A woman came into the restaurant tonight that I swore I recognized. I somehow decided that she belonged in a memory from Marlborough, that she had come to our school and told us about her feminist journalism in Chile and El Salvedor...I also remembered her being a mother of a student there for some reason. I asked her about her Marlborough affiliation, and she claimed she had none. She was extremely talkative about some event she'd just come from where the men were assholes, and seemed a little loopy, as if she'd just taken the world's last Qualude and was relishing it's effect with two very strong cosmopolitans to top it off. Her face had clearly had some plastic surgery, although I couldn't pinpoint where. Her hair was dark brown with purplish hues to it, and pale pale freckled skin. She was strikingly familiar. When I delivered her second cosmo, she grabbed my wrist and announced Mollie! Bulimic! Her name was Paula, and we'd been in in a grief group together at Sierra Tucson. She'd watched me tear up a bataka one Friday morning and I'd listened to her wail through a letter to her ex husband. It was the strangest thing that I couldn't pull up that memory of her until she reminded me, that I had absolutely convinced myself she had come to speak at Marlborough. Truly strange. Anyhow she was clearly not doing so well which of course she refused to admit- she was very adamant that alcohol had never been her thing, that she'd been in for prescription drugs and was now totally together and I shouldn't worry about her having her cosmos. Riiiight. Anyhow, we reminisced a little about ST and people we remembered (she's in touch with no one. I almost gave her Bill's number). She insisted upon giving me her phone number, inviting me to dinner at her house with her husband and her now 8 year old son Jean Paul, and that we absolutely had to do yoga together at this place around the corner. It sounds like a barrage of offers but it was really quite sweet, as if she saw this as an opportunity to be connected to someone from when she felt better, stronger (or at least that's what I'm imagining) and is hoping that that'll return when we do some power yoga. Or something. It was really an out of the blue coincidence that she came into my restaurant and sat in my section, especially considering that she clearly wasn't sober and seemed to be wanting someone to talk to. She went on and on about the work she was doing and the psychiatrist she was seeing and didn't once ask how I was doing (which I know probably shouldn't bother me but it did) and it was a little tedious but it was nice to just stand there and listen. It made me really sad that I could remember liking her in ST, and that she was the kind of person I'd so quickly judge outside of it. We did exchange numbers and I don't know that I'll ever hear from her again, but it was just a strange interaction that I don't know what to make of and wanted to mention. Unnerving that she wasn't sober, though. I really hope she's okay. Hm.
Onto far more hopeful things...I had a FANTASTIC night conducting the Tufts Chorale yesterday evening. We were going through the Thompson Alleluia which I'll be conducting in two weeks at the Fall concert (I'll actually be in print on the program...I'm such a cheeseball), and I just felt so much more confident than I had the first time I'd stood before them. There's a part towards the middle of the piece where this eerie series of modal wails resolves into heroic measures of emphatic Alleluias, and each time it resolves there I can't keep myself from grinning. I love making eye contact with these singers when they're in this piece, and each time the piece peaks there I don't even attempt to hide it. And here's what's amazing: they grin back. I get energy from them that I'm giving, I get the responses that I'm asking for. I used to be awed by how Andy could begin a piece, and within the first two notes hear that it wasn't right, and without a word cut us off, reset, and cue us in again. I did that three times in this rehearsal. Andy sat on the piano bench for the duration of the rehearsal, occasionally whispering suggestions during breaks, but he would never tell me exactly what to do with my hands, it would be more along the lines of "the sopranos need you here- they're going flat in these measures and they need to know that you trust them to reach those notes and sustain them." And so I think to myself, if I were a soprano, what would I need to see from my conductor to know that he trusted me and that would also remind me to better support my breath so the line doesn't fall flat? Well, it would help to see a hand mimic the arch of the soft palate so I could remember to round the vowel, and I'd need to see excellent posture from my conductor, that would remind me of what my body needed to be doing and where to support the breath. So I did that. I drew my shoulders back (because I have this tendency to hunch like a neanderthal because I'm so face-first engaged with the piece), I gently arched my hand, and to prove that I trusted them, I looked at the tenors as opposed to the sopranos. And they didn't go flat. Not only that, but their pitch was supported and buoyant and richer than it had been all night. We came to the end of that section and Andy interjects "Mollie that's awesome! I'm starting to think what we do up here really matters!" He then had the choir go tell me a few things that I was doing that were working (and yes, a few that weren't) and it was nice to hear responses that didn't surprise me, and that validated strengths that I had always hoped I'd have when it came to conducting but had never been told so. I heard that I had great expression, that I had very clear beats, that I needed to be more delicate with my cut-offs, and that I connected to the choir and carried them well. It also helped tremendously that they laughed at all my jokes, and were amazingly supportive of me. This, from my peers. This from people I didn't (and I suppose don't really) know. It was great because I knew then that they wanted me to succeed. When I conducted chamber choir, the only reason I got through it was because I knew they were on my team, and I can't wait to get a chance to rehearse this piece with the Chorale again. Andy says you can't conduct a piece until you feel as if you've written it. It's taken me a few months to get to a place where I can comfortably conduct this piece. I'm amazed how anyone can manage a concert consisting of more than one song.
Anyhow, that was yesterday. Today was MEDA, followed by restaurant (I made 21.62% tips tonight!) I'm working tomorrow night as well, Halloween, where they'll have a pre fixe and decorations and a dj and all sorts of madness. I'm supposed to costume it up and I haven't got any decent ideas. I had hoped to do something brilliant with a chicken hat atop a mostly blue outfit with either a cord (or maybe corduroy) and be Chicken Cord-on-blue (get it?? Chicken Cordon Bleu?? I 'm awesome), but unfortunately I haven't any chicken accessories and it's a little late to go shopping. Marci did buy me Dracula fangs and some fake blood so I think that's probably my best bet. Maybe I can dig up a cape somewhere...
I'm feeling very very beat and pretty lonely right now, and I should definitely get to bed as I'm meeting Kate for breakfast and work tomorrow morning at 9 at a place called Bakers Best where the muffins are mediocre and the coffee is bottomless. I'm anticipating making my first crack at my personal statements for these grad school apps on which I'm losing momentum mostly because I don't think I'm ready: the whole application thing has begun to feel premature given my lack of experience, and I'm feeling discouraged because I don't have 3 people to ask for recommendations- only Andy, and I can't ask Anthony from BCC because I've only known him for 2 months. Ugh. Okay, well, that's where I'm at right now. Bed it is.
p.s. a piece from the little women soundtrack just began on my playlist and it's bringing up this strong urge to watch that movie right now. It's comforting because it's soundtrack is christmassy, because it's about unbreakable family ties, and because in the movie, the sisters spend a good deal of time baking and the pies get a lot of camera time. I've spent many an afternoon at a piano bench plunking through the theme. It's a good place to be.
I can hear the bells
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
and all the roads we have to walk along are winding, and all the lights that lead us there are blinding
Yet another rockus Saturday night, and of course by 'rockus' i mean depressingly uneventful. No, not depressingly, I mean, the day on the whole was a busy one. I worked from 10-4 at the restaurant, a lunch shift that had less seatings than usual for most people but about twice the norm for me, exacerbated by the 9-top birthday party full of entitled people and a loud child. I don't know what it is but some days these patrons reek of entitlement.
Then I came home, thought about doing laundry and didn't, and have spent the rest of the night exhausted on the couch with every intention of showering and I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I did watch the HBO documentary Thin by Lauren Greenfield, for the second time. It follows a handful of patients during their stay at Renfrew, an eating disorder treatment center in Florida who's facilities aren't nearly as swanky as Sierra Tucson's but has a very similar program approach (It was interesting to note that the quality of therapists and psychiatrists seemed less impressive than those I encountered at ST - I know this is nearly impossible to judge from a documentary, but that was just my sense of it). I always find it interesting to here women talk about their eating disorders - that will always fascinate me, but what was really comforting (and it sounds odd to say this, I know) was watching them struggling through their meals, waiting for weigh-in at 5:30 in the morning, confronting each other in community meetings, having their rooms turned upside-down in search of contraband, being in varying forms of therapy. This was them in that routine of finding their way into their recovery. I guess it was especially comforting to me given that this was a pretty lonely Saturday night and no one was home (I'd actually gotten bailed on for Halloween costume shopping plans with one of the girls from work so I was especially bitter) and I've been feeling particularly disconnected lately anyway. Seeing these girl's routines reminded me of how safe I felt in the day-to-day structure oat ST, how capable and full of integrity I felt. How couldn't I- the rules were simple: don't use your behaviors, be honest about what you're feeling, and follow the community guidelines. I did these things, well, most of them- I was a little selective about the community guidelines I chose to follow, but I was committed to my recovery, and clung to it. I did what was asked. It was difficult NOT to be successful when those are the expectations of you. It was a strange thing to watch those girls tonight and so deeply miss the structure, remembering how proud of myself I felt when I was there, too. It was as though they, too, had checked our hearts at the door, that we couldn't be trusted to make decisions about our lives, about our wants, about our priorities and therefore we shouldn't be entrusted such a delicate organ, rather, it should be guarded until we're of righter minds. And I think this means that one cannot have tremendous fears in treatment- we may feel they're huge and impossible but some part of us is always aware that we're fighting against our bodies, our brains, and at the end of the day we will be kept safe from all of that. I remember being fearless there. Outside of treatment we're expected to impose our own structure, handle our own hearts, our own loneliness, our own vague grasps at nights alone and how we talk back to our brains.
After the Renfrew documentary I found an intervention show where a 23 year old drug addict and bulimic named Caylee was being encouraged by her family to go to treatment. Watching her whittle down her bargain from "I'll go in a week" to "I'll to on Thursday" to "I'll go at 4:40 this afternoon" was heartbreaking. Listing the many people she mast talk to and the errands she must run, and Oh the plans she must make for herself. I just... get that. So much. As though we're movie stars and we have a thousand loose ends to tie up before we can leave town. As if we have more important things to do than change our lives, and yes, this instant. Her final willingness was so beautiful to watch. It made me wish I could decide to go to treatment all over again, and was even a little bitter that I'm no longer a candidate. Okay, proud too, but I felt a sense of loss knowing there's no place for me now. I feel so unfinished.
This is where I have to return to the kind of brain I had in Sierra Tucson. Young in my recovery as I was, I understood I would be able to feel like that every day, that I could decide to make changes whether they're the kind that would demand that I uproot myself and check into to a ranch where they have dessert on Sunday and Wednesday nights, horseback riding, and a the most powerful group therapy I've ever experienced, or whether I trying to quietly re-wire my brain while moving about the life I've made for myself. There's no movie star bigger than this fish, no one more important than me, no one with more character defects she could choose to attend to and excuses with which to avoid them,than this girl with her fingertips on the keyboard. All of my lose ends trail back to a most horrendous fear of loneliness. I suppose that's the whole 'work in progress' approach that I've been hearing about since I was 8. That day to day we are allowed - no - GRANTED an infinite amount of little recoveries. I remember driving up from the airport to Sierra Tucson with mum in that white van, and feeling the greatest relief knowing I was about to do something that would make me different, and that I would never have to feel the way I felt again. If my life can be continually punctuated by decisions that would inspire that feeling in me, I will be a happy, happy fish.
I've re-stocked my ipod, and I think before I go into work tomorrow morning for the brunch shift, I'll sit on the bench in that little park out front, and give it a listen-through.
Then I came home, thought about doing laundry and didn't, and have spent the rest of the night exhausted on the couch with every intention of showering and I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I did watch the HBO documentary Thin by Lauren Greenfield, for the second time. It follows a handful of patients during their stay at Renfrew, an eating disorder treatment center in Florida who's facilities aren't nearly as swanky as Sierra Tucson's but has a very similar program approach (It was interesting to note that the quality of therapists and psychiatrists seemed less impressive than those I encountered at ST - I know this is nearly impossible to judge from a documentary, but that was just my sense of it). I always find it interesting to here women talk about their eating disorders - that will always fascinate me, but what was really comforting (and it sounds odd to say this, I know) was watching them struggling through their meals, waiting for weigh-in at 5:30 in the morning, confronting each other in community meetings, having their rooms turned upside-down in search of contraband, being in varying forms of therapy. This was them in that routine of finding their way into their recovery. I guess it was especially comforting to me given that this was a pretty lonely Saturday night and no one was home (I'd actually gotten bailed on for Halloween costume shopping plans with one of the girls from work so I was especially bitter) and I've been feeling particularly disconnected lately anyway. Seeing these girl's routines reminded me of how safe I felt in the day-to-day structure oat ST, how capable and full of integrity I felt. How couldn't I- the rules were simple: don't use your behaviors, be honest about what you're feeling, and follow the community guidelines. I did these things, well, most of them- I was a little selective about the community guidelines I chose to follow, but I was committed to my recovery, and clung to it. I did what was asked. It was difficult NOT to be successful when those are the expectations of you. It was a strange thing to watch those girls tonight and so deeply miss the structure, remembering how proud of myself I felt when I was there, too. It was as though they, too, had checked our hearts at the door, that we couldn't be trusted to make decisions about our lives, about our wants, about our priorities and therefore we shouldn't be entrusted such a delicate organ, rather, it should be guarded until we're of righter minds. And I think this means that one cannot have tremendous fears in treatment- we may feel they're huge and impossible but some part of us is always aware that we're fighting against our bodies, our brains, and at the end of the day we will be kept safe from all of that. I remember being fearless there. Outside of treatment we're expected to impose our own structure, handle our own hearts, our own loneliness, our own vague grasps at nights alone and how we talk back to our brains.
After the Renfrew documentary I found an intervention show where a 23 year old drug addict and bulimic named Caylee was being encouraged by her family to go to treatment. Watching her whittle down her bargain from "I'll go in a week" to "I'll to on Thursday" to "I'll go at 4:40 this afternoon" was heartbreaking. Listing the many people she mast talk to and the errands she must run, and Oh the plans she must make for herself. I just... get that. So much. As though we're movie stars and we have a thousand loose ends to tie up before we can leave town. As if we have more important things to do than change our lives, and yes, this instant. Her final willingness was so beautiful to watch. It made me wish I could decide to go to treatment all over again, and was even a little bitter that I'm no longer a candidate. Okay, proud too, but I felt a sense of loss knowing there's no place for me now. I feel so unfinished.
This is where I have to return to the kind of brain I had in Sierra Tucson. Young in my recovery as I was, I understood I would be able to feel like that every day, that I could decide to make changes whether they're the kind that would demand that I uproot myself and check into to a ranch where they have dessert on Sunday and Wednesday nights, horseback riding, and a the most powerful group therapy I've ever experienced, or whether I trying to quietly re-wire my brain while moving about the life I've made for myself. There's no movie star bigger than this fish, no one more important than me, no one with more character defects she could choose to attend to and excuses with which to avoid them,than this girl with her fingertips on the keyboard. All of my lose ends trail back to a most horrendous fear of loneliness. I suppose that's the whole 'work in progress' approach that I've been hearing about since I was 8. That day to day we are allowed - no - GRANTED an infinite amount of little recoveries. I remember driving up from the airport to Sierra Tucson with mum in that white van, and feeling the greatest relief knowing I was about to do something that would make me different, and that I would never have to feel the way I felt again. If my life can be continually punctuated by decisions that would inspire that feeling in me, I will be a happy, happy fish.
I've re-stocked my ipod, and I think before I go into work tomorrow morning for the brunch shift, I'll sit on the bench in that little park out front, and give it a listen-through.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
it's gonna take tiiiime, a whole lotta precious time
It's one of those nights here in Boston where winter is not only introduced itself, but announced it's staying for dinner. I'm sitting at my computer in some red sweats and a Colgate sweatshirts and knobby wooly gray socks (not the ones I wore all day...they smell awful) and the window is open and my fish wind chime is singing and my little over-watered Pothos plants are shuddering in the cold breeze that's moving through my room. I guess I should close the window. Sitting here right now I'm feeling content. I'm not used to that; lately I've been feeling anxious and exceptionally lonely and I anticipate feeling that again shortly, but right now in these sweats on this Thursday I'm feeling okay.
The BCC was good tonight, nothing exceptional, just another day of rehearsals. I was informed that there's a slight possibility that I may get to keep my concert choir kids given how well yesterday's rehearsal had gone with them, but there's no guarantee so I'm just gonna wait to her back on that one. I met with Anthony briefly today (not Andy, he's my Tufts mentor, but Anthony who conducts all the BCC choirs and is my boss) to go over a a few parts of the rehearsals I'd lead yesterday, and after going over some of the areas on which he felt I could improve (basically less talking and explanations, and more singing) he went on to explain that he gave regular conducting lessons to Marta and Jacqui, the two other teaching fellows (both of whom are a few years older than I) and asked if I'd like them as well! So I'm going to take him up on that! I'm a little anxious about the time commitment, not the actual lesson time, but that it will demand even more time that I devote to a piece and technique and all the rest, but I have no reason to turn him down and I think it'd be yet another great resource for me to draw from. It actually never occurred to me until this moment that he probably charges for them but I'll handle that later... hhm...what else what else... Oh, Halloween is next Wednesday and there are no BCC rehearsals (because what child wants to sing when they can eat their weight in snickers bars) ...mmm...snickers... mmm ...*drool*... mmm...
okay ......um...lost my train of thought...
Oh! No rehearsal on Halloween, so I'll be working at the restaurant where I'll be expected to dress up! In costume! So I have tentative plans to go costume-hunting with Marci this weekend (she's one of the managers with whom I bond over Harry Potter). I'd like to go with a costume that'll make me some tips by virtue of the fact that it displays some wit and thought, and not because my because my breasts are on display. I'm open to ideas...
Speaking of crappy Halloween ideas, myself and the rest of the MEDA interns are going ape-shit over this little gem: http://www.3wishes.com/detail.asp?product_ID=D4503
In accordance with the natural reaction of outraged females we're writing letters and petitions and all the rest.
And speaking of MEDA, the our gala fund raiser is tomorrow night at the Fairmont Copley Plaza, a gorgeous ball with a raffle and a really elegant dinner (yes I get the irony) and guest speakers and all sorts of stuff and I'll be working it from 5 till about midnight. See, nights like that I wish I got paid, but when I think about it I'm far better off working an event like that rather than sitting at home watching TV and feeling like a tool because I'm not reviewing my music. Okay, I'm feeling particularly boring right now so I'm gonna wrap this up and go brush my teeth.
The BCC was good tonight, nothing exceptional, just another day of rehearsals. I was informed that there's a slight possibility that I may get to keep my concert choir kids given how well yesterday's rehearsal had gone with them, but there's no guarantee so I'm just gonna wait to her back on that one. I met with Anthony briefly today (not Andy, he's my Tufts mentor, but Anthony who conducts all the BCC choirs and is my boss) to go over a a few parts of the rehearsals I'd lead yesterday, and after going over some of the areas on which he felt I could improve (basically less talking and explanations, and more singing) he went on to explain that he gave regular conducting lessons to Marta and Jacqui, the two other teaching fellows (both of whom are a few years older than I) and asked if I'd like them as well! So I'm going to take him up on that! I'm a little anxious about the time commitment, not the actual lesson time, but that it will demand even more time that I devote to a piece and technique and all the rest, but I have no reason to turn him down and I think it'd be yet another great resource for me to draw from. It actually never occurred to me until this moment that he probably charges for them but I'll handle that later... hhm...what else what else... Oh, Halloween is next Wednesday and there are no BCC rehearsals (because what child wants to sing when they can eat their weight in snickers bars) ...mmm...snickers... mmm ...*drool*... mmm...
okay ......um...lost my train of thought...
Oh! No rehearsal on Halloween, so I'll be working at the restaurant where I'll be expected to dress up! In costume! So I have tentative plans to go costume-hunting with Marci this weekend (she's one of the managers with whom I bond over Harry Potter). I'd like to go with a costume that'll make me some tips by virtue of the fact that it displays some wit and thought, and not because my because my breasts are on display. I'm open to ideas...
Speaking of crappy Halloween ideas, myself and the rest of the MEDA interns are going ape-shit over this little gem: http://www.3wishes.com/detail.asp?product_ID=D4503
In accordance with the natural reaction of outraged females we're writing letters and petitions and all the rest.
And speaking of MEDA, the our gala fund raiser is tomorrow night at the Fairmont Copley Plaza, a gorgeous ball with a raffle and a really elegant dinner (yes I get the irony) and guest speakers and all sorts of stuff and I'll be working it from 5 till about midnight. See, nights like that I wish I got paid, but when I think about it I'm far better off working an event like that rather than sitting at home watching TV and feeling like a tool because I'm not reviewing my music. Okay, I'm feeling particularly boring right now so I'm gonna wrap this up and go brush my teeth.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Ora pro nobis pecatoribus
I'm listening to the Chamber Choir's recording of the Nathanial Dett "Ave Maria", the piece that I conducted but this recording is from before I got my hands on it. I can hear myself. And I like that, even though it's never a good thing when one voice rises above or is somehow clearer than the rest, usually it makes the animal of the choir lose it's integrity. Except when it's me :) When it's me, I can still recognize that it shouldn't be happening, that I shouldn't be louder than the other altos, or that I should've softened my vowel a little, but it's comforting because I'm reminded I was there, I made that sound. I was part of the making of that piece that way with that group. Those singers know my name and my voice is on that mp3 and still hanging in that concert hall somewhere. Really moves me.
I had an excellent RAP session with Concert choir today, and an even better session with the Young Men's choir where I actually conducted the rehearsal last minute, but I'm feeling on the quiet side, a little lonely even. I realized tonight in hearing that piece that I miss singing with a choir so badly. I'm very musically involved, right now, but I'm really on the outskirts of these groups, leading warm-ups, organizing music, assistant conducting...I'm dying to open my mouth and be part of a chord.
I don't have much to say at the moment I guess...still listening to recordings from Chamber Choir last year and imagining trying last year over again. Better.
The following text is an excerpt from W.H. Auden's Hymn to St. Cecilia, which Benjamin Britten arranged into the choral piece I'm listening to now (it was next on my playlist after the Ave Maria). It's one of the few choral pieces who's text was dearer to me than the music, and this was my favorite verse. I think it's very strange and very beautiful:
I had an excellent RAP session with Concert choir today, and an even better session with the Young Men's choir where I actually conducted the rehearsal last minute, but I'm feeling on the quiet side, a little lonely even. I realized tonight in hearing that piece that I miss singing with a choir so badly. I'm very musically involved, right now, but I'm really on the outskirts of these groups, leading warm-ups, organizing music, assistant conducting...I'm dying to open my mouth and be part of a chord.
I don't have much to say at the moment I guess...still listening to recordings from Chamber Choir last year and imagining trying last year over again. Better.
The following text is an excerpt from W.H. Auden's Hymn to St. Cecilia, which Benjamin Britten arranged into the choral piece I'm listening to now (it was next on my playlist after the Ave Maria). It's one of the few choral pieces who's text was dearer to me than the music, and this was my favorite verse. I think it's very strange and very beautiful:
III.
O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall,
O calm of spaces unafraid of weight,
Where Sorrow is herself, forgetting all
The gaucheness of her adolescent state,
Where Hope within the altogether strange
From every outworn image is released,
And Dread born whole and normal like a beast
Into a world of truths that never change:
Restore our fallen day; O re-arrange.
O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages,
So small beside their large confusing words,
So gay against the greater silences
Of dreadful things you did: O hang the head,
Impetuous child with the tremendous brain,
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain,
Lost innocence who wished your lover dead,
Weep for the lives your wishes never led.
O cry created as the bow of sin Is drawn across our trembling violin.
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain.
O law drummed out by hearts against the still
Long winter of our intellectual will.
That what has been may never be again.
O flute that throbs with the thanksgiving breath
Of convalescents on the shores of death.
O bless the freedom that you never chose.
O trumpets that unguarded children blow
About the fortress of their inner foe.
O wear your tribulation like a rose.
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
cooled my head and warmed my heart I'd not be on this road tonight
The rehearsal last night was exactly as I had hoped it would be. Well that's not entirely true, I had hoped the Tufts Chorale would stand up and applaud me, shouting "brava!" at my brilliant interpretation of the Randall Thompson Alleluia. That didn't happen. But Everything that was supposed to happen at your first big rehearsal with your peers (this wasn't the BCC, these were the big kids). I fumbled a little searching for good measures to pick up and re-work parts. I completely (but unintentionally) ignored the sopranos during their melismas and that made them feel unloved (actually, I feel sopranos should really be ignored at all times) I made a few jokes that some people laughed at but most didn't, and I did a little too much talking about and describing of the things I wanted to get out of certain passages rather than just sacking up and doing a better job of communicating what I wanted with my gestures. I also have this thing where I forget to subdivide my beats when the tempo slows and then I get anxious because the sound gets muddy. But quite seriously, there were some good successes, the least of which is that Andy didn't seem totally and completely appalled at his lack of judgement in letting me get up there. He actually seemed pleased, even impressed that I was able to remember some of the subtleties I assured him I would forget in my panic of that many eyes on me. And I didn't. I carried the sopranos through their crescendo when the rest of the choir diminuendos, I weighted my 1 and 3 beats appropriately during the syncopation (although I haven't figured out how to stop my hand in mid-air yet, it just keeps moving so it looks like the beat is elongated) and I dealt with consecutive measures of 1-cut-prep/breathe-4 and 1-cut-formatta rest.....-prep/breathe- 4. It's hard to make your hands do these things. Imagine your right hand moving up and down and your left hand side to side at the same speed. Then double the speed of your left hand. Then beat 3 with your right hand. And there you go. That's why I was nervous. All in all thought it went really well. I'm actually grateful I've had the experience with the unruly concert choir because it made this experience far easier. No one was flirting with anybody while I was talking, nobody was vying for each other's attention, and the chorale was entirely committed to the music. It was really really nice though, to see a few familiar faces out there cheering me on, people to whom I had admitted I was nervous, or people who knew that this was what I'd wanted to do since I came to Tufts. So. That was a joy.
Speaking of the Concert Choir and the BCC, there's been a little delay in the switch, and it turns out I'll have them again for one last class before I go over to the littler kids at Villa Victoria. I'm half-inclined to guilt them, explaining that I'm leaving because they were such bastards, and then they'd apologize and grovel and buy me presents and Anthony will let me stay with them and the kids will all thank me at their college graduation dinners. That's one half. The other half is to begin to address their musical weak spots and not say a word about it. Which I think I'll do.
I'm at MEDA right now, editing my personal story that I will then be presenting for high schools and parent groups and ED seminars and the like...it'll probably end up shamelessly posted here...hm, maybe not... After MEDA, I'm off to the restaurant for the dinner shift, and then home. Which is lonely. But at least it's home.
Speaking of the Concert Choir and the BCC, there's been a little delay in the switch, and it turns out I'll have them again for one last class before I go over to the littler kids at Villa Victoria. I'm half-inclined to guilt them, explaining that I'm leaving because they were such bastards, and then they'd apologize and grovel and buy me presents and Anthony will let me stay with them and the kids will all thank me at their college graduation dinners. That's one half. The other half is to begin to address their musical weak spots and not say a word about it. Which I think I'll do.
I'm at MEDA right now, editing my personal story that I will then be presenting for high schools and parent groups and ED seminars and the like...it'll probably end up shamelessly posted here...hm, maybe not... After MEDA, I'm off to the restaurant for the dinner shift, and then home. Which is lonely. But at least it's home.
Monday, October 22, 2007
On Tripping
Back then, before a rogue thought could draw me
from a roaring world, when my breath ran out with my coffee
feeling the fidget of the body beside me,
our bold company and me, biding our time,
waiting for a beginning.
Perhaps when you ordered a latte you knew all this:
Just how I splurge on your awkward words
spinning out of the mouth, straight as Sunday,
words that stumble,
and so I would set and bind them together for you,
our intention, flush,
thick as saffron glue, only sweeter,
Sophic and level.
Now someone’s mentioned the election
And the café is busying—
aren’t we full of innuendos today.
Back to the road now, past a cove where
I follow a heron’s crescendo
into the bleak sky, worry-winged but
a tease to every less buoyant misgiving.
I hold our cups while you steer,
lifting them to accommodate the turbulence
and imagine how we will run after each other in streets
when this is all over,
how we wail open-mouthed and unreal like hollow tunnels
where wind is ushered down our centers—
the anxious shroud of unbelievable wakelessness, through which
we will kick our sheets, and moan
because of all the unfettered foundlings in our hearts, given birth to
that morning.
All this din in the cavity of our skulls
with not a waking word in the air outside the bone
as we drive
into the bay fog,
back on it’s haunches,
ready to enshroud our semi-private waiting room.
from a roaring world, when my breath ran out with my coffee
feeling the fidget of the body beside me,
our bold company and me, biding our time,
waiting for a beginning.
Perhaps when you ordered a latte you knew all this:
Just how I splurge on your awkward words
spinning out of the mouth, straight as Sunday,
words that stumble,
and so I would set and bind them together for you,
our intention, flush,
thick as saffron glue, only sweeter,
Sophic and level.
Now someone’s mentioned the election
And the café is busying—
aren’t we full of innuendos today.
Back to the road now, past a cove where
I follow a heron’s crescendo
into the bleak sky, worry-winged but
a tease to every less buoyant misgiving.
I hold our cups while you steer,
lifting them to accommodate the turbulence
and imagine how we will run after each other in streets
when this is all over,
how we wail open-mouthed and unreal like hollow tunnels
where wind is ushered down our centers—
the anxious shroud of unbelievable wakelessness, through which
we will kick our sheets, and moan
because of all the unfettered foundlings in our hearts, given birth to
that morning.
All this din in the cavity of our skulls
with not a waking word in the air outside the bone
as we drive
into the bay fog,
back on it’s haunches,
ready to enshroud our semi-private waiting room.
Friday, October 19, 2007
just to check out the late-night record shop
Well, I'm feeling particularly hung-up on the food today. Maybe it's more body stuff than food, and I don't know if it's just aftermath of last night's cookie meal, or if it's just been rising to the surface more and more lately. It's not a restriction thing (or perhaps it is a little bit, but certainly nothing drastic) so much as it feels like just my dieter's thinking always always getting in the way. Always noise about my food...that busy chatter getting just a little louder lately. Again, I've had a substantial amount of progress here, and I'm not completely blind to that. I remember a thousand times when Clint would decide he wanted some ice cream, and the two of us would walk up to the corner store (Tufts Conveniences, it's called) and get a pint of Ben and Jerrys with the soft brownies in it. I would usually wander, looking for something that I wanted, would feel defeated by not finding anything I felt I could allow myself, and then we'd head back home where I'd inevitably eat half his ice cream. And not even so much because I wanted it, but because I couldn't handle knowing he was having a treat and I wasn't. I'm definitely in a place where I can have treats when other people are not inviting me to join them, although the reverse isn't as solid for me: I have a difficult time not having a treat if you are, too. For example, if I'm with a group of friends (hah...when am I EVER with a group of friends?) okay, if I'm with Kate, Eric, Emma and Josh, and they were to decide "Hey, lets go out for Cheeseburgers!", and I'd been thinking earlier that a salad sounded nice (not restrictively, but that I wasn't starving and I wanted something crisp and clean), that salad idea would be out the window all I would have registered was PERMISSION TO EAT CHEESEBURGER GRANTED! -- not what my body was telling me to eat. Even now, if I were to order that salad, there would be a very small part of me mourning the loss of the potential cheeseburger despite being able to acknowledge that it wasn't what my body wanted. Thankfully, that small part is so much smaller now than it ever has been, so much softer than I've ever heard it. Right now, every moment I'm not eating “bad” food is no longer a moment of deep personal sacrifice.
I do absolutely still think with a dieter's head though. I wish I didn't know how many calories were in every food choice. I can look at a meal and eyeball it's calorie count within about 100. I wish my first impulse at the grocery store wasn’t still to flip an item over and check out the calories per serving, knowing that my decision to buy it will still be based largely around my approval of that number. I look forward to the day that I can thoughtlessly drink a glass of orange juice without reminding myself that water could just as easily have quenched my thirst and I should just eat an orange because it has 1/4 the calories and all that fiber that will satiate me for hours. I still think like that, I'm just trying to make choices that don't validate that kind of thinking.
When I woke up this morning after all those cookies, my body felt hugely warm as it was still metabolizing what I'd eaten last night (I just deleted a comment here that I realized was written because I was embarrassed about having had cookies for dinner and was worried that mom and anyone else reading would think I was in trouble and was gaining wait. I'm not, and I refuse to apologize for wanting cookies for dinner), and I was incredibly thirsty and hungry for something other than carbohydrates. See, that's cool. That's where I can appreciate what my body does for me- it's handling what I've eaten, and, without asking me to correct for it, she's asking for the things she needs in order to continue functioning well, which is NOT, by the way, 25 more cookies as I would have assumed a year ago, but some food that packs a little more nutritional punch. I so appreciate learning to trust that my body can handle everything I eat, and then make accommodations accordingly. My difficulty is actually listening to what it's asking for. My brilliant head can easily talk over the voice of my body, and tell me that what my she really wants is not to eat until dinner time because it's had plenty of calories, thank you. That's, um, not at all what my body's askin' for. She wants food...just not cookies. Fiber. Vitamins. Non-processed things, today. Tomorrow she may want processed things again, maybe even another cookie, but today that's not necessary.
I do absolutely still think with a dieter's head though. I wish I didn't know how many calories were in every food choice. I can look at a meal and eyeball it's calorie count within about 100. I wish my first impulse at the grocery store wasn’t still to flip an item over and check out the calories per serving, knowing that my decision to buy it will still be based largely around my approval of that number. I look forward to the day that I can thoughtlessly drink a glass of orange juice without reminding myself that water could just as easily have quenched my thirst and I should just eat an orange because it has 1/4 the calories and all that fiber that will satiate me for hours. I still think like that, I'm just trying to make choices that don't validate that kind of thinking.
When I woke up this morning after all those cookies, my body felt hugely warm as it was still metabolizing what I'd eaten last night (I just deleted a comment here that I realized was written because I was embarrassed about having had cookies for dinner and was worried that mom and anyone else reading would think I was in trouble and was gaining wait. I'm not, and I refuse to apologize for wanting cookies for dinner), and I was incredibly thirsty and hungry for something other than carbohydrates. See, that's cool. That's where I can appreciate what my body does for me- it's handling what I've eaten, and, without asking me to correct for it, she's asking for the things she needs in order to continue functioning well, which is NOT, by the way, 25 more cookies as I would have assumed a year ago, but some food that packs a little more nutritional punch. I so appreciate learning to trust that my body can handle everything I eat, and then make accommodations accordingly. My difficulty is actually listening to what it's asking for. My brilliant head can easily talk over the voice of my body, and tell me that what my she really wants is not to eat until dinner time because it's had plenty of calories, thank you. That's, um, not at all what my body's askin' for. She wants food...just not cookies. Fiber. Vitamins. Non-processed things, today. Tomorrow she may want processed things again, maybe even another cookie, but today that's not necessary.
Blackroof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings
I had oatmeal cookies for dinner last night. A whole bunch of them. I made them at Kate's from scratch and they were just so damn good that I had a dinner's worth, and then maybe a few more. I definitely can't classify it as a binge although it was probably over-eating, and I'm a little frustrated that I hadn't planned dinner for myself and therefore was hungry enough to eat as many as I did, but I'm trying to look for the more positive factors in the event aaaaand here they go:
1. I wasn't out of control during any cookie.
2. At no point did it even occur to me to purge.
3. There was no intense anxiety afterwards (although I'm feeling a little anxious avowing this in print)
4. I stopped because I had had enough and didn't want any more. This is a moment that would never have come a year ago. Mind you, I 'd had an awful lot of cookies by the time that moment came, but my point was THERE WERE STILL SOME LEFT! Many, actually. And it didn't take their disappearance for me to stop.
Alright. I realize that I may sound like I'm desperately searching for glimmers of success in what sounds like anything but, so I'll just leave it at that. I'm feeling a little guiltier this morning (and clearly dwelling on it more) than I did last night. I guess it's a good thing I'm headed into the MEDA internship this morning.
***
The Children's choir yesterday was very very difficult. On Tuesday the teaching fellows had held a long meeting, brainstorming on all of the lesson plans for the beginning, intermediate, advanced, and premier choirs, and I really came up with some good ideas for how to approach my 47 very bright but unruly concert choir. I spent two and a half hours the next morning wrestling with the copy machine and white-out to make up a worksheet of mathematical note values that I was really proud of. I wanted to be able to assess exactly where the gaps in these kids musical education were. Where was I missing the point, and who was sliding through the cracks? I also had decided that rather than playing some snazzy flash-card game with them where it would inevitably end up in chaos and it would be more of a chance for them to perform for one another than to grasp the material, I'd start the class with a pretty difficult worksheet. I thought they'd be quiet, focused, and anxious realizing that they were supposed to apply what I'd been teaching on the page in front of them. I thought I'd have a quiet classroom for once and I was just sooooooo wrong. They had questions, they somehow managed to work in groups, they were talking to each other...I can't think how I could have imagined this would keep them quiet! Despite the chaos the class dissolved into, I did walk away with all of their assignments in-hand, feeling as though I had an idea of where their weaknesses were, and how I could approach it. I reported both their unimproved behavior and my excitement about addressing their musical struggle-areas in our meeting after the day's rehearsals. That was Wednesday.
Yesterday they let me know that they'd like to switch me with another teaching fellow, asking me to teach one of the beginning/intermediate levels of choir, and bringing Marta, another teaching fellow, over to teach my concert choir. I was so crushed. I feel much better about it having talked to Mom and Dad (wow, really throws me off to refer to them together like that) but I'm still stuck in how I could have been harsher with them, more direct, firmer, sticking to the piddly little guns I have. I know things weren't perfect with them, but I knew where they were, I was starting to get their names down, one girl showed me her poetry after class every day and we'd sit and talk about it, I knew Drew had a crush on Hailey next to him, Roxanne needed to start again musically from square one because she'd admitted not being able to understand me (I talk too fast; who knew?). I just feel that I've been defeated by them. And that I've let them down. Which is maybe less accurate, I don't know, its not as if they'll never get the musical education they need. Somebody will give it to them, I just feel embarrassed it's not me. I wonder if they'll know, when Marta walks into the door, that they have a new teacher because I couldn't handle them. I wonder if they'll wish they had me again instead of Marta (I'm...um...way cooler). I want to know if they'll even ask about me.
Heh..you'd think from the way I'm writing this that I didn't have any friends. Funny.
I suppose I also wonder what the new kids will be like. I'm just really stuck on having dropped the ball on this one.
Alright, I'm off to brush teeth and haul-ass to Watertown
1. I wasn't out of control during any cookie.
2. At no point did it even occur to me to purge.
3. There was no intense anxiety afterwards (although I'm feeling a little anxious avowing this in print)
4. I stopped because I had had enough and didn't want any more. This is a moment that would never have come a year ago. Mind you, I 'd had an awful lot of cookies by the time that moment came, but my point was THERE WERE STILL SOME LEFT! Many, actually. And it didn't take their disappearance for me to stop.
Alright. I realize that I may sound like I'm desperately searching for glimmers of success in what sounds like anything but, so I'll just leave it at that. I'm feeling a little guiltier this morning (and clearly dwelling on it more) than I did last night. I guess it's a good thing I'm headed into the MEDA internship this morning.
***
The Children's choir yesterday was very very difficult. On Tuesday the teaching fellows had held a long meeting, brainstorming on all of the lesson plans for the beginning, intermediate, advanced, and premier choirs, and I really came up with some good ideas for how to approach my 47 very bright but unruly concert choir. I spent two and a half hours the next morning wrestling with the copy machine and white-out to make up a worksheet of mathematical note values that I was really proud of. I wanted to be able to assess exactly where the gaps in these kids musical education were. Where was I missing the point, and who was sliding through the cracks? I also had decided that rather than playing some snazzy flash-card game with them where it would inevitably end up in chaos and it would be more of a chance for them to perform for one another than to grasp the material, I'd start the class with a pretty difficult worksheet. I thought they'd be quiet, focused, and anxious realizing that they were supposed to apply what I'd been teaching on the page in front of them. I thought I'd have a quiet classroom for once and I was just sooooooo wrong. They had questions, they somehow managed to work in groups, they were talking to each other...I can't think how I could have imagined this would keep them quiet! Despite the chaos the class dissolved into, I did walk away with all of their assignments in-hand, feeling as though I had an idea of where their weaknesses were, and how I could approach it. I reported both their unimproved behavior and my excitement about addressing their musical struggle-areas in our meeting after the day's rehearsals. That was Wednesday.
Yesterday they let me know that they'd like to switch me with another teaching fellow, asking me to teach one of the beginning/intermediate levels of choir, and bringing Marta, another teaching fellow, over to teach my concert choir. I was so crushed. I feel much better about it having talked to Mom and Dad (wow, really throws me off to refer to them together like that) but I'm still stuck in how I could have been harsher with them, more direct, firmer, sticking to the piddly little guns I have. I know things weren't perfect with them, but I knew where they were, I was starting to get their names down, one girl showed me her poetry after class every day and we'd sit and talk about it, I knew Drew had a crush on Hailey next to him, Roxanne needed to start again musically from square one because she'd admitted not being able to understand me (I talk too fast; who knew?). I just feel that I've been defeated by them. And that I've let them down. Which is maybe less accurate, I don't know, its not as if they'll never get the musical education they need. Somebody will give it to them, I just feel embarrassed it's not me. I wonder if they'll know, when Marta walks into the door, that they have a new teacher because I couldn't handle them. I wonder if they'll wish they had me again instead of Marta (I'm...um...way cooler). I want to know if they'll even ask about me.
Heh..you'd think from the way I'm writing this that I didn't have any friends. Funny.
I suppose I also wonder what the new kids will be like. I'm just really stuck on having dropped the ball on this one.
Alright, I'm off to brush teeth and haul-ass to Watertown
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Yes, we gon' fight, oh yes, we gon' fight
I just woke up from one of those nightmares that inevitably haunts you for the rest of the day, knot the reality of it (or the lack thereof) but what it means about you. In this particular case this was a dream that highlighted how needy, how completely dependent and at the mercy of my own expectations I am, day-in day-out. I suppose the dream itself wasn't all that important, but how it made me feel when I woke up was in such stark contrast to how I've felt the past couple of days. I've made some changes in my world that are attempts to be much more independent, looking what I got out of relationships and how I sought them out, and recognizing a few as band-aide relationships as opposed to actually enriching ones. The result being I've felt better about myself, more grounded and more capable of being my own manager rather than expecting anybody else to ameliorate my crazy. That's felt good. Solid. I've felt proud. And this morning after a dream that had to do with loss and abandonment, I was practically hyperventilating under the covers as I came to consciousness. I just...want to have a better day, or to react to things better in real life than I have in this dream. It's frightened me, realizing that perhaps I'm not as stable as I've come to think of myself.
***
Quick recap on the last few days:
I restraunted until late last night 22.30% tips total for the hole night! Woo woo! And had previously come from a teaching fellows meeting with the Children's Choir. I wasn't leading a rehearsal or a session that day, but Marta was, and because our meeting ran late her kids occasionally ran by and peeked in the window and scooted off once we saw them. The novelty never wears off that although they call me Ms. Birney and I'm the one in the conference room, I very much feel that I'm still peeking in the window. In the meeting we addressed some of the behavior issues I've been having with my concert choir (heh, not my behavior, theirs) in addition to some of the gaps I felt existed in their musical education, and ways in which I felt we could remedy them (I strongly feel that the kids would benefit from some piano exercises, or failing that, any exercise that would correlate the notes on the staff with the whole and half steps of the keys on the piano, band I feel that way because it's what made all the difference for me). What felt SO good, is to hear people nod along, agree with what I was saying, and write down some of my suggestions. It felt so validating to be told that my observations were seconded, and my opinions on how to address them were valued! I guess that sounds really basic, but I'm very much used to second-guessing what I'm bringing to the table, whether it's musical knowledge or child development, and tend to assume that because I'm the youngest person at the conference table, let alone the youngest teaching fellow they've had yet, that I'm a little behind the curve when it comes to these topics. It was such a surprise to feel confident in what I was saying AND be right about it...or even just feel right about it...or more importantly feel that other people, or dare I say my colleagues feel that I'm right about it.
So this morning, I'm making up a worksheet for Concert Choir to attack (they've lost their bathroom privilages during my session so I figure I'll need to have something for them to keep them focused and not talking to each other...I swear you can see the hormones flying about the room), and then I'm going to meet with Andy for my conducting lesson. I'll also get to see how my harmonic analysis went from last week when I turn in the Bach chorale...ugh...
And after that four hours at the BCC. Sometimes I can't believe they're paying me to be there...wild, right? Luckyfish.
***
Quick recap on the last few days:
I restraunted until late last night 22.30% tips total for the hole night! Woo woo! And had previously come from a teaching fellows meeting with the Children's Choir. I wasn't leading a rehearsal or a session that day, but Marta was, and because our meeting ran late her kids occasionally ran by and peeked in the window and scooted off once we saw them. The novelty never wears off that although they call me Ms. Birney and I'm the one in the conference room, I very much feel that I'm still peeking in the window. In the meeting we addressed some of the behavior issues I've been having with my concert choir (heh, not my behavior, theirs) in addition to some of the gaps I felt existed in their musical education, and ways in which I felt we could remedy them (I strongly feel that the kids would benefit from some piano exercises, or failing that, any exercise that would correlate the notes on the staff with the whole and half steps of the keys on the piano, band I feel that way because it's what made all the difference for me). What felt SO good, is to hear people nod along, agree with what I was saying, and write down some of my suggestions. It felt so validating to be told that my observations were seconded, and my opinions on how to address them were valued! I guess that sounds really basic, but I'm very much used to second-guessing what I'm bringing to the table, whether it's musical knowledge or child development, and tend to assume that because I'm the youngest person at the conference table, let alone the youngest teaching fellow they've had yet, that I'm a little behind the curve when it comes to these topics. It was such a surprise to feel confident in what I was saying AND be right about it...or even just feel right about it...or more importantly feel that other people, or dare I say my colleagues feel that I'm right about it.
So this morning, I'm making up a worksheet for Concert Choir to attack (they've lost their bathroom privilages during my session so I figure I'll need to have something for them to keep them focused and not talking to each other...I swear you can see the hormones flying about the room), and then I'm going to meet with Andy for my conducting lesson. I'll also get to see how my harmonic analysis went from last week when I turn in the Bach chorale...ugh...
And after that four hours at the BCC. Sometimes I can't believe they're paying me to be there...wild, right? Luckyfish.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
O is for the only one I see
Ohhhh tired girl. I'm back after my brunch shift at Upstairs where it was so busy I was actually anxious carrying a tray full of mimosas through the crowd around the bar. All in all it wasn't so bad, but I had one rather sucky table that I thought was going really really well until they tipped me a whopping 9%. Appalling. And surprising, really, because they were laughing with me, they really loved the food, and stayed quite awhile. They weren't European so they didn't have the skewed tip perceptive, and they got excellent service. Really, I was on my game this morning, and either they didn't think so, they were just being buttheads. Which I suppose I've done to waiters before, so I can understand getting fed up with having to pay that much more, but I really can't help but taking it personally. They didn't think I was attentive enough, or worth the tip, or amusing...I don't know. I can tell I'm hung up on it because my shift ended a few hours ago and I'm still carrying it around with me. Who does that?? Who tips nine percent?!
I don't feel particularly chatty right now, mostly tired and a little overwhelmed by the week. I keep thinking my weekends will be relaxing and I'll have time to prepare myself for my obligations for the week like making lesson plans for the BCC kids, reviewing my assignments for Andy (which reminds me I really must set aside some time for that tonight), and organizing my schedule, but inevitably I'm wiped out from the restaurant and feeling lazier than usual and overwhelmed by the prospect of another week, and frankly feeling kind of unexcited about everything I'm doing. I mean, individually, each project is very rewarding, BCC and MEDA, working with Andy, my Tufts classes, and the restaurant all have really important roles in my "great scheme of things" plan. BCC and Andy are for conducting experience and application prep, Tufts classes get me the hell out of my undergrad and Boston, the restaurant keeps me in pocket cash, and MEDA takes care of my recovery (in addition to therapy). I can't afford to give any one of these things up, and I don't particularly want to, I wish I were just more excited about my day to day stuff. I wish I could feel I was at least getting closer and closer to where I want to be, I wish I could track my progress rather than feeling I'm just working day by day into what I'm anticipating will be a very very gray winter. I wish I didn't feel so constantly blue. And it's strange because that gloom isn't always the only thing in me, but it comes through when I'm between activities and obligations. I'll be in the car and suddenly either I can't drive anymore or I want to drive west without stopping, as though I cannot stand to face the rest of my life until I'm out of this routine. I know it's productive, I know I'm getting somewhere, I'm just having a difficult rallying myself into however many more months of 9% waitressing and loneliness and watching the clock till I can go home and be lonely there instead.
Okay, that's a jolly post; I didn't mean for it to be so glum, it's just that when I get typing I stop editing my words and it kind of splats onto the page like this.
I'm going to go to dinner once the karate people are out, and it'll probably be thai food. Then home to be my own taskmaster on Randal Thompson's Alleluia.
ps, just watched Oksana Baiul skate a routine to Swan Lake dedicated to her mother who died of breast cancer (abc is hosting an event called frosted pink which is a fund raiser for women's cancers). When she finished the routine her face was contorted in tears and she sobbed uncontrollably. She could barely get herself off the ice she crying so hard. Naturally, I'm now in tears too. I forget that other activities work for other people like singing does for me. Now Joss Stone and Natalie Cole are singing L.O.V.E. What a neat event.
I don't feel particularly chatty right now, mostly tired and a little overwhelmed by the week. I keep thinking my weekends will be relaxing and I'll have time to prepare myself for my obligations for the week like making lesson plans for the BCC kids, reviewing my assignments for Andy (which reminds me I really must set aside some time for that tonight), and organizing my schedule, but inevitably I'm wiped out from the restaurant and feeling lazier than usual and overwhelmed by the prospect of another week, and frankly feeling kind of unexcited about everything I'm doing. I mean, individually, each project is very rewarding, BCC and MEDA, working with Andy, my Tufts classes, and the restaurant all have really important roles in my "great scheme of things" plan. BCC and Andy are for conducting experience and application prep, Tufts classes get me the hell out of my undergrad and Boston, the restaurant keeps me in pocket cash, and MEDA takes care of my recovery (in addition to therapy). I can't afford to give any one of these things up, and I don't particularly want to, I wish I were just more excited about my day to day stuff. I wish I could feel I was at least getting closer and closer to where I want to be, I wish I could track my progress rather than feeling I'm just working day by day into what I'm anticipating will be a very very gray winter. I wish I didn't feel so constantly blue. And it's strange because that gloom isn't always the only thing in me, but it comes through when I'm between activities and obligations. I'll be in the car and suddenly either I can't drive anymore or I want to drive west without stopping, as though I cannot stand to face the rest of my life until I'm out of this routine. I know it's productive, I know I'm getting somewhere, I'm just having a difficult rallying myself into however many more months of 9% waitressing and loneliness and watching the clock till I can go home and be lonely there instead.
Okay, that's a jolly post; I didn't mean for it to be so glum, it's just that when I get typing I stop editing my words and it kind of splats onto the page like this.
I'm going to go to dinner once the karate people are out, and it'll probably be thai food. Then home to be my own taskmaster on Randal Thompson's Alleluia.
ps, just watched Oksana Baiul skate a routine to Swan Lake dedicated to her mother who died of breast cancer (abc is hosting an event called frosted pink which is a fund raiser for women's cancers). When she finished the routine her face was contorted in tears and she sobbed uncontrollably. She could barely get herself off the ice she crying so hard. Naturally, I'm now in tears too. I forget that other activities work for other people like singing does for me. Now Joss Stone and Natalie Cole are singing L.O.V.E. What a neat event.
Friday, October 12, 2007
I belong, west virginia, mountain mama
I had, today, the most incredible massage I've ever had in my life. My housemate Livy is in school to be an aesthatician ( I thought for the longest time she had been saying anesthetician, which I now know isn't acutally a word, but I thought meant she was going be become an anesthesiologist.) Anyhow it turns out that rather than learning to sedate people, she's learning how to give them facials and waxing procedures and whatnot (I was a little less impressed but didn't let her know. ) It turns out that the school she goes to is across the street, also has a massage school, and on friday afternoon lets their students give full hour massages for $30 bucks! And it was incredible! They take their clients up to a large-ish room divided by little hospital-like curtains, each of which contains the massage table and a little tray of oils. It's very no-frills, and you hear just enough noise during the massage so as not to fall asleep. Which sucks, cause then you've missed the whole thing.
The masseuse I had was a very light-skinned pregnant black woman with a gold front tooth and hands like soft leather. She used a consistant pressure that I found so comforting it was like I instantly loved her. You know how some people just know how to touch other people? As though they themselves were feeling what they were doing to you? That's how mum caresses, and that's how this woman massaged.
It was the most present, loving, firm, consistent touch, and it occured to me in that moment that I felt grounded, and actually actively liking my body. That's not a feeling I experience often, in fact it's far more frequent for me to be condemning my body's thousand flaws and the ways in which it's let me down, but once in awhile I get to reflect on the ways that this vessel I'm in serves me that I'm usually oblivious to; the music I hear, produce and process every day, a really difficult run when my chest feels open and clear, being able to register and understand flavors in a dish, orgasms, making a perfect u-turn, post-surgery badmitton with Kate, these are things my body is completely responsible for that I overlook daily to critique the plane of my stomach.
For someone who was (and admittedly still is) so attentive to the character and shape of her body, who so strictly attempted to control and and manage it through such brutal methods, I was hopelessly ignorant to the ways in which I enjoyed it constantly, even through all the damage and stress it endured for me.
So I never got her name, this magician masseuse, but I absolutely intend to go back.
The masseuse I had was a very light-skinned pregnant black woman with a gold front tooth and hands like soft leather. She used a consistant pressure that I found so comforting it was like I instantly loved her. You know how some people just know how to touch other people? As though they themselves were feeling what they were doing to you? That's how mum caresses, and that's how this woman massaged.
It was the most present, loving, firm, consistent touch, and it occured to me in that moment that I felt grounded, and actually actively liking my body. That's not a feeling I experience often, in fact it's far more frequent for me to be condemning my body's thousand flaws and the ways in which it's let me down, but once in awhile I get to reflect on the ways that this vessel I'm in serves me that I'm usually oblivious to; the music I hear, produce and process every day, a really difficult run when my chest feels open and clear, being able to register and understand flavors in a dish, orgasms, making a perfect u-turn, post-surgery badmitton with Kate, these are things my body is completely responsible for that I overlook daily to critique the plane of my stomach.
For someone who was (and admittedly still is) so attentive to the character and shape of her body, who so strictly attempted to control and and manage it through such brutal methods, I was hopelessly ignorant to the ways in which I enjoyed it constantly, even through all the damage and stress it endured for me.
So I never got her name, this magician masseuse, but I absolutely intend to go back.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
London bridge was always falling down
There were some classes I've taken in college for which the homework was like chopping overripe tomatoes: I knew as I was doing it I was doing a piss-poor job of it, and that I wasn't really retaining most of the information but I was finishing it to finish it so I could just toss it into the pot, completed, and no longer responsible for it, and firmly believing that once it was out of my hands I wouldn't have to look at it again, hopefully ever.
I did this with my music theory courses , only with slightly more passion because I knew it was vaguely related to something that I loved, and today it was like someone pulled the mushed tomato bits out of the pot and asked me to serve them...or eat them. Okay, shitty analogy, but my point is that I'm now deeply regretting having not taken the music theory courses from the introductory level on, rather than jumping into the middle of the curriculum. I was meeting with Andy and after we'd discussed possible college options and non-college options, we were working through a Bach chorale. Thankfully it was a familiar one, that has since been turned into the hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God", so I knew the tune, but was not used to all of Bach's flourishes which the Protestants must have left out. Anyhow, Andy was asking pretty complex questions about augmentations and leading tones in the piece, and I finally had to admit to him that I was lost and could he please slow down or let me work through it at the piano for a day, the result being that he's asked me to do a harmonic analysis of the chorale for homework this week in addition to a few other assignment. I'm sitting here in my bed surrounded by notes and previous assignments and two textbooks. If I could have a tutor nest to me right now, I would. I've actually had to dig through old notes from all three intense theory classes that I had hoped never to sift through again! What's most maddening is that my notes don't start from Music Theory 101 because I had wanted to fast-track myself when I entered Tufts, believing that I was above such rudimentary nonsense (snarf). The notes from the class I entered begin with harmonic voice leading and second species counterpoint. Yes, what? I don't know. I'll look it up.
I've been thumbing through one of these (which thankfully has provided some clarity) and my old notes (which do not) and have clumsily completed a musical analysis that isn't entirely pathetic if I may say so. My sketch is missing a little bit of secondary dominance action which I can HEAR happening but can't actually figure out where and how to notate it, but otherwise I'd be happy to hand it into Andy because it's kind of the best I can do. Right now.
I really, really, really should've been humble enough to take that beginning class. I don't know how I thought I could get into conducting and not be able to do a chordal analysis of a Bach Chorale without plunking away on my little roll-out keyboard and counting up the arpeggio to unravel the inversions. Really. I must have thought that I'd always have an accompanist with me or that I wouldn't have to bother with such menial tasks as analysis. Or that it would somehow unfold itself to me in a dream. I'm not sure what I told myself to justify me brushing this part of my musical education under the rug, but I guarantee it has something to do with my ego.
There are probably some classes I should audit...maybe sometime when I'm not so busy.
Changing gears now, onto the children's choir adventure this afternoon...
The Concert Choir kids were massive pains today. I can completely understand how at the end of a full day of school and a two hour rehearsal they're absolutely not interested in listening to some lady lecture them on music theory, but today they were more boisterous than I'd ever had them be. We were doing dictation and I was getting increasingly frustrated because they were talking over my clapping, over each other's questions, over each other's side conversation...it's 47 very loud and very tired kids who are all very musically bright but must be tired and bored, and me being frazzled and trying to clap out a rhythm in 2/4 so they'll write what they hear on their little measure lines. In looking over their work after they passed them in I was excited to see a few who were with me, a few who were close, and most that were not even in the ballpark. One girl turned in an empty sheet that just said across the top "I don't get it." Kinda broke my heart. I don't have time to work with each individually, and I just can't seem to get them all quiet for long enough to get through a single exercise. It's come to a point where I'm actually less worried about my ego and whether they like me (thank god) and am more concerned with whether or not they're absorbing the material, and my fear is that they're not. Actually my bigger fear is that the artistic director and the team that hired me will find out that they're not absorbing the material, but second to that is their understanding. Ho hum...I need some new ideas. I'm teaching the Lyric tomorrow, and they're between the ages of 5 and 9, so I have to compile a whole new lesson plan for them, but at least they're obedient and still think I know everything. Even music theory.
After rehearsal tonight I met up for dinner with with Emma and Andrew at a Vietnamese place in Harvard square. Andrew's friend of mine from Chamber singers last year who's one of those people about whom I have no judgements because he's so similar to me: he's pompous, he's picky about food, he's very snobby about the kind of people he likes, he's wicked with puns, and he's a great musician. He graduated last year with the rest of the seniors and on a trip through Bangkok with friends this summer he snagged presents for each of his fellow seniors, and he gave me mine tonight. It's a fish wind chime. I know it sounds cheesy, but I so enjoyed that someone with no romantic inclinations towards me whatsoever would think of me when I'm not around. I'm always so hung up on the wanting to be remembered, wanting to be through of, wanting to be important or central to somebody, and so my old behavior was to attempt to perpetuate this by seeking attention so that I couldn't possibly be forgotten (often that just cultivated a crush which always went badly) but I'd never done that with Andrew, and look, he remembered me anyway. I was just touched by the gesture, knowing it didn't mean anything else. It felt good to know that.
In searching through my bag just now I found the very last mint from my most recent escapade to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse with Clint. I could SO use a bench and some rain right about now...
I'm off to brush my teeth and huddle down into bed.
I did this with my music theory courses , only with slightly more passion because I knew it was vaguely related to something that I loved, and today it was like someone pulled the mushed tomato bits out of the pot and asked me to serve them...or eat them. Okay, shitty analogy, but my point is that I'm now deeply regretting having not taken the music theory courses from the introductory level on, rather than jumping into the middle of the curriculum. I was meeting with Andy and after we'd discussed possible college options and non-college options, we were working through a Bach chorale. Thankfully it was a familiar one, that has since been turned into the hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God", so I knew the tune, but was not used to all of Bach's flourishes which the Protestants must have left out. Anyhow, Andy was asking pretty complex questions about augmentations and leading tones in the piece, and I finally had to admit to him that I was lost and could he please slow down or let me work through it at the piano for a day, the result being that he's asked me to do a harmonic analysis of the chorale for homework this week in addition to a few other assignment. I'm sitting here in my bed surrounded by notes and previous assignments and two textbooks. If I could have a tutor nest to me right now, I would. I've actually had to dig through old notes from all three intense theory classes that I had hoped never to sift through again! What's most maddening is that my notes don't start from Music Theory 101 because I had wanted to fast-track myself when I entered Tufts, believing that I was above such rudimentary nonsense (snarf). The notes from the class I entered begin with harmonic voice leading and second species counterpoint. Yes, what? I don't know. I'll look it up.
I've been thumbing through one of these (which thankfully has provided some clarity) and my old notes (which do not) and have clumsily completed a musical analysis that isn't entirely pathetic if I may say so. My sketch is missing a little bit of secondary dominance action which I can HEAR happening but can't actually figure out where and how to notate it, but otherwise I'd be happy to hand it into Andy because it's kind of the best I can do. Right now.
I really, really, really should've been humble enough to take that beginning class. I don't know how I thought I could get into conducting and not be able to do a chordal analysis of a Bach Chorale without plunking away on my little roll-out keyboard and counting up the arpeggio to unravel the inversions. Really. I must have thought that I'd always have an accompanist with me or that I wouldn't have to bother with such menial tasks as analysis. Or that it would somehow unfold itself to me in a dream. I'm not sure what I told myself to justify me brushing this part of my musical education under the rug, but I guarantee it has something to do with my ego.
There are probably some classes I should audit...maybe sometime when I'm not so busy.
Changing gears now, onto the children's choir adventure this afternoon...
The Concert Choir kids were massive pains today. I can completely understand how at the end of a full day of school and a two hour rehearsal they're absolutely not interested in listening to some lady lecture them on music theory, but today they were more boisterous than I'd ever had them be. We were doing dictation and I was getting increasingly frustrated because they were talking over my clapping, over each other's questions, over each other's side conversation...it's 47 very loud and very tired kids who are all very musically bright but must be tired and bored, and me being frazzled and trying to clap out a rhythm in 2/4 so they'll write what they hear on their little measure lines. In looking over their work after they passed them in I was excited to see a few who were with me, a few who were close, and most that were not even in the ballpark. One girl turned in an empty sheet that just said across the top "I don't get it." Kinda broke my heart. I don't have time to work with each individually, and I just can't seem to get them all quiet for long enough to get through a single exercise. It's come to a point where I'm actually less worried about my ego and whether they like me (thank god) and am more concerned with whether or not they're absorbing the material, and my fear is that they're not. Actually my bigger fear is that the artistic director and the team that hired me will find out that they're not absorbing the material, but second to that is their understanding. Ho hum...I need some new ideas. I'm teaching the Lyric tomorrow, and they're between the ages of 5 and 9, so I have to compile a whole new lesson plan for them, but at least they're obedient and still think I know everything. Even music theory.
After rehearsal tonight I met up for dinner with with Emma and Andrew at a Vietnamese place in Harvard square. Andrew's friend of mine from Chamber singers last year who's one of those people about whom I have no judgements because he's so similar to me: he's pompous, he's picky about food, he's very snobby about the kind of people he likes, he's wicked with puns, and he's a great musician. He graduated last year with the rest of the seniors and on a trip through Bangkok with friends this summer he snagged presents for each of his fellow seniors, and he gave me mine tonight. It's a fish wind chime. I know it sounds cheesy, but I so enjoyed that someone with no romantic inclinations towards me whatsoever would think of me when I'm not around. I'm always so hung up on the wanting to be remembered, wanting to be through of, wanting to be important or central to somebody, and so my old behavior was to attempt to perpetuate this by seeking attention so that I couldn't possibly be forgotten (often that just cultivated a crush which always went badly) but I'd never done that with Andrew, and look, he remembered me anyway. I was just touched by the gesture, knowing it didn't mean anything else. It felt good to know that.
In searching through my bag just now I found the very last mint from my most recent escapade to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse with Clint. I could SO use a bench and some rain right about now...
I'm off to brush my teeth and huddle down into bed.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Credo
The GRE was pretty disappointing. I actually wondered about half-way through the three hour exam "why the hell am I doing this?" I guessed carelessly on the vocabulary I didn't know (I was surprised at how ashamed I was that there were words in the language with which I'm not familiar, and in the quantitative reasoning section I began to glaze over after about half an hour. So many questions that I couldn't even begin to unravel, and on the few occasions I managed to find a less conventional way of solving the problem, the math itself tripped me up so much that I got extremely frustrated. The writing was fantastic, but beyond that it was pretty much a bust.
Which left me thinking...my best reason for thinking towards grad school now is that I have Andy's support stronger now than ever; he could write me a better recommendation and pull more strings now than he could a few years from now. But other than that...that's kind of all I've got. I have far less experience than I should to be applying to the programs I'm considering, I'm so schooled out, and frankly I'm not convinced that this is what I want to do with my life. I'd so much rather sing, but how the hell am I supposed to do that!
I'm just back from work, there was a party tonight for some company of young lawyers which means good money because we're only passing hours derves and we get payed by the hour plus tips. The low point of the evening was recognizing a girl named Joanna Huey with whom I went to elementary school. She was brilliant, and two years young for the class, and has apparently gone one to make it into harvard law school at 21. And there I was offering her scallops wrapped in bacon. When she asked me what I was doing these days I told her I was studying Choral Conducting at Tufts, hoping she'd assume I was working on my masters and not still chipping away at the undergrad stuff. I wasn't just embarrassed, I was ashamed. I think I'm doing alright, I'm sometimes even proud, until I hear what everybody else is doing. I'm so used to being exceptional that when I'm not, I feel like I've failed somehow (for this reason I believe that they should not tell children that attend schools for the gifted that they're gifted!) I guess I should hear that as a lesson to refrain from comparisons, but it felt absolutely impossible not to compare when she's gussied up all bussiness-like I'm standing there with an apron and a doofy little tie.
I don't know where to begin with this life-planning thing; I really haven't a clue what I'm doing; I only have a vague idea of the people I'd like to have in it and that I'd like to sing. Every day.
I think I'll talk to Andy tomorrow about my grad school reservations when we meet for my independent study. I don't want him to interpret my reservations as me not being serious about grad school or conducting (although maybe that's actually the truth, I really don't know yet), but I'm going to try and voice it in a way that'll be less likely to paint me as a slacker. Maybe he has some other options for me about things I could do for a few years to get more experience. Things not in Boston. Things that would require a long drive first.
It's quarter to 11 and I'm listening to some mellow Eve 6 (I know, oxymoron right?). I'm going to do a little bit of work, and then go to bed. My teeth feel fuzzy; reminder to brush teeth. Sleepyfish.
Which left me thinking...my best reason for thinking towards grad school now is that I have Andy's support stronger now than ever; he could write me a better recommendation and pull more strings now than he could a few years from now. But other than that...that's kind of all I've got. I have far less experience than I should to be applying to the programs I'm considering, I'm so schooled out, and frankly I'm not convinced that this is what I want to do with my life. I'd so much rather sing, but how the hell am I supposed to do that!
I'm just back from work, there was a party tonight for some company of young lawyers which means good money because we're only passing hours derves and we get payed by the hour plus tips. The low point of the evening was recognizing a girl named Joanna Huey with whom I went to elementary school. She was brilliant, and two years young for the class, and has apparently gone one to make it into harvard law school at 21. And there I was offering her scallops wrapped in bacon. When she asked me what I was doing these days I told her I was studying Choral Conducting at Tufts, hoping she'd assume I was working on my masters and not still chipping away at the undergrad stuff. I wasn't just embarrassed, I was ashamed. I think I'm doing alright, I'm sometimes even proud, until I hear what everybody else is doing. I'm so used to being exceptional that when I'm not, I feel like I've failed somehow (for this reason I believe that they should not tell children that attend schools for the gifted that they're gifted!) I guess I should hear that as a lesson to refrain from comparisons, but it felt absolutely impossible not to compare when she's gussied up all bussiness-like I'm standing there with an apron and a doofy little tie.
I don't know where to begin with this life-planning thing; I really haven't a clue what I'm doing; I only have a vague idea of the people I'd like to have in it and that I'd like to sing. Every day.
I think I'll talk to Andy tomorrow about my grad school reservations when we meet for my independent study. I don't want him to interpret my reservations as me not being serious about grad school or conducting (although maybe that's actually the truth, I really don't know yet), but I'm going to try and voice it in a way that'll be less likely to paint me as a slacker. Maybe he has some other options for me about things I could do for a few years to get more experience. Things not in Boston. Things that would require a long drive first.
It's quarter to 11 and I'm listening to some mellow Eve 6 (I know, oxymoron right?). I'm going to do a little bit of work, and then go to bed. My teeth feel fuzzy; reminder to brush teeth. Sleepyfish.
to see what condition my condition is in
Up early, therapy, breakfast in front of the computer reading Dear Abby, and then a much needed shower. I'm taking the GRE's this afternoon from noon to 4, then am racing into Harvard square to work a dinner shift. It'll be a miracle if I somehow manage to travel to Cambridge from Brookline, find parking in the square, and hurdle myself up the stairs and into the dining room in a half hour.
I'm a little anxious about the testing because of the math and because of a few unforeseeable essay questions, but mostly because I haven't studied nearly as much as I would have liked to, and I'm justifying my lack of studying in this way:
a. The GRE measures only how well I take the GRE. Not my personality, not my altruism, not my work ethic (thank god), not my warmth, not even my intelligence, believe it or not.
b. Any school that either would or would not accept me based on my GRE's can suck it.
Okay, into the shower with me, more this evening after work, I hope.
Oh, I had a dream last night about walking home from the farmers market with mom eating over-ripe fresh strawberries by the bucketfull. The odd thing is that that's actually happened. Nothing dream-like about it. The farmers market was always this kind of mecca of happiness when I was little...kind of still is. It's not just about the food either, it's like that's where all the happy people who are who's lives are financially stable enough to buy fresh produce on Saturday mornings go. They're total yuppies and they carry their bags to their SUV's and drive all their expensive fruit home to put in their walk-in refrigerators. What felt so poignant about watching market-goers when I was younger was noticing that nobody really went there alone. Everyone was with their significant other, their children, their sister who was in town visiting from Northern California. I think I aspire to yuppydom because it means never being alone. You can't be a yuppie if you don't have a family. 'Least that's what it looks like.
I used to wander the Saturday market knowing in my heart that I'd be happiest, that I will have reached my ultimate satisfaction with my life when I'm walking through the Santa Monica farmers market with my own family. I guess I'd be picking out produce for a dinner party or something. That's my fantasy anyhow.
Okay, really, shower time.
I'm a little anxious about the testing because of the math and because of a few unforeseeable essay questions, but mostly because I haven't studied nearly as much as I would have liked to, and I'm justifying my lack of studying in this way:
a. The GRE measures only how well I take the GRE. Not my personality, not my altruism, not my work ethic (thank god), not my warmth, not even my intelligence, believe it or not.
b. Any school that either would or would not accept me based on my GRE's can suck it.
Okay, into the shower with me, more this evening after work, I hope.
Oh, I had a dream last night about walking home from the farmers market with mom eating over-ripe fresh strawberries by the bucketfull. The odd thing is that that's actually happened. Nothing dream-like about it. The farmers market was always this kind of mecca of happiness when I was little...kind of still is. It's not just about the food either, it's like that's where all the happy people who are who's lives are financially stable enough to buy fresh produce on Saturday mornings go. They're total yuppies and they carry their bags to their SUV's and drive all their expensive fruit home to put in their walk-in refrigerators. What felt so poignant about watching market-goers when I was younger was noticing that nobody really went there alone. Everyone was with their significant other, their children, their sister who was in town visiting from Northern California. I think I aspire to yuppydom because it means never being alone. You can't be a yuppie if you don't have a family. 'Least that's what it looks like.
I used to wander the Saturday market knowing in my heart that I'd be happiest, that I will have reached my ultimate satisfaction with my life when I'm walking through the Santa Monica farmers market with my own family. I guess I'd be picking out produce for a dinner party or something. That's my fantasy anyhow.
Okay, really, shower time.
Monday, October 08, 2007
den of thieves
Last night's dinner was six flavors of disaster. No, that's dramatic, it wasn't a disaster, it was just exactly what I didn't want it to be. I'm torn as to whether or not I should detail the whole conversation, mostly because I suspect I'll end up writing out the dialog in such a way that makes him clearly an asshole, when really the killer of an argument like this one was that he was subtle and passive aggressive and surreptitiously cruel so that when I reviewed the conversation in my head and again on the phone with Kate, I couldn't really point to anything specific that he said that was so awful on it's own, but the tone of voice, the innuendo, the facial expression...and yet I feel like a lunatic because I can't express what was so horrible about it.
Most of the meal was fine enough until he began making references to Mom and whether or not she was happy, I mean, actually happy (where DOES this kind of thing come from?). I was proud to confirm that yes, she really was very happy, to which he'd begun to say things like "well I'm sure she THINKS she's happy" and "lets not forget, your mother's an excellent actress" and "she's made some lifestyle choices that are indicative of a person in chaos and in trouble" and "I've talked to some people who've been around her and they say she seems angry as ever." "Like who, Dad? " (I really really tried hard not to be baited but I was) so he mentioned Dennis Regan which made me laugh because I don't think Mom's seen Dennis and Elizabeth since Kate's wedding, and Dad doesn't like me smirking at him and launches into this angry tirade, the gist of which is that my mother clearly doesn't let herself be known to me, that she lives without her children as priorities (he's yelling now, and saying 'fucking' alot with that angry sharp tone) and if I think I know her I don't, and this is no differen't than when I was younger and wanted her to be closer than she was to me but because she was out going on dates and he was dutifully home with Peter and I, of course he looked like the bad guy. He needled me about being so protective of her, saying that it was clearly still an open sore on my soul, that it was likely the cause of my loneliness and the bulimia. He continued on to explain that he spent the whole twelve years of the divorce protecting me from my mother and his opinions about her at which point I interjected "Dad, you still get to protect me from your opinions about her" and that made him yell more. People at nearby tables were staring, I was firecely trying not to cry. "I'm sorry, Mollie, I thought I was talking to a FUCKING adult who could handle some truth! Apparently I'm wrong."
We left, quietly, and walked down the street a little ways, where we stopped at a corner. He kept repeating "this is not good, Mollie". When he says my name it sounds like Mah-lyy; it's not soft anymore. The syllables of my name feel like weapons when he uses them.
"So what now?" he says, looking suddenly distanced and hurt.
"I don't know what to say, Dad."
To which he responds "Families don't leave eachother bloodied on the floor."
"I agree, Dad, but I dont' think either of us are bloodied on the floor, that feels dramatic to me. I do think you're being cruel and selfish."
"That hurts my feelings, Mollie," he's using soft syllables now because he's retreating and I think seeking my sympathy a little. "I don't know what to say, Dad. I'm going now." And I went. I cried as I walked away but only because he can't see my face. I don't like crying in front of him because it means he's definitely won.
Sigh.
So this morning I woke up and went down to a museum on the fenway where the Children's Chorus was performing (concert choir and young men's choir) where I wrangled young singers, took them to the bathroom, got them warmed up, made sure their uniforms were presentable, and then dismissed them to their parents after they sang. It's a cold columbus day morning and the sky's grayer than yesterday. I'm going to study for the GRE's and then...I dunno. I'm pretty glum. I feel, lately, entirely unexcited aboutmost everything in my world. Mum's on my case about the Wellbutrin, but when I've talked to Bill about it he asks if I think I've honestly done everything I can to work through how I'm feeling. And honestly, no, I haven't. I really need to.
I think I'm not sleeping enough, and I'm fantasizing nearly every day of getting in my car (from here on out named Sid -- thanks mum! --) and juuuuust driving. I don't even want to go anywhere specific (well, I mean, I do have some ideas, but mostly it's just about getting the fuck out of Boston. This isn't my city.
Most of the meal was fine enough until he began making references to Mom and whether or not she was happy, I mean, actually happy (where DOES this kind of thing come from?). I was proud to confirm that yes, she really was very happy, to which he'd begun to say things like "well I'm sure she THINKS she's happy" and "lets not forget, your mother's an excellent actress" and "she's made some lifestyle choices that are indicative of a person in chaos and in trouble" and "I've talked to some people who've been around her and they say she seems angry as ever." "Like who, Dad? " (I really really tried hard not to be baited but I was) so he mentioned Dennis Regan which made me laugh because I don't think Mom's seen Dennis and Elizabeth since Kate's wedding, and Dad doesn't like me smirking at him and launches into this angry tirade, the gist of which is that my mother clearly doesn't let herself be known to me, that she lives without her children as priorities (he's yelling now, and saying 'fucking' alot with that angry sharp tone) and if I think I know her I don't, and this is no differen't than when I was younger and wanted her to be closer than she was to me but because she was out going on dates and he was dutifully home with Peter and I, of course he looked like the bad guy. He needled me about being so protective of her, saying that it was clearly still an open sore on my soul, that it was likely the cause of my loneliness and the bulimia. He continued on to explain that he spent the whole twelve years of the divorce protecting me from my mother and his opinions about her at which point I interjected "Dad, you still get to protect me from your opinions about her" and that made him yell more. People at nearby tables were staring, I was firecely trying not to cry. "I'm sorry, Mollie, I thought I was talking to a FUCKING adult who could handle some truth! Apparently I'm wrong."
We left, quietly, and walked down the street a little ways, where we stopped at a corner. He kept repeating "this is not good, Mollie". When he says my name it sounds like Mah-lyy; it's not soft anymore. The syllables of my name feel like weapons when he uses them.
"So what now?" he says, looking suddenly distanced and hurt.
"I don't know what to say, Dad."
To which he responds "Families don't leave eachother bloodied on the floor."
"I agree, Dad, but I dont' think either of us are bloodied on the floor, that feels dramatic to me. I do think you're being cruel and selfish."
"That hurts my feelings, Mollie," he's using soft syllables now because he's retreating and I think seeking my sympathy a little. "I don't know what to say, Dad. I'm going now." And I went. I cried as I walked away but only because he can't see my face. I don't like crying in front of him because it means he's definitely won.
Sigh.
So this morning I woke up and went down to a museum on the fenway where the Children's Chorus was performing (concert choir and young men's choir) where I wrangled young singers, took them to the bathroom, got them warmed up, made sure their uniforms were presentable, and then dismissed them to their parents after they sang. It's a cold columbus day morning and the sky's grayer than yesterday. I'm going to study for the GRE's and then...I dunno. I'm pretty glum. I feel, lately, entirely unexcited aboutmost everything in my world. Mum's on my case about the Wellbutrin, but when I've talked to Bill about it he asks if I think I've honestly done everything I can to work through how I'm feeling. And honestly, no, I haven't. I really need to.
I think I'm not sleeping enough, and I'm fantasizing nearly every day of getting in my car (from here on out named Sid -- thanks mum! --) and juuuuust driving. I don't even want to go anywhere specific (well, I mean, I do have some ideas, but mostly it's just about getting the fuck out of Boston. This isn't my city.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
the voices inside your head drown out the tapping in your feet
I've just finished up at the restaurant for the brunch shift and I'm at the computer exhausted and relieved to be back in the waitressing saddle. One of the biggest reliefs of the job that strikes me every time I go in is that that somehow the food seems under control there. I mean, under control in the sense that I'm not sitting in a crawl-space somewhere with a mouthfull of muffins, but that I can pick and eat when I'm hungry, or just peckish, and suddenly when they call my order or someone is sat in my section I can realize that there's something to be done. And that never happened before. The idea of something needing to be done was never a priority, only the food was. It's kind of novel. I'm pretty sure had there ever been a situation during my dorm years where I was in the middle of a binge, and the fire alarm had gone off, it would have been a real debate as to whether or not I actually bother to file out with the rest of the dorm inhabitants, or risk crisping to death (if it's not just a fire drill) with food in hand. I don't know. It's just nice not to have such a loud head lately.
Kate and Eric and Dad came to the restaurant, Kate had the leek and bacon tart with more salad than tart, Dad and Eric had Eggs Bennedict, and they all had the cider donut special. And an apple dumpling dessert. On Sundays, Harvard Krokadillos a capella group comes to sing to the brunch croud. The wait staff hates them because they're pompous harvard assholes and we affectionately refer to them as the Krokadildos. Anyhow, they sang a round to the brunchers at the restaurant, and during their set they usually sing "what's your name" to a female in the restaurant. They sang to Kate, and what was so cute was that she twirled and sat on his knee and played along. And then like nine thousand people commented on how cute she was to me. "She's so poised!" "I think their tenor may have actually liked her!" "Your sister is really beautiful! And tiny!" Why yes, yes she is. It was also cool to hear these things said and be able to hear them as compliments about Kate only, rather than somehow hearing them as the things indirect insults, or all the things I am nt. As though the subtext to someone pointing out to me that Kateis poised is MOLLIE YOU ARE A DINOSAUR or her being tiny is MOLLIE YOU ARE A DINOSAUR. Or the tenor actually having a thing for her is MOLLIE YOU ARE A GREAT BIG DINOSAUR. I love Kate. I love her more when I like me. Does that make any sense? Anyhow, Kate Dad and Eric stayed in the booth for much longer than they needed too, tipped much more than they needed to, and sipped coffee while the Oktoberfest parade raged outside. Men on stilts, costumed liberals, giant spooky puppets on sticks and headless robed figures, and the din was made somehow eerier by the gray day and how insulated the sound was against the low clouds and cold air. I like days like that when it feels dark and close, probably for the same reason that I like natural disasters. We're all feeling the cold, we're all aware of the murky day, and all somehow closer for it. We're all sitting in the ballroom of this hotel eating ham and cheese sandwiches while the hurricane wails outside us and palm trees lie down in the dark morning. I like that.
I'm meeting Dad tonight at John Harvards for dinner. I'm anticiapting feeling tired and unenergetic, and I'm afraid he wants to talk about how the food stuff has been (he likes to know these things). Kate says he also wants to talk about the teaching fellowship with the bcc and what am I going to do with my life and what if I don't get into the masters programs (what if I do?!!)...the thing is, when I'm not excited about things, it makes him anxious and protective and over-involved. When I am excited about things, it makes him overly excited but equally protective and over-involved. I can't win! What could I do to make him say "Wow, Mollie, sounds fantastic; I'm so goddamn proud of you! I'm going to go make myself a sandwich, talk to you later!"
In a change of gears, I need an ipod. Not the tiny little 5g ipod, I mean I need one I can hold allll my mewzik on. I like to know that my entire library is at my fingertips at any one time. I think that will be my next project (although I should probably be more urgantly worried about a new computer. Mine's making the kind of noises one might expect from an ostrich. In heat.
Now to shower, and shortly to dinner with dad. Wish a fish luck...
Kate and Eric and Dad came to the restaurant, Kate had the leek and bacon tart with more salad than tart, Dad and Eric had Eggs Bennedict, and they all had the cider donut special. And an apple dumpling dessert. On Sundays, Harvard Krokadillos a capella group comes to sing to the brunch croud. The wait staff hates them because they're pompous harvard assholes and we affectionately refer to them as the Krokadildos. Anyhow, they sang a round to the brunchers at the restaurant, and during their set they usually sing "what's your name" to a female in the restaurant. They sang to Kate, and what was so cute was that she twirled and sat on his knee and played along. And then like nine thousand people commented on how cute she was to me. "She's so poised!" "I think their tenor may have actually liked her!" "Your sister is really beautiful! And tiny!" Why yes, yes she is. It was also cool to hear these things said and be able to hear them as compliments about Kate only, rather than somehow hearing them as the things indirect insults, or all the things I am nt. As though the subtext to someone pointing out to me that Kateis poised is MOLLIE YOU ARE A DINOSAUR or her being tiny is MOLLIE YOU ARE A DINOSAUR. Or the tenor actually having a thing for her is MOLLIE YOU ARE A GREAT BIG DINOSAUR. I love Kate. I love her more when I like me. Does that make any sense? Anyhow, Kate Dad and Eric stayed in the booth for much longer than they needed too, tipped much more than they needed to, and sipped coffee while the Oktoberfest parade raged outside. Men on stilts, costumed liberals, giant spooky puppets on sticks and headless robed figures, and the din was made somehow eerier by the gray day and how insulated the sound was against the low clouds and cold air. I like days like that when it feels dark and close, probably for the same reason that I like natural disasters. We're all feeling the cold, we're all aware of the murky day, and all somehow closer for it. We're all sitting in the ballroom of this hotel eating ham and cheese sandwiches while the hurricane wails outside us and palm trees lie down in the dark morning. I like that.
I'm meeting Dad tonight at John Harvards for dinner. I'm anticiapting feeling tired and unenergetic, and I'm afraid he wants to talk about how the food stuff has been (he likes to know these things). Kate says he also wants to talk about the teaching fellowship with the bcc and what am I going to do with my life and what if I don't get into the masters programs (what if I do?!!)...the thing is, when I'm not excited about things, it makes him anxious and protective and over-involved. When I am excited about things, it makes him overly excited but equally protective and over-involved. I can't win! What could I do to make him say "Wow, Mollie, sounds fantastic; I'm so goddamn proud of you! I'm going to go make myself a sandwich, talk to you later!"
In a change of gears, I need an ipod. Not the tiny little 5g ipod, I mean I need one I can hold allll my mewzik on. I like to know that my entire library is at my fingertips at any one time. I think that will be my next project (although I should probably be more urgantly worried about a new computer. Mine's making the kind of noises one might expect from an ostrich. In heat.
Now to shower, and shortly to dinner with dad. Wish a fish luck...
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