That'll teach her to mess with a mezzo...

...straight from Facebook...

(Rebelmezzo) Dear Santa, for Christmas I would like the following....1. to miraculously (and permanently) lose twenty more pounds instantly. 2. A month off between now and Friday. 3. A German Shepherd puppy. The milk and cookies are on the table. Thank you. xo, RM
4 hours ago · Comment · Like


DP (her name has been hidden to protect ME: I happen to know for a fact that this woman carries guns and knows how to use them. However, this does not give her license to be a smartass. That's what I'M here for.)

Dear RM: You have been very naughty this year. Unfortunately: 1. Santa cannot help you with the 20 lbs since you keep stuffing cupcakes down your maw...
2. There are only 2.5 days between now and Friday, you went to school you should know that is not a month...
3. The German Shepherd puppy can be found on the internet at many reputable breeders in your area.
4. Santa is a "fictional character" maybe you should look into some anti-psychotics... screw the cookies and milk, give Santa a bottle of Jack Daniels and a Straw... LOL Love ya D :)
3 hours ago · Delete

(RM) Dear Bitchy Elf Intermediary:

Please define 'naughty'. Considering you have considerable experience in this area, I believe you can ceratinly educate me in the finer points of naughtiness.

1. I have not had-or made-cupcakes since September. Perhaps you have me confused with my sister-in-law.
2. Since Santa can haul HIS fat ass around the world in one night, I figure he can stretch the space-time continuum for ME, too.
3. There are many many animals in shelters and rescue societies because this and many other breeds have been so overbred by 'reputable' breeders that health and psychological issues are rampant among shepherds. I don't believe in buying from a breeder when shelters are overloaded--therefore I'd search out a puppy from a German line from a rescue society.
4. Gentle, kind, thoughtful, intelligent, well-mannered, well-groomed straight men are supposed to be fictional characters as well, yet my last boyfriend was all of that--and he could cook, too--so I know that fictional characters DO, in fact, exist.

And screw Santa...the Jack Daniels is MINE.
*middle finger salute*
Love, RM

(See...THIS is what I've been doing instead of blogging! Can you forgive me?)

Famous Last Words.....

Like, "more later"....oh, I crack me up.

I suppose I owe you an explanation for why I've been AWOL for, oh, a year and a half....

Um....

There isn't one.

Mainly, it's that I just don't make it to this little corner of my internet very often, and as much as I try, I don't post as much as I'd wish to. That's it, really. Life has beaten me up emotionally quite a bit over the past year, and while 2009 was much better on some fronts, I STILL feel "in transition", so I will no longer make any promises to myself or anyone else that I'll post on anything resembling a regular basis....I can only promise that I will try. OK?

*sound of crickets*

OK. Thanks for coming by and hearing me out.
RM

PS....just a random thought, while I am here: is it just me, or am I the only American female left who thinks that the idea of someone coming at my forehead with a syringe full of food poisoning sounds more like the beginning of a horror movie than an acceptable beauty practice?
OK, I'm really done now. 'Bye.

To paraphrase the Talking Heads....

...well? How did I get here?

It's official--I'm 40.

As I knew I would (and had hoped I wouldn't), I wound up putting myself through a frenzy of busyness the two weeks leading up to my natal anniversary (which was also the date of the party), including full-time work, contractor hell (the pergola went up in the backyard literally the day before the party), shopping, baking, cooking, whipping, frosting, prepping, cleaning, and not sleeping well (I averaged about six hours per night and often less), which ensured that the day went by in a blur. I had hoped that, for a change, I could face a birthday with quiet presence and composure, fully conscious of the passage of time and appreciating the turning of the year. No such luck--not with forty-odd people in my 950-square-feet abode. I pinballed from guest to guest, enjoying them all immensely but not really connecting deeply with anyone...alas. On the other hand, none of the Jerry Springer antics I had half-feared, half-hoped would happen did, either. Everyone got along marvelously (unless the Marx Brothers-style cake fight happened while I was showing off the damn pergola....).

And now the obvious question: well?
How does it feel to be forty, RM?

Um.
Odd, actually.

I've felt somewhat melancholy and out of sorts since the weekend. I can't possibly describe this year as anything but the Year Of The Bus (as in, the one I keep getting thrown under); in both my professional and personal life, whatever was going phenomenally well LAST year has turned completely to shit.
(Not to put TOO fine a point on it.)

The funny thing is, what I'm feeling right at this moment is somewhat difficult to describe (which is my way of warning you that, in my long-winded way, I'm going to try--so you might want to jump off here and go find some other, more interesting, blog). I feel UNCOMFORTABLE, like a snake about to shed its skin--chafing against the confines of a life that no longer fits me. I've felt an odd sense of being in a liminal space, in the calm center between worlds....not quite here, not quite there--that something new is emerging, coming into view--and that some solutions to the problems and questions I've been wrestling with over the last couple of years will finally be made more clear to me, so I can finally take action. I have a feeling that, by this time next year, my life will look very different. I can't wait--I've been under this bus so many times in the past six months I'm beginning to think that the sky is made of crankshafts and carburetors....

So, add to my answer to the question of how I feel.....'warily hopeful'.

More soon.
RM

Party Flavors

In a little less than a month, yours truly has the honor of turning forty. Not that that, in itself, is a source of stress--I've always been a late bloomer, and my attitude, after all the years of hard-earned wisdom, is along the lines of "Honey, you couldn't PAY me to be twenty again!" Honestly, I can't wait to see what my forties will bring...

But I decided to throw myself un petit soiree (since nobody else is gonna do it FOR me...). It's been marvelous fun planning it, making up menus and so forth....but the guest list has been a source of unending fun (tongue FIRMLY planted in cheek as I write).
It began when I mistakenly sent out the email invitations under the wrong e-moniker, evincing cries of "RebelWHO???" from the masses, and necessitating a SECOND emailing telling people "no, no, it's really ME!" and a THIRD email to most explaining that, no, this wasn't my NEW email address, just a throwaway for commercial websites (like the one I was using for the invitations) so that I wouldn't be deluged with spam at my home address, and that the familiar address they all knew and loved was still good, and....oh, fer chrissakes....

And then there's the people who said yes....some of whom I hadn't originally meant to invite but felt I couldn't NOT invite for fear of hurting their feelings...and so, now, somehow, in the same room on my birthday, shall be (among other reasonably normal sorts):

The gay man who admitted to having a crush on me in college (and it may be ongoing).
My outrageously inappropriate friend from college who couldn't hug me at my first voice teacher's wife's funeral a couple of months ago because she'd just gotten her nipples pierced...because her daughter had just had her first period and she felt OLD. (-!?!?-)
My first voice teacher (no, I haven't told him about the piercing.)
My parents. (MY. PARENTS, people. The same people who created most of the issues I've spent the last five years in therapy trying to overcome.)
My brother, who will wind up being the center of attention...because he IS funnier than I am.
My sister-in-law, who may be upset because I didn't let HER plan the whole shebang (and turn it into a technicolor production worthy of David O. Selznick).
My older brother's occasionally inappropriate partner (no piercings that I know of....or want to).
My ex-husband....and his new wife.
The woman who was my rival for my now ex-boyfriend's affections before he and I officially got together.
And, finally....
My ex-boyfriend (whom, I must admit, I still have feelings for.)

This could get ugly.
Maybe not Jerry Springer ugly....but damn close.

Pray for me.

Musings on scientific theory....water displacement...and,of course, auditions

When under attack, it is a well-documented fact that an animal will react in one of two ways--it will either stand its ground and defend itself or it will head for the hills; this is known as the "fight or flight" response.

It is a lesser-known fact, however, that in very specific situations, the human animal will respond in a third, and rather bizarre, manner; it will stand, open its mouth, and regale the predator with a barrage of what it hopes is a pleasing and harmonious noise, so that the predator will not eat it alive.
This is known as an "audition".

I sang an audition today, for none other than HIMSELF--David Gockley--and various minions thereof. The familiar knot and nausea asserted themselves in my solar plexus as of 10 o'clock this morning (the audition wasn't until the afternoon), and my eyes began to dart back and forth as if searching for the nearest exit--which was odd, as I was still at home, nowhere near the aforementioned predators.

It didn't help that at about eleven last night, right as I was dropping off to sleep, I remembered that the sheet music for my carefully prepared aria was sitting in a folder with my name on it--in my voice teacher's office downtown. (All it took was a phone call and a small side trip to fetch it, so, disaster averted.)

As I entered the building, my heart began pounding, my breathing became shallower (which, of course, is big trouble for a singer, who needs all the breath control at his or her disposal to make it through phrases that, in the voice teacher's studio, seemed easy enough, but in an audition, always seem twice as long...), my palms began to itch, and on top of all that, a strange phenomenon occurred which always happens to me in auditions, and which I would readily pay a scientist to study one of these days--all of the liquid seemed to disappear from my mouth and simultaneously reconstitute itself in my bladder. (The rest of the symptoms of stage fright I can deal with.....but WHAT the hell is THAT about???)
So, after lapping up--and recycling--enough water, within the course of fifteen minutes, to irrigate a small farming community in North Dakota (which shall remain nameless as you could be munching one of their delicious apples, presumably watered with my audition nervousness, as we speak), I went in and sang my aria.

How did I do?

I wish I could tell you. Another thing about audition jitters is that, very akin to the fight or flight response, there's a point at which the body is under such stress that it either goes into shock or passes out entirely--sort of like the possum's 'play dead' defense mechanism, except that it's my brain that goes offline under duress. I describe it to civilians like so: "I stand up to perform, my brains fall out of my ass, and I don't remember a damn thing until I'm sitting down again."

I actually felt pretty good about it (and not just that light-headed giddy relief that follows a near-death experience)...I managed to stay present, hit all the right notes, and not embarrass myself (although I will admit that Mr. Gockley DID look a tad bored). The thing is, there's no way of knowing, when you walk into an audition, what they're looking for. I have long since given up trying to figure out how conductors think (the question I'm currently parsing is, "DO they think?"), and there are so many X factors in auditions that the best course of action for me is to walk away feeling good about the audition itself and not worry about what happens afterward--which is mostly what I was able to do today.

In that spirit, I suppose singing an audition is much like what they say about landing a plane; any one you can walk away from in one piece is a good one.
RM

God help us all.

Please save us from directors who are bound and determined to transfer their hatred of opera to audiences....

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LCFNcEFZn38

....and BTW, THESE guys would like to know when they can schedule an audition.....

http://tvmedia.ign.com/tv/image/article/748/748989/saturday-night-live-season-1-20061204000845066.jpg

In the immortal words of one of my patroness saints, Sister Anna Russell..."I'm NOT making this UP, you know!!"

Sheesh.
RM.

And did she mention that she hates writing bios?

In my last post, I told you about the bio I sent off for a concert I sang with the Sanford Dole Ensemble mid-February, and how I'd written similar bios for the last several gigs I've done, where the last line-invariably cut by discerning (if humorless) proofreaders-is "....she hates writing bios."
I got my hands on a copy of the program at the concert--and smack my behind and call me your wee bitty bitch, if the mutant bio, in its entirety, hadn't made it in! Turns out the guy in charge of the programs for this particular concert (who was, by the way, also one of the members of the ensemble--good on ya, Jim!) has a sense of humor after all. He even left in the line right before the end where, after listing my dubious accomplishments, I said: "When pressed, however, she prefers walking her dog on the beach to singing." God, I love it when stuff like that happens. Restores my faith in humanity, it does.

I enjoyed the heck out of singing with a small chamber group again, especially after years of doing opera chorus, and in spite of the fact that, in addition to myself, my newly-minted ex* was a part of this hootenanny as well. OK, well, that last part, actually, was excruciating, but it didn't alloy the pleasure of singing with a small, gifted, dedicated group of singers nearly as much as I thought it might.

A couple of weeks ago, on a Tuesday morning, I got a frantic phone call out of the blue from a friend/colleague who's recently taken over as temporary general manager of a well-respected organization (oh, OK, if you must know--American Bach Soloists). Another colleague had taken ill and couldn't do the upcoming series of choral concerts that week--could I step in? Well, sure, I guess, I mean, maybe I could...and the next thing I knew, I was cramming the music for the two-hour 'Vocal Visionaries' concert, which included Strauss' 'Der Abend', Victoria's Requiem mass, and a couple of pieces each by Eric Whitacre and Sven-David Sandsstrom.
I got the music Tuesday afternoon--and the dress rehearsal was Wednesday night. No pressure, though....
...although there WERE more moments than I care to recall where I literally had to get up and walk away from the music so I could bang my head against the nearest wall to stop my eyeballs from vibrating...."too...much...information! Can't-process-ANY-MORE-NOTES!"
(Six straight hours of mostly twentieth-century choral writing will do that for a girl.)
.....and then I'd remember the paycheck, and invariably wander back from whichever wall I was banging my head against, to start in again on the music.
Since I was almost literally hired last-minute, there wasn't time for fun and games with the proofreaders, alas. I DID, however, have a wonderful time, once I felt I had the music (somewhat) under my belt; the group has had many of the same singers working together for several concerts (many of whom I'VE sung with here and there), so there was a sense of their being like a loosely-organized family, and they all welcomed me with such gratitude and warmth, I thought, "My God! I remember this--this singing with people who are there because they WANT to sing, who are uniformly good at what they do, who genuinely enjoy working together, when it's a collaboration and not a crab-bucket--YES! I remember what this feels like!"

A week later, I did one aria at my voice teacher's studio recital. It was all I could do to drag myself to the hall and sing. I love my teacher--but I hated every moment of it.

What the hell?

I've been dealing with ambivalence over singing for years--essentially, ever since I started doing it as a 'career'--mainly, over what I felt I SHOULD be doing, as opposed to what I COULD be doing that would satisfy me and make me happy. What the events of the last few months have helped clarify, though, is that all these years I was fighting my truth. I was fed the line everyone with a voice hears at some time or another; "You have a gift, you have to use it." For years I believed that meant I was obligated to do whatever it took--go through every audition, take every gig offered no matter how poorly-paid or miserable the working conditions--because I had a GIFT, and I was obligated to USE it, by God, because how many people would KILL to have the voice and the opportunities I had, and...um....because there are children starving in China, dammit! Yeah...that's it...
It became harder and harder to put aside everything else in my life to do all that it took to market myself, to work on music, to put myself out there again and again and deal with rejection on a regular basis (as all performers do!)...and I found that, increasingly, I avoided doing it at all. Case in point; apart from the recital and the two concerts, I haven't even LOOKED at a score since the end of the opera season last December. I haven't contacted any companies. Haven't put together the demo I keep threatening to do. The website hasn't happened, either. Haven't sent a single resume or headshot. Haven't sung any arias (although I DID wail on a Nina Simone song last week...).

Instead...during this off-season, among other things;
I've written all or part of six poems. I've done dozens of loads of laundry. I've jotted notes for a libretto I'm thinking about writing. I looked into the possibility of becoming an MFT (oh the irony!). I've been improving my cooking skills and moving my diet in a direction more inclined toward whole foods and away from processed foods (and have lost five pounds in the process!). I've danced like a squirrel in a blender in the middle of my kitchen. I've read four books. I've caught up with most of my friends (some of whom I haven't seen in over a year). I've walked my doggie on the beach. And in the woods. And on the hill. I've gotten much of the work done on getting my back yard turned into a garden (oo! ooo! Organic veggies for meeeeee! Yippee!). I went to L.A. for a few days and surfeited myself on fine art (the Getty, Norton Simon, and LACMA--all in three days!). I've tracked down, tagged, and bagged the rest of the furniture for my bedroom. I've gotten a couple of massages. I picked up a few apples to see if I could still juggle. (Yes.) I even cleaned my house. (Once.)
In other words, I've been having a blast--and I haven't missed singing a bit. Which tells me there is a serious disconnect between what I am doing and what I want to be doing with my life. I don't plan on walking away from music entirely; as the two concerts showed me, there are musical experiences I do enjoy and need to do more of. It's just that...well...it seems that opera chorus isn't the be-all, end-all, Holy Grail joyride I'd thought it was...maybe getting knocked off tenure-track was the best thing that could have happened to me after all--what if I'd come to this conclusion about my life AFTER I'd made tenure? (Yeah, OK, I could still really have used the medical benefits, but....just sayin'.)
SO. The next couple of weeks, until I go back to opera chorus, are going to be about having as much non-operatic fun as I can scare up, and figuring out the answer to my own philosophical kick-in-the-ass question (which I also present to you, as a manifesto):

Your life is your greatest work of art. What do you want it to look like?
RM


*Yep; we broke up at the beginning of February. I won't go into gory details in this post, save to tell you that we were able to work through it all like adults, that I totally understood his reasons for needing to go it alone, and we still love and respect each other enormously (how fucked-up is it that we had such a good thing going that even our BREAK-UP was healthy??), and....well....stay tuned for further developments.