Feeling: revived
Listening to: I have Cinderella music running through my head
Reading/Watching: Veronica Mars with Mr. MegMarch

When one is feeling backed up against a wall in life, as if all escape routes have been burned and now you're stuck with the crumbling platform and the rope ladder which swings just out of your reach, it's a very good time to pull those magic beans out of your pocket.

The job is frustrating. Grad school is either not happening or just very bad at returning messages. The substitute job took me off their roster because I've been full-time at the store since December and haven't taken a sub day in all that time. I quit my church job at Christmas time, and now I'm a singer without a gig (my reasons still hold: the director was an ass, I was unhappy, and it was wrecking my confidence to the point that I was thinking of quitting singing altogether, but I still feel a bit odd without a singing gig).

And I auditioned for Shakespeare in the Park's production of Taming of the Shrew last Tuesday, and got a call from Bork today saying that he was offered a part, and did I get cast too? At which point I realized I didn't make it in.

Then I sang in a little concert today.

A colleague from the synagogue quartet was celebrating his thirtieth wedding anniversary by giving a voice recital with his wife, who sings soprano. The second half of the concert would be a readers' theater staging of the operetta "The True Story of Cinderella," and they had invited many of their lifelong friends, skilled musicians from around town, to participate. I was asked to play one of the wicked stepsisters.

So I learned my part, I practiced my high notes and planned the silly faces I'd make (since it was readers' theater, there was no staging, we just stood in a row and sang off our music, which meant hamming it up was crucial). Today, I got up there with notable singers whose names I read in local newspapers as soloists for choirs and singers in the city's lyric opera, as well as people who'd been teaching music for ten or forty years (including the woman who played the Queen, who just happens to teach voice at one of my prospective grad schools).

Afterward, mon coeur and I were invited to the dinner party for the happy couple, which was a blast (excellent food). Even though we somehow wound up sitting alone at a corner table (of our own choosing; it's just that no one took the seats across from us), and I kept quietly to myself because I didn't know more than 75% of the people there, guests still walked up to our table to tell me how much they liked my performance.

And one man clapped me on the shoulder and called me a "terrific actress," which is a nice thing to hear after being passed over for my favorite Shakespearean comedy.

So yeah. Grow, little magic beans. And hopefully tomorrow, when I call the grad schools again to check on things, someone will say "oh yeah, we heard from the Queen that you're a good singer."

Sigh. Keep on truckin'. It's all I can do at this point. Wallowing doesn't tend to work out for me.

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