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Thursday, July 3, 2014

Singing to My Own Tune

                              Me as a Freshman in High School                 


I am wasting the next 72 minutes of my life at the Secretary of State.  Why is waiting in a line for me the equivalent of a slow unpredictable death?  I hate lines.  I hate waiting.  Sometimes I just hate time itself.

I realize I'm a spoiled brat and I barely have to wait in line for anything in this life.  I know there are worse lines, like say the unemployment line or the line to try and get food if you are poor and hungry.  There is also like the line to get tickets to a Madonna concert, all pain is relative.

I also acknowledge there are worse things than waiting in line, especially when you want to break out into song.  OK I will admit that I secretly think I can sing, much like Madonna.   I can't.  I mean it's a factoid that I cannot carry a tune to save my life.  However sometimes, when you are like standing in line at the grocery store do you ever just want to break out into song and dance? (Come on Vogue!)

No?

Right...I would have gone into drama had the stars aligned differently.  I remember in fact when I was a freshman in high school and the drama class was full and I ended up taking journalism instead.  I was so pissed.  I remember this very weird "spiritual" woman who carried a doll of her guru around told me, "If it's meant to be it will happen."  Well it turns out that weirdo was right.

OK I have to tell you this story.  Picture it: Troy High School, 1991.  So I'm a freshman in high school.  I decide that not only am I going to try out for the play "Oklahoma" but I am going to try out for the main lead part.  I had never acted, never sang, and had never seen "Oklahoma."  

I was part idiot, part naive, and just young and stupid.  So I go to the audition and start singing one of the main songs of the play.  The thing is I couldn't read music.  I MADE UP A TUNE.  You heard me, I made up my own tune for the song.  

So the director stops me midway as I'm singing in my soprano voice, cracking and just making a complete ass of myself.  He stops me for a second and simply asks:  Which song are you singing?

Yep you heard it here, I was so bad that he couldn't make out the song, the words, and he could not follow my homemade tune.  Then I tried the dance steps, I was never very coordinated let's be honest.  I couldn't keep up with the instructor and bumped into a couple people.

It was literally a shit show.  I had no idea what people in the theater were saying about me but they must have had a good laugh.  I mean if there was YouTube at the time, my audition would have gone viral.  

So I didn't really miss my calling in theater.  Although I truly believe I can act secretly.  And if you know me in real life you may have seen a dramatic monologue or two.  

However instead I'm writing a screenplay with a director friend of mine.  It's a Zen Hitchcock thriller.  Zen and Hitchcock don't go together you say?  Oh what do you know?

You know what I want to know, what the secretaries at the Secretary of State would have really wanted to do when they grew up.  I mean your dream job cannot be working at the Secretary of State.  

There is nothing wrong with any job, that's not what I'm trying to say.  There is honor in all work, I just wonder how some people handle their jobs.  More than that I wonder about all these people, who of them is living an extraordinary life, who is simply existing in a mediocre fashion?

I could strike up a conversation with someone but I'm so enamored by my own conversation with myself, why bother?  This is the last day for me to get tabs for my licence plate.  Who me, wait until the last minute?  Stop it.

The new me is gonna try to plan these things out better, perhaps do it online and NEVER have to step into the Secretary of State again.  Do you understand me, NEVER again do I want to spend time in this frivolous line.  

But there is something about suspended time when you have to wait.  When you have nothing but your own thoughts to deal with. Nothing but you raw and dirty and annoyed and real.  

This is me, in line...

nina

1 comment:

  1. My life is extraordinarily mediocre. :-)
    I can’t carry a tune either, we should start a choir lol

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