Haunted Steps, Didgeridoos, and Normalcy

So today we made the trip to Madison to find out what the heck is going on with my daughter... turns out; nothing. She is a normally developing little girl and our local hospital system doesn't know how to read an x-ray or diagnose a mysterious lump. (She had had a "cyst" in her armpit that the local system thought needed removal. Turned out to be a swollen lymph node because of a pre-existing sinus infection that swelled the node, like they do...) The x-ray showed that she has the bones of a nine year old, which confirmed the normal blood test that we never got results for from our system in the first place. Ah well. I would rather go and find out all is well rather than something terrible.

The trip wasn't a total waste anyway, because I got to go and hang out in one of my favorite cities; the city I grew up in. The fiance and I went to State Street, which is a very bohemian and laid-back kind of street where you can shop, hang out, and hear the random person playing any kind of random instrument. Today it was the Didgeridoo. We could hear the drone from down the street and went in search of the source. We found a good looking blonde and bearded guy playing a very fancy looking mahogany art piece making sounds like coyotes and kangaroos. His name was Scott. My four year old daughter Cyrah really enjoyed it and we sat at a bench listening to the sounds of Australia in Wisconsin.

Side story. Dustin and I read this article a while back about how a famous violinist decided to go sit in a subway terminal or some other kind of well-packed location and just see how many people stopped to listen to the music. It wasn't about the money; the guy was pretty wealthy. It was about the music. Here this man plays for hundreds a ticket at Carnegie Hall, and he can't get people to stop and listen for free. When children tried to stop and listen, their parents tugged them along as if it were no more significant than bubble gum on the sidewalk. Barely anyone cared.

So we sit and listen to Scott translating the sounds of the Outback into a musical drone and decide to give Cyrah money to leave in his hat. We stop to sit again not far away and she picks a flower and puts that in his hat as well. He tells her "thank you" through the Didgeridoo, explains to us that it is hard for him to keep playing while he is smiling so hard, and bids us a good day.

We decided to walk the full length of State Street, and end up at a small fruit stand where Cyrah decides it is time to get grapes and a Honey Crisp apple. As we are standing there, a couple of people working the cart notice that I am wearing a sweatshirt from the House on the Rock's Gathering of American Gods event.The woman asks if I got to ride the carousel, I tell her no, and she says that she met someone the day before who had. I ask her if she looked like Rachel Leigh Cook, she has no idea who that is. I ask her if she would have gotten to ride the carousel twice and she says YES! Turns out the girl was the same girl who commented on my Gathering of the Gods post just a couple of days ago. One I photobombed, and now apparently stalked. Well done me.

It's funny how small the world is. We spend all this time trying to make ourselves feel insignificant in it; looking to the stars and to the billions of people on our planet, the millions in our country, the thousands in our city. The world isn't all that big... and for a small person like me, that is a comforting notion.

Growing Up Too Fast and Totally Straight

The title, as per usual, is not what it seems.

Today I voted straight Democrat on my voting card, and I don't feel bad about it at all. One man in line decided to challenge my decision by saying that he can't believe that "our president wouldn't swear on a bible, wouldn't put his hand over his heart, and refuses to wear an American flag pin... Muslim." Well. Perfect. I answered that I also would not swear on a bible because I myself am not Christian. He pretty much shut up after that. Not really my intention, but I think he figured out he wasn't going to sway my vote just before I polled with the rest of the sane Americans left in the country.

I didn't decide to write that because I want some great debate or because I think the guy is stupid or anything like that, I just wanted to mention that I did in fact exercise my right to vote as a woman, as an American, and as someone who wants to be able to bitch when and if the country goes to shit.

I don't like it when people who refuse to vote think that they have a right to stretch their vocal chords on bitching about how bad the state of Politics happens to be. If you didn't use your voice when it mattered, then shut the hell up.

My daughter is growing up too fast... and I am not talking about how she is bringing up boys too soon, or wanting to wear bras, or that the media is swaying her into being older than she is... I mean, they are, but the issue here is her bone age. My daughter is nine and has eleven year old bones. We don't know why this is, all we know are two words; Precocious Puberty. This is the preliminary diagnosis for a girl who is growing out of her shoes, and has growing pains that wake her at night.

Tomorrow we meet with a Pediatric Endocrinologist to find out what we can do to slow the process of her bone aging down so that she doesn't stunt herself by her growth plates closing off too soon. I want the kid to be at least 5'4" which is two inches taller than me. I don't think it's too much to ask, really.

So I really wanted to do the NaNoWriMo this month, but I am already a day behind... how does that work exactly? Can I still start? Do I really need a month that tells me I should? If I am so inclined, I will probably write tonight anyway, just to get something down. While the blog is a nice outlet for practice writing random things, I'd really like a separate focus. I hope that all you NaBloPoMo's and NaNoWriMo's are working hard at what you do. Roll on brothers and sisters. Much love.

Nervousness and Being a Cat

In my last blog post, I had mentioned that when I get nervous I breeze right through things... it really is true. I tend to rush through those things that make me feel uncomfortable, much like a cat will dart from an area when made to feel in danger. I really need to learn to stop doing that. I think that it has cost me a lot of opportunities in life, one of which being a carousel ride at the House on the Rock.

Somehow I have to learn to take a deep breath and take my time. Speak slower. When I was in a Speech class, one of the notes on it was "A little less caffeinated next time" which was funny because I hadn't been caffeinated. I feel like my bubbly personality just bubbles over sometimes and I find myself cutting people off mid-sentence or just rushing straight through due to nerves. I am not sure how I can work on it, but I intend to.

Next year come auditions at Ren Faire again, and I already have them in mind, I would like to be able to shake these kinds of nerves in order to perform better, to impress, and to get the part that I want. I have so many friends who work in entertainment, and I should pick their brains to find out how to battle these butterflies.

The one and only time I have been able to push straight through was at a singing competition. I knew I was up against stiff competition; some of the people were my friends that I was trying to beat, and I knew they were good. Even though I was nervous, I sang like I needed the money because, well, I did. Maybe I need to try and keep that forefront in my mind. Not my want for a thing, but my need for it. While it is a little harder to try and imagine my need for a part, I have to learn to think this way. I know I am a good performer, I just have to remember that and go with it.

On another note, it is both National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) and National Novel Writing Month (NanoWriMo). I am going to try and keep a dedication to both this blog and a novel. This means that I will have to push through any writer's block that I might have and just do it. I can't promise that everything that comes out will be solid gold, but I would at least like to make it something worth reading. I may even poll my friends on subjects to write about, and I already have an idea for a novel (or at least a collection of short stories) that I would like to write about, and this weekend gave me a bunch of ideas to go with. Just like my nerves with performance, I am going to have to battle my nerves with my writing.

I constantly doubt myself (thanks to people like Neil) in that I don't know if my writing is worth reading. I just have to remember that I am not Neil Gaiman. I am not Terry Goodkind. I am not one of the greats. Yet.

The Gathering of American Gods

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When I was eight I broke my arm. (Random? Probably.) What a shitty way to start a story! Let's do this properly.

I was eight years old, just a small stitch of a thing, really. Underweight, short, pretty much all knees and elbows. I was headstrong, and wanted everything my way. In fact, I would see to it that things were my way, regardless of the consequences.

Mother and I were at a picnic for this group that we were involved in that bridged the gap between teachers and families called, F.A.S.T. (Families and Schools Together) F.A.S.T. was a program that tried to reach out to those kids (these days described as "Emotionally Disturbed") that just didn't seem to care about school. Whether that meant that they just missed a lot, or they were bored out of their skulls with the curriculum didn't matter. It taught the teachers to be better teachers, and the parents to be better parents. I digress.

Mother and I had fought that morning. She laid out a flowery dress for me and told me that this was what I was to wear to the picnic that day. I grimaced. I groaned. I threw myself on the bed, crumpling the dress in my hands and throwing a pretty good tantrum. I hated dresses. With a fiery passion. I insisted that there would be a separate outfit set aside in the car for me to change into after we reached the party and she showed me off to the few people she felt needed impressing. No mother, there would not be photographic evidence that this took place.

After we reached the party and mother showed me off like some show animal, I started to itch. Tights. Why would someone invent something as terrible as tights? Don't they know that summers are meant for scraping knees, and getting muddy? The bow in my hair was already crooked, and the curls she had painstakingly put into my hair were coming loose in the humidity. I fidgeted, waiting for mother to finish her conversation so that I could remove the hated outfit immediately. There were children playing in the water, and they were not wearing tights. I looked at my shoes and imagined them fat, shiny beetles on my feet. The beetles made their way away from mother and the tall people she stood with to our tan Chevelle. Mother never locked the doors.

Finally free of the tights, the hairs on my legs stood on end. I quickly dressed myself in the clothes I brought when the car door opened. It was my stepfather. He was little more than a boy, when I think about it now. Twenty three, he was. Just a boy. He asked what I was doing and I explained to him that the beetles needed to come off my feet. I think he understood because he just laughed and followed me back to the picnic. Back to the smell of the lake and the sand and the grass.

There was a woman there with our group that had a Mo-ped. It was like a bike with a motor on it, and a seat that was meant for one person. This woman took the kids one at a time on it like a carnival ride. I had never ridden one myself, and was more than curious about it. There was a line.

Mother was with her friends and the coordinators, talking. Mother was always talking to someone. It was a trait I later inherited from her, but at the time it served the purpose it need to; a distraction. All the other children asked their parents before they took a ride on the Mo-ped with the woman. Not one child's parent had said "no", and I just assumed my mother would share their consent. I waited in line for my ride.

When it was finally my turn, the woman lifted me onto her lap. She showed me where the gas was, and how to twist it forward to make the vehicle go. I twisted lightly and the Mo-ped lurched forward and went at close to a walking pace in the grass. The woman, with her hand over mine, twisted the gas throttle all the way so that we would gain speed. It stuck. She panicked.

I can remember the feel of her hand over mine. The feel of the wind through my hair, the curls now gone for good. I remember the lake on the right side of us as we headed straight from the parking lot. I remember the tensing in her hand as she squeezed the brake. The brake was to the front tire.

I remember feeling like the world tilted and threw me into the air like the paddle on a pinball machine. The landing hurt, as I recall. I was awake for that portion, feeling like I may never be able to draw air into my lungs again. It wasn't but a second later that her body landed on top of mine, stealing the consciousness from me.

Mother looked up at the sound of the crash, thinking how unfortunate it was for the people involved. She ran to a pay phone to help the unfortunates out.

I woke to blinding pain. There was a man there with sandals in his hands, trying to lash them to my arm. They were sandy. The pain exploded and shut my brain down once more.

When mother arrived at the scene, my stepfather was already there, pushing the man with the sandals away from my limp body. The woman had been dragged from on top of me and was sitting and crying, sure she had killed me when she landed on me. Mother was beside herself and could barely maintain composure when the ambulance arrived to take me to the hospital.

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To this day I have a fear of two-wheeled vehicles, which is unfortunate for me, from what I have been told. I have this friend who tonight told me a story about his adventures on motorcycles and it brought this story to mind, so I thought I would share it with you. I will try not to ignore this place for so long next time. My love to you all.

And in the simplest of places

When you least expect it, a little bit of magic happens. Richard Nagle of Night Owl Photography was looking through some of the old photographs I had taken and in one I had dubbed "Faery Hotel", he finds a face.

A little back story; a few years back, my fiance and I took the kids to Parfrey's Glen in the Devil's Lake State Park of the Wisconsin Dells. My oldest daughter, then five or six, says she thinks this must be where the faeries live. There is a spot there, something like a wall, where it is riddled and pocked full of holes where I would assume little fae creatures could go in and out of, so I took a picture (shown below) of the wall. Mind you, this pic was taken well before I had any knowledge of Photoshop and it's glory to fix pictures and make them more pretty. This is the picture Richard saw.


This next picture, I have removed all the color, except for the face that Richard points out to me.


This next, I have put time and thought into making the picture much more bold and grand. A fate I believe she deserves.


I don't know if you also see what Richard saw, but it certainly filled my heart with joy and wonder.... and perhaps hope. Much love to you all.

And so it went...

Well, the audition is over and as much as I am glad that it is over, the two to three week wait has been murder... and it is only day two.

Everyone keeps asking how it went, and to be honest, I feel okay about it.

Snow was coming down in the morning and I immediately panicked. I loathe snow driving, and my fiance offered to drive me the hour and handful of minutes to my audition. He says, "You're going to get to that audition, and you're going to rock it." Unfortunately, that meant that our four year old had to miss her cousin's birthday party and she wasn't too pleased about that. I hope she understands what this all meant to her mommy...

We got to the hotel about two hours early because, in anticipation of terrible driving conditions, we left extremely early. Of course, the roads are completely clear despite the weather channel's promise that driving conditions were going to be poor all the way to the audition site.

At the sign-up table the very warm and wonderful ladies working offered to move me into the earlier slot if the last person on the list was a no-show. I took a deep breath, and said yes. Dustin stayed a while with me but shortly thereafter our daughter became restless and I asked him to take her someplace more fun. We kissed, he wished me luck, and left me to my racing thoughts. And the kind lady at the sign-up desk told me I was next... My stomach did a quick somersault.

I walked into the room, and because no one said anything I said, "So is this like A.A. where I introduce myself and you all say, 'Hi, Naomi'?" I managed to get a giggle out of the directors for that one. They had me start with a vocal piece which, of course, I immediately forget how the song starts. After shaking my hands for a bit and thinking about it, I recovered. I think that I sang well even though I have this sinus infection trying to wipe me out. After I sing, they want me to play the violin. Ugh. Okay, so that wasn't awesome. Sad I even went there.

At least by the time I did my monologue I was pretty much thinking that nothing could be worse than my violin playing, so my monologue had to look wondrous in comparison. I nailed it.... I mean, really nailed it. I used emotion and the words were pouring out of my mouth with inflection, and pace. I am proud of that darned monologue. I am, however, certain that Kate shall haunt me in my dreams. While I was doing my monologue, my eyes went from one director to the next, and there was one, sadly, who seemed to have better things to do on the computer. Not that this is totally true... it was just my perception at the time. A lot of that might have come from the fact that I was a huge bundle of nerves and if I didn't see a face lit up with a smile, I thought I had failed.

Next I did my movement piece. At first, I was sort of dancing alone, and then the director for the Fantastikals came out and danced with me and played a mirror game. I am not sure if that was a good or bad sign, but it made me feel less like an ass. I portrayed Fire, and then she had me act like I was a puppet-person. That was... weird feeling.

People keep asking me how I did with the movement. To be honest I was nervous and so stuck in my own head that I really couldn't tell you. I hope that I did well enough but I won't know for a couple of weeks if it was enough.

To be honest, I have always felt awkward and tomboyish. My feet are too big and my fingers too long and my knees to knobby. I have never really felt graceful. Not like I see these characters. They are the embodiment of the things they emulate and I feel like I am outside, nose to the glass, always on this side. I know I could do it in the makeup but at the audition I had to be me. I had to be the person I see myself as, no masks, no makeup. It was hard.

After that I was dismissed but had to do a quick frolic for the Bristol Buskin Frolic's director. I giggled and danced around like a fruit for a little bit.

Waiting back in the room with the other girls in my audition slot, we laughed about a lot of different things. One I had already met on my Faceplace, and the others seemed ready to talk about anything but auditions and were very friendly. After the last girl did her audition, we waited a few minutes until they called us in for our group improv.

The thing about improv is that you do these activities, but you don't remember a darn thing you said because it was spur of the moment and right from the belt. I know that I made an Ode to a Basket of Chips, and that it was funny, but I can't for the life of me remember what the heck I even said. All I know is that group improv was a blast. After that we were told we could head home.

My feelings? I think I might be offered a part. I don't know if I'll get the part I want, but I have a feeling they might offer me something. Only time will tell, and this is only day two of my two to three week wait. And it is murder.