I'm just dreaming, counting the ways to where you are
I am officially ALL BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a very slight cough, which barely even qualifies as a minor irritation, but other than that I'm 100% myself again. I went back to school today, and sang in musical theatre and had a lot of fun, although Mrs. Lunsford and her sight-reading/theory stuff were AGONIZING. Necessary, I know, but that kind of thing does not come naturally to me. My mom was a musicologist, and she and then later my dad gave all of us piano and music theory lessons when we were younger, so I know all the basics. But I guess I just got a different set of genes (I mean, for starters, everyone in my family does have dark hair...). My brothers just lapped the stuff up; they both write music, John plays bass, Damian plays viola, they both play guitar and a little bit of piano. John's a sophomore this year, and taking AP Music Theory. LeeLee goes to his school and is in his class, and says he knows more than anyone else (that's my little show-off). But the circle of keys and the triads and sight-reading and pitch-matching are a wee bit over my head...pretty sure I'll get it with a little studying/practice though. Oh, and this was funny...after school, Cameron and I were driving down Lee Highway, and we heard someone honking beside us; someone who turned out to be Mr. Replogle! I rolled down the window and was like "Hey!" and he goes "Hey guys! I almost bought one of those!" (Cameron's Saturn). "They're good cars." Cameron was like "Yeah, and they're cheap," and then the traffic started moving. Random story, but I thought it was cool.
So then Cameron and I hung out for awhile, and then he drove me home. Anna came running out when she saw the car, yelling "Guess what I DIDN'T do today??!?!?!" I was like "...what?" and she said "I didn't go to school, none of us did, cause we've all been throwing up all day, even Mom!" I said "That's...marvelous." I really hope I don't get this whatever-it-is, although it seems fairly inevitable. I haven't thrown up since second grade, no joke, and I really don't feel like resuming the trend now.
You know what I've realized lately? Pay attention, this is big:
ACTING MAKES ME HAPPY AGAIN!!!! So, so happy, happier than anything else, just like it used to before last year when I got hit by fifty different things from ten different directions and got all discombobulated about my life. I've always been so uncertain about being a theatre major or persuing an acting career, cause it's such a precarious field, and for every person who succeeds there's a million who fail, and all that. I've always been terrified of failure, terrified of someone being better than me at one of "my things." I knew I wasn't good at everything, but I stayed away from the things I wasn't good at. Probably a large part of it has to do with having heard "If you'd just worked a little harder YOU could have won that award...you could have had the highest score...you could have gotten an A...you could have been the best," and other such things since I was very young. But guess what? I don't have anything to prove to anyone anymore! I'm as smart as I am, that's good enough for me. I do the best I can cause I can't do any better. I don't WANT to go to an Ivy League school (well, maybe Columbia, but that doesn't count). Maybe I could get in, and maybe I couldn't, but it doesn't really matter. I don't WANT some superintellectual, high-stress career that sucks me dry and burns me out before I'm forty. I don't WANT to major in political science or international relations. I WANT to major in acting, and either double-major or minor in English with an emphasis in creative writing, and maybe, just MAYBE, psychology. Then I'll stay in Seattle or Boston or L.A. or wherever (not New York if I can avoid it; I don't like New York all that much) and I'll do bitchwork and I'll be poor and I'll audition constantly and work my ass off...and you know what, I'll love every minute of it! My first-choice school is the University of Washington, but if for some reason I don't get in there and I get into Emerson, then I am GOING to Emerson! You know why? Cause I like it, I think it's a good school, and I think it can give me what I want. I don't care where it ranks on my family's Ivy League snobbery list. End of discussion! :)
Aside from the threat of the vomit-inducing-malady hanging over my head, I am in a VERY good mood!
So then Cameron and I hung out for awhile, and then he drove me home. Anna came running out when she saw the car, yelling "Guess what I DIDN'T do today??!?!?!" I was like "...what?" and she said "I didn't go to school, none of us did, cause we've all been throwing up all day, even Mom!" I said "That's...marvelous." I really hope I don't get this whatever-it-is, although it seems fairly inevitable. I haven't thrown up since second grade, no joke, and I really don't feel like resuming the trend now.
You know what I've realized lately? Pay attention, this is big:
ACTING MAKES ME HAPPY AGAIN!!!! So, so happy, happier than anything else, just like it used to before last year when I got hit by fifty different things from ten different directions and got all discombobulated about my life. I've always been so uncertain about being a theatre major or persuing an acting career, cause it's such a precarious field, and for every person who succeeds there's a million who fail, and all that. I've always been terrified of failure, terrified of someone being better than me at one of "my things." I knew I wasn't good at everything, but I stayed away from the things I wasn't good at. Probably a large part of it has to do with having heard "If you'd just worked a little harder YOU could have won that award...you could have had the highest score...you could have gotten an A...you could have been the best," and other such things since I was very young. But guess what? I don't have anything to prove to anyone anymore! I'm as smart as I am, that's good enough for me. I do the best I can cause I can't do any better. I don't WANT to go to an Ivy League school (well, maybe Columbia, but that doesn't count). Maybe I could get in, and maybe I couldn't, but it doesn't really matter. I don't WANT some superintellectual, high-stress career that sucks me dry and burns me out before I'm forty. I don't WANT to major in political science or international relations. I WANT to major in acting, and either double-major or minor in English with an emphasis in creative writing, and maybe, just MAYBE, psychology. Then I'll stay in Seattle or Boston or L.A. or wherever (not New York if I can avoid it; I don't like New York all that much) and I'll do bitchwork and I'll be poor and I'll audition constantly and work my ass off...and you know what, I'll love every minute of it! My first-choice school is the University of Washington, but if for some reason I don't get in there and I get into Emerson, then I am GOING to Emerson! You know why? Cause I like it, I think it's a good school, and I think it can give me what I want. I don't care where it ranks on my family's Ivy League snobbery list. End of discussion! :)
Aside from the threat of the vomit-inducing-malady hanging over my head, I am in a VERY good mood!