Weekend

Fri: Vietnamese dinner in Argyle, episode of Firefly

Sat: Brunch at Sola, Lincoln Park Zoo, dinner in Chinatown

Sun: Tennis

Lincoln Park Zoo (it's free!) has a very cool greenhouse/plant area. This is our second visit, the last time was two years ago right before a huge controversy/scandal when elephants died. Animals in zoos will always be controversial, but plants are equally fun to look at and do not carry controversy. These are da bomb:

And lamas are da bomb. I would want a lama if I ever have acres:

Cool pic of my flowers in Tiffany

from Cecilia in NYC. There's nothing like this in Chicago. Love it.

SUV moment

I love peace and am trying to be a big person, trying to say It's okay I'll do fine, trying to say I can innovate, but it pisses me off that I have two new competitors who are not playing fair by ripping off others. My mind is consumed by how I am going to crush them. I mean, that's how any normal business owner would react, right? It's not me being malicious, this is just a normal reaction!

Dear Competitors:

First Competitor, your website is an obvious copy of mine. You know, some people try to be creative and take pride in their original work. Maybe you should try it, you'll know what I mean. People say imitation is the best compliment, but I am highly offended that you would flat-out rip me off! Honestly, if you changed your site to not resemble mine, I'd be cool with you. But now I'm sorry to tell you this pool is not big enough for two fish. I've got tricks up my sleeve.

Second Competitor, you are hogging all the ad space. You are entitled to that, because all it takes is $, but it is totally unethical of you to steal an image from another person's site. If it were from my site, I would hunt you down and bitch slap you for that. You can't take a simple picture yourself, you have to steal it from someone else? And your aggressive ad placement just screams inferiority complex.

Prepare to get crushed.

in a pressure cooker

It's insane how much I've learned about singing and being a performer in the past 8 months or so. I know this is hard to believe, but being a singer/musician is a lot like being an athlete:
I. Physical aspects
a) muscle memory--training your muscles to have an automatic response from repeatedly practicing the action. First you build the muscles, then they move automatically when required. In singers, these are mostly abdominal muscles and muscles around ur mouth/throat, which are not easy to control (when compared to the bicep, for example), and the movement/contraction should be almost involuntary.

b) stamina. My singing sucks if I haven't eaten, which is why I stockpile bananas. I know it's "just" singing, but it's so tiring... for example, a recital that is about an hour long is quite difficult for a singer.

II. Mental aspects
a) concentration--both athletes and singers have to be "in the zone" to perform well. There are all sorts of weird exercises to help them tune everything else out.
b) evil mental garbage--ever see the movie "Wimbledon"? Thinking you'll mess up, thinking you're not good enough, what ifs... affect performance. You know how just some days you can't filter through the garbage, whether you're working or eating or reading, etc?

Well right now I'm singing a very beautiful aria called the Bell Song, from Lakme. My last lesson did not go well, because I couldn't stop thinking about the People Who Owe Me Money.

I'M BACK!!!

I've been living a hermetic blog life for a while but OK I have stuff to say.

Let me start of with the issue of PEOPLE WHO OWE ME MONEY.

Dear People Who Owe Me an amount of money large enough to be the down payment on a house, as in, you large corporation that rakes in the bucks but has issues paying vendors in a timely manner: I love you, I really do, you gave me loads of business and have been very nice to me and loose with money the whole time... [edited out details] ...and for that, I thank you.

However, it is not cool for you to pay me 1 - 2 months after your very complex order has been successfully delivered--early, even--without a single problem. I know this is not an outrageous amount of time for most large companies, but I am small, and if I had the money you owe me, I can put it into a CD account, for example, which is why there is such a thing as "interest" that occurs as time passes, to make up for those hundreds of dollars in earnings lost.

Again, you are awesome, I would probably want to work for you if I had a 9-5 job, and your products are legendary, but, this is just not cool.