Happy Birthday, Harry

In December of 2001, I took an adorable little boy -- who's now packing a bag to start college at Hartwick next month -- to see a children's movie I'd never heard of. Fifteen minutes into the feature, Brandon and I are enthralled by thousands of owls delivering thousands of letters through every available opening in a just-like-Mrs.-Next-Door's house, and I knew I  had to learn the rest of the story.

On New Year's Day 2002, I curled up with the book that inspired that film, the story of an 11-year-old boy who learns he's a wizard, and goes on to find a place that he might, eventually, call home.  Not five minutes in, I was hooked. Cue up eight years of reading and rereading and rereading, standing in lines for midnight releases of books 5, 6, and 7 and films 2, 3, 4, and 5. Cue up Nimbus 2003 and The Witching Hour and Phoenix Rising. Herald friends like Katie and Kathryn and Aja and Erica. Cue up kitchen experiments, hitting on amazing recipes for amber-dark butterbeer and buttery, flaky pumpkin pasties. Cue up remembering how much FUN books are, after a decade of learning to treat reading as serious business.

Thank you, young Mister Potter. Happy Thirtieth Birthday.

First published at expetesso.com.

"I Triple Dog Dare Ya!"

One of these days I will learn to walk away from a dare.  One of these days I will turn my back on someone who calls me a coward, without ever giving him a second thought.  One of these days -- who the hell am I kidding? For that to happen, I'd have to wake up a completely different person.

The predicament I've currently gotten myself into is that I've booked an audition slot for choir, the Stonewall Chorale led by Cynthia Powers, on August 17th -- less than four weeks from now. I was preparing to audition for next year. Spend the summer at the New York Choral Society's summer sings, take a sight-singing class in the fall through BMI, and really work on getting my voice back into shape with daily vocal exercises.  After eight years of vocal instruction and small group singing, and two years with an Oratorio society, I have the skills to pull myself back into shape -- doing so will just take time. Thus my plan to audition in August of 2011.

Problem is, my friends in New York City are a motley assortment of whacked out overachievers who push and push and push and argue that "no" is for wimps and sissies. And I back away from a challenge more easily than I back away from chocolate desserts, which is to say Not At All, so find myself in the position of combing my sheet music library for something that shows off my range (once two-and-a-half octaves, now barely two), and that stylistically fits with the pieces announced for the upcoming season (rolicking Latin holiday songs, a collection of Bernstein and Weill among others for a solemn spring concert, and the Broadway and American songbook extravaganza that's performed at Pride) to show that I a) understand stylistic intent, and b) can blend into an established canon.

I have a short list to choose from.

• Your Daddy’s Son (Aherns and Flaherty, Ragtime)
• Stay Well (Kurt Weill, Lost in the Stars) (Yes, this was chosen before I saw that Weill was a featured composer of the spring concert -- I used this song for a successful stage audition in college, and feel terrifically confident with it, so it's on the short-short list.)
• Stars and the Moon (Jason Robert Brown, Songs for a New World)
• Must the Winter Come So Soon? (Samuel Barber, Vanessa) (Barber always seems opera-light to me, so while this really is a mezzo aria it doesn't feel out-of-place for this type of audition.)
• Lullaby (Gian-Carlo Menotti, The Consul)
• New Words (Maury Yeston, In the Beginning)
• Giants in the Sky (Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods) (Because good lord, weeks of listening to ballads and arias must get boring.)
• How Could I Ever Know (Norman and Simon, The Secret Garden) (The range for this number is an octave and six and it calls out a lovely tone from my voice, but I usually slip into a British accent while singing it, which is a death knell. I should probably cross it off.)
• Let Evening Come (Clay Zambo, art song) (I love love LOVE this piece, it was written by an incredibly dear friend whose music I would love to place before a choir with money to buy sheet music in four parts, but I don't know that it's precisely appropriate.)
• I Need to Know (Bricusse and Wildhorn, Jekyll and Hyde)

Um, Mom? I'm *really* sorry for all of the depressing music I listened to as a teenager -- I must have been completely monstrous to live with. Seriously. More than half of these songs are sung by ghosts, or to dead or dying lovers, or dead or dying children -- or are set up songs for tragic protagonists. A little more with the happy probably would have been good for my general disposition...

Anyway, suggestions on what to sing are welcome. As are leads on someone I can hire to create an accompaniment tape for me to practice with, since my guitar ear is no long existing on this plane.

Overheard in NYC

A tiny girl, standing in the central hall of Grand Central Station, as Corrin and I zoomed from track 26 to the subway: "Mommy the ladies go so fast!"

When a pair of leggy, 6' tall women clickety-clack past a zillion tourists toting luggage and struggling to figure out which exit to use, I guess we stand out.

As for the exits, my tip: look up. The street passage names are inscribed in the stone over the arches. Granted, you still need to know what street you need, but that's why you plan routes in advance.

--
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http://expetesso.blogspot.com
"You people and your quaint little categories."
Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood, "Day One"

The Backup Plan

I need a better back-up plan.

I'm far outside the norm on this one, but I firmly believe that back-up plans should be bold, audacious, well over the line into outrageous, even. A back-up plan should be so difficult to achieve, so overwhelming to contemplate, that you can't help but succeed at your first choice -- whatever it is. For example.

In December of 2003, I gave up on grad school. The only goal I had been steadily working toward for seven years was to become a professor of literature, to perpetually study the history of human stories and teach others how to think critically about which ones we tell -- and which we don't -- and what those choices say about us as a society, and perhaps to some degree about our social evolution as a species. Then I got into a classroom and learned how much I loathed teaching and resented those who refuse to try on new thoughts and ideas, and realized that I would hate my life if this were my day-to-day reality. Finishing an expensive degree program that wouldn't provide skills I didn't already have or hone my processes more than I could on my own would be a colossal waste of energy and time and money, so I dropped out.

I reviewed all of my (limited) skills and experiences, and hit on a plan that might work: build a career helping others by leveraging my tendency to take charge of organizing things. I prepped hundreds of resumes and sent them out in response to every nonprofit job opening I seemed remotely qualified for that was based east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line. That was the extent of my plan on January 1, 2004.

My father, a guy with a steady eye for futuring and a vested interest in my happiness (and my ability to repay my student loans!), was supportive of my action-focused plan, but also insistent that I have a back-up option. "What if this doesn't pan out? What then?" I gave it a few days thought, and came up with a back-up that I thought would ensure my success.

There's a flight school near my parents house that qualifies students for solo piloting of helicopters and small aircraft. Tuition is expensive, but you can learn both flying and maintenance of your plane, essentially ensuring that you're capable of both major and minor repairs of your craft. My back-up plan was to live with my parents for three years -- working round-the-clock labor jobs (nothing that I would feel remotely compelled to stick around for) to pay them rent and the school tuition -- get my pilot's license, buy a beat-up small passenger plane and fix it up, pack a bag filled with bikinis, books, and rum, and take off for the Caribbean to set up shop as an island hopper, shuttling tourists anywhere they wanted to go.

Oh yes, I'm completely serious.

Dad didn't think it was at all funny, but I've been holding to that as my back-up plan ever since -- through winning interviews and job offers from universities and museums and hospitals, accepting and starting work with the American Cancer Society, packing it all up to move to NYC, and building what is shaping up to be a pretty spectacular career in nonprofit tech and strategic innovation -- by intentional accident, it seems. Problem is, my back-up plan seems a bit too achievable and also a little staid. And it's important that it not be; it's totally possible that this career path could go south at any time -- particularly given how volatile the economy still seems to be, and how dramatically shifts in economic welfare can influence nonprofit health. But I'm having trouble coming up with something that's both interesting and suitably outrageous enough to ensure that I'll keep succeeding with my primary goals. Suggestions are welcome.

What's your back-up?

--

Sent from my mobile device

http://expetesso.blogspot.com

"You people and your quaint little categories."

Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood, "Day One"

Independence Day

I'm feeling very Roman Holiday just now; I'm sitting on a train out of the city wearing my version of a Hepburn-ish outfit (patterned full skirt, a slim-fit ballet shirt, a 3/4-sleeve wrap over the top, and flat shoes) with her gamine-esque hair, and am off on an adventure with a return ticket and $40 in my pocket. Who knows what fun I'll have!

Actually, I anticipate the fun pretty fairly; I'll meet yet another Zona and Erasmus Shue and another Jacob and Mary Jane Heaster in the newest full production of Clay's Greenbrier Ghost. I'll help Caran find a stunning, brightly plumaged gown to wear for the show's gala next Saturday. We'll all be covered in food after testing a kitchen experiment (I don't imagine we'll ever top chocolate-covered bacon, but you never know). There will be walks through the cemetary, laughter and tears over Sports Night, giggles over games, songs to sing and plunk and play.

And there will be a conversation over dinner that's quite a far cry from what I proclaimed at New Year's, dropping my fork to gesticulate over, "I'm through with dating -- women are either insane or boring, and I'd rather work than deal with the crazy. Done. No more. I *like* being single!" Clay taunted me with the notion that most people who tempt fate get their just desserts; most of his acquaintances who've made similar claims of frustration wind up finding "the love of their life" within six months. I blew him off, but it turns out that I beat
those odds by more than a little, meeting Corrin just a week after that lovely, snowy weekend in Connecticut. I'm off to celebrate America's Independence with two of my dearest friends, in a state somewhat different from the solitude and self-sufficiency that I've always equated with independence, learning that facing the world "together" is far from dependency or weakness, as I've always feared. Clay, you were right. Enjoy your "I told you so" -- and know that I don't begrudge you for it at all.

Endnote: I remain convinced that the All-Aboard bell is one of the most gloriously romantic sounds in the world. Trains = Love
--
Sent from my mobile device
http://expetesso.blogspot.com
"You people and your quaint little categories."
Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood, "Day One"