Just stopping by

"Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song.
You go ahead, let your hair down.
Sapphire and faded jeans,
I hope you get your dreams.
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow..."

Homecoming

I've been living in OKC for two months to the date, and I am currently watching my first Bama game of the season; it's appropriate and sad.  I'm so grateful to have a chance to watch at least one game this season, but it's kinda bittersweet because I'm watching it by myself.  I know there are Bama fans everywhere, but it's quite clear they don't always travel in pairs.

It makes me miss Hungry Howie's.  It makes me miss either being stuck on campus or being stuck at home (no matter what, I'll never miss being in game day traffic--being on the other side of it is fun, though).  It makes me miss my crazy-Bama-fan friends who teach me more about the game every time I watch with them.  It makes me miss those like me who are blissfully ignorant and just love to watch the game and feel the atmosphere of football season.  It makes me miss my Mamaw.  Of all the people to watch games with, she was my favorite.  Ü

So maybe it's good this year that I don't get to watch many games.  I don't think my heart can handle this much missing every Saturday.  I need to be distracted from being so far away most of the time.

Especially since I won't be home till Christmas.  For those of you who don't know, the production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat I was cast in opens the day after Thanksgiving.  Needless to say, a trip home for the Turkey Day hols won't be possible this year.  I'm prepared to be sleepy and lazy all day that day.

Till then, I'll have plenty to do.  Much more than I'm thinking about right now.

Right now, Roll Tide.

Just have to say...

... I hate it when men yell.  When they do, I completely shut down.  Don't know the exact cause to this particular quirk of mine, but it's been mine for as long as I can remember.   A stranger yelled at me today, and he had cause to be upset, but as a result, I'm having a difficult time functioning this afternoon (inconvenient when I have scads of homework and reading to do).  Thanks, Unknowingly Insensitive Jerk.  The last time this happened to me and upset me this much was about 5 years ago, and I think it gets worse as I get older. 
So, if you're a man in my life and you stumble upon this post, don't ever raise your voice at me.  Ever.  It'll be disastrous for us both.

... I can't believe it's been 10 years. I... just... can't.  I was a freshman in high school ("I said it's great/ To be/ A Patriot").  Maybe remembering that morning in Advanced English, how it felt to be an American 14-year-old living underneath that dark, black cloud that hovers after disaster, is compounding with my weird psychological reaction to men yelling to make me feel like a rabbit-hearted girl today.  The weeks following 9/11/2001 bear a striking resemblance to the weeks following 4/27/2011--that same awful black cloud.  That wondering what happens next, shaded by the ominous uncertain.

This is a much bleaker post than I should probably post today.  Amidst the awful there's always an awful lot of good; because God is sovereign.  And He is good.  And I am so grateful for all of the good, and for those who fight for it, whether that's with speech, the pen, or the sword.  I'll never be able to really express how grateful.

Today's just not my day.

I sure hope it's yours.

♥
...

Mon répertoire vocal

Some of the music I picked to start learning reminds me of people from home.  See if you can guess?
(HINT: The first 3 don't really remind me of anybody in particular, they're just appropriate for this semester for a variety of reasons.)


"How Lovely To Be A Woman" (Bye Bye Birdie)

"Christmas Lullaby" (Songs For a New World)

"The Beauty Is" (The Light in the Piazza)

"Moonfall" (The Mystery of Edwin Drood)


"The Trolley Song" (Meet Me in St. Louis)


"When You're Away" (The Only Girl)

"The Miller's Son" (A Little Night Music)


"The Honor of Your Name" (The Civil War)

"I Won't Mind" by Jeff Blumenkrantz


My sincerest apologies to my, erm, readership for my lackluster updating.  Not having internet at the APT puts a damper on the blogging.  Let me sum up the past few weeks by saying that they've been full.

9 leveling/diagnostic exams, 2 auditions, 3 callbacks (results TBA sometime next weekend, if I have to guess), 2 jobs (27 hours a week), 8 classes added, 4 classes dropped,  close calls with the power company, a mouse, 4 seasons of Ally McBeal, pretending to be social, dishes, laundry, cooking, dishes...

I'm very grateful for this long weekend.  

I hope you actually get to enjoy some time off, too.

Next time I update, I hope to tell you about some of my favorite sights around town.  You know me, though... It may or may not happen.

♥

It's been 1 week--er, 2 weeks since you looked at me...

List format because classes start tomorrow and I'm watching True Blood.

• Saturday job working at Creative Dancwear.  Wonderful co-workers, wonderful customers, sweet discount.
• Job on campus working as an office assistant on the Law Review.  Great people so far.  I start tomorrow.
• AH-MAZ-ING adoptive family.  Just finished doing laundry at their house.  (By the by, their washer and dryer?  SPACE-AGEY AWESOME.  They don't beep when they're done, they play a little melody.  Thanks, LG!)
• Dance leveling was... humiliating, but it's a necessary evil.  No dance classes this semester like I was hoping, but hopefully in the spring!
• Passed all my entrance exams except one, but I'll get another chance to take it in January.
• Auditions tomorrow.  Fingers crossed I get something. ANYTHING.
• Met up with some of the other grad students Wednesday night, and then met the rest of my class (voice majors, anyway) on Friday.  There are 5 of us, all girls, and I'm the only MT kid.  The other 4 are opera performance.  All of the grads I've met have been fantastic.
• I can't think of what else to say just yet other than I'm sorry I've been remiss in keeping in touch with everyone.  I don't have internet at my apartment (other than on the space phone), but I'll probably be spending more time at school and thus online.  

With that, I'll finish the True Blood, then go home and pick out mah clothes for back to school!

(i carry it in my heart)

This feels so much like "not enough..."



i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                  i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

e.e. cummings

❧

[Most profound thanks]

Hillcrest High School.
The Bama Theater.
Big Sandy Baptist Church.
CHOM.
The Church at Tuscaloosa.
Gilgal Baptist Church.
The University of Alabama
Frank M. Moody Music Building.
Shelton State Community College.
The Bean-Brown Theater.
First United Methodist Church.

These places served as the settings for so many wonderful memories (the good, the bad, and the ugly--each deserves a sense of wonder all its own).  And those are just the tip of the iceberg. 

HHS Choral Dept.  Show Choir. Musical Theatre.
Tuscaloosa Children's Theatre.  Hours upon hours upon hours of rehearsals, Talent Searches, and late night set construction and laughter.
The Storehouse.  My first VBS and M-Fuge.
Junior Docents (Teen Leaders).  Birthday cakes(sssss...), juice boxes, wrapping paper, guests, and sneaking an ice cream.
Praise Team and youth groups who "Finish Empty." Calico Street.
College & Career Sunday School class.  Wednesday night rehearsals and burgundy choir robes.
Football. 
Piano lessons. Opera Theatre.  Practicing.  Loitering.  Friends, teachers, and colleagues. 
Theatre Tuscaloosa.  Sometimes "plus five," usually "minus five."
Music making.  Family.  Teaching.  Fellowship.  Community.

This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.  To make a truly comprehensive list of all the ways Tuscaloosa has served me to be able to make amazing memories, to forge forever friendships, and to help me "grow up" would be... an impossibility.  Tuscaloosa bore the vast majority of my growing pains.  It's probably seen me at my very best and at my very worst.  I can't say the same about it (not having known its entire history), but I've had my fair share of ups and downs regarding how I feel about T-Town—wishing I was somewhere else, but never able to really get away.  Getting away and living for the day I returned.

"My love for you is like this scar.  Ugly and permanent." 

-Grace Adler

It's a game of tug-of-war with you, Tuscaloosa.  God only knows who wins.  Ü 

There is so much unknown out there I am eager to discover, but that in no way negates the fact that there's so much I know here that I will miss and cherish for the rest of my life, wherever life takes me.

Thanks, Tuscaloosa, for being everything I want to keep with me and everything I want to leave behind.  No matter how far away I go, for better or for worse, I'll always have at least a toe in T-Town and won't be able to leave completely.

Most importantly, thanks for being my facebook friend.

❧

To all those in Tuscaloosa who have shaped who I am and who have helped me to get to this point,

thank you.

It doesn't seem possible that it's been 10 years since this chapter of my life began.  I left Grand Rapids and didn't think I'd be able to call Tuscaloosa home, and I have to say that were it not for the people here, I still wouldn't be able to call this city home.  I think we all feel that more acutely since "The Storm."  These buildings and places have no meaning without the people who breathe life into them.

Tuscaloosans—You, beautiful, beautiful people.

To each of you,

No matter where I go, I'll never be gone, and you'll always be with me.

For that, I'm eternally grateful.

(Roll Tide.)

♥

A spider succeeded in seeing my nakey...

...and lived to tell the tale.

(Don't tell Amy.  We had a slumber party last night.  Ya know, one last Thither "Hoorah" before the big move tomorrow—let's not go there today.  Anywho, she's still asleep.  Let her continue thinking my bathroom is a safe place.)

I feel so violated.