Okay, so I lied... Can't you forgive a girl for being busy?

I guess I'll backtrack, then. Thanksgiving was really great--much too short. My grandparents and aunt (Arlette) came down, and it was really great to see them. My grandparents went to Portugal in September, and...well, if you know my grandmother, I don't have to tell you that she went on for a while about it. (You see where I get it from.) I got to see all the pictures and everything. It was a lot of fun. Plus they really liked Mark, and Mark liked them. (Always a good thing.) Mark's sister and younger brother are coming down for Christmas; I'm kind of nervous about meeting them. In fact, I had a dream about it last week. I had just filmed my first sex show/direct-to-video adult movie (you KNOW it had to involve porn!), and while Mark was supportive, I met his twin brother and sister-in-law (who are not coming for Xmas, by the way) soon afterward. Apparently my cinematic debut had gone to video in a matter of hours--Mark's brother had already seen it. And he acted like a total frat boy about it on the surface ("High Five!"), but somehow I knew that he disapproved. It was really weird! And the film involved a donut, I think... Don't ask!! Anyway, this dream is obviously about my being afraid that Mark's family won't approve of me. I guess that's natural. Well, at least I got a cool dream out of it.

Last night I had a dream that I was pregnant. But it wasn't just me--it was as if there were a baby boom among all the 24-year-olds I know. Is that about heightened responsibilities, or craving a family life when my career seems to be taking off? Maybe I'm just excited about meeting Margaret Jean for the first time.

Oh, yeah, I forgot! I bought plane tickets last week! I'm flying into Newark on December 26th and am leaving on New Year's Day. Hooray!! I hope your work schedule will cooperate, Cathy. We must must MUST go to Ruby Tuesday and get D-cup size goblets with lots of rum and umbrellas and Swedish fish in them and walk around the mall drunk off our asses. Maybe Helen can get the non-alcoholic, non-Swedish fish version. Either way. I can't wait to see you!! I am so totally excited. Three weeks!

Though I ought to note that I will miss Mark a lot. It'll be the longest time we've spent apart since we started dating. I just hope my baby doesn't get lonely without me. I do feel a little guilty for not bringing him with me, but his brother and sister will be here for a few days, and he couldn't get off work for the whole time I'll be up in New York. So I really didn't have much of a choice...

In career news:
1. I will be singing "O Holy Night" at the Wilmington Choral Society Holiday Sing-Along Concert. Hopefully nobody will try to sing along with me on the high A-flat.
2. I'll be doing those damn recitatives from "The Messiah" again this year. Not that I mind--they're some of the nicest music Handel ever wrote. Doesn't that bring back memories, Helen? Memories of me screaming at Davin after our concert because he had laughed when Janak said I was fat?? Hell, that was six years ago. That was before I knew why I liked "My So-Called Life" so much... ;' )
3. I e-mailed Mary (my undergrad voice teacher) last week, with much trepidation. (For those who don't know or remember, she freaked out when I left UNC--and I took serious offense to it, for good reason.) She wrote me back the next day, very amenable to writing me recommendations. All that agita for nothing. Well, I guess it pays to have your journalist-boyfriend edit your personal correspondence for you... :)
4. I am almost done with my graduate applications. I will finish them tonight, come hell or highwater. (Have you ever thought about what that phrase really means??) So this post has basically been a great way for me to procrastinate.

Anyway, I'll let you know what happens....

It's been over a week since I've posted. Busy busy! I had a great Thanksgiving, and now am desperately trying to finish those damn grad school applications. I'm almost done now... Today I e-mailed Mary, my voice teacher at Binghamton, and hopefully she will write me a recommendation. (We didn't part on good terms, but it was two years ago!!) Anyway, I have to go to my lesson, but I didn't want to leave y'all hanging another day. I'll write more tomorrow, promise...

I swear, Cathy, if you give that sangria-sodden picture of me to anybody...well, I don’t know what I’d do. Perhaps I could counter with something from your menswear or bodysuit phases.......

Anyway, I apologize for not posting in so long. It’s been a long, long week. Everything is generally good, but I’ve been really busy. I’m trying to work on Christmas shopping and grad school applications and new music all at the same time (plus I’m making some of the presents, which takes even longer). Stress! One good thing that’s happened is that finally, after 6 ½ months of temping for the same company, I am finally an official, permanent employee. Hooray! I’ll even get health insurance on January 1st. (First stop: the gynecologist. Whoopee.) Unfortunately, though, somebody else is being laid off so I can stay here—and that somebody happens to be a friend of mine. Nobody’s supposed to know yet, and it doesn’t take effect until the beginning of the year, but it still sucks. I swear, I didn’t do anything to stab her in the back! It has to do with her moving out of the area early next year, and her position possibly being eliminated due to shakeups within the company...but I just think it’s terrible. I feel bad for my supervisors, who were told by upper management that they had to choose between the two of us. How obnoxious is that? I dunno...I’m just tired of hearing about (and experiencing) layoffs. But fear not! The holiday season is almost upon us, and all that Harry Potter memorabilia will revitalize a sluggish economy, right? If it looks like bullshit, and it smells like bullshit...

I have a lesson tomorrow (I think—she didn’t cancel it) and I haven’t practiced. I need to write my personal statements for my grad school applications. I need to finish my Christmas presents. I need to buy plane tickets. I need to bake the meringues for Thanksgiving dinner. I need to do laundry. I need to clean my room. I need to get more sleep. I am just going nuts here. AIEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Okay, now I can relax a little bit. But those personal statements worry me...what if my reasons for pursuing a performance degree aren’t good enough for those grad school people? I’m afraid to even start them, I think. And that probably won’t happen until next week, when the holiday visitors have left. Hoo. Okay, I’ll figure all this out.....

There’s something wrong with the right side of my body, I think. For the past month or so I’ve had some pain in my right knee, along with these weird periodic hot flashes on my shin. Then my right hand started bothering me a few weeks ago. Today my right shoulder is sore, in that it hurts when I rotate it. I have no idea what’s wrong. Maybe I have a pinched nerve in my neck or something. If only I had health insurance (which I should’ve had THREE MONTHS ago!), I could go to the doctor, and be referred to a physical therapist or something. What’s weird is that all the actual pain/loss of flexibility is in the joints, not the muscles. I dunno, maybe my mother will know something.

Speaking of my mother, yesterday she got us round-trip airfare from Raleigh to Minneapolis for $98 each. How crazy is that?? I guess people are afraid of flying... But I don’t think I’m going to die in a plane crash. I’m much more worried about skin cancer. And some asshole driver side-swiping me while trying to merge or change lanes. (People don’t look down here! Let alone signal!)

Today is my first voice lesson with Nancy King. I studied with Sara White for over a year, but she thinks I’m too advanced for her now (as if!) and wanted me to study with Nancy. (Plus Nancy has CONNECTIONS, apparently.) I’m rather nervous about the whole thing. What if she thinks I suck? I know it’s irrational, being that she’s heard me sing on numerous occasions, but what if she doesn’t think I can cut it? I need to just chill out.

Tonight I get to see Mark. :) Maybe I can get him to make me dinner.

Helen: I got the new pictures yesterday. She is so precious! (And so is Al Pacino. Gotta love the open collar, exposing just enough chest hair...)

It’s time for me to grow up—to realize that relationships are complicated; that not everybody is going to be my friend, no matter how nice or obliging I am; that right now my career should be in my top three priorities, and that my JOB is not my career; that people sometimes have to sacrifice short-term fun in favor of long-term benefits; that sometimes people act really petty or tacky, and they don’t even realize they’re putting somebody out. These are things which I am still learning.

I think I’m getting sick. My throat hurts, my nose is stuffy, I feel warm, and I’m really tired. It’s way too early for me to slow down. I better not be getting sick—I have my first lesson with Nancy King tomorrow, and I have a solo in church on Sunday. What the hell?! Maybe I just need to get some extra rest. When I get home I’ll take a nap, then I’ll work on my applications—it doesn’t look like I’ll be doing any singing tonight. I could fall asleep right now, right at my desk. That’d be a bad idea. I can’t get sick though. Not allowed!

In other news—have I mentioned that Mark is great in the sack? :)
(Not that you needed to know that...)

p.s. I'm actually relieved that yesterday's plane crash was due to a design flaw. At least we know not to get on Airbus planes...

Another plane crash...

Nobody knows anything yet, but all I can think of is those people back in the Dominican Republic, waiting for their family to get off the plane, and all those people in the five boroughs who heard that plane fall, and are freaking out right now... Not that this will stop me from getting on a plane. I might be a little more scared, but I’m not a plane fan anyway. I still have to fly to Minneapolis on January 25th. I was going to drive to New York in December, anyway. My brother can’t go with me but I think one of my parents would like to come. I hope so. I can’t drive by myself!

Yeah, so this is my way of dealing with crisis. I get upset, then I pray, then I start thinking about other things. My brain isn’t big enough to handle it all. But my heart is. My heart is sad, but also I rejoice in all the blessings in my life. My musical talents, my job, my friends, Mark, my family...

I don’t want to think this is a terror attack. After all, nobody famous lives or works in Rockaway—it’s just a regular neighborhood, filled with normal people, who until 45 minutes ago were just going about their mornings as usual. And unless Sammy Sosa was on that airplane, there was no compelling reason to crash that particular plane. Unless Al Qaeda’s new mission is to paralyze the general population with fear. But I thought they’d already done that! Now none of the women in my office want to fly anymore. But I refuse to live like that. I prefer to be paranoid about things that might actually happen—like people talking about me behind my back at work. At least I can effect some change there.

Okay, what I was going to write about this morning is my concert this weekend. It went well, and I’m glad it’s over. I have some vocal fatigue going on right now (which was inconvenient, considering I had a solo at the 9am service yesterday), so I won’t be doing any singing today. I’ll probably get my hair cut today, then go home and work on my applications (!) until Mark gets off work. Then I’ll go to bed early.

Let’s see if Giuliani tries to use this as a bargaining chip. That guy is such a schmuck!

Submitted for your approval:

Yesterday I got an e-mail at about 2:30 from the receptionist, asking if I could postpone my lunch an hour so she could go at 12. (The other CSR and I each usually cover ½ an hour of her lunch, which is from 1-2pm.) Generally this wouldn’t be a problem, but I’m on this diet where if I don’t eat every few hours I get light-headed (especially in the morning). But I figured she must have a good reason for needing to go early, so I wrote back, “I guess so...” Fifteen minutes later she responds, thanking me and saying that “next time hopefully someone else can cover the phones so we can all go.” Go where? What was going on? Turns out she had asked everybody else in my department to go out to lunch, and asked ME to cover her lunch. How incredibly tacky is that? Or am I just being a bitch about this?

There’s more to the story, though. As mentioned below, I have been working for the same company for over six months, but am still a temp. I started here on April 30th, and was supposed to become a permanent employee three months later, but because of the faltering economy my company made a deal with the temp agency. I was given a 50-cent raise, a pat on the back, and the reassurance that I’ll get on the payroll real soon, if I just “hang in there”. Well, three months have passed, and I’m still hanging. When I asked my supervisor (who is very cool—the kind of boss who you can talk to about anything—plus she’s crazy) about it maybe six weeks ago, she said that the matter would be taken care of when the president of the company (who lives in Germany) came to visit, and reassured me that my position in the office was secure. Well, the president has been here for over a week, and still no word. Apparently something is going to happen next week...but as you can imagine, it’s been kind of difficult. It’s stressful not knowing for sure that your job is secure. Plus I really need health insurance! Anyway, this all adds up to me being paranoid all the time at work that my next typographical error will be grounds for dismissal. And I feel like a second-class citizen here because of my status. So maybe I was just overreacting to what happened yesterday. But I still feel like a doormat. And I’m sick of it!!

Sorry, needed to vent.

In other news: I have two concerts tomorrow, and am not looking forward to the eight hours I’ll have to put in rehearsing and decorating and performing, all so old people can enjoy some showtunes... Yay me.

You’ll never guess whom I heard from yesterday...

Does the name “Cowboy” ring a bell??

Perhaps the less-famous member of a ‘60s folk-rock duo?

I’m using a 45-day free trial of AOL right now (until I find a better option—you know how much I hate those losers), and to save time I started my account under my old IM name. So who should IM me the other night but the world-famous L’uomo col massimo pelo! It’s been so long since I’ve heard from him. The last time we communicated (over IM, of course), I was stunned by his elitism, and proud of myself for how far I’d come since college. The time before that, as you may recall, we were anxiously anticipating an amorous rendezvous, the incorporate conclusion to three years of will-they-won’t-they (which never happened, because he chickened out—his loss, so far as I’m concerned). Ah, what a soap opera my college life seems, from two years’ hindsight. Things have become rather predictable these days. But then—hell, I could probably market a series of Young Adult fiction about our psycho-history. Perhaps I should. I can see it now: “All My Theater-Geeks”...

Anyway, he IM’d me, but I didn’t see it until I was about to log off—and by then he’d already logged off. And all he wrote was something sad (but witty, of course) about “recent events in New York”. In all my thoughts since September 11th, he was one person that hadn’t come to mind. That made me feel bad! But I guess that means I’m over him, finally. And I have been, for a long time. Meeting the love of my life surely had something to do with that...

So what was with me and my humongous crushes? It pains me to think of all those boys who I obsessed over in the past—regardless of outcome, I always ended up feeling foolish. The first time was at age 15. Of course I had to pick Helen’s boyfriend to have a crush on. Then there was the nice male friend, whom I wallowed over for two years (including when I had a boyfriend) until we went away to college. The most violent crush was on my “first love”, my vegetarian Greenwich Village boy who proceeded to treat me like crap 1/3 of the time. Directly following (and mingling with) that was the aforementioned Confectionery Boy (one of the many nicknames he developed over the course of three years). We even hooked up—twice—but he refused to take things any further; this caused unending torment for me during senior year (through two boyfriends). Then there was Ken, the former pro hockey player/Adonis at the car dealership in Chapel Hill. That brings us to July 2000. I’ve been good so far since then. Maybe I’m actually getting over this. About time!

That said, I’m going to think about my boyfriend now, and how he’s brought me ten months of unending joy. He is ten thousand times better than any of those losers.

But I really should write “Do-nut Boy” back. Because of the WTC thing. And just to prove that I can do so without losing my head. And to show him how happy I am without him. :)

Okay, I tried to do this last night, but for some reason it wouldn’t let me. I have created this website as a way to stay in contact with certain people who I never see. And I’ve been really bad at calling people lately. Yes, we’ve all been very busy lately, but that’s no excuse. So this will be a good way for me to keep in touch—and it’s a way for me to keep a journal. And I don’t mind if you read it. (And I promise to change the background colors soon. I’m not loving the neon green.)

Thank you to Helen for calling this website to my attention. I am an avid reader of “The (Mis)Adventures of Superfudgechunk”. It helps me pretend I have actually met Margaret Jean. Plus it stops me from worrying about you so much. (I do worry!!) Please don’t believe anything the government says. I get all my news from E! Entertainment Television, and look how far I’ve come. :) But seriously, I stopped watching national news around the end of September. Too much hate and fear and paranoia and hypocrisy in the world, and me stuck in North Carolina, utterly powerless. So I only learn the bare minimum as regards current events. You know, warning signs that I have anthrax, why I should hate Rumsfeld, etc. And everything else I leave alone. Nothing I can do, why worry about it? I’m just going on with my life. However callous that sounds, that’s the only way I know I’d be able to function. So I’m functioning just fine (though I’m kind of tired today: the opera was in town last night, and it didn’t get out until 11pm). I will be voting with my money, though; that’s easy enough. What do you all think about purchasing goods made by Afghan refugees—with a feminist organization as the middle[woman]? Is that helping, or does it inadvertently foster exploitation? Let me know what you think...

So my life is currently as follows: work, Mark, singing, diet, football. It’s a full life, and everything is mostly great. I have a good job that I like and it pays well. I have a wonderful boyfriend. I have a paid church job and am about to start studying with a great teacher, and am in the process of applying to graduate programs. I have lost 12 pounds in under 6 weeks with L.A. Weight Loss. The Jets are 5-3. Good, right? Yeah, except that nothing is quite right. Well, everything with Mark is right, but I’ll have to leave him when I go back to school, and even though that’s almost a year away, it still scares me a bit. I’ve been at my job for over six months, and am still a temp. The president of the company has to sign off on adding my position, and he is actually in the country right now, but it hasn’t happened yet, and I have my fears. Speaking of which—I’m getting extremely nervous about my auditions. Am I prepared enough? Will they like me? Do I have enough experience? As far as the diet goes, it’s just a daily battle. Some of the people at the center really piss me off—they tend to get preachy, like my mother. That is NOT what I need to hear, you know? And it’s really hard to eat out with other people, when all they want is Mexican or Italian and I can’t have pasta or chips or salt. I should mention that Mark has been an absolute doll about it so far—he’s the only person I’ve ever met who knows how to deal with me when I’m having a temper tantrum. (The right method: wait patiently for me to get it out of my system, which usually takes about five minutes. Then I’ll apologize profusely, and everything will be back to normal.) Have I mentioned how much I love him? Whole lots. I really want you to meet him. So far he’s gotten everybody’s seal of approval, but yours matters the most, really.

Well, I shouldn’t be doing this at work, but I’ll write again soon.