Shipwrecked & Comatose

I'm going to do what people have been doing for centuries this time of year. I'll be doing something that humans have done since they first began to notice the cyclical nature of of the universe and the patterns inherent in nature. I'm going to celebrate a day known in today's culture as the national holiday of Christmas. On the modern western calendar it's called Christmas, but humans have celebrated this day for centuries before that. We all know winter is rough. But even though we have hit the darkest days, we know light is returning. So let's get out the party trappings, eat lots of food, celebrate with family, and give each other gifts for no real reason. Just celebrate because we're alive and on this earth and everything on this earth tends to go according to patterns. Sometimes the universe is chaotic and unfair and nature is unpredictable, but there are some things that are reliable. As of today, the days grow longer. It always does every year....

I just finished my second semester of singing class this week. It has been an interesting journey in this class. The idea of Libera Canto shouldn’t even have to be a technique. It almost seems like something a singer unlearns in a lifetime of singing. I still had a hard time with it. My first session of the class had me thinking of who I am as a singer. I understood that my teacher wanted me to understand what it meant to just sing a song, and not perform it. There really is a difference. We were doing all kinds of strange techniques to make this happen. I still wasn’t sure if it was working. Was I really getting anything out of the class? My singing rarely received any individual attention. During the 6 weeks of the course, most of us only were able to sing our chosen songs solo once or twice. Was it helping me? After the October disaster with the Harrison Players, I knew I hadn’t learned nearly enough. I liked the teacher. I liked the other students. After meeting for a f...

This morning when I left my car and headed into the office, I left the bag containing my day's snack foods in it. I had an apple and some nuts. At lunch I realized I still had a teensy bit of Christmas shopping left to do (I know I said I was finished, but one of my gifts isn't going to make it, so I had to find something else for this person). I went out to the Borders two exits up the highway from my office to find something. When I exited the highway I saw a homeless man standing at the traffic light. I used to come through this area quite often and that man has been there many times before. I realized that I still had my bag of snacks with me. I thought it was some kind of cosmic coincidence. I had food in my car so I could give it to someone who needed it more than I did. The light was red, so it was the perfect opportunity to offer my food to this man. I rolled down the window. He looked at me expectantly. I shoved the bag out the window and asked, "Would y...

Hey look! I'm not doing the typical Christmas rant this year and am handling another topic entirely. When I was a young twentysomething, making my way in the working world, I found myself working part time in a real estate office one December. One afternoon the brokers began putting up the holiday decorations in the office. There were standard decorations with garlands and trees and pictures of Santa. The brokers wanted to be as ecumenical as possible and put up some decorations more evocative of Hanukkah as well. This also led to more discussion about how Christmas-y the Christmas decorations should be. Should they put up a crèche? They decided that both a crèche and a menorah were considered religious symbols. If you had one, you had to have the other and they weren’t sure how religious they should be. In the end, the decorations stayed with trees, santas, and pictures of dreidls (because a dreidl is a game and doesn’t have any real religious meaning behind it). Most of the broke...

Want to know how to make yourself Public Enemy #1 these days? Be someone who doesn't like Glee. If you don't like Glee, you're out of touch, mean, and just plain weird. Clearly there is something wrong with you. I'm sure in my case it's also the perception that I'm just a pretentious, TV-hating, twit. That's true to some point. I am a member of the Kill Your Television crowd as well as a BBC geek who generally doesn't like much mainstream TV, but it's not as if I reject all of it out of hand. Remember I was a huge Lost geek and The Office is perpetually in my Netflix queue. I was more than willing to give Glee a chance. Everyone* kept telling me how great it was and how much I would love it. As a singer and performer myself (okay, a very medicore singer and performer but I do love performing) it seemed like my kind of show. I put the first season in my Netflix queue with great anticipation. ‎In the beginning it I thought it had a lot...

So I heard that you are in London I wish I could go there too But I heard that it's raining in London And I hope that it's raining on you! It drips on Westminster Abbey And runs down the sides of Big Ben Then it pours and pours on your noggins And keeps pouring and pouring again The banks of the Thames are flooded The Palace Gardens are a muddle I laugh while I sit and imagine All of you falling in a puddle I've always known you to be Extremely well prepared fellas But I've often noticed in the past You tend to forget your umbrellas Take refuge in Tussards or Harrods Or sip some afternoon tea But soon you'll be out and you'll know it You won't be as dry as me It's sunny right here in our hometown I can walk through the streets and stay dry It's a week of really good hair days And it's also good weather to fly It was sunny when I last was in London While back home it rained all week long So consider that next time you're going That it's be...

We have nothing to fear but fear itself – Franklin Roosevelt I love my country and I fear for it – Glenn Beck Once upon a time Americans were inspired to face their fears and go boldly into a new world. Fear was a bad thing that could be overcome. Now fear seems to be the dominant emotion in today’s social and political arenas. Fear is exploited and encouraged. Why is that? There is one reason: Fear sells. Americans pay big money to be afraid and have their fears confirmed and have the next Great Guru of Fright promise a way out, a way to not be afraid anymore. I recently read Will Bunch’s book The Backlash . Throughout the book, Bunch traverses the country interviewing various Tea Party members. His goal was to truly understand them and their motives. After reading the book it seemed that fear was the common thread among all of the various movements across the country. Where does this fear come from? It mostly comes from the media. Political pundits have become fear mongers, selling A...

The more I think about it, the more I am disappointed with myself for my performance last night. I sang in public for the first time in two years. I was very excited to be on stage again. I really wanted to do this. Although I had some songs in mind I had wanted to try out, I accepted one that the director requested. Beggars can't be choosers. I know the Harrison Players haven't been 100% happy with my behind-the-scenes participation in events and meetings recently. I should be lucky they still want me in productions at all. The song was called, The Boy From... (more specifically from Tacarembo La Tumbe Del Fuego Santa Malipa Zecatate La Junta Del Sol Y Cruz ). It's a send-up of The Girl From Ipanema . The song's narrator is enamored with the boy in question and just doesn't get that he's obviously gay. ("Why are his trousers vermillion...Why do his friends call him 'Lillian'?") It was funny, really funny. It should have raised a ...

French I wish the French would go a little easier on Americans when it comes to learning and saying their words. I understand that it's easy to bash Americans and their perpetual ignorance of other language and cultures. Learning a foreign language fluently does require a degree of immersion that Americans can't always afford, living separated from Europe by a vast ocean. One thing I learned while in France is that French is hard. I'm not talking about the funny spelling rules. Sure those can be complex, but they are fixed and once you learn them, you know them (unlike English where the spelling rules can differ wildly). What I find hard about French is pronunciation. I began to really pay attention to how French is spoken. I tried to imitate the words. So much of French is spoken so differently from not only English, but other romance languages. The placement of the words in your mouth are just alien to me. Vowels are placed very differently. Consonants are touched o...

Attitude The question everyone asks me now is, "Is it true that French people are rude?" Well, France is a big country, and I'm sure it has plenty of rude people, and I'm sure it has plenty of very pleasant people too. All I saw was a small sampling of people in a large city in a small country. How can I make such a generalization? My daily interactions were quite pleasant for the most part. Few people seemed to look down on me for not being able to speak French or for being American or for wearing the wrong shoes. Most of the folks I met were servers and receptionists and ticket takers and shopkeepers. Being rude to me would certainly not benefit them monetarily. I had many pleasant interactions with Parisians. Then there was on incident that made me wonder. Kevin and I were walking around our neighborhood shopping for some necessities. I came upon a Sephora. There has been something I have been meaning to get from Sephora for the past few weeks, so I decided to go ...