Always through the changing

I posted the music video a while ago, but I really am still completely enamored of A City on a Lake's song "Oceanside," to the point where I even recently downloaded it from iTunes so I could play it on a loop when the mood strikes me. I first found out about it when Vienna Teng mentioned the music video at her impromptu not-concert and mentioned that she had been watching it over and over since Alex Wong uploaded it to YouTube. It feels right, for some reason, to be listening to this particular song during the transition from summer to fall.

Meanwhile, the cat and I continue to go about our daily business--working, in my case; for her, alternately sleeping and begging me to play fetch. I've started sleeping again, finally, and am able (for the most part) to function in the Real World. That being said, I still don't leave the house much, since I work from home and the farthest I trek on a given day is to the local coffee-shop, where I can be at least around other people, even if I don't feel like interacting with them. I'm reading a lot--I just finished The Devil in the White City (from which my head is still spinning, because whose mind works like H. H. Holmes's did, really?!) and have begun The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

We underestimate the extent to which sleep, or the lack of it, affects our lives--or, at least, I did until I wasn't sleeping any more. I'm still dealing with insomnia, but it's much, much less intense. A while ago, during the Month Of No Rest, my sister bought me an insomniacs' journal and I've been writing things down during the worst nights. I don't think much about the things I write as I'm putting them down and sometimes when I go back to re-read, it's sort of bizarre--dreams and musings and whatever thoughts I need to exorcise in order for my brain to shut down. And it helps. I hope I don't have to use it much, I hope that these incidences of insomnia continue to decrease, but it's nice to have a specific place to write things down when I need to.

What else? My apartment is a mess right now. Well. Maybe not by other peoples' standards, but by mine it is a disaster zone: my work computer is on the dining room table instead of on the desk in my bedroom, I haven't vacuumed in a couple of weeks, a couple of cardigans are slung over the backs of chairs because I didn't feel like hanging them up, I haven't put away the clean laundry from a few days ago. I realize that this sounds ridiculous, but to me it feels like chaos, so tomorrow will be dedicated to some serious cleaning.

Also--and this is a big thing--I am finally beginning to feel as if my voice is my own again. Lack of sleep took a serious toll on my singing. In the middle of that horrible, horrible month, I made a recording for audition season pre-screening requirements. It came out pretty well, but I definitely felt as if I was listening to a voice that belonged to someone else. And after two weeks of sleep--the real kind, where my brain got rest as well as my body--I sang again, for a voice studio recital. I haven't heard the official recording yet, but Mom took some video for Dad, who had a gig back home and was unable to attend, and I listened to that. The singing felt good, it felt easy. And the recording sounded like me again--less thin, less obviously strained (although I am fully aware that I am my own worst critic when it comes to listening to recordings, which I hate anyway, and I'm sure people who don't know my voice wouldn't be able to hear much of a difference). I feel ready for audition season--one appointment is already scheduled, and the penciling-in of another may be imminent. There are so many more applications to be filled out and sent, but the notes and the words finally feel connected to my body again. It feels good to love what I am doing, and to be able to trust my instincts again.

The "Nimrod" variation of Elgar's Enigma Variations just began playing on my iTunes. Oh, my heart. Sometimes, when I listen to this piece, I feel as if it is very slowly trying to push its way out of my chest. Elgar. You destroy me.

All through the winter I'm alive; or, The Return of BS

First things first: the chair in which I currently sit is the best chair. Following the sudden departure of my second roommate in five months (and, no, not going into it, possibly ever, so let's pretend this whole second-roommate thing never happened in the first place), I found myself bereft of items of furniture in which to sit as I do things like, for example, blog and watch Gilmore Girls. Penny and I drove up to visit the parents for a couple of days, and while I was there I found the best chair. It is short, plush, and upholstered in the most hideous 1970s velveteen, which has faded everywhere except on one side of the seat cushion. And it was $30. I haven't taken a look-at-my-freaking-awesome-chair photo yet, but Penny, who is currently perched on the back and is purring, has apparently given her seal of approval. Oh. She has moved, and is currently draped over one of the arm-rests.

And now my lap. Cat, there is not room for both you and my MacBook.

(This is really how my life goes.)

So my life kind of fell apart for a while there, which is the best explanation I can offer for my recent radio silence. It happens.

I spent much of my month away from the blogosphere not sleeping. This wasn't by choice, obviously, and it took me more than two weeks to realize that my sleeplessness was connected to the CVS debacle detailed in my previous entry. As it turns out, the staff of the drugstore ended up calling the police on my behalf, and not, as I had previously thought, because two homeless guys had gotten into a fight outside, although that did happen.

But now the cat wants my attention. I just wanted to send a message out into the void and say that, hey, two people who read this, I'm still alive.  For your trouble, here, have a music video:

Thank you and goodnight.