Writer, Arts Educator
We will have our last online fundraiser for the season up in a day or so (it is pending approval by our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas), but in the meantime, you can enjoy this first entry of our Dido and Aeneas video diary, including a glimpse at our rehearsals this week, some information about the opera this year, and thoughts on the gay agenda. 🏳️🌈 😉
For the record, our version of Dido and Aeneas *does* have a pretty gay agenda. As per our *other* unofficial motto.
It is only day three of rehearsals, and this is where we’re at.
My life for the next six weeks. I can’t believe rehearsals start tomorrow. 😂 And yes, the music you actually see there is originally from King Arthur. But now it’s in Dido and Aeneas. As our unofficial motto explains, “If they didn’t want us to mess with it, they shouldn’t have died.”
Here’s the one photo *I* managed take at the recital this evening (Paul, of course, took real ones), but this was such a great and hilarious moment with our two alumni singers and their very similar school water bottles. More wonderful, of course, was hearing how beautifully they are singing after their first year as vocal performance majors. I could not be more proud of them, or of all my students who performed tonight. Everyone has grown so much! Thanks, everyone, for coming out tonight to hear my wonderful teens sing. And thanks, wonderful teens, for all your hard work and developing artistry. 💜
I just finished the first draft of my novel. So there’s that. Also, a link to share.
“For decades, psychological research has been able to explain procrastination as a functioning problem, not a consequence of laziness. When a person fails to begin a project that they care about, it’s typically due to either a) anxiety about their attempts not being “good enough” or b) confusion about what the first steps of the task are. Not laziness. In fact, procrastination is more likely when the task is meaningful and the individual cares about doing it well.”
I believe this 100%. That book I just finished drafting? I’ve been trying to write it for over ten years. I didn’t suddenly become less “lazy” in order to writing a complete draft in five months. I just finally was in a place where I wasn’t paralyzed by uncertainty and self-doubt.
Read more here.