Of course, in addition to the rediscovered joy of plugging myself back into musical theater, these past few months have also provided a forum to examine some things in need of release.
So tonight, I finally, fully, and formally resigned from the choir.
Once again, a longer pause than intended. Any number of reasons that don’t require listing off–at least not in a “justifying my absence” kind of way. There may indeed be a few of those reasons that get unwound as threads of exploration in future days and weeks.* But only because they warrant deeper examination in my ongoing life/growth journey.
So let’s start with the elephant in the room, the primary thing that demanded a majority of my extracurricular time & attention: stage managing that production of Into the Woods.
I’ve talked now and again about working as non-profit fund-raiser, and how that means every now and again I fall down the rabbit hole of some big proposal cycle.
Well, it happened again. One of those perfect storm combination of factors: an unusually short response window on a federal RFP, bisected by the holiday season, and then with the added factor of one of the main project/proposal team having a medical emergency in her family. It was the kind of thing that was completely unforeseeable, legitimately important, and undeniably the kind of top priority that pulls you off the office map. Absolutely no blame or hard feelings about that.
However, the ripple effect is that the other two members of the main proposal team (including yours truly) had to carry more effort and work longer hours to get us to the finish line.
Yeah, the most boringest of boring titles. Sometimes that’s just how things go…
Lots of different shifts and movements in areas of my life, and instead of trying to do the grand interweaving thing right now, I’m just going to scatter out some news and work on any “deeper understanding” some other night.
Today’s post is a Blogging 101 “two-fer”: I’ll be playing catchup on the first two assignments for the challenge — a task made rather a lot easier by the fact that I completed these same two assignments back in September.
Taken as a pair, the assignments are basically a gesture of announcing one’s bloggy self to the big wide world, first with a statement of your intended focus/goals for blogging and, next, a revision of your blog name and tagline to bring it into alignment with said focus and goals.
(Tonight’s title, by the way, stems from my inability to roll with the inevitable Destiny’s Child reference and my insistence on looking to different musical inspiration…)
I’m not one for making New Year’s Resolutions. But I’ve built up a handful of New Year’s traditions over the decades.
There’s the cliched gestures of celebrations — a good bottle of champagne, watching the countdown on TV, a shared kiss with Mr. Mezzo as one year turns to another. There’s also more idiosyncratic and introspective rituals — journal-writing, drawing a Tao card to discern the theme/intention for my year.
But however cliched, common, introspective or idiosyncratic, I have an entire bushel of New Year’s traditions that’s been a little bit off-track.
Because I slid into 2015 in much the same state I was recently bemoaning from so much of my 2014 experience: sick.
I am so tired of being sick.
Okay, I hadn’t quite expected to roll up the sidewalks here for an entire month while doing my Shakespearian NaBloPoMo experiment.*
In retrospect, perhaps I should have seen that coming. After all, my November schedule–full-time job, 2 “college courses”** (one of which is still ongoing), choir, regular Shakespeare blogging, and all the ephemera of embodied life (cooking, laundry, sleep, etc.)–was pretty rich.
With 20/20 hindsight, it’s not terrifically surprising I didn’t have a lot of extra time to keep the momentum going here at JALC.
But here’s the dirty little confession about it all: I didn’t exactly try that hard to keep the wheels turning here. And when I say “I didn’t try that hard,” what I really mean is I didn’t try at all.
I got up early so I could be at my polling place by 8 this morning. This wasn’t because I was trying to beat any rush or get ahead of the line — I understand that by moving from the big city to the suburbs that certain aspects of my voting life have changed. I just wanted to make sure I had time to vote, commute, stop for a celbratory iced coffee and still make it to work early.
All of which I accomplished. Check, check and check.
WordPress is doing a whole “Get Out the Vote” campaign.
We’ve teamed up with the good folks from The Pew Charitable Trusts, who, along with Google, and election officials nationwide, have developed the The Voting Information Project (VIP). Together, we’re offering cutting-edge tools that give voters access to the customized information they need to cast a ballot on or before Election Day. The Voting Information Project is offering free apps and tools that provide polling place locations and ballot information for the 2014 election across a range of technology platforms. The project provides official election information to voters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia and voters can find answers to common questions such as “Where is my polling location?” and “What’s on my ballot?” through the convenience of their phone or by searching the web.
Self-Love: It's Just Another Lifestyle Change 