Transit

There are moments in our lives every day that are so short that they seem insignificant. They are the moments between locking your door when you leave home and walking through the door of wherever you are going. 

These are moments of transit. I really try to revel in these times and do something with them when they're happening. It's iffy to count the actual drive because you can listen to music or just get lost in the actual driving. The real time to revel is when you're walking to your destination. The best kind of walk is when it takes between 30 seconds and a minute and a half or so to get from your car to the building. Any longer than that and you have just parked in an annoyingly far away spot. Unless otherwise motivated, one really only notices the moment of transit itself when it's cold, or when you're hungry and thinking about what you're going to eat when you get inside, or when you're carrying something... it's these characteristics that define each 30 second slice of travel time as different from yesterday's trek to the car. 

I just think it is very interesting to really be present and paying attention to your life at an instant that would otherwise go by without remark. I find I think of the perfect thing to say during these times, too. That most amazing statement or question that I would NEVER actually say, but will definitely take the next several transit moments I have reliving what might happen if I did.

"Days are made of moments,

All are worth exploring.

Many kinds of moments-

None is worth ignoring.

[...]

Best to take the moment present

As a present for the moment.

[...]

Oh! If life were made of moments,

Even now and then a bad one!

But if life were only moments,

Then you'd never know you had one."

Whoa, dream

You know those dreams where you're all disoriented when you wake up and it's not necessarily that you believe what happened in your dream was real, but that you aren't awake enough to realize that you're not dreaming anymore and all of the intentions or goals or whatever you had ben focused on before you woke up bled over into real life?

I just had the strangest dream that, among other things, I was at some sort of place (very River in Firefly) that was keeping me there under the pretense that they were helping me or that it was prestigious in some way but I started the dream at a point where they were taking a group of us to kill us. They didn't tell us that, but that was the implication. So, my friend from high school, Kristin, Amanda Stoerzbach and I broke a window in the corridor and ran away. And (since in dreams, you are suddenly in a place that is familiar, even though it has nothing to do with the dream) we are in Wichita Falls in some hybrid place that is both my undergrad campus and one of the main streets in town. So we are just running. And we all know that if they get to us, they'll just kill us. They were going to do that anyway. And so we keep ducking in and out of places and running and running, and when it appears that they have given up (even though we know that they haven't) it occurs to us that we can't go to anywhere that is familiar to us because they know everything about us. We can't call anyone because this massively Big Brother type organization would hear us and find us that much more quickly and so we start calling everyone we know to tell them that we love them and that the ubiquitous they are going to kill us when they find us and then we start telling every person we actually contact a different place that we're headed. All the while, we're still alternating between hiding and running. I woke up trying to call anyone that I had that worked in the news to get on the air as fast as I could to expose the organization for what it was before they could stifle it, even though I sort of knew that they'd cover it all up anyway.

I woke up sort of trying to think of people I could call about that broadcast and also hoping I hadn't slept through my class today. It did take me a good ten seconds to process what time I was seeing on my clock, though.

I want to get one of these...

...but I feel like I should actually go to Hawaii to get it.

It's just so cute! I saw some girl with one of these wayyy back when I worked at Penney's and it is so pretty and simple. You can buy them online, but something about having Hawaiian jewelry without actually having been to Hawaii seems blasphemous to me. So, should I ever go to Hawaii, I will DEFINITELY be purchasing one of these cuties!

Sue me, I'm bitching about this class again.

I realize this may make me seem like a big whiner, but there's nothing I can do about that. Whatever angry/irritated/stubborn button this damn class pushes seriously makes me want to quit school and just say to hell with this. Because the work involved in making a B in this class is FAR more than I ever wanted to put forth for what is basically a Gen Ed in the Master's program. Adding to the "I kinda want to quit" vibe is that I'm paying out the ass for this and with all the economy blah blah I will not be getting any extra help next semester, so I'll still just be borrowing. I entertained the idea (for about 3 minutes) that I might take a year, or a semester or something to just work and save money and whatnot. That was just a destructive line of thinking in general. I tend to go through a phase of "Do I still want to do this whole opera thing?" every now and again. It is influenced by various life issues, and now this stupid, worthless, frustrating class is putting me in that mode again. Maybe I'm just really lame or something, but I really hate that this one class can make me just want to give up entirely. I guess I just looked ahead at the homework assignments and they're no better than the one I'm putting off right now. I applaud all the people who are actually able to just do classwork. I am SO not studious. K. Time to focus. And then blissful sleep. Sheesh, I may sleep through class. Hahahaha..... no. Bad idea. :-(

Getting overexcited...

...is very dangerous when we're talking about high Ds.

I realize that I have said SOMETHING about high Ds to basically everyone I have come in contact with over the last several days, but that is because a high D has always been the bane of my existence. I interpolated a high E flat into an opera when I was way younger (and before my chest voice decided to assert itself) but after that one time, even Cs have been a pain in my ass sometimes. Getting to a place where a high D is feasible in public is so ridiculously awesome because they have been simply unattainable for me for YEARS.

That being said, I have to continually remember to a) not push on it. I mean, it doesn't need any help being loud; and b) only do it like once or twice before I just have to stop, even though it's so much fun just to be able to hang out on it for a couple of beats! My poor muscles don't have the strongitude to do too many Ds at a time. I sit here writing this because I ran Pace, pace mio dio, Vissi d'arte and then The Csárdás with the D and now... voce is a little tired. That's ok, voce. You just rest your weary self.

In any case, sorry to any of you reading this that aren't singers or interested, because this is HUGE in my vocal universe. I just have to make sure I don't hurt it by messing with it too much. I fear I will get drunk with power and just sing the crap out of it. But, no! I shall stay strong! Back to singing The Weepies and the like with no support at all. :-)

Letter to my Rümmi

Dearest Rümmi,

You are srsly teh best evar. You put up with my leaving dishes out, opera singing, staying up late when you need to sleep, no vacuum retrieving, melodramatic, nerdy, eating all of the cheese, slightly deranged self day in and day out and I appreciate the hell out of it. I don't care that you think you are the worst roommate evar, because I clearly am. This year would have been pretty unpleasant were it not for our always laughing at crap that isn't actually funny. Also, thank you for sharing your amazing fam with me. Laundry day has never been so fun! I would say again that you are the best evar and thank you forever and always for being my Rümmi. 

"Adieu!"

Productivity.

I feel like I got a ton of stuff done today! Though, looking at my "To do" list, it doesn't really look like I did...

To do:

Renew vehicle registration

Send in form to GC marketing (so I can get paid!)

Pay my car payment

Pay various other bills

Learn 3 of the 4 Last Songs of Strauss and memorize the other one

Memorize Pace, pace...

Relearn the quartet from Rigoletto (YAYAYAYAY)

Learn German for The Csárdás

Start to learn Ah, perfido! (why am I putting this off?!)

Not fail 20th Century Style & Structure

Get my Naftzger stuff in order (competition) and get in touch with the Taos Opera people...

So... basically I just need to not play WoW or Rockband until I start learning all this flipping music. How sad! Well, if I have more productively minded days like today, this will be fine. I actually don't anticipate having problems. Of course, I never really do. Blessing and a curse, really... Ok. Time to go home and play Wo...... er..... memorize some stuff.

20th Century Style and Structure

This is the class I got a D in last time I took it (because I hate it so much) and so I'm taking it again.

I am remembering why I made a D last time. There is a feeling of aggressive ambivalence toward this music and learning anything about it that makes the irrational (and irresponsible) part of me just not want to do it at all and skip class. That part may win again today... which is awful because I need all the help I can get to pass. Well, I actually have to have a B in the class for it to count. I would seriously take the D if the school would let me. I may just do half of the homework and turn that it. At least I will get some points for that.

Man, this bites.

V-Day

This was actually a pretty nice Valentine's, all things considered.

Happy things:

1) Ate the most delicious pasta ever. Even though I totally scarfed it down because then I.....
2) ...played some WoW with my fun guild people! Although Peyton hardly plays anymore, I am glad that he shared his friends.
3) Watched a chick flick in good company. A very nice end to a very nice Valentine's Day.

Disappointment

...should not be this deeply felt when it applies to WoW. 

510 gold for Journeyman Riding?? Really!? I'll never make it....

You're not cool enough.

No one is. No one is cool enough for this:

I hate to tell you, Canada, not even YOU are cool enough. It just makes your otherwise enjoyable self look like a giant douche. Put your damn collar down.

Blog facelift

This site is just not pretty. I will remedy this.

Not sure how, yet.

Minutiae

Twitter convo between a friend who was new to Twitter and myself:

Him (to a mutual friend): Holy crap, you tweet 80x more than all the rest of my followings combined.

Me: Just wait until you start following the rest of us. We are avid tweeters!

Him: Avid does not begin to describe this level of minutiae.

I feel between Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, various email accounts, other blogs I read, webcomics... Why isn't there a streamlined system to keep track of ALL of it? This may be a genius idea.

More on that later...

...or not.

So I haven't posted ANYTHING since October. It's possible that I am not designed to blog. I enjoy other blogs supremely and I feel like my contribution to the blogging universe (I refuse to use the term coined by merging those words together) is negligible at very best, totally unnoticed is more likely.

I am going to be doing a recital for fun here in a couple of weeks (hopefully). I have to get approval from more of the powers that be before I can say officially one way or the other, but it's going to be sweet. It will be all songs that I actually like to sing and to listen to, so that will be a nice change. I am thinking of titling it "Arias and a Big Ol' English Piece" since... well that's what it is.

Anyway, V-Day approaches, He's Just Not That Into You was a massive failure (as the previews imply it to be a comedy when it was basically depressing with a few funny lines) and I still am fiercely addicted to Wheat Thins with no hope of a cure.