Hollywood, here I come

These days, part of me wants to ditch this opera-singing stuff and just become an actress. I would model my career after America Ferrera, who has the worst name but is the best actress. I'd start out my career with a movie about "real women" who "have curves," and my performance would be so unforgettably magnetic, so raw and real, that the offers would come flying in for non-ingenue roles for the larger lady. I even think it's this weird fantasy that finally has me getting more serious about losing weight. I'd like to try out for the Ithaca College films this fall, and I want to look decent in them. Who knew acting would finally be the ultimate motivator?

But seriously, acting rocks, and I'm pretty good at it. Where else can you scream at someone that you hate them and mean it with all your heart? Where else can you sob uncontrollably and be admired for it?! (P.S. Crying is my secret superhero power [utilized often and with great success by Panic-Attack girl], and with acting I'm learning how to control it so I don't randomly burn people on the street with it. Talk to my family about THAT)

So let's bring this back to my real life and the subject of this blog, which is The Singing. I admitted to Yuki the other day that it was annoying that I had to sing in all these foreign languages, now that I knew how powerful the English language can be on stage. How can I possibly get across the same emotion when I'm singing in French, German, or Italian? How can I show it when I can't scream or sob, but have to sing pretty? Plus, when you sing opera you can't actually look at the other person, heaven forbid, because your precious sound will go into the wings and be wasted. I love opera for its drama and tragedy, and so many of the stories are so powerful. The drama is the reason I went into this field. But how do I reconcile the skills I've learned in acting with the restraint I need for singing?

After I admitted my new quandry to Yuki, a realization came over me. I don't have to know how to do this right now. I always freak out when I discover the next thing that I'm lacking as an artist (because there's always more out there that you're not doing well enough. It's just how it is here). But for the first time I felt "the journey." What I mean is, there's so much emphasis in the field today about becoming successful when you're in your twenties. These days, if you hit 30 and aren't working, you're dead in the water. Prime breeding ground for panic attacks when you're 29 and just starting out (again), right? But for the first time I felt past all that. Becoming an artist is a process that takes aging. Experience will teach me how to do all the things I want to do, and I really am just at the beginning of the process. My work is getting richer every day, but when I look at it through the magnifying glass of my day-to-day routine it's impossible to see. I'm doing things today that it would have been impossible for me to do six years ago, for various reasons.

And if they don't like what I have to offer, they can suck it, because the process is what counts, regardless of the outcome. But I think they will like what I have to offer. Cause I have a lot of work to do, but I'm becoming an awesome actress, and that's what's important to me.