The Red Queen's Race

There's a part in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass that I think sums up the life of a performer--or, let's be real, grownupitude in general--pretty well. Alice has just met the Red Queen (not to be confused with the Queen of Hearts, who, while still pretty great, is from a different book entirely), who explains to her that the geography of Wonderland is set up like a giant chess-board and that the way to advance one's position is to advance to the other end of the board. Alice begins as a White Pawn and wishes to become a queen. And then this exchange happens:

'Now! Now!' cried the Queen. 'Faster! Faster!' And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy.

The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, 'You may rest a little now.'

Alice looked round her in great surprise. 'Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!'

'Of course it is,' said the Queen, 'what would you have it?'

'Well, in OUR country,' said Alice, still panting a little, 'you'd generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.'

'A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. 'Now, HERE, you see, it takes all the running YOU can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!'

 For the last couple of years, I've been doing a lot of running, and it's easy to feel like I haven't gotten much of anywhere. Audition season is often like this, but the past year felt particularly demoralizing. Coming off the high of my first 5K and singing the most musically difficult role of my life (oh, Turn of the Screw, you gorgeous sadist), I spent a couple of weeks in New York City, got new headshots, recorded new pre-screening audios, and reformatted my CV. I was on this.

And then the invitations for a live audition just . . . didn't come from most places I applied to. The few auditions I did get didn't lead to gigs. And, as a singer, someone whose instrument is literally a part of her body, it was easy to internalize this rejection as a reflection on my worth as a person and/or artist, rather than just an indication that maybe the roles that were available weren't a close fit for my voice or personality. This impulse to beat myself down was a rookie mistake, and I'm not proud of it. So, my first truly miserable audition season in the books, I'm preparing for the start of a new round this fall.

That's the thing with a lot of life--unless you were born with an insane level of talent, plus a great work ethic and understanding of your field, PLUS some stunning family connections, you're going to get rejected a lot, and it's going to suck, and you're going to have to either keep trying or find something else to do. Audition season is absolutely the Red Queen's Race. For three to five months at a time, we sprint from room to room to room across Los Angeles or Manhattan or wherever, and we get a breathless four-to-eight minutes to prove that we are the answer to whatever question the casting director is asking himself at the moment. Some of those rooms are too small or too hot or have terrible acoustics, but we do it because the only way to even have a chance at progressing to the status of Queen (or, like, convincing somebody to pay us for singing high notes, amirite?) is to keep moving. The second we stop, we may as well be moving backwards.

All of this is to say, it's been a really long time and I missed writing for the two or three of you who actually read this shit (hi, Mom!). Here's a reaction gif to illustrate how I feel about being back:

So. Now that that long-winded and heavy-handed metaphor is out of the way, here's some stuff that happened over the last, like, two years:

1.  My hair was short, and then long, and then short again. It grows fast, so we're pretty much back to status quo now. Yes, I know you give a shit about this, and you're welcome for the update.
2. I visited New York, like, five times, and Los Angeles three or four. I have developed a grudging appreciation for both of these places (and a very enthusiastic appreciation for my amazing friends who live there), but it's cheaper to live in Chicago, so I'm gonna stay here a while.
3. Last summer, I spent a month in Hawaii and somehow came back paler than when I had left the Mainland. This may be due to the fact that I even wear a cardigan to the beach.
4. After my beloved Camry was destroyed in a car accident right before Christmas 2012, I bought a Toyota Corolla, whose name is Napoleon, who is now paid for in full. I feel good about this.
5. I saw the following shows during various audition trips to New York City: Matilda (twice!), Pippin (circus-y!), Cabaret (Alan Cumming!), On the Town (?!?!?!!!!), and A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (patter songs!).  There's still a list of things I'd like to see despite being THE POOREST, but discount ticket vendors are the actual best thing ever.
6. In September 2014, I left the mostly-full-time job I had held for nearly 3 years and decided to see if I could support myself on substitute teaching and tutoring alone which is mostly working so far? Ten months later, I have just taken on a fourth part-time job, still live and die by Google Calendar, and am no longer suffering from at-least-weekly migraines.
7. And finally, this jerk still lives in my apartment. We play fetch, and sometimes she gets to come on road-trips.

So there we have it. I've been a bum, and I'll be around more now that the obligatory "I'm sorry for my protracted absence" post has been written. I love you all.

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!"