There Are Definitely Bats in My Belfry

 

I am very, very, very, very, very tired.  Very.  Life with hellhounds has been, frequently melodramatically, less than optimum for . . . rather a long time at this point.  This has been the worst, most extended spell of Not Eating, with ever-creative variations on this theme, since I got them off cereal grains three years ago.  I passed my wits' end about a fortnight ago. . . . *

            This has been part of why it's taken me so long to come up with a bats in the belfry doodle;  it's difficult functioning Beyond Wits' End.  HOWEVER. 

 

Ding dong. Squeak.

Because I am a twit, I managed to take all my drawing pens back to the cottage, so tonight at the mews, when I wanted to ink in some final lines I frelling couldn't.  Little doodles I start out in ink and it doesn't matter, but something this big [sic.  Hey, we're talking doodles here] where scale and so on do kind of matter** I start in pencil.  Your average ballpoint gets very sulky when asked to go over pencil lines.  And yes, it's done freehand.  Cough cough.  You noticed.  I realise there are drawbacks to this approach but ruled lines look so awfully . . . ruled. 

            Sigh.  It's about time to start trying to force some food into hellhounds again.  Sigh.  

* * *

* Yesterday, when I was mostly crawling around on my hands and knees, I was saying to myself, I am going to my voice lesson tomorrow, I AM GOING TO MY VOICE LESSON TOMORROW.  If it had been yesterday, I probably wouldn't have made it.^  But today has been better, if a trifle marginal.  And while I was going to my voice lesson, it was going to be a disaster:  I was trying to warm up after my lunch^^ while hellhounds were busy scorning theirs and my voice kept frelling cracking.  Whose idea was this singing thing anyway?  Stick to the piano which doesn't get all traumatised and paralytic.  Too late now.  I like singing, and you can do it in groups, and my group starts up again this Thursday.  Blerg.  So, here I am, with a voice crackling like an old radio and the Italian on the page has reverted to Etruscan and . . . I am GOING to my voice lesson.

            And, as these things can startle the mmgrmph out of you^^^, it went rather well.  Even my Italian has progressed from making Nadia wince to making her grin just a little sardonically.~   I've asked her to help me start teaching my chest voice to behave—with the caveat that she not tell Ravenel that I'm actually a contralto.  We've been mostly working on the top end because that's what I've wanted to do and because most of the fun stuff is written for sopranos, but I've got an entire octave below middle C that is barely getting a look in, and as my top register improves~~ the whole soprano/football hooligan split is becoming embarrassing.

            And—yaaay—I came home with a new song to try out:  another old soprano war horse:  Handel's Silent Worship, which isn't what you think, it's the 'Did you not hear my lady/Go down the garden singing?' one.  Except that I should probably be learning the Italian. . . . ~~~ 

^ All that frelling driving.  Plus being expected to stand up to sing.  Feh.  A Zimmer frame is too low:  Nadia insists on my standing up straight to give my lungs room.  No crouching.  Do they make extra-tall Zimmer frames?  I doubt Nadia's mum would appreciate a suggestion she have a flagpole installed in her music/dining room for the feeble to cling to on bad days.  

^^ I know.  Not ideal.  But all I eat is salad+ so it's not like it's lying heavily or anything. 

+ Menopause metabolism.  Sigh.  I need to stockpile available calories for the Green & Black's. 

^^^ But don't count on it.  Or fate will drop you in the egg custard. 

~ Thank you Cecilia Bartoli and Unknown Excessively Talented Young Woman singing Sebben Crudele on YouTube.  

~~   It's all relative you know 

~~~ Although the business of provenance is messy:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Worship

Also, that's one of the worst song titles ever.  Right up there with If You Can't Live without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?^ 

^ No, wait, that's a great song title. 

** I was about to ask if anyone else out there is old enough to remember Jon Gnagy's Learn to Draw and bless my watercolour pencils but the kits are still available  http://www.weberart.com/signature/gnagy.html