Aqua is the new black

          In case you are wondering if I received the sweatshirt requested from my mother for Christmas, the answer is that I have instead perhaps learned a lesson. This is that I should really only ask for things that my mother has the ability to purchase. When I requested a cardigan a few weeks ago and specified that it be "50's twinset style", she knew exactly what I meant and bought me, not one, but seven work-appropriate cardigans. My arms will never be cold again, especially if I wear them all at the same time. She also gave me damn near every Jane Austen/Bronte sister film produced by the BBC in the last 5 years, some beautiful scarves and a lovely turtleneck sweater from my favorite store. I am a lucky girl. The sweatshirt, however has already been returned[1] to Bob's retailers, a store I have not visited since I was a tween, when I had not yet given up the idea that if I sometimes wore athletic apparel, I might give off the appearance of a modicum of athleticism.

          In my mind, I thought I was requesting a classic collegiate sweatshirt, in a size small, just without a hood. Ideally it would be something soft that I could wear around the house but that would not humiliate me if visitors dropped by unexpectedly, unlike my current Wisconsin cow sweatshirt. What my mother picked out was enormous, stiff, and aqua. She insisted it fit her and would therefore also fit me, but I find it hard to believe that it did not resemble the shapeless tunics of her "Flax" years in the 90's. I can't recall ever having seen a sweatshirt with no band at the bottom, but this one had none. The fabric was also surprisingly rough. I didn't know they even made sweatshirts like this, as though the purpose of sweats is not one of softness and comfort, but fashion. Oh well. "We'll find one!" she says. I am sure we will. I am sure we will get our hands on that elusive beast, "the sweatshirt".

          Meanwhile at our family friends' house, one sister had given another sister a light pink sweatshirt featuring a kitten in a purse. The recipient, a grown woman, does have a new cat but upon receiving this gift, she made it very clear that she is a cat owner and not a cat wearer. When I told her not to complain, because at least it looked comfortable and wasn't an aqua tent made of sandpaper, I was warned to watch what I wish for. They are already in plans for my Christmas gift next year- the ugliest, cheapest sweatshirt they can find at the thrift store. I kind of can't wait.


[1] The return of said gift is a miracle unto itself for which I should be grateful. My mother has never been one to save gift receipts, usually immediately exclaiming: "Who can we give it to???"

It's like non-alcoholic beer...

          My aunt and uncle's house in New Jersey is an hour and a half from my parents' in Connecticut. We make the trip annually in order to spend Christmas Eve with my cousins. (My four cousins under age eight are all ridiculously adorable little tow-heads, but I digress). This year, we had to stop not once, but twice on the way. Once, because my mother does not understand the concept of dehydrating a bit before you get in the car. It never fails that after 30 minutes on the road she will say: "Does anyone else have to go to the bathroom?" She must always have at least one cup of decaf coffee coursing through her veins so we must make a stop before we even reach the New York border.

          The second stop has to do with this same necessity. We have to stop at a Dunkin' Donuts so my mom can get her hazelnut decaf coffee because otherwise she cannot eat. My aunt and uncle aren't big on coffee and certainly not sans caffeine. My mother truly cannot take one bite of an entree without her cup of decaf. At our favorite local restaurant, they start brewing when she walks in the door and they bring out an entire pot with her meal. She literally will not start eating until the decaf coffee is in her possession- I have seen it happen many times. She also needs at least three cupfuls with her meal. My dad usually suggests that the wait-staff get it hooked up to her intravenously.

          On our second stop, since we are already 40 minutes late, I decline needing anything in D& D and declare, (clearly the only one with any sense), that I am staying right there in the car. My dad leaves the car running and it is at the moment they are gone from my sightline that I see it: the lighted sign from the liquor store next door declaring the availability of that rare and fantastic brew which I had almost forgotten was attainable that day. It is a beer coveted by anyone who went to college in Allentown, Pennsylvania and subsequently had the sense to leave Allentown, Pennsylvania, only to discover that it was no longer available north of Jersey. It is Yuengling, the product of America's oldest brewery, and it is right at my fingertips. It is no small thing to return to one's friends in Boston with a case or two of the lager.

          I hem and haw for only a moment before I decide that I will be quick and that they won't even miss me. I grab the keys and my wallet and head for next door. After no more than 3 minutes, I return to find my puzzled parents looking in the windows of the car, which I had of course locked. As it turns out, my mother was worried about my disappearance, while my father was worried that I had left the keys in the ignition and locked the doors, because I am apparently 5 years old. All their fears were assuaged when they saw both the keys and the case of Yuengling in my hand. It wasn't until Christmas day that I learned that a family friend had driven 40 minutes to Brewster, NY to purchase three cases of Yuengling varieties for myself and my friends.

Best. Christmas. Ever.

The Best of the Bad: Christmas

          I will admit to being a music snob. I will also admit that it is during this time of year that my tolerance for bad music is much higher than usual. I will happily put up with a much higher percentage of the stale and saccharine in the name of tradition and the Christmas season. Growing up, my family referred to me as the "Christmas Nazi" because shortly after Thanksgiving, all music in the house had to be Christmas related. It is no different for me at this age. I have my radio set to the two Boston stations that play non-stop Christmas music 24 hours a day and I flip back and forth between commercials. Regardless, there are certain songs and or renditions that I simply can no longer put up with in the name of the season. Below I have compiled a list and analysis loosely based on Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Barry's_Book_of_Bad_Songs )

          When he first posted this column on which the book was based, he got such a strong reaction to it that people would stop him in the street, grab his arm and say: "That Pina Colada song? I hate that song!" While Dave Barry surveyed for his compilation for many months, my very thorough research has consisted of approximately 2 hours of internet surfing. But here it is: the best of the bad of Christmas.

          Now, as my friend Rachele points out, nearly every Christmas song from the last ten years could fall under this category fairly easily. Never underestimate the power of a Christmas hit and residual payments annually. I once saw what I hope was a parody of a Christmas collaboration between Kiri Te Kanawa and the Sex Pistols, for example. It seems though, that bad Christmas songs have been in existence for centuries. There is a traditional Dutch carol that tells the story of an evil butcher who, during a famine, kills and then pickles a group of children in a vat of brine. It is St. Nicholas who comes to their rescue and prays them back to life. Just a sample, I'm sure, of many Christmas songs we have sung to generations of children in the hopes of haunting their dreams for the rest of their lives. Of course, one need not go back so far. I don't even need to get into the B section of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and its depiction of a man who is watching us sleeping. And at a friend's holiday party recently, a group of us put on a Phil Spector Christmas album. I cannot think of a creepier image than the one on the cover of this particular release. That's actually Phil Spector dressed as Santa. Throw in his murder conviction and it makes one good nightmare.

Then there is the just plain bad:


"Who took the Merry out of Christmas?" - Donny Osmond

"Christmas Conga" - Cyndi Lauper

"Merry Christmas with Love" - Clay Aiken

"My Only Wish" - Jessica Simpson

"Marshmallow World" - As performed by anyone (Admit it, it makes you want to poke yourself in the eye).

"All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle" - Dora Bryan

"Please Daddy, Don't get Drunk this Christmas" - John Denver (whom I love- I was horrified to find this!)

          Throw in here that entire Amy Grant album with orchestra that they just love to play this time of year. The sound of that schmaltzy orchestra only painstakingly enhances every flat-sounding syllable with that wobbly vibrato that she utters. That Christmas Waltz song is particularly nauseating.

          More controversial are the many holiday offerings of the Carpenters. I will not refute the beauty of Karen Carpenter's instrument. Rather, to quote one of my college professors on the subject of the group, it's that "tinny, commercial sound" that I find renders the songs unlistenable for extended periods of time. And yet if one comes up on the radio in isolation I will smile because 'it's December'. If however, I hear one more lackluster cover of "Santa Baby" I might fly into a rage at the grocery store.

          Now there is that part of all of us that loves that certain song in spite of its inherent mediocrity. This usually has to do with the fact that we grew up with it. For me, this genre is the Christmas music of Anne Murray (the country singer, not the opera singer). Are the tempos a bit slow? Yes. Is there a bit too much 80's style midi utilized? Yes. But I love it all the same because it sounds like Christmas.

"You should take voice lessons"

   
          Many of you have seen this already, but for those who haven't, this accurately sums up dozens of conversations I have had, almost verbatim, explaining my trade. Thanks to Marcy Richardson for legitimizing our profession further. This is both hilarious and a little sad:

You should take voice lessons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib2prWo49Sc

I'll fall asleep counting my blessings...

          Over Thanksgiving, one of my visiting friends forgot something warm to sleep in and borrowed a flannel shirt of mine that I keep at my parents' house. I then asked my mother for something warm to sleep in. It is at moments like these when the absurdity of my mother's collections becomes even more evident. If I had asked her for a vintage pillbox hat or a Mexican guayavera shirt, or even a pair of childrens' shoes from the turn of the 19th century, she could have provided me with seven options each. But the woman could not find me a single garment resembling a sweatshirt. No flannel pajama tops or long sleeved house shirts could be found either. Every sweater she offered me had a zipper or 15 buttons, or was a turtleneck. We found a long sleeved t-shirt that was really too nice for sleep but oh well. I did not need to ask her why she doesn't own any normal bedclothes. I have told her for years that if she is cold at night she should probably skip the electric blanket and wear something other than a nightgown. 

          Had I probed some more, she might have responded facetiously with something to the effect of "Sweatshirts are so plebian". Also, if she buys no clothes designated expressly for lounging, she gets to justify the keeping of everything in her closet when she has her routine purges: "Couldn't I just keep this for 'around the house'?" she will say. It could also just be a generational thing. Her contemporaries may wear things like sweatshirts, but she has an old soul and has always been more enamored with her mother's fashion era than with her own. My mother is not a particularly formal or uptight person in conversation, but perhaps it is this idealization of the past that has made her consistently err on the side of dressing formally to the alternative. This also transferred to her children of course. There was the time she dressed me in an ivory satin gown that I had worn as a flower girl to go to a rehearsal dinner. It was a little outlandish, but at a North Carolina barbecue, it was downright ridiculous. I remember at age eight, being very annoyed that I could not properly show off my cartwheels.

          This all reminded me of when I was in Rome for the semester and my friend Avi came to visit from Spain. Knowing that I had to pack light for the four months I was there, and knowing that Europeans are not exactly enamored with the look of the hoodie, I only packed one item of the ilk. Of course I knew full well that this "biondina" would never be mistaken for an actual Italian but I still harbor a desire to avoid giving them fodder to make fun of my American slovenliness. So I avoided sweatshirts and sneakers, and packed one hooded sweater that I wore in the apartment. While Avi was there for the long weekend, she was looking through my clothes for something warm to wear in the house, as one does with old friends. Avi is a connoisseur of all things cozy and comfortable. She came to me saying; "I can't find your sweatshirts".

"I didn't bring any".

"But where are your sweatshirts?" she said, unable to fathom a home without hoodies.

"Avi, I didn't bring any. I only brought this hooded sweater."

"Katie, where are your sweatshirts???"

Clearly the apple does not fall far from the tree.

          Come to think of it, my mother did have a sweatshirt once. I think it was a gift from her friend in Green Bay. It was made circa 1991 and says "Wisconsin" on it. It features cows wearing pink and blue ankle warmers and on the back it says "udder cold". I know this because I have stolen it permanently and wear it frequently in the winter. It is the perfect combination of worn thin warmth and has no hood to interfere with sleeping or lounging. Brendan looked at it this fall and said "Oh boy... it's that time of year again!" I have asked my mother for a new sweatshirt for Christmas.

Yes, I know...

          Yes, I am aware of what comes up when you google "Ukrainian Picnic". I will tell you this though: it did not show up when I was creating the blog and I looked it up in Urban Dictionay: http://www.urbandictionary.com/. My theory is that when I entered it, they made up a definition. Kudos to the editors over there for their creative filth though...

Printed! Classical Singer's December issue

http://ukrainianpicnic.blogspot.com/2010/10/to-editor-of-classical-singer-magazine.html

Little Women, in the key of Turkey (plus one Canadian)

          I found myself looking longingly at the entrance to the Mass Pike heading west on my walk into work this morning.

          It has been very hard for me to blog this week because my brain is completely saturated with thoughts of mashed potatoes, turkey and most of all, my first weekend in months that has not been hyper-scheduled. (This past weekend was no exception of course.) Part of my life as a singer means that I sometimes have sold my weekends way in advance to various rehearsals, churchjobs, performances, auditions or as was the case a few weeks ago, 3 parties in one night. I love parties as much, and probably more than the next girl, but it is tough when one is obliged to attend 3 in the span of 6 hours at all ends of the city. Add to this the prospect of having to sing at church at 8:30 the next morning and it can be plain exhausting. After years of operatic training, trying to not sound like a Yankee while singing spirituals in church presents a particular challenge and one should be awake for it. By the time Sunday is over I feel in no way recharged. I have sometimes wanted to cry when people at work have said that all they had done all weekend was clean and go to the movies. This being said, more palpably than ever, Thanksgiving weekend seems to represent a time of much-needed relaxation.

          The nature of Thanksgiving celebrations in my home has changed quite a bit in the last few years. As a child we headed over to my grandparents with my extended family. I am not joking when I say we used to sing "Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go" on the ride to their house. (Can you imagine anything more nauseatingly Norman Rockwell?) When my grandparents were growing too old to host, we continued celebrating with my parents hosting. Now that two of my older cousins have spouses, in-laws and babies there is a lot more alternating on Thanksgiving. So, in the past few years, our Thanksgiving population has shifted to include a gaggle of "orphaned" opera singers. My friends from California, Michigan and Canada who can't make it home for the holiday come spend the long weekend at Chez Holden in Connecticut.

          We started this during our second year of grad school. My friends who have come to stay are now intimately familiar with my mother's many and varied idiosyncrasies; her 6am walk on the treadmill in her slip, her elaborate table settings including place cards, her need to have 3 cups of decaf coffee with every meal and her fast-paced energy and efficiency overall. But they are also all acutely aware of her delicious mashed potatoes, stuffing, perfectly cooked turkey and pierogies to stuff us all weekend long. My father is not without his own eccentricities. He is quite the "sauce man" and will spend most of Thanksgiving day obsessing about the making of his gravy. He will talk rue and whitewashes with heightened excitement, and every year, when my mother has produced every other food item on the table; his comments will mostly be limited to the quality of the gravy. In turn, my parents have learned to co-exist quite tolerantly with a group noted for their rather resonant singing and speaking voices alike. I would dare say, they might even look forward to the action as much as we do to the relative rest of a weekend full of gluttony and sloth.

          The first year we started this tradition, at every turn; my friend Kate (from Santa Rosa, CA) would point to everything in town and exclaim "It's so New England!" She claimed that even the trees were very Blair Witch Project. (Kate also infamously showed up to a bar one night in November wearing a pink tank top featuring gold palm trees. She forgot from the previous year that "a cute bar outfit" around these parts consists of a turtleneck and a scarf.) Even though her exclamations became comically ridiculous, it was nice to be reminded that the place in which I grew up was actually rather idyllic in some ways. Also in our first year, my mother told us; "Don't bring a thing- just your voices and your music!" Suspecting the appeal of music alone was waning, we have stepped it up in subsequent years with other offerings. There was the year we tried to help my mother make a side dish. We ended up wandering away from the stovetop to sing around the piano, and subsequently overcooked the asparagus to a flaccid inedibility. Such is the nature of having opera singers as houseguests.

          This addition to our holiday has actually been a surprisingly smooth transition for me. I would like to be able to say that it was only as a child that I was very adverse to change. Truth be told; I am not really much better as an adult. The loss of several loved ones has given me some perspective on acceptance, but changes in family tradition have never been fully embraced by me without a good bit of resistance. This coming Thursday night, however, after our post-meal hike, I will sit on the couch with my late-night piece of pumpkin pie. As we mull some wine and start a movie, I will feel quite content with, and thankful for Thanksgiving as it is; with my family and extended adopted family from Boston.

MGM Movie Musical Marathon (or why my friends are awesome)

          I decided recently that I wanted cable. I just woke up one morning and decided that I am an adult and that I was tired of basic cable with its 14 Spanish channels and 15 evangelist networks. When making phone inquiries about possible cable packages, one salesman started his speech about their new NFL package. I had to interrupt him so as not to waste his time:

          "You can skip the spiel," I said, "I don't really care about the NFL".

          "Well, we also have our baseball package special starting--"

          "I don't give a shit about sports. What I really want to know is whether or not you offer TCM."

          "TCM?"

          "Yes, Turner Classic Movies".

          My friends got me a set of DVD's featuring four of TCM's favorite MGM musicals for my birthday. Now that I am done with the Czech opera, I had a musical marathon last weekend. I am saving Meet me in St. Louis for Christmas so when I had watched Singin' in the Rain and couldn't get through The Band Wagon, (there's a reason you've probably never heard of it), I could not stop myself from watching Easter Parade even though I normally only allow myself a viewing in the spring. Some rules are worth breaking. You may remember this scene from the Hoover vacuum commercials from years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi9w09suO5E

          The use of a blue screen here must have been very novel then and I must admit that I find it no less awesome today, but then I have the soul of an octogenarian. Now I grew up watching Easter Parade and playing the music on my grandmother's player piano, but after hearing the lackluster tunes in The Bandwagon my roommate agreed that all of the numbers in Easter Parade, written by Irving Berlin, are completely riveting. The orchestration is also pretty great here although Berlin couldn't have been the arranger. Irving Berlin could only play the piano in one key. True story. He had a special transposing piano that he donated to the Smithsonian upon his death. And yes, that is Judy Garland at the opening of the scene. I often forget until the next time I hear her sing a ballad, how she could get that amazing sound that is just like she is crying through the melody. Oh yeah, Fred Astaire is pretty amazing too. I have managed to muddle my way through years of musical theatre and opera movement class, but I generally watch professional dancers with the same kind of awe that tone-deaf people must have for singers. I love the look on his face at the end of this number: He seems to be saying: "That's right. I ripped that one up."

          I agree with what I have read about Irving Berlin's simple, straightforward style. There is very little else that is so in tune with the American vernacular. While his contemporaries were concerned with incorporating jazz, European and other ethnic elements in their work, Irving Berlin on the other hand, didn't really care about any of that. He grew up in a Russian Jewish ghetto in New York and wasn't particularly concerned with the great composers, but rather, I picture him as having been someone like my grandfather. He just wanted to see an uplifting show with some good tunes in it. In my own work I often get so bogged down with weighty Germanic symbolism and grappling with the cosmos that I sometimes forget how just plain old entertaining something like this can be. But then I have always been a sucker for tap shoes, blaring trumpets, and belting out show tunes.

Another great number from the movie:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlUXtDrhWDk

          With many of my friends currently performing in a production of Adamo's Little Women this fall, it fell to me to condense a Halloween party and an early acknowledgement of my birthday into one epic celebration. This was my 6th birthday party in this apartment and my first Halloween celebration but not the first time that costumes were involved. Since we got a little overzealous with wine and dancing, I never held the contest for best costume as promised. It's a tradition we like to carry on no matter who hosts our annual Halloween party.

          So I tallied a vote with a few impartial judges, (Emma over gchat and my co-worker Erin). So here they are! This year's winners:

Best female: Frida Kahlo



Best Male: The Jester



Best Couple: "The Internet Phenomenom Couple" (credit to Emma for the name)



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/golf/rydercup/8045461/Tiger-Woods-Ryder-Cup-cigar-guy-becomes-web-hit.html

http://lesbianswholooklikejustinbieber.tumblr.com/

          It was a very difficult decision. There were so many wonderful costumes! I must give shout-outs to Miss Piggy, the White Queen, the Tooth Fairy, "Bag Lady", Garden Gnome, Tinkerbell, Purple-People-Eater and Kathleen for being a Black and White Photograph and letting us use her frame for subsequent pictures:

It's pronounced 'cahndy'

          Today at work, employees are bringing their kids in for the 4th Annual "Halloween Kids' Happy Hour". (Happy Hour continues for the adults later on after work). I am looking forward to seeing the little ones, most of whom are under the age of 4, toddling around in their costumes. They will be travelling from desk to desk, trick-or-treating and for this we will be given some candy to pass out. I had to tell operations though that they had best not leave me in charge of a bag of candy. This is because with regards to candy, unlike most other things in my life, I have no self control. Restaurant desserts rarely entice me. I am not a fiend for cake or baked goods. I have eaten enough leftover wedding cake from my parents' restaurant to never be tempted by a bakery cake. Give me a good chocolate bar or a bagful of gummy candy any day.

          When I received gifts of candy in college, I would ask my roommates to please hide them in their rooms someplace. Each evening after dinner I would be allotted one chocolate covered cherry or three Hershey Kisses. Left to my own devices, I would eat an entire bag or box and feel surprisingly very little guilt.

          This is surely hereditary. As a first time trick-or-treater, in my blissful ignorance I left my Halloween candy out on the dining room table for a day and a half before I discovered that my stash was diminishing. In an incident that has now become infamous, I came into the kitchen crying that I had "lost my treats". It was at this point that my mother had to tell me that I had not lost them, but that my father had eaten them. That's right. He could not even keep himself from eating his toddler's candy. He still refers to it as 'the first loss of innocence'.

          For this reason, we have not been a family that keeps a lot of candy or dessert in the house. My mother has made a small career of hiding these rare sweets from my father. My personal favorite was the time we heard him yell from the freezer: "Who put this big fish in front of the ice cream?!" (He has been known to eat an entire half gallon in one sitting). Even in recent years he has told me to keep my holiday gifts of candy hidden in my room someplace because he knows he will not go looking in there. If you do not know my father, you are probably picturing an obese man. It is only because of his exercise and hiking regime that he manages to stay trim.

          For me, it is hard to know if it is pure heredity or if there is also this little thing of mystique and deprivation involved. My mother was convinced that not giving us a taste of candy would be the solution to the problem. For several years on Easter we were given stuffed bunnies and plastic Easter eggs instead of candy. One year I received a rocking chair. The first year my mom put white chocolate bunnies in our baskets my brother asked if it was soap. As a chocolate lover, my father was ashamed, but reportedly, I knew just what to do with it and immediately bit off its ear. A babysitter of mine only recently divulged that one time she gave me a piece of chocolate while my parents were away. After one bite I said "Reenie, what is this? It's gooooood."

          And it's been downhill ever since. My mother also would not let me eat fruit roll-ups as a child because "they are bad for your teeth". In sixth grade I paid a girl in my class 25 cents every day for the single fruit roll-up that her parents packed in her lunch. She made bank because I was a desperate addict in need of a fix. When I went off to college, my first inclination was not to go out and get a bunch of booze but to buy an enormous case of fruit roll-ups. When I was an exchange student in England as a teenager I managed to survive on chocolate bars alone since nothing my host-mother prepared was edible. On my semester abroad in Rome, many times my roommates would watch me run screaming from the apartment to buy candy because it was 7:45 and the tabacchis were about to close. Nutella? I eat it plain with a spoon.

          So this morning, when they came and passed out bags of treats for the kids, my co-worker took my share and put them in her drawer out of my reach.

La Stupenda

          Dame Joan Sutherland passed away this week at the age of 83. My first exposure to her singing was when my great- aunt Josephine was staying with us while my parents were away for the weekend.

          Aunt Jo was a rabid opera fan. She even claimed that we were descendants of Richard Wagner because her mother, (my German great-grandmother), had both the maiden name Wagner as well as "Cosima Wagner's nose". Very few members of this side of the family avoided this particular genetic trait. If you ever heard them in a round of "Happy Birthday", however, you might disagree with her assumption about our famous lineage.

          At any rate, what she lacked in musical ear, Aunt Jo made up for in musical enthusiasm. One of the activities she had planned for our weekend was a viewing her video of Sutherland and Pavarotti in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met, (which was coincidentally filmed on November 9th, 1982, the day I was born). Why Lucia occurred to my Aunt Jo as a logical opera choice for a 12 and 14 year old, I am not sure. Perhaps she thought the violent spectacle a selling point. I think she was right. For those who don't know the plot, Lucia, a young Scottish woman, is forbidden to marry her lover because he comes from a rival family. She is forced to marry another man and on her wedding night, murders him in a fit of madness, comes downstairs where the wedding ball is still taking place, and sings the aria featured here. I recall upon my first viewing being quite stunned at the blood on her nightgown contrasted with her bird-like embellishments.

          I have since sung in the chorus of the opera and I still find the drama compelling. I am usually more interested in studying composers over singers, but no one I have ever heard has sung with such a rich sound and facilitated the extreme high notes with such ease and perfection. It was because of Joan Sutherland that Lucia di Lammermoor was even revived outside of Europe. In 1959 when she sang her US premiere in the opera, it was rarely being performed.

          For me, it wasn't until college that my voice teacher loaned me several rare recordings of Sutherland and I was hooked. I am aware that she is not exactly a consummate actress like Callas and that her diction suffered when she was coached by her husband for a more Italianate legato. For sheer beauty of tone and technical proficiency though she is impossible to beat. As one of my college professors said: "Sutherland is often criticized for sounding like she has marbles in her mouth... but I would put marbles in my mouth to sound like that." On top of that, she is kind of an underdog success story. In her autobiography she wrote of being a gawky and awkward young woman who bloomed into a world-renowned diva. She was also very involved in the founding of the Sydney Opera House, which the Times obituary neglected to mention, (but I shall not get carried away with my letters to the editor).

          This clip is of the mad scene from that Met recording in 1982. Dame Joan will be remembered for her stunning, ethereal and often breathtaking talent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8wfKvN1zdU&feature=related

          So the bride wore red.

To the Editor of "Classical Singer" Magazine

Dear Editor:

          I was very disappointed with this month's "The $50 Week" installment about Boston. It appears Giovetti believes that New York is far superior, but if one were forced to spend any time in Boston, it might be acceptable. I am not sure just what she means by saying that Boston has less to offer than New York "in terms of pedestrian culture". Most consider Boston to be a very walkable city. If she means that you are less likely to run into exhibitionist hobos on the streets of Boston, then she is probably correct. As a proud Boston resident, I found the article biased and poorly researched.

          Giovetti expatiates on possible deals at a couple of tourist traps like The Barking Crab. If you are here for a tourist vacation you could instead catch some real local culture and get a bowl of very filling clam chowder for $5.95 at the Union Oyster House. It is the oldest restaurant in the U.S. and has a decidedly more authentic vibe. In general though, the article seemed geared toward singers who may either be auditioning or studying in Boston. Espresso Royale Cafe, Boloco or Woody's Pizza are all locally run businesses located near Symphony Hall and would be more accessible options for an inexpensive lunch. I doubt that anyone in New York would advise singers on a budget to dine in Times Square for the weekend.

          I would encourage any young singer to spend more than a weekend here though. Boston does offer a wealth of early music, (highlights neglected in the article include Boston Baroque and the Boston Early Music Festival). I appreciate Giovetti's mention of the very impressive seasons of Opera Boston and the BSO, but Boston also offers a rich community of opera companies for young singers, including Boston Opera Collaborative, MetroWest Opera, Opera Del West, Diva Day Foundation and OperaHub, as well as venues for new music such as Guerilla Opera, Juventas New Music Ensemble and Callithumpian Consort. New England Conservatory offers not only free student performances but First Mondays at Jordan Hall also feature faculty and other professional musicians. Offered the first Monday of every month during the school year, these are also all free.

          For a lower cost of living than New York, in a place that still sees a lot of auditions, both local and regional, Boston is a great supportive environment for the young singer. And for those YAP auditions that require New York travel, we are only a Fung-Wah away. Ms. Giovetti should save her disdain for more New York- centric publications.

Sincerely,
Katrina Holden

You're a good man Charlie Brown.

          When I was about four years old I was a happy afternoon student at Cabbage Hill Nursery Hill. One day after my brother had been sent off to school, my mother had to run some sort of errand, leaving me with my father for the morning. I remember going into the kitchen and asking my dad what I would be wearing to school that day. Now, to explain another of my mother's idiosyncrasies, we kept clothing in the dishwasher. My mother does not believe in dishwashers. Yes, you read that correctly, she actually believes they do not get things "clean enough" and that washing 30 dishes after company is really no big deal compared to 300 at the restaurant. She takes such an active offense to dishwashers that she has actually since removed the one in our kitchen. At this point though, she used it to hold our underwear, undershirts, socks, etc. The bulk of our daily wear was actually kept in the bedrooms but it occurs to me that my dad probably did not know this fact, and is the possible reason he did not leave the kitchen all morning.

          When I asked what I would be wearing to school that day, Dad responded: "I don't know. Pick something out." I went to my room and decided that I would wear my light blue Snoopy sweatsuit. It featured Snoopy and Woodstock and it was my favorite. I brought my Snoopy sweatsuit out to the kitchen, knowing I had made a most excellent choice. I held it out to my dad proudly. "You can dress yourself. You're a big girl".

          Dress myself?! I have never dressed myself! Mom always dresses me! It was clear though that I was in fact a big girl and that my dad was going to sit there with his coffee reading his paper. I had best try. I remember distinctly that a fair amount of wriggling and writhing on the floor was necessary to get my sweatpants on. In between pleading glances up to my dad, still reading the paper, eventually success was mine. When we were leaving and my dad neglected to get out the hairbrush I considered myself lucky. I dreaded the daily procedure when my mom would flip my head over and go at the knots with the kind of swiftness she used to put out grease fires (yes, I've seen it happen a couple of times).

          When I arrived at school that afternoon, I noticed that everyone looked nice- nicer than usual. Julie was wearing a headband and Allegra was wearing a dress. Sitting in our circle, even the boys were primping their bowties. That was when Miss Ginny announced "Why does everyone look so nice today? It's picture day!"

          My nursery school "graduation" picture remains one of the more disheveled of my photographic history.

Dramatic Readings of the Anthropologie Catalogue

Let me just head out to my bed in the barn 

          For as long as I have known of the existence of the store Anthropologie, I have been in love. The closest one to my hometown was nearly an hour away but when I discovered it in high school there was no turning back. The coincidence of running into my elementary school art teacher there only solidified it in my mind as the end-all of beautiful and artistic living. Mrs. Acheson with her sunflower hats and beautifully messy classroom was perusing the displays. She was known for having created my school’s annual ArtFest and when the Fire Department limited her to only 20% of the school hall’s wall space for hanging art, she protested through symbolic hanging artwork of course. On the particular day that my friends and I ran into her in Anthropologie she cried out: “Don’t you just love this place?!” Oh, I do.

          The admirable aesthetic of the slovenly but inspiring art studio on one level conflicts with my fantasy world where I have very little need for material possessions at all and live the Bohemian life with only my toothbrush and a piano. In this particular dream my place of residence would look something like the Joni Mitchell lyric: “Maybe I’ll go to Amsterdam or maybe I’ll go to Rome and rent me a grand piano and put some flowers round my room.” It’s the simplicity of the space and the idea of casual temporary abandon that makes this world so appealing. In my version of this fantasy though I cannot help but envision a beautiful throw on the piano and maybe some exotic pillows. This involves a larger suitcase than the song implies I think. This is the paradox of a place like Anthropologie. It lies somewhere between the covered walls of Mrs. Acheson’s art room and the disdain for all things material. In fact, a Times article from a few years ago (that my mother sent me in the mail), described Anthropologie’s view of its typical patron as a “well-educated woman in her thirties who is not very materialistic.” Well I am not in my thirties yet, but I’ve been told I have an old soul.

          Only hole-in-the-wall boutiques and vintage stores hold a closer place in my heart over Anthropologie. While I tend not to like the idea of chains when there is local business to patronize, it is my absolute favorite chain. The merchandise is generally vastly out my price range and if I make a purchase it is inevitably from the sale section. I just think the displays are so brilliant that I wish I had enough square footage to justify the installment of rotating seasonal artwork in my home. Since eight foot peacocks made out of vintage book pages would not actually fit in my apartment I have to settle for viewing this season’s latest creation on Boylston St in Boston’s Back Bay.

          This weekend, on a rare evening when a few friends and I were able to go out on the town, we were surprised to find that Anthropologie was still open after dinner. We were delighted and took a stroll through.

          It hardly needs mentioning that I run with a crowd of opera singers who are as excited as I am to see beautiful hardcover copies of Wuthering Heights and bright 40’s style floral blazers. Generally we are not quiet about it either. They appeared to be closing up when we finally left that evening.

          After getting a drink down the street we were preparing to depart via our various modes of transportation when we passed by Anthropologie again only to find that it appeared to still be open and it was past 11:00. It was then that we realized that one of their giant wooden doors had fallen off the hinges and was strewn across the sidewalk. The sales associate standing in the doorway told us that no one was seriously hurt and that she was waiting for the repairman. When we asked her when it happened she looked right at us and said “Right after you left.” It wasn’t our fault, I swear, but we’d obviously made an impression.

          To most people the approach of fall signifies the harvest, that crispness in the air, perhaps the start of another school year and the breaking out of one’s cozy sweaters for walks through the foliage. For young classical singers, it marks the ensuing madness of audition season. Specifically, this means applications, letters of recommendation, headshot prints, extra coachings and recordings. For Boston singers this means a few local auditions combined with several bus rides New York or perhaps some other distant city where you are randomly granted an audition.

          The process works like this. The majority of all auditions for Young Artist Programs (or YAP’s) take place from November to December. Most of these are for summer seasons, but some are year-long appointments. These are mostly companies designated for young people or apprenticeship programs for larger companies. One could do a small role (known as a comprimario role), a large role, a cover (understudy) or you could end up doing educational outreach for a company in local schools. With any luck one would get a substantial role, a living stipend and a solo recital in a concert series. These auditions are for opera houses located throughout the States. Most travel to hear young artists in New York and Boston, so after all your hard-earned preparation you could end up spending anywhere from 2 months to a year in Binghamton or Des Moines. This does not deter us. We go where the opera is. I know that it is a tad strange that someone who has a Masters degree in the field and who is pushing 30 years old would be considered a “young artist”, but this is the way the opera world works. If I were a dancer, my career would be over, but as an opera singer, there is still much training and experience to be had to take on the large roles and hundreds of sopranos like myself who want a piece of the action.

          Two separate people have asked myself and a friend if we get paid to audition. These were both people at our respective day jobs. We each had to explain that if we got paid to audition we would not need our day jobs. I secretly wondered where they thought this mysterious money was coming from. There is not actually a government fund set aside to encourage singers to compete for paying gigs. On the contrary, we pay quite a bit to audition.

Headshots: $300

Headshot prints updated yearly: $100

Recording: $150

Pianist for recording: $50

Applications fees (!): $35-50

Audition dress: $100

Travel to auditions: Anywhere from $50-100

Knowing that all your year’s work culminates in the span of a month: Priceless

          Yes, you pay to apply and this does not guarantee you an audition time. This list does not even include the lessons and coachings for which we shell out year-round to prepare our ideal 5-aria package for the season. We expect to pay over a thousand each fall just for audition expenses. There are grants available of course, but perhaps if there were more government funding for outreach and arts education there would be more opportunities for singers. It is for this reason that many American singers end up in Germany and Austria. There are just more opera houses and government subsidies.

          There are other particular challenges involved with the audition season, like having to sing an aria in which you are portraying a queen, all while pretending you did not just ride the Fung-Wah and sleep on the floor of your friend’s tiny Manhattan apartment. Also, there is that small thing of being in the thick of it all and having to face cocktail conversation with singers who may have sent out more applications or are being granted more auditions than you. It’s like college applications all over again… every year. You can smell the anxiety as early as August.






I know that the whole process confuses the general public. My parents, for example, seem to forget about it every year. It has taken several fall seasons for them to understand why I suddenly become so stressed and broke. I am sure that they get it now though. I know because my dad has said really helpful things like “You know Kate, you won’t be considered a young artist forever”. Without my prompting he has figured out that I only have a few more years to get into one of these prestigious positions. I am writing this not only to fill in the non-singers about our routine, but also to hold myself accountable. I am declaring in the view of my blog-reading public that I will again send out 20 some odd applications to programs this year.






"No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing."


~T.S. Eliot

Crazy Love

          This past weekend was the big event: Emma and Adam’s wedding extravaganza.

          Let me preface this by saying that I have attended, served at, and sung in an absurd amount of wedding celebrations. Between waitressing at my parents’ banquet facility and church cantoring I have been witness to at least part of literally hundreds of weddings. I have also been a guest many times, as well as flower girl and junior bridesmaid. I have attended dozens of weddings for family members and my parents’ large roster of family friends. A few years ago I entered a phase where it was obvious that I was not at the top of the wedding guest list, but rather, I had been invited mostly to sing. While I don’t always mind being the entertainment I have since invented a little game called “Drink until they are interesting”. At one such celebration where I was singing but knew hardly any of the guests, I was seated at a table of 30-something strangers. The gentleman next to me told me that he worked for Atkins but gave me his permission to eat bread because it was “a wedding and all”. After unabashedly chewing down the rest of my roll, I decided that every time someone said something uninteresting I would take a sip of my wine. By the end of the night I was shit-faced.

          But this particular affair was different. Aside from the nuptials having all the things I love and none of the things I hate in a wedding, (no head table, no garter toss, no electric slide, etc.), this was the first time I attended such a close friend’s wedding. Emma and I have been friends for 20 years.

          Having a large to-do list last week was preventing me from truly mentally registering the fact that Emma was becoming Sadie, Sadie Married Lady. I had to pour over my Dvorak score for rehearsals that started this week, take my car to the shop and various other errands. So with a basic level of Czech-singing proficiency I got in the car and Brendan and I declared that we had “done all the things!” (see: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/) and headed down to CT. After several hurried visits with family and friends and the rehearsal dinner on Friday, followed by preoccupation with leaving the boyfriend with my parents for so many hours, on Saturday I headed to the hotel salon for my hair appointment with the bridal party followed by makeup and general beautification. Then, even though I had been with my friends and the bride for six hours, it seemed that I blinked and everything was happening. With all the focus on preparation and seeing the location for the first time, I had forgotten about the spiritual side of the event. I completely forgot to register that Emma was going to be a wife and have a husband!

          Suddenly we were dressed and sitting in a room witnessing the signing of the Ketubah. With the exception of one of Emma’s sisters-in-law, I was the only gentile bridesmaid. Growing up in my town in CT, this is completely normal territory for me, but I was not expecting the flood of emotion that would ensue during this ritual, which I had never been privy to, when I had thought we would have more free time before the actual ceremony. And then my friends told me “Wait until the lowering of the veil”. They were right. The rabbi quoted a few Biblical references on the significance of the veil. The heavy Biblical connotations conjured up solemn images of nervous Old World brides in candlelit synagogues leaving the homes of their parents. This combined with the sweetness with which Adam aggressively fumbled with his intended’s veil proved to be too much for me. My friend Erica said to Brendan at the reception: “Did Katie tell you she was crying during the Jewish ceremony?”

          All in all though, the public ceremony was a beautiful scene too. It was on the water with a pink sky overhead. I even remembered all of the words to the verses of “Crazy Love” by Van Morrison for the first dance. This was one wedding at which I was more than happy to sing. There was an outpouring of several toasts, hours of dancing and an ice cream sundae bar. For his patience with all of us high school buddies Brendan was universally acknowledged as a “mensch”. This shiksa was all verklempt.

Czech it out

          If you are wondering where I have gone, let me assure you that I will return to the blogging shortly. I am just temporarily submerged in my Dvorak opera score and a sea of Czech diction tomes. I wanted to look up "Wish me luck" in Czech, but at this point that would take me an extra 40 minutes, because Czech is just so damned foreign and my brain is mush.

Letters from Mom Part 2:

Dear, Dear Kate,


I bought a new purple, sparkly pen. Isn’t it pretty?


Love,
Mom

Covers that are better than the original

      
I defy you to tell me that this isn’t beautiful:

They's so fresh and fine/ I loves you Porgy

          This is so incredibly lush with that piano line and the orchestration that it makes me ill. From what I can understand with my limited knowledge of Porgy and Bess, the opera from which this originates, the first section of this particular version is extracted from what the strawberry vendor sings in an opening scene that takes place in a market. The rest is Gershwin’s beautiful “I loves you Porgy”. But this version is infinitely more romantic than the original setting. I want to say that it was originally Billie Holiday who did a more pared down, ballad-like rendition of the tune, but I’m not sure. The aria, as written for the opera is actually uptempo and is affective in a pleading way. But I think Nina Simone’s several renditions are simply the ultimate.

          That dark, smooth timbre she gets when she sings that first “Don’t let him take me” continues to change my life everyday. That combined with some of her quirky spliced sounds in the intro, makes the whole color scheme quite admirable. This is something I am striving always to do more of in opera, to enhance the color contrasts of every section of every piece. Brava Nina.

          You might even say, as I am inclined to: It rips my heart out of my ass.

A wicked good time

          If you are wondering in suspense how I did at the company outing, I did not, in fact trip and fall on my face or lose the final point for my team. The theme this year was a “Townie tour of Boston”. So we were shipped in vans to various points of the city, including Revere Beach, Bunker Hill, Castle Island and finally the Aquarium and the waterfront Marriot Residence Inn for dinner and dancing (and drinking). At each point there were two challenges presented: a team challenge and then a personal challenge, for a representative from each team. Highlights of the challenges included a potato sack race, a marshmallow shooting contest and “Pin the speedo on the guido” (Revere Beach). We drew numbers at the beginning of the day and when my number came up at the penultimate personal challenge, lo and behold, I was told I had to sing an Irish ditty while wearing a pot-of-gold costume. I felt pretty lucky. I chose "Oh Danny Boy" and apparently, my performance kept my team from losing completely. We came in 4th out of 6 teams.

          Aside from the team awards, they were giving away Flip video cameras for personal categories such as “Best team spirit” and “Best competitor overall”. I felt sure that I would win the award for “Best performance”. Sadly, it went to Ed Flynn for his stunning display of ramen-noodle-mouth-exodus during the eating contest. Alas. Ed may have taken my victory in the form of a swanky piece of technological equipment but I walked away with the knowledge that my athletic retardation was not put on display. Ok, I still would have liked that camera.

This link is not for the faint-hearted:http://blog.mmbinteractive.com/2010/08/immortalized/

Wear sneakers and bring a change of underwear

          Tomorrow is our company’s annual outing. I have been looking forward to it with a certain amount of dread. The events of the day are a super-secret surprise but we have been told to wear comfortable clothes and sneakers. I have received a T-shirt to wear. It indicates that I am on the blue team. This frightens me because of the obvious threat of athletic games. Someone at work asked me if I didn’t care for athletics or if I weren't good at them. I told her that I don’t like them because I am not good at them. I have very poor hand-eye coordination and running gives me a painful, dry feeling in my esophagus. I fear people seeing me all day involved in competitive sports because, as my college roommates liked to remind me, I “run funny”. Also, I have poor reflexes. You can ask my friend Avi who takes delight in throwing things like Nerf balls at my face in public to prove the fact further. Events like this tend to remind me of how I was always picked last in gym class in elementary school and of how I was again picked last when I was a camp counselor for staff dodge-ball… at the age of twenty. (I was on the music staff). My fear of being the Woody Allen of the company is so palpable that my colleagues who have been here longer have assured me that there will most likely be trivia portions of the day and/or a scavenger hunt.

          This is the one time I regret not still working in the suburbs where the people of my company were generally older and larger. At last year’s company outing I played several rounds of Bingo, painted a piece of pottery, and laid in the sun for an hour while HR panicked at our having run out of activities. My hydrangea bowl garnered the attention of all the middle-aged ladies of the company and when it returned from the kiln, there was a high amount of viewing traffic at my desk. But now I work with people with actual degrees in art so even if we have a similar component I will be screwed. Can’t there be a “Singing 19th century German art song” portion of the day?

          It seems that all those lectures on how to throw and catch after day camp have only produced more anxiety. My dad would practice with me and analyze my every sports-related endeavor, as Dads will do. But my complete disdain for any problem that could not be solved intuitively ultimately got in the way of my success on the field. (See also: math and my inability to add. But that’s another blogpost for another day). I recall enjoying “Woodbridge Recreation” when I was younger. But the older we got, the more sports started to replace arts and crafts activities. I have a lot of memories surrounding the dropping of balls and skinning of knees and the ensuing humiliation and fighting back of tears. I do also remember however, that on my last day of camp for the summer one year, after many weeks of failure in the outfield of tennis-racket-baseball, I finally caught a fly ball. I remember the exhilaration of winning that game and the feeling of finally having my teammates' support and approval after a summer-long struggle with my coordination. The next day I told my parents that I did not wish to return to Woodbridge Rec anymore. Even at age eleven I knew to exit on a high note. I just didn’t think that at twenty-seven I would have to worry about this particular brand of performance anxiety anymore. I still have to find my only pair of sneakers. Wish me luck tomorrow.

Letters from Mom: Part 1

 My plan is to make this an episodic series. 

The following is an actual letter from my mother circa 2002:


  Dear Kate,


     I’m so glad you are such a fine speller. My spelling has deteriorated.


   Love,
   Mom

It's a bad sign when you are puking before the bachelorette...

          Two weekends ago we celebrated my dear friend Emma’s bridal shower. From a feminist standpoint I think that showers are slightly lame. Why should we need to separate ourselves into genders in this unnatural way to ooo and ahh over a bunch of kitchen items as though modern women still have to learn to cook for their husbands? That was certainly not the case in my household growing up. Everyone knew how to pour their own bowl of cereal-dinner. But Emma put it well herself. She said: “I’m just looking forward to a day when all of the important women in my life meet and are altogether.” This I understand. Who would not want the support of all of one’s women role models to meet and encourage you in this next big step in life? And for us from my still-tight circle of friends from growing up in Connecticut, Emma is our first friend to move to this big step so we, of course were very excited to celebrate as well. And of course, there’s that little detail of her choice of groom. Not only is he a nice guy, but a graduate of Yale medical school. He is also an accomplished guitarist with an MBA he decided to get for fun. Way to go for such an underachiever, Em. But we would expect nothing less for our Columbia educated friend from childhood, even if he is a Yankees fan.

          I have neglected to include a crucial detail in this exposition about the bridal shower. My mother was throwing it. It was her idea, in fact, almost a year ago. She has known Emma since she was six years old after all. Well, I hardly need tell you that she went into this process with all the casualness of a seasoned professional in the catering business, (which she actually was for over 20 years) and the grace of a modern-day Emily Post. But of course the week of the shower, she was calling me every few hours to obsess about the minutia of the menu, the décor and the possible games we might play (I managed to talk her out of that one). But she wanted to make it special for Emma. Emma’s place setting was displayed for all to see and of course there was a mannequin festooned in a white dress in the foyer to greet us. There was a crepe paper “Trail of Emma” featuring pictures of her from babyhood and beyond. And there was a mimosa bar and enough delicious food to feed the cast of Nabucco, (obscure opera joke, haha). Overall it was a great success. There was an outpouring of love and support from both the bride and groom’s sides, with poems being read and enough humorous diversions to make the gift-opening interesting. And this couple actually needed their gifts because they had just become homeowners the day before. Apparently, there was one discrepancy in the registry. According to her fiancé, Emma has registered for about 17 different kinds of bowls. To this I say, why not? Bowls are perfect for cereal-dinner.

          Fast forward a week to this past weekend, which, from my perspective, was slightly more eventful. While en route to the bachelorette in Manhattan, I stayed Friday night at my parents’ house again where we had celebratory cannolis for my mother’s birthday. At 3am I became violently ill. I am, of course, perfectly capable of vomiting on my own without any assistance, and would never wake up my roommate in the middle of the night to notify her of the occurrence. Apparently the vicinity of my parents’ bedroom made it impossible for me to act like an adult. I immediately banged on their door to tell them that I was retching all over their new bathroom. My dad was not too keen on the update. “Why did you wake us up?” he said. “Because I’m throwing up!” I cried, as if it were the most plainly obvious thing in the world. My mother asked no questions and wasted no time in arranging a bucket near my bed. She then said “Gee Kate, you’ve got to get better. You have to go to New York tomorrow.” Thanks. That thought had not occurred to me. I did not need the bed bucket, but it was nice to know it was there.

          Mom and I both had tricky stomachs the next morning and we attribute it to our questionable cannolis. But a few acidophilus tablets later, I was on the train to New York and having a wonderful time.

          I can’t help but be reminded of the only other time I have had food poisoning, which was in October of this year and also involved Emma’s wedding preparations. Emma was visiting me up in Boston and while arranging plans to go out on the town for the evening I came down with a debilitating stomachache. But I was trying to rally. I was no slouch of a hostess and we were going to go out and have fun! After several rounds of anise seeds, ginger ale and pepto, it was clear that I was not going out. When my boyfriend (also our ride for the evening) showed up, I was failing to stand at anything more than a 45 degree angle and was told to get back in bed. So there I was in the fetal position on my bed when Emma said, “I was going to buy you a drink and ask you officially to be my bridesmaid”. “This is better,” I replied, laughing. Emma said that every time she rolled over on my couch that night, she could hear me throwing up. It was one of the more amazing marathons of stomach illness she and I have ever been privy to. Although the bout of this last weekend was nothing compared to that of the fall’s, with the wedding approaching in September, I should probably start popping the acidophilus now.

Orange you glad I'm explaining this?

          I have a life-long pathological fear of orange. This does not include the color orange. This has to do with the smell and flavor of the actual fruit. I do not feel the same aversion to lemons and grapefruit. This aversion does include oranges, orange juice, tangerines, mandarins, clementines, orange soda, orangina, orange tang, orange scented candles, orange scented sunscreen (that was an unfortunate error), and fake orange flavor or any kind, including orange flavored candy. This does not mean orange colored candy. I am not prejudiced to the color and would not pass up an orange M&M, (I think I am a basically rational person). It is just the smell that makes me physically ill. For example, if someone opens an orange on the bus I am riding I will do my best to relocate while trying not to look like the village crazy.

          I know how to write about this because I know what the typical questions will be. “Are you afraid of all citrus?” No. “What about the color?” No. “What about tangerines?” Yes, tangerines. Yes orange skittles! Yes orange furniture polish!! Yes orange scented anything!!! I have spent more time in movie theaters trying to separate the orange sour patch kids from my bag in the dark than I have watching the actual movies. In elementary school I was infamous for this fear. Kids would chase me around the cafeteria with open oranges. My friends are hip to my orange challenges. In very recent history a friend of mine knocked over a beer glass trying to reach and remove an orange from the glass I had just been served, while screaming "Noooooo!!!" all the way. My mother remembers that I have always disliked oranges and orange juice, but she is not blessed with the long-term memory of an elephant. It is more likely that I had some kind of traumatic experience with oranges. I recently, and for the first time, heard of someone with the same fear of oranges and it had to do with his being ill after some spoiled orange juice. I would guess that it was a similar trigger in my case, but I remember no such event. According to my brother’s memory, one day when I was two years old, I put down my glass of orange juice and said; “Orange juice is for big girls and I’m a little girl,” and never touched the stuff again. Perhaps it has to do with a deep psychological fear of growing up. But, to be honest I doubt it. It probably made me queasy one day before that for whatever reason and that was it. And as Darwin would say, my aversion is in some way necessary for my continued survival. Perhaps I just saw The Godfather at a very young age. Every time you see an orange in those movies someone gets shot or has a heart attack.

          If I had to explain it further, I will say that I reasonably understand that lemons and oranges have a similar bouquet and I understand that it’s strange that I love the flavor of lemon. What’s better than a lemon meringue pie or a cold, fresh squeezed lemonade in the summer? I am told by many how refreshing the scent of an orange is to them. The difference between lemmons and oranges to me is equivalent to the flavor of something good and fresh versus something rotten. As an example, at my old workplace, we had a genius in the kitchen. Julie’s lunch was the highlight of my day back when I worked in the suburbs and there were certain salads and entrées I always looked forward to. One day she was on vacation and the substitute chef decided to jazz up a cranberry dressing with a dash of orange flavor. My first ignorant reaction to the change in flavor was to yell that the chicken on the salad had gone bad. To me, it tasted rotten. No one else complained and upon further examination I realized that it was just the addition of some orange pulp. I could not continue to eat it.

          I have had a few small triumphs over my fear. My new job requires me to prepare juice and coffee for meetings and I have managed to pour out leftover orange juice into the sink without complaint. But my greatest triumph yet is that I was told of an orange clogging the garbage disposal and was still able to flick the disposal switch and churn the smell all over the kitchen so as to investigate. So I gagged a little in the process? I still see it as a triumph, however small. But I have to say that the day my job requires me to eat, lick, or for too prolonged a time, smell an orange, that will be my last day at the job.

Sleeping, a Twisted Love Triangle

          It is probably normal for most people to feel sleepy throughout the day and actually fall asleep. For my own part, however, to my recollection, (illness notwithstanding), I have never casually fallen asleep. To my recollection, I have never once even fallen asleep sitting up. I have never had the experience of feeling so sleepy while driving that I thought I might konk out and cause an accident. I have never slept for more than 15 minutes on a plane. I will nod in agreement each time my father gives me the “try to sleep on the red-eye” speech and I will agree wholeheartedly that that is the best way to prevent jet-lag. I will even try in earnest to catch a few hours rest but I usually fall asleep about 5 minutes before the flight attendants turn on the lights to serve breakfast.

          I need every condition to be right and then maybe, just maybe, I will fall asleep within a half hour. I am generally a fairly anal expulsive person, but my bed is a whole other thing. My bedtime persona I like to affectionately call, “Crazy-Sleeper-Lady”. I like two medium-sized pillows under my head, one pillow under each elbow to keep from wrenching them in my sleep and one between my knees. I like my covers to be folded over at the top and the topsheet folded on top of that. When I am an overnight guest and am asked if the couch or the floor is fine, the answer is yes. They are fine because I will most likely sleep as badly on your couch or floor as I will in your guestbed. You could put me in a bureau drawer for all I care. “Which came first?”you say- the inability to fall asleep or the high maintenance stipulations surrounding it? It is hard to say but I am inclined to think it is based on my body’s natural tendency toward wakefulness in the evening.

          My uncle told me that my sleeping habits would start to change now that I was out of college. My Dad had to step in and say that this was unlikely, considering that my sleeping habits have been consistently that of a college students’ since birth. I have always been inclined to stay up and sleep in. My mother says that she did not sleep for two years after I was born, so difficult was the struggle to lull me to sleep. And my babysitters reported that they would hear me singing and talking to myself for at least a half hour after putting me to bed (actually, I was performing my own show- it was called, creatively: “The Katie Show”, but I digress…)

          The other day I read a lovely little essay on the sheer beauty and delight of the nap. It is entitled “Napping, a Love Story” by Cathleen Schine. In contrast to the many medical research snippets on the subject of napping the author has found, this meditation contains blissful descriptions of filtered window light accompanying a peaceful mid-day respose. To Schine, there is something wonderful about when you are “overcome with fatigue and stumble back to bed where the sheets and the pillowcase have become especially cool and inviting." I thought this article interesting and beautifully written. But let me be clear, as far as naps go, I could not feel more differently. On the rare occasion when I have been in perfectly sound health and have submitted to the calls of a mid-day nap, I have awoken nothing short of a homicidal maniac. When I come to, I have a headache, a disconnected head-body feeling, and a sour taste in the back of my throat which no amount of gagging myself with a toothbrush can eradicate. I will slump into the nearest room and irrationally blame my current feelings on the person and/or people in it who “let me sleep”. (Surely, I could not have done this to myself). In studies, there is some evidence that naps are most effective in 20-40 minute stints and no more than that. For this reason, my boyfriend and all of my roommates, past and present know that if they stumble upon me napping they are to attempt to wake me to save me from angry-lunatic-yelling-obscenities state. If I ask someone to please wake me up in no longer than 40 minutes, it usually works out well because when they knock on my door 40 minutes later, I have probably just fallen asleep five minutes earlier.

          All of this comes to mind because this past week was exceptional from a sleeping standpoint. Last Thursday, I fell immediately into an almost fitful stupor of fatigue and heavy breathing the moment my head hit the pillow at night. So strange was the occurrence and poignant the sensory memory that I said to my friends “No, you don’t understand, I went to bed and then a second later, I fell asleep!” as though they too must surely recognize this in themselves as an absurd occurrence. Most remained unmoved. Then over the weekend while visiting college friends I actually fell asleep twice on the couch while being spoken to! The last thing I remember hearing were my friends, who lived with me for 3 years, exclaiming: “Is she actually sleeping?!” And I woke up at 8:00 one morning of my own volition! (I have always been inclined to think that the morning was made for sleeping and will gladly retort this to those who try to convince me otherwise anytime before 10am). I assumed I must be coming down with something because the last time I remember spontaneous sleep like this occurring was during a three hour German class. The class itself was not enough to put me out, but rather; it was the combination of it with strep throat. So, when several days ago, no symptoms of an infection were showing up, I actually started to worry. Could it be that my natural clock is changing as my uncle suggested it would or do I have some sort of terminal illness? I had visions of trying to explain to my doctor that I had been sleeping easily lately so obviously there must be something wrong. As it turns out, several nights later than usual, a sore throat set in and it was clear that it had just been a longer than normal incubation period. Although I would have to rest my voice for a few inconvenient days, I was strangely comforted. After the virus’s duration I would return to my normal sleep dysfunction and all would be well.

Ode to my klutziness

          This morning, my supervisor told me the portable phone didn’t sound right and asked me if I had dropped it. My first thought was, “Today?”

          Of course I have dropped the damned thing… several times. It’s not like I am trying to damage company property and I am aware of the fragility of things like phones, but to know me is to know that I am basically responsible but uncoordinated. I don’t lose my keys or my debit card and I pay my credit card bills off every month, but I drop things. I trip over things and walk into things. It is not my desire to bump my elbows or to drop my toothbrush in the toilet but I do it all the time. I have a peculiar talent for toe-stubbing. I have mangled my toes and toenails in ways that I choose not to describe here. What amazes me about my klutziness is everyone’s ability to think that I have some sort of ability to turn it off.

          When my parents came to visit me during my semester abroad, we went to Prague for the weekend and stayed in a pretty swanky hotel with very modern décor with lots of glass. (You can see where this one is going.) One morning while on my way to meet my parents for continental breakfast, I walked head on into a glass wall. Then I had to do that awkward thing where I pretend that the entire breakfast room had not just seen me impale myself against a transparent surface. My dad had his back turned and when my mom explained what had happened he asked me: “What did you do that for? You could have hurt yourself.” Gee Dad, I don’t know. I thought it’d be fun!

It was awkward

          While missing the penchant-for-cleanliness gene, I have inherited the hospitality gene. I don’t own my own food business like many members of my family but I do love to host parties and I like to do it right. Memorable themes include “Swank and Crank”, “Fung-Wah Fabulous” and “Tree Huggers and Bone Thuggers”. And I host said parties with the knowledge that in the name of fun there are sometimes casualties. In my apartment I have had chairs broken, vomit spewed and other general debauchery. After a couple of shots at “Pie Fest”, my friend Sam smeared leftover pie all over his bare chest and then went looking in my closet for a “costume change”. He managed to find a dry-clean-only wrap that was the perfect accoutrement for his chocolate and cream covered body.

          None of these stories tops the now infamous incident surrounding my birthday this last November though. My friend Manu called ahead to ask if he could bring a few extra people up to the party from our favorite watering hole. I always say yes to requests of this kind, especially because Manu’s scientist friends get along with my singer friends. This is to say that the science crowd offers a high population of men, something opera singers find both foreign and delightful. On this particular evening there seemed to be a few stragglers who were not exactly the cream of the crop.

          Not being able to remember his name, I shall call him Boris, (Manu now refers to him as the drunk Russian). I do not doubt that Boris, like many of Manu's colleagues is a brilliant scientist who came here as an asset to our country's research. But Boris had a particular look about him that immediately gave one the sense of the amount of beer he had had that evening. He also had a particular smell which penetrated the room like a pile of wet onions in the sun. But all in a day’s party- everyone is welcome!

          It was clear that Boris’s condition kept him from checking his manners and I immediately began hearing reports from friends that there was a lot of uncomfortable leering going on. My friend Ellen told me that he’d been staring at her clavicle all evening. Boris approached my childhood friend Rita and introduced himself by asking what she did for a living. She replied that she was a research assistant in the department of psychiatry at Yale. With his prompting, she elaborated on the fact that she was currently working on an alcohol abuse study. Boris then asked if he could have her card because he thought he “may have a problem”. Let me be clear and say that Rita was not interested in receiving his attention in the first place but was being nice. It was clear though what Boris’s intention had been from the start and Rita and I were confused at the thought that while hitting on someone, it was a good idea to mention that you are a drunk.

          Well, Rita had to further explain that she was not actually a therapist and that she did not live in Boston. She lived in New Haven and worked mostly with PTSD patients. Boris would have none of this. He insisted on having her card because he was sure she could help him. Rita obliged and left to fetch her card, if only to escape the conversation.

          Moments later my boyfriend and Ellen would not let me enter my kitchen. There was a light in both of their eyes that said they knew something that I didn’t. “What’s going on?” I said. Brendan replied “nothing” a bit too readily. “My boob popped out and Brendan saw!” Ellen yelled. “It was awkward,” he jumped in dryly. Of course, I still did not believe them, but whatever had happened was not going to ruin my fun.

          Come to find out, Brendan and Ellen had walked into the kitchen at the same time only to find Boris passed out in my director’s chair after having wet himself. They were surprised that it was not just a trickle down his pants but a veritable ocean of urine surrounding him and the chair. Brendan and Ellen did not spring immediately into action to distract and cover up the evidence. Their first priority was to step out on the balcony so they could safely laugh until they cried. It took two friends to carry Boris out of the apartment, and two cabs to refuse to take him in their cars because he was marinating in his own piss. I think he was carried to the bottom of the hill where transportation was finally obtained. Apparently this is part of “his thing”. He has a tendency to lose bladder control in social settings. Yet another thing to endear you to members of the opposite sex Boris.

          Well, for the party I was none the wiser thanks to the efforts of my friends and I laughed as hard as anyone the next morning when Manu called yelling “I’m sooo sorry! He’s not really my friend! I should never have brought him!” I have laundered the director’s chair canvas since the incident but it does not stop most people from pausing before taking a seat and saying “Ok, right, you’ve washed it.”