OUR plan

"It's a pitty we can't do that..."

Darling corrected me rightly. "WE" has acquired a new meaning since the announcement of my retirement from M33, and "WE" has officially been redefined to "me and my Darling" (by the way I really want to sing Me and My Shadow) from around 1am 22 January 2006.

My Jaws dropped when the most spontaneous and "carefree" person I know called in the middle of the night and told me that she needs to seize the day and make a plan, of work (as opposed to play) . The weight of my jaws came from:

1. Why has she decided to seize this particular day and not the 365 x N days earlier?
2. The "plan", although only in its embryonic development, sounds a long-term and ambitious one. What level of trauma could have stimilated such intense urge for commitment?

She went on talking and talking and only towards the end did I discover that she was trying to answer my questions. She wrote a passage in condemnation of the conduct of her life being too slack for the past don't-know-how long. Sounds like what I habitually do, just that I don't put them in writing and if I do, I couldn't have come up with the nasty words she used (as I am in horrible shortage of vocabulary and I'm weak at expressing my emotions.) There were other reasons she gave, which apply to me also. The most relevant and significant one being the AGE ISSUE.

"If you wanna be somebody, if you wanna go somewhere, you better wake up and pay attention!" from a little song in Sister Act I.

Ok. Sorry for misleading. I don't wanna be anybody, I don't need to go anywhere (but it'll be nice to get out of hk) but I do want to do something. If there's something you want to do, like singing and music, you better wake up and pay attention you're 23! From Darling's perspective, the stage is her career, she can't afford to delay re-training her voice no more. For me, I know that if I don't do it today, I probably won't start again until my retirement (or unemployment, in which case will be real soon) and by then my voice would have totally gone. So that's what stage one of our plan is about - voice training.

The loss of voice has become apparent during the past few weeks, so apparently that involuntary I am testing my voice every possible minute. On the bus, in the streets, in the shower, in the lift, when i wake up in my bed.....nuts. I'd only stopped singing for a few months and the rate of deterioration is alarming. I haven't been exercising. I've been drinking, sleeping late, and smoking passively. I'm sending my voice to the grave by speed post basically. And I forsee that this is going to be part of my life for years to come. I don't know of a way of training which can rebuild a voice from the above damages, I guess I'll just have to control myself, avoid drinking too much and avoid the chimneys. I probably am dreaming but i'm thinking, perhaps those things can jazz-ify my voice who knows!

We only got to the first item in the plan before I fell asleep. Need another conference. First exercise - support.

**Random things**

Have a lot of chords in my head recently, and managed to set the opening for a song i'm trying to rearrange. It's just unfortunately that I don't have enough time to sit down in front of the piano. Spending too much time in the streets.

Oh and I still haven't read any book I wanted to read.

Thanks to CS who gave me a tutorial on accounting.

Had a nice belated bday lunch with my "kai ma" and had a long chat about family problems. But no real solution.

Had a very nice family dinner at the Moss'. Superb wine from uncle James. Useful and witful conversation with Uncle Patrick.

Met up with highschool mates at the Bohemian. Dennis, Dennis' friend from the states forgot his name. A very nice american. Kiwi and Pig.

Need to type up the advice letter yikes!!!! And there should be some accounting exercise to do i'm not sure.

More work to do: preparation for interview.

My number one task from this minute: Regain control of my schedule.