Too Much To Do!

When I was little, I remember this cartoon that my grandmother had drawn of the family (her, my grandfather, my father, and his siblings), and thinking that it must have been one crazy household. I’m not saying my household, either then or today ISN’T crazy, of course…but what I am saying is that I remember being an only child and wondering what kind of a three-ring circus it must be to have so many people in one house.

My grandfather heads up the upper left corner. Proclaiming, “I’m sick of it!,” he has taken his belt off, ostensibly to beat someone with it. Over the years, I heard many stories of his temper (especially because my father had sworn never to lay a hand on me), but to me, he was always “Grampi,” the big, fat, laughing Buddha, always happy to see me.

My father is to his right, having come home from wherever he had been (college, perhaps?), with suitcases in his hand, asking, “What’s for dinner?” I’m assuming that phrase annoyed my grandmother as much as it annoyed my father, ironically, when I asked him that very same question every night growing up. (My dad’s answer was never-changing: “Food.” When I would ask, “What kind of food?” he would reply, “Good food.”)

My uncle Christopher, clearly a beanpole at this stage of life, says only “Hoodly-oodley-hoo!,” to which my aunt Maggie replies, “Get out of here, you little creep!” Ah, what a loving brother/sister relationship. Aunt Nina, the baby of the bunch, asks, “Why does Tommy always kiss me?” I guess she was the pretty one in the family? Everyone says I look like her, so clearly she must have been.

But in the center of all of this, my grandmother stands with a mop and pail, exclaiming, “Too much to do!” And that is how I feel today: everyone around me is in their own world, but I’ve been sitting here with my virtual mop and pail (otherwise known as Word and Excel) and the more I cross off on my to-do list, the more it gets inexorably longer.

My New Year’s resolution? To try to find a balance between being the helpful, organized person that I am and actually having a life. We’ll see how well I can stick to it.

The Messiah Made Me Do It

Last week, I performed in the event that every classical singer looks forward to (sometimes with dread) every year during Christmas time: Handel’s The Messiah. This year I only had one performance; in years past I’ve had to perform the piece multiple times at multiple venues with various different groups.

In fact, I’ve done so many concerts of The Messiah that I have almost every single printed edition currently available: the Baerenreiter (the preferred edition of The Philadelphia Orchestra and the heaviest), the Watkins-Shaw edition published by Novello (a lighter score only because the pages are super-thin; it actually has all of Handel’s variations in the appendix, including the triplet version of “Rejoice”), and the Schirmer, edited by T. Tertius Noble, which I got in college, because everyone gets that in college (Ray says I make it sound like a disease when I put it that way, but for some reason — probably because it’s the only one printed in the USA — all the college bookstores like to stock the Schirmer, even though it’s the worst edition with the most mistakes and the least number of variations).

This year it was the Baerenreiter for the whole season, and, as I mentioned, it is the heaviest of all my Messiah scores. So heavy, in fact, that I believe I pulled a muscle in my back while holding it up during rehearsals and the one performance of it. I myself find it difficult to believe that something as simple as a heavy score would hurt my back, especially since I’ve done this every year for the past ten years with no ill effects, but I haven’t been doing anything else to strain myself, and my pain seemed limited to the muscle below my left shoulder (the arm I use to hold my music) so I guess it must have been The Messiah that threw my back out.

Ray says the Messiah should have been able to levitate and save me the stress. I told him to take it up with Baerenreiter.

After about a week of anti-inflammatories, massages, and hot showers before bedtime (sounds like a typical Saturday night!) my back was still spasming, so I finally decided to seek professional help. I thought about going to a masseuse and decided I needed something a little more heavy-hitting, so I went to an acupuncturist.

I’ve seen this woman before in the past, although I’m not a regular acupuncture patient. As I laid face-down on the table, she exclaimed that she could see my spasming muscle clearly because it was so inflamed. Not a good thing, I’m imagining. And so the needles went in, and she decided she was going to do some cupping as well, which was a new experience, and felt somewhat like a very large starfish had attached itself to my back.

After all of the needles were in and the cups were in place, she covered me with a mylar blanket to keep me warm and left me in the room with my thoughts for 20 minutes as the qi began to unblock, and for some reason, I couldn’t fall asleep, like I’ve done in the past. Perhaps it was too early in the morning and I had too much on my mind; but even my normal meditative techniques of trying to direct my thoughts towards relaxing my muscles didn’t work very well. All I could think of was how silly I must look, lying face-down on a massage table with a space blanket draped over me.

Ah, well. The 20 minutes were soon over, and my acupuncturist removed all the needles and cups, leaving me with five large red circles on my back. I sat up and stretched and noticed right away that my back felt better. Not perfect, mind you, but much better, and all I could think of was how grateful I was to Chinese medicine.

When I got home and sat at my desk for about four hours, I noticed that the pain was coming back, so I started examining the way I was sitting. Yes, indeed, I’ve been a little torqued, and I have to reach a lot to the left to get to the mouse, so perhaps The Messiah wasn’t the culprit after all!

In the meantime, I’m still trying to avoid any heavy lifting, so don’t ask me to sing Brahms’ Ein Deutches Requiem anytime soon!

Birthday Post

So my friend Becky O. wrote a blog post all about me and even created a wonderful card for me, just for my birthday…and now she’s sending people to my site! So I guess I ought to write something to amuse you all. Oh, the pressure!

I’ve been having a whole bunch of things knocking around in my head recently, and not very much time to write (although today I’ve been kind of goofing off because it’s my birthday and I can goof off if I want to), but since my friend Tammy seems to be able to write up a storm, I think I ought to put some of these thoughts onto the screen.

So, here we go – Random Thoughts for November (hopefully to be fleshed out into real posts soon):

  1. Guitar Hero and Rock Band are to actual music-making as American Idol is to actual singing. Not that I’m not fascinated with both, but I fear that some parents might think their kids are getting some semblance of a musical education by giving them these toys, and they are wrong, wrong, wrong.
  2. Starting up one’s own business is lonely, hard work. Did I mention it was lonely? And hard? Especially doing it alone?
  3. Don’t get freaked out on me, because I KNOW I’ve never talked about this before, but partly in reference to #1 and #2, I am looking into public schoolteaching.
  4. However, one of the best things about working at home is the fact that I can make my own food a lot more.
  5. I asked the guy who does our lawn to do some yard cleanup, and he weed-whacked my herb garden. I know it was a little weedy, but it was enclosed with a nice little white wire fence that clearly says, “I’m a garden!” No more chive-rosemary scrambled eggs for me in the morning. Oh well. I’m sure the rosemary would have died during the next cold snap.
  6. I’m knitting a grocery shopping bag out of all my used grocery bags. Ray thinks it’s silly to knit one bag out of many bags, but I think it’s kind of a cool way to recycle, so when I’m done, I’ll take a picture and post it on the site.

So that’s what’s been happening. Concerts, as usual, of course. I try not to write about those (although there are some good stories!) because I’m afraid I might reveal some of my true feelings about certain new artistic directors of certain local, internationally-known orchestras (ahem).

So thanks, Becky, for the beautiful card! If you’re new to the site, ignore all the Twitter posts and browse to the tags to the right. Some meatier posts are aboutmy gardening adventures…that’s a good place to start.

My Birthday Card

Tweet the Vote

Today, millions of Americans will go to over 200,000 distinct voting locations and using different systems and machinery to vote. Some voters will have a terrific experiences, and others will experience the same problems we have been hearing about for years – long lines, broken machines, inaccurate voting rolls, and others will experience problems that we haven’t heard about before. That’s why a new citizen-driven election monitoring system called Twitter Vote Report (www.twittervotereport.com) was just launched. Using either Twitter.com, iPhone, direct SMS, or our telephone hotlines, voters will have a new way to share their experiences with one another and ensure that the media and watchdog groups are aware of any problems.

And YOU can help! Be a citizen journalist! Submit a report about conditions at your polling place.

Four ways to submit reports to Vote Report:

  • Twitter: include #votereport and other tags to describe the scene on the ground
  • SMS: Send text messages to 66937 (MOZES)starting with the keyword #votereport plus other hash tags
  • iPhone: We have a Twitter Vote Report iPhone app in the App store!
  • Phone: Call our automated system at 567-258-VOTE (8683)to report about conditions, using any touch-tone phone

And if you would like to talk to a human to report bad conditions you’ve observed, please call our partner 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

As news outlets and blogs will report on Election Day stories, www.twittervotereport.com is an invaluable resource for thousands of voters to get immediate help. From questions like “where do I vote” or “how do I make sure that my rights are being upheld,” Twitter Voter Report augments these efforts by providing a new way for voters to send text messages (aka tweets) via cellphones or computers which will be aggregated and mapped so that everyone can see the Nation’s voting problems in real-time.

Imagine a nationwide web map with pins identifying every zip code where Americans are waiting over 30 minutes to vote or indicating those election districts where the voting machines are not working. Collectively we will inform each other when the lines are too long and ensure that media and watchdog groups know where problems exist.

For more information, go to www.twittervotereport.com. The complete list of tags or keywords that you can include in your reports is listed there. And please help to spread the word — send this to everyone you know!

And now, a message from democracy

About a month and a half ago, I received a letter in the mail from the NJ Board of Elections. It was a note telling me that my name registered with the DMV was not in the voter rolls, and it urged me to register to vote. Enclosed was a pre-filled voter registration application and a return envelope.

I would have thought that this was wonderfully proactive from a usually bloated and unresponsive government, except for one thing: I am already registered to vote, and I have been for many years.

I looked more closely at the pre-filled application and saw that my maiden name was on there, as well as the driver’s license number that corresponded to my maiden name. Since I legally changed my name with the DMV in April 2007 after I got married, and I have voted at least twice since then, I know FOR A FACT that my married name is on the voter rolls, not my maiden name.

Shame on the NJ Board of Elections for using old DMV data. I tried to call the number listed on the letter, but couldn’t get through. I thought, “Well, I’ve voted with my married name before, and my license has a completely different number than this prefilled application. Thank goodness I’m honest and am not registering twice.”

But now, with allegations of fraudulent registration with ACORN (which are mostly bogus and trumped up by the GOP), I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have tried harder to say something. And then someone sent me a link to this Rolling Stone article about how some Republicans are trying to block the votes of Democrats and minorities in swing states (most notably in New Mexico, Colorado, and Michigan).

I’m still not TERRIBLY worried about my situation in particular. In the 6 years that I’ve lived in NJ, I’ve never had a problem voting. I’ve always received an example ballot in the mail before each election, there have never been any lines, and all the poll workers have been friendly and helpful. And despite the fact that the NJ Board of Elections tried to register me twice, I’m (mostly) confident that my married name will be on the rolls come November 4.
Steal Back Your Vote! from Greg Palast on Vimeo.

So what can we do to ensure that our vote counts?
If you or someone you know has been caged, purged, or challenged by election officials call Election Protection 1-866 -OUR-VOTE

  1. Don’t mail in your ballot. Go in person.
  2. Do not accept a provisional ballot. In many states anywhere between one in three to one half of all provisional ballots are discarded. Rules are extremely lax on whether or not these ballots need to be counted by election officials. If an election official tries to get you to vote on a provisional ballot, but you know that you are a registered voter,demanda call to the supervisor of elections.
  3. Vote early. Most states now have a period prior to November 4 when you can cast your vote. This gives you time to get re-registered if you’d been purged from the voter rolls. It also gives you time to go home and pick up your photo ID and bring it back your polling place, if you’ve been rejected for this reason (only some states require photo identification).
  4. Check online to see if you are still registered. Go to www.votersunite.org/info/RegInfo.asp.
  5. If you re-register, or register for the first time, pull out your driver’s license and make sure that you fill out your name on your voter registration form in the exact same way as it is spelled on your driver’s license. A number of states are purging voters from the rolls if their driver’s license and registration form are not an “exact match.” As crazy as it sounds, voters are being purged from the rolls if extremely minor variations exist between the two. For example: if your driver’s license says Karen Joy Miller, and your voter registration form lists your name as Karen J. Miller, you can be purged from the rolls.

Good luck, and happy voting!

High Holiness

Well, it happened again; I went back to singing for High Holy Days, although not in Deal this time.

Now that I have a Germanic last name, I figured I wouldn’t have to change it to something more Semitic this time, but one of the first things the cantor brought up with me was the “problem” some people might have with me being a gentile. I foolishly told the cantor about how they changed my name to Montebini in Deal, and I think it gave him ideas; he other day he asked if he could call me Miriam in front of other people.

I told him that he could call me that…but I might not answer.

Anyway, the whole situation has made me start thinking about the role music plays in religion. Obviously, music and religion have been inexorably linked since the beginning of either. But more pertinent to a person in my line of work: when did religions start hiring ringers to “improve” their services?

I know the Catholic church (and later, the Protestants) has always been a great sponsor of music. The first music conservatories were orphanages run by the church. And how many great, monumental works were commissioned by the church? So I’m very, very grateful to organized religion in general for being such a consistent sponsor of the arts throughout the centuries. But sorry, folks, I’m not going to buy into your way of thinking just because you sign my check.

Many religious pieces have been (and continue to be) written by believers, from Palestrina to MacMillan, but some really beautiful sacred music has been written by composers leading decidedly secular lives, like Mozart or Schumann. I personally don’t believe that a piece of music is only sacred when someone who believes what the listener believes writes it. So what is the big deal when someone who doesn’t believe performs it, as long as they perform it well?

Being a gentile in the middle of High Holy Days certainly made me feel very much an outsider, especially considering the fact that most of the services were conducted in Hebrew. And the fact that I had to hide my religious affiliation to the point of changing my name also rubbed me the wrong way. Are appearances so important that you have to make everyone believe that the 4 singers you hired to be there also are Jews? Because if it’s THAT important, then you should just never hire gentiles at all.

The irony really struck me while rehearsing for Kol Nidre, when the cantor explained that this service started back in the days of the Spanish Inquisition, when Jews went underground and had to pretend they were Christians. Kol nidre is the prayer that renounces all false oaths those Jews made to their oppressors. And yet I have to pretend to be Jewish.

And lest you think my frustration is only with the Jews, most churches require their choir members to bow or reverence the altar during procession to the choir stalls, and some higher forms of Episcopal and Catholic churches require you to bow to the cross on the altar whenever you pass by it. It’s a part of the ritual, and I do it out of respect for the people worshiping around me. But I don’t take communion, nor does anyone expect me to, since communion is reserved for baptized Christians only (for Catholics, it’s reserved only for Catholics).

The problem may lie with me. After all, if I didn’t want to do what the folks at the synagogue expected of me, I could have just not taken the job. And I’m sure some of you think that by running from synagogue to church in the same day I’m no better than a religious strumpet, stripping off my cotta and slipping on a kippah. And certainly there is a meretricious element to what I’m doing, because this particular gig, by its very nature, is deceptive.

I’m not sure there is an easy answer to this, at least not one where I don’t offend somebody. I am a working singer, and there are certain organizations of varying religions that feel they would benefit from my services. If somebody feels closer to God when they hear me sing, then that makes me happy, and it brings me closer to God(dess). Music is my church, and I am constantly worshiping there.

On Trying to Save Money

One of the unfortunate parts of trying to run my own business is that I have very little money with which to do so.  Since it’s not Christmas yet, all I have in the way of cash flow is some savings that I put aside and my (gulp) credit cards.  I’m trying to mitigate some of my business costs with DIY solutions, but as I said before, my time is limited, and I’m only one person.  So if I have to spend money, I have to be stingy about it.

Of course, Murphy’s law being what it is, just as I decide I’m going to save money by printing music and business cards myself, my printer breaks.  I spent several hours swearing at the stupid thing, but the printer would not be moved to do my bidding.  After trolling the tech forums for a solution, I found out that the only thing that seemed to work about 80% of the time was to replace the printhead, a part that would cost almost $70.  Ugh.

Since that’s about as much as a whole new printer, I decided to take a trip to Staples and see what kind of multi-function machines were out there (my old printer was a Canon MP780 scanner/copier/fax/printer, so I preferred to replace all the functions if possible).  Armed with my trusty Treo by my side to check prices on the internet while I shopped, I wandered the aisles, poking at Brother, Canon, HP, and Epson models.

I finally settled on two choices:  a Canon MP620, coming in just under $150, and an HP Officejet J5780, which was on sale for $75.  The Canon got better reviews, but the HP wasn’t bad, and the fact that I could get it for half the price of the Canon made me choose the HP.  Unfortunately, it looked like other people had the same idea as I did, because there were no boxes underneath the display model.  When I asked at the front desk, they said the only model they had left was the display model.  I could either go to Marlton (14 miles away and a good 30 minute drive) and pick one up, or I could buy the floor model in front of me.

My inner miser spoke up and said I could save money on gas if I just took the floor model.  After getting assurances that I could return it if something went wrong, I plunked down my $75 (plus $14.99 for a 2-yr warrantee) and walked away with the printer and a bag full of parts and directions (they couldn’t find the box).

When I got home and started putting the printer together, I realized that there was one important component missing:  the paper tray.  I called the store and asked if they happened to have a paper tray wandering around anywhere, and after being passed off to three or four people, I was informed that they did not have the tray.  My two options were to return the printer for a full refund or go through the warrantee company to get the part replaced.

Hmm.  Now this is becoming more trouble than it’s worth!  I saved money on the printer, true, but if I have to drive back, return the printer, get another printer (and/or maybe drive to Marlton for their HP, if they still have one), I’ll have spent about $75 worth of time (and gas), which would make it equivalent to the purchase of the Canon.  Or if I wait for the warrantee company, I could get the part shipped to me for free, but it’ll most likely take several weeks for the claim to go through.  Argh!

I decided to go with the warrantee.  Since I purchased it, I might as well make my $14.99 work for me.  I jury-rigged the computer so paper can go into the printer with undue fuss.  It’s not pretty, but it’s functional.

Once again, DIY saves the day.

Red Hawk Down

One morning two weeks ago, I started my morning routine as usual: wake up, hit snooze button, wake up again, get out of bed, feed cats, take a shower. Itchy and Scratchy are usually waiting (im)patiently at the sunroom door, ready for breakfast, and of course, when I feed them, Itchy usually takes three bites and announces he’s done. By the time I usually get out of the shower, Itchy’s insistent crescendo of meowing has woken Ray (and probably the whole neighborhood!); the only thing that will assuage him is to let him out into the garden.

On this particular day, Itchy had already gone outside, and I had continued my morning routine: check email, read the newest blog posts from my favorite bloggers, and finish getting ready for the day. I walked back into the bedroom, and I glanced out to the sunroom, where I saw Scratchy staring intently at something outside. I figured he must want to go outside as well, so I went into the sunroom to let him out.

And that’s when I saw it: a large bird, face down, on the balcony right outside the sunroom’s sliding glass door.

“Ray!” I shouted through the bathroom door. “There’s a falcon or something outside the sunroom. I think it’s dead.”

Ray opened the bathroom door, looked outside and said, “That’s not big enough to be a falcon.”

“Okay, a hawk or something. A large bird of prey. It’s not a sparrow.”

“Did Itchy catch that and drag it up the stairs?”

“Um, no, Itchy usually brings headless mice. I think bird this is a little big for him. But I think it might be dead. What should we do?”

Ray mumbled something about going to take a shower and retreated back into the bathroom.

Great, I thought. I guess it’s my job to take care of the dead bird, since I’m the one who cleans the cat puke and disposes of the aforementioned decapitated rodents. It’s hard enough to pick up dead mice, though; this bird was as big as the cats.

So I did what anyone would do when faced with a situation they know nothing about: I looked stuff up on the interwebs. Wikipedia told me that the accipiter in question was the Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), and a quick Google search told me, to my dismay, that NJ Department of Animal Control didn’t have an office in my county. I did find a phone number to call, though…only to find out that office hours started at 9:00. I looked at the clock. Crap. It was only 8:15.

Okay, I thought. This can’t be too bad. I’ve always enjoyed biology and never got squeamish when dissecting animals, so I’ll just treat this like a biology experiment. I put some gloves on and opened the sliding glass door.

Scratchy inched out the door, cautiously snuck over to the bird, sniffed it, and backed away quite quickly, retreating to the safety of the sunroom. Not a good sign.

I picked up the bird. The head lolled lifelessly to the side, its eyes closed. The body was still warm, but there was no muscular response to my touch at all. As I began to look at it more closely, examining it for puncture wounds or anything that would explain its appearance on my balcony, a spider scurried out from in between its chest feathers.

I screamed and dropped the hawk.

Then I felt terrible. I’m sorry, hawk, I kept repeating in my mind to the dead bird’s soul, if it was still around. I bent over to pick it up and saw that one of its eyes was open.

Now I started to freak out. Was that eye open before? Did it open when I dropped it? Is this animal really dead? Did I kill it by dropping it? Oh, no!

But I calmed myself down quickly, saying out loud, over and over again, “I’m an adult. This thing is dead. There’s nothing to worry about.” I took the bird down the stairs to the hole that I had dug for it.

But as I placed the bird in its grave, I thought I saw its leg move. It could have been a trick of the light, the way I was holding it, but I couldn’t bear the thought of possibly burying this bird alive, even if it was mostly dead already. I put the hawk down next to the hole and went inside.

Once inside, I told Ray about my experience. I told him I was having the heeby-jeebies, and I didn’t feel comfortable burying the thing. He said I should see if the state wants to take it and test it for whatever avian diseases there are in the area. It still wasn’t 9:00 yet, but I thought I’d try calling Animal Control just in case.

I got through to a dispatcher, who then patched me through to someone in Animal Control. I told them my story, and they said that if the hawk wasn’t dead already, it probably would be very shortly, so there was no point in them coming by to pick it up. “Don’t you want to test it for West Nile or something?” I asked.

No, they responded. The state hasn’t requested that they pick up any dead birds at this time, so they’re not going to bother doing it. I can do whatever I want with the bird: bury it, leave it be, or stick it in a garbage bag and throw it out. (It’s nice to know that the Animal Control people are so sensitive!)

I decided that I would put the bird to rest at the foot of my rose bush. I didn’t bury it, but I figured that with the heat and humidity forecast for that weekend, the body would decompose quickly, especially in the open air. I briefly thought about saving some of the feathers from its gorgeous plumage, but I decided that I wanted to be as respectful as possible, so I let it alone.

Hypermiling

A few weeks ago, my friend small_pond wrote about how she was starting to adopt some hypermiling habits while commuting, and I wanted to add my two cents about my fuel economy as well. As the gas prices have gotten higher and higher this summer, I know that more and more people in this country have started to change their behavior when it comes to gas usage. While I’m not thrilled at having to pay more at the gas pump, I truly believe that it’s a good thing that oil and gas prices have gotten to the point where people are finally taking a look at what they can do to conserve energy.

What do I do to save fuel?

  1. I bought a new car.  I wouldn’t recommend this as an easy way to save gas and money, obviously. In my case, the old Saturn was starting to fall apart and become more expensive to maintain than it was worth. instead of staying within the American-made GM/Saturn family (we were an all-Saturn household for many years), I looked for an affordable car that got great gas mileage. Hybrids were tempting, but a little out of my price range, so I settled on the Honda Fit, which gets almost as good (if not sometimes better!) mileage on the highway.
  2. I keep track of my mileage. For anyone who has been following my Twitter posts, occasionally you’ll see something that starts with @fuelfrog, and then a bunch of numbers.  Fuelfrog is a very simplistic application that simply tracks how good your mileage is.  Every time I fuel up, I text Fuelfrog (through Twitter) how many miles I’ve driven, the price per gallon, and number of gallons purchased.  Fuelfrog then takes those numbers and makes a nifty graph that gives me insight into how my driving habits influence my fuel efficiency.  It doesn’t do much other than make a graph, but it’s neat, and it keeps me aware of how much gas I’m using.
  3. Hypermiling.  Yes, I coast and try not to brake too suddenly or gun the engine to accelerate quickly.  But I don’t try to stay under 65 mph or draft behind trucks to lessen wind resistance.  I also haven’t been keeping paying special attention to my tire pressure, since it’s a fairly new car.  However, Sunday morning, which was the first cold morning of the season, an indicator lit up on my dashboard to tell me my tire pressure was low.  Apparently, if I had just driven a few miles, the tire would have warmed up and the light would have probably gone off, but I didn’t want to take any chances and I drove to the nearest gas station to fill up the tires.  Now that I actually know how to put air in my tires (yes, I am a dumb girl and couldn’t figure out the air pump for a good five minutes), I’m thinking of investing in a tire pressure gauge, so I can keep my tires at an optimum pressure at all times.
  4. I lighten the load.  I don’t usually leave a whole lot of stuff in my car anymore.  Trash gets taken out regularly (mostly), and if I have books or boxes, they come into the house as soon as I get home.  Where before I would drive around with tons of binders in the back seat or trunk, now I only take what I need and no more.  The lower the weight, the better the mileage.

So those are my tips for good fuel economy.  Of course, ideally, we should all not be using our cars at all, but since I live a good 10 miles from the nearest rehearsal site, I don’t think I’ll be walking or biking to work any time soon.

On starting a business

August 29 was my last day as a transcriptionist.  No more trying to figure out what the endocrinologist with the West African/French/Jamaican accent is saying 20 feet away from the microphone.  No more bleeding eardrums when someone decides to clear their throat right in front of the microphone while I’ve got the volume turned up all the way so I can hear the West African/French/Jamaican doctor.  No more commuting to work and having to eat out for breakfast and lunch and sometimes dinner.

But also, no more steady paycheck.  No more fun lunches with RS, my partner in arms at the transcription company.  And much, much less daily human contact.

Why did I do all this?  Because my singing career has finally gotten me to the point where I can afford to quit my day job.  And because the past couple of Christmas seasons have made me want to start my own business providing carolers to events.

So I quit my job and formed my own company.  I’ve got so many singing gigs on my own that they are, by themselves, a full-time job, so this is still a side business, if you will.

But it’s certainly VERY hard work.  I started back in March trying to write a business plan and got stuck.  I meant to apply for incorporation documents back in June, but I got busy.  June turned to July and then to August, and I had already put my notice in at work, so I figured I’d better get cracking.

Then there was the website.  After several failed attempts at building a website with a prefab WordPress template, my perfectionism was getting the better of me.  I know just enough about websites to make me dangerous; I wanted the site to do certain things and look a certain way, but I didn’t (and still don’t) have enough chops to achieve my goals.  After about 10 hours of hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth, I realized that if I wanted to get it done right, I’d have to pay a professional to do it.

Enter BeSeen.  One of the founding partners is a fellow singer in The Crossing and also happens to be an advertising whiz.  His company will be putting together a fantabulous website just as soon as we get the pictures, video, and sound from last night’s photo shoot/recording session.  I’m very excited about this!

Working from home is wonderful and horrible all at the same time.  There are a million distractions from housework to TV to Facebook and Twitter to video games (I’m currently at the very end of GTA IV and am really frustrated I can’t/shouldn’t devote more time to it so I can finish the dang thing!!). Never mind the leather pouches I’m sewing for Ray to bring to Faire and the cloth pouches and sashes I should be sewing because I can sell them on consignment.  I also am volunteering my time negotiating a union contract that’s taking more time than we all had anticipated.  Oh yeah, and lest I forget, I have three different gigs I’m learning music for at the same time.  You know, for my job that actually pays the bills?

In order for me to set up this business properly, I have a ton of long to-do lists, from assembling music (I’ve decided to self-publish my own arrangements) to making sure there are enough costume pieces for those people without costumes (more sewing or paying someone else to sew!  Which do I have less of:  time or money?) to auditioning singers, building a client base (REALLY important), and writing contracts.  Ugh.  I need a clone.  No, I need several clones.  But I don’t have enough money for an assistant (or a clone…the R&D costs alone would be astronomical!), so I’ll just have to go nuts and try to do it all on my own.

Wish me luck.