Remiss

I have been slacking off.  I realize that, to the untrained eye, it might seem like I have no excuses.  “You have plenty of free time, not having a job.  Why the heck can’t you write more?!”

Well, my friends, it is a little thing I like to call DEPRESSION!  I’m not even talking about the emotional kind, either.  Think of it as inertia.  Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion; bodies at rest tend to stay in, eat five things of yogurt, and take at least two naps per day.  You can imagine how hard it must be to fit writing into such a rigid schedule.

Monday I had a really great job interview, which, in a circle-of-life, Lion King kind of thing, was balanced out by me receiving a rejection letter from Category I job that I actually really wanted and wouldn’t have to move to Houston for (vomit).  To continue with the metaphor (this one is going to be convoluted, so I will include aides as I go along): it’s like Mufasa just got trampled by the wildebeests.  It is not surprising and I totally knew it was coming, but when the tattered remains of my psyche  (Simba) poke at the moldering carcass of my hope for employment and ask it to wake up, I am still totally crushed when it doesn’t spring to life and start playing tag with me.  And obviously it is going to be okay in the end and Simba returns to Pride Rock with new, ugly friends, and Elton John starts going as the end credits begin to roll.  But the journey, my friends—the journey, like Scar and his hyenas, is…well, really effing annoying.

Wow, that was a terrible, terrible metaphor, even for me.

What else.  Oh yes.  As I was lying in bed the middle of the day on Monday—as one is wont to do—I sneezed in bed.  A number of things ran through my mind.  First: why the heck am I sneezing?  I very rarely get sick, unless it is psychosomatic and I am trying to get sent home from work.  Second:  what if I am getting sick?  I can’t afford medical care.  I can’t even afford to buy into COBRA.  Third: holy crap, my jaw is broken—how can I possibly have broken my jaw just from sneezing?  I hope my jaw is not broken, since that is likely more expensive to correct than some sniffles.  Fourth: okay, it is not broken, it just really hurts.  That night I was tossing and turning, alternating between massaging the right side of my face and typing “jaw pain” into WebMD.

The next evening at rehearsal, I couldn’t open my mouth up all the way to sing a proper “ah” vowel, which is quite important in any language.  As I was tossing and turning that night, all I could think of was the audition I had this weekend.  What if my jaw had completely seized up and I couldn’t open my mouth?!  I am not worried about not being able to eat, really—I could always huff slim-fast through my nose—I was worried about not being able to sing.  In fact, I had visions of myself stepping onstage holding a sign that said “Good afternoon.  My name is Sebastian,  and I would like to present for you the bass part of the humming chorus from Madama Butterfly.”  Or maybe it would say, “Good afternoon.  My name is Sebastian, and I would like to present the scene from The Magic Flute where Papageno gets lockjaw.”  Or maybe…okay, I ran out of funny things.

The jaw pain and stiffness subsided a bit by Thursday, but I still had a spectacularly bad voice lesson.  It wasn’t a question of not sounding fantastic—if that were the issue I would have given up singing ten years ago—it was more like I had regressed a bit.  I was singing an aria that I have actually sung for two auditions before, and with pretty good success, and you know what it sounded like?  It sounded like when I stepped on my cat’s tail that one time when I was walking to the kitchen in the dark.

So what?! Is this audition cursed?  I would normally be fine with a cursed audition, you see, but I really need the work (read: the money) this time.  So please, Lord Baby Jesus, uncurse my audition.

I was ready to call the whole audition off, actually, but then I realized that because my jaw had seized up reflexively, I was not seized up in terror.  And because I had an awful voice lesson Thursday, I had a moderately good coaching today.  I’m not even nervous about tomorrow—which, frankly, is the best way to go into an audition.  The worst that can happen is they turn me down.  But, to be perfectly honest, I am used to this after the past two months and so I’m not even worried about it.

So we’ll see.  Tomorrow may actually determine whether or not I can stay in my apartment after my lease is up.  Should be interesting!