May 24, 2013

Cold through the windows, rather invigorating than fearsome. In the last dream, Peg Downes had gotten me a job at Starbucks. On my first day, I did not make or serve any coffee, but rather assembled and disassembled intricate machinery that they used for something. I was happy doing that.  I also noticed that I cold kneel and squat without effort, something I cannot do in waking life. My shift began at four, and I was worried about have to choose between Starbucks and “the play,” and at waking was briefly relieved to recollect that I am not in any play.


Yesterday a day of innumerable disasters. Every single thing that could go wrong, did, as well as much that one didn’t see coming. Fought desperately against the gremlins to get to an appointment which, it turned out, I didn’t even have. Couldn’t even creep home with tail between legs, because of the cleaning ladies, so I went to the mall and bought a tuxedo and a Nook. Saw the Nook bag sitting on the table this AM and thought “what the hell is that?”

Deeper illness came upon me yesterday. There was a periodic cold-dull pain in my groin, which I fancifully identified as kidney stones. It was a lymph gland–like some evil hornets’ nest-- warning that it was about to dump toxins into the system, which it did as we were setting up the church for the Cantaria concert. That could have gone one of two ways, an advancing and devastating systemic infection, or the bacteria’s being wiped out by the antibiotics already in my system. Thank God it took the second road. It was touch and go for a while, though, and I was probably not singing at my best. It’s amazing how immediate and measurable the loss of vitality is during those attacks: I knew how weakened I was because I couldn’t lift one side of the altar by myself, as I usually can.


I wonder why Spotify thinks that Mozart’s Requiem is right for a channel dedicated to Bach?

The baby mockingbirds were fluffing about in the garden yesterday, flapping their stubby wngs to scare up prey even as their parents do.

Our usual course is to sing better at the concert than we could have expected from the rehearsals, and we pulled that off again this time. DJ, who could hear more from where he was (including the whole pond of croaking basses), thought it was less successful than I did. Some of the songs were quite affecting, and it was good– in a way– to look out at people’s faces crumpled with sobbing.