Ergane in Retrograde

(song by Regina Spektor)


Perhaps it was that new moon in Pisces conjunct Uranus, but all I know
is that I haven't been able to be "ok" with anything anymore. I need a
change. Not just a little tweaking here and there, but something HUGE,
even DRASTIC, but happy and positive. It dawns on me that, perhaps, the
way one gets out of a rut is by shifting, suddenly and with joy, in
order to get rolling again.


Some of the alterations I have made have been really good. I am
not singing in SLGC (Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus) this season, but
am instead taking drumming lessons with a group called "Different
Drummers." I shouldn't be shocked that I am really natural or that I
have a very natural ear (did you know that while drums are percussive,
there are pitches? I learned that last week when one of the guys was
going too fast and the other one was going too slow). More than
anything, last Tuesday, I realized that there is something very good
about just playing with other people.


Let me explain.



I have always had a voice that stood out. *I* don't think a whole
lot about my voice. Yes, I can sing. But there are others who can sing
better and others who sing much worse. I sing for *myself*, for *my
pleasure*. However, I get tired of singing and standing out, of
there not being other voices that can match mine in quality. I'm tired
of standing out, yeah?


Now, this is really weird... because in not wanting to stand out, I
am subverting my Aquarian MC. BUT, I think there are different ways of
standing out, you know? I want to stand out in a way where there is no
pressure placed on me, where I am not trying to prove to other people
that they don't have to treat me like a mere dilettante. I did study
music from a vocal teacher and I took piano lessons, too. I read music.
I was a vocal performance major, even. I don't want to have to go
through all that shit because I feel it is prejudgment on the behalf of
other people. *sighs* So, what am I doing in SLGC? I joined it for a
sense of community and that sense of community was shattered when I
realized the people I *thought* were my friends *weren't* my friends at
all. Namely one person I thought I could count on. It ruined it for me.
Honestly, I should not have come back last Fall, but I let myself be
talked back into it and hated every single fucking miserable moment --
no shit. The best thing about going to rehearsals was riding home with
Regina who is like the wisest, beautiful woman who is really like a mom
to me (... and I get in touch with about as often as my mom... I am
such a bad child, really...), but other than that, my heart wasn't in
it.


My heart, a couple of months ago, was not in anything I was doing.
Wasn't into SLGC, but I was doing it anyway, wasn't into Amazon, but
was doing it anyway. I was trying to be the kind of adult we are all
given messages we have to, need to be. Not even trying to be my own
kind of adult. Not trying to find something my heart COULD be into. I
was so miserable. I was smoking cigs again, I was escaping to get to
work and to come home from work so I wasn't talking about any of this
with Ryan. I was trying to excite myself about a show I helped put
together, but did nothing for me, nothing *real* for me as a singer.


And then I got sick and I feel that getting sick saved my life
because I had to pull back and take stock and face things like...
realizing I didn't know what I am passionate about and sitting with
that and then burying it all over again.


Since Yami has been here, I have liked moving about. I like having
someone here to be social with (in that way, I am like a cat) because
it has really righted my emotional, psychological and psychic
equilibrium. The world seems to be filled with possibility again
instead of failures waiting to happen and going with Lynn to meditate
and getting into the idea of failures and making a conscious choice to
fail every day has resulted in great creativity and freedom and a
kind of playful lightness.


But there's more -- and I know it. I need to figure out a way to
generate income. I have no idea how to do that without going the
"normal" routes. How do people like me make it without being homeless?
I am too much of a princess to be homeless!

So, my goal is to figure out how to generate income without selling my
soul. BON CHANCE! -- I know, but there's gotta be something. Something
until I can figure out graduate school and do that
stuff. I keep telling myself to take it all one step at a time... one
step at a time... so I don't overwhelm myself. With it already being
March and I am not ready to take the GRE yet, I think the goal is to
get myself to the point where I feel I can take the GRE and not rely so
much on my intuition, but I know I can take the test and do well
because my scores are going to really matter.


... I wish I didn't have Mars in Cancer... I wish my forward motion
was not so easily hijacked by my emotional state and that my emotional
state wasn't always in some form of flux. I would waste time wishing I
was like other people, but that is so useless a thought I want to erase
it right now, but I won't... because I am feeling my honesty right now.



1) Establish habits that help me become a better person who



a) has less chaotic emotional states that derail whatever's happening

b) help me channel my will towards my goals



2) Do more things that help me enter a meditative state



a) the thing I was going to write about re: Different Drummers is
that at one point I could not hear my drum and it caused me some
anxiety and I had to face the fact that I actually rely on being able
to hear, to supervise my effort. I let go and trusted that although I couldn't hear my individual sound, my hands were hitting the
drum and we were playing in unison against the other part and it was ok. I had to come to terms with... how I don't want to stand out, yet
how dependent I am on standing out -- the pride I receive from standing
out. Pride isn't necessarily *bad*, but it does need to be
channelled in constructive ways so I am not so focused on
what I am doing and that I am doing it correctly and as artfully as possible that I miss the chance to be a part of something
larger than myself, a part of a community. I faced the ways
in which I thwart that, naturally... although it isn't always that
way....


3) Surround myself with people who are positive and who are good.



a) I do know good people. Why is it that the good people, the
people I admire, are often the people who escape my reach so often?
They reach out and then I am supposed to reach back, but I forget to or
don't because there's nothing *wrong* with them and I start to feel
like they are so awesome and so cool and together that there is
something wrong with me and I get all shy and shit and end up not being
able to be influenced by their goodness the way I should be influenced.
Like... what's up with that?



So, it is nearly two in the morning and I have been... stalling
going to bed because I am also achingly horny. (why people think relationships are the end of horniness, I have no clue!)


Will I ever find real community? Maybe not. But I can't allow that
to stop me from chasing my objectives and goals... not anymore.


Now, I am going to watch Six Feet Under on On Demand until I pass
out... or maybe jerk off and then watch... who knows. But it feels good
to want to move, to need to move, to not be able to be still.


Anyway, bai.