Mean people suck, and another year of thicker skin

When I was in elementary school, I had these two girlfriends who lived around the corner.  Their houses were on the same street, and we would roam the neighborhood with some frequency as a giggly, awkward, nerdy triumvirate.  One of them even had the same birthday as I do (which means she's turning 30 this year as I celebrate my last year in the twenties) and I don't think there was a single Saturday in 1989 that wasn't spent at one of their houses, watching The Princess Bride or making papier-mache jewelry.  Sometime in the eighth grade, they both ditched me.  Without ceremony, and without warning.  This was around the time I became "one of the guys" with the boys in my gifted English and Algebra classes.  Despite my new status as the only girl among many nerdy boys, I was crushed that my girlfriends had deserted me.  They had moved on to cooler, more arch pursuits that probably involved tanning by someone's pool and playing junior varsity soccer or what have you.  And my mother tried her best to comfort me, saying all the things that mothers do: "They're not worth your tears, You're so much better off without them, They were intimidated by your intelligence, They need to hang around with underlings to make themselves feel superior."  Miss Jean is pretty smart in that way, and in time, I saw that they were hanging around with the intellectual equivalent of nutrient agar and felt slightly better.  Like that amazing quote from 'Some Kind of Wonderful' - 

"Look, I was hanging with you fungi in a vain effort to cool you out, but all I am getting is breeze."  Mean people suck.

What does this have to do with today's daily doings, you might ask?  

Just before an audition this afternoon, I was killing time in the green room and checked my email.  I found this message in my inbox:

A user has submitted their contact information.

Name: xxx

Email: xxx

Comment:

"most important sopranos of our time"?

Come on babe.  You're pretty and you've got a nice voice, but don't be a jerk by falling prey to the egotistical stuff that other young singers do.  Just be yourself and let your voice do the talking---okay?

A few things.  

First, this person left only a first name and last initial, and an email address that I seriously doubt is real.  

Second, the fact that they took the time to peruse my website and leave a nasty comment leads me to believe that they really have nothing better to do with their life.  

Third, I don't write my own bio, because if I did it would say, "Shiksa sings, likes dogs and the Red Sox, and wants you to hire her."  And then my agent's head would explode.  The bio on my website, and any print material that's associated with my career, is written and proofed by my agent.  It's their job to get me work.  

Fourth, mean people suck.  

Needless to say, I wasn't completely on my game during that audition.  I really hope I sang well, because there were some jobs in the room I'd like to come my way.  But who knows?  I was so wrapped up in this horrible vortex of, "Do people really think I'm some kind of self-aggrandizing jerk who would actually purport myself to be an important singer?  Does this person know me and think this?  And if they don't know me, have they heard that I'm a huge self-important diva?  Does my headshot say that I'm a huge self-important diva?"  It was awful, just awful.  And I fretted and fretted and called my husband and my mom and fretted some more.  While I was buying a birthday cupcake for my colleague Liz, I treated myself to a mini-cupcake and tried to gain some perspective between the cake and the frosting.  Still finding it lacking, I ran 4.5 miles.  And I tell you what people, clarity sure as shootin does come between the third and fourth mile, when you no longer care about anything other than why somebody bumped the fan that was blowing on you.  I was watching CNN, all the kerfuffle about GM and Chevrolet and Madonna adopting some little girl in Malawi and none of it even made a dent. Because I was in the quiet place in my head.  

My feelings were hurt, are hurt, that someone who probably doesn't know me at all would take the time to try to bump me down a peg.  I have worked very hard for this peg.  I have worked nearly 29 years to get this peg to where I want it to be.  I'm good at what I do, and I know what I know, and I'm getting better at accepting who I am (fierce warrior queen - that's another story) and even liking who I am.  I think grace comes with age, and I think muscle comes with more mileage, and I've got new Smartwool socks to aid me on that particular journey.  But Miss Jean was right back in eighth grade, and she's right again today.  That thicker skin that I'm so reluctant to grow, it does help us protect ourselves from those who would hurt us, simply because they can.  So here's to another year of grace and thicker skin.  Now it's time to see how my to-do list from this year shaped up:

28 things I want to accomplish in my 29th year on earth:

1. finish my doctorate

2. buy a house

3. paint a room in said house blue

4. learn to make a really good red sauce

5. get to the point with my knitting where I don't have to look at my hands

6. bump up my Italian reading proficiency

7. go to a foreign country - NOT for work - with my husband

8. train for and run a 10K

9. spend time with my relatives in NOLA

10. spend a full day at the beach, any beach that's warm will do

11. reread Pride & Prejudice

12. eat more veggies

13. do more yoga

14. go to a Red Sox game

15. go to a Southern Miss football game

16. eat crawfish - lots and lots of crawfish

17. pick a haircolor

18. sit on the porch with Dr. L and shoot the breeze

19. get Sammy to go running with me

20. go sailing on the Charles again

21. meet Garrison Keillor

22. get my piano north of the Mason-Dixon line

23. learn a new role, just to learn it

24. swim in the ocean

25. accompany a recital 

26. go to church - not go to work at church

27. get hired to do an opera back home

28. be more thankful

Half isn't bad, and I'm confident that I'll still accomplish some of those before 2009 is out.  And speaking of gratitude, I'm going to do 10, because gratitude is most needed on the days when things are sucky, like today.  Let's do this.

1.  one of my colleagues, who reached out and hugged me today without any kind of warning, simply because she saw I was hurting

2.  the silent and comforting monotony of the treadmill

3.  random days of sunshine in Seattle

4.  my parents, who are nuts, but they're mine and I love them

5.  good moisturizer

6.  dogs, because they never lie

7.  seven days till home and house

8.  friends both far and near

9.  red beans and rice from the Steelhead Diner - who knew I could find real southern cooking at a diner in Seattle?

10.  my husband, who always offers a great vengeance plan, and then tempers it with, "But that wouldn't make you feel better, would it."  He's the best.

Poop on your head, mean person in the internet abyss.  Dr. Shiksa (thank you very much) is too cool for your drama.