More Lucid Post

My last post is the best example of why one must never post to one's blog when exhausted. While still completely true, it's not my most elegant post. I'm sure my puppy-love crush will pass and I'll be feeling like my old self in no time.

Now, to concentrate on the very real things in my life that matter.

Work

It continues apace with changes galore. This week I'm hosting the "Bring Your Brat to Work Day." I'm doing everything I can think of to avoid providing free day care for a dozen snot-nosed, over-privileged tykes. The best I can think of is a craft exercise in the morning, shipping the kids off to lunch with the folks, then a movie and ice cream in the afternoon. I'm bone weary just thinking about it.

School

My fiction writing class is a little disappointing. There is an endless amount of reading, and then writing summaries of the reading, with only one actual story being composed for the class. I have four little responses to compose, and about a half dozen short stories to read by Tuesday. I also should probably see if I can get my story started.

I've looked over my class options for the summer and next fall, and I'm not particularly happy. I have to take a class from the head of the department, the sexist, pompous prig I vowed I'd never take a class from. I intend...no VOW to sit in the back of the class and keep my mouth shut.

The Chorus

Next week we start rehearsing for the next concert. It's a short prep period, and we're only doing half the concert, with the other half being taken over by a chorus from Indianapolis. I'm really going to miss the chorus when it breaks for the summer.

Now, my biggest concern is that RP will decide he needs to take a break from the chorus and I won't see him again until September. Ah, RP, RP!

Love Hurts

Just home from the show, and it went as well as expected. There is just nothing like standing in front of a thousand cheering people.

But now a whole week without seeing RP. I think he knows I have a crush on him because during the show there is a place where he should make eye contact with me -- there is absolutely no where else to look, I'm standing right in front of him -- and he looks over my shoulder. In fact, this happens frequently off stage too. And other times, when he's passing by he'll wave or smile and say hi. When it's safe because he's not stopping or there are people around.

God, I'm such a little girl. I've been expecting this crush to pass, but it just keeps getting worse. I fear the only way to end it is to completely humiliate myself and confess my feelings.

Places, Please.

The Ten Commandments, The Musical opened last night to a wildly appreciative audience. But all of the CGMC shows receive wildly appreciative audiences. Tonight's show will be absolutely insane.

But I think I'm getting too old for all of this. I took off from work yesterday because the previous two nights took me away from my homework, so I had much to catch up on. I hate taking a day off work to stay home and work.

There are probably 120 people in the chorus for this performance, which probably means 140 costumes. Since I play the 37th Egyptian from the left, my costume has received very little attention. In fact, it is a strip of sheet, probably half of queen size top sheet, which I gingerly pin around myself strategically, and a yard and a half of faux tiger fur, cut perfectly square so it can be returned to the fabric store, that I have to "drape interestingly" around my shoulders. Oh, and I was given fifty inches of gold rope. The costume, I believe, is meant to be a constantly evolving living fashion sculture, but I feel like I'm playing dress up.

In my younger days I'd have spent hours bitching about this. Now, it's just funny. I am so not the point of this whole show. I'm there to have a good time and support those who are really doing all the work. My counterpart in the show is a great guy, and we keep each other entertained during all the madness.

The dressing rooms for this theatre might be designed for fifty. I have officially relocated to the hallway behind the trash can, after being displaced by a bevy of Hebrews who needed the mirror to artfully smear mud on their faces. I draw the Egyptian kohl around my eyes basically from memory. Thankfully in the finale I wear a choir robe, so I can change before the hoardes hit the dressing room, slip the electric blue schmatta on, take my bow, and then dash to safety somewhere.

Pity Blech

The time has come to make even more changes in my personal life. In a recent post on a blog I read regularly, the writer commented on holding onto relationships long past their expiration dates. I, too, am guilty of that. No matter how many times you shake the carton, the milk stays sour. I tend to put way too much significance on even the most casual relationship, as if the person standing before me is the last person on the face of the earth. With my newfound selectivity, however, I'm able to release relationships even before they begin.

I no longer feel the need to latch on to someone just because they tell me they're worthy of my time. I make that decision, and I don't always agree with the prevailing opinion.

A typical example:

There's a woman at work who prides herself on being a "good judge of character." I'm a sucker for these self-proclaimed judges. If someone tells me something with authority, I eat it up! In this case, she comes just short of claiming psychic ability. She's very magnetic, almost always commanding attention when she walks into a room. Unofficially, if you don't have her seal of approval, you're dead meat in the office.

I've included her in a couple of my interview teams. Yet, when it comes to recruiting for her department, she hires people that "feel right." Then she comes to me and tells me that she's sorry she's upset my "process." The quotes hang in the air every time she says it. In the past I would have busted my butt trying to get her approval. In fact, I've had to stop myself trying to get it. Instead of trying to redefine myself in her world, I'm interpretting her into mine, and I don't like the translation. The stench of condescension that rolls off her is stifling. Further, she had the audacity to invite me to her home for Easter dinner -- so I wouldn't be alone on the holiday.

Of course, I smiled and told her how sweet she was to think of me -- both times she extended the invitation. I've done that before. But this time I honestly don't feel like I'm missing a thing. I cooked a turkey at home, and am quite happy with it. I'm leaving for church in a few minutes, and I'll spend the afternoon rehearsing for the upcoming concert. Exactly how I want to spend my holiday.

Because I'm single, I frequently get offers to spend holidays with people who "don't want me to be alone on the holiday." These invitations make me insane. Invite me because you want to spend time with me, not because you're doing your Christian duty by taking in those less fortunate. I've spent years swallowing the message that I'm lucky that certain people have included me in their lives. I'm so gullable, I believe almost anything anyone tells me. It rarely occurs to me that someone would have an agenda that would include using me to make themselves feel important. So if you tell me I'm lucky to know you, then I probably am. But recently I've come to consider the reverse. You are lucky to know me.

And in my considered opinion, more often than not you are.

The truth is, I like being alone on the holidays. I get to do exactly what I want, however I want to do it. Sure, I'd enjoy being with friends, but only with friends who are choosing to spend time with me because they're spending time with me, not out of a sense of pity.

And it's this sense of pity that I've come to dispise. It says I'm less than. There is nothing about me that merits pity, so keep it to yourself.

Agony

Today was the kind of day I dread. I have had the same five letters sitting on my desk waiting to go out for the past three weeks, and today I decided they would go out or I would die in the attempt. The problem is, and has been, that everybody and his arthritic aunt wants to have his say on what should be in these letters. Three of the five have been completed three separate times, with signatures, only to be pulled and revised. Finally, after about four hours of the nonsense I got the same three approved for the fourth time. One of them I printed up and got into the mail, only to come back to my desk to discover that I'd left out the signature page.

One of the letters is complete, with signature, but is on hold for sending.

Another letter is complete and waiting for a signature, and the remaining two are still in the steep revision stage. These five documents took up my entire day. Meanwhile I had a candidate come in for an interview, only to be told that she'd have to come back tomorrow because one of the VP's couldn't see her today.

It's all I can do not to scream.

I've Got a Crush on You, Sweetie Pie...

I'm a silly little girl.

Tonight at chorus rehearsal RP waved at me, and for a few brief minutes we were within three feet of one another on stage. I was in heaven. But even better, at the last rehearsal he sat in the chair where my coat was draped and he...TOUCHED it.

I'll never wash that coat again for as long as I live!

Oh, the fantasy of it all is fun, but I'm not going to go down that road. The reality of it is that he's nice and sweet to everybody and doesn't show me any particular attention. Last week we were both at the gym at the same time and didn't even speak. It's all a delicious little game I play with myself in my head.

But I haven't stopped smiling in the last hour.