Spam, my song bucket, and Orion's belt

Well, it's been a few days since I posted to my blog. I thought to post this weekend, but after spending so much time in front of my computer at work, it was hard for me to rouse myself to my home computer.

Besides, I reeeaallyy didn't feel ready to come back to work after the Christmas/New Year holidays, and I was tired this weekend and the last few days. I usually fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. But lately, I've been dozing more, rather than really sleeping, remembering and thinking about different, often disjointed, things. Psychologists might diagnose me with "loose thought associations" (a not too favorable clinical symptom--but that may not be as big a stretch as all that!) I imagine it must be around 2 or 3 in the morning when I actually nod off into real sleep.

Anyway, I wanted to do nothing more than to just lie low this weekend, which is what I did.

And speaking of being unwilling to use my home computer...slowly but surely, I've stopped checking my email at home. I recently went several weeks without checking it. Then when I went to download my email, it wouldn't download! I called my provider, who checked my account from the back end and he confirmed for me I had almost 10,000 pieces of spam... CIAL, Viagra, sexy camgirlsonline, great mortgage rates, loan pre-approvals, and oh yes, "Congratulations! You've earned your PhD!"

Well no wonder it wouldn't download! Spam's like cholesterol in the arteries. It'll take any person down..it certainly took my system down! So, I've resigned myself to this fact, for the moment anyway, and I basically suspended my home use.

Last night I had my first singing lesson right after work! It was really fun! There are only 6 of us in the class and the teacher seems pretty good. At first glance, I thought she might be a country singer, so was I surprised when she said that she's an operatic mezzo-soprano! Based on my stereotypic imagination, she's nothing like what I would imagine an operatic mezzo-soprano type to look. She's a slender blond woman with short unruly hair, which she grabbed often as she spoke (I guess that caffine's good when you're trying to teach tired students, at the end of a long day). She had a gap between her front teeth, similar to the one a famous blond fashion model from the 1980s had, and whose name escapes me. She wore old jeans and a shirt that was one size too small for her, and boots. And she’s funny! She has a real comedic quality to her!

And she's very physical in the way she teaches singing. She uses her hands and arms in big motions, and she had us doing physical things too! She had us lying on the ground to “feel” how our backs and postures aligned with the floor. She also had us moving our hands and arms in big swooping motions to give us a visual of how air is supposed to move through our bodies as we breath. For a breathing exercise, she had us turn to a partner to coach each other in breathing. We did it by holding we each other's rib cages and coached each other to expand our rib cages as we breathed. ("Uh, wanna go for coffee later?") John, who was about 6 feet 3 inches, had to bend way over to hold the ribs of Lisa, who was about 4 feet 7 inches. Together, they reminded of a high C and a low C on the musical scale. (I know they went out for coffee after class.)

And of course, we started vocalizing.

We were all over the map in terms of our abilities to inhale, to exhale with control, using the diaphram, and to sustain our breaths. You had to put all these elements into a mental “ song bucket” in order to carry a tune, without leakage. My "song bucket" was tight enough, but it certainly has some holes in it.

I started thinking about kareoke. What a great place to practice your singing techniques in public. People graciously applaud and even whoop, just for you getting up there - no matter what you sound like!

In this one class, I really felt for the first time what it meant to sing from the diaphram, and not from the throat. And I already heard some improvement in some of my classmates. The one thing I could never master was vibrato. But I have a feeling that I'll be able to develop it a bit more with her.

She gave us a short song to memorize. We have to sing it solo at our next session for feedback...an interesting choice of lyrics:

When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies,
I'll bid farewell to every fear and dry my weeping eyes.

I feel like, I feel like I'm on my journey home,
I feel like, I feel like I'm on my journey home.

Should earth against my soul engage and hellish darts be hurtled,
then I can smile at satan's rage and face a frowning world.
I feel like, I feel like I'm on my journey home,
I feel like, I feel like I'm on my journey home.

That's it! Those are the lyrics!

Oh, and speaking of dozing (my thought just jumped back to my opening paragraph--loose thought associations, remember?) ... During my dozing and late sleeping episode last night, I "woke up" at 12:49am to go to the bathroom. I happened to glance at the hyper-clear night sky out of my bathroom window and I saw the "belt" of the constellation Orion framed squarely in the window! And there was "betelgeuse", the bright star that forms one of Orion's shoulders. (Bellatrix forms his other shoulder)! What a picture! At any rate, after admiring Orion's belt for a moment, I "fumbled" with mine (ahem), and shortly afterward went back to bed and fell asleep.