Prima Donna

When you are brought up an opera buff, your love of music and of languages are very closely interconnected.

From as early as I can remember, I wanted to be an opera singer. Could anything be more dreamy? You sing beautifully; you are surrounded by magnificent music all the time; you have all the drama of the stage; you get to be as much of a shrill ho-biatch as you want and nobody can touch you (as long as you don't pull a Kathleen Battle and lose it completely).

On the minus side, you have to elbow tenors in the nose on a regular basis to keep them from nipping your ass during choral interludes. Why, why, why are tenors always the romantic leads in operas? Basses are so much more divinely dishy, and generally quite a bit taller as well. And they often have beards! swoon

But oh, the life! You can be glamorous, gorgeous, tragic, pathetic; you can have men crawling at your feet and empires collapsing around you; you can be a queen or a goddess; you can die at the top of your lungs of tuberculosis, or being buried alive, or smothered by a jealous husband, or some other unspeakably romantic affliction. My two most coveted roles would be Tosca (jumps off a tall building) and Carmen (stabbed by a stalker).

As an added bonus, my adoration for opera from an early age fostered a knack for European languages that will always stand me in good stead. Sure, I'll be at a bit of a loss if it comes to ordering lunch, asking for the restroom, or hailing a cab. But, by God! I can call an eternal curse down upon the house of your fathers in any nation in Europe.

Now fetch me a latte, damn it.