during that time I read Little Women and all of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books. High school was miserable, and during that time I discovered Vonnegut, Ginsberg, Tolkein, and other authors who wrote about horrible things in beautiful ways.

A lot of people asked me in college when I found time to read "for fun", and my honest answer was always that I made time for it, that I carved it out of the time when I would otherwise eat or sleep, because I needed to force my brain out of the place where it was constantly analyzing all the things it took in. It was in college where I re-learned how to read for fun, and during this time I re-read Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables (and its sequels), The Chronicles of Narnia, and His Dark Materials, among about a thousand other things. In grad school this need for an intellectual escape became so intense that, when under extreme stress, I often found myself in one of the used book stores near campus, looking for anything "classic" I hadn't read yet (I still hate Wuthering Heights, by the way).

Before I realized the time commitment required by the activities I had said yes to this summer (Dido and Aeneas, I'm looking at you), I identified several "projects" to complete over the holiday, which, of course, means I came up with a reading list: George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series--all of it--and all of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries. I'm making a fair amount of progress on the former, although the late addition of John Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy has relegated the Doyle to the status of bedtime reading.

It has occurred to me that my summer reading choices are relatively unromantic, something which was unintentional but which makes sense, given my current frame of mind regarding relationships. This probably has something to do with the imminent release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, pt. 2 and the absurd quantities of Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny showing up on my Tumblr dashboard over the past few weeks. And it is at this point that I have to make a shocking (and probably unpopular) confession:

I didn't really like the seventh Harry Potter book.

I bought it the day it was first released and read the entire thing during my shift (I was, at the time, working slow weekends at a museum), and when I finished the last page, I thought, "Hm." This reaction couldn't just have been due to the fact that I had outgrown the books, as I still, three years later, go back and re-read the first four books in the series when I'm in need of an intellectual cool-down or some easy bedtime reading. In retrospect, I can only conclude that I couldn't ever really lose myself in the story because throughout the book I felt that I was being emotionally manipulated. Each of the characters who died was, in my opinion, killed in order for the plot to have the greatest possible emotional impact on the reader--furthermore, Rowling killed off too many named characters, which began, after a few hundred pages, to desensitize me to the deaths which occurred later in the book. And the romances. Oh, god, the romances. The One Big Happy Weasley Family ending drove me mad, mostly because it happened so abruptly, and for no good reason. The plot would have functioned just as well--or probably better--without the romantic subplots.

(I did go back and read the book later, of course, after reading that affront to the entire history of literature, Twilight. After that, interestingly enough, Deathly Hallows felt like Tolkein or Pullman, so maybe the key to enjoying the later Harry Potter books is contrast.)

My book of the moment, by the way, is George R. R. Martin's A Storm of Swords, the third book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, and I'm enthralled. I bought Game of Thrones just before school ended in June, and am tearing through the series at breakneck speed, at least given my work and rehearsal schedules. There are so many characters to love in this series--Arya! Tyrion! Daenarys! And, recently and unexpectedly, Jaime? I appreciate that, although romantic subplots happen, they are not the main focus of the story, and therefore are rightfully strapped tightly into the backseat. This is something I have always loved about Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, and also something I appreciate in formulaic TV crime shows (Criminal Minds is the best example of not allowing its characters' relationships to overtake the plot).

I'm open to book recommendations, by the way, if anyone has them--it's unlikely I'll get to any new books before the fall, but ideas will certainly be considered and added to The List.

Re-toxing; or, BS is back on the bean

As it turns out, During A Show is the wrong time to quit coffee. Granted, so is Right Before Independence Day, but this is something I really should have figured out the last time I did a caffeine detox, which was also the day we started full choir/orchestra rehearsals for the Grand Rapids Symphony's Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. As you can imagine, that, too, was a disaster. And so, as of Wednesday night, my detox has become what I am referring to as a "re-tox," because a BS without coffee is like a hamster without a wheel. Or something. One can only hope that, as my blood becomes infused with caffeine once more, my ability to form coherent and clever metaphors returns. Until then, we'll all have to mourn the absence of my cutting wit.

We're a week from opening night of Dido and Aeneas, and I'm certain that this is going to be one of those shows that mysteriously comes together at the last second, baffling everyone involved, because right now we're in a bit of a panic. The principal cast has, thank goodness, been the same throughout (apart from one soprano replacing another as the titular character in Holst's Savitri, which happened early enough in the process that it was more or less a non-issue), but we've had a hell of a time holding onto a chorus. The poor director was scrambling at the beginning of last month trying to secure a small group of eight singers--two each of SATB--and thought he'd found most of them, until they began dropping like flies (by "like flies," I mean, of course, "like people who suddenly realize what they've committed to and begin frantically inventing excuses to back out at the last second"). As a result, actual staging rehearsals and act run-throughs have been pushed aside a few times in favor of music rehearsals and chorus-only staging reviews. I'm confident that we'll come through, as those who remain, and the brave souls who joined the cast at the last moment, are talented, hardworking folks, but we've still got some Sturm und Drang (oh, yes I did) ahead of us.

Incidentally, if you're in the Puget Sound area and you'd like to come see us perform--and the music is absolutely gorgeous in addition to being beautifully sung--we will be giving three performances on July 15, 20, and 23, all at 8 p.m. Further details are here at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra's official website.

No bus adventures during the commute today, unless you count the fact that my bus driver this morning bore an uncanny resemblance to the Church Lady.

Summer laziness has begun to set in, partially due to the fact that it was, for some time, oppressively hot (by Seattle standards, which is sweater-weather by, say, Houston standards). I've fallen shamefully behind on my knitting, due partially to exhaustion--most days, upon arriving home, I collapse on the futon, where I may or may not sleep for the remainder of the evening--and partially to this niggling desire I have to frog the entire progress of my current project and start again so it will be "perfect." However, I've got to finish this project so the needles will be free for the Super Mystery Project I'm knitting for a friend's baby shower next month. Motivation! I have been waiting for it. This weekend will probably involve a fair amount of Sherlock Holmes (the old-school Jeremy Brett stuff, which has been kindly lent to me by the Dido/Savitri director), herbal tea, and quick knitting. It's rained this week, so temperatures have returned to Seattle-normal and my apartment is no longer an oven.

Must begin making real progress on packing, as well, since my return to the Midwest is imminent. I've never had much use for transitional periods--I much prefer going straight from one thing to the next with as little shilly-shallying in between as possible, so this business of having to wait ages between finding an apartment and moving into it has been agonizing. This is due in part to my abhorrence of clutter, and the fact that packing makes such a disorganized mess of everything. As a result, I often put it off until the last second, which I'm sure will not please my parents when they arrive in Seattle to help me move.

But, oh, this move will be worth it. I am so, so impatient to move on with my life, and since I don't plan on settling here, I don't see why I should have to spend any more time here than it takes to complete my studies. I prefer to be in constant motion, and paying two months extra rent to work part-time for minimum wage (no matter how much I like my job) and perform an opera role for the sole benefit of being able to add it to my resume is, at times frustrating. In addition, this two months in Seattle has made one or a few of my  friends/acquaintances here feel as if it is their place to criticize me for my decision to move.

Whoa.

Let's take a moment to delve into the implications of that for a moment, shall we?

By second-guessing my decision to leave the West Coast (best-case scenario), or by trying to make me feel guilty about "leaving them behind" (worst-case scenario), these friends/acquaintances are simultaneously embodying the passive-aggressive behavior that has frustrated me so much since  moved to Seattle, and suggesting that

1. Despite the fact that I am 25 years old and therefore an adult, I am incapable of making decisions based on experience, intuition, and my own needs.
2. Rather than taking the steps necessary to pursue my chosen career path, I should instead stay behind because, in leaving, I might hurt someone's feelings.
3. Their thoughts, ideas, and needs are more important than my own.

Except, yeah. The hell with that. I am in my mid-twenties, strong-minded, and unattached. I am neither leaving a particularly lucrative job nor having to compromise my needs with those of a significant other. I have considered my options, written about a four thousand pro-and-con lists on the subject of conducting another cross-country move, and, as all of them came through as overwhelmingly pro, I feel justified in having made this decision. What frustrates me is when people who have checked off the ticky-boxes alongside the list of goals such as "'real' job" and "discretionary income" and "house" and "children" assume that these acquisitions mean they are better-qualified than I am to make decisions about things which influence my life, as if the fact that I am not willing to settle for the sequence of events society dictates makes me somehow less of an adult. I feel like a teenager again, shouting, "Oh my god, Mom, I know what I'm doing!" I hated it the first time around, even though, in that case, my parents were probably justified. But now I am a grown-up. I buy groceries and pay bills and know how to operate a crock-pot. I don't appreciate being talked down to, especially by peers. In conclusion: if you feel that the past few paragraphs have in any way described you or something you have done, kindly back the hell off.

The sun is shining now, sort of, so I'm off to lunch and back to my book.

03:45, No Sleep; or, BS Tries to Kick the Bean

An update regarding the thrilling adventure of my addiction to caffeine: today is my fourth day with no coffee, and I'm not dead. I decided last week that the extended holiday weekend, free of rehearsals and morning shifts at the library, would be the ideal time to cut out coffee entirely, limiting my caffeine intake to tea, and even drinking that no more than twice daily.

It went pretty much as expected.

I functioned more or less normally on Saturday--got up before noon to see Super 8 with a friend, walked the entire 2.5 miles home, then took a nap, did laundry, and had Paula over for movie-watching-and-YouTubing times. Sunday I slept in, went to a friend's place, and then--

How? How is it even possible that, just as I am giving up caffeine, I should be hit with a severe bout of anxiety-driven insomnia? No lie, I went to bed Sunday night (Monday morning) after the sun had risen, and then again last night, when I lay in bed until about 2:45, thinking, "Good grief, why am I not asleep?!" It really is the most irritating thing to be lying in one's wonderfully soft bed, one's apartment for once hovering at a comfortable ambient temperature, no noise apart from the distant dull thud of neighborhood children (teenagers?) setting off explosives in celebration of our nation's independence, and to not be able to sleep. This is particularly true when one has to be at work by 9 the next morning. The dreams are back, too, and I'm not sure what that means.

It's understandable, I suppose, considering that I'm under a bit of stress right now, but it's nothing compared to Autumn Quarter (Hansel and Gretel in three weeks!) or, for that matter, Spring Quarter (Topics and piano exam and no time for sleep!), but after the relative quiet of my convalescence following wisdom teeth extraction, it's probably the contrast that's getting to me. Finances are a major concert at the moment--obviously I'll pull through, but it does get tiring after a while to live from one (minuscule) paycheck to the next. I lay awake at night sometimes worrying about the year to come--between rent, voice lessons, paying on school loans, budgeting for groceries, and traveling for auditions, I worry that I will never be financially stable. This worries me primarily because I would like to be able to travel while I'm still unattached and young enough to enjoy myself, and because I would, despite my aversion to achieving the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant goal of a husband and a house and 2.5 children, someday like to own property--ideally a house with a library, because can you imagine me owning a home without a library? So I lay awake thinking, How am I going to make the amount of money I need to survive? and What will I have to sacrifice to do that? It's a terrifying prospect, and one that carries all the weight of grown-upitude, and I don't like it.

But I'm functioning reasonably well for someone with a fairly serious dependence on coffee who has recently given up said substance for a short time. The purpose of this abstention is not, obviously, to give up coffee forever and completely, but instead to manipulate my body/brain, through forced withdrawal from a chemical to which it has become at least somewhat desensitized, into having a greater reaction to less of said chemical at some point in the future, and thereby to save myself some money, because I am a musician/student (and therefore poor) and also, in at least one way, stereotypically Dutch-American (and therefore cheap). And, my, that was a lot of words, wasn't it?

The headaches haven't been nearly as severe as I had expected, which is a pleasant surprise--although yesterday I did have one which settled behind my eyes and lasted all day, even through a lengthy afternoon nap, increased water intake, and some painkillers (look, everyone! I've just used an Oxford comma without realizing it!). It started out dull and irritating and grew significantly exacerbated in part, I'm sure, by the most comically oversized dead raccoon which lay rotting on the side of the row near the bus stop where I finally caught the 65 after deciding not to walk the remaining mile and a half home (I had already walked a mile before coming to that decision). And that raccoon, you guys. It was bigger than a nine-month old baby, or the largest pug I have ever seen, maybe even the size of a bear cub. I almost laughed, but it smelled so terrible that I just stood there waiting for the bus and thinking, Please don't let the wind shift, please don't let the wind shift.

It's just noon and I've already reached my self-imposed daily limit of two cups of caffeinated tea. There is a headache beginning to creep in behind my left eye, more dull and irritating than sharp and throbbing. At some point, I should eat something--there's still that bit of spaghetti squash in the refrigerator at home. None of this forgetting-to-eat business these days, not when I'm under stress and limiting access to addictive substances.

I think my bus driver is trying to kill me

First of all, I'm drinking a caramel macchiato right now (which sits by the sink so when I want to take a sip I have to walk over there and then walk back to the computer) and it's pretty strong, which feels amazing. It's like I can feel the caffeine being absorbed into the individual cells of my body, which probably speaks to a) my increasingly serious psychological/physical dependence on caffeine and thus need for a detox sometime soon, and b) the fact that I really, really need to devote the time between my leaving work today and coming to work tomorrow to catching up on sleep.

But to the main point: public transportation.

I'm a fairly vocal supporter of using public transportation, particularly because the more people use it, the better-funded (and therefore cleaner and more efficiently run) it is. I take the bus at least twice a day, from home to school and back again, and for the most part, I'm very impressed with Seattle's Metro bus system. However. However! Once in a while the stars align in a particular way and I wind up on the bus to Crazytown.

This morning, for example, I was waiting for the 8:36 headed to the University District, and, from a distance, saw the bus approaching. I wait for the bus, it should be mentioned, like a sailor's wife waiting at the docks to see her husband's ship come over the horizon. It's all very exciting and full of breathless anticipation--the little things, really, are what break up the drudgery of the day. So, after two or three buses that were not mine had passed, I saw it headed down the street . . . and then I watched as it drove past me, screeching to a halt about halfway down the block. In retrospect, this should have been my first clue that I was about to step onto the Nightmare Bus. One other woman and I took off jogging as the doors opened. She stepped on, and the driver began to close the doors as I reached the front entrance.

"Wait, what?!" I exclaimed. I'm sure I looked terribly indignant. He let me on. I had, I guess, delayed the driver enough to allow another rider on the bus, which I am counting as my Good Deed of the Day (I will spend the rest of the day sleeping and watching baseball). We drove off. For the rest of the commute, the driver operated the bus as if he had just been exposed to the concept of a brake pedal for the first time. It was not unlike being in the car with a really terrible fourteen-year-old Drivers' Ed student behind the wheel--he would accelerate steadily as he left one stop and drove to another, slamming on the brakes at the last second. A few times, he did this behind a row of cars as a traffic light changed colors. I was pretty sure I was going to die, or, worse, be late to work.

Typically, I would excuse this sort of thing as being due to a recent adjustment from operating a car to a giant bendy bus (note: I hate bendy buses). Here's the thing, though--I've seen this driver before. Was he drunk? Had he, like me, taken one antihistamine pill too many this morning? Was he just not paying attention? I don't know, but I am a firm believer in public transportation vehicle operators being on top of their shit (sorry, Mom), and this fellow was just not.

There are all sorts driving buses in Seattle, and most of them are perfectly capable drivers, as well as very nice people. However (the second "however" of this post, if I'm keeping track, which is fairly low where I'm concerned), some of them are very possibly insane. I have had drivers who lay on the horn when a car in front of them actually stops at a four-way stop (imagine the nerve! scandalous!) or a pedestrian crosses at a walk, drivers who stomp on the gas pedal the moment the doors are shut (I have been sent flying down the center aisle a number of times since moving to Seattle), and drivers who try to get their passengers to answer trivia questions during the commute--no, really. That happened last month. One driver who operates a route that runs between my neighborhood and the University District scolds passengers--particularly college-age ones--for not adhering to his unwritten Code Of Riding The Bus ("Excuse me. Excuse me. You need to be standing right next to the sign on the curb and facing the street and make eye contact with me as I approach the stop."), and who takes up to five-minute gas-station stops to buy a large soda midway through his route. I got him twice in one night last week, and again yesterday.

I'm not sure how much of this is due to the elevated level of crazy on which Seattle drivers already operate anyway. There really are more reasons why I don't drive in Seattle other than that my car is still in Michigan. I have navigated the Dan Ryan Expressway in rush-hour traffic with minimal psychological Sturm und Drang, but when I'm behind the wheel in Seattle, I frequently fear for my life. If the drivers were consistently either aggressive or overly passive, I would know what to expect, but when driving down I-5 there is no telling whether the person behind me will tailgate me while leaning into their car horn or the person beside me will change lanes in front of me with no signal. On numerous occasions, I have come about eight inches from being mowed down by a sedan while using a marked pedestrian crosswalk and making eye contact with the driver. After the first couple of times that happened, I started to stare down the driver as he approached the walk, alpha wolf style--That's right, [expletive deleted], take me down and then try to pretend later that you didn't see me. I'll take a broken leg if it means you get to pay off my grad school loans.

So far, it's worked.

Back on the bean; or, BS still substitutes coffee for sleep

Had a bit of a crisis late last night; major life changes are never easy or fun, and the next five or so weeks of my life are no exception. Consequently, I got about four hours of sleep and am planning on staying awake until midnight or so tonight, so this bout of insomnia will probably work itself out. Or not? Either way, anxiety disorder, let's do this thing.

It's strange, living in these in-between places (finished with graduate school, still not working in my chosen field, sort-of-but-not-really employed, working hard on jobs whose only compensation is in experience), and I feel as if I should be making a home in this one, just to have something to call my constant. I won't, though--there's too much to do right now, between rehearsal and learning music and making photocopies and packing up the apartment and trying to sell the furniture I don't want to drive back across the country. The grief over Opa has, for the most part, worked its course through my body, but the empty space it leaves behind has left a vacuum into which all my other concerns and anxieties are rushing. I need a job. I need a job. This is my primary worry right now, finding a way to pay bills in Chicago, and this worry just barely edges out the terror resulting from the possibility of becoming isolated and antisocial once I move.

My coping mechanism is escape fantasies. Lately, I've been missing Florence, even though I know that it's obscenely hot there right now, and humid, that I'd think I was dying and be covered head-to-toe in Florentine mosquito bites. It certainly isn't the weather that I miss, or the crowd of tourists pushing through every single too-narrow street and gawking at cafe signs filled with unfamiliar words ("What's a pera? Does anybody know what a pera is?" "It's a pear."). My connection to Florence was, I think, the fact that I had the most basic of cell-phone service and limited access to the internet, and that forced me to leave the apartment in the morning and find real-life adventures in a city that felt like a painting. When I think of Florence, I think of blistered, black-with-dirt feet and prosecco in the middle of the day, flowing skirts and scarves and fruit stands and orange sunlight. It was easy there for me to be on my own, and to be left alone. The tourists, after all, were more concerned with the sensory overload caused by their surroundings, and the locals had their own lives to concern themselves with, rather than mine. I wrote a handful of blog entries while I was living there last summer, located here, and maybe the next time I travel for an extended period of time I'll revisit that blog--but then again, maybe I won't. I'm more comfortable on the Blogger platform, I think. Not that anyone cares.

(I'm still exhausted, but this is probably due less to continued grief than to the fact that I barely slept last night.)

Saturday afternoon, for the first time, I visited a locally-owned Van Gogh-themed coffeehouse in Wedgewood. Sunday morning, I went back. If I lived in Wedgewood instead of the next neighborhood over, this would become a problem (not unlike the three-times-in-three-days San Crispino stunt Stefanie and I pulled in Rome last summer), because I might be in love. The interior is decorated in colors I associate with Tuscany and Provence (for obvious reasons, I'm sure), and the walls are lined with reproductions of Van Gogh's paintings. The coffee is incredible; initially, I was skeptical of drinking something called a "Mayan Mocha" at a coffeehouse whose theme was a Dutch painter who lived in France, but, really, it was delicious, even iced--I drink iced drinks now, by the way. Iced drinks are cool. Sunday Nicole and I had sandwiches (my forgetfulness, which resulted in my leaving a gallon of milk at the house where she and Steve are dog-sitting, necessitated the second visit, of course), and the Van Gogh Coffeehouse's tuna melt is, as it turns out, pretty fantastic, as well.


The caffeine I've had this morning isn't working too well, just now, though. When I get a moment to breathe--if I do, as I really don't anticipate that happening anytime soon--I'll have to do a one-week detox or something, just so it has something vaguely resembling an impact on my body and brain again, because right now, it's about as effective as drinking orange juice--maybe less. Right now, though, I'm overwhelmed by all the things I have to do, which is ridiculous: it's summer! I should be having fun and sleeping all the time! But between work, rehearsal, and trying to organize my life for the upcoming move, my brain is full. Absurd.