Catch My Fancy

So today I had a moment where I actually knew it was ONE OF THOSE moments.  (Usually one does not, and you have to backtrack mentally when there's been time and perspective...)

I attempted to enrol in my Grad Dip in Music online, and of course got stuck. 

So I sent a text message to Canadian Dave (who I knew was back at work today and he had said "When you get stuck....") and he eventually called me back once the crazy had died down and gave me the missing bit of information.

And so I was able to finally push the button that said: "Accept my offer" while he said "....and there you go, you've just changed your life."

Then just a little while ago I had another moment after reading all the subject descriptions.  this one involved a lot of panicked sweating.  Holy crap do I have a LOT of remedial work to do on my music theory and similar...

I have had a john in my house for some days.

We met here on Dreamwidth and now I have an International Tenor of Mystery as a friend. 

He brings me Veuve Cliquot, people!    Also we blend while singing. 

*boggle*

...and I don't mean as in "quiet happiness".

I have both (a) actual things to say and (b) BIG LOUD HAPPINESS: I have a gig!  With an orchestra!  Ha!

Okay YES, it's a community orchestra, and a community choir, and the gigs will be in the far-flung parts of Melbourne....but finally: I get to sing with an orchestra! 

It is (finally, after so many fits and starts of the last few years) a Place to Start Building Things Up Again.

It's Lobegesang (or the Hymn of Praise) by Mendelssohn and I have the 1st Soprano solos.

Which is brilliant, as I get to sing a duet with James, the adorable little (well, quite young, but still taller than I - and his voice is as big as a Very Big Thing) tenor.  But he's just so sweet and we get on well (this is 90% of being able to do duets).

They sent me my audition video.  OY.  Many many many things to work upon.

WHAT A WEEK TO NOT BE ON FACEACHE!

Melbourne peeps: you can book here

Part 1 of the set-up for this post: so last night at a partay, I spent some time chatting with a person who is in the early stages of transition from male to female (on hormones for some months, fretting about raising the frankly mind-spinning amount of cash needed for surgery &etc).  She was wearing a great corset which I was admiring slavishly, which is how we got talking.

Part 2: the latest Australian census is happening in about ten days.  I have a friend who's a census collector, so I've already had a look at the form.  lauredhel  has already posted on this today, but it bears repeating: there's no allowing anyone to be anything except male or female.  That is it.  Pick one, and shut the fuck up already.

The meat of this post: I was having brunch this morning with three people who I would consider intelligent, tolerant, giving, loving and au courant human beings. I was reporting on the party and asking them if the becorseted one might do okay in a particular choir and how I live in fear of using the wrong pronoun with transitioning/transitioned people.  This led into general talk of pronouns and, wow, can of worms-ish discussion ensued.  They were all kind of impatient with neutral pronouns (direct quote: "everyone else of my friends I don't have to think - but for that person I actually have to stop and think before I say anything." This was before food arrived, and we were all a little short-tempered. STILL.)

There was also some uncomfortable shifting in chairs when I said, that some people think of themselves as gender-neutral or androgynous, yes, but some consider themselves genderqueer.

Blank looks.  All round.  Then peevedness. Narrowed eyes. Then upset at this word none of them had heard before.  There was squinting at me.  I waited  while they talked around it a bit more and then I said "...or you could use the correct term, which is genderqueer."

If it wasn't so bizarre to watch intelligent people actually pause in eating food as a new thing enters their consciousness it would be almost amusing.  ALMOST.

Again: I'm looking at YOU Dreamwidth, that I can be doing that before my first coffee on a Sunday after getting to bed at 3am the night before.

Dear lovely geeky book-obsessed peeps of DW-and-environs

One's birthday approaches.  

One has a teensy bit of spare cash.

One has finally come around to the idea of an e-book/e-reader/e-word/ipod-for-books-or-what-have-you thing to take out and about with one.

And one has learned over the years that picking the brains of the one's more techy/geeky/savvy acquaintance to be the quickest way to get a shortlist for new purchases. 

So, bearing in mind that I am  (a) undecided about iPads and (b) in a perfect world would be able to view printed music on said device but this is not a deal-breaker:

(i) if you got one, which one is it?
(ii) is it tied to a particular e-book provider?  If so, are there *ahem* workarounds? (*thinks* actually perhaps a better way to put that would be: have you all sorted out which one is the best workaround?)
(iii) What do you love about it?
(iv) what is the thing/things that make you go "fnerggrargle" about it every.single.time. you bump up against it?

O tell me things O lazywebs. 

Or it's the gay astronauts next once the bunny is done with that planet...

Did the gym today.

Did not want to.  But I felt I MUST.

And the endorphin buzz got me through the afternoon.  (We will draw a discreet veil over the fact that I got the sniffles about 4pm and my head feels funny.  It's just some toxins making their way out of my body.  And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

I have a Plan.  A PLN, if you want to get Pratchettian about it (which I quite often do).

I'm not saying what it is, because in the past when I have, it all starts out rainbows and kittens, but then I eventually go into a blue funk and it all goes to heck pretty quickly.

But I have a PLN and it involves things like strawberries and Depeche Mode: believe me when I say that this is an EXCELLENT PLN.

More later if it gets to a bit where even I can't screw it up.

For a stone-cold atheist, I've been quite the churchy tart this week.

First up, I went off to see Miss Zoe, the adorable daughter of my dear friend Melda get confirmed.  BIG Catholic church out in the suburbs.  Approx one gazillion rug rats (family-heavy congregation).  No smells or bells, but there was holy oil and anointing and a Bishop with full on mitre and crook and what is charmingly summed up as Full Popish Frumpery.

And I thought that was all pretty interesting and a bit high-end and look at me all chatting to a bishop (although I copped out when I was taking photos of him with Zoe and said I was a presbyterian, instead of an atheist....on the other hand, everyone was so happy and bouncy, why throw an odd note in there just to be pernickety?  Presbyterians are religious hernias waiting to happen in any case, so I wasn't that far gone in my faffery.  One can, as it were, feel the atheistic bulge through the abdominal wall).

And then this evening I went off to hear my friends who sing in the St Peter's Eastern Hill choir do the Martin Mass for Double Choir (one of my VERY choral faves).

Well.

Turns out it was their patronal feastday wotsit.  And this church is high, high Anglican (possibly because of all the incense). (Also a large gay element to the congregation.  Not seen that many gay anglicans together since....um, ever).

Not only was there incense (and now I know why "incensed" means "raging mad" - the dickhead swinging  the censer was doing everything short of 360 degree spins with a half-pike into the dismount to get the place fogged up and did not seem to be happy until everyone was coughing and THEN we had to sing a hymn) there were people carrying banners, people carrying crosses, people carrying very tall candles on very tall sticks, and marching sort of randomly in procession around the church, and people reading from Very Large Books Which Had to Be Held By Other People.

And there were THREE (3) Bishops (also the Governor of the State, but meh x 1: he was only in a suit; and meh x 2: he is the former Chancellor of my Yewni and I know him to chat to, so you know: apart from fighting down a terrible urge to salute when he walked past: whatevs). 

Anyways, of the three Bishops, only one of them got to do any Bishing.  The others stood there and looked Resplendent.  Which leads me to:

The FROCKAGE.  Oh, the frocks.  There were surplices (one with extra-elaborate lace on it because dude made it himself - standard issue surplice did not have lace deep enough for him, apparently) and ever-more-elaborate outfits (I believe tabards may have been in play) for the Spear (well, crosses and books and banners and candles) Carriers. 

(The guy invited to do the sermon (which was a hoot, he could sell a speech) was actually a baptist.  Baptists do not do well with the idea of saints, apparently.  Nevertheless, he was invited to sermonise for a saint's feast day.  Baptists also don't hold much with frockage.  He looked like a sparrow that had wandered into the parrot enclosure.)

And thus we get to the two non-Bishing bishops.  Both of them were in what we decided was Bishop Casual, but Competitive Bishop Casual, ie, "if I don't get to wear the hat, I shall have the prettiest frock"...and one of them was in the must luxuriously gorgeous silk brocade robe, that I just had to gaze and gaze and could not stop gazing; and someone mentioned that some of the robes were worth $20K and my first thought was "wow - only that much?"  The fabric was gorgeous; the cut was sublime, and the extra brocade in a sort of sash-drapage-arrangement would have made Yves St Laurent twist his sketchpad feverishly between his despairing hands.

Also there was the Martin mass for double choir (divine apart from one of the sopranos); a very VERY good baroque trumpeter (huzzah!) and a lot of standing and kneeling (Anglicans don't seem to do much sitting) so I was able to check out all the embroidered hassocks.  Or is it cassocks?  Something with ocks in it anyway - the kneeling pads.  You need to protect your knees if you're gonna be a High Anglican (the incense helps though)(no that joke is not EVER going to get old).

And that is how an atheist was able to collect four bishops in one week.  I'll just be impossible to live with after this.