The reason you haven't heard from me for a while is that I have been engrossed in my partner's progress in the rehab nursing home. She has been there now for close to two months and she will probably be discharged before the New Year. Not my choice. I would prefer her to stay there, but the social worker is pushing her to go home.
Some conditions have been set, the first of which is for that three room apartment, filled with 60 plus years of accumulated junk, to be aggressively and ruthlessly shoveled out and professionally cleaned. This will cost well over $5000. (Shouldn't be an issue as she now has to spend down to get Medicaid). It will also take at least five work days (they work 10-5). Supervising this (which I have to do, to tell them what can stay and what can go) is not really what I wanted to be doing with my December, but I will suck it up, as the young people say. I said I cannot be available Monday (my tutoring day), Thursday (my Pilates and choir day), or any day that the choir is singing. In the meantime I have been visiting my partner in the nursing home every day. It is on the same subway line that I live, and that all my activities are on, so it is much less onerous than going to her apartment.
Another condition to her discharge is that she has to have an aide with her all day (not sure if this is just weekdays, or also weekends). She will pay for these herself until her money is gone, and then go on Medicaid.
Her finances will be outsourced so that she doesn't have to see any financial documents. Someone else will take care of the paperwork to get her on Medicaid. She will pay for this service also.
So a lot will be taken off my hands.
As I said, this scenario would not have been my choice, but....
I am writing partly because I am starting to get restless now that I have not felt free to plan another concert. Once she is settled I will see if I can put on a concert at the nursing home where she has been. They have concerts on Saturday afternoons. Or I can go back in the Spring to SAGE, where I put on Carmen and Il Trovatore.
I am going to sing "Rejoice Greatly" on January 1. I sing it very well. The original choir director told me he didn't like "heavy voices" singing that piece but I guess the new Director of Music feels differently. In the meantime I am working on an aria from Alcina to keep my voice in the right place for singing Handel. No matter what, I practice every day, even if it's just for 45 minutes.
Then I saw a photo someone posted of concert soloists in gowns, in a church, and I wanted to wail with envy and anguish. That is what I could kill to be doing. I have given up any idea of singing opera in costume with staging, for a variety of reasons, but I won't give up my dream of singing solos from an oratorio, beautifully dressed, with a sea of men and women in black behind me. I will chase that until I can no longer sing - which won't be any time soon.
Sunday, December 4, 2016
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Trump Voters and Me
First, the qualifier. No, I was not a Trump voter!!
I have never voted Republican in a national election (I may have in a local election; I can't remember) and Trump was absolutely the worst candidate the party has ever put forth.
But what struck me from the beginning was how many demographics I seem to share in common with Trump voters, starting with being a poor "underprivileged" white person. Yet with all my grievances, it never occurred to me to blame my problems on minorities or immigrants.
I'm 66 and have seen my economic prospects dim, certainly beginning in adolescence. When I was 14 my father (a university professor) died, which catapulted me and my mother out of the "professional upper middle class". At first it was not really noticeable. Really, the only things that changed were that I went to a (very mediocre) public school instead of a private school, and we stopped taking summer vacations. Since I had hated the private school I went to, and since at 14 nothing seemed less appetizing than taking a vacation with parents, I did not miss either of these things. My mother still took me to the theater and we lived in a very large, well-kept apartment (one thing she kept was her biweekly cleaning woman) where elaborate meals were served every night. The house was full of books, and the conversation was erudite.
I spent what now would have been referred to as my "emerging adulthood" pretty much off the map (remember "turn on, tune in, drop out"?) so I did not go to college, squandered the modest amount of money my father left me, and abused alcohol and drugs.
When I finally rejoined the human race, full weight, at, say, five years' sobriety at the age of 30, it was a very different ball game. Reagan was now President, the tax code was skewed toward the wealthy, the city had been taken over by the finance industry, and rents were skyrocketing, so as an Assistant Editor (a job that once would have been considered "middle class" and that should have paid, in 1980 dollars, what my mother was making in 1964) I was definitely "poor". I pinched pennies. I couldn't afford a "yuppie" wardrobe, but mostly went to work in jeans, unless I had a meeting with someone from outside when I wore one of my two pairs of wool trousers and a blazer from the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. One night every two weeks I went to bed hungry, until the next paycheck arrived.
Fast forward to this election. With each passing week I had new reasons to loathe Trump (and despise the Republican politicians weak enough to support him) but I immediately latched onto how many demographics I had in common with his core supporters, although there were many I did not. I am white and poor, but rather than living in a blighted area of the rust belt, I am living in a city that once had been home to many people like me (roughly, the single, genteel poor, living - and dying - in studio apartments, including the now-demolished SROs) but that now has been taken over by what I call "the overclass": not just people in finance, but people of younger generations, who had come here to "make it", had "made it", had multiple graduate degrees, are much taller than I am which is compounded by their wearing very high heels (I'm thinking of women), have bad manners (I can't tell you how many times I have been pushed out of the way by someone sprinting for a cab I had been patiently waiting for or racing down the subway stairs), and to whom I feel that I am mostly invisible. Yes, I (barely) managed to get a college degree, by going at night between the ages of 30 and 40, but I am as much a nobody in the sea of M.A.s and Ph.Ds in which I am drowning as someone with a high school diploma is, say, in Michigan.
Like Trump voters, my primary identification is class, not gender, or even the fact that I am LGBT. If someone were to ask me "who are you"? I would say a low-income, albeit college educated, single, urban dwelling senior. Although I voted for Hillary, I did not get a surge of exhilaration at the thought of a woman president, and when she lost, I was devastated because I saw that as a blow to common sense and humanity, not because we do not have a woman president. I don't know that if I had a little girl I would think automatically that she should think she should be President. Nor would I think that automatically if I had a little boy. That is a very rarefied stratum of society and few people inhabit it. And no one, male or female, should feel like a failure because s/he does not.
As for some of Trump's supporters feeling that "feminism" (I am putting the term in quotes because it is really only one kind of feminism) has been a factor in their downward slide, I suppose I sometimes wonder about that too. The sort of feminism represented by Hillary Clinton as role model is mostly about highly successful, ambitious, and disciplined women being able to achieve the same things as highly successful, ambitious, and disciplined men. It isn't really about the rest of us.
And yes, maybe I do miss "women at home". I was not married to a man, so my place never would have been in the home, and I think we should be more flexible in saying that maybe in a particular marriage the woman is more suited to a high powered career and the man is more suited to child-rearing. But do I wish there were women at home in your average apartment building? As Sarah Palin once said "you betcha!" If there were women (or men) at home in my SO's building, for example, people who visit the sick, check in on the elderly, comfort the bereaved, and do the work of "caring" not for a living, but where they live, she might not be almost definitely headed for a nursing home.
And I share some of Trump voters' nostalgia for the way America was in the 1950s. Not because it was "whiter" but because it seemed so much less Type A.
Will I survive Trump? Most likely. Particularly because I live in New York, where Andrew Cuomo has already made a reassuring public statement. http://www.towleroad.com/2016/11/andrew-cuomo-new-york-gays/
So I may live somewhere where I feel poor, irrelevant, and invisible, but for now, I live somewhere where I feel safe.
I have never voted Republican in a national election (I may have in a local election; I can't remember) and Trump was absolutely the worst candidate the party has ever put forth.
But what struck me from the beginning was how many demographics I seem to share in common with Trump voters, starting with being a poor "underprivileged" white person. Yet with all my grievances, it never occurred to me to blame my problems on minorities or immigrants.
I'm 66 and have seen my economic prospects dim, certainly beginning in adolescence. When I was 14 my father (a university professor) died, which catapulted me and my mother out of the "professional upper middle class". At first it was not really noticeable. Really, the only things that changed were that I went to a (very mediocre) public school instead of a private school, and we stopped taking summer vacations. Since I had hated the private school I went to, and since at 14 nothing seemed less appetizing than taking a vacation with parents, I did not miss either of these things. My mother still took me to the theater and we lived in a very large, well-kept apartment (one thing she kept was her biweekly cleaning woman) where elaborate meals were served every night. The house was full of books, and the conversation was erudite.
I spent what now would have been referred to as my "emerging adulthood" pretty much off the map (remember "turn on, tune in, drop out"?) so I did not go to college, squandered the modest amount of money my father left me, and abused alcohol and drugs.
When I finally rejoined the human race, full weight, at, say, five years' sobriety at the age of 30, it was a very different ball game. Reagan was now President, the tax code was skewed toward the wealthy, the city had been taken over by the finance industry, and rents were skyrocketing, so as an Assistant Editor (a job that once would have been considered "middle class" and that should have paid, in 1980 dollars, what my mother was making in 1964) I was definitely "poor". I pinched pennies. I couldn't afford a "yuppie" wardrobe, but mostly went to work in jeans, unless I had a meeting with someone from outside when I wore one of my two pairs of wool trousers and a blazer from the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. One night every two weeks I went to bed hungry, until the next paycheck arrived.
Fast forward to this election. With each passing week I had new reasons to loathe Trump (and despise the Republican politicians weak enough to support him) but I immediately latched onto how many demographics I had in common with his core supporters, although there were many I did not. I am white and poor, but rather than living in a blighted area of the rust belt, I am living in a city that once had been home to many people like me (roughly, the single, genteel poor, living - and dying - in studio apartments, including the now-demolished SROs) but that now has been taken over by what I call "the overclass": not just people in finance, but people of younger generations, who had come here to "make it", had "made it", had multiple graduate degrees, are much taller than I am which is compounded by their wearing very high heels (I'm thinking of women), have bad manners (I can't tell you how many times I have been pushed out of the way by someone sprinting for a cab I had been patiently waiting for or racing down the subway stairs), and to whom I feel that I am mostly invisible. Yes, I (barely) managed to get a college degree, by going at night between the ages of 30 and 40, but I am as much a nobody in the sea of M.A.s and Ph.Ds in which I am drowning as someone with a high school diploma is, say, in Michigan.
Like Trump voters, my primary identification is class, not gender, or even the fact that I am LGBT. If someone were to ask me "who are you"? I would say a low-income, albeit college educated, single, urban dwelling senior. Although I voted for Hillary, I did not get a surge of exhilaration at the thought of a woman president, and when she lost, I was devastated because I saw that as a blow to common sense and humanity, not because we do not have a woman president. I don't know that if I had a little girl I would think automatically that she should think she should be President. Nor would I think that automatically if I had a little boy. That is a very rarefied stratum of society and few people inhabit it. And no one, male or female, should feel like a failure because s/he does not.
As for some of Trump's supporters feeling that "feminism" (I am putting the term in quotes because it is really only one kind of feminism) has been a factor in their downward slide, I suppose I sometimes wonder about that too. The sort of feminism represented by Hillary Clinton as role model is mostly about highly successful, ambitious, and disciplined women being able to achieve the same things as highly successful, ambitious, and disciplined men. It isn't really about the rest of us.
And yes, maybe I do miss "women at home". I was not married to a man, so my place never would have been in the home, and I think we should be more flexible in saying that maybe in a particular marriage the woman is more suited to a high powered career and the man is more suited to child-rearing. But do I wish there were women at home in your average apartment building? As Sarah Palin once said "you betcha!" If there were women (or men) at home in my SO's building, for example, people who visit the sick, check in on the elderly, comfort the bereaved, and do the work of "caring" not for a living, but where they live, she might not be almost definitely headed for a nursing home.
And I share some of Trump voters' nostalgia for the way America was in the 1950s. Not because it was "whiter" but because it seemed so much less Type A.
Will I survive Trump? Most likely. Particularly because I live in New York, where Andrew Cuomo has already made a reassuring public statement. http://www.towleroad.com/2016/11/andrew-cuomo-new-york-gays/
So I may live somewhere where I feel poor, irrelevant, and invisible, but for now, I live somewhere where I feel safe.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
The Pursuit of Excellence in the Midst of Tragedy
Yes, I am in the middle of a tragedy right now. My partner is in subacute rehab. Discharge planning is not on the immediate horizon, but in my heart of hearts I don't want her to go home. On Medicaid (which she will have to get on) she can have a home attendant every day, but that will then be a full time job for me. I will have to supervise and manage them, some will do a good job, some won't, sometimes the aide will call in sick, and sometimes she won't show up. This is territory I know about. It is less of a problem if the elderly person can supervise the aides herself (for example if her problems are exclusively physical). But I know my partner can't, so this will be my job. It will mean I will never know, from day to day, if I will be in the middle of a crisis. I don't want that. Most of our mutual friends agree, but the social worker at the nursing home where she is getting rehab has (I feel) tried to guilt trip me into wanting her to come home. The place looks like a war zone. Yes, I can use my partner's money to pay people to clean it up (this will need to be done regardless) but how will it stay clean? If an aide is there during the day seeing that my partner eats, changing the bed (and other things), and washing some dishes and some laundry, she will not have time to keep that monstrosity of an apartment clean and organized. And there will still be the mail!!! All those catalogs, and bills and bank statements that my partner can't keep track of or understand.
She is getting good care where she is. True, in the beginning, if she stays there, she will have to share a room, toe to toe, with someone else, but she can be waitlisted for a semi-private, and then a private room. She scarcely knows where she is. She loves to be waited on. She can watch tv, and watch the endless stream of people coming in and out. I can visit her every day. The facility is close by. And then I can leave. And until she physically comes to the end of life (definitely not there yet) I am unlikely to get a frantic call necessitating that I drop everything. I can make plans.
I am not making any now, not until she is settled and I have completed all the paperwork to help her get Medicaid (which she will need regardless). The facility has Saturday concerts at 2:30, so maybe I can do something. And I am planning a solo for Advent/Christmas/Epiphany.
I picked up the Mascagni "Ave Maria" which I had heard and really liked. It's one of those pieces with choices for higher notes and lower notes. So I will sing the lower notes. At the end there's a pianissimo note, usually an A, although you can sing an F. At my lesson my teacher made me sing the A and I actually did it! But I don't seem to be able to replicate it at home. I have tried this, and tried that, and nothing really works. Everything just seems to produce tension. Tomorrow I will try again. It's something to focus on. I won't know if that is something I will sing until we get the Advent/Christmas choir schedule. Ave Marias are usually best for Magnificat Sunday and that is pretty much always a choir Sunday. In fact I am not really sure when I will sing, because the two Sundays are Christmas Day and New Year's Day. New Year's might be a possibility. If my partner is still in the rehab/nursing home I won't be staying up with her at night New Year's Eve and anyhow that has not been our thing for a long time.
She is getting good care where she is. True, in the beginning, if she stays there, she will have to share a room, toe to toe, with someone else, but she can be waitlisted for a semi-private, and then a private room. She scarcely knows where she is. She loves to be waited on. She can watch tv, and watch the endless stream of people coming in and out. I can visit her every day. The facility is close by. And then I can leave. And until she physically comes to the end of life (definitely not there yet) I am unlikely to get a frantic call necessitating that I drop everything. I can make plans.
I am not making any now, not until she is settled and I have completed all the paperwork to help her get Medicaid (which she will need regardless). The facility has Saturday concerts at 2:30, so maybe I can do something. And I am planning a solo for Advent/Christmas/Epiphany.
I picked up the Mascagni "Ave Maria" which I had heard and really liked. It's one of those pieces with choices for higher notes and lower notes. So I will sing the lower notes. At the end there's a pianissimo note, usually an A, although you can sing an F. At my lesson my teacher made me sing the A and I actually did it! But I don't seem to be able to replicate it at home. I have tried this, and tried that, and nothing really works. Everything just seems to produce tension. Tomorrow I will try again. It's something to focus on. I won't know if that is something I will sing until we get the Advent/Christmas choir schedule. Ave Marias are usually best for Magnificat Sunday and that is pretty much always a choir Sunday. In fact I am not really sure when I will sing, because the two Sundays are Christmas Day and New Year's Day. New Year's might be a possibility. If my partner is still in the rehab/nursing home I won't be staying up with her at night New Year's Eve and anyhow that has not been our thing for a long time.
Monday, October 17, 2016
Great Joy and Great Sadness
Trovatore went well. I was happy with how I sang, and my teacher was happy. And he sounded great despite having been battling a cold. The audience loved it although there were only half as many people as had come to Carmen. The only SNAFU was that the event planner was on vacation, and the person she had turned this over to left early and turned it over to someone else, so no one could find the programs. So there weren't any. But that was a minor matter.
The great sadness is that when the nurse came to see my partner on Wednesday she called 911 (I'm so grateful she was there - my partner never would have allowed me to do that) to take her to the ER if for no other reason than that she had a sprained ankle and could not even walk to the refrigerator. She was in the ER for over 24 hours before she got a bed. She had a UTI and pneumonia (a mild case) but I see a lot of other issues as well. She sleeps way too much and is confused some of the time. Legally, she is definitely compos mentis, and she did well on several parts of a memory test (the part she did not do well with involved sequences with numbers which is something she has never been able to understand), but she is too confused, in my opinion, to go back home and deal with trying to feed herself, understand materials that come in the mail, etc. At some point she will be transferred from the hospital to a subacute rehab, and from there maybe she will go into long-term care. She can't afford to have a home attendant every day and is not currently eligible for Medicaid. I think once she is in a facility, though, they have staff that could work on that.
Well, even after over 40 years sober in AA, I think it's only now that I understand the idea of "one day at a time".
But I have to go on with my own life. Fortunately Social Security covers half my expenses and I can always squeeze in 20 hours a week of copyediting to cover the other half.
And I am going to continue to sing although I am not going to plan anything big until I know what's going on with my partner. My next project can be finding a solo to sing during the period between Christmas and Epiphany, when the choir is off.
And I have her cat, Darby. So with him and my little Cash-Kiss (my new nickname for him) it's endless Tuxedo shenanigans.
Although tomorrow I have to arrange for Cash to have his nasal poly removed (the rescue people will pay for it).
The great sadness is that when the nurse came to see my partner on Wednesday she called 911 (I'm so grateful she was there - my partner never would have allowed me to do that) to take her to the ER if for no other reason than that she had a sprained ankle and could not even walk to the refrigerator. She was in the ER for over 24 hours before she got a bed. She had a UTI and pneumonia (a mild case) but I see a lot of other issues as well. She sleeps way too much and is confused some of the time. Legally, she is definitely compos mentis, and she did well on several parts of a memory test (the part she did not do well with involved sequences with numbers which is something she has never been able to understand), but she is too confused, in my opinion, to go back home and deal with trying to feed herself, understand materials that come in the mail, etc. At some point she will be transferred from the hospital to a subacute rehab, and from there maybe she will go into long-term care. She can't afford to have a home attendant every day and is not currently eligible for Medicaid. I think once she is in a facility, though, they have staff that could work on that.
Well, even after over 40 years sober in AA, I think it's only now that I understand the idea of "one day at a time".
But I have to go on with my own life. Fortunately Social Security covers half my expenses and I can always squeeze in 20 hours a week of copyediting to cover the other half.
And I am going to continue to sing although I am not going to plan anything big until I know what's going on with my partner. My next project can be finding a solo to sing during the period between Christmas and Epiphany, when the choir is off.
And I have her cat, Darby. So with him and my little Cash-Kiss (my new nickname for him) it's endless Tuxedo shenanigans.
Although tomorrow I have to arrange for Cash to have his nasal poly removed (the rescue people will pay for it).
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Trovatore Take 2, and Other Things
Today was the second (and final) Trovatore rehearsal. We started from the top and included the narration. I didn't feel that I sang as well as last time (although I was much more secure with rhythms, tempi, etc.) but that may have been because I was being more self critical. Mostly I wasn't happy with the last B flat at the end - it went straight - although my teacher said it was good, just not as good as I can sing at my best.
I will do a small amount of practicing tomorrow, then have a lesson Thursday (I am not going to choir practice) and then mostly rest.
My partner is not well. Whatever she has is nonspecific, which is the problem. It is not a worsening of her core illnesses, COPD and a-fib. It is an overwhelming fatigue combined with her existence in a state that is always sort of halfway between being asleep and being awake.
A nurse is coming tomorrow to evaluate her. I will do what I can but I really need Sunday and Monday to be blackout dates with no stress. Whatever she has is not life threatening. The best thing in the world would be if she could be in a rehab for several weeks where she was fed and exercised. She does not do these things on her own. She is also now constantly guilt tripping me about not being there. Yes, if I seriously think about it the most important thing in my life is to cherish her for as long as possible, but if I don't throw my all into singing now, the window of opportunity will be past.
After the Trovatore performance I suppose I should have a moratorium on planning anything big (other than looking for an Advent/Christmas/Epiphany choir solo) until whatever is going on with her is sorted.
And on top of all this, I got a letter from LC. Several months ago, I deleted a post in which I said I hated her because hate was too strong a word. No, I do hate her. I rarely hate people. There were periods when I hated my mother, but really that has been it, certainly as an adult. She wrote to thank me for a page I had made for a memory book for her 80th birthday before she slammed the door on me (and no, she does not have dementia, that is not what is driving any of this) saying in a very high-handed way that as most of our 66 years of interaction have been good, she was going to keep it. After hand writing (with my hands shaking) three really cruel letters to her and then tearing them up, I sat down and typed something measured and reasonable, but still filled with rage. And I asked her not to write to me again. Her initial smarmy "last note" email said she would "appreciate it if I did not respond in any way", but apparently she thinks that it's OK for her to write when she feels like it, which is just not on and needs to be stopped. I had even given her an out several months ago by thanking her for the birthday flowers and offering to apologize if I had said anything offensive but she just repeated her statement that the correspondence "was not working for her" and wanted to leave it at that so that she didn't say something hurtful. But then she thought it was OK to write again. My therapist said that the two emails she wrote sounded like childish passive aggressive breakup texts of the kind that millennials send.
I really can't think of anything I could have said that would have been so offensive for her to enjoin me not to communicate with her. One thing I said in my letter was that she does not have the moral high ground, that dumping a friendship in the trash is much more morally reprehensible than talking about your personal problems when there's been a mass shooting somewhere.
Was I also responsible for the hideous end of this friendship? I suppose in a way. I thought she was the kind of friend (do these exist?) whom I could speak to (or write to) about anything I was thinking or feeling unless it was personally offensive. It was her idea to have this type of correspondence - where we delved deeply into things. I suppose that's always a minefield. Next time if someone wants that kind of interaction I will be wary. Or I just won't share things. I will save those for a therapist or for these pages. I suppose I hate her because I feel betrayed. She got me to open up and then hung me out to dry. I hope she sits with that letter I wrote and has a serious think about who was the really selfish one in this interaction. And (LOL!) a masterful touch - I had bought a book of stamps called "pets". I was quite startled to see that one of them was a snake. So I used that stamp on the letter to LC. Perfect! Her behavior to me was just like a rattlesnake attacking me by surprise from under a rock.
Oh, and one last thing about Trovatore. I realized that October is the perfect month for it, because with all the witches and curses and ghosts, it's a great Hallowe'en piece.
I will do a small amount of practicing tomorrow, then have a lesson Thursday (I am not going to choir practice) and then mostly rest.
My partner is not well. Whatever she has is nonspecific, which is the problem. It is not a worsening of her core illnesses, COPD and a-fib. It is an overwhelming fatigue combined with her existence in a state that is always sort of halfway between being asleep and being awake.
A nurse is coming tomorrow to evaluate her. I will do what I can but I really need Sunday and Monday to be blackout dates with no stress. Whatever she has is not life threatening. The best thing in the world would be if she could be in a rehab for several weeks where she was fed and exercised. She does not do these things on her own. She is also now constantly guilt tripping me about not being there. Yes, if I seriously think about it the most important thing in my life is to cherish her for as long as possible, but if I don't throw my all into singing now, the window of opportunity will be past.
After the Trovatore performance I suppose I should have a moratorium on planning anything big (other than looking for an Advent/Christmas/Epiphany choir solo) until whatever is going on with her is sorted.
And on top of all this, I got a letter from LC. Several months ago, I deleted a post in which I said I hated her because hate was too strong a word. No, I do hate her. I rarely hate people. There were periods when I hated my mother, but really that has been it, certainly as an adult. She wrote to thank me for a page I had made for a memory book for her 80th birthday before she slammed the door on me (and no, she does not have dementia, that is not what is driving any of this) saying in a very high-handed way that as most of our 66 years of interaction have been good, she was going to keep it. After hand writing (with my hands shaking) three really cruel letters to her and then tearing them up, I sat down and typed something measured and reasonable, but still filled with rage. And I asked her not to write to me again. Her initial smarmy "last note" email said she would "appreciate it if I did not respond in any way", but apparently she thinks that it's OK for her to write when she feels like it, which is just not on and needs to be stopped. I had even given her an out several months ago by thanking her for the birthday flowers and offering to apologize if I had said anything offensive but she just repeated her statement that the correspondence "was not working for her" and wanted to leave it at that so that she didn't say something hurtful. But then she thought it was OK to write again. My therapist said that the two emails she wrote sounded like childish passive aggressive breakup texts of the kind that millennials send.
I really can't think of anything I could have said that would have been so offensive for her to enjoin me not to communicate with her. One thing I said in my letter was that she does not have the moral high ground, that dumping a friendship in the trash is much more morally reprehensible than talking about your personal problems when there's been a mass shooting somewhere.
Was I also responsible for the hideous end of this friendship? I suppose in a way. I thought she was the kind of friend (do these exist?) whom I could speak to (or write to) about anything I was thinking or feeling unless it was personally offensive. It was her idea to have this type of correspondence - where we delved deeply into things. I suppose that's always a minefield. Next time if someone wants that kind of interaction I will be wary. Or I just won't share things. I will save those for a therapist or for these pages. I suppose I hate her because I feel betrayed. She got me to open up and then hung me out to dry. I hope she sits with that letter I wrote and has a serious think about who was the really selfish one in this interaction. And (LOL!) a masterful touch - I had bought a book of stamps called "pets". I was quite startled to see that one of them was a snake. So I used that stamp on the letter to LC. Perfect! Her behavior to me was just like a rattlesnake attacking me by surprise from under a rock.
Oh, and one last thing about Trovatore. I realized that October is the perfect month for it, because with all the witches and curses and ghosts, it's a great Hallowe'en piece.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Trovatore Take 1
Yesterday was the first of two rehearsals for Il Trovatore. Because of everything that had been going on this past month - the loss of my Siamese, the introduction into my life and heart of my new kitty, my partner's continuing decline, computer problems - I had not had time ever to run through the entire program to see if I could pace myself, so I was worried.
Actually, my teacher had told me not to be, but I was still worried.
Well, my fears were groundless. I sang a personal best, and if I can sing that well in the performance I will be happy.
This doesn't mean that I can "rust" on my laurels, however. My teacher gave me a practice template, which I will stick to, and I will need to eat healthily (not too many sweets), rest, not get into screaming matches with people, and try, as much as possible, to avoid stress.
That latter is easier said than done, because my partner has sunk again into a scary nonspecific malaise (she nodded off during the ballet last week), and is less and less able to cope with daily living. Some things may need to change, but she is not at death's door, and can survive certainly until my performance is over. And someone is bringing her.
So wish me luck; that I can keep up this level of singing.
The accompanist told me how much more "bloom" my voice had on top, and he last heard me in May.
Actually, my teacher had told me not to be, but I was still worried.
Well, my fears were groundless. I sang a personal best, and if I can sing that well in the performance I will be happy.
This doesn't mean that I can "rust" on my laurels, however. My teacher gave me a practice template, which I will stick to, and I will need to eat healthily (not too many sweets), rest, not get into screaming matches with people, and try, as much as possible, to avoid stress.
That latter is easier said than done, because my partner has sunk again into a scary nonspecific malaise (she nodded off during the ballet last week), and is less and less able to cope with daily living. Some things may need to change, but she is not at death's door, and can survive certainly until my performance is over. And someone is bringing her.
So wish me luck; that I can keep up this level of singing.
The accompanist told me how much more "bloom" my voice had on top, and he last heard me in May.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Now I Will Always Have Cash on Hand
Well, right now it almost seems that this is becoming a cat blog instead of a singing blog!
Maybe these pastiches of opera and narrative are a new "niche" that I have found?
As of Monday, I have a new member of the family.
If you read my previous post, there was a black and white cat (sort of an imperfect tuxedo) named "Cashew" whom I met at the Koneko Cat Cafe.
Well, now he's mine and I've renamed him "Cash". He's sweet and loving and low key and likes to snuggle.
The only worry I have is that he has a nasal polyp that needs to be removed. The rescue people will pay to have it done, in fact they offered to have that taken care of before they brought him to me, but I didn't want that, I wanted him here to cherish for a while. I said I would contact them about the surgery after my concert. It is not an emergency, but my primary care vet said that I need to get it done because the polyp could get bigger and cause problems. Right now it just causes him to sound like he's snoring when he's sleeping, and his purr is a bit gutteral sounding.
Here are some photos.
His favorite places are the pillow that Charlotte used to sleep on, and this kitty condo. It hasn't had a cat in it for at least five years.
In other news, Trovatore is going really really well, and I have had fun working on the script.
Maybe these pastiches of opera and narrative are a new "niche" that I have found?
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Wednesday at the Cat Cafe
Not wanting to be in a petless house, I have now started looking for another cat.I went to the web site Anjellicle Cats and found this little love.
He's a tuxedo, like my partner's Darby, but smaller. I was told that he was at a place called Koneko Cat Cafe .
I went there to see him and maybe he's the one. He seemed a little lethargic and did not respond to his name ("Cashew", which I will change to "Cash"), but the woman in charge said that a lot of the cats were tired (it was 2:00) because some children had been there earlier. She said I should come back on another day at 11. I will do that after the rescue organization has approved my application. I submitted it Monday and am of course on pins and needles. They have to call references that I provided but have not done that yet.
I saw two other cats at the Cafe that I liked, both a little bigger than Cash and a little older. The yellow one is Paris and the tabby is Sammy (Sammy nipped me when I tried to pet him, which was not a good sign.)
One thing that I was disappointed by is that I wasn't allowed to pick the cats up. I want to see how they respond to being picked up because for me that's big thing. Cash did lick my hand finally when I petted him, so I am pretty sure he is the one but not 100%.
I haven't done much singing the past few days, but I did run through "Condotta" on Monday and had a lesson yesterday. Tomorrow is choir practice, which is fun, but I have to be careful not to lose this big Verdian sound that I have worked so hard for and finally really found, I think. This coming Monday I have made a date with myself to run through the entire program, timing it for breaks. I hope I can have a cat here if not this coming Monday (what I had hoped) then the following. It's lonely.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
R.I.P. Charlotte Bronte 1996-2016
On Friday morning (September 2) I had to have my 20-year-old Siamese cat, Charlotte Bronte (named because at 5 weeks of age she looked like Charlotte Bronte's little kid gloves on display that week at the New York Public Library) put to sleep. She had fought the good fight and stayed with me on a lot of expensive medicine, but Wednesday she hadn't eaten and Thursday morning I woke up to find her lying in the litter box.
This is the first time I have had to be in a petless house in over 40 years. Tomorrow will be my 41st anniversary of sobriety in AA. It was my beagle Paulie, who got me sober. I stopped drinking because I could see that I was not taking care of him; he had epilepsy and I would forget to give him his medicine because I had passed out. Since then I have had two more dogs and four cats.
My house will not be petless for long. I filled out an application with an organization that has pets for adoption and if I don't hear from them by the weekend I am going to go to Petco and see who is there. And my partner has her enormous tuxedo. (I will only be adopting one cat because I have promised her that if anything happened to her I would take him.)
Here are some photos.
She saw me through two jobs, a complete life transformation when I began singing, two dogs, and two cats. She sat on my lap when I was working. It's lonely enough being isolated working here alone.
I feel that her spirit is still in the house.
This is the first time I have had to be in a petless house in over 40 years. Tomorrow will be my 41st anniversary of sobriety in AA. It was my beagle Paulie, who got me sober. I stopped drinking because I could see that I was not taking care of him; he had epilepsy and I would forget to give him his medicine because I had passed out. Since then I have had two more dogs and four cats.
My house will not be petless for long. I filled out an application with an organization that has pets for adoption and if I don't hear from them by the weekend I am going to go to Petco and see who is there. And my partner has her enormous tuxedo. (I will only be adopting one cat because I have promised her that if anything happened to her I would take him.)
Here are some photos.
She saw me through two jobs, a complete life transformation when I began singing, two dogs, and two cats. She sat on my lap when I was working. It's lonely enough being isolated working here alone.
I feel that her spirit is still in the house.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Lost and Found, and More Musings on Friendship
Well, surprise, surprise!
Yesterday out of the blue I heard from the woman who had deleted my video(s) from her Youtube channel, and attached to her email was a link through which she "shared" one of the videos with me. Because of the format it was in, I was able to download it and save it on my computer hard drive and upload it to my own Youtube channel (which is pretty sparse in its offerings). I thanked her profusely.
Here's the bitter irony.
Over my two years or so of corresponding with LC, always deep from the heart and the gut - at her prompting; she sent me materials from her "Covenant Group" (a UU offshoot) that had word prompts that were supposed to lead to deep reflection and honest sharing - I (thinking she was someone I could trust) shared a lot of anger and resentment that I felt toward people in my life. With one exception, none of this anger and resentment constituted a deal-breaker, I just wanted to get things off my chest and LC appeared to be a willing listener. Having been trained as a counselor, I assumed that she could be adroit at changing the course of a "discussion" if something made her uncomfortable (or simply saying that she didn't want to talk about a particular thing, which would have been fine with me). Never in a million years did I assume that the things I said would make her angrier and angrier until one day she would tell me she never wanted me to communicate with her again. People with psychological savvy don't do those sorts of things, one would think. There are so many more subtle and less drastic ways to back off from a relationship that is becoming uncomfortable.
The bitter irony is that I am now back in touch (and happy to be so) with all the people I told LC I was angry with, because I vented about them to her (and perhaps one other friend), to my therapist, and in these "pages", but said little, if anything, to them themselves, although they all knew I was teed off. Much better than reading someone the riot act, or telling someone you can't tell them why you don't want them to communicate with you because it would be hurtful, which it is the same thing, really.
As I said, because I'm "talky", forbidding me to "talk" is the cruelest thing anyone can do if I've cared about them at all, or opened up to them the way I did with her. (It's like someone asking you to strip naked and then telling you how ugly you look, basically. If she had thought I had an "ugly" soul, wouldn't she have had an inkling of that long before she had to enjoin me from communicating with her?) I would rather have a screaming match, complete with insults, apologies, hugs, and tears. To me that's what intimacy is.
And as I've said about LC, I am astounded that she managed to raise four children, three of whom she is still in touch with, along with various ancillary relatives. To do that, you have to either "work through" conflict, or find a tactful way to back off. You can't just throw someone in the garbage and walk away smugly thinking you smell like a rose.
I have to say here that I don't "miss" her. All that navel-gazing that these email interchanges elicited was probably very bad for my mental health. It's that I feel angry and ripped off and I think "how dare someone do that to me?" And because she isn't part of the fabric of my life I have no one to commiserate with as in "oh, she'a a bitch. She behaved like that with me [or with so and so]; just write her off and get on with your life." I know she is estranged from one of her sons, and when she told me the circumstances, quoting herself, I can see why. He was talking during her grandson's (his nephew's) funeral and instead of just saying "shhh" and looking stern - what I would have done - she said in that smarmy way she has "Now would be a good time to be silent". So he was silent. He has never spoken to her again. I almost felt like writing to him (he has a Facebook account) but decided against it because I find his political views so odious. Of course her daughter is still a "friend" on Facebook but they live together, so I don't want to get into it with the daughter. But I have considered unfriending her (or at least unfollowing her) several times because every time she types something about "Mom" I want to either scream or throw up.
So as I said, the irony is that all the people I was angry at (mostly over last year's birthday) are now back in my life as friends, no hard feelings, even the woman whom I thought had deliberately deleted my video, and the woman I used as a confidante has dumped me.
I really wish I could just forget her. At the last Moon Circle we were each given an egg to smash on the ground and were told to have it symbolize something we wanted to let go of. So I imagined LC's smirking face. Wish it had worked, but it didn't.
Oh well, time heals all wounds.
And at my last lesson, I ended Trovatore on the best B flat I have ever sung.
Yesterday out of the blue I heard from the woman who had deleted my video(s) from her Youtube channel, and attached to her email was a link through which she "shared" one of the videos with me. Because of the format it was in, I was able to download it and save it on my computer hard drive and upload it to my own Youtube channel (which is pretty sparse in its offerings). I thanked her profusely.
Here's the bitter irony.
Over my two years or so of corresponding with LC, always deep from the heart and the gut - at her prompting; she sent me materials from her "Covenant Group" (a UU offshoot) that had word prompts that were supposed to lead to deep reflection and honest sharing - I (thinking she was someone I could trust) shared a lot of anger and resentment that I felt toward people in my life. With one exception, none of this anger and resentment constituted a deal-breaker, I just wanted to get things off my chest and LC appeared to be a willing listener. Having been trained as a counselor, I assumed that she could be adroit at changing the course of a "discussion" if something made her uncomfortable (or simply saying that she didn't want to talk about a particular thing, which would have been fine with me). Never in a million years did I assume that the things I said would make her angrier and angrier until one day she would tell me she never wanted me to communicate with her again. People with psychological savvy don't do those sorts of things, one would think. There are so many more subtle and less drastic ways to back off from a relationship that is becoming uncomfortable.
The bitter irony is that I am now back in touch (and happy to be so) with all the people I told LC I was angry with, because I vented about them to her (and perhaps one other friend), to my therapist, and in these "pages", but said little, if anything, to them themselves, although they all knew I was teed off. Much better than reading someone the riot act, or telling someone you can't tell them why you don't want them to communicate with you because it would be hurtful, which it is the same thing, really.
As I said, because I'm "talky", forbidding me to "talk" is the cruelest thing anyone can do if I've cared about them at all, or opened up to them the way I did with her. (It's like someone asking you to strip naked and then telling you how ugly you look, basically. If she had thought I had an "ugly" soul, wouldn't she have had an inkling of that long before she had to enjoin me from communicating with her?) I would rather have a screaming match, complete with insults, apologies, hugs, and tears. To me that's what intimacy is.
And as I've said about LC, I am astounded that she managed to raise four children, three of whom she is still in touch with, along with various ancillary relatives. To do that, you have to either "work through" conflict, or find a tactful way to back off. You can't just throw someone in the garbage and walk away smugly thinking you smell like a rose.
I have to say here that I don't "miss" her. All that navel-gazing that these email interchanges elicited was probably very bad for my mental health. It's that I feel angry and ripped off and I think "how dare someone do that to me?" And because she isn't part of the fabric of my life I have no one to commiserate with as in "oh, she'a a bitch. She behaved like that with me [or with so and so]; just write her off and get on with your life." I know she is estranged from one of her sons, and when she told me the circumstances, quoting herself, I can see why. He was talking during her grandson's (his nephew's) funeral and instead of just saying "shhh" and looking stern - what I would have done - she said in that smarmy way she has "Now would be a good time to be silent". So he was silent. He has never spoken to her again. I almost felt like writing to him (he has a Facebook account) but decided against it because I find his political views so odious. Of course her daughter is still a "friend" on Facebook but they live together, so I don't want to get into it with the daughter. But I have considered unfriending her (or at least unfollowing her) several times because every time she types something about "Mom" I want to either scream or throw up.
So as I said, the irony is that all the people I was angry at (mostly over last year's birthday) are now back in my life as friends, no hard feelings, even the woman whom I thought had deliberately deleted my video, and the woman I used as a confidante has dumped me.
I really wish I could just forget her. At the last Moon Circle we were each given an egg to smash on the ground and were told to have it symbolize something we wanted to let go of. So I imagined LC's smirking face. Wish it had worked, but it didn't.
Oh well, time heals all wounds.
And at my last lesson, I ended Trovatore on the best B flat I have ever sung.
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Azucena Deconstructed
First, about the new color. I submitted my blog for some feedback, and one thing that was said was that the black background was not a good fit. So I am trying red. As a diva, there can never be too much red in my life, right?
Of course diddling around with anything techie makes me nervous, so I tend not to change things once that aspect is taken care of. Surprisingly, though, I am much better at handling technology that I think I am and am much better than most people my age. I installed Windows 10 by myself, for example. I think one issue is simply that I am not photographed very much and therefore have very few visuals to add here.
But now to the import of this post. I have a date to sing the Azucena scenes from Trovatore at the LGBT senior center on Monday October 17. I know what scenes I'm singing. I couldn't find a copy of the original play in English, so my teacher's wife can read from the libretto.
For all things Trovatore, go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_trovatore
The amazing thing I discovered when telescoping the opera is that the entire romantic story between Leonora and Manrico can be removed and you've still got the story!! It's really about Azucena, her mother, the count who sentenced her mother to death, his brother, and Azucena's son (and which is which).
So I'm now wondering if the readings should fill the Leonora story in, or if it can just be omitted entirely and instead the readings will set the scene for what the audience will be hearing (like speaking the words to Ferrando's opening aria, for example).
In any event, I am really singing this very well, including the B flats. I thought the breakthrough in early 2015 was "it", but now I seem to have made another. I not only now can attack a B flat or a B natural off the cuff, I can do it full voice!! In my last two practices I sang two off the cuff B naturals that were truly O Don Fatale worthy! Is that in my future?
And when I started looking at Act 4 something interesting happened, which surprised me. Looking at all the opening recitative and imagining a woman sitting in a prison cell, knowing that she is going to be burned to death actually gave me the creeps. I mean I could actually feel what she was feeling. Now, OK, I know once I actually sing that music I can't do that (The Mentor once said "You are not supposed to feel anything; you are supposed to make the audience feel something") but it was interesting that I was that moved. I was not moved that way by the Act 2 music, probably because in that act she's having flashbacks not in terror about her own future. I was going to write that nothing like that had even happened to me when I was working on a role, but that of course is not true. If singing Dalila or Carmen always ended up making me horny, it makes sense that singing Azucena would take me to a very dark place, existentially. According to my teacher, she has PTSD from having spent her life in an intergenerational world of violence.
So now I'm all fired up!! (no pun intended) and am really looking forward to the next two months!!
Of course diddling around with anything techie makes me nervous, so I tend not to change things once that aspect is taken care of. Surprisingly, though, I am much better at handling technology that I think I am and am much better than most people my age. I installed Windows 10 by myself, for example. I think one issue is simply that I am not photographed very much and therefore have very few visuals to add here.
But now to the import of this post. I have a date to sing the Azucena scenes from Trovatore at the LGBT senior center on Monday October 17. I know what scenes I'm singing. I couldn't find a copy of the original play in English, so my teacher's wife can read from the libretto.
For all things Trovatore, go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_trovatore
The amazing thing I discovered when telescoping the opera is that the entire romantic story between Leonora and Manrico can be removed and you've still got the story!! It's really about Azucena, her mother, the count who sentenced her mother to death, his brother, and Azucena's son (and which is which).
So I'm now wondering if the readings should fill the Leonora story in, or if it can just be omitted entirely and instead the readings will set the scene for what the audience will be hearing (like speaking the words to Ferrando's opening aria, for example).
In any event, I am really singing this very well, including the B flats. I thought the breakthrough in early 2015 was "it", but now I seem to have made another. I not only now can attack a B flat or a B natural off the cuff, I can do it full voice!! In my last two practices I sang two off the cuff B naturals that were truly O Don Fatale worthy! Is that in my future?
And when I started looking at Act 4 something interesting happened, which surprised me. Looking at all the opening recitative and imagining a woman sitting in a prison cell, knowing that she is going to be burned to death actually gave me the creeps. I mean I could actually feel what she was feeling. Now, OK, I know once I actually sing that music I can't do that (The Mentor once said "You are not supposed to feel anything; you are supposed to make the audience feel something") but it was interesting that I was that moved. I was not moved that way by the Act 2 music, probably because in that act she's having flashbacks not in terror about her own future. I was going to write that nothing like that had even happened to me when I was working on a role, but that of course is not true. If singing Dalila or Carmen always ended up making me horny, it makes sense that singing Azucena would take me to a very dark place, existentially. According to my teacher, she has PTSD from having spent her life in an intergenerational world of violence.
So now I'm all fired up!! (no pun intended) and am really looking forward to the next two months!!
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Values Voting
I guess this topic is particularly a propos in view of the current presidential campaign, but that's not what has prompted this post.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the "breakup" with LC. I am less hurt than left wary. How will I know, next time, if I confide in someone about how I am feeling, that they won't see that as a violation of their values in some way and decide to dump me because our correspondence isn't "working"? How can I trust anyone again?
I will have to say that this has never happened to me before. Friends and I have drifted apart. There have been people I have made a point of interacting less with, if I felt we didn't have much in common (not really true here) or if I found that the more I knew them the less I liked them, but letting go was a process, not a violent act. Slamming a door is a violent act.
My mother was a "values voter" and in fact, referring back to this post, all the ruptures between my mother and LC, and between my mother and her mother, were about values. My mother didn't like the fact that LC's mother appeared oblivious to the political situation in Greece or the fact that LC cruelly sent a shelter dog to its death (one she had claimed to be madly in love with) rather than mop up after it for a few more weeks or months. My mother "voted with her feet" to end other friendships over values as well. With one woman it was because she had voted for Reagan and read Commentary magazine. With another it was that she bought expensive shoes and didn't donate money to PBS.
I would like to think that I don't operate that way. To me, there is nothing more important than a friendship, and I only judge people based on how they treat me, or perhaps as well on how I see them treating others. I can't imagine totally cutting someone off because of what they say they think or how they say they feel. If I cry over a deleted video and LC cries over a mass shooting, that does not give her the moral high ground. Neither one of us has made the world a better (or a worse) place based on what triggers our tears.
Or maybe she didn't like that I referred to myself as "underprivileged". Yes, I know, context is everything, and that's why I scrape together money from time to time to give to the church food pantry. However underprivileged I feel living in a sea of highly paid professionals married to highly paid professionals who go away four and five times a year (or every weekend!), I have enough food and I have a (very nice) place to live. But why should someone else care how I want to benchmark myself? I could understand her being upset if I had been stingy with her in some way as a result of thinking that, but why was that any of her business? I think abruptly ending a friendship is much crueler than anything a person might opine (or not opine) about.
Maybe it's a UU thing. Even though I consider myself to be a UU (or more accurately, a nineteenth century Unitarian like Susan B. Anthony and Louisa May Alcott), I never cease to be amazed at their smarmy sanctimoniousness. In addition to dispensing with a lot of the "magical thinking" of Christianity (what I like about UUs), they also seem to have dispensed with the Christian notion of charity, not just toward the poor, but toward the "sinner". So if LC thinks I am shallow and selfish (I can't imagine what else it is that caused her to end our friendship that she doesn't want to tell me) shouldn't that be a reason for her to pity me and be charitable? (Only half said tongue in cheek.) And was my selfishness so egregious that she couldn't just say something like "We don't seem to be on the same page right now, so why don't we take a time out?"
What I said to her in my final response is true. I don't care if she doesn't like me as she is not a part of the fabric of my life. But I am angry. She got to dump me and feel self righteous and there's nothing I detest like self righteousness. Really good people don't talk about how good they are all the time.
And no one who has done all the things I have done for my partner in her declining years can be considered selfish. I have a clear conscience if nothing else.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the "breakup" with LC. I am less hurt than left wary. How will I know, next time, if I confide in someone about how I am feeling, that they won't see that as a violation of their values in some way and decide to dump me because our correspondence isn't "working"? How can I trust anyone again?
I will have to say that this has never happened to me before. Friends and I have drifted apart. There have been people I have made a point of interacting less with, if I felt we didn't have much in common (not really true here) or if I found that the more I knew them the less I liked them, but letting go was a process, not a violent act. Slamming a door is a violent act.
My mother was a "values voter" and in fact, referring back to this post, all the ruptures between my mother and LC, and between my mother and her mother, were about values. My mother didn't like the fact that LC's mother appeared oblivious to the political situation in Greece or the fact that LC cruelly sent a shelter dog to its death (one she had claimed to be madly in love with) rather than mop up after it for a few more weeks or months. My mother "voted with her feet" to end other friendships over values as well. With one woman it was because she had voted for Reagan and read Commentary magazine. With another it was that she bought expensive shoes and didn't donate money to PBS.
I would like to think that I don't operate that way. To me, there is nothing more important than a friendship, and I only judge people based on how they treat me, or perhaps as well on how I see them treating others. I can't imagine totally cutting someone off because of what they say they think or how they say they feel. If I cry over a deleted video and LC cries over a mass shooting, that does not give her the moral high ground. Neither one of us has made the world a better (or a worse) place based on what triggers our tears.
Or maybe she didn't like that I referred to myself as "underprivileged". Yes, I know, context is everything, and that's why I scrape together money from time to time to give to the church food pantry. However underprivileged I feel living in a sea of highly paid professionals married to highly paid professionals who go away four and five times a year (or every weekend!), I have enough food and I have a (very nice) place to live. But why should someone else care how I want to benchmark myself? I could understand her being upset if I had been stingy with her in some way as a result of thinking that, but why was that any of her business? I think abruptly ending a friendship is much crueler than anything a person might opine (or not opine) about.
Maybe it's a UU thing. Even though I consider myself to be a UU (or more accurately, a nineteenth century Unitarian like Susan B. Anthony and Louisa May Alcott), I never cease to be amazed at their smarmy sanctimoniousness. In addition to dispensing with a lot of the "magical thinking" of Christianity (what I like about UUs), they also seem to have dispensed with the Christian notion of charity, not just toward the poor, but toward the "sinner". So if LC thinks I am shallow and selfish (I can't imagine what else it is that caused her to end our friendship that she doesn't want to tell me) shouldn't that be a reason for her to pity me and be charitable? (Only half said tongue in cheek.) And was my selfishness so egregious that she couldn't just say something like "We don't seem to be on the same page right now, so why don't we take a time out?"
What I said to her in my final response is true. I don't care if she doesn't like me as she is not a part of the fabric of my life. But I am angry. She got to dump me and feel self righteous and there's nothing I detest like self righteousness. Really good people don't talk about how good they are all the time.
And no one who has done all the things I have done for my partner in her declining years can be considered selfish. I have a clear conscience if nothing else.
Monday, August 1, 2016
Concert
Overall, the concert went well. I sang well. Of course I wasn't singing anything all that vocally challenging other than the Handel. I made some (probably unnoticed) mistakes in the two most musically challenging pieces: the Jake Heggie/Sister Helen song "Love is" and "Evergreen".
The biggest distraction (other than the piano being out of tune, which I didn't know because my accompanist couldn't come with me on the day that I was looking at the room, and anyhow I couldn't get to the piano that afternoon because someone was plunking on it) was a woman with Alzheimers, probably a former singer, who, like a dog responding to a whistle, sang along with me every time I hit a "high" note (meaning an F or an F sharp). What she did, mostly, was sing the note an octave higher. She really got going with this during "Love is", which was unfortunate, because I was having enough trouble. She also did this all during "Mon Coeur", which annoyed some of my friends, but in that instance it didn't faze me because I could sing that aria in my sleep.
Several people sang along during the Gay 90s songs, which was fine, and my partner sang along during "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", which was what I wanted.
All the people who told me they were coming did come, and some have made videos, which they will get to me soon.
My teacher and his wife were there and he said he was "proud of me" for not letting the distraction of the woman singing break my concentration. He called me a "pro". And then started talking about Trovatore, which made me happy. He said he couldn't find a copy of the play in English that was reasonably priced (he found one online for $100) so he is going to see if he can find one in Italian and then his wife can translate it into English.
And before the concert started the whole room sang "Happy Birthday" to me because I had said that the concert was for my birthday.
So this was the special birthday I dreamed of, and it certainly makes up for last year.
The only fly in the ointment was I got an answer to my thank you note (in which I apologized for whatever I had said that had put her off) from LC that was incredibly smarmy. She said her two most important values were being honest and being kind, but that she didn't feel she could tell me why she didn't want me to write to her without being hurtful, so she wasn't going to say anything, Then she had the unmitigated gall to say she hoped we could part on good terms. I wasn't going to write back, but I didn't want her to think she had "won" that battle; saying in a high-handed tone that she wasn't going to say the unkind thing she was thinking and then saying she hoped we could part on good terms. I wrote three responses to her, each of which I deleted, before sending a final answer. I basically said that she had already been hurtful, that I really didn't care if she disliked me, as she is not an integral part of my life, but that no, she can't have her "cake and eat it too" and no, we are no longer on good terms. I felt that by encouraging me to do a lot of intimate sharing and then dumping me she had done a lot of damage. So she can sit with that. I deleted every email exchange we had had over the past two years, except for some Jacquie Lawson cards that she sent me, and of course I will keep the flowers. So now it's time to move on.
I had a good solid practice session singing through "Stride la Vampa" and "Condotta".
The biggest distraction (other than the piano being out of tune, which I didn't know because my accompanist couldn't come with me on the day that I was looking at the room, and anyhow I couldn't get to the piano that afternoon because someone was plunking on it) was a woman with Alzheimers, probably a former singer, who, like a dog responding to a whistle, sang along with me every time I hit a "high" note (meaning an F or an F sharp). What she did, mostly, was sing the note an octave higher. She really got going with this during "Love is", which was unfortunate, because I was having enough trouble. She also did this all during "Mon Coeur", which annoyed some of my friends, but in that instance it didn't faze me because I could sing that aria in my sleep.
Several people sang along during the Gay 90s songs, which was fine, and my partner sang along during "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", which was what I wanted.
All the people who told me they were coming did come, and some have made videos, which they will get to me soon.
My teacher and his wife were there and he said he was "proud of me" for not letting the distraction of the woman singing break my concentration. He called me a "pro". And then started talking about Trovatore, which made me happy. He said he couldn't find a copy of the play in English that was reasonably priced (he found one online for $100) so he is going to see if he can find one in Italian and then his wife can translate it into English.
And before the concert started the whole room sang "Happy Birthday" to me because I had said that the concert was for my birthday.
So this was the special birthday I dreamed of, and it certainly makes up for last year.
The only fly in the ointment was I got an answer to my thank you note (in which I apologized for whatever I had said that had put her off) from LC that was incredibly smarmy. She said her two most important values were being honest and being kind, but that she didn't feel she could tell me why she didn't want me to write to her without being hurtful, so she wasn't going to say anything, Then she had the unmitigated gall to say she hoped we could part on good terms. I wasn't going to write back, but I didn't want her to think she had "won" that battle; saying in a high-handed tone that she wasn't going to say the unkind thing she was thinking and then saying she hoped we could part on good terms. I wrote three responses to her, each of which I deleted, before sending a final answer. I basically said that she had already been hurtful, that I really didn't care if she disliked me, as she is not an integral part of my life, but that no, she can't have her "cake and eat it too" and no, we are no longer on good terms. I felt that by encouraging me to do a lot of intimate sharing and then dumping me she had done a lot of damage. So she can sit with that. I deleted every email exchange we had had over the past two years, except for some Jacquie Lawson cards that she sent me, and of course I will keep the flowers. So now it's time to move on.
I had a good solid practice session singing through "Stride la Vampa" and "Condotta".
Saturday, July 30, 2016
A Real Birthday
Well, what a difference from last year!
A friend of my mother's took us out to lunch (how different he is from, um, "clueless"; he inherited some money and said he feels he should use it to treat friends) and we had a lovely time.
And on the way home my partner bought me a big bouquet of red roses. That was in addition to the dress she bought, which I wore, and which she liked seeing me in.
And the two women whose birthday cards came back to them in the mail last year each sent me one, and one also sent a check, which she said could be for me and my partner to have a nice meal out.
LC, the woman who said she never wanted me to contact her again, sent me a bouquet of artificial flowers. I was totally surprised. She had said (when we were still speaking) that she was going to send me a bouquet for my birthday, but I had assumed she had become so "allergic" to me that she had totally cut me off. The flowers are beautiful. I don't care that they are not real. The note that came with them was telling, though. It began "BabyD" and ended "LC". No "dear" preceding my name and no "love" preceding hers. But I am happy she sent them. I don't care why she did. In fact, one of the "discussions" she and I had once was about whether it's a positive or a negative if someone does something because they think they "should". She thought it was a negative (we were talking about office birthday lunches, and coworkers getting together and sending sympathy cards). I said it was a positive. Even going to the trouble of doing something you think you "should" is considerate. Far too few people these days even do that.
In any event, I wrote back to LC saying that I had no idea what I had said or done that was so egregious that she enjoined me from communicating with her, but that whatever it was, I'm sorry. I mean I'm not sorry if she doesn't want me communicating with her because I am more concerned with my own problems than with national tragedies. There's nothing I can do about the big national tragedies, so what I do or don't feel versus what she does or doesn't feel is not relevant.
I did delete the blog post in which I said I hated her. I don't really. Hate is a strong word. I just think she's a hypocrite and very selfish. Also her level of lability (not in the sense of pathological mood lability but in the sense of being passionate about something one minute and wanting it out of your life the next) is not the behavior of a rational adult that I should have been trusting with personal confidences.
And "clueless" sent me a birthday card. I thanked her for it. I still think someone as rich as she is could make a better showing, but that's why I don't care if she's in my life or not. I refrained from saying anything angry to her; I simply said that I was putting on a recital to celebrate my birthday because I was heartbroken that I had no celebration on a milestone birthday when so many people are given the party, the trip, or the present of a lifetime, so I was putting on a recital. I told her I had been planning it for a year (true).
Now for the most important news: I did a little practicing and it basically went well. The Handel is still difficult, and after singing it in church (either once or twice) next month I will probably retire it.
It looks like a friend will make a video with her iPad and upload it to Youtube to post on Facebook.
That's really all I want for my birthday. Something to kvell over.
A friend of my mother's took us out to lunch (how different he is from, um, "clueless"; he inherited some money and said he feels he should use it to treat friends) and we had a lovely time.
And on the way home my partner bought me a big bouquet of red roses. That was in addition to the dress she bought, which I wore, and which she liked seeing me in.
And the two women whose birthday cards came back to them in the mail last year each sent me one, and one also sent a check, which she said could be for me and my partner to have a nice meal out.
LC, the woman who said she never wanted me to contact her again, sent me a bouquet of artificial flowers. I was totally surprised. She had said (when we were still speaking) that she was going to send me a bouquet for my birthday, but I had assumed she had become so "allergic" to me that she had totally cut me off. The flowers are beautiful. I don't care that they are not real. The note that came with them was telling, though. It began "BabyD" and ended "LC". No "dear" preceding my name and no "love" preceding hers. But I am happy she sent them. I don't care why she did. In fact, one of the "discussions" she and I had once was about whether it's a positive or a negative if someone does something because they think they "should". She thought it was a negative (we were talking about office birthday lunches, and coworkers getting together and sending sympathy cards). I said it was a positive. Even going to the trouble of doing something you think you "should" is considerate. Far too few people these days even do that.
In any event, I wrote back to LC saying that I had no idea what I had said or done that was so egregious that she enjoined me from communicating with her, but that whatever it was, I'm sorry. I mean I'm not sorry if she doesn't want me communicating with her because I am more concerned with my own problems than with national tragedies. There's nothing I can do about the big national tragedies, so what I do or don't feel versus what she does or doesn't feel is not relevant.
I did delete the blog post in which I said I hated her. I don't really. Hate is a strong word. I just think she's a hypocrite and very selfish. Also her level of lability (not in the sense of pathological mood lability but in the sense of being passionate about something one minute and wanting it out of your life the next) is not the behavior of a rational adult that I should have been trusting with personal confidences.
And "clueless" sent me a birthday card. I thanked her for it. I still think someone as rich as she is could make a better showing, but that's why I don't care if she's in my life or not. I refrained from saying anything angry to her; I simply said that I was putting on a recital to celebrate my birthday because I was heartbroken that I had no celebration on a milestone birthday when so many people are given the party, the trip, or the present of a lifetime, so I was putting on a recital. I told her I had been planning it for a year (true).
Now for the most important news: I did a little practicing and it basically went well. The Handel is still difficult, and after singing it in church (either once or twice) next month I will probably retire it.
It looks like a friend will make a video with her iPad and upload it to Youtube to post on Facebook.
That's really all I want for my birthday. Something to kvell over.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Old Foes Become New Friends (2)
Well, my concert music is going so well (I can't think of any "tweaking" that needs to be done at this point, other than making sure I am spot on with entrances in the Heggie pieces) that I didn't want to sing it at yesterday's lesson, so I sang through "Stride la Vampa" (which I don't think I'd sung in 35 years) and "Condotta" preferatory to my (tentative) planned Fall concert featuring Act 2 of Trovatore.
All I can say is "Wow"!
I can't believe that I actually know what to do with that B flat!!! For the past two years I have been doing an exercise consisting of a descending octave scale. For the previous eight years I could not do this above a high A natural, but then one day, something broke through that "gag reflex" and I started being able to do the exercise starting on a B flat, then starting on a B natural, and now I can even do it starting on a C!!! So I just sing "figlio avea bruciato" with the syllable "a" on a high A, then just chill while the tenor sings "Quale orror!" and vomit out that B flat. The point is that everything felt so much easier.
Posts are too numerous to link to, but if you read some of what I wrote in the Fall of 2011, you will see what a struggle I had with this aria. Now I think the whole thing is going to be fun. (Yes, the word "fun" is OK here; it's a melodrama, not a Requiem.)
Otherwise things are a bit shaky monetarily, but I'm optimistic. I got some more work (I'm hoping I can just earn enough to supplement my Social Security), I signed my new lease, and I should get my first Social Security payment a month from now. I got a birthday card from one of the people whose card came back to them in the mail last year and it was a big card covered with glitter; just my kind of thing.
Wish me luck for Sunday, although I am not nervous at all - other than wondering if my partner will be upset by my singing "Mon Coeur". If she is, I can tell her my teacher helped me plan the program. I put her (my partner's) name in the program as the title of one of the song sets, so I'm hoping she stays. I am going to go get her on the second verse of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart". I hope I don't cry.
And did I say I'm ending with "Home Sweet Home"? That was Joan Sutherland's favorite encore, and home is my and my partner's favorite subject.
All I can say is "Wow"!
I can't believe that I actually know what to do with that B flat!!! For the past two years I have been doing an exercise consisting of a descending octave scale. For the previous eight years I could not do this above a high A natural, but then one day, something broke through that "gag reflex" and I started being able to do the exercise starting on a B flat, then starting on a B natural, and now I can even do it starting on a C!!! So I just sing "figlio avea bruciato" with the syllable "a" on a high A, then just chill while the tenor sings "Quale orror!" and vomit out that B flat. The point is that everything felt so much easier.
Posts are too numerous to link to, but if you read some of what I wrote in the Fall of 2011, you will see what a struggle I had with this aria. Now I think the whole thing is going to be fun. (Yes, the word "fun" is OK here; it's a melodrama, not a Requiem.)
Otherwise things are a bit shaky monetarily, but I'm optimistic. I got some more work (I'm hoping I can just earn enough to supplement my Social Security), I signed my new lease, and I should get my first Social Security payment a month from now. I got a birthday card from one of the people whose card came back to them in the mail last year and it was a big card covered with glitter; just my kind of thing.
Wish me luck for Sunday, although I am not nervous at all - other than wondering if my partner will be upset by my singing "Mon Coeur". If she is, I can tell her my teacher helped me plan the program. I put her (my partner's) name in the program as the title of one of the song sets, so I'm hoping she stays. I am going to go get her on the second verse of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart". I hope I don't cry.
And did I say I'm ending with "Home Sweet Home"? That was Joan Sutherland's favorite encore, and home is my and my partner's favorite subject.
Thursday, July 21, 2016
On Wings of Song
Last night I had the first rehearsal for my birthday concert. It went really really well. The only pitfall is that I got tired in the middle of the next to the last piece "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls" a lovely aria from Balfe's Bohemian Girl, which, although in a comfortable range, doesn't have many places to breathe. I am really not too worried, because in the actual concert I will only sing each piece once, and also the pianist will be playing in between some of the sets, And I gave her instructions about where to take a pause in the Balfe (in each verse) so that I can take a bigger breath than singing in strict time would allow.
The good news is that I had a really pleasant surprise with the Handel. I think I have figured out how to keep my voice "small" enough to sing the long ornamented runs, despite the fact that my voice is bigger. I just keep my mouth small (what wind players call a small "embouchure") so that the notes are not "all over the place". I also figured out some better places to breathe. I seem to have to breathe somewhere, so I am going to do it toward the end of each run when I'm in one of the low passages. If there is a low E or F (I'm talking about the notes at the bottom of the staff) that I don't sing no one will notice.
But most of all, I just want to note that I just had a wonderful time. The kind of time I used to dream of having and now have more often than not, where things are working technically and I can just let my voice soar and think (or in between pieces, talk) about the music.
I have one more rehearsal and then that's it. I hope it goes well. I hope my partner can come (she has been told not to go outside for the duration of this five day heat wave).
The only fly in the ointment is I have a bad stye (again) and now have to go to the eye doctor in Brooklyn tomorrow. It looks horrible. I'm hoping it will subside enough not to show by a week from Sunday.
Now I'm going to run the program (with the spoken dialogue and breaks for the pianist).
The good news is that I had a really pleasant surprise with the Handel. I think I have figured out how to keep my voice "small" enough to sing the long ornamented runs, despite the fact that my voice is bigger. I just keep my mouth small (what wind players call a small "embouchure") so that the notes are not "all over the place". I also figured out some better places to breathe. I seem to have to breathe somewhere, so I am going to do it toward the end of each run when I'm in one of the low passages. If there is a low E or F (I'm talking about the notes at the bottom of the staff) that I don't sing no one will notice.
But most of all, I just want to note that I just had a wonderful time. The kind of time I used to dream of having and now have more often than not, where things are working technically and I can just let my voice soar and think (or in between pieces, talk) about the music.
I have one more rehearsal and then that's it. I hope it goes well. I hope my partner can come (she has been told not to go outside for the duration of this five day heat wave).
The only fly in the ointment is I have a bad stye (again) and now have to go to the eye doctor in Brooklyn tomorrow. It looks horrible. I'm hoping it will subside enough not to show by a week from Sunday.
Now I'm going to run the program (with the spoken dialogue and breaks for the pianist).
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Why You Haven't Heard from Me
These days I have a lot of worries, beyond the usual existential distress (actually I have had less of that because real life worries trigger actions and actions preclude same old/same old, which is what usually causes the distress).
1. I have waited seven years (since I stopped working full time) to collect my full retirement amount from Social Security. Because of bureaucratic snafus, it feels like it is hanging in the balance. I know it really isn't; everyone gets their Social Security, and I have gotten letters for years telling me how much I will get. I applied online in April. I went to their offices in May and was told I would get my first payment in August because my birthday is in July. To date, however, when I check my application online, it says "we have not yet made a decision". Huh? I called the office twice (which meant being on hold for more than 30 minutes - ok since I have a land line and can stick it under my ear and do something else) once in June and once at the beginning of this month. I'm told that everything is ok - they have huge backlogs and they will get to my application in time. So I am sitting on pins and needles (I plan to check online again tomorrow).
2. The (boooring) work I have been doing at home ever since I left my last full time job has started to dry up because it is being outsourced to India. This is happening just at the moment I had thought everything would be ok - that the money I would get from Social Security plus the small amount I had been earning should enable me to live decently without taking any more money out of savings, which is what I have been partially living on for the past few years. So now I have to scrounge around for more work. If I didn't have caregiving responsibilities I would try to find a part-time job outside the house, and may even do that yet, although I doubt I would make the hourly rate that I can make freelancing. The irony (reference lack of distress above) is that I am actually enjoying myself more than usual because I am not stuck here at the laptop.
3. My lease is up for renewal and I haven't gotten the letter. That's a false worry; I have lived here for 30 years and I am entitled to a lease renewal. My renewal date got pushed from September to October last time (which yielded me a huge savings as the new rent increases beginning in October of 2014 were tiny) so now I guess it will get pushed ahead to November, which won't change the increase, just have it kick in later. This afternoon I will write to one of my neighbors who is a lawyer, and ask her how to craft an email to the landlord (I have the old one, I think).
4. My 20 year old cat is dying. I don't know how long that process will take. Right now she is not suffering, so I want to keep her here, but she is behaving differently (sleeping on the rug in the kitchen instead of in my bed, for example, and eating less).
Other than that my life is pretty much the same. I feel guilty that I don't make posts about all the tragedies/horrors/disasters that keep happening in this country but really what is there to say? There is nothing I can say that hasn't been said hundreds of times by other people, so what I do is read, watch a good news station (MSNBC) and keep myself informed. I don't really feel anything about all this although I do have strong opinions; I just don't express them as well as the micropunditocracy (by that I mean some of my friends and acquaintances - usually younger and with advance degrees) who know how to pontificate and spew out data. I can't think of anything I can personally do (other than vote!!!) to have any impact here, so I might as well tend to my own garden which is way too spare and needs seeding.
Singing is basically going well. I keep singing better and my voice keeps getting bigger and freer. The only downside to this is that singing certain kinds of coloratura is harder than it used to be. I now wish I had not chosen Handel's "O Had I Jubal's Lyre" to sing at my birthday concert (and twice in church) but I will cope. I certainly have as much breath control as I always did, my voice just no longer skates on the edges of notes if I want to sing fast, the way it used to.
One minor disappointment is that the cost of the Leo Moon Circle in the park (which I had seen as a small birthday present to myself) has been upped from $25 to $39 because they are turning it into a big Lammas celebration. I feel that that's just a tad too much for me to spend particularly if I am not working and don't have a definite answer about my Social Security payments. So I may have to forego it, which is just one more reason I hate being poor. I am going to pay the accompanist for my birthday concert, which is quite a bit beyond my budget, but something I would not deprive myself of (so that will have to be it).
ETA: This afternoon's mail brought a letter from Social Security confirming that I will start getting payments at the end of August.
1. I have waited seven years (since I stopped working full time) to collect my full retirement amount from Social Security. Because of bureaucratic snafus, it feels like it is hanging in the balance. I know it really isn't; everyone gets their Social Security, and I have gotten letters for years telling me how much I will get. I applied online in April. I went to their offices in May and was told I would get my first payment in August because my birthday is in July. To date, however, when I check my application online, it says "we have not yet made a decision". Huh? I called the office twice (which meant being on hold for more than 30 minutes - ok since I have a land line and can stick it under my ear and do something else) once in June and once at the beginning of this month. I'm told that everything is ok - they have huge backlogs and they will get to my application in time. So I am sitting on pins and needles (I plan to check online again tomorrow).
2. The (boooring) work I have been doing at home ever since I left my last full time job has started to dry up because it is being outsourced to India. This is happening just at the moment I had thought everything would be ok - that the money I would get from Social Security plus the small amount I had been earning should enable me to live decently without taking any more money out of savings, which is what I have been partially living on for the past few years. So now I have to scrounge around for more work. If I didn't have caregiving responsibilities I would try to find a part-time job outside the house, and may even do that yet, although I doubt I would make the hourly rate that I can make freelancing. The irony (reference lack of distress above) is that I am actually enjoying myself more than usual because I am not stuck here at the laptop.
3. My lease is up for renewal and I haven't gotten the letter. That's a false worry; I have lived here for 30 years and I am entitled to a lease renewal. My renewal date got pushed from September to October last time (which yielded me a huge savings as the new rent increases beginning in October of 2014 were tiny) so now I guess it will get pushed ahead to November, which won't change the increase, just have it kick in later. This afternoon I will write to one of my neighbors who is a lawyer, and ask her how to craft an email to the landlord (I have the old one, I think).
4. My 20 year old cat is dying. I don't know how long that process will take. Right now she is not suffering, so I want to keep her here, but she is behaving differently (sleeping on the rug in the kitchen instead of in my bed, for example, and eating less).
Other than that my life is pretty much the same. I feel guilty that I don't make posts about all the tragedies/horrors/disasters that keep happening in this country but really what is there to say? There is nothing I can say that hasn't been said hundreds of times by other people, so what I do is read, watch a good news station (MSNBC) and keep myself informed. I don't really feel anything about all this although I do have strong opinions; I just don't express them as well as the micropunditocracy (by that I mean some of my friends and acquaintances - usually younger and with advance degrees) who know how to pontificate and spew out data. I can't think of anything I can personally do (other than vote!!!) to have any impact here, so I might as well tend to my own garden which is way too spare and needs seeding.
Singing is basically going well. I keep singing better and my voice keeps getting bigger and freer. The only downside to this is that singing certain kinds of coloratura is harder than it used to be. I now wish I had not chosen Handel's "O Had I Jubal's Lyre" to sing at my birthday concert (and twice in church) but I will cope. I certainly have as much breath control as I always did, my voice just no longer skates on the edges of notes if I want to sing fast, the way it used to.
One minor disappointment is that the cost of the Leo Moon Circle in the park (which I had seen as a small birthday present to myself) has been upped from $25 to $39 because they are turning it into a big Lammas celebration. I feel that that's just a tad too much for me to spend particularly if I am not working and don't have a definite answer about my Social Security payments. So I may have to forego it, which is just one more reason I hate being poor. I am going to pay the accompanist for my birthday concert, which is quite a bit beyond my budget, but something I would not deprive myself of (so that will have to be it).
ETA: This afternoon's mail brought a letter from Social Security confirming that I will start getting payments at the end of August.
Monday, June 27, 2016
An Open Letter to LC: How Did We End Up No Better Than Our Mothers?
LC (the person - I hesitate now to call her a "friend" - who never wants to hear from me again) and I go way back, as do our mothers.
Here's the short version. Our mothers met at a job and became friends. About 20 years later, when LC was married and a mother, and I was a teenager, LC's mother decided to live in Greece. It was during the time that there was a Fascist government there. My mother (always politically conscious) considered it morally outrageous that LC's mother spoke about Greece never acknowledging the political situation there. My mother called LC's mother "ridiculous" (I don't know the specifics, but know that that word was used). LC's mother stopped speaking to my mother.
About 40 years later, after LC's having had friendships (they were quite separate) with me and my mother, which consisted of our seeing each other once a year in Maine (where LC lived) and talking a blue streak because we had so much in common (again, my seeing LC took place at a different time from my mother's seeing her), LC and I had a falling out over my talking to her on the phone endlessly (she has a degree in counseling so she is exactly the sort of person with whom one wants to talk endlessly about one's problems) about my crush on the Mentor, my general randiness, his abuse of me, and my feeling trapped. After the fifth (or the tenth) go around about this, she told me I would feel better if I went and did volunteer work. To me at the time, that sounded rather puritanical, sort of like telling someone to take a cold shower. So I said "F.U." to her, something I think I have said fewer than five times in my life, probably. I just was at my wits end. She wrote to me and said she couldn't "deal with me" any more, or some such thing. I suppose that was understandable. I had crossed some kind of line.
A few years later, she stopped speaking to my mother, for a totally different reason. She had adopted a dog with whom she claimed to be madly in love (sending endless postcards with photos), but when the dog peed on the floor once too often, she gave it back to the shelter, probably to certain euthanasia. My mother was horrified and told her that she needed to "do penance". She probably meant it as a joke, and in fact she isn't even a dog person, but nonetheless would have found it morally objectionable to value clean floors over a life, even a dog's. LC could have at least waited until she could find a home for the dog - someplace where people were less squeamish.
My mother never heard from her again, but I did. Shortly after my mother died she apparently had seen this on Google and sent me a handwritten condolence letter. Since she didn't have email, we were only in touch rarely by phone, but once she got email we began writing to each other daily. We were both housebound more or less (she for health reasons and I because my employment is from a laptop in my apartment).
Ever the counselor, she is, yes, the sort of person to whom one is prompted to pour out one's heart, and often what's there is not pretty. Or it's not grateful or it's not optimistic or it's selfish or it's petty.
But that she would shut me up (my mother in fact once told me that "hanging up" - or doing what LC did by enjoining me not to communicate with her - is, basically saying "F.U." to someone) is beyond comprehension. So I am kicking and screaming and yelling with rage, hurt, and confusion.
If she had even written to me and said "I simply can't continue our correspondence because the fact that you [_______________] is so objectionable to me that I have to say goodbye" I would have understood it. I still can't believe that my asking her advice about something personal when a tragedy had happened a half a continent away was so egregious that she never wants to hear from me again. Taking a timeout, yes, I could see that. Or saying "Let's back off some of these intense topics for a while". (Of course the irony is that she once said that she didn't like casual friendships where people "kept it light". I say "irony" because "keeping it light" is one of the best ways to avoid quarrels.) But to throw me away like a Kleenex? That's what it feels like.
Do I "miss" her? Sort of but not really. I desperately need friends, but to me that means people who are here who are available to do things, celebrate my birthday and I theirs, be available to help with something occasionally and vice versa. LC was simply a kind of epistolary therapist, although she asked me for my advice as often as I asked her for hers. It's more that I am hurt and angry that our friendship, whatever it was, meant so little to her. We were just in the middle of a nice "conversation" about a novel by Barbara Pym.
Everyone can be annoying, if you get to know them. People have opinions you disagree with, preoccupations you think are trivial, bad moods. Is it really worth throwing the baby out with the bath water? Was my perceived petty self-absorption on the wrong day so beyond the pale that it was worth shutting the door on our talks about books and politics, or our shared memories going back 65 years?
I think what bothers me the most is the hypocrisy of it all. This is someone who sees herself as saintly (despite being a militant atheist). She thinks you should never be angry at anyone unless they did or said something to be deliberately unkind. She also said her nickname is "LC let's talk about it" because she is willing to try to talk through any conflict. So what happened to that person? Or did she never exist to begin with?
Here's the short version. Our mothers met at a job and became friends. About 20 years later, when LC was married and a mother, and I was a teenager, LC's mother decided to live in Greece. It was during the time that there was a Fascist government there. My mother (always politically conscious) considered it morally outrageous that LC's mother spoke about Greece never acknowledging the political situation there. My mother called LC's mother "ridiculous" (I don't know the specifics, but know that that word was used). LC's mother stopped speaking to my mother.
About 40 years later, after LC's having had friendships (they were quite separate) with me and my mother, which consisted of our seeing each other once a year in Maine (where LC lived) and talking a blue streak because we had so much in common (again, my seeing LC took place at a different time from my mother's seeing her), LC and I had a falling out over my talking to her on the phone endlessly (she has a degree in counseling so she is exactly the sort of person with whom one wants to talk endlessly about one's problems) about my crush on the Mentor, my general randiness, his abuse of me, and my feeling trapped. After the fifth (or the tenth) go around about this, she told me I would feel better if I went and did volunteer work. To me at the time, that sounded rather puritanical, sort of like telling someone to take a cold shower. So I said "F.U." to her, something I think I have said fewer than five times in my life, probably. I just was at my wits end. She wrote to me and said she couldn't "deal with me" any more, or some such thing. I suppose that was understandable. I had crossed some kind of line.
A few years later, she stopped speaking to my mother, for a totally different reason. She had adopted a dog with whom she claimed to be madly in love (sending endless postcards with photos), but when the dog peed on the floor once too often, she gave it back to the shelter, probably to certain euthanasia. My mother was horrified and told her that she needed to "do penance". She probably meant it as a joke, and in fact she isn't even a dog person, but nonetheless would have found it morally objectionable to value clean floors over a life, even a dog's. LC could have at least waited until she could find a home for the dog - someplace where people were less squeamish.
My mother never heard from her again, but I did. Shortly after my mother died she apparently had seen this on Google and sent me a handwritten condolence letter. Since she didn't have email, we were only in touch rarely by phone, but once she got email we began writing to each other daily. We were both housebound more or less (she for health reasons and I because my employment is from a laptop in my apartment).
Ever the counselor, she is, yes, the sort of person to whom one is prompted to pour out one's heart, and often what's there is not pretty. Or it's not grateful or it's not optimistic or it's selfish or it's petty.
But that she would shut me up (my mother in fact once told me that "hanging up" - or doing what LC did by enjoining me not to communicate with her - is, basically saying "F.U." to someone) is beyond comprehension. So I am kicking and screaming and yelling with rage, hurt, and confusion.
If she had even written to me and said "I simply can't continue our correspondence because the fact that you [_______________] is so objectionable to me that I have to say goodbye" I would have understood it. I still can't believe that my asking her advice about something personal when a tragedy had happened a half a continent away was so egregious that she never wants to hear from me again. Taking a timeout, yes, I could see that. Or saying "Let's back off some of these intense topics for a while". (Of course the irony is that she once said that she didn't like casual friendships where people "kept it light". I say "irony" because "keeping it light" is one of the best ways to avoid quarrels.) But to throw me away like a Kleenex? That's what it feels like.
Do I "miss" her? Sort of but not really. I desperately need friends, but to me that means people who are here who are available to do things, celebrate my birthday and I theirs, be available to help with something occasionally and vice versa. LC was simply a kind of epistolary therapist, although she asked me for my advice as often as I asked her for hers. It's more that I am hurt and angry that our friendship, whatever it was, meant so little to her. We were just in the middle of a nice "conversation" about a novel by Barbara Pym.
Everyone can be annoying, if you get to know them. People have opinions you disagree with, preoccupations you think are trivial, bad moods. Is it really worth throwing the baby out with the bath water? Was my perceived petty self-absorption on the wrong day so beyond the pale that it was worth shutting the door on our talks about books and politics, or our shared memories going back 65 years?
I think what bothers me the most is the hypocrisy of it all. This is someone who sees herself as saintly (despite being a militant atheist). She thinks you should never be angry at anyone unless they did or said something to be deliberately unkind. She also said her nickname is "LC let's talk about it" because she is willing to try to talk through any conflict. So what happened to that person? Or did she never exist to begin with?
Friday, June 24, 2016
A Slap in the Face? No. A Slammed Door!
When I got home last night after having had a lovely day celebrating my partner's birthday and having our final choir rehearsal of the season, I checked my email to find that this friend whom I had spoken of in my last post had written to tell me basically that she never wanted to hear from me again. I was speechless. I have no idea what I could have said or done to prompt that.
For whatever reason, I could sense that she found it inappropriate that I was continuing to ask her for advice about personal problems (like the videos) in the wake of the tragedy in Orlando, but I wouldn't have considered that grounds for ending a friendship. As I said, she has done this before, although last time I had sworn at her out of frustration, so the reason was obvious. She has also stopped speaking to other people. It was the finality of it that stunned me. I could see her saying that she thought our correspondence had gotten a bit tense, and that maybe we should take a break, unless we had some important news to convey (people do this all the time either explicitly or implicitly) but to slam a door in my face?
Five hours earlier she had called my partner to wish her a happy birthday and sounded very cheerful, and I had written to thank her.
The only other thing I can think of is that she read something I posted on Facebook (she doesn't use Facebook but her daughter does) saying that I didn't think that "thinking" about a tragedy instead of about one's personal problems made one morally superior. Which many people agreed with. Or she may have read the last post I made here.
But the point is that I don't see any "hanging offenses" anywhere. I did not say anything personally hurtful.
So many things now are up in the air, if not literally, then emotionally. It was her idea for me to have this birthday concert, so I chose a Barbra Streisand song that she likes (not something I would have chosen otherwise although I am surprisingly impressed by the musicianship it displays). So how can I share my joy at that with her now. (Whether or not she sends me flowers or even a greeting is neither here nor there.)
Is she including my partner in all this?
I had said (maybe to her) that over the past 7 or 8 years I have had so many losses that it was like one day waking up and realizing that there was no furniture in my apartment. I think that was why I was so upset about not getting anything for my last birthday. Not that I'm greedy and selfish but because it made the emptiness so manifest. So she of all people should know that I can't afford another loss, certainly for no reason.
If there were something I should apologize for, I would certainly be open to some soul searching, but obviously she doesn't want to tell me and I am not going to ask her.
As I said in my previous post, I am not apologizing for being preoccupied with personal problems just because a tragedy happened miles away, and I certainly am not apologizing for posting thoughts and feelings on Facebook, here, or elsewhere. Writing is one of the only outlets I have, since I don't have close friends. I would never post anything confidential about someone, but that's about it.
For whatever reason, I could sense that she found it inappropriate that I was continuing to ask her for advice about personal problems (like the videos) in the wake of the tragedy in Orlando, but I wouldn't have considered that grounds for ending a friendship. As I said, she has done this before, although last time I had sworn at her out of frustration, so the reason was obvious. She has also stopped speaking to other people. It was the finality of it that stunned me. I could see her saying that she thought our correspondence had gotten a bit tense, and that maybe we should take a break, unless we had some important news to convey (people do this all the time either explicitly or implicitly) but to slam a door in my face?
Five hours earlier she had called my partner to wish her a happy birthday and sounded very cheerful, and I had written to thank her.
The only other thing I can think of is that she read something I posted on Facebook (she doesn't use Facebook but her daughter does) saying that I didn't think that "thinking" about a tragedy instead of about one's personal problems made one morally superior. Which many people agreed with. Or she may have read the last post I made here.
But the point is that I don't see any "hanging offenses" anywhere. I did not say anything personally hurtful.
So many things now are up in the air, if not literally, then emotionally. It was her idea for me to have this birthday concert, so I chose a Barbra Streisand song that she likes (not something I would have chosen otherwise although I am surprisingly impressed by the musicianship it displays). So how can I share my joy at that with her now. (Whether or not she sends me flowers or even a greeting is neither here nor there.)
Is she including my partner in all this?
I had said (maybe to her) that over the past 7 or 8 years I have had so many losses that it was like one day waking up and realizing that there was no furniture in my apartment. I think that was why I was so upset about not getting anything for my last birthday. Not that I'm greedy and selfish but because it made the emptiness so manifest. So she of all people should know that I can't afford another loss, certainly for no reason.
If there were something I should apologize for, I would certainly be open to some soul searching, but obviously she doesn't want to tell me and I am not going to ask her.
As I said in my previous post, I am not apologizing for being preoccupied with personal problems just because a tragedy happened miles away, and I certainly am not apologizing for posting thoughts and feelings on Facebook, here, or elsewhere. Writing is one of the only outlets I have, since I don't have close friends. I would never post anything confidential about someone, but that's about it.
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
OK, So What Exactly *Is* Selfish?
I consider myself an intelligent person, with a certain amount of insight, but one issue that has had me stumped for a long time is: at what point does "self-actualization" become "selfishness"?
This post has been prompted by my feeling "chewed out" (in a very subtle way) by a friend because, in the wake of the tragedy in Orlando, I am still talking about, and asking for advice about, situations in my own life. Is that selfish? I don't see it as such. There isn't much I can do about what happened in Orlando other than try to get elected officials to pass gun control legislation which obviously they won't do. I rarely feel sad about anything that happens that far away. Is that a character flaw? And once a tragedy is of such mammoth proportions that it attracts celebrity fundraisers, I feel (incorrecly?) that any small amount of money I can afford to donate somewhere is better given to the church food pantry, where I know that every dollar will go to buy food.
And yes, life goes on. It wouldn't if my partner had a crisis (I would have to push the "stop" button), or even if there were a crisis in my building, or on the street outside my building, or at the church where I sing, or on a subway car where I was sitting, but I can't stop thinking and planning and asking questions about what's going on in my life because there was a mass tragedy somewhere.
The immediate trigger for this was my anger over some videos that I am sure someone (a woman who produced concerts that I sang in, and who now has gone "off" me for some inexplicable reason) deleted deliberately from her Youtube channel. It turns out there is nothing I can do about it because they are not my property (she paid a videographer to make them) and she said she did not delete them on purpose, but it's only her word against mine. I mean I'm sure they still exist somewhere, but knowing her, Hell will freeze over before she makes an effort to get them to me. What she did instead was tell me that next time I should save videos to my hard drive (which I will do, however complicated it seems to this senior citizen) and that has to be the end of it. In any event, before I had all the details, I asked this friend's opinion about how to handle the situation and her response was "I don't have any thoughts on this, sorry. All my thoughts are about Orlando." So is this a slap in the face or what? This is a very old friend, with whom I had an ugly quarrel about something very similar about a decade ago, and we have only slowly resumed a friendship since she now has email. The previous quarrel entailed my cursing at her (I think I said "F.U." , something I have probably said about four times in my life, the other being to my partner when I was furious) because when I told her how upset I was over my unrequited love/lust/limerence for The Mentor she told me I would feel better if I went and did volunteer work. I suppose this is a similar kind of thing. I am a lot more mature and less distraught now than I was then, so I have more resources at my disposal (writing in this blog, which there's a slim chance she may read).
In any event, I don't see why I should apologize for continuing to be concerned with my own life. I have a hard life (not as hard as the lives of people struck by tragedy, although usually in this kind of situation people rally round, which they don't if you're simply stuck in a dreary rut that you can't figure out a way out of), so maybe I don't have that much emotional energy to expend too far outside it. Right now my goals are to make my "third act" as rich and vibrant and spiritually rewarding as possible, while trying to make the end of an (often querulous and disagreeable) 82 year old's life as sweet as possible, all with extremely limited financial resources, no relatives, and almost no social support system. So I really don't feel the need to apologize.
This post has been prompted by my feeling "chewed out" (in a very subtle way) by a friend because, in the wake of the tragedy in Orlando, I am still talking about, and asking for advice about, situations in my own life. Is that selfish? I don't see it as such. There isn't much I can do about what happened in Orlando other than try to get elected officials to pass gun control legislation which obviously they won't do. I rarely feel sad about anything that happens that far away. Is that a character flaw? And once a tragedy is of such mammoth proportions that it attracts celebrity fundraisers, I feel (incorrecly?) that any small amount of money I can afford to donate somewhere is better given to the church food pantry, where I know that every dollar will go to buy food.
And yes, life goes on. It wouldn't if my partner had a crisis (I would have to push the "stop" button), or even if there were a crisis in my building, or on the street outside my building, or at the church where I sing, or on a subway car where I was sitting, but I can't stop thinking and planning and asking questions about what's going on in my life because there was a mass tragedy somewhere.
The immediate trigger for this was my anger over some videos that I am sure someone (a woman who produced concerts that I sang in, and who now has gone "off" me for some inexplicable reason) deleted deliberately from her Youtube channel. It turns out there is nothing I can do about it because they are not my property (she paid a videographer to make them) and she said she did not delete them on purpose, but it's only her word against mine. I mean I'm sure they still exist somewhere, but knowing her, Hell will freeze over before she makes an effort to get them to me. What she did instead was tell me that next time I should save videos to my hard drive (which I will do, however complicated it seems to this senior citizen) and that has to be the end of it. In any event, before I had all the details, I asked this friend's opinion about how to handle the situation and her response was "I don't have any thoughts on this, sorry. All my thoughts are about Orlando." So is this a slap in the face or what? This is a very old friend, with whom I had an ugly quarrel about something very similar about a decade ago, and we have only slowly resumed a friendship since she now has email. The previous quarrel entailed my cursing at her (I think I said "F.U." , something I have probably said about four times in my life, the other being to my partner when I was furious) because when I told her how upset I was over my unrequited love/lust/limerence for The Mentor she told me I would feel better if I went and did volunteer work. I suppose this is a similar kind of thing. I am a lot more mature and less distraught now than I was then, so I have more resources at my disposal (writing in this blog, which there's a slim chance she may read).
In any event, I don't see why I should apologize for continuing to be concerned with my own life. I have a hard life (not as hard as the lives of people struck by tragedy, although usually in this kind of situation people rally round, which they don't if you're simply stuck in a dreary rut that you can't figure out a way out of), so maybe I don't have that much emotional energy to expend too far outside it. Right now my goals are to make my "third act" as rich and vibrant and spiritually rewarding as possible, while trying to make the end of an (often querulous and disagreeable) 82 year old's life as sweet as possible, all with extremely limited financial resources, no relatives, and almost no social support system. So I really don't feel the need to apologize.
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Calm After the Storm
Now we have new music to work on.
Ironically, one is a piece by a little known 20th century composer named Booth (he used to be the music director at the church in the 1930s) that was inspired by Lohengrin. I would never in a million years guess that the piece was written in the 20th century.
It is absolutely gorgeous, but the soprano part involves way too much sustained high singing for this mezzo. We're only talking about Fs and Gs, but it's a page that sits up there with noplace to take a breath. The alto part is in a decent rage (goes up to an E flat). So I told the choir director that I would sing alto on that piece. Ideally (and I only thought of this after the fact), with the current assortment of singers, the piece should be sung SATB as written with the second sopranos dropping down to the alto part for the last page. This would be fine if there will be a high soprano or two to sing the top part. I have no idea who will be there that day. The irony is that I easily could have sung the soprano part in the Mendelssohn because it moved around and there were piano interludes between the parts that were sung.
Basically the problem (for the choir as a whole) is aside from the handful of trained lyric sopranos (who don't sing regularly) what the section has is me (a trained mezzo) and a group of women with no training. I can sing higher than any of them except one, and none of them can sing legato, so they need someone to hold the part together, sort of the way egg holds certain cooked dishes together (odd metaphor, I know). So it's fine if the part doesn't sit high, then I can play that function. Otherwise not, although it's rare for there to be a piece in so high a tessitura that I can't sing it particularly if I can sing full voice. (The alto section already has at least one, maybe two, women who sing with a nice line, they just don't have a wide range.)
Of course the upshot of all this is that high sopranos (and of course men) are highly prized and women with lower voices are not.
In any event, this is a beautiful piece of music.
So now it's back to working on my birthday concert. This will be an opportunity for me to do a variety of different kinds of things that I don't usually: sing nonclassical music, research some of the songs and come up with things to say in between the sets, and connect to the audience through the spoken word.
I can invite 10 guests. Whether my partner is one of them I guess remains to be seen.
Ironically, one is a piece by a little known 20th century composer named Booth (he used to be the music director at the church in the 1930s) that was inspired by Lohengrin. I would never in a million years guess that the piece was written in the 20th century.
It is absolutely gorgeous, but the soprano part involves way too much sustained high singing for this mezzo. We're only talking about Fs and Gs, but it's a page that sits up there with noplace to take a breath. The alto part is in a decent rage (goes up to an E flat). So I told the choir director that I would sing alto on that piece. Ideally (and I only thought of this after the fact), with the current assortment of singers, the piece should be sung SATB as written with the second sopranos dropping down to the alto part for the last page. This would be fine if there will be a high soprano or two to sing the top part. I have no idea who will be there that day. The irony is that I easily could have sung the soprano part in the Mendelssohn because it moved around and there were piano interludes between the parts that were sung.
Basically the problem (for the choir as a whole) is aside from the handful of trained lyric sopranos (who don't sing regularly) what the section has is me (a trained mezzo) and a group of women with no training. I can sing higher than any of them except one, and none of them can sing legato, so they need someone to hold the part together, sort of the way egg holds certain cooked dishes together (odd metaphor, I know). So it's fine if the part doesn't sit high, then I can play that function. Otherwise not, although it's rare for there to be a piece in so high a tessitura that I can't sing it particularly if I can sing full voice. (The alto section already has at least one, maybe two, women who sing with a nice line, they just don't have a wide range.)
Of course the upshot of all this is that high sopranos (and of course men) are highly prized and women with lower voices are not.
In any event, this is a beautiful piece of music.
So now it's back to working on my birthday concert. This will be an opportunity for me to do a variety of different kinds of things that I don't usually: sing nonclassical music, research some of the songs and come up with things to say in between the sets, and connect to the audience through the spoken word.
I can invite 10 guests. Whether my partner is one of them I guess remains to be seen.
Monday, May 30, 2016
Ah, Schadenfreude! And Now Let's Move On
Well, Sunday morning I woke up at 3:30 (I was really wired both about the upcoming service and about some plans to do with my birthday concert that didn't work out) and then was only beginning to be able to get back to sleep when the alarm went off at 6. So OK, I got five hours of sleep, certainly enough.
When I got to church, there were only three (second) sopranos, none with any training and really only one who knows how to stay on a part so of course the section sounded God awful. The Director of Music was there conducting and he had to work with them separately. There was one line (no high notes; went up to a D) that was very exposed that they could not sing at all, apparently, so the three higher altos (me and two others) ended up singing it with them.
Do I really care which part I sing on a gorgeous piece of music like that? No. Mendelssohn writes lovely alto parts that have a decent range. The reason I was so angry is that it's all about perception. I don't like being made to feel like a big oaf trampling on someone's flowers, which is so often how I am made to feel. If that were counterbalanced by the choir director's occasionally saying something like "thank you babydramatic for holding that note without breathing!" or calling as much attention to something I did well as to something I did (in his opinion) badly that would be fine.
Also IMHO it was a wrong-headed decision to arrange the women the way he did. If I were in charge of that particular assortment of women (I am being totally objective here) I would have kept me with the sopranos (there is already one alto with training) and told the sopranos not to sing the high A because really no one except a trained lyric soprano (not a trained mezzo with a loud voice and certainly not untrained sopranos) can sing it decently. I could certainly hold the part together, sing the high Gs (which were all marked forte; they were not "float-y") and the balance would have been better.
Well, now it's on to the next thing, a lengthy piece in Hebrew that sounds a lot like Copeland (and it turns out that Copeland was the composer's mentor, so yes! I am developing a trained ear!). It has eight parts and the second soprano part is quite easy to stay on (also it is written with only two parts per staff). Sometimes there are only four parts and the soprano part goes up to a G, but it is definitely something I can sing, including one note that probably is float-y. I just have to work on it.
As well as working on the music for my birthday concert. A lot of it is non-classical (although I can sing it with my "legit" voice) so I want to work on style.
And a dear dear friend, the woman who gave me the idea for the birthday concert in the first place, who has very little money and lives mostly on Social Security volunteered to send me a bouquet of flowers for my concert. She said she had wanted to surprise me but then thought she needed to know which day to send them, so I told her, and thanked her profusely. Yes, that's what thoughtfulness looks like.
When I got to church, there were only three (second) sopranos, none with any training and really only one who knows how to stay on a part so of course the section sounded God awful. The Director of Music was there conducting and he had to work with them separately. There was one line (no high notes; went up to a D) that was very exposed that they could not sing at all, apparently, so the three higher altos (me and two others) ended up singing it with them.
Do I really care which part I sing on a gorgeous piece of music like that? No. Mendelssohn writes lovely alto parts that have a decent range. The reason I was so angry is that it's all about perception. I don't like being made to feel like a big oaf trampling on someone's flowers, which is so often how I am made to feel. If that were counterbalanced by the choir director's occasionally saying something like "thank you babydramatic for holding that note without breathing!" or calling as much attention to something I did well as to something I did (in his opinion) badly that would be fine.
Also IMHO it was a wrong-headed decision to arrange the women the way he did. If I were in charge of that particular assortment of women (I am being totally objective here) I would have kept me with the sopranos (there is already one alto with training) and told the sopranos not to sing the high A because really no one except a trained lyric soprano (not a trained mezzo with a loud voice and certainly not untrained sopranos) can sing it decently. I could certainly hold the part together, sing the high Gs (which were all marked forte; they were not "float-y") and the balance would have been better.
Well, now it's on to the next thing, a lengthy piece in Hebrew that sounds a lot like Copeland (and it turns out that Copeland was the composer's mentor, so yes! I am developing a trained ear!). It has eight parts and the second soprano part is quite easy to stay on (also it is written with only two parts per staff). Sometimes there are only four parts and the soprano part goes up to a G, but it is definitely something I can sing, including one note that probably is float-y. I just have to work on it.
As well as working on the music for my birthday concert. A lot of it is non-classical (although I can sing it with my "legit" voice) so I want to work on style.
And a dear dear friend, the woman who gave me the idea for the birthday concert in the first place, who has very little money and lives mostly on Social Security volunteered to send me a bouquet of flowers for my concert. She said she had wanted to surprise me but then thought she needed to know which day to send them, so I told her, and thanked her profusely. Yes, that's what thoughtfulness looks like.
Friday, May 27, 2016
Sad, Angry, and Manic
I am in one of the worst moods I have been in in a long time.
I had worked really hard on the soprano part of the St. Paul piece. It was not comfortable, but it was certainly manageable if I sang it full voice. Yes I can sing a pianissimo high G but only in a piece where the phrase is meant to be sung pianissimo. These phrases are all marked forte.
Now, let me first say that if when he handed the music out, the choir director had said to me "why don't you sing the alto part on this piece, it's lovely" (true - the altos do a lot of singing on their own) that would have been fine and in fact if we still had trained high sopranos, I would have volunteered to sing the alto part, but I didn't think there was anyone who could sing the soprano part. But what happened instead was that I started singing and he asked me to sing with the altos "in certain sections". So first, I was angry that I felt that I was made a spectacle of in a negative way (he has never given me any public compliments, unlike the ones he often gave Little Miss; the only times he has ever spoken to me in front of the group has been about something negative although he has given me compliments of various kinds in private). Second, singing with the altos "in certain sections" would have been a lose/lose proposition because then I wouldn't get to sing the lovely alto sections or the soprano high notes. So I just said "why don't I just switch sections" and he said "fine". Actually the part is lovely (and it goes up to an E not a C) and I brought every ounce of vocal technique to it.
When he rehearsed sections alone at one point the sopranos sang the bit going up to the high A, which sounded, to be polite, rather anemic and tinny (I think only two people were singing), some woman in the alto section said "Wow". Really??? No one has ever said "wow" in public over anything I sang. People have come up to me in private and complimented me when I've sung a solo but that's about it.
Then to make everything worse at the end of the rehearsal when the choir director asked if there were any announcements, after a few about people who were ill, the tenor from the conservatory (the one with the rude wife), who only seems to be interested in other people from conservatories, announced that Little Miss is going to be an apprentice at Caramoor. Who effing cares? As a friend of mine used to say, "Let's talk about the people who are in the room." It was different at least when she had a recital because that was something people could be invited to.
I felt like going home and throwing dishes and screaming. My therapist has told me that when I feel like that probably what I want to do is cry, so I did that too.
This morning I spoke to my partner about how upset I was. I don't usually bother her about problems that don't concern her because she is so frail, but I just wanted a hug, a compliment, some affirmation, anything.
What I decided, after trying to pull myself together (crying is bad for the voice no matter what range I'm going to be singing in) was that what I want most is a video. What better vehicle for public kvelling? So I will post something on Facebook about my birthday concert (just in general terms) about this, and then home in on some specific people as the time approaches. For now, I don't even know how many guests I can invite.
I had worked really hard on the soprano part of the St. Paul piece. It was not comfortable, but it was certainly manageable if I sang it full voice. Yes I can sing a pianissimo high G but only in a piece where the phrase is meant to be sung pianissimo. These phrases are all marked forte.
Now, let me first say that if when he handed the music out, the choir director had said to me "why don't you sing the alto part on this piece, it's lovely" (true - the altos do a lot of singing on their own) that would have been fine and in fact if we still had trained high sopranos, I would have volunteered to sing the alto part, but I didn't think there was anyone who could sing the soprano part. But what happened instead was that I started singing and he asked me to sing with the altos "in certain sections". So first, I was angry that I felt that I was made a spectacle of in a negative way (he has never given me any public compliments, unlike the ones he often gave Little Miss; the only times he has ever spoken to me in front of the group has been about something negative although he has given me compliments of various kinds in private). Second, singing with the altos "in certain sections" would have been a lose/lose proposition because then I wouldn't get to sing the lovely alto sections or the soprano high notes. So I just said "why don't I just switch sections" and he said "fine". Actually the part is lovely (and it goes up to an E not a C) and I brought every ounce of vocal technique to it.
When he rehearsed sections alone at one point the sopranos sang the bit going up to the high A, which sounded, to be polite, rather anemic and tinny (I think only two people were singing), some woman in the alto section said "Wow". Really??? No one has ever said "wow" in public over anything I sang. People have come up to me in private and complimented me when I've sung a solo but that's about it.
Then to make everything worse at the end of the rehearsal when the choir director asked if there were any announcements, after a few about people who were ill, the tenor from the conservatory (the one with the rude wife), who only seems to be interested in other people from conservatories, announced that Little Miss is going to be an apprentice at Caramoor. Who effing cares? As a friend of mine used to say, "Let's talk about the people who are in the room." It was different at least when she had a recital because that was something people could be invited to.
I felt like going home and throwing dishes and screaming. My therapist has told me that when I feel like that probably what I want to do is cry, so I did that too.
This morning I spoke to my partner about how upset I was. I don't usually bother her about problems that don't concern her because she is so frail, but I just wanted a hug, a compliment, some affirmation, anything.
What I decided, after trying to pull myself together (crying is bad for the voice no matter what range I'm going to be singing in) was that what I want most is a video. What better vehicle for public kvelling? So I will post something on Facebook about my birthday concert (just in general terms) about this, and then home in on some specific people as the time approaches. For now, I don't even know how many guests I can invite.
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
This is Long Overdue (Now Where's my Videographer?)
I have written so much about the short-sightedness and ignorance of age discrimination in the performing arts, and everywhere, so three cheers to this well-respected blogger (which I apparently am not) for posting this.
http://kashu-do.blogspot.cz/2016/05/the-aging-operatic-voice-baseless.html
The video of the "amateur" soprano singing "La Vergine degli'Angeli" is beyond amazing. So yes, this is possible. There is no reason to throw in the towel if you're over 50 or over 60. There's no reason why I should assume (or other people should assume) that how I sounded at 57 must be the best I'm ever going to sound and that after that it will be downhill all the way. There's no reason to assume that someone over 55 is "not a future investment". I can understand people worrying when it comes to playing a character, or doing certain kinds of staging, but why does the Oratorio Society of New York have an age limit of 40 for their solo competition? Does it matter what you look like if you're singing with a chorus and an orchestra? Does it matter if you have mobility challenges that make it hard for you to look graceful running down a flight of stairs if you can sing Bach glorioiusly?
But this does underscore the need for people to have people in their lives who know what to do with a video camera. If the elderly soprano hadn't had someone to make that Youtube video, no one would know about her. So who did that, I wonder?
If nothing else, it gives me hope. I am my own future investment.
http://kashu-do.blogspot.cz/2016/05/the-aging-operatic-voice-baseless.html
The video of the "amateur" soprano singing "La Vergine degli'Angeli" is beyond amazing. So yes, this is possible. There is no reason to throw in the towel if you're over 50 or over 60. There's no reason why I should assume (or other people should assume) that how I sounded at 57 must be the best I'm ever going to sound and that after that it will be downhill all the way. There's no reason to assume that someone over 55 is "not a future investment". I can understand people worrying when it comes to playing a character, or doing certain kinds of staging, but why does the Oratorio Society of New York have an age limit of 40 for their solo competition? Does it matter what you look like if you're singing with a chorus and an orchestra? Does it matter if you have mobility challenges that make it hard for you to look graceful running down a flight of stairs if you can sing Bach glorioiusly?
But this does underscore the need for people to have people in their lives who know what to do with a video camera. If the elderly soprano hadn't had someone to make that Youtube video, no one would know about her. So who did that, I wonder?
If nothing else, it gives me hope. I am my own future investment.
Monday, May 23, 2016
Multipurpose Post: Good but Not Good Enough (About Singing), and Insidious Platitudes (or is "Joblove" the New Skinny?)
First about singing.
Saturday I went to hear my voice teacher, his wife, and three colleagues sing a free concert in a prestigious venue. They have a new mezzo. Yes, she sounds better than me (her voice has a big "shimmery halo" around it which mine does not), and yes she's younger (40ish), and she's agile, although I thought some of her acting was over the top. At my last lesson I asked my teacher how long he thought it would take me to sound good enough to sing with that group in that venue and he hemmed and hawed. The fact that he picked someone who sings better than I do is something I can't argue with. What I got angry about was that one of the last women he used as a mezzo was someone who did not sing better than I do but she was someone he had "known for years" and had performed with numerous times.
So there's the age barrier and then there's the social barrier. I was thinking about the similarities between starting to sing (or really do anything) when you're older, and coming out when you're older. When I was counseling at the LGBT center, one of the problems older women had who were coming out at the age of 40 or older was that they had a whole life infastructure in place (sometimes involving a husband and children, but at the very least involving friends who had known their "former" self) and now they had to figure out how to re-tool it to make room for their new identity as a Lesbian. I feel very much that way about my passion for singing. I wasn't in a college music program, for starters. That's huge. So even when I began singing the first time in my mid-20s, I had a totally different social circle from people who were in college music programs. Most of my friends (and my mother) thought my interest in singing (particularly classical music) was at the very least quaint and irrelevant and at the very worst "not what politically minded 'dykes' did". And when I began singing again in my 50s it was even harder. My friends were polite (albeit bemused) by it and my partner was angry at me. It has taken 10 years to get people on board, that this is what I am doing and will be doing until I can't do it any more, so that is a blessing, but it's still not the same as being immersed in an environment where you know musicians and they know you and that's where your friends come from and that's even where your spouse or your partner comes from. I don't only have to build a vocal technique, I also have to build a network and most of the existing ones don't want me.
As a last word about singing (before addressing the second topic), we are singing a choral selection from Mendelssohn's St, Paul next Sunday at 9 am. The soprano part sits very high, which is fine (it is similar to pieces I have sung with the choir recently) but it also has a high A in it that just sort of hangs (you go up to it and don't come back down). I did a bang-up job with the two high As I sang in choral pieces recently but they were a little different because each was in the middle of a phrase, marked forte, and in the case of the "Hallelujah Chorus" there was brass playing. So I am going to work on the piece and have as my goal to sing the note correctly (which means full voice) at rehearsal while sitting down (no mean feat) and if the choir director doesn't like it, and there are no first sopranos there, that note just won't happen and no one in the "audience" will know the difference. If we still had high sopranos in the choir I would be happy to sing the alto part, which is lovely (although the highest note is a C - the ever-present annoying gap between the two women's parts) but with the current cast of characters I can't really jump ship on this particular Sunday.
Now for the second part of this post, which I have named, Insidious Platitudes.
Today a woman whom I am very fond of (and who is quite "sensible" in the best sense of that word) posted what I would call a bit of "twenty-first century guilt-trip fodder" on Facebook.
This type of guilt-trip fodder has now become as common as diet guilt-trip fodder used to be; you know anyone can be thin if you just [eat this, don't eat that, don't deprive yourself, do deprive yourself, just set aside 15 minutes to exercise, wake up at 6 to run, blah, blah, blah]. Now the guilt-trip mantra is if you don't immediately leave a boring job, spouse, neighborhood, or, to quote Neruda "change your life when you are not satisfied" you are a loser. Whom is this addressing? A single mom with two low-paying jobs? An average person whose boring office job keeps them from being homeless, gives them health insurance, and, possibly, some money to retire on? A family caregiver who has to arrange their work schedule around a loved one? Or you're a loser if you don't change your routine. For some people a routine is all they have. Sure, you can tweak the edges a little bit, but sometimes that's the best people can do.
What ever happened to (another platitude) "love what you have"?
Saturday I went to hear my voice teacher, his wife, and three colleagues sing a free concert in a prestigious venue. They have a new mezzo. Yes, she sounds better than me (her voice has a big "shimmery halo" around it which mine does not), and yes she's younger (40ish), and she's agile, although I thought some of her acting was over the top. At my last lesson I asked my teacher how long he thought it would take me to sound good enough to sing with that group in that venue and he hemmed and hawed. The fact that he picked someone who sings better than I do is something I can't argue with. What I got angry about was that one of the last women he used as a mezzo was someone who did not sing better than I do but she was someone he had "known for years" and had performed with numerous times.
So there's the age barrier and then there's the social barrier. I was thinking about the similarities between starting to sing (or really do anything) when you're older, and coming out when you're older. When I was counseling at the LGBT center, one of the problems older women had who were coming out at the age of 40 or older was that they had a whole life infastructure in place (sometimes involving a husband and children, but at the very least involving friends who had known their "former" self) and now they had to figure out how to re-tool it to make room for their new identity as a Lesbian. I feel very much that way about my passion for singing. I wasn't in a college music program, for starters. That's huge. So even when I began singing the first time in my mid-20s, I had a totally different social circle from people who were in college music programs. Most of my friends (and my mother) thought my interest in singing (particularly classical music) was at the very least quaint and irrelevant and at the very worst "not what politically minded 'dykes' did". And when I began singing again in my 50s it was even harder. My friends were polite (albeit bemused) by it and my partner was angry at me. It has taken 10 years to get people on board, that this is what I am doing and will be doing until I can't do it any more, so that is a blessing, but it's still not the same as being immersed in an environment where you know musicians and they know you and that's where your friends come from and that's even where your spouse or your partner comes from. I don't only have to build a vocal technique, I also have to build a network and most of the existing ones don't want me.
As a last word about singing (before addressing the second topic), we are singing a choral selection from Mendelssohn's St, Paul next Sunday at 9 am. The soprano part sits very high, which is fine (it is similar to pieces I have sung with the choir recently) but it also has a high A in it that just sort of hangs (you go up to it and don't come back down). I did a bang-up job with the two high As I sang in choral pieces recently but they were a little different because each was in the middle of a phrase, marked forte, and in the case of the "Hallelujah Chorus" there was brass playing. So I am going to work on the piece and have as my goal to sing the note correctly (which means full voice) at rehearsal while sitting down (no mean feat) and if the choir director doesn't like it, and there are no first sopranos there, that note just won't happen and no one in the "audience" will know the difference. If we still had high sopranos in the choir I would be happy to sing the alto part, which is lovely (although the highest note is a C - the ever-present annoying gap between the two women's parts) but with the current cast of characters I can't really jump ship on this particular Sunday.
Now for the second part of this post, which I have named, Insidious Platitudes.
Today a woman whom I am very fond of (and who is quite "sensible" in the best sense of that word) posted what I would call a bit of "twenty-first century guilt-trip fodder" on Facebook.
This type of guilt-trip fodder has now become as common as diet guilt-trip fodder used to be; you know anyone can be thin if you just [eat this, don't eat that, don't deprive yourself, do deprive yourself, just set aside 15 minutes to exercise, wake up at 6 to run, blah, blah, blah]. Now the guilt-trip mantra is if you don't immediately leave a boring job, spouse, neighborhood, or, to quote Neruda "change your life when you are not satisfied" you are a loser. Whom is this addressing? A single mom with two low-paying jobs? An average person whose boring office job keeps them from being homeless, gives them health insurance, and, possibly, some money to retire on? A family caregiver who has to arrange their work schedule around a loved one? Or you're a loser if you don't change your routine. For some people a routine is all they have. Sure, you can tweak the edges a little bit, but sometimes that's the best people can do.
What ever happened to (another platitude) "love what you have"?
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