This town has begun to take its tole on me! I went out for a drink with my friend DeAndre and he was like Dang homey... eat a steak or something. You lookin' skinny." I took a look at myself and was dangit... I am. Stepped on the scale and sure enough I had lost 10lbs of muscle mass. My friend Melissa used to make fun of me around finals every semester because I would get so caught up in school that I would not have enough time to work out and lose a bunch of weight. The thing was... I could always go home for break and do nothing but sing, workout, and EAT! My Mom would cook me enough food for a week and I would end of eating it in two days. Then do it all over again.
NYC for me is like finals week all the time. I spend so much time on the subway getting around it ends of taking two hours out of my day. But the 'skinny thing' is just not going to work for me! So I've been eating protein bars while walking around the city, eating eggs every day for breakfast, and protein shakes after workouts trying to get back on track.
I've now been here two months as of today. Now I'm sprinting around the city with my "NYC game face" on. It was so strange to me how people had this look on their face that says "Don't talk to me" Now it makes sense. At every corner there is a bum trying to guilt you for change, some crazy lady trying to hand you a flyer to rent you a bicycle, and if you're not careful you'll step in a puddle of heeby jeeby water or get hit by a bus.
As challenging as this place has been it still gives me the fire! I have improved as an artist more in these past two months than my entire two years at a conservatory. After my audition for Glimmerglass Opera they said... "We'd like to hire you." I said, "Huh....?" Hahaha... I guess all this work with my teacher and coach these past few months is actually paying off. Glimmerglass Opera is a solid company for young artists. It's not the Metropolitan but they bring in many singers that perform in the best houses in the world. Many agents and producers come there every year to listen for young talent. It could be a great thing for my career. Next week they finish their auditions so there is nothing written in stone but they'll call me next week to talk details.
For the past couple weeks I've had this poem I read cycling through my brain by Rudyard Kipling...
If you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
Can you trust yourself when all men doubt you,
but make allowance for their doubting too.
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
yet don't look to good, no talk to wise.
Can you dream? Yet not let dreams be your master?
Think, yet not make thoughts your aim?
If you can meet with triumph and disaster,
and treat those two impostors just the same.
If you can talk with crowds and still keep you virtue,
Or walk with Kings and not lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much...
If you can fill the unforgiving minute,
with sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours if the earth and everything that's in it,
And what's more... You'll be a man, my son.
I felt like this British poet was speaking straight to me and it hit hard. Isn't it crazy that he calls triumph an impostor? Then I realized, that is exactly what it is. Success can bring pride, confidence, and make you feel comfortable. But every day I ask God to keep me humble, hungry, and make me wiser. No matter the cost.
Well that's enough serious talk for now.
Honey Badger- over and out.
"Always and never are two words you should a always remember never to use."
