There Is Faint Music in the Night

My choir performed on Temple Square last Tuesday. Here is a picture of us after our performance in the Assembly Hall.

You'll notice that everyone except me is looking at the camera. This should not surprise you. Somehow, everyone else gets the signal to look to their left, and there I am grinning like an idiot at some camera to my right.

But we had a good time. Well, as good a time as one can have when one is dripping with sweat from the heat of the lights, one's feet have gone numb, and one keeps forgetting to breathe from the diaphragm because one is a little nervous and one ends up a little light-headed and keeps realizing one is locking one's knees. But people told us we sounded great, so it was a good time.

It honestly isn't for the public that we perform on Temple Square. Frankly, no one can hear us when we sing in the North Visitors' Center (visit there sometime and test the acoustics by yelling a bit. No one will care because no one can hear you), and we're usually last on the day's docket for the Assembly Hall, which means everyone except die-hard family and friends have gone home because it's cold and dark by 8:30 in the evening, so there are maybe 30 people in the audience.

No, we perform on Temple Square purely in order to enjoy the excellent acoustics of the Assembly Hall. There's nothing like the thrill of everyone (even the basses!) singing the right notes whilst following our conductor (who is the woman at the far left on the top row, by the way) closely, and in a moment of pure and utter triumph, a delicious chord rings back at us from the back of the hall.

It's heady stuff.

Plus, in order to justify having weekly rehearsals, I guess we should perform, too. Honestly, even if we never performed, I'd go just for the rehearsals because we have so much fun and I learn so much from our amazing and talented conductor, who selects enjoyably challenging music. I'm so comfortable with these people that my mostly dormant clownish side shows up every Saturday evening between seven and nine pm; and, very surprisingly, these people find me funny. I repay their kindness by never trying out for solos.

Our Christmas performances are next weekend: Friday and Saturday evenings. We perform in a very modern Episcopalian church/community center made almost entirely of concrete, which, as you might imagine, is great for acoustics. No one will record us, but it'll be a load of fun. I promise.

It's Official: I Am a Certified Genius

I was reading Lew Rockwell dot com, and one of the articles linked to a quiz to find out if you're a genius. I've never had an IQ test, but I've always assumed, based on empirical evidence, that I'm of fairly average intelligence: not too high and not too low.

Imagine my surprise when I scored 100% on this quiz, designed to identify those highly intelligent people with excellent long-term memory.

Well, well.

I'm going to have to boost my self-opinion post-haste (which is a slightly shortened term originally used to notify postal carriers that a letter required urgent delivery)! Just because I found the test incredibly easy and full of trivia questions doesn't mean I'm not necessarily a total genius! A super genius!



On the other hand, I did forget to pick up one of my preschoolers on Tuesday. Just clean forgot. His mom had to bring him to school.

Also, on Sunday, a woman came up to me and said, "Do you remember the spiritual significance of the Cedars of Lebanon that you talked about a few years ago?"

I looked at her like she was from another planet.

"I talked about the spiritual significance of the Cedars of Lebanon? In relation to the construction of Solomon's temple? Was I the Sunday School teacher at the time?" I asked, sure she must be mistaking me for someone else, even though I was the Sunday School teacher at the time. I have no memory of that particular lesson, however. None.

"Yes. It was when you were teaching the Old Testament. I was thinking about what you said, and it was really profound, so I wanted to get my facts straight."

Uh-oh. I was really profound and I have no memory of it? Dang! I told her I would look it up and get back to her. I have gone back and done some research, and I'm still wondering what profound things I said about the Cedars of Lebanon.

Based on this (and other) evidence, I plan on easing gently into the notion of my geniusness rather than going around announcing it to everyone just yet. In the meantime, I'll remain, dear reader, a humble servant of knowledge absorbed with what I now understand to be my very high IQ. At some point, I expect the super genius effect to kick in, and then it's gonna get all fun up in here!

The Colors of My World

You know how sometimes you crave a certain food or to hear a specific piece of music? Do you also ever crave seeing a specific color? I do. Sometimes, I really, really need to look at a specific color, and when I finally do, I feel deeply calm and satisfied, like the right key has been turned in the right lock (that's the only way I can think to describe the feeling). For a long time now, it's been indigo.

I cannot get enough of indigo.

But yesterday, I really needed to see orange.

I told my bus aide that I often crave seeing certain colors, and she looked at me like I was a little nuts, so maybe other people don't crave colors the way I do.

In other news, I am happy to report that my health issues seem to have largely resolved, so I'm glad I didn't go ahead with a bunch of expensive tests. I'm also taking a quality fish oil that includes vitamin D3, and that has really helped ease the fatigue.

As for looking less like a beached whale, I'm still losing inches even if the scale doesn't drop a lot at the moment. I suddenly lost another pants size and had to go out and buy a couple pairs of jeans to replace the ones that were now sagging off me, and now those are getting baggy--and yet the scale hasn't really budged. I'm not complaining, mind you. Trying on clothing has become a lot more fun lately--even in dressing rooms with terrible lighting.

I have a hard time eating carbs anymore, and that includes vegetables. I got through the entire Halloween season without eating one piece of candy. We bought the good stuff for trick-or-treaters and we were left with an entire bowl of it because trick-or-treaters are becoming more scarce every year. Usually, Reese's peanut butter cups are my kryptonite, but I couldn't be bothered to cheat even once, even while the bowl sat on the coffee table for several days before everything was finally consumed. Personal victory? Godly miracle? Both? You decide.

I'm supposed to eat every 2 1/2 to 3 hours to keep my blood sugar and insulin levels steady (and I am convinced that that is what has made this program so successful for me), and I'm supposed to eat between five and seven ounces of protein and between 1 1/2 to 3 cups of vegetables, depending on the type of veggie I'm having. I often get to my meal and can only eat the meat before I'm full and can't face the veggies. I've almost become fully carnivore. And yet the inches are melting away, and I'm sure I'm building muscle tissue, which would explain why the scale doesn't go down as quickly as I expect it to.

Before I go, here is another picture of my grandson for your viewing pleasure. His parents got the go-ahead from the pediatrician to switch to a tastier formula now that his liver issues seem to be nonexistent, and he's been chugging it down like he was starving. He's now over nine pounds, the little dumpling!

Edit: I just want to clarify that I am not eating a lot of food multiple times a day. Every 2 12/ to 3 hours I eat small "fuelings," as they're called, that are around 110 calories each, and I eat my protein and carbs in a meal, although I can split it up throughout the day if I like. And I drink lots and lots of water.