wow.
what a day.
sparks temps already has an interview for me.
i'm working tomorrow.
had another interview for teaching thing. great job. great boss.
i'll know by friday.
in either case, i'm making money tomorrow.
and my guitar came in the mail.
ohwowihavesomuchtodo
i love it when the world crashes around you, but in a good way.
I feel reckless today.
Not like i'm going to destroy someone's car.
just like i'm not clueing in to the responsibilities my life is trying to give me
its time to mail off all those thank you post cards to folks who helped me on my watson. time to revisit all those people's names. all their songs and gifts. time to develop more photos. time to start auditioning for crap. time to think with all of me, instead of just my head.
not that my heart doesn't have enough to try to deal with.
today, a slow day. a reckless, slow day. carrot soup. grocery shopping. resume work. all these very concrete tasks that somehow, still don't quite ground me in this real world i'm trying to live in.
singing extensive numbers of old sinatra songs for an audition tomorrow. these are ridiculous pieces of music. incredibly fun, and the band I'm auditioning for is actually spectacular, but its absolutely true that this vocalist is an absolute clone.
ever go see a community theater production of "Fiddler on the Roof" where the lead playing Tevya clearly worked on character development by memorizing Topol's performance of the movie (Dereck, if you haven't, KVT is doing this NOW... I don't suggest you see it. it made me cry at the first rehearsal)? now imagine an 18 piece band, and instead of having the distraction of watching your neighborhood paperboy dance around with a bottle on his head, the ONLY guy in the house was the copy cat.... who are these musicians? how do the look at themselves in the mirror at night?
dude.
would y'all do me a favor? if you read this blog, just post a wee response to this topic. i just want to get an idea of who's lurking... and who i can later call for money...
hope you're all well. i'm pretty sure I am, for the moment.
"mom, dad.... its the phone call you've been waiting for for twenty-three years....
I'm calling to ask for some money."
wow. humbling, isn't it?
its my money, i suppose, but still an incredibly smack-you-in-the-face-you're-living-history moment.
but i'll pay rent next week.
i can't say too much, for fear i'll jinx it.
but there is a particular organization that is seemingly interested in my child management skillz... i'll keep you posted.
that said, i sang some of my lullabies to my first little one last night.
this 3 year old doesn't like me too much. i won't really put up with her temper flaring, but we did sing each other to sleep last night.
its a strange thing, the role of the surrogate mother. don't be frightened, there are no children in my immediate future, and yet, it doesn't feel altogether wrong just now to be caring for them, attempting to understand them, fascinated by their fascination for the world, at the same time trying to regain my own sense of wonderment in the world and still be able to know how practically to move through this world.
i had a friend once who was jumping around with a niece of his and suddenly remembered the first time he had ever realized he jumped.
what was that like, the first time we were held suspended by the air, nothing holding us to the ground, on our own, unsupported...?
we must have thought we could fly.
i feel that way now. something new in me. something fledgling and nurtured by years of soft feather tears. first time stepping off this
nest of secure thought
secure empathy and feeling
vertigo of love suspending
my own feet from the ground
and i am beginning to remember
my first moments like this
over and over again
and i am convinced
that soon enough, i will be able
to take to the sky
when i was on the watson, i thought my slightly manic emotional interactions with this world were somehow due to my traveling. like moving around without footing ungrounded my heart as well.
this may perhaps be true.
but i may also be talking out of my ass.
it seems this life here, now, that is how i react. living in a house, in one city, with one lovely (albeit mono-ridden) roommate, i still find my world a rollercoaster. do i prefer it to tedium of something less emotionally crazy? of course not, i can't imagine it.
thank you for everyone's empathy. particularly Mom. i find it thrilling although slightly weird that my Momma reads this blog. not that i would censor anything. we're far past that. just interesting to know EXACTLY how much she knows about her daughter. i hope to do the same with my kids.
at some point.
when i have them.
nice lady called megan to interview her yesterday. teaching kids for three hours every morning with an arts oriented curriculum. we'll see.
and then about 30 nice people came to our apartment for the house warming/ zdanna's and laura's birthday/ eat delectable goodies party. there is still at least 2 weeks worth of desserts in my fridge. the remains of 3 pies. fierni (cardamom custard) peppermintchocolatecookies. baklava. krispy kreme. that's right. you heard what i wrote. lots of Carls. two friends from IMSA. lots of dancer friends, including funny 50 year old caller that i spoke to in a scottish accent all night. he waltz's like no body's business.
so as my b-day present to the girls, i'm off to clean up. and then i'm going to the Mall, finally, to see our nation's capitol. if any one feels like they need to put on a few pounds, please... help yourself. its the least i can do.
this world is exhausting me.
i've already rent out most of my rage to a poor soul via this electronic slobberpuss of the virtual world i find myself living on.
the questions:
is it enough to simply love what you do, even if this world seems to hold no value in it, or at least no meaning?
is it enough to do a job deemed meaningful by the world, if it makes you want to tear your heart out?
if my work isn't helping people why am i doing it?
if this world truly doesn't care about a person who finds thinking and feeling imperative in her day to day life a more important task than finishing the memos and having business class training, why the hell am i living in it?
someone clue me in, here.
it is difficult to watch my beloved friends becoming so successfull, finding their way, making money, kind of doing what they love, getting paychecks from theater and feeling so. so. behind. defunct.
i know i am not these things, but as i told my love,
i am tired of trying to hold all these things spilling out of my heart
all by myself
too many are falling on the flooring, rolling away from my feet
drop by drop
this world is clearly manic depressive.
my green door interview made me cry. after a lovely morning, the upper-ups seemed out to get me and basically assumed i was selfish, incompetent and slutty. so i cried with zdanna and had frozen chai.
then, went to sing.
after several random people complimenting me on my voice as per usual, anothr random guy found me. Jean-Luc is a professional singer from Haiti. He knows lots of singers. Lots of choirs. He's going to try to get me into them.
Whaaaaa?
had audition. went well. its not a paying gig, but who knows.
wish me luck through the hurricane.
thanks mom for the poetry. it was lovely.
i have another interview tomorrow. for the hotty-phat green door job.
i. am. nervous.
there are only five of us up for grabs on this position.
if i get it, i'll be employed next week and my worries will be over for a while.
if i don't....
we'll start again.
blech.
but it doesn't matter, because Zdanna King shows up at my house tomorrow morning, i danced to scottish music in the kennedy center barefoot, and tomorrow my audition for the Master Chorale will go well, because there's nothing at stake in it.
my life is shaking solidly in the wind.
whisperings
of silent
freight trains on the
illinois central
rumbling over
telephone wire
while i try to stand up from
my waking dreams
to come back
to the world
that does not yet want me
it will only take time for the world to discover
what i can be
in it
just as you
took
time
also
a psychic friend of mine in Ireland once told me that my voice would always be able to solve problems for me... and that two of my spirit guides (apparently, I have five) were singers, and they sat on either of my shoulders.
When I was singing particularly well, they were singing with me in harmony.
This gives me great faith, sometimes.
Went busking last night. Made 70 dollars. I believe my spirit guides were with me.
Then went dancing. Didn't make any money, but unmade a lot of stress from the week.
Going to see Chris Rashka, reknowned children's author today. will see friends from high school tomorrow.
The weekends, I think, are my time off, just like everyone else. time off from pressure, bad weight, pushing on me to do something.
the weekends, i have the luxury of faith and optimism.
wish me luck.
lost it a bit yesterday.
got kind of weepy. hysterical, really. maybe i was just due for it.
then an employer called.
why can't i lie to these people? why can't i say: yes, of course, i'll work for you FOREVER, just HIRE ME!!
but i can't. told the poor guy that i'd hopefully only be there for a month or two. he said:
"if it weren't for that, we'd hire you now... but i'm desperate, so i may give you a call anyway."
i took my temperature this morning.
its 102 degrees.
sheesh.
sorry to be so down. but i may as well vent to y'all in cyberspace, because i pity laura having to take all the heat.
so to speak.
so i'm going home. to take a nap. to rest a little while. i have another retail interview tomorrow, another person who would probably hire me if I could just put aside my damned principles and lie to their face.
but i fear, once i start to put aside my principles to get a job, i'll never stop.
thank god for temp agencies.
job interviews.
what a thing.
i had an amazing interview with The Green Door yesterday. They work with mentally ill people, mostly schizophrenics, to give them meaningful work and employment. I would be running a kitchen to feed the clubhouse every day.
they actually said they were looking for someone who would be annoyed by crumbs on the floor.
this was before they knew i had a kitchen "thing".
so thank you father. see jen, i knew there was a place in the world for people like me.
but more importantly, this organization seemed to be hiring a person, an individual, not just an employee. they didn't care i hadn't done counseling before. they didn't care i didn't have prior food experience. they were looking for someone creative and motivated.
it is heartening to see an organization thinking like this. like they truly want people to be themselves, not their "business self" at the office, at work, in working with their clients.
so, we'll see. the interview went well. in any case, it restored my faith that there are good, meaningful jobs out there, and i will not be forced to serve the Man.
laura and i make good food every night. our kitchen is small but warm. soon, we shall see more people in it. i am thrilled.
i am too full of many things. brimming over, just ready to run out, like the top of a very full glass of water, only surface tension keeping things together.
surface tension. holding me solid. keeping me in my container.
mrs. bach once said that everything in life is tension and release. it seemed like a wise statement then. it seems i am always living it now.
how does this happen?
just when you think you've only got one thing to worry about, one thing to concern yourself with, your life explodes and you're in a new city and there's newness all around you and all you want to do is move home and get a waitressing job
what's going on?
i'm in DC. turned up at my house, my father road-raging at the crazy DC drivers in Friday night rush hour (my father's a country boy; HATES cities) drive up to my apartment in what seems to be a crazy sketchy neighborhood.
my dad says " you're paying 1200 to live in THIS SHITHOLE?!"
thanks. he's retracted the statement, sort of, but it certainly wasn't a vote of confidence.
in actuality, the apartment, and the area, are fine. not ideal, but fine, and laura and i are slowly making our place in the world together.
i, on the other hand....
money is ruling my heart, and my heart has other matters to attend to. two broken hearts on my hands and neither of them my own. and i can only hold one
but not now
tomorrow. i have a plan. to busk. to look for a job. to talk to a landlord. to learn about DC. to join a dance class. to get a bank account. to learn to play guitar. to make it in the music business. to try out for a play. to make a good meal. to live with ease, power, and gentleness.
gentle power.
i'm not there yet.
mr. ashworht had an experience with a teacher of ours from NTI. chris was upset or stressed after an experience with a Balinese Mask session and Per Brahe came up to him and placed one hand on his chest, one on his back, and moved both hands in a circular motions, asking chris to imagine "green hands."
please everyone. i know you are all taking care of me. you don't know it. just send me some green hands and i will find them when i need them.
megs
ps: per brahe, my balinese mask teacher, is in fact the Great Great Great Great grand nephew (I think) of Tycho Brahe, the famous Danish astronomer from Galileo's time. just a note. who says fame is fleeting?
well, here i am
lost in space
full of cars and cement and grazing trees in our nation's capitol.
lost again in my own country.
moved into the apartment yesterday. terrified my darling father with the seeming sketch of the neighborhood, but its right next to catholic university, and i am unintimidated. because i am with the ones i love.
even though i've left one that i love
behind
what can be said
except
hello my life
hello my loves, new and old
ready for beginnings....
my own little space on the internet...
where the colors make sense in my heart.
yeah, jen wang, for designing my weblog on moveable type, so easy I should be able to design it, and yet, i spent all last night editing watson recordings so i can fly to Colorado Springs today and impress everyone with my sound-editing prowess.
or maybe just sing for them. I haven't decided.
only three hours
on a couch in cincinnati
before i leave this long dark hallway
and start to sing
again
knees too weak to hold up my weight of
worldly fire
extended from the arms of places long gone
but not so faded from memory
as the wars of yesterday
places that haunt my
kitchen, my hunger, my
every
day
striving
reminding me
to keep returning
to keep leaving home
and finding solitude and comfort
in the unknown