1:28 p.m.||||2002-06-22
A couple nights ago I watched a program with a spot on this fella who'd been a boy opera singer as a child, a prodigy, until puberty hit, and since we don't castrate our young singing males anymore, he sadly had to accept that his career as a crazy boy soprano was over. And he then failed as a tenor. And so he sat in his house for some months, watching soaps, eating junk food, feeling bad. And then, one day, he discovered that while he could not be a tenor proper, he could sing in a fantasticly high, warm place called the counter-tenor. And all was good in his world.
While I watched him I was very interested in how every muscle in his jaw and cheeks, and neck participated in giving birth to high, modulated sounds. His mouth did actually seem to be giving birth...and I started daydreaming about singers, and how fucking complicated voice is, and how hard it is to unlock your jaw, and open your mouth, and think of the shapes of sounds as you make them, with enough supported breath to play the reed of your vocal cord just so, and I was sweating and the counter-tenor was saying "you know, any time a human sings, [or can sing?] I think it's just such a miracle..." and I thought, yeah!!
Singing, I think, is an athletic sport as well as a way of fucking thinking. It confounds me. I know I would be so much better without so much self-restraint. And better with a bigger ability to let go emotionally.
Do you remember the scene in Mulholland Drive when Rebbecca ...? sings "Crying" (Roy Orbison) in Spanish....but it's an illusion - "there is NO band" - ?!?! Aggghhhhhh!!
Oh yeah - I've seen M. Drive three times in the past week. Ack. The first time, I liked it, Dave didn't, and I went to bed thinking about it. Two, I liked it solidly, saw many things I had missed the first time, decided I was right about a couple things I suspected the first time, and decided the blonde's performance makes me love her. Three, I argued with Julio, about whether one of the characters even ever existed and think I still know the truth to that. I think it might be one of Lynches finest moments, since Erasorhead.
Ok, this week was insane, a little.
I think I quit my job. Actually, I'm sure I did 'cause if I didn't, I'm fired. Wednesday my knee was killing me and I had a two hour long anxiety attack over going (the night before I started crying after Dave went to take a nap, feeling as forlorn as the dirt on the bottom of my spaghetti covered shoes) so I got Hernando to call in for me. Then there was supposed to be a note from a doctor which I didn't actually go to see - and I can't get in til Monday, and I can't work with my knee like this anyway, and it all boils down to I think I might die if I have to go to that place even once more. And as I have no respect at all for the three managers who weren't sexually harassing me, and even less love for the poisonous environment there, I just sort of faded into the sunset. Which sucks I know. And I have to do something quick to apologize for this mess, and I will.
I want to help Dave faux-finish - I want him to teach me, and I want to help him, and get to spend some of our time together like we used to, on a common goal, doing something with my hands. I have a couple thoughts on child-care and think this might actually work - it's just gonna suck without quick money. However, the quicker the money, the quicker we soend it, and that job wasn't paying even five dollars an hour, even with business. I had several shifts of being there for two hours without a single table, and crazy nights of battering my knee for forty bucks. How about the night that I came home with $2? Or the night the busboy stole my money bag and I lost almost $200? Or the night I worked a whole party for $16? I would RATHER work at a carryout for a flat rate then sell my soul to the devil over dirty apron.
On top of that, due to stress and the fact that I can't eat whne I work in a restaurant, I lost ten pounds in two weeks, haven't been eating well, and tossed myself into a bout of IBS so nasty I have been thinking I have cancer again...I need stability more than I ever have, and I don't trust me to take care of myself when it comes down to it. Really, I need this time in my life to be a time of spiritual development more than I ever have - certain things are too risky. I have been more depressed in the last month than in any time since Josh's birth. I thought a little money would make me feel more empowered, but the choice I made was bad - I just stepped directly into my past, when another evil job literally stripped me of my desire to live, because who wants to if this is the life they have to lead? I'm telling you, waitressing is the worst thing in the world for your self-esteem. Unless you're a salesman, and I am so not!
The web site thing is still down the road, of course, but I don't want to delude myself - there will penty of opportunities for evil in that scenario as well. Do I want to be a part of a firm, and deal with clients who are trying to sell stuff? Probably not. Could I set up a gallery site and like it? Sure. Will I be able to pick and choose in this path? I simply do not know. I think I can do something decent with any opportunity to use my brain and new skills, but I know how I've hated office jobs in the past. I want to be in control of my own work destiny. I'd like to also not have to deal with people...but...sigh.
Ok. This won't be as funny to you as it was to me...but yesterday, Mike and Harry and I were driving around, getting sushi, going thrifting, and looking for yard sales. As we past the second yard sale that had just closed, Harry blurted out, "oh, SON of MY BITCH". Mike and I both laughed but tears shot out of my eyes at ninety miles an hour and I was instantly wheeze-laughing, a thing I got from my mom, where you sound like a bagpipe that somebody sat on. It just struck me as hilarious. He told me he got that from a guy who used to say it with a sort of Indian accent - like the clerk in the Simpsons - which sounds quite funny also - it's like any charming misuse of a common phrase in any language, really. But the way Harry said it, it was sharp and dry, and totally unexpected. I haven't really told the story of Harry and how funny he is - but let me say for the record, he is possibly the funniest person I have ever met. He looks a little like a wizened David Spade; he's a huge fan of horror films and comic books; he's probably the best informed fan Woody Allen ever had; and he has used to have his own radio show. And his own film review. And he was the drummer for the local band here: The Mouthfuls. And that's only just an infinitesimaly (how the hell do you spell that?) small part of what there is good to know about Harry. I fear I've already said to much.