Exiting Sleep Mode

One year ago this month, I clocked out from my fast food job for the last time.

I had managed to get somebody to pity me enough to offer me a summer job which wouldn't further damage my already-destroyed back, and I wanted that job so bad that I worked both that job and fast food for a week because the new job could use me that early and I wanted to work my full two weeks' notice and leave fast food on good terms with the management (it paid off... maintaining their respect has already helped me along in life since then).

Since then, I have lived.

I have choreographed three musical theatre productions (in a variety of lead or assistant roles), added four and a half shows to my performance résumé, started crocheting again, reconnected with a couple of friends I hadn't spoken to since before I graduated college, bought a gym membership (and been actually using it), started drawing more often, contributed artwork to a theatre production, finally got meds for my ADHD, started actually keeping the house moderately clean on a somewhat regular basis... and our marriage started getting better immediately because I actually had some scraps of energy left to give my husband at the end of the day. We went from screaming matches every other day to maybe once a month, and even those are shorter and less intense as a rule.

It was literally like waking up from the dead. Even the other remissions I've had from depression were nothing like this. I literally felt like I had just pushed open the casket lid and seen the sunrise for the first time since I left home for college.

Sometimes I go through that drive-thru and I sit at the window and I think about how I used to watch the sun set at night and think to myself, 'before the sun comes up again, I will have to be at work,' and I would be on the other side of that window, my brain in a sort of semi-permanent sleep mode while my body moved through the motions of brewing and crafting coffees almost simultaneously. It literally felt like that job consumed my entire life. Even at only 32 hours a week, I couldn't let go of the stress, no matter what I tried. My life was work, eat, get lectured, sleep, rinse, repeat, every day. By the time I quit that job a year ago, I had literally forgotten how to think. I was a zombie. I had no thoughts, no joy, no sadness, no anger, no hope, no feelings at all. I have suffered from depression since I was nine years old, but this was a completely new level of dreary, drab, and lifeless. At least during my depression periods I could still make art, but during the fast food years I could not. My brain literally shut itself off all conscious thoughts, feelings, and observations in order to conserve energy, because one can literally never have enough energy to work a job like that.

This year, I set a goal for myself to read more books. I set an arbitrary goal of eight books for 2025.

It's barely May and I've read six books. And with every book I read, I can feel my brain waking up, beginning to string words together again, beginning to observe my experiences more, beginning to think again. The books aren't even super think-y and deep, but the mere act of reading is bringing my brain back to life.

I didn't even listen to music in those years. I had no energy. I stopped buying music, stopped importing records from my collection, stopped listening to the music I had, stopped following the bands' websites and social media accounts, stopped participating in the music fan groups I had been a part of.

Nothing existed but work and pain.

I tried to fight back against the encroaching unconsciousness, but that only wore me out more and pushed my brain deeper into complete shutdown.

And now, I'm reading, I'm listening to music, I'm connecting with my husband and the few friends I still have, I'm going to the gym, drawing, dancing, creating art, singing... living the life that freaking college took from me and fast food tried to lock away forever.

Though I don't remember much of those years, I hope I never forget that they happened. I never want to go back to that mental place again. I never want to forget how far I've come and how hard I've worked to get to where I am.

I never want to enter that level of sleep mode again.

Staring Down The Barrel Of The Unemployment Gun

Sorry I haven't posted much lately.

 

It's so odd... I look around and I can see the colours and I am happy, happier than I've been since before I graduated college. I can see the life around me, and I can see a faint, distant glow of opportunity.

 

But at the same time... I feel more than ever before the word 'failure' whispering through my mind. I follow through on so few of my grandiose plans. I'm too shy to collaborate with anybody in a meaningful way. I can't hold down a job for a significant amount of time without either my mental health or physical health (or both) collapsing is some spectacular way. I can't even keep up with the housework, let alone be present for my husband... and forget having time to do anything that makes me happy (but doesn't make me money).

For years now, my singular goal and only glimmer of hope was the possibility of working enough to save enough money to move to a place with more theatre opportunities. (Everyone says 'just make your own opportunities where you are!' but none of them have to deal with a brain that straight-up refuses to do anything unless there are boatloads of accolades at every second of the proceedings.) As we move solidly into our thirties, it is becoming apparent that we may never escape this (quite literal) hole in the ground. Despite my best efforts and my extreme mental and physical sacrifices, we may still wind up dying here in this open grave in this forgotten corner of the province.

My current work contract ends on 13 September and it has been made very clear that they have no other positions available (and I've seen enough of the inner workings of the organization to know that this is true). I am less than a month away from losing our only household income. And yet I can't bear the thought of going to work anymore. I want to retire. I am barely into my thirties and I want to retire. I'm just so spent. I have so little left to give anybody anymore, and I think the people who read my résumé can feel that somehow through the pages of dance and fast food and not much else.

I just want to lay down and close my eyes and never open them again. I don't have the mental or physical strength to gut my way through yet another 3-to-5-year job hunt. There are no more reserves. There are no more second winds. There is no more pushing through. I want to, but I can't. There quite literally is nothing left.

But I can't, because if I don't have an income, we will end up on the street.

Things I Did At Thirty

I never thought I'd make it to thirty. And then when I did get to my thirtieth birthday, I mostly felt washed-up and useless.

If you are coming up an thirty and are feeling the same way, let me tell you that your life is NOT over yet.

After my thirtieth birthday, I...

- Choreographed my first full musical production.

- Submitted a dance film to a major film festival.

- Finally made a sorely-needed career change.

- Made yet another dance film -- my favourite so far.

- Auditioned for four things -- the most since the pandemic, and impressive when you consider the real lack of art in my general area. Was offered a role for two of them.

- Got into a different show without an audition.

- Almost finished rewriting the first half of my novel for the second time.

- Got two crochet commissions.

- Started streaming.

- Started drawing (mostly pencil crayons).

- Injured my back to the point where I could not walk... and then rehabilitated it to the point where I can dance again.

- Acquired three more houseplants (that have survived. There was also a lavender tree that died a very dramatic death almost immediately after purchase).

Sun Rising

Yesterday was my last-ever fast food shift.

 

It doesn't feel real yet. There's still a part of me that expects to have to get up at 5.45am on Tuesday morning, because I have, every Tuesday, for nearly four years now.

I have a new job, in the theatre industry. I'm not on stage (or even backstage), but it's still theatre-adjacent, and it may very well be the closest I'll ever get to a sustainable career in the arts. I get to sit down on the job now -- that's a novelty. In fast food there literally is no sitting. There's barely even just-standing. You're always doing something, carrying something, stocking something, cleaning something, and you're always moving at full speed. Do that for 40 hours a week and... well, let's just say that my body hurt more after one fast food shift then it EVER hurt after any of the long weeks of dance rehearsals over my 20+ year dance career. The theatre is also paying me more to sit on a chair at a desk than fast food ever paid me to run myself absolutely ragged every single day.

I had been looking to switch careers for several years already. I was burnt out of fast food by June 2022, but held on to the job because I know now how hard it is to get a job in this economy... especially for somebody with a brain as broken as mine. I didn't want to leave until I knew I had something lined up. That didn't happen for almost two years.

After a year and a half of unsuccessful job-hunting, I injured my back pretty severely, and I'm pretty sure the restaurant only put up with my ever-increasing need for time off because even though I could hardly walk, I was still their fastest worker. (My doctor forbade me from doing any kitchen duties, and they had to schedule three people to take my place there. Prior to my injury, I worked the kitchen alone every morning.)

That back injury was a blessing in disguise.

When I finally got a doctor's note to cut my hours (which in itself was an adventure for another post), that finally left me with enough time (and more importantly, enough energy) to actually job hunt, and to actually follow up on leads and applications. And after two years, as we stared down the barrel of homelessness due to lack of income, I finally got a job -- an upgrade in nearly every way, in an industry and at an organization I liked and believed in.

As I walked home yesterday from my final fast food shift, I had sort-of-accidentally started playing Connie Scott's Forever Young album. And as I trudged through the final blocks of that final walk home, these words lilted over a bed of gentle keys into my ears...

You that are weary and in need of rest

You that are brokenhearted and oppressed

You shall find comfort here...

 

There'll be an ending to the twilight zone

There'll be a sunrise like you've never known

Morning will soon be here...

 

(from The Coming Dawn)

 

The sun is indeed rising. I can breathe for the first time since I was in Mary Poppins (July 2018). Maybe this is what hope feels like.

For years I was in a stupor -- get up, trudge to work, give everything I had, my soul, my spirit, for pennies with which to pay the growing bills, trudge home, stare at the wall in a fruitless attempt to find the energy to live, go to bed, dream of every possible horror life had to offer (if I even dreamt at all), then do it all again. I moved slowly, in a fog. The world around me was grey and cold and hard.

And now I'm waking up.

Tired

I'm tired of being a failure.

I'm tired of being broken.

I'm tired of everything I do being wrong.

I'm tired of being yelled at.

I'm tired of being told I don't know how to do anything.

I'm tired of waking up in the morning.

I'm tired of the same old, same old.

I'm tired of having nothing left to give.

I'm tired of looking into my future and seeing only pain.

I'm tired of trying solutions and having them fail -- often spectacularly.

I'm tired of trying to find purpose and meaning.

I'm tired of trying to find a reason to fight for anything.

I'm tired of losing those who are supposed to love me.

I'm tired of being somehow simultaneously 'too much' and 'too little.'

I'm tired of crying.

I'm tired of trying.

I'm tired FROM trying.

I'm tired of being broken.

I'm tired of being the black sheep

I'm tired of having nowhere to put this pain.

I'm tired of scrimping and scraping for every penny.

I'm tired of fighting.

I'm tired of having my 'friends' abandon me.

I'm tired of not being able to afford to get the help I need.

I'm tired of having to be strong all the time.

I'm tired of living.

A Search for Fulfilling Work

I'm still job-hunting and every day at my current job kills my soul a little bit more. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. I'm in limbo as far as my training for the next 'level' in the company, so to speak, and even though it comes with a slight (very slight) pay raise, I feel no excitement for it. I'm really just doing it for the money, and I need more than just money to feel that my job -- that my time -- is worth it. I'm not feeling fulfilled at all, and the rush I used to get in making X amount of drinks or burgers in a certain timeframe just isn't doing it for me anymore. The thrill of accomplishment is wearing off, especially now that I'm being more consistent with finishing dance films and I have Kyrie fully rewritten. Those are huge, complex, creative, challenging projects, and burgers are just... burgers.

However, I currently live in a tiny town with no real, fulfilling jobs. I've been applying for remote online 'virtual assistant' and copywriting jobs, but so far I'm striking out.

I've been looking into being a freelance writer more seriously. Until recently, I've been so overwhelmed by even the idea of looking it up that I haven't even Googled it. But I'm started to do some research, and... it actually looks pretty fun. Even some of the lower-end pay rates I've seen would pay many times more per week than my current job. It would definitely be enough to cut my hours at least, if I can get some consistent work. I'm testing out how consistently I can generate ideas and write articles through the month of December, and in the early part of next year my plan is to start actually pitching.

Freelance writing would be the ultimate dream... to wake up at a decent hour of the morning, sit in front of my computer and type for a few hours while listening to fun music, then spend the rest of the day spending time with my husband or working on dance projects. If I'm able to land a dance teaching gig, so much the better -- that's more consistent, something I actually am passionate about, and doesn't require me to get up at 6am and walk to work in the freezing cold and stand on an awful concrete floor all day with managers treating me like I don't know how to do my job and then go to bed at some boring early hour just to do it all over again. And again. And again.

It's not even like I would slave over the computer all day. I can totally put out an 800-1k word article in a half hour and edit it in a day or so. Fifteen years of NaNoWriMo and a five-year college degree have trained me well on that point. I would love my work a lot more, I would be far less tired, and maybe our marriage would improve with the additional time and energy I would have for my husband because it's not being drained out of me at a soulless job that demands so much but has nothing to offer.

Time is precious. I don't want to spend my precious time making burgers that people eat in ten minutes and forget about. I want to spend as much of my time feeling fulfilled as I possibly can. For me, that means writing about things -- helping readers make sense of the world. That means dancing -- the only way I have found any modicum of true peace. That means making crochet projects and paintings -- things that make our world and the worlds of my loved ones just a little bit brighter. Thirty-two hours a week at a job where you're just a cog in a machine is too much time out of such a short life. I could be doing so much with that time and I'm just standing there asking people what they want in their coffee. There's got to be more to life than that. I know there is... I've seen it.

The arts impact people. People carry art with them for the rest of their lives. I want to be a part of that.

New Professional

 Last night, I officially signed the contract for my first-ever paid acting gig.

It's such a surreal feeling. It's an honourarium (plus transportation costs) for a small local show, but it's still a paid gig. This is exactly the thing I was striving so hard for between 2018 and 2020; the thing that literally every performing arts authority at college said I would never be good enough for.

I have officially exceeded their expectations of me. And I'm only going to go farther.

This wasn't a fluke either. I have worked with this director before (as an ensemble/nonverbal character actor), so he knew exactly what I'm like to work with -- and still hired me. (This was something that my college professor was VERY clear on -- that nobody would want to work with me because I 'don't take direction well/am too stubborn.') Not only did this director hire me, he gave me a character with lines. I would also like to point out that I did not audition for this role -- I was personally invited by the director to be a part of this production.

This show is a production associated with a MAJOR annual summer production that is known internationally (that I've also been in twice now). It's a smaller show that they've never done before, but it's well-known that the venue wants to make this production an annual one as well. The show is already completely sold out.

So I guess if being paid for my work makes me a professional (I know it's attitude more than money that makes one professional, but it seems nobody outside the industry knows that), then that means I am OFFICIALLY a professional actress.

And everybody who said I couldn't do this was -- as I suspected -- extremely wrong.

I Am Trying, I Swear

I picked the literal worst year in the history of Alberta to get married.

I've had almost ten other perfectly good, not-economically-abysmal years that I could have used to meet him and get married. But nope, dumb Kate has to pick this year, of all years. Nobody in Alberta has money, and even less people in Alberta have any sympathy. Alberta is a province of hard, determined workers who will themselves into a job and have exactly zero sympathy for anybody who's struggling to find work. It is worse in Alberta to be on financial assistance than it is to be a Nazi.

It's so frustrating. I only moved back to Alberta because I got no paying work after two years -- read that again, two years -- of job-hunting in Saskatchewan. I have applied for I swear every single job in Alberta. Every single one. I have applied for everything I may be even remotely qualified for, and even quite a few jobs that I am not qualified for. I have applied for everything, in pretty well every field of employment. Cashier, food services, waitressing, construction/contracting, sales associates, secretary, janitorial, grocery clerk, post office, farmhand, dishwasher -- you name it, I have applied for it. I promise. I have applied for all of the above in five different towns/cities in the past two days, in fact.

I cry a lot nowadays -- half because I miss my sweet fiancé so much (stupid long-distance), but half because I can't fund my own wedding and I'm losing to ability to convince everyone else that I really actually do want to help finance my wedding. Even his family seems to think I'm expecting a free ride somehow but I swear I am not. I am trying as hard as I know how and if there was a way I could be guaranteed a job, I would have done it already. My parents are experiencing their absolute worst year financially since I was a very young child, so they can't afford to help me out, no matter how much they would love to. I swear I'm not being lazy. I would absolutely pay for this entire wedding out of my own pocket if I could. If it has to be, I will go beg on street corners to get the money together for this wedding without asking any of our family for any more help. I am NOT lazy, and I am NOT looking for a free ride in anything. I know it takes hard work. All I'm looking for is a job.

It would be so easy to just move in together and call it done. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper and way less stressful. But I really want to do this right. I want to have an official Christian wedding. I want to be married before we live together. I want to do the right thing.

Yes, we could sign documents, get legally married, and have a party later -- but we all know the 'have a party later' thing never really happens. If we don't pull together the money for it now, will we really have the discipline to pull it together later, after we're already married? What's the point of it then? People won't take it as seriously then and then they're less likely to come celebrate with us anyway.

Sure, we could postpone the wedding a year or two -- but I hate this long-distance thing. I hate being apart from him, and I want to be with him as much as possible as soon as possible. (For the record, we already have postponed our wedding three months.)

We've cut down the budget as far as it can go. We got our wedding down from an initial $10,000 projected budget to $4,000. We are getting a lot of things at a reduced rate due to networking. There is nothing else we can cut... except the dance.

I never planned out my future wedding as a child, a teen, or even a young adult. I didn't have a dream venue, or dress, or flower arrangement figured out, or a Pinterest board of decorations, or a playlist of songs I wanted. The only thing -- the literal only dream I had about my future wedding (if there even was one) was the dance. I wanted a dance.

I was flowergirl in my aunt and uncle's wedding when I was young. The only thing I remember about that wedding -- besides cupping my aunt's face in my little five-year-old hands and telling her she looked beautiful -- was the dance. I watched all sorts of people get onto the dance floor and dance to the music and I loved it. From that age, I knew that if I ever got married, I wanted a dance at my wedding. That was the only dream I had about my wedding before my engagement. The only one.

And of course that's the most expensive thing. That's the easiest thing to cut, financially. Both the hall and the DJ are big-ticket expenses, and both are dispensable. This puts me into a state of extreme stress (even more than unemployment already has done)...

I want a dance. It's my only dream.

But it's expensive.

But that was the only thing I ever dreamed of having at my wedding.

But you could cut the budget in half if you dropped it.

But it was my dream.

But you don't have a job. You can't fund it. And you can't in good conscience make everyone else fund it when you're already contributing diddly-squat.

But I've always wanted a dance.

It's not like it's a necessity. Grow up.

But I'm only ever going to have one wedding...

And now I'm crying again.

It's starting to feel like God made me defective. Literally all my passions are the exact things that western society will not pay for. Even my artistic siblings have jobs, side passions that fit neatly into a trade or at least something that will pay them minimum wage. I'm willing to learn stuff outside of my passions -- I already have for previous jobs -- but first somebody in this God-forsaken prairie has to actually hire me.

I pray so much about this. I beg and I plead and I yank desperately at the hem of God's cloak but still He is silent. Just like He always has been toward me when I have been in need. I try to do the George Müller thing and not ask anybody else for money and just trust God for it but then my gas tank is empty again and I have rehearsal in literally forty-five minutes and I have no choice but to beg my friends and family on Facebook for money again. And I feel like scum doing that. I feel like the worst specimen of humanity when I have to beg my friends for money just to put gasoline in my vehicle. A lot of times it does feel like I would be better off dead -- I wouldn't cost anything anymore. The literal only thing that stops me is the thought of how devastated my fiancé would be.

I hate that all I think about now is money. I hate that everything is so tied to money. I hate that I'm obsessed with it now, but I have to be -- you cannot exist in western society without it, even if your tastes aren't expensive and you know how to stretch a dollar. A dollar only stretches so far before it breaks.

Everyone talks about the faithfulness of God. Everyone else talks of His miracles of provision. I can't even tell you how many people just in the past week have said to me, 'just let go and let God,' or 'just pray more, and I guarantee...' You don't think I haven't been doing that? You don't think I have prayed my face off for the past two years of my unemployed (and therefore worthless) existence? I have confessed sins, I have prayed for guidance, I have taken risks, I have worked hard, I have tried. What yet do I lack? What magical ingredient am I missing that God still requires from me? I thought His grace to us was just that -- grace. Not based on our merit or our works, but our need. Not once have I pointed to my Bible college degree. Not once have I pointed to a lifetime of church attendance and tithing. Not once. All I have said, over and over and OVER again, is, 'God, you know I need to be able to pay for this. Please help me. Please provide.'

And He is silent.

I have great need, God -- and only some of it is financial. Do You care or not?

Honest Ramble

Can I be very, very honest about my life right now? Here is one of the few places I can be, because here, on this website, on my domain name, nobody is required to read anything I write. If you want to read it, fine. If you don't, fine. Nobody's forcing anything on this blog down anybody's throat. On Facebook and Instagram, I have a persona to keep up, at least a little bit. I do show frustration on there sometimes, but I try to balance it with humour (even if it's sarcastic/dark humour).

I'm frustrated beyond words at my lack of ability to get a job. I've been job-hunting for three years. And I'm not being picky. I've applied for waitressing, cashier, reception, janitor, construction, literally anything that I'm even kind of half-qualified for. I feel like a failure as a human being because I'm not self-sufficient, because I still need financial assistance. People tell me, 'just apply for everything.' I know... I've been doing exactly that for three years. And I feel like I'm defective, like something's fundamentally wrong with me because despite being very qualified for a variety of different types of work, literally nobody even contacts me for an interview or anything. How is it so easy for everyone else to get a job and not me? What's so horribly, horribly wrong with me that it's immediately obvious even to those who have never met me in person?

I haven't practiced dance since February. I just -- haven't. I was busy, then sick, then injured, then recovering, now sick again. And now I'm wondering if I even bother picking it up again because now I'll be so far behind -- again. And it's not like all that practice was serving me well anyway... I was easily the worst dancer in Fame.

I am bored as heck. Having no job and no more schoolwork (ever) has left me with a LOT of free time that I really wasn't prepared for. Ordinarily I would just use it for practice, but I'm not even sure I want to put in that much effort anymore... I'm not sure it's going to be worth the time and energy I've put into it, and I have so little energy to play with as it is. I'm not sure I should even bother pursuing the performing arts anymore. I'm not sure what I should be pursuing or what I should be doing. I feel very, very purposeless. Up till now, the arts was my purpose. But now... now I don't even have that. Never before in my life have I not had the arts, some kind of creative project, to capture my imagination and my days. Never, never before. Is this how people live? Is this the hell they wake up to every day? How do they breathe under that weight?

I just feel so, so useless. I feel like I have nothing to bring to the world that somebody else isn't already doing ten times better. I feel like everyone's got everything taken care of and they don't need me for anything. I worked so hard and I tried so hard and I practiced so much and it wasn't enough to be of use to anybody. I feel like I have nothing to contribute, nothing to say that hasn't already been said, nothing to do that hasn't already been done. They say to put your own unique stamp on the world and to live life as only you can, but my only calling card is that everything I do is subpar. And maybe that's not even my fault... but it feels like it is.

I don't want to just spend my life watching YouTube. I don't want to spend it scrolling through Facebook. But right now those are literally the only options available to me. I don't have a job and I don't have talent and I don't have money to start something even moderately big. I can't even do another dance video -- I don't have the money.
I'm scared that I'm just wasting my life and that I'll be mooching off my family for the rest of my life. I'm scared no-one needs me. I'm scared I'm missing something.

My brain literally feels like it's being eaten by acid -- melting, burning. I wanted so much to create things, but they're always, always subpar and I'm exhausted from expending so much energy into something that's worth nothing.

When you're a kid you can do something as stupid as make bracelets and sell them for $5 each and make money that way. But when you're an adult they expect so much more from you. They expect the world. They expect complete perfection. Nobody will pay $5 for a string with three beads on it made by a fully functioning adult human who's perfectly capable of going out and getting a job... right?

I feel unheard -- completely invisible. I send emails and it's like they're never received. I talk to people and it's like they never heard my voice. I stand by them, I even touch them, and they look right through me. It's like being gaslighted by the entire world -- 'I never ignored you.' Then why do you refuse to acknowledge my existence?

I'm aware that time is marching on and I'm doing nothing with it and it'll end soon and I'll have nothing to show for it, but it's not for lack of trying. I tried -- I tried. I freaking tried.

I feel like I'm trapped and I'm drowning and I can't get out.

Choreography Dream, Part II...?

The short version of what happened since I fell off the face of this blog: I have survived my first year of college (except for the part where I almost died of strep throat -- the week EVERY SINGLE PAPER of the semester was due), returned to my dance school in Alberta just in time to be a part of the waltz of the snowflakes in the Nutcracker (and managed to screw up every performance except the last one), and am working a *gasp!* 9-to-5. I'm still not comfortable saying that. I don't want to get stuck in the world of the 9-to-5. This is only to pay for college next year. It bothers me even to say that much because I know so many people who get a 9-to-5 and they swear it's only temporary... and twenty years later they're still working the same deadbeat job and all their dreams have died. Or were they sacrificed on the altar of the steady paycheck...?

And now, to talk about dancing.

It was over two years ago now that I started getting serious about creating choreography. My goal was to build up enough half-decent choreography in my repertoire that I could make a half-decent setlist of some kind out of it. Having since completed thirty-four works and having probably hundreds more in varying stages of completion, I'd say I can check off that goal. Next goal? Finding people to actually dance this stuff.

I live in farm country, Alberta. Art is a word from a foreign language here. Art? What's that? Does it make money? Do cows eat it? Is it a new brand of canola or something? Ah, it's probably an oilfield acronym. (Who can keep up with those anyway? Those acronyms multiply like rabbits.)

As a consequence, the potential artists from Alberta either leave for New York or something, never to be heard from again because their families disowned them for not working 9-to-5, or they get a deadbeat job ('to pay for college') and starve the artist within until she slips quietly away somewhere between the alarm clock and the water cooler. This leaves no artists for those of us who remain to learn from or collaborate with.

And this is where I am now. I have thirty-four complete dances and zero dancers. I can only create so many solos (I don't like watching solos, I don't like choreographing solos, and I don't like dancing solos. Groups are just all-round more interesting to watch and to work with). Step one of this dream is accomplished, but now what about step two? Where are the dancers coming from? Yes, I have friends I've met at dance classes, but so far I can only name one (maybe two) who love dancing enough to do it outside of class.

I've thought of the idea of creating a dance team from whoever wants to be in it and then training them from the bottom up. However, training dancers from scratch is a much different animal than merely teaching choreography. It's the difference between saying, "Okay, here you do a jeté and then you go into chassé pas de bourré..." and "Okay, this is what a jeté is. Turn out. Bend your knees. Now brush your foot out and off of the floor and jump. No, both at the same time. Point the other foot as it's in the air too. Land with your feet together in fifth, turned out. Brushing foot closes in front. Bend your knees. Make sure you turn out. Don't thud down -- land lightly..." (and so forth). It's easy enough for someone to say they want me to teach them how to dance, but dancing does demand time and rehearsing and performing takes commitment and endurance. I can't start training starry-eyed college kids and then have them back out in the middle of learning, say, Sanctuary, muttering "homework" as they go because it wasn't as 'glamorous' as they thought it'd be. It's an idea, but I've yet to determine if I'm willing to invest that much time in people who may very well drop it when the novelty wears off. Or maybe I'm just being too negative and graceless.

I must, however, add that my two dancing sisters and I are putting together a little piece for a talent show for the upcoming family reunion. This same piece may also be performed in our church sometime in August. This will be the first piece of my choreography performed by people other than me (the only other piece that's been staged was a solo performed by a gravely-ill yours truly. This new dance still has me in it, but in addition to my sisters). And, if the church agrees to let us do it (Baptist church, you know), it'll be the first piece I've created that's been shown more than once.

So I suppose stuff is happening, just slower than I'd like. Maybe it's for the best -- easing me into it instead of just dropping me into showbiz.

An Update On Music Day/Blog In General

For those of you wondering, 'what the heck happened to Music Day?' here are a couple of excuses I mean updates.

First, I have always endeavoured to give an iTunes link and/or artist's website, someplace where you can buy the featured song legally. As I've moved deeper and deeper into the world of early '80s Christian rock, I'm finding more and more UTTERLY FANTASTIC stuff -- but it's not on iTunes. Or there's no artist website. I have deliberately avoided featuring some of my very favourite artists because there is no place to legally purchase their music and I know from experience that it's frustrating when someone talks about a fantastic song/album you just have to have... and it's completely unavailable anywhere.

Second, in order to pay for college next year, I have been forced into the Coliseum and fed to the lions -- sorry, I mean the 9-to-5 job arena. Nothing is more exhausting than the mere act of waking up at 8.30am. Nothing. Seriously. By the time I sit down in front of my computer to check my email at 10.30pm, I can barely string together a coherent sentence. But I want to make Music Day posts interesting (whether with a personal story/reflection or with a good description of the song), and I can't do that when I'm so tired I can barely see straight. I would often spend weeks crafting the average Music Day post you see on this blog, picking at it, refining it until I was satisfied before daring to post it. I don't have that kind of time right now. Even writing this, I'm taking breaks every paragraph to snatch a catnap.

Am I quitting Music Day? ...Temporarily, I guess. I'd really rather not. Music and sharing great music is one of my great passions, and Music Day is really my only chance to share that. I hope that perhaps I can re-instate a more regular routine over the next couple months.  Maybe I can hit a gold mine of great songs that are actually on iTunes, songs I love and treasure and believe in.

Am I quitting the blog? I hope not. This blog has been the one place where I can fangirl about White Heart or Daniel Amos all I want and nobody gets annoyed -- they can always just close the tab in the web browser. This is the place I can rant about and make sense of life as a wannabe artist.

For the sake of posting something, I may post some stuff that I wrote while at college this past year that has remained in draft form. A lot of it isn't accurate anymore, but it was an honest assessment of what I was feeling at the time. If I do post things from the draft archives, I will be noting that at the top of the post. Some of it is pretty good and makes me wonder why I never published it in the first place. Mostly it was because I was too stressed to be able to tell if it was worthy of publishing, so I erred on the side of caution and didn't post anything.

And now, bedtime. (I must be getting old. It's only one in the morning.)

Music Day

I had this guy's music in my head all day at work... I Want To Be A Clone, On The Fritz, Meltdown... so we're making the small leap from the sarcastic Terry Taylor to the sarcastic (and cynical) Steve Taylor. (I may or may not be a sarcastic person...)

It continues to puzzle me that for as much as I like Steve Taylor's solo material, I only own four of his songs and that's been the number for a long, long time. Why only four? I have no clue. I like quite a bit of his stuff (as heard to YouTube) and iTunes does carry I Predict 1990 and a greatest-hits compilation that actually gives you a decent cross-section of his career to date. Plus, I saw both I Want To Be A Clone and Meltdown on vinyl at the record shop the other day (I didn't have enough cash on me, or I totally would have bought them. Along with the Vital Signs LP (White Heart), the Run From The Darkness LP (Daniel Band), and that Barnabas LP I saw that I can't remember the name of right now).

I like the mood of this song. It makes you think, possibly more than the lyrics do. There's a melancholy hollow-ness in the sound, even as it races past. The sonic story of so many 9-to-5 drones -- once-wonderful and amazing people caught up in the song of little dollar signs floating just out of reach, just beyond 'a little more overtime'...

Title: What Is The Measure Of Your Success?
Artist: Steve Taylor
Album: I Predict 1990
Year: 1987
Label: Sparrow
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Brooding sound, heart-piercing story, haunting question. As for the video, I thought it odd at first, but I just watched it again and it feels like genius now. There's all this big set-up and seriousness, and for what? You'll have to watch the video to find out exactly what, but even the absurdity of it makes a point -- 'you think this is ridiculous? What about wasting your entire life in the pursuit of little pieces of paper?'

Well put, Steve. Very well put.


I know better
Still I run...

Why I Don't Have A Nine-To-Five Job - The Practical Reason

For the past month and a half or so I've been seriously contemplating sucking it up and getting a *shudder* nine-to-five job. After all, college and (hopefully) three or four extra dance classes do not pay for themselves.

Of course, in order for me to work a nine-to-five job, I have to actually be slightly conscious at nine o'clock in the morning (actually, it would have to be more like 7.30 to allow for the commute).

So last week I put my abilities to the test.

Our church was hosting their children's day camp that week and I had been pressed into service as Official Event Documenter (translation: photographer). The camp ran from Monday to Friday, from nine till noon. This meant I had to be at the church at 8.30. Which meant I had to be leaving the house at eight. Which meant I had to be awake by 7.30.

In order to do this, drastic measures were required. I forced myself into bed by 12.30 am every night. This meant I accomplished approximately half a page of choreography over nine days (I've been known to do six in one day). Over the course of the week, my mental capacity deteriorated greatly. I don't think I've ever felt so stupid and unproductive in my life. By Thursday I couldn't focus on anything for more than two seconds. Every time I tried to do something productive I became narcoleptic. Basically, I was a zombie.

Last night was my first night in over a week that I didn't have to be up at a certain time the next morning. So, like the rebel I am, I went straight on through till 4.30 am before going to bed. Sure, I didn't wake up till 11.30, but I've already gotten three pages done on Glory To The King (among other miscellaneous household tasks) and was contemplating doing some more choreography once I publish this. You can get a lot done in fifty minutes.

So basically, either I get a 9-to-5 and be a zombie for the rest of my then-cursed life, or I keep looking for something slightly less square-peg-in-round-hole and can then continue with the work God seems to have called me to do.