Jan. 3rd, 2009. Love.

My friend Jack, who happens to be a cat, is very sick. He has very slim chances of recovery from what is ailing him.

He is in Houston with my family - I just brought him home on Christmas day. I'm currently in New York, finishing the rest of the packing up of my things, and grabbing Jack's brother Homer to return to Houston with me once the movers come for my stuff.

Jack might be there when I get back to Houston. Jack might not be there when I get back to Houston. The waiting and not knowing is the hardest part.

I have limited experience with the death of loved ones. I'm trying my best to understand....that's why I'm writing this, I suppose.

That, and also I love Jack very much.

When situations like this happen, when people flutter in and out of our lives, my initial reaction is to ask, "Why, God? Why did you bring this person into my life only to take him away? What is the lesson I'm supposed to take away from this?"

With Jack, the only lesson I can even begin to fathom is that I needed to learn about love. Plain and simple. Jack taught me that love is easy, love is uncomplicated, and that love is definitely, definitely real.

Thank you, Jack. I believe in love. I'm really glad we met and got to love each other.

December 23rd, 2008. 16 things.

This seems to be making the rounds....
I'll give you 16 things about me you may not know (likes,dislikes,hobbies,et

c.), and I'll also tag 16 people. You're suppose to go into why you tagged the people, but, I'd prefer not to. I'll just simply say that if I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you. After you've read about me, and my 16, why not post your own note with your 16, and tag 16 people you're curious about.

1. My funny gray cat Homer used to be named Hildy. I thought he was a girl for the first week he lived with me. I loved the name Hildy so much that it took me three months to come up with another name. Homer has also been called Elliot, Miles, Newman...and finally he became Homer after he grabbed an empty bottle of beer out of the trash and it became his favorite toy.

2. There are several Disney movies that are probably responsible for me becoming an opera singer. Sleeping Beauty (is there any question why I sing so much Russian rep? The main musical theme of this movie is Tchaikowsky), Mary Poppins (I used to cry myself to sleep over how beautiful "Feed the Birds" was), and The Little Mermaid (that was the one that made me realize that I'd be lying to myself if I grew up to do anything other than singing).

3. I'm completely obsessed with the history of France - not just the revolution of the late 1700s (although I'm obsessed with that too...when I was in the 6th grade I did a report on the french revolution complete with a miniature guillotine model which I used on a barbie that I dressed in period clothing), but all the way back to France's origins. Why are the women so effortlessly femmes fatales? Why are they even worse snobs about their language than we are? Why does everything taste better there? My friend Kelly says I'm a French-supremacist when it comes to my taste in men....she is right. They are hotter and behave like gentlemen.

4. My favorite shows are all cartoons. King of the Hill is my favorite, it reminds me of where I grew up in Texas.

5. One of my favorite places in the universe is the hill right near Miller Theater in Houston. The happiest times in my life involve rolling down that hill.

6. I lived in Jakarta, Indonesia during middle school. The first time I ever heard the term "third world country" was when I lived there. This turn of phrase makes me sick to my stomach. Third world. This is only something that people who have never been there would call it. It's ONE world. Every place in the world has something of great importance to contribute. It's up to us to erase stupid phrases like "third world" from the collective vocabulary.

7. I am obsessed with surrealist artist Renee Magritte. And surrealist filmmaker Federico Fellini. And anybody who is brave enough and individual enough to turn their dreams into something tangible and memorable. It makes me wonder if it's possible for me to do this onstage. Also, I love Michael Sowa for his surrealist art for children.

8. Sweet potato french fries from Kerby Lane in Austin, TX are my own personal ambrosia. They're a cure-all, at least for me.

9. Sometimes I make an airgun with my fingers and shoot the moon. Because I'm a lonestar. Feel free to ask more about that one....it's a quirky Abbyism.

10. My favorite opera is Richard Strauss's "Salome," and I'm going to be making my professional operatic debut in this show in March. I'm SO STOKED!

11. I try hard not to spend all my money on clothes, but it's hard. I know it's completely materialistic to obsess over one's wardrobe, but I just see fashion as a way to express myself. People often don't realize that the way they dress is a big artistic statement (or at least an opportunity for one)

12. I have never been sick of a Beatles song, NEVER. I've heard all of them eight million times but they always sound new to me every time.

13. I am terribly, terribly afflicted with wanderlust. I constantly need to change scenery.

14. My brother is the wisest person I know. I always trust his advice.

15. If I wasn't an opera singer I would be a lawyer. I grew up in law firms (single mom was a legal assistant) and I've always been really interested in the difference between the law and ethics. They are two completely different things. I would always choose to be ethical first. So I guess that means I wouldn't have been a very good lawyer.

16. I completely and unabashedly believe in love.

Dec. 12th, 2008. Dedicated to everyone who's been auditioning like mad lately.

This note is dedicated to anyone and everyone who shows up for an audition.

So, I don't know if everyone knows this or not, but this is the first year that I have consistently shown up for every single audition that I applied for. Today's audition was number 57. That's right. 57. I'm not exaggerating. I have 6 more auditions before Christmas. I'm starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. I don't know if it's because I know that I've been cast in a couple of things - I tend to think that it's more because I've figured something out.

Before I get to the thing I figured out, though, I need to rant just a little bit. Feel free to rant in your comments, I just need to get this out of my system.

Just who the hell is ANYBODY to decide what is art and what is not? What we do, as singers, actors, instrumentalists, in the audition process, is to get up in front of a select few people and make art. Private art. Just for them. Just for a few minutes. And they get to sit there all day long, witnessing art being made. I sometimes find myself wondering if they can appreciate how awesome their jobs are. I've been blessed with a few auditions this year where the adjudicators acknowledge how lucky they are - these instances have brought me to tears. And then there are the other kinds of auditions....the ones where the adjudicators talk loudly over the music, scribble away furiously, stop you one measure before the end of your piece, make comments about how much they have a distaste for the contemporary music you offer....

So, again, just who is ANYBODY to say what is art and what is not? I mean, I MAKE art for a living and I'm not someone who can gauge this question. I honestly think my cats are just as qualified as the people I sing for.

So here's where we get to the part where I figured out a solution to the audition funk that works for me.

Oddly enough, this thought came to me as I was reading Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities." What I am about to quote isn't the happiest thing you've ever read, but it's somehow comforting to read just before I get up to sing for an audition, and I'll explain why once I finish quoting this amazing Dickens passage:

" A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbor is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry with mine to my life's end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?"

You see, these people that we sing for, they'll never REALLY know what goes on in our hearts. And that's why it's completely okay to walk in there and completely expose your heart to them when you sing. You'll always be a mystery to them and they'll always be a mystery to you - and that's life. All that matters is that YOU know what's in your heart.

So maybe the person/people you're singing for will see a flash of the treasure that's in your heart. Maybe they won't. Regardless, they'll never be able to capture it. It's your treasure. And don't forget that - it's TREASURE.

You only have to show up and do your best. You might fail. Failure is a hell of a lot better than mediocrity, though. This has been a hard lesson for me to learn but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.