An Unfenced Existence

So! I finally did it - I joined the Manassas Community Chorale for their 2007-2008 season. Well, sort of. I still have to audition, which is tomorrow night, but I'm sure I'll be fine. Even if I am audition with the Star Spangled Banner. (Oh, so not my choice, but since I don't think I could learn a show tune in a week, it's all I got.) But I went to my first rehersal yesterday, and it was a blast! We're doing a show called "Thanks for the Memory" and it's all show tunes like "All Aboard!", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" and "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree".First concert is in October. One of the concerts is at the Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg. I'm really excited about that one.

This is my first time ever singing in a SATB chorale. The first time the basses hit a truly low note, I shivered. It's also the first time I've ever sung in a chorale this size - up to 80 people! And everyone that I've spoken to has been very nice.

ANYWAY - I FINALLY have an answer to my skin problems. It is allergies. But not to the ferrets (yes!). I'm allergic to shellfish (SUSHI, NOOO!!), artificial sweetener (COKE ZERO! NOOOO!), dustmites, and cockroaches. The moment I stopped eating sushi, crab meat, shrimp, scallops, calamari, you know, all the GOOD stuff from the sea, and stopped drinking Coke Zero and chewing sugarless gum and well, all diet soda really, the swelling and the horrific rash went away. IN LESS THAN A WEEK. I still have bouts when I forget about the newfound allergies and go out and get some Korean sushi (that was very very odd...) or eat some calamari the hives come back. Stress causes the hand eczema.

In fact, last night was a little get together to welcome new members to the MCC. There were some brownies and these really tasy chocolate chip/peanut butter cookies. And I had a few because I didn't get dinner that night. This morning I woke up swollen and my hands had new vesicles which tells me that one of them probably had Splenda in it. Lovely. I guess I can never trust a bake sale again. T.T Nor a sushi bar. Wah.

I'm also currently living at my aunt's house. Technically I'm house/cat sitting, but really, I'm enjoying the freedom of living on my own. Throw in the ferrets and it'd be a grand ol' time. It's really time to move on from where I live now and seek out greener pastures. Can't go too far, tho' cuz I just plunked 63 in the MCC so I should at least stay the year.

Still considering going back to school. But it took me a year to decide to join MCC so I figure it'll take me at least that long if not longer to figure out what I REALLY want to do. My current field is HR and I have to admit, I'm not really loving it. Practically speaking, I wouldn't mind going into real estate, but again, practically speaking, with the down turn in real estate this isn't the time (or the place) to be trying that sort of thing out. Be nice just to get a better paying job so that I could start making a dent in my student loans instead of just barely making the minimum (oh, hey, that reminds me...). My dream would be to go back to school for art and combine my mad history skills and not so mad art skills (it's something that I really need to work on) and draw stories for a living. First I think I should start taking art classes, especially anatomy. I suck at that like whoa.

But the real estate thing comes out of my love and true desire to own an old Victorian with a turret and a wrap around porch. The ones I remember best, and there are a few around here, there's one that I would kill to have (mostly to get the money to afford it, heh) and fix up, but the ones I remember best are up in New York. I loved driving passed those houses and wondering why we didn't live there. The answer to that question is all to obvious (uh, poor. And - Army brat). And watching a lot of real estate shows with my aunt. Seriously though, I think that would be an interesting and rewarding career. And I don't just mean financially, but personally. Helping people find their dream homes. Helping new families start out in a new house. Am I romanticizing it? Hell, yeah. Would I be nervous as hell all the time because I'm shyie-mc-shying-ton? A no brainer. But still something that I would dearly love to get my hand in. Don't quite know how to do it, but I would love to learn how to try.

But, as Denise may remember, my wishes and wants change like a cross dresser on speed, so who knows what I'll want in six months? I'm all kinds of crazy like that.

I woke up this morning feeling like someone had punched me in the left kidney. Now, as I am not in the habit of going to bars, much less getting into bar fights, I couldn't fathom why this could be. It faded a little bit after awhile, but throbbed gently through most of the day.

Also, my hands shook quite violently from about 11-1 which is the point when I managed to finally get something to eat. The jittery feeling still hasn't left, really.

But enough about my general (un)health. I recently read a novel called Darcy's Story (about, who else?, Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice) which was quite good and intriguing all the way up until the very end when they started confessing to each other. After that point it just generally got teeth grindingly irritating and I had to put it down probably never to be picked up again. Unless I decide to read the last chapter, of course. Missing all of the annoying lovey-dovey, smoopy, fluff that killed my enjoyment of it, of course. Liz and Fitz are a far more interesting couple when they hate each other. Or when Fitz is being all Emo!Fitz.

I'm slowly dipping my toes back into the ocean of books and I'm glad I have historical fiction to ease myself back in. There was a list of HistFic at the back of Darcy's Story that was really intriguing. On it was a novel told in the POV of the Jane Eyre's charge while she was working with...damn, the name's escaping me. It'll come to me eventually. I'm really excited to find that one as Jane Eyre is one of my favorite novels of all time, hands down. Rochester! That was his name...now what what the girl's name? Madeline? Hmm...All I remember was that it was French.

Anyway, yes. I'm slowly getting back into the habit of devouring every book in sight. I'm planning on making a book run soon, as my last book run only produced d.Gray-Man vol...5? 4? The newest one! Pride and Prejudice (which I still can't get through, but I promise you I will! Someday! maybe?) and Darcy's Story. With Father's Day coming up, I'm sure that I'll make it to a bookstore.

Nothing too terribly exciting going on here at the moment. Well, the thunderstorm was quite thrilling and I have missed them terribly. I love this time of year for precisely this reason: awesome thunderstorms. I'm really glad I didn't have to drive in it though, because that would've sucked. It's supposed to storm again tomorrow night, so maybe I'll sit outside and watch.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen any lightening bugs in the trees yet. Have they come out? I wonder...this year I'm going to take a picture of them twinkling in the trees like Earth born starlight.

EDIT: Got a response from my Dr. K about the hand shaking - hypoglycemic episodes - need to have regular and frequent meals. How come this is only starting now?