March Madness #12: What was I thinking?

Don't worry, I'll talk about opera in a few paragraphs, but before that...

I shaved the beard off. Those of you left following me on Instagram have seen the pics by now - I should rephrase, those of you left who haven't un-followed me because I shaved.  A few liked it, some said it was "shocking", some were nonplussed, my family was disappointed as were a few friends who thought the beard was sticking around for good. I did, though, receive a few too many comments and IMs from some of the more rabid beard lovers that went along certain verbiage I don't type into my blog!

I didn't know a clean-shaven man was a woman, for instance. Here I'd been one for 48 years, wow.

What was I thinking?

I started out thinking to trim, then it took a turn for the worse, then it became evident I was going to head back down to that stubble stuff, so I just shaved. I kept the stache.  I had no idea my chin was so weak and fragile!

What was I thinking trying to blog every day for 31 days in March?  It's Madness, sheer madness.

And it was Shear Madness that obviously took its toll on my beard!

Doing too much is a problem of mine. It's a problem for many of us in this crazy field called opera. We are sometimes "gig whores" - never saying NO for fear that ask might be the last one to ever come our way. We are definitely procrastinators on certain levels and in parts of our private lives, I'm certain. We are also passionate and passionately devoted to making music, creating productions, and living via our chosen artistic endeavours. That does take a toll sometimes when too much gets scheduled into too little time.

That certainly happened for me these past six weeks. Between a gig with the Washington Chorus in DC at the Kennedy Center, I was trying to juggle a few too many scenes, a few too many production details, while putting out a few too many, always unlooked for, operatic fires that crop up from time to time.

It's when the Perfect Storm arises, that we see our days all too clearly. I remember two days ago needing to urinate around 3pm. Finally at the break in an act, during a dress rehearsal, I got round to it sometime after 8:30pm. It was like I was on one of those long trips from Iowa to Texas with my dad driving the station wagon and I had to go, but was told to "wait until we're in Arkansas!" Yet, I was the one driving and still... bladder bursting.

I also forget to drink liquids (I guess that's the running theme here...) and find myself parched after going an entire day without water, or tea, or juice. I just go from meeting to meeting to class to rehearsal to meeting to returning email to running to another whatever.

What am I thinking?  Life didn't use to be this hectic. I blame email. Really blame it.

I plan on spending a significant amount of time researching ways to NOT email.  Please send me any thoughts or ideas you might have on the subject.

I'm also going to put up a ticker on this blog to vote for the return of the beard or keeping the stache or going to that, gulp, clean-shaven look. Please make your voice heard -- this is an opera blog!