Thoughts for a Thursday

So, things have been crazy – you always think life’s going to slow down but it never does. This week is one of those weeks that I’ve had to remind myself not to put off little enjoyable things that I want to do, because if I do I’ll just work too much and never get to them! This was especially hard, however, due to the arrival of our stuff. If we’re lucky, we’ll have most of it sorted out by July. Anyway…

Yesterday I had a potential heart attack turn into a good thing. In the morning I got the word that I had to go to an afternoon meeting in Lisle that was supposed to last until 4:30, but I was going to have to get back downtown and to my rehearsal in Arlington Heights by 6:30 (not doable during rush hour at all). It turned out that someone else in the office ended up going and was nice enough to drive me up to Arlington Heights. The meeting was over a little early, so I got to go home and unpack for about 20 minutes before rehearsal. Had I known I was going to end up that way, I would’ve parked at the Palatine train station and had almost an hour to unpack. Still, aside from the boring, pointless meeting that essentially wasted 4 hours of productive work time, the afternoon was really nice!

One more thing to ramble about and then I’ll stop – this has to do with my wondering about what other people think of me, which is not something I normally think of. The other night at rehearsal we were going through the Mabel song in Pirates, and on the solo parts the other Mabel and I were singing along together. When it came to the cadenza I dropped out because I haven’t worked out anything yet. Well, this girl just about knocked the roof off. She’s a performance major at IU and is very talented. Well, we haven’t gotten much of a chance to be musical, but she’s technically incredible and has a very powerful voice. Anyway, the thing is, I know I’m at least an above average singer, but even in my heyday I never had that kind of volume. Plus, she’s in college (a time during which I could roll out of bed and hit a high C) and I haven’t done any performing in 2 years. Are people going to think she’s a lot better than me? I hope not. I mean, I can deal with that, but I do want people to think I’m good and to understand how different our situations are.

On a slightly different note, I'm very glad this is double cast because although this is technically the annual music, it really is an opera - the lead soprano could easily blow her voice out singing it 4 nights straight 2 weeks in a row, even if she were careful.

Ok, enough for now. On to finish up my day and go home to unpack!