Vitals Dec 1st -Dec 16th

Month or so in pictures in random order

Precursor to the creation of a Five-Year Plan (Trying to avoid going nuts)

Project ideas:

Hedi says a 6-panel drawn piece
I say writing
Probably both
A collaborative piece with John?
Too soon
Everything needs to be kicked up a notch
I need a beautiful floor rug and beanbag chairs
I need a warm room and quiet upstairs neighbors
I need less dirt, more focus, less wine, more time spent well
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’…

Goals for today:

Think about drawing piece in terms of everyday stuff
That is where it comes from
Big bang moments
Mixed up with everyday
Draw in your journal
Think about your history of sex
Read another story in Animal Shelter
Make a calendar for the next few weeks
Grab hold of that thread of time and tie it to your wrist like a balloon

First Public Performance

Typical Southern Californian winter evening at a brisk 68 degrees. The USC campus is pretty sleepy, except for the students protecting the Tommy Trojan statue from any Bruin invaders. At the Faculty Club in the outdoor plaza, as Economics Professors and Ph.D. students amble in and munch up all the delicious hor' d'oeuvres, this nervous performer sips her wine a wee bit too fast.

It was all Brijesh's idea. A week before the annual Economics Holiday Party he asks, would it be possible to get a piano rolled over? And perhaps, maybe, he could play and I could sing something?

There is something to be understood about Brijesh, he has a way of asking for things that makes you feel like the wheels of fate are already in motion. I have always been a big sucker for fate and submit nearly every time. I found myself a few days later poking around the faculty club looking for the coordinator. Sure, of course, piano's no problem, she said. Just a simple matter of money, which is not a problem, still, at USC.

Thursday, the day before the event, Brijesh informs me that he has reserved a practice space for us at 5 o'clock. Can I dig up some holiday songs, send the titles to him, and he'll give them a listen, fiddle around and see what he can come up with? I send an urgent email out to all the people who's opinions are nuanced and vaguely aligned with my sensibilities. Girlfriends push heavy for Wham's "Last Christmas" and the standard "Baby, it's Cold Outside". Mom gets spiritual. John is quite thorough and spans the genre, even throwing in a few sure to displease suggestions.

For the last few years Brijesh has been playing piano at the Catholic church across the street from campus every Sunday evening. This, he says, serves two purposes. It keeps his hand in and it allows his parents to be a tad more at ease with his lapsed Catholic status. It is not quite accurate to say that Brijesh is an accomplished piano player; he is quite extraordinary, learning many songs by ear and being able to improvise, which comes in handy when you are working with someone like me who drops her notes and is always coming in too early on a song. The device we worked out to mitigate my singing foibles is something I imagine you could employ with any moderately sentient creature. When it was time for me to belt out the first line he simply began singing low and I quickly barreled over his tenor notes in a mad dash to catch up with the song.

Day of the party I am all nerves, but also very aware of how alive the day is. I feel myself moving through space. Everything is purposeful. Singing, and I'd say most creative acts, require a precious mix of emotion, facility, and sixth sense. Essentially one must be able to shut their damnable brain off. Logic and reason trip up the creative process, weighing it down with expectations, frightful visions, and banal prescriptions.

When the time came, and the party had ballooned with the majority of our mild mannered Economists, Brijesh found me. He sat down on the bench, suggested we start with a standard to warm up the crowd. I nodded, pulled my glass of wine close, leaned against the piano, took the mic and a deep breath... A few bars, then his restrained tenor voice prompted me to sing, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, Let your heart be light..."

Vitals Nov 14th - Dec 2nd

Confidential Note to John (formerly known as "John T", "John O" and soon to be refered to as "Johnny", just like Glenn Ford was in "Gilda")

Things to consider:

Homemade turkey soup with vegetables and butterfly crackers

A really bad holiday party full of economists with an open bar

Billy Wilder movies

Pedro Almodóvar movies (Particularly "Woman on the Verge..." and "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!")

Finding that zen place. Ocean waves, parsley sprig askew, Bonaventure elevators...

Week In Pictures

Vitals Oct 31st - Nov 15th

Confidential Note to Nadine

Apology

Shannon would like to apologize for the post directly below this one because it doesn't make any sense. But I'm going to keep it up anyway. You've been warned.

Random Selections From the Dictionary Series

AVERSE

To use the word averse in a sentence, "I feel averse to accept the reality of my living situation at this moment."

I do not like waking up to news copters hovering above my house. And the number of people who honk right outside my window at all hours has led to the belief that there is sign somewhere saying something to the effect of, “Honk. I dare you assholes!” There is a line around the block of garbage-bagged folk waiting to go through my neighbor’s garbage can like it’s full of chilly dogs and ice cold Coca-Cola, and not just beer bottle caps and condom wrappers. However, back to the point, I am also reminded that “averse” is the combination of the words “a” and “verse”.

Little known fact, back with in the ancient world, when the Greeks were still running around naked all the time, there was a Global Cooling crisis, which forced them to learn how to put on their clothes for the first time. To make this new task more fun they would sing a melody. A Verse, if you will.

“Tra la la”, Apalpogenous the brown-eyed beauty chirped. “Gee, I hate this putting-on-clothes business” she mumbled.” But slipped her bed sheets on one cautious wrap after another with the brave stoicism we have learned of her people. She warbled again, “Tra la la laaa. Tra la lie…”

As if she had been wrapping herself in bed sheets for years--and she kind of had been, just not vertically--with one delicate movement she slipped the end of the sheet into the nook of her armpit and she was clothed.

“I may be um, against... No. Upset? No. No, I may be AVERSE to this getting dressed thing,” she proclaimed, “but a verse sung during the interim distracts me from this deplorable act.”

Henceforth we have the word, averse.

Voice Lesson 5 (the un-lesson)

As in all critical moments in my life I find myself in a public restroom pondering my future, the past and the uneasy present. I've been putting off lessons for three weeks now. I've tried to be optimistic and courteous. I will practice, I tell myself, and then I don't, so I email my teacher and request we reschedule.

Last week she sent me this message in response to me postponing our lesson for another week, Of course, lovely red-headed goddess!

Tonight I have told myself that I must go, no more putting it off. I must confess that I am the same person who for three months didn't practice the guitar in high school but attended the lessons with a guilty conscience and the acid of guilt in her tummy.

God, I hate re-runs. I look at my phone, 5:24. Six minutes. Be honest with her, Shannon. Don't chicken out.

A couple weeks back Brijesh, a Ph.D. student in my department who I have found on more than several occasions singing Gershwin tunes to himself in the hallway, gave me a hint. "You can enroll in a music class and not go. That's what I did."

Brijesh has a very beautifully modulated voice carrying both the Indian and British accent. "I'm enrolled in beginning piano or some such nonsense, that way I am a student and can rent the practice rooms for my own sake."

He hinted too that no one used those rooms before 9 am, so I might be able to sneak in before work.

"Really!" My voice broke. "How great would that be?!"

I imagined the satisfaction of getting up with the roosters and singing my guts out as the sun rose on a new day. What I liked about the idea was its clandestine nature and it's organic parameters. I was to sneak into one of the soundproof rooms to perform ancient melodies to an imagined crowd for simple joy of experiencing a sublime sensation before beginning my straight job as a department schmo. It was just so moderately dangerous, goofy and romantic. The kind of thing you want to be discovered for doing. But I never did it.

I pushed the snooze button from 5:25 to 7am and did not regret it much.

Tonight I wait for my teacher to call me. 5:31, she does, and she knows. "Hey... You there?" Meaning, am I at the practice space.

I'm here. I've strayed from the restroom and now I'm in mid-pace in the halls planning my confession.

I've just not practiced. Simple. I love these lessons, but I don't know what to do with them. Maybe I'm not a soloist, but a choir girl. I don't know.

Like everything else I'm doing, it seems I'm looking desperately at all these other things to stand in for something else. Something much grander then singing, dancing... maybe more to do with that part about my heart opening up. Something like that. To be moved and to share that moment. Really, that's where the satisfaction is.

"I need to confess..."

"You haven't practiced..." She asks without accusing.

"I haven't. And I've failed to articulate what it is I want from this."

The word "articulate" was chosen early on as a good word for a confession.

It's not that my teacher was not impressed with my verbiage, it's just that it's not the words that matter. She just knows the signs of someone loosing steam when they've been fueled solely of their own kooky visions.

"You can call me when you have a song..." She says. "It's not about pressure. I'm here when you're ready."

Imagine if it were not my teacher but someone else saying something like this...

This is what I'm imagining.

Dance Moves to "It's Good to Be King"

Words and Phrases to consider:
Karate
Channeling
Possession
David Bowie Haircut
Protestant Upbringing
Laundry