Filed under: Random Thoughts | Tags: 2010, beginning, blog, brendan, calendar, computer, decide, fond, gush, haiku, hell, hopefully, july, june, logic, month, poems, Poetry, posts, prose, sleep, tossing, turning, widget, wordpress, Writing, yesterday, yestereve
Okay, I decided this last night as I was laying in bed attempting to sleep. Between tossing and turning I thought, if Brendan can give up the computer for a month, then I should have absolutely no problem writing for a month.
It doesn’t exactly correlate but in my sleepy-minded logic yestereve it totally made sense. So, beginning yesterday, I will be blogging at least once a day for the entire month of June. Even if they’re just little short blogs or poems, I will post something. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to come up with a sweet banner and theme I like, as well. It’s been like toenail polish lately: I can’t decide which one to do it in and am stuck with an in between that I’m not so fond of.
Anyway, that’s my plan. I usually end up trying to write, though, and ending up with double my normal output of words. Prose, haiku, what the hell ever, it usually just gets going when I try to be constant at it.
So it might end up, say, two or three posts a day. Not that it really matters.
I want to see that little widgety calendar full of links by July 1.
Filed under: Events, music, My Day, Random Thoughts | Tags: avett, avett brothers, away, bandana, blond, blonde, blue, blue-eyed, cousin, cut, daniel, daniel dix, day, dead, death, didn't, dix, done, dying, effort, exam, eyes, face, figure, finally, full circle, great, hair, happen, happens, harmonize, harmonizing, harmony, here, improve, knew, know, known, long, look, medusa's, mellow, month, months, mood, need, never, nineteen, not, off, online, prom, red, red bandana, see, sit, sitting, stop, summer, the avett brothers, think, time, tranquil, tranquility, turning, unknown, unthinkable, want, waste, wasting, white, wish, world, year
It’s my last day of tests this year. I’m done. Finito. I’m still going to be busy, obviously, but aside from going in next Thursday to roll on the snare for an hour and then practice the senior song with chamber choir, I’m done with school until September. It’s finally summer.
So I’m mostly sitting here harmonizing with the great Avett Brothers and wasting the day away. I figured as long as I was online and in a mellow, tranquil mood, I could try and write.
While I’m thinking of mellow and tranquil, I still am wearing my red bandana. I didn’t know Daniel, but the fact that he never got to do all he needed or wanted to do inspires me daily to get out there. To improve myself, to make some kind of effort to do what I want to before my time is done with. I look at the bandana and I think it. I look at the bandana and I can see his face: I know it from pictures, I know it from the wake. I look at the bandana and replacing the red is white skin and blonde hair, blue eyes and the peaceful face of the cousin I never knew. I don’t see him sleeping, as he appeared in his coffin. I see him smiling the truly excellent smile everyone says they will miss. I never knew it to miss it. I wish I had known him.
Well, I guess that’s what the mellow mood produced. Faint melancholy and a regurgitation of my thoughts from the past few months. Here’s another interesting thought: I went to Medusa’s the week after Daniel died, to get my hair done for prom. I’m going there next Thursday to get it cut. It’s interesting to think that everything revolves that way, or maybe it feels like it does. The world keeps spinning even when something so unthinkable happens it seems to stop. But life goes on, turning, turning. So interesting.
Filed under: Dreams, music, My Day, Random Thoughts | Tags: "elaborate lives", "written in the stars", 180, 2008, 2009, accompanied, accompany, act, acted, acting, acts, actual, adam, adam pascal, after, afterward, aida, aida's, air, air-headed, allow, allowed, although, amneris, anderson, around, aud, audition, auditions, belt, belting, belting out, best, better, breakup, broadway, broken, bs, bullshit, cast, cat, cats, center, center stage, change, changes, changing, character, characterization, characters, chill, chilled, chills, coach, coached, coaches, coaching, control, convey, copy, costume, costumes, could, country, crave, cry, crying, danger, dangerous, dead-set, deck, decked, degree, degrees, dignity, discovery, diva, dumped, ears, egypt, egyptian, eight, eighteen, elaborate, elton, elton john, endangering, envision, envisioned, ever, experience, experienced, experiences, eyes, face, fashion, february, february 2008, feel, feeling, feline, fell, felt, fiance, fingernail, fingernails, first, friend, friends, funny, general, generally, gowanda, guy, ha, happiness, happy, head, head-over-heels, headed, headley, headstrong, heart, heartbroken, hearted, heather, heather headly, heels, help, helped, high, high school, hit, hits, home, hopeless, hopeless romantic, hung, hung out, immeasurably, immeasure, immesurable, individual, individuality, injustice, inspirational, inspire, inspired, january 2009, john, kellie, knew, know, knowledge, later, lead, leader, leading, leads, lerew, lesson, life, life lesson, life-changing, light, light-hearted, lights, listen, listened, listener, listening, lives, loss, love, loved, lover, maybe, me, mereb, middle, million, million and one, mind, month, months, move, moved, moving, mr. bett, music, musical, my life, naive, nation, need, nehebka, never, november, november 2008, now, nubia, nubian, observed, observer, one, one-eighty, onstage, opinion, opinionated, original, originally, out, over, overcame, overcome, own, pain, part, pascal, passion, people, perfect, perform, performance, performed, performing, pharaoh, phenomenal, place, point, possess, possession, pour, power, powerful, princess, queen, radames, really really, recording, recover, recovering, regain, relationship, relationships, remember, represent, representative, represents, rest, role, rolled, romance, romantic, ruler, sang, saw, school, scott, self, self-possession, serious, shatter, shattered, sherie renee, sherie renee scott, show, shunt, shunted, sing, singing, situation, sixteen, slave, slavery, slaves, smaller, so sweet, sojourn, sojourned, sojourning, somtimes, song, songs, soul, spot, spotlight, stage, stage left, star, stars, stood, story, strong, success, sucks, sung, survival, survive, survived, sweet, talent, talents, taylor, taylor anderson, tear, tears, the observer, thigh, thigh-high, think, thought, together, true, turn, turnaround, undergo, undergoes, undergone, unexpected, vision, vivid, vividly, wade, waded, wading, want, wanted, wash, waste, wet, when, withstand, withstood, woman, worthless, worthlessness, written, year, zoser
I was just listening to “Written in the Stars,” from “AIDA.”
I got chills and felt like crying. The music. The characters. The loss of the part I thought I was perfect for, the discovery of my true talents, plus actually performing the show. All of these made it a life-changing experience for me.
It’s funny that it all hits me now, months and months afterward.
I originally received a copy of the Broadway cast recording in February 2008. I was just recovering from my first “real” breakup from a “serious” relationship, and the music helped me regain some sense of power, control, individuality and self-possession. It also allowed me to regain my dignity.
Later that year, I “hung out” with the same guy, and when he acted like a dickhead, I put up with it, then went home and listened to Heather Headley pour Aida’s soul into my ears, and into my heart. The character is so powerful– a strong woman, a queen. Very headstrong and opinionated, but she fell in love. As star-crossed as they were, they found happiness together.
It really sucks being a headstrong, opinionated, hopeless romantic. Despite the bullshit I had waded thigh-high into in my actual life, I could listen to “Elaborate Lives” and feel Radames’ and Aida’s love wash over me. Sometimes those songs made me think that my own relationships could be so sweet. Ha, at that point in time, I was really, really naive. But that’s not the point.
When auditions rolled around, I was dead-set on getting Aida. I felt like I KNEW her, I wanted to be her. I knew I could convey the passion I felt for her situation on stage. In my mind I saw Observer headlines, envisioned Heather Headley and Elton John sojourning to Gowanda. I vividly pictured a stage decked out in Egyptian finery, with myself in the center, belting out the injustice of slavery and the guilt I felt for endangering my people.
One of my best friends got the part.
I was shunted (in my mind) to the role of Amneris, the Egyptian princess head-over-heels for fashion and for her fiance Radames. Amneris is really shunted in the musical– Radames would rather be with Aida. Amneris undergoes a one-eighty degree turnaround from light-hearted and air-headed diva to heartbroken, powerful ruler.
I fell in love with Amneris’ character, too. It was unexpected, and it was a smaller role. But I had a million and one costume changes, some phenomenal singing and acting coaching…
And when I sang, when I stood in the middle of the stage with tears wet on my face and sang about love and loss, worthlessness, waste and a shattered heart, I felt Amneris. Her story became a part of me, as much as my eyes or my fingernails. It’s generally observed that Aida was the strong one. And she was strong.
But Amneris was strong, too. Immeasurably so. She withstood her pain, overcame it, survived. And made her life a success. Maybe she knew love later, maybe she never did. But she made her country a better place and she held a life lesson in her heart for the rest of her life.
“Aida,” and the life lessons that accompanied the show (from February to November to now) will stay with me for the rest of my life. When I’m eighteen or eighty with my own lover or sixteen cats, I will remember “Aida” as the most moving show I have ever performed in high school; I will remember it for its powerful and inspirational leads. I will remember it because Aida and Amneris represent both sides of love, and of life. And since I intend to love, and live, they represent me.
Kick Drum Heart 