I don't even know.

I'm shaking. I can't even bring myself to title this.

So, here's the thing: tonight, for the first time, I felt unsafe in my (relatively secure) neighborhood. This evening, I met with a new coworker in Wicker Park for pizza and a beer, then headed home. I exited the subway and crossed the street to buy shampoo and hand soap at the local 24-hour CVS. I was talking to my mom on the phone as I made my way toward the cash register. And then I heard this voice--

"Hey, sweetie. You look real good tonight. You so pretty, sweetheart." Et cetera. Et cetera. He kept walking closer up behind me.

This is nothing (too) new, although the incidence of my being whistled at in the street as I walk from my home to the local coffeehouse, of being shouted at from cars, is something that has ramped up significantly as the temperature in the city has soared. Maybe the heat does something to people's inhibition, accounting for the rise in both homicides and street harassment. I don't know. But, anonymous sir who tried to holla at me at 9:30 p.m. in the drugstore, you picked the wrong goddamn day.

"Hold on," I said to my mom. I turned around and looked him right in the eye. "Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? Really. What kind of response are you expecting from me?" This guy was my age, maybe a little younger. He looked shocked that I would actually call him out on it.

"Oh, not you, sweetie. I was talking to my friend." His slightly older male friend, who was walking behind him. No. I'm sorry. Bullshit.

"Seriously," I said, and headed for the register, ending the phone call with my mom. As I was checking out at the self-scanner, I heard him again, scanning his items two machines down. I finished first. They seemed to be finishing, too. He kept looking over at me. There was one woman working, a younger Latina girl. I walked over to her and said, as quietly as I could, "Listen, those guys--one of them was saying stuff to me, walking behind me in the store. I called him on it. I just don't feel comfortable leaving right now. Is it all right if I hang around for a couple minutes until they're gone?"

"Those guys over there?" She nodded when I indicated that, yeah, that one there. "Yeah, sure, you can go, like, look at a magazine or something."

And I stayed, for around ten minutes more, just to make sure they were gone, because, after having embarrassed that asshole in front of his friend, who is to say that he wouldn't have followed me, or waited to harass me outside? I know literally nothing about either of those men, and no amount of experience I have being in the presence of men could possibly assure me that they wouldn't take action beyond calling out at me behind my back as I walked down the tissue paper aisle talking to my mother.

I just arrived home. It was a half-mile walk, and I went the whole way with my mother on the phone again (so someone would know exactly where I was if, god forbid, anything went down), my keys clutched in one hand like a knife, my heavy bag held so I could swing it at someone if I needed to. I have never, never felt unsafe in this neighborhood before. I have always been aware of the threat--statistics say that, in the United States, 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted (and that doesn't include assaults which go unreported)--but never before have I felt personally threatened or at-risk.

Of course, there is someone out there reading this who will say to him- or herself, "You're overreacting." But with statistics like that (ONE IN FIVE), with the number of my friends who have themselves been victims of sexual assault, with the knowledge that we live in a society which, should the worst happen, would ask me, "Why were you wearing that dress?" or "What were you doing walking down that street at that time of night?," how can I not?

The pepper spray is going in my purse now, permanently, and it will, to me, feel like an added weight, a constant reminder that, yes, you are at risk, it could happen at any moment, and there is, in all likelihood, nothing you can do about it. I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to rail at a world in which I am held responsible for the prevention of my own possible rape, in which so many of my friends who have been violated in the most horrible and demeaning of ways are hesitant to speak out about it for fear of facing the humiliation associated with reporting their assault.

I am tired of being treated like an object, because when a man whistles at woman on the street, when he shouts at her out a car window, he is not expressing his appreciation of her as a person, as a complete human being, but reminding her that she is an object presented for his, and other men's, visual consumption. Because when I wear a dress, when I put on high heels and makeup and jewelry, I am not dressing myself up for the approval of men, even if I happen to be going into a situation in which I will encounter men; these are things I do for myself. In the summer, I wear skirts and dresses because it is more comfortable than squeezing myself into a pair of confining trousers. I wear makeup because I like to, and I wear heels because public transportation gives me the privilege of never having to walk farther than I want to.

I am angry. I am so, so, so angry. I am angry for the one in five American women who will be assaulted in their lifetime. I am angry for my friends. I am angry for Savannah Dietrich, the young woman who had the courage to call out her rapists, then to defy the court-issued gag order which prevented her from making their names public. I am angry because this isn't just me, isn't an isolated incident where a man tried to chat me up in a drugstore without knowing what he had just stepped in. This is something that I--and so many other young women--deal with every. single. day.

And after the earthquake there came a fire!; or, BS's continued adventures in calamity

I truly did mean to write a follow-up to my most recent post. And, then, of course, life delivered me a swift kick in the ass. Because that is what life does.

It is a running joke between my friends and myself that my life is infinitely blog-about-able. And, more or less, that is true. The trouble, however, with having the sort of life which is continually filled with adventure is that there never seems to be enough time to write any of it down. The only solution seems to be to jot things down quickly as they are happening, and move past the stories that pass to quickly to be recorded. That being said, I do tell a lot of stories to my friends and family, and most of them are the sort that are too strange to have been made up. For example: on St. Patrick's Day I met some friends at a bar and was propositioned by a young man in the most ungraceful way possible (Do people really say "DTF" outside of the Jersey Shore? Really? And does it ever work?) before going home with his gay brother-slash-temporary-roommate, who cut my hair. Upon telling my father this story, he informed me that "I've come to expect that this is the sort of thing that happens on a regular basis in your life, so I've stopped worrying about it."

The fact is that, for about two weeks, it was hot in Chicago, the kind of hot that makes me nostalgic for Italy in June (with or without the infected mosquito bites). It may not be a big deal to people in Texas or Florida or below the Mason-Dixon Line in general, but those of us up in the frozen North generally expect to be shivering in our winter coats until well into April. Those two weeks of 80-plus-degree weather caught the entire city by surprise and between the weather and the impending holiday (St. Patrick's Day, during which the whole of reality shifts sideways and drunk becomes the standard, sober the exception), people did some crazy things.

My roommate, for example, informed me that she was moving out two months before our lease expired.

Without going too far into the situation--about which I am still fairly emotional--I will say that my roommate's sudden departure forced me to make a lot of plans very quickly. With rehearsals for Elijah increasing in frequency and free time becoming more and more scarce, my life devolved into chaos in a hurry. This past weekend, that chaos reached a climax: we gave four performances of the show, I competed at the National Association of Teachers of Singing competition, and most of the furniture in my house was packed up into a moving truck and driven back to Michigan. And then I came down with the epic cold virus making its way through the Elijah cast.

One of the most important things I continually forget about performing, particularly with a small cast, is that if one person in the cast gets sick, no matter how many precautions you take (handwashing, Vitamin C, sleep, fluids), you. will. catch. that. virus. I woke up Monday morning feeling as if I had swallowed a handful of razorblades. I have been sleeping on the couch because it takes too much effort to climb the stepladder up into my loft bed. Because I have a loft bed. Because I am an adult and because I can. I have also gone through nearly an entire box of Kleenex over the past three days, which is making me very glad that I decided to buy the three-pack of Kleenex boxes the last time I got groceries, before I got sick. As previously stated: I am a grown-up. BOOM.

So, given the chaos of the past month, my current task is to put my life back together. But, hell, at least I have a plan. The gas bill has been switched over to my name; cable service has been cancelled, since I haven't watched TV in almost a month, and I am now paying only for internet. Tomorrow I will switch over the electric bill to my name, and then the apartment is all mine. I am looking for a roommate to take the small bedroom for the summer. If I can set up a voice studio with 8-10 students during those three months, I can afford the place all by myself. And that would be something really amazing.

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.

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.