::Revelations
9:00 a.m. - 2004-08-13
Well, from that title, it certainly seems as if this entry is going to be deep. Are you ready for it? I'm not sure that I am, completely.
My birthday was kind of a fucked day, actually. I have to say that it was one of the most colorful birthdays that I can remember (a close second was when my father's girlfriend's sonm threw up on me on the Ferris Wheel in Santa Cruz, but I'll spare you the rest of the details). The morning was a fiasco - my Falcon decided to try and die again, and I got the car stuck in 3rd gear on the bypass between 19th Avenue and Park Presidio. I was stuck for 10 minutes before I finally managed to get her into a lower gear and coax her to move. I parked and had to catch the bus the rest of the way to work. I got to the bus stop right as the bus arrived and didn't have time to get the fare out before I boarded the bus, so I told the driver that I'd have to get it out my bag. The bus was completely crowded and I had no choice but to kneel on the floor, attempt to keep my balance and fish my wallet out of my purse at the same time. In the process I cut my knee and as I stood up bleeding, my purse dumped all over the bus floor. I looked at the woman sitting in the seat nearest me and said, "Would you believe that today is my birthday? It actually is. I think I'm giving up on all birthdays from now on."
When I got to work, though, my boss had flowers waiting on my desk for me. She's so awesome - I love her!
The audition was pretty funny in and of itself. My first aria completely kicked ass. It was solid, and beautiful, and the high Es were great. The second aria just fell out from beneath me, though. It was so awful that I could hardly keep from laughing by the end of it. The director was great about the whole thing, though. He smiled and said that we all have days. I thanked him and I don't feel as awfully about it as you might imagine. I doubt very highly that I will be called for the finals, but I realized something that is very valuable and I think will make all of the difference in my future auditions and in my career as a singer in general.
In attempting to discern why exactly I self-destructed and blew that aria, I realized that while I certainly practice every day and make an effort to be prepared, it always seems that I am not prepared enough when it comes down to each audition. I realized that I don't spend my time wisely. Because I have so many things to accomplish all of the time, I'm thinking about all 100 of those things at once when all I should be focusing on is the one thing that I'm working on at that moment. If I can isolate my practice time and dedicate it to simply that, practice, then I know I can be more productive and more prepared as a result.
I set up a series of outlines to try and make the very best of this. I think that if I have a little goal in mind for each practice session, then that will be progress. I will listen to my lesson tapes and take notes on exactly what I need to work on where, and then for each practice I'll decide what needs to be accomplished, and work on it. I think it will be a healthy and good way to make things work for myself. I feel really good about this, and so far, it seems to be working.
The C minor mass that I'm singing in is really turning out to be a joke. The concert is a week from today, and they are calling sectionals because the chorus doesn't know their parts yet. The sectional that was called on Wednesday was scheduled, cancelled, re-scheduled, and then uncancelled. When I showed up, I had sat there for an hour while parts were plunked out when it became apparent that they were not going to cover any of the music that I sing, and that there was no reason for me to be there at all. I probably wouldn't have been quite so irritated about the whole thing except that my car had broken down, so I had to take BART (the subway) and walk a mile and a half to get to the church for the rehearsal, and I live twenty miles away from there. I didn't get home until 11.30 pm, and I certainly had other things that I could have been doing with the time.
The other thing that is really wanky about this production is that there is only one soprano soloist, (who isn't all that hot, I hate to say) and she is singing both the 1st soprano and the 2nd soprano arias. I don't quite understand this, as I was under the impression that at the beginning I was auditioning for the second soprano solo - I thought that they had given it to the other girl who auditioned. But apparently she is only singing the second soprano line in the duet. I'm almost glad that they didn't give it to me because I would have been pissed if they then told me that I didn't get the aria!! It all seems wrong, like the director doesn't know what he is doing, or something. The weird thing is that he has the double chorus sections divided into a quartet of soloists and the remainder of the chorus - almost as if he was trying to spread out solo opportunities, but then he never gave the sop II solo to the person who should have had it, if she is singing in the duets. He must not know how this is traditionally done, or something. It just doesn't make sense otherwise.
This weekend we are planning to celebrate my birthday. My sister said that she would like to take me out bowling and that it might be fun to invite some other people along too. So I did, and we are all planning for around 7 or 7.30 on Saturday evening. Except that my sister called me yesterday and said that she's going to be in SF around 4 and that she and I should go then. I told her, just as I did when she suggested the idea, that SW doesn't finish with school until 5pm, and so we were planning for a little bit later. She retorted with, "Well, I have to be in San Francisco by 9.30 because I have to see this band play... (etc, etc.), so just tell SW to meet us when he gets done with school." "No," I said, "That's not going to work... I've invited a bunch of people to join us and we're all planning for 7 or 7.30. You should have told me that you had somewhere to be at 9.30. If I had known, I could have planned things differently." "I did tell you, she said. That's the whole reason I was going to be in San Francisco in the first place."
You know, I think she's just always that much of a bitch. If you don't have time, I don't give a fuck, just don't make plans with me.
When I talk to her again, I am going to tell her that if she wants to bowl, we should just do it some other time.
Why do I continually put up with this shit? It seems like it's every other day, recently.
She can screw off.
