Doing Sh*t

On my way into my first audition last Saturday, a good friend texted me support, saying:
“You’re DOING SHIT!”

This is in stark (pfft, get it?) contrast to one of my most read blogs, Magical Accidental Orgasm (and I can tell from the stats list that many people find it by searching “Accidental Orgasm” on Google!). The blog was about my realization that I was waiting for someone to come along and prescribe for me my life, my bliss, my path without me doing much of anything. I was waiting for someone to (metaphorically!) “give me orgasms,” as I cribbed from The Vagina Monologues.

But today, two years later, I am no longer waiting. Today, I am doing shit.

This morning I woke up and practiced the bass line for the set my band is playing on Saturday. Tomorrow, I’m going to take my first voice lesson from someone who comes with great recommendations. And Sunday, I will start rehearsal for Addam’s Family: The Musical (which still just gets such the kick out of me!).

(Side-bar: Coincidentally, when I was in 4th or 5th grade, I dressed as Wednesday Addams for Halloween. So I guess it’s appropriate that 20 years later, I play her mother!)

Doing shit. Despite my thinking – always despite my thinking – I continue to put good things in my path. I honestly don’t remember how I found that audition call.

But, I do remember finally having coffee with a friend/acting mentor last Sunday to help me in my newbie, greenness. She is the one who suggested the song I sang for my auditions, and who recommended this voice teacher. She invited me to come over last Wednesday and practice my monologue in front of her.

And last Friday, I invited a woman to coffee who is making a go of the “life as singer” life to ask her how I could get out of my bubble of not being seen. She had many great suggestions, just to get me out and singing. Like choruses, and meet-ups, and this piano bar I didn’t know about that’s here in the East Bay.

I don’t want to do shit. Doing shit is scary!! But I also don’t want to wait for someone else to press play on my life, because that person is not coming. I don’t want to wait for the trumpet blast or starting gun or treasure map or even Ed McMahon, because they’re not coming.

This doesn’t mean that I move any quicker, but despite my fears, doubts, self-derision, scarcity mind, I continue to ask for help and put myself in the path of ... shit.

That’s how all these things have happened. I ran into a friend and jokingly said if you need a second bassist, and in fact, he was just trying to put back together this side project, but thought I wasn’t doing music anymore. Well, now! Yes, please! And so, here we are, about to play a show.

I like the responsibility and accountability it gives me to myself and to my dreams, not to mention to others. Having to show up with other people means that I can’t flake out. I have to wake up and practice, or I’ll be disappointed and disappointing. I have to make audition dates, or I’ll languish in “someday” and “wouldn’t it be nice.” I have to take voice lessons, show up at piano bars, take suggestions, or I will continue to say, “Not good enough, not really, not me.”

If wishes were horses… Apparently, I’d ride.