Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday, dreamingjewel or Zenobia or whatever the fuck I'm calling you this week,

Happy Birthday to you!


Have a wonderful day.  I wish we were together to celebrate.   You are the best friend a girl could ever have and I love you!

So, went to choir practice on Thursday. As I was walking down the street, I heard my name being called. It was Corky, whom I waited for, and we proceeded the rest of the way together. He told me that he had recruited a few of his schoolmates to come sing with us for Music Sunday. "And one of them is a person of color, so that helps," he says. I couldn't help but laugh, and may or may not have rolled my eyes and/or snorted derisively. Involuntary reasons, I swear. Corky wants to say the right thing, but somehow always seems to say it the wrong way.

Also, after our rehearsal, he asked for people to volunteer to sing in a "backup choir" for Showtune Sunday the last weekend in June. (I assume backup choir means there will be some major diva action going on.) I asked if we knew what the songs will be, because there are showtunes and there are showtunes. Corky said "Maybe Avenue Q...?" and I said "Okay, maybe. As long as they're not doing any of that Rent crap." Yes, I said it. So there. At the same time, as I was saying that, one of the choir members pipes up excitedly "And "Seasons of Love.." and I said, "In that case, I'm out."

One of the other choristers came up to me a bit later and said conspiratorily, "You don't like Rent either?" Is this something to be ashamed of or to keep secret, because Rent is some fucking literary masterpiece? I think "Seasons of Love" is the best song I've heard from that crappy show, but it is not a great song, and even if I thought it was, FFS I have sung it at least 5 times between band and choir, and that is not an exaggeration. Give it a rest, people! There are plenty of other show tunes that are plenty queer that we could do on Pride Sunday. Have you heard of Cole Porter, or Noel Coward*, or Lorenz Hart? How about Sondheim? He's contemporary and a real composer!

I have some of the most eclectic musical taste of anyone you know. Really, I do. But that doesn't mean I can't be discriminating, too. And I don't think everything older is automatically better, but I do think a lot of newer stuff is crap. And why do BJ and Corky, who are good musicians, seem to genuinely like so much stuff that is crap? I know, I know, having talent and training doesn't make you immune to liking crap. Look at some of the songs Frank Sinatra chose to sing in his career, even when he owned the record company.

I'm going to stop before I disgust myself with my snobby curmudgeonliness.

*Okay, I just had the best idea. It's from a show, and by Mr. Coward, so there's your excuse to have it on Pride Sunday. Corky's singing that day—I think he should do "Mad About the Boy."

Okay, that's probably enough posting for the day.

I tried this the other day and managed to lose my typing before publishing. Let's try it again, shall we?

I dreamt cinema_babe opened a café/restaurant place, which was somehow on a street right around the corner from where I lived in the Bronx, though I walked there from my Chicago apartment. Hey, you know how dreams are. It was also somehow in Kentucky, but on Meridian Street, which is the big street in downtown Indianapolis, and which I told her is properly pronounced Magnetory Street, because of the relationship between the longitude lines and the magnetic poles. Or something.

In any case, in the dream, just as IRL, I had never met cinema_babe in person before. We hit it off famously, and her place was so lovely, and the coffee so yummy, and the customers so happy, that I said I wished I could work there, and she hired me to do so part-time. She also commissioned me to bake mini-cupcakes and sell them to her. Then we went to the side of the place that was the restaurant (it was two storefronts knocked together—one was a coffee place, the other a restaurant with a big salad bar), and I fixed myself a salad to take home. It was some kind of dark green leaves (lettuce or escarole or spinach) topped with plump white beans. I was extremely happy.

Than I woke up. I realized that cinema_babe is in New Jersey and I am in Chicago, we've nevr met IRL, and she doesn't own a restaurant. I thought "Oh well, at least I have a yummy salad for lunch!" Then I woke up a bit more, realized there wasn't even a salad and almost cried.

The other dream I remember in the past week or so involved a conversation I was having with a couple of people from church who live in Albany Park. For non-Chicagoans, that's a northwest side neighborhood, and where I live. We were talking about the proper pronunciation of Monticello, a street in the area. I was wondering whether it is pronounced "American," like Monticello, New York, or as in Italian, like Thomas Jefferson's house. I told them the only way to find out would be to ask Thomas Jefferson himself. So I did. He gave me a kind of sneering look and asked "This is in Chicago?" I said yes. He said "Was there even a Chicago when I was alive? How would I know?" I told him "Listen, I know you're really smart, but there's no need to be snotty. I know you were a lawyer AND an architect, and you designed your own house..." He interrupted, "And founded a university, and wrote the Declaration of Independence, and..." I just left him still enumerating his accomplishments. What a dick.

So, what insights have I gotten from my dreams lately? That I really want a job working with a product or service I believe in for a boss I don't hate, and not full-time if I can help it. That one of our founding fathers may have been an obnoxious, arrogant ass. That I don't know the right way to pronounce that street, and that I really like cannelini beans and dark green salad. In short, my subconscious isn't telling me a damn thing I didn't already know.

Well, it seemed that long, anyway.  I had reread and corrected, and went to add one sentence.  I clicked on the wrong thing, navigated away from the page, and it was gone.

This is NOT indicative of how my day will go.  I refuse to let it be.

That is all.

Hey, ELJay pals! As you may know, last year I acquired a ukulele. I spent a few weeks on, then a few months off practicing, but for the last several weeks I have been playing at least a little bit at least every couple of days. I try to do it daily, but you know...

At this point, I wouldn't say I can play, but I know some chords and learning to strum. My strumming is horrible, but better than it was a week ago. I know enough chords that I can look at a lot of songs and play them without consulting fingering charts. I know one song all the way through without looking at the chords or the words, and am close to there on a few others.

I don't expect to be a virtuoso, but my dream is to be able to play in front of people without dying of shame.

What does anyone recommend I do to learn, and even to stay interested enough to keep learning? I would love to take the beginning uke class at the Old Town School, but I can spare the bucks right now. Any good ideas?

Thanks!

It's funny, because I'm always the person telling those who complain about government stuff that it's stupid not to vote, that every person matters, blah blah blah, but I am not planning not to go to the annual meeting on Sunday for probably the same reasons people don't vote in elections. (Insert Walt Whitman quote here).

One thing I do enjoy about church is singing. When we had Gospel Choir, the singers brought suggestions for repertoire. Well, choir and band members do that too, but some of the suggested songs were actually performed in Gospel Choir.

So, for anyone who cares, here's a little number I heard recently that made me say, "Wow, there's a choral arrangement I'd love to perform!" It's all women in the recording, but arrangements can be reworked. Besides, we did have a women's ensemble for a minute and a half. Click here —it will take you to an mp3 on drop.io. It's safe—Iput it there myself. Listen and let me know what you think.

Who even knows how much I'll write over there, but I figured I'd sign up in case I started doing the whole journal/blog thing again. Same name as here, FYI.

My sister, whom I loved very much, and who had great taste in TV programs, loved DeGrassi High. So did some other people for whom I had the deepest respect. I tried and tried to love it, because I felt I should. But it just didn't grab me. Left me cold, really.

You know how that can be?

Last night, dreamingjewel asked me how choir was going and I told her I didn't want to discuss things that upset me, and she asked whether she would read about it on LiveJournal. Yes, you will, sweetie. Eventually. Someday. Really.

That means in about 11 months, it'll be 50 years since... auuuuugh!

On an amusing note, one of my FB friends from 2U just invited me to the young adult Valentine's day party.

Also, what should I do about my hair color. I had thought of letting all the gray grow in, at least until I decide something else to do with the color, but I think it's just too much gray for me. The only two things I have going for me looks-wise are nice hair and a relatively youthful appearance, so, needless to say, gray roots are a double-whammy of "oh, hells no!"

I am a Nigella What Flower Are You?

from brownfemipower

A few thoughts: I really fall down on the "crime" section, don't I? Well, I don't drive, and I don't think I've ever done a felony. Also, the "religion and politics" section was all religion, and very short and limited in scope.

The Life Experience Test

Overall, you have partaken in 106 out of 169 possible life experiences. Your average life experience score is therefore 63%. The average score is 50%, making your experiences more than 83% of the people who have taken this test. The average for your age group (36-55) is 56%. Broken down by category: Art: 9/17 (53%) Career & Work: 12/13 (92%) Civics & Technology: 6/7 (86%) Crime & Disarray: 1/11 (9%) Education: 11/18 (61%) Fashion: 7/10 (70%) Fitness, Health and Sports: 3/7 (43%) Life in General: 8/14 (57%) Relationships: 12/14 (86%) Religion & Politics: 1/4 (25%) Social: 14/22 (64%) Travel: 10/20 (50%) Vices: 12/12 (100%)

Take the test and see how YOU compare

Ganked from cinemababe

If I ever did have a time machine and got back to the Hollywood in the 30s or 40s, I would talk somebody into casting Joel McCrae as Philip Marlowe, who is described as tall, dark-haired, very handsome, and big enough to take a punch (or something like that). Whenever I read about Philip Marlowe, I see McCrae in my mind's eye. Yeah, I've probably mentioned it like ten million times, but he would be exactly perfect. It might have changed the whole course of his career, too.

Based on the description, James Garner was a damn good choice. Too bad it wasn't a better movie, huh?

As a part of my continuing effort to write more, I'm trying to get over censoring and editing myself so much. Forgive me if this is too silly or concerned with teh sex.

dreamingjewel and I were on the phone the other day, and we started talking about time travel. Well, I started talking about it, because it fascinates me. Show me a book/movie/TV show with a time machine, and I'll give it a chance. (My friend Crowie is the same way about sci-fi with apocalyptic whatever—if a movie trailer says anything about a war or disease that wipes out a bunch of people or mentions the end of the world/civilization/whatever, she'll go to it, no matter who's in it, or how bad the reviews).

So, I asked Zenobia, if you could travel back to the Hollywood of the past, which actor(s) would you like to meet? ( If you don't mind reading about random hookups with celebrity crushes who may be long dead, click here. Not that explicit, really. I did leave some stuff out. )

Maude Hackensacker said it first, but... I talk a lot, don't I?

If you had a time machine, what old-time movie star would you want to, um, meet? You know, to have as an um friend.

So, I missed choir practice last week, so before going yesterday, I called the director to ask whether I can sing Sunday with just one rehearsal and the run through Sunday. He told me I could and then said "[Guy in the tenor section] missed rehearsal last week and asked if he could come tonight and sing Sunday, and I told him no." Partially because the connection was bad and partially because I could not believe he told me that, I said "Excuse me? What?" Corky said, "Oh, nothing," perhaps because he realized how incredibly unprofessional it was for him to tell me that.

That boy can be such a Blabby McBlabberpants.

You Are "alt"

Some people might find you to be strange, mysterious, and even a bit off putting. You tend to be drawn to and influenced by alternative lifestyles. You're definitely not normal. Once people get to know you, they realize you're interesting, intriguing, and very intelligent. You have a lot of knowledge stored in that big brain of yours. Most of it is useless knowledge, but some of it is very useful.

ganked from baerana

I promised myself I'd post something on LJ every day this year, something... no matter how short or inconsequential. Well, three days in and I'v posted on two of them. I am t3h 5uxx0r.

Oh yeah. I also said I'd be nice to people, including myself. That makes two failures.

Yay, me.