Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

Click the picture to see the big version.

After a VERY long month, the decorating/furnishing of my office is complete. The entire checklist has been checked. The last few things were the plants, the bottom-up blinds, the wood-specific office chair wheels, and last but of COURSE not least, the therapist chair (which arrived Sunday).

I used to always use Autostitch for panos, but they don’t make it for Mac. Instead, I used Calico. This was my first time using it, and so I just have the trial version. I cloned out some (but not all) of the little ads all over the picture. After I stitched all 18 pictures together, I used Transform/Warp in Photoshop to fill out the gaps in the corners. Lots of artifacts of the process all over the place… and of course the office looks WAY bigger than it actually is. But you get the idea. This is where I work. It’s mine. I don’t work for anyone anymore but myself.

It’s what I’ve wanted for years, and now I have it, and it seems like it’s going to work! Thanks so much to all of you who helped me this month. I could never have done it without you. (You know who you are, and I’ll thank you all personally again and again… I’ve got your back whenever you next need it.)

Soon, I will have an Open House, and I hope my friends stop in to say hello! Maybe August First Friday. I still have lots of businessy stuff to do, and I’d like to celebrate one more time when all that junk is done.

Running into Sho Nuff is always entertaining. I was at The Borough on Friday having dinner with my friends John, Hugh, and Ian (and later Emily) when he showed up. He was on fire that night! (John, I can’t believe you didn’t mention him!! )

Learning about love from Sho Nuff:

I had a really busy day on Monday with six hours of appointments, so I didn’t really get a chance to properly check the internet. I logged on long enough to see that Jake wanted to go shoot pictures in the 7:15-8 area. I was racing around and he managed to let me know to bring a my tripod, my G9, and some extra camera batteries. I arrived at his place with no idea of the plan. I will explain in pictures:

And here’s the result!

Later, I saw he’d shared this article in Google Reader.

Lots to do today, but I thought I might pop in to share a really great experience I’ve been having the last few weeks. I sing in the North Carolina Master Chorale. There is a chamber choir, too, but there are no auditions. It’s an invite-only situation. Recently, one of the sopranos in that group had to have surgery, so our director, Al, invited me to join them in their performances of two pieces for Easter. Here’s a description of them:

The NCMC Chamber Choir, joined by instrumental chamber ensemble, presents a pairing of two stirring works by living composers: locally-based composer J. Mark Scearce and Scottish composer James MacMillan. Scearce’s spiritual cantata for chorus, chamber orchestra and five soloists is an uplifting, life-affirming powerhouse with texts drawn from the Bible, Schopenhauer and Chief Seattle. MacMillan’s arresting and completely original setting of the Seven Last Words has been called inspired and stunning. A glorious and compelling program for Passiontide.

Now if you know me, you know I’m not a religious woman. To me, Easter is generally about making sure I get my hands on some Cadbury Mini Eggs (actually haven’t had any this year!). But I’ve always loved sacred choral music. People are inspired by their beliefs, and that inspires me. I’m more inspired by the sounds and the emotion and the raw beauty than by the details of the stories behind them – I’ve always been that way, for whatever reason. When it comes to words and language, I’ve always been very interested in how they sound more than what they mean. I’ve always felt like that was maybe a bad thing, but anyway, that’s how it has always been for me. If I’m truly inspired by the way something sounds, only THEN do I maybe start listening to the lyrics for their content. Anyway, I digress. When Al asked me to do this concert, he provided me with a recording, and after hearing it, I knew I was IN. No question. The MacMillan is a stunner of a piece, and I knew that I had to be a part of it.

We did these performances on Friday and Saturday nights. The real performance was Saturday, but we did the MacMillan only Friday night in the sanctuary of the church where we rehearse. It’s a lovely space, and our Friday performance was part of a service, rather than a concert.

There was a speaker (who I did not hear), then an organ prelude, then we sang the piece, which includes 7 movements, each corresponding to the seven words of Jesus on the cross. Before each movement, there was a reading related to each thing Jesus said. At the end of the piece, there is a long, drawn out section where we don’t sing, and the orchestra plays. It’s clearly the last breaths of Jesus dying. During this part, the lights in the sanctuary were dimmed, and when it ended, the lights went out completely. There was no applause, and the audience was encouraged to stay and pray or reflect and leave as they were ready.

Jake and Lalitree came for this Friday performance, and I’m so glad they did. They are story and words people. After the performance was over, and I met them out front, I learned so much more about what I had just performed. It really is a little embarrassing how I can overlook such a dramatic story, but (and I know this sounds odd) I knew the emotions. I knew they were desperate and solemn. And I was overcome by the beauty of the piece each time we rehearsed it.

The Saturday concert was really satisfying, too. We got a big standing O at the end of each piece, and I saw familiar faces in the audience: Lenore (a Twitter friend), Stan (from Flickr), and several other people who sing in the regular Master Chorale. I was happy to share that with them, and they seemed happy to be there. Mark Scearce was there for the performance of his piece, and he could not have been happier with how it went. It’s wonderful to see a composer responding to his “baby” like that.

I will admit that I have been guilty of some boredom in choir lately. I was spoiled singing in the Atlanta Symphony Chorus with Robert Shaw for all those years, because it doesn’t get much better than that. In the regular choir, people are slower to learn music, and I get impatient. It makes going something I sometimes avoid, because I know I will be restless and have trouble remaining focused. The challenge just isn’t always enough to keep me occupied. But this really shook things up for me. It was a treat performing with such good musicians and really bringing a piece ALL THE WAY to fruition. I really hope Al asks me to do more concerts with them.

We got a little stipend for our participation, and I’m happy to report that it was enough to cover the cost of my little black dress! I can’t TELL you how thrilled I was to hear that I would not have to wear my standard issue choir outfit.

I’ve been working and shooting pictures and twittering rather than blogging lately. I blog when I feel like it, so that means constantly or never, depending on my mood. I’m fine with that. Breaking the blog silence to share a really cute picture of Jake that was in the N&O this morning:

That’s him with Miss North Carolina. The picture was taken back in the summer, before we were dating. At the time, Jake blogged about the experience on his blog.

There’s video of the event, too:

If you watch and listen carefully around 47 seconds in, you can see me walk past and hear me say, “Fairy”! I had just spotted my friend Fairy Brutal of the Carolina Rollergirls!