My (Sort of) Idol

As I was scrolling through Facebook preferatory to getting to work, I stumbled upon this "share" from a voice teacher I am "friends" with. I first met this young woman through other blogging (despite my melting pot of emotions I will be discreet) where I learned quite a lot more about her than  I needed to know.  She was one of the people who eventually "unfriended" me as a result of my musings as to whether singers in general were self involved.  I found it odd, as I did not address that question to anyone in particular, nor was I really thinking at that moment of anyone in particular.

In some ways she is not that different (albeit more cosmopolitan) than many of the Jewish girls I grew up with.  I always had one foot in that culture as my mother was a secular Jew whose entire self-definition was wrapped up in being an intellectual, but after my father died my mother and I were poor.

Perhaps if this woman were not a singer and we had met in some other walk of life we could have been real friends.

At this moment she is not having an A plus career, but then (probably) someone with an A plus career would not be doing the kind of blogging she had been doing nor would I have had the hubris to envy such a person.  But what she is doing (singing for a living, traveling, having an "image") seemed as if it would have been possible for me if I had made other choices.

Even the photo she (or someone) chose for this article.  Cleavage "for days" as gay men would say.  I do think she is one of the people I had in mind when I spoke about photos.  At least once every six months she would have a new set of head shots.

One thing not mentioned in this (nicely written and interesting) piece is the amount of time she spent in productions categorized as regietheater which, if you scratch the surface, usually involves a lot of (simulated) sex. So she was agonizing about how to stage a piece of naughty while I was agonizing about where to put an en dash. It's rather ironic. One of the things The Artist's Way tells you to do is make an "image file". So one of the places I looked for images, actually, was this woman's fan page on Facebook. I may even have "clipped" the very photo used in the article.

So how do I make myself this interesting and this sexy? I need more than a good high B flat.

ETA: One of the things the Artist's Way tells you to do is make an "envy list" and the format is supposed to be "I envy Miss A because she is doing X so my antidote to this envy is to do Y."  so the question for me is - what is Y?  Singing the Habanera in a church basement?  Producing a concert opera or oratorio that will be seen/heard by 35 people (if I'm lucky) and begging someone to take my picture if I can even find someone with a camera? Trying to get someone "out there" to be interested in this blog and write and article about me? Go to the supermarket in one of my Dolly Parton knockoff outfits and try to stage a "happening"??