a muted click, and a closing of the eyes

I watched my audition tape last night. It consists of two run-throughs of the Alleluia with a few of my comments and attempts to fix things. Frankly, even aside from the fact that all I can think when I watch the video is "I look fat", it's a shitty tape, and a really horrible example of what I can do. Or maybe that's exactly what I can do and I'm totally kidding myself. My expressions are dead-pan, I couldn't look less interested in the piece or less connected to the choir. From this side of things it looks like I cue nothing, I interpret nothing, I emote nothing. And it's the strangest thing because what's going on in my head is this cacophony of analysis and quick request and expression, but why the fuck it's not showing up on my face is beyond me. It honestly looks like I'd rather be anywhere else. I look bored. I'm really embarrassed to send this in and totally discouraged. I really hope these recommendations are encouraging enough that I'm invited for a live audition, because this audition tape isn't gonna help me much.

I've got my apps together at this point; I'm waiting on recommendations from John McDonald and Bryce (advisor, and the church conductor who hired me, respectively), and then I can get these things in the mail, at which point it's just a matter of plugging my ears and wincing. I wish I had more hope about this.

I made myself an egg and cheese bagel this morning and watched Sesame Street where Sugarland joined Elmo and sang about the joy of singing. Duh. Then the Count counted Russian sheep (you knew they were Russian because they had on those barrel-shaped ushanka hats that the Russian kicking dancers in The Nutcracker wear). I'd like to see the Nutcracker actually. I've been thinking of taking myself some Saturday night because I remember going to see it with Dad and Michelle and her daughter Eva and loving how Christmassy and celebratory I felt. Like I was really taking advantage of the season. I feel like I'm going to miss that this year, what with spending so much of the pre-season solo in Medford, and no skiing. At least there will be caroling, right? I mean, Peter won't go but Dad and Kate and I will I'm sure. Damn I wish I could ski this year. I've even fantasized about doing it just a little bit, just some light cruisers on Payday, but I know I couldn't stop there, or at least wouldn't be able to keep my speed down and the next thing I know I'd be an ego-driven comet downhill and all it takes is one little wrong edge and it's an utter yard sale. Ugh. Poor knee.

Bryce just dropped off his recommendations. And gave me a copy. Wow. I've got a little bit of hope now. Here's to clinging to that.

I found THE most excellent Christmas present


...hoping they have it in fuji size

Hokis

This is the poem I brought into my poetry workshop today. I'd written it a good while ago and re-worked it substantially so the idea is similar but re-directed.

I'm totally bragging when I say Prof. Digges responded to the class by saying "folks, were in the presence of a great poem. No corrections." It was a good day.

****

Here is the truth: you were anticipated.

There were times when, in the grey constancy of our
struggled aversions,
I’d wondered about you.
if you’d thrill over a truly fantastic marinade-
romanticize me as a mother-
could be talked into a second helping-
would tolerate incessant harmonies-
wouldn’t mind reading to me-
would speak with open urgency of going home-
if your t-shirts would fit me-
if you’d let me have a bite. Or five.
these were the thousands foundlings at the freshest genesis.

It was Spring, and the “better things” promise was alive,
the weight of blossom bowing it’s gentle head like a lily of the valley.
I wore my inadequacies emblazoned upon my chest-
Yours were in skywriting boldly across the orange evening that fell upon the West --
a zero lightning line, that horizon, and even then,
fearless.

These love things, these unspeakable love…things…
“And there was evening, and there was morning—the
sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth in all their vast
array.” (Genesis 1:31)

you stayed at my mouth.
found shelter there, find sanctuary
and under the roof of that chapel there breathed
breath so warm--
alive--
to evaporate the shadows that shrouded my tongue,
and there with joined flesh to taste
(the gothic arches at the corners of our mouths and)
sweet so soft, that not all the hungry residue
at our cheeks could extinguish the flame called up inside of these,
the walls of our new cathedral.
I’ve learned that I love my body
when it is with your body.
Facedown in our bed months later
we enlaced our fingers and closed our eyes:
we were children fumbling through a prayer built on breath,
exhaling our desired perception of our sweet selves.

That’s some courage, you know
to pray with someone watching you,
to ask for things for yourself and for them when their ears are open to every failure,
when your own mouth can form the words to God before him.


Months from now,
buried in your sweater I will not find your scent
strong enough to keep you there:
over my shoulders, between my legs.
Atop my pillows.
Out on the back porch smoking stoically into the unscripted sky.

In those sheets I will ignore your parallel hollow in the feather bed,
rolling across it into kind of birth, a new advent.

In days I will be your body:
the churlish curve of your ears and the softest skin on your brow,
each of your teeth and all of the space between your vertebrae.
I will reinvent my skin for you.
Our Season, re-sharpened, re-gilded, safely re-sheathed,
and will not sleep till then.

“Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water. So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse ‘sky'. And there was evening, and there was morning.”
(Genesis 1:6-8)

What magicians;
we have blown the sky off the very world.




***


This evening I recorded my audition tape for my applications with the Chorale. It wasn't great, but it wasn't as bad as it could've been, and with luck I'll get back both a VHS to send in with my apps, and a dvd to post here. Right now I'm listening through Handel's Chandos Anthem for the Church (Dec 16th). I love having music to learn, especially holding the hard copy in front of me and marking it up, what scale degree to listen for, where I'll get my note from, how to phrase the measures, how to count it...makes me feel like a really strong musician to look back at my scores after a performance.

There are Christmas lights and a little Christmas tree up in my room that Emma brought back from her house. I think this is my first Christmas tree of my own. Lights too, I guess, because the chili peppers I had up in my room in high school just don't count. The tree and these lights kind of walk the line between making me feel warm and celebratory, and lonely in that pathetic "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" sort of way. Right now they're feeling warm, so I'm gonna run with that.

I keep forgetting I have Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge...harumph...yay yams!

one generation to another

A grand, grand Thanksgiving. I'm sitting at my computer right now listening to Handel's Chandos Anthem #7, the Alto Solo "My Song Shall Be Alway" (no 's'). Brian and Gwen are downstairs decorating the little Christmas tree they've gotten for the house, and adorning the living room with garlands and light. It's pretty damn beautiful. It's the first time it's felt nice to be home.

I've got a crown up in that kingdom, ain'-a that good news

Man that was beautiful! Not perfect beautiful, but music beautiful! I just got finished conducting the Randall Thompson 'Alleluia' AND Trevor Weston's 'Deliver Me O Lord' that Andy threw at me literally a half hour before the performance. The concert is still going on upstairs, that's how recent this all is, my heart's still pounding a little. I could hear myself breathing loudly as I went through the piece; it's amazing because where when I was singing before, nerves would greatly effect my sound due to breath and the consistency of my voice and all that, but with conducting if I lock up my wrists that's a good thing- there's no confusing where the beat is, in my wrist or in my fingertips. My nerves make me rigid, shoulders back, demonstrating the singing posture that'll get the best sound out of my guys. They didn't pay great attention to crescendos and diminuendos as I would have liked, but there were no big big big mistakes. No big mistakes either. I finished to great applause, and whistling too, because not only was the house full, but the chamber singers with whom I sang last year, the ones I conducted on the rooftop in Cordoba, were in the back of the house waiting to perform next and they whooped and hollered and I honestly felt popular for the first time since...god...Marlborough I guess, when I played Jacques. While the audience was still clapping Andy grabbed my arm and whispered "I think they have something for you", and one of the sopranos came out with a bouquet of flowers for me. I tried to keep from crying and bowed my head and thought about Dad and Michael and Mr. Bruneau, and about standing by the bookshelves upstairs at Dad's house when I was little holding one of those batons and being frustrated that I didn't know how to conduct other than keep time. In some ways I still don't. In most ways, in fact. Once I left the hall John McDonald, my advisor (and a composer whom I greatly greatly respect) took my hand and told me he thought I'd found my calling. I don't know that it's true, but it's damn nice to hear from someone I admire so much.

I've been an unbelievable emotional wreck today. I think that makes experiences like this one better; something to foil it against, something to stretch my very humanity to it's capacity. I couldn't be inspired and moved to tears by that heroic arrival in measure 52 if I weren't also capable of feeling pockets of deep loneliness. I eat like that, I breathe like that, I run like that. I love like that, and I think I'm a better human being for it.


Oh, and I had 9 months on the 13th. *beams*

Whos gonna steal the show, you know, baby it's the Guitar Man

Michael gave me a card when I was 12 that I kept on my bulletin board for a long time. It was one of those hallmark "just because" cards and he gave it to me during a period in which I'd been struggling with the transitions between the Ocean Park house and Alisal. When he and Mum divorced I cut off the front cover and kept the message he'd scrawled inside of it

"I know it's hard to move back and forth
I can see the pain in your eyes,
but do not fear, I am always here,
your friend till one of us dies."


I don't really know what to say about it, I'll probably have to wait a few days before I've got anything I can put words to. Rough day.




The Guitar Man - Bread

Who draws the crowd and plays so loud,
Baby its the guitar man.
Whos gonna steal the show, you know
Baby its the guitar man,

He can make you love, he can make you cry
He will bring you down, then hell get you high
Somethin keeps him goin, miles and miles a day
To find another place to play.

Night after night who treats you right,
Baby its the guitar man
Whos on the radio, you go listen
To the guitar man

Then he comes to town, and you see his face,
And you think you might like to take his place
Somethin keeps him driftin miles and miles away
Searchin for the songs to play.

Then you listen to the music and you like to sing along,
You want to get the meaning out of each and evry song
Then you find yourself a message and some words to call your own
And take them home.

He can make you love, he can get you high
He will bring you down, then hell make you cry
Somethin keeps him movin, but no one seems to know
What it is that makes him go.

Then the lights begin to flicker and the sound is getting dim
The voice begins to falter and the crowds are getting thin
But he never seems to notice hes just got to find
Another place to play,
Anyway got to play, anyway got to play.

square one, my slate is clear

Aaaaanxious anxious anxious. The concert is today and I feel vastly unprepared. I began a post yesterday that I never finished for lack of energy and a little bit of discouragement. Yesterday was the dress rehearsals, which invariably go badly so I shouldn't be particularly torn up about that, but we were supposed to use this dress rehearsal to make my audition tape to send in with my applications. It was a nightmare: they couldn't get through the piece fully, mistake after mistake after mistake, and not unnoticeable ones either. This is a piece they've had from memory since October, and I finally had them use their music which, amazingly, didn't help at all! It's not like I just didn't get a decent take, I didn't get a single full take. Andy's since told me we'll have a chance to tape again at the concert tonight but I'm feeling pretty discouraged and not very hopeful. That, followed by a BCC rehearsal at Villa Victoria in which Zoey, a usually disruptive girl, was unusually so, and I asked her to leave for the rest of class and she burst into tears. Just rough to watch. Ugh.

I feel uninspired by anything but this increasingly cold weather. Rain all over the brilliantly colored leaves everywhere. It's all peaking towards Thanksgiving, and I'll be so grateful for its coming. I feel so at sea and I'm sure I'll continue to afterwards, but at least for that week I'll be solid.
I need to figure out my Christmas vacation plans...I sing the Handel Motets at the church on Dec 16th and I don't have to be back until January 16th for classes but I need to see about the BCC and the restaurant for the days between. It'd be nice if I could do some traveling...have an actual vacation.

Alright, time for a little breakfast and some music review before the potential train wreck that is tonight. Disaster or not, I still wish I was gonna have some family there. Damn, what do I need to get out of this mood? A gym visit perhaps? Bench-press a buick?

Rejected Cartoons

I'm probably the only person in the entire world who finds these funny, but I stumbled across them online recently and I remember laughing till I peed when I saw them in 11th grade. Enjoy, if you can, and please don't think any less of me.

Now darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear

I've had the most unproductive morning I've had in a long long time. I woke up really late, late enough that Saved By the Bell wasn't on and TBS had moved on to King of the Hill, so I watched that, followed by A Mother's Fight for Justice (on the Life channel, not Lifetime) which I watched despite mum's cringing over the phone. I love seeing her on TV and recognizing jewelery she's wearing that she's work for years, or expressions in her delivery, or the way she touches the actors playing her children like she does us, and here I'm thinking of that hand to the back of the neck or ears. It's nice to remember what being around those things regularly was like.
Last night Emma had given me the remainder of a giant bag full of plump golden raisins so I supplemented breakfast (still trailmix) with those, and then sat on the couch for forever. Really, I can get sucked into TV like it's my job, and it's the most unproductive thing imaginable. Right now I just came upstairs, and it's already 2:30 here. I've got to be at the restaurant by 4. The tube ate my day.

It's felt like a rough series of days, weeks I guess. At least they've been entirely music-oriented, whether it's the Children's Choir or the Church solo gig or the Tufts conducting. I'm glad to have musically busy. I wish I saw more of Kate (although that's really a matter of my insane schedule), I wish all of this with Emma were easier, I wish I had someone to call up and go out to dinner with when I was coming home late after the children's choir rehearsals, I wish I were around Mum and Dad more often (they're very good for going out to dinner with, especially Mum who insists on having the waiter bring over the food BEFORE she's ordered it so she can see what it looks like *snicker* ...muffins...), I wish I had people to spend time with here to whom I didn't feel like I was trying to prove myself. Maybe that's why I'm so willing to have a day wasted in front of the TV. Nothing to prove to the Saved By the Bell cast.

Alright, I've got to snag my laundry out of the dryer and shower before work. No one likes being served by the waitress who has armpits of doom.

and the world, your balloon, peeping-tom for the motherstation

I slept like a brick last night. I went to bed around 2 or so and slept till 11, which was wonderful given that I haven't been able to sleep past 8 with the whirlwind that last week was. Sunday night was the Boston Children's Choir Fall Family Kick-off Concert, or at least that's what the program said. It was nine million children in black slacks and their bcc button-downs, with three teaching fellows to wrangle them all, and I've gotta say we did a mighty find job! We were expected to keep all of the singers upstairs above the auditorium in classrooms that served as holding tanks, but the rough bit was keeping them quiet.

The kids that I rehearse with and teach (those from the central location on Shawmut ave and not those that are in the extension neighborhood choirs) are very obedient and sweet and usually, when I hold up two fingers and sing "Do" they quickly quiet down and mimic me.
It was a strange experience with the other kids, however. I'm kind of embarrassed to say this maybe but I had a really hard time with the young black girls; girls as young as 6 gave me an unbelievable amount of attitude! They weren't being directly rude to me, but it was more a matter of seeing them be rude (and in some cases cruel) and impatient with their peers. Crappy language across the board, constant yelling, one girl had a problem with kicking people, they pushed the people in line in front of them, and one girl kept yelling "Oh you don't know!" every time she was asked to quiet down no matter who was asking her. All of the boys were totally rambunctious, black, white, sparkley, they were all bouncing off the walls, but the girls behavior was blatantly divided by race. The white girls kept to themselves, playing with each other's hair, singing, one group played some game on paper to which they'd just made up the rules. Many girls, black and white, played hand-clapping games ("down down baby, down down the roller coaster, sweet sweet baby, I'll never letchya go, shimmy shimmy coco pop, shimmy shimmy rye...") that I remember playing when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade, but they played only with friends of their race, and I couldn't hear the white girls from down the hall. I feel like kind of an asshole talking about these racial divisions like this but I honestly had a really difficult time with these young black girls, and I'm not writing about this with any spin, it's just what I saw. I found myself losing patience with them quickly, I heard myself reprimanding a little black girl who had gotten up to go to the bathroom without permission with words that were much harsher than I would have used if she had been white. I also felt myself responding to the attitude I got from them defensively, it actually hurt my feelings, I felt frustrated and as though I wanted to exercise my authority. We were told by the Artistic Director Anthony (who is also incidentally black) that we were allowed to pull from the concert any kids who were grossly misbehaving and they wouldn't perform, which I didn't do but my GOD I really wanted to. And what's unfortunate is that if I'd pulled the kids that deserved it, the treble choir (made up of the younger singers) would have been about 90% white! I may be overreacting in my guilt about this, but it was a little rough backstage last night. The concert itself went off well, but the teaching fellows were exhausted.

One nice thing: I was warming up and conducting the Premier Choir before they went on, and one of their pieces was "Ain'-a That Good News"...which I sang in Chamber Choir at Marlborough. Just grinning as I ran it with them...what a great way to come full circle.

As I've been writing all this I've also been switching back to work on my grad essay which is coming along nicely. I'm desperate for feedback though; it needs eyes on it other than mine. Sometimes with the right music playing I end up writing things that would be far more appropriate for self-indulgent poetry than a Statement of Objectives essay for grad school.

In other news, we've apparently run out of oil in our house (Gwen has a call into Larry, our landlord) so in the meantime there's no hot water, no heat, no, um, nothing. So I'm a shivering fish walkin' around in sweats with her big ol' comforter around her shoulders.

Alllllso...I think I'mma make a Thanksgiving mix cd, y'know, for cookin' to. I can't wait to take those long cold walks down Boldwater after dinner! Oh, and the pie. Cannot wait for the pie. I've been talking to Chef Tony at upstairs about various recipes for vegetarian stuffings as opposed to the escarole mushroom that Kate claimed Mum was tired of, and Tony has recommended potatoes as another base, although I'm worried that'd be too starchy for Nancy. Also, potatoes? Really? Kinda dull. Lame, Tony. I think we're gonna hafta keep looking. I'm also really looking forward to the Thanksgiving 5k that Oak Bluffs organizes. I always have these wildly romantic fantasies about my entire family at the finish line when Peter and Cheryl and I cross, actually it's more like Cheryl and Peter.....................and Mollie cross the finish line. There's one family that always t-shirts made up that says "Merriman Family Thanksgiving 5K Team!" and they all cheer and encourage each other and sometimes I'm a little bitter that most of my family is at home sleeping. Although, Mum and Allan always come and eat pancakes where it's warm while Cheryl and Peter and I are racing, and by the time we all finish they're outside to cheer us on. AND by the time that I finish, Mum, Allan, Cheryl and Peter are there, so that makes me feel pretty fuzzy and loved. Still...can't wait. *smile*

deal gently

Off to church to sing and I should be there in 4 minutes so I must be extremely brief here. Eric's going to be our guest bass this morning, so I'm kinda excited about that. My phone is doing this fantastically fun thing where it can hold out battery till the cows come home provided I don't actually make any calls with it, and the moment I do (or receive any) it's beeping low battery again, so my phone is not currently the best way to reach me, just fyi. Okay, running out the door, will post tonight.

I bought you a crate of papaya

FILES RECOVERED! *big grin*

Apple store told me they couldn't do it at all, Scott did it in ten minutes! Amazing how very static I felt without access to it all.

I'm puttering around Ted's office, playing with my computer and everyone else's, downloading music, rearranging my grad app essays, nuzzling my old files, and happily basking in the glow of my new computer with all of my old work. Mum sent Legos to Ted's office for Eli and they've just arrived, so I have a feeling the afternoon will be filled with space ship building and castle construction. I remember them spilled out all over Peter's carpet and us in the middle, each of us trying to build ships that were far cooler than the others, and while mine were always very practical and ended up looking more like houses than anything else, Peter's would be wild and imaginative and actually look like space ships! He always knew how to use the special pieces, the ones with angles and extra nubs that are best used as wings? See, to me those were always rooftops, and it NEVER occurred to me to use them as he did; he was always so much better at that crap, and I have no doubt that Ted will be as well. No hard feelings: :)

After work I think we'll go pick up Eli from school and then Ted has Bagua, we'll do dinner, and then I'll get on the road back to Boston. I'm working at the restaurant tomorrow morning at 8am, there's a wedding I think, so I'll likely crash pretty quickly. Hurray for data recovery!

the circus has fallen down on it's knees

I'm in bed in New Hampshire, on my back typing, Eli is sleeping in the next room, and Ted and Cheryl down the hall. It was a strange drive up here, shorter than I'd expected, but I wasn't jazzed about spending all that time in the car alone with my music which usually would thrill me. I drove the two and a half hours up here to a CD that consisted of Barenaked Ladies, Tonic, and some sporadic country, and didn't even feel like singing much. The fact that I was nibbling trailmix most of the way had something to do with this, I'm sure. I mean, of course I DID sing, but it was more because I remind myself that I wanted to exercise the muscles, and less because I couldn't stop myself. I'm feeling quiet lately.

I drove imagining I was driving across the country, not stopping in Hanover but continuing on West. I was going 70 most of the way, which was apparently relatively slow on that highway, and cars were moving around me, getting places, going home. I want to know what it's like to be in somebody else's traffic jam, to be caught up in their morning commute knowing you're driving straight on through it into some other time zone. Previously when I've thought of this it seemed freeing, encouraging. Tonight the idea felt simply lonely (I hate this theme). People, a community in traffic, and me floating through.

I had this conversation a few days ago about remembering specific events, not even events really, but moments that may have felt insignificant but by acknowledging their insignificance they stuck with us. I remember sitting on the school bus on the way to Marlborough in the 8th grade, Counting Crows 'Long December' on my CD player, and leaning my forehead against the window pane so it's vibrations tickled my ears. I can remember deciding to remember that moment. I have a whole scrapbook of those moments. What I'm usually unable to decide in those moments is how I'll feel looking back on them. I didn't know on the plane to London round I that I'd remember that moment with feelings of encouragement and hope, as though encouraging my younger self. Or after Mom's wedding to Michael we had to take Lucy to the hospital for an ear infection, and I remember sitting in the limousine en route to the ER, sitting across from Michael who had his shirt unbuttoned most of the way and Lucy on his lap, and thinking to myself that I felt suddenly uncomfortable, that I wasn't as gun-ho about having him around as I had been before the ceremony. And looking back at that, I feel a little proud for having identified my anxiety and hesitation. I bring this idea up because as I lay here in bed in Ted's guest room, I'm feeling inexplicably disconnected and at sea. Those are all just elaborate synonyms for 'lonely'. I swear I should have that word tattooed on my sternum or something. I feel like it's been the only word in my vocabulary for the past two years. What I'm able to recognize tonight is that this event of being in bed and blogging is one I'll remember. I'll remember the quilt, the Counting Crows "Raining in Baltimore" that's playing on iTunes, the feeling of my warm keyboard under my fingertips. I will look back on how I'm feeling right now and be grateful that I'm not right there anymore. That's not about Ted's guest room, and it's not about not being in my own bed or anything like that- I'm really glad to be here and I can't wait to see Eli tomorrow morning and have breakfast with them all (I love other people's breakfast cereals). No, this feeling is just about the loneliness. As always. I guess anticipating that I'll look back at this moment with relief that I'm no longer living with those feelings is indicative of a kind of hope. Maybe that's convoluted and confusing. I just mean that I believe that someday I won't feel like this. And will be grateful that I can remember being under a quilt one night, one year, when that's all I could feel.

Tomorrow morning I'll go into work with Ted and he and his boys will try to breathe some life into my old G4 so I can snag the remaining files off it. Wish them luck, and me warmer toes.

and the band played Waltzing Matilda as the ship pulled away from the key

Biiiiig sigh

I've just sent off an email to Leslie Geffen, the director of my Elementary School (Mirman), asking her, in a round-about way, for a job. Or if she knows of one. Or if she knows of anyone else who knows of anyone willing to pay someone else for doing something (anything) vaguely related to music. These applications (and yes, there are only two) are seemingly increasingly out of my control, but I took some steps towards them tonight. I confirmed that Andy was writing me a recommendation, I asked my advisor John McDonald for a rec as well, I organized what I need to do (other than re-write my mass analysis) in order to send them both in... small steps, but steps none the less. I'm going to continue as though I were expecting to get these missing files recovered, and as though I'll have a full application to send in. Dad and I talked earlier tonight and I admitted exactly how hesitant I was to apply, not just because I'm missing the necessary files to do so, but also because I feel extremely inexperienced. I don't know that this is the program for me. I know that I love the conducting, that when I'm up there I feel indestructible, joyful and proud, but it doesn't hit me the same way the singing does. With my voice I feel far more capable, but I can't speak to whether or not that's just a matter of experience and cultivating the proper techniques or not. I'm going to finish these applications, get them sent off, and I'm not gonna talk about them with anybody. Okay Dad? (I love you).

In other news, my new Mac is up and running, she hasn't been named yet, and she's currently playing Makem and Clancy - Waltzing Matilda (which you can probably tell by the title post. By the way, I should clarify that my titles to each post are lyrics of whatever piece I'm listening to as I write, nothin' fancy). All my pictures are also on my old computer, but I was lucky enough to dig through my email and find this one:



So that's my desktop of this new computer. That's my house, my kitchen, my bananas. I love that counter top. It's the place mum made me a gingerbread girl, literally, where Mum made Wheatena with peanuts for us when I was little, and I love that Annie always has some fruit in a bowl for us. And flowers. *smile* Big hug, Annie. I can't wait be go home for Christmas. I could happily spend the whole vacation sitting on the bench in the hallway that faces the living room, watching us all go about the day. Hm. I dislike the thought of going home because it means I'll inevitably have to come back to this third floor room in Medford that feels so completely detached from the rest of the world, even the house below it. Like I'm in some treeless treehouse, orbiting the rest of the planet.

Osanna, Osanna

Alright. It's 9:00 and I'm sitting on the futon with my feet up on the coffee table watching Ghost Hunters with Gwen (she's shrieking, I'm making fun of her when she does). This whole week has just been inundated with technological failures, and electronics out to thwart me. The hard drive from my old computer has been deemed "unredeemable" by the Genius Bar at the Cambridge Apple store, but Ted seems to think that this is because they use only Mac hardware to salvage the data on the hardware, so I'm gonna drive up to Hanover to let his geeks take a crack at it. I was SO FACKING FORTUNATE enough to be able to recover nearly all of the music from my library. Strange that I'm more comforted by the things I have amassed, the library I have collected, than by the poems and papers I've created. It's gonna take a day or so to process all this...


**Legends of the Fall is on HBO....back in a bit**

night swimming

Well, because I didn't make an appointment it looks like it'll be at least a 2 hour wait here at the Mac store. I'm missing today's poetry class because I'm waiting around the Genius bar in the hopes that they have time to fit me in on stand-buy. How could I have made an appointment? How could I anticipate that my little G4 would poop out in the middle of editing my grad school essay last night? The poor thing wouldn't even shut down properly, so I fell asleep to it hiccuping and clicking away trying desperately to re-boot itself. I was finally able to shut it down but now it won't boot up past the apple with the little twirling fan. I'm surprisingly calm despite the fact that I have nothing backed up. I'd survive the loss of all the poetry and papers, my entire educational history, but I don't know what I'd do if I lost all that music. That's a strange attachment, I guess. It's not like I created those mp3s in the same way that I wrote all those essays or researched all those papers or scrambled to create all that poetry, and yet it'd feel like a much greater loss. As though my accomplishment lay in the actual amassing of all collection. *big sigh* This sucks.

and I believe in the kingdom come and

It's been a whirlwind of a weekend. Frankly I'm a little too tired to even conceive of an interesting way to detail it all, but it began with a beautifully spicy Dia de Los Muertos concert with the BCC on Friday night (it was hardly a concert, really more of an organized seance). Saturday I worked a busy Lunch and tea shift at the restaurant, which Moyoko (a fellow server) and I spiced up with a running game of Truth or Dare which soon escalated to Dare or Dare. On one such dare, in the style of the movie Super Troopers, I had to use the word "meow" five times while greeting a table and taking drink orders. I then turned the Dare over to Moyoko with the word "nugget". She was slightly less successful. My next dare for her was to drink a concoction of my making. I combined raw egg with ice cream, tobasco, olive oil, shrimp paste, chive aeoli, lemon curd and some duck pate, which I'm damn impressed to say she drank. And then I took over her section because she felt really ill and had to sit down for awhile. Honestly though I was extremely impressed. So impressed in fact, that the game had to end right there because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to down any potion she made for me. Today I worked an equally busy brunch shift which began with me showing up to the restaurant an hour early, thanks to the daylight savings time kicking in, and me without Mum to leave a post-it on my door to turn my clocks back. What do grown-ups do to remind themselves that these events are approaching? Isn't it our duty to remind each other? Does everybody else get a call from their Mothers reminding them the night before? How does this work in the big girl world?

I've made a check-list of 5 things to accomplish tonight and I've managed half of two of them: the first part of a poem for this class tomorrow, and a sloppy review of the Randal Thompson Alleluia for the rehearsal tomorrow (Tufts Chorale). I'll also be leading warm-ups with the Chorale which I shouldn't be so worried about, but I'm actually more anxious about doing that than I was about conducting them. Because I'll have to sing in front of them.

The poetry assignment was to write a poem with my name in it. She didn't specify in what way, whether we're supposed to address ourselves in the voice of apostrophe or use a kind of 3rd grade acrostic format or what, but I've found the process really challenging, and so far I'm pathetically disappointed in what I've been able to create. When she described the assignment I was so moved at the idea of sitting down and writing this, as though to make room in a poem for my own name was a way of honoring myself, but I haven't yet been able to do the assignment justice. I've got some images along the lines of constructing the beginning middle and anticipated end of my life under the metaphor of a basic triad chord (tonic, mediant, dominant), tonic being childhood, dominant old age, and all that, but it's sounding trite and silly and I'd rather scrap the whole thing and go to bed. After all I have been up since 7. Or is it 8?

Again, I'm sitting with this pervasive loneliness. It's relentless and loud. And strange, in that I go through my day and come into contact with a number of people at work and then on a good day, some people that I actually care about (namely Kate, Eric, Emma, Gwen) and yet after each of these interactions I go home feeling somehow more lonely and detached. I don't know if it's about going home to the empty house, or the constant realization that I have very few people here with whom I'm at all close and connected, or just feeling awash and unauthentic in the this city that I feel like I don't belong in. Maybe it's in feeling that I can't completely be myself around any of them, that with everyone I spend any time with, especially Kate and to some degree Emma, I'm clambering for their respect, for even keel in the relationship, to be seen as an equal who is worthy of their time, is just as smart, just as good, just as responsible as they are. It's exhausting to be around people I don't know because I'm dying to be liked, and exhausting to be around those those I do know because I'm working hard to make sure they keep liking me. Sometimes I don't feel known at all. I guess that's a theme for tonight. Not being known, and not paying close enough attention to those around me enough to know them, and therefore forming a belief system around what I think I've learned. I don't know, I'm just realizing that the loneliness feels especially profound after company. Recognizing that I may not have good company again for awhile, and often that feeling is so overwhelming that breathing isn't voluntary in that moment. It's terrifying, but I think it's more my problem than anyone else's. That's not a self-pitying thing, I'm just trying to acknowledge what's my part and what's not, and I do have a part to play in this loneliness. In a way I guess I've chosen it. Like I did during London round II, or any time I've isolated. Like I think I'm getting something out of it, or will. I also find comfort in knowing that I'm just, this way. I have a great capacity for loneliness, I have a great need for connection, but none of that bullshit pass the time stuff. You know what I'm talking about. e.e. cummings did.

Crappy post, I know, but I'm completely unenthusiastic and unmotivated right now, and am compelled to get through my days only by reminding myself of the following things:

1. Boston won't be forever
2. Loneliness will evolve and will feel different in ten minutes
3. Thanksgiving is less than 3 weeks away

pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria eius

And now that I've been out in the world a little I can report that it's another of those strange gray Boston days that looks colder than it actually is and the realization that it's not all that chill and your scarf is superfluous is somehow depressing. I'm back from Kelly's and I'm exhausted by this loneliness. I'm so grateful for nights like last night because I get to check my luggage at the door and just do my job and worry about my aching feet and not spilling martinis in their goddamn impossible glasses. Seriously, try carrying three of them, just three on a tray to a table 30 feet away and tell me if you don't splosh some over the rims.
Maybe this is part of why I feel so at sea in Boston; I feel like I've made it so I have no safe havens, no places to exhale, no places to sit and be me but with company. I spend my days running around to appointments and jobs and when I'm there I'm always watching the clock until I can duck out and race home but to what? I spend my evenings in my room downloading music, working on my applications, and lately watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy in it's entirety (that includes special features and then again with director's commentary). I'm not even all that interested in LOTR and sure, I can see it for what it is - my relief to have somewhere to escape that's pure fantasy and has no connection to my life and how I'm feeling (though sometimes teaching at the BCC is remarkably similar to fighting an army of ax-wielding dwarves). I kept thinking if I packed my days with responsibilities and places to be and people who were expecting me there I'd feel fuller. I thought volunteering for MEDA and the restaurant and the BCC and the poetry class and working with Andy and the Chorale and all of these things in my day planner would make me feel less lonely, and while they're wonderful distractions, they only highlight the contrasts between when I'm busy and when I'm not, when I'm racing and being of service and when I'm still and suddenly hurting. I feel in extremes, I know that, I feel everything bigger and grander and deeper than...well, most I guess, or than I'm supposed to. I don't know. But sometimes it feels like to much, and I miss either being able to numb out somehow, or halve my trouble by sharing it with someone I love. It's kind of a bleak day right now, and I know this will all pass and I'll go to the BCC in an hour and feel valuable and useful and not so dark, but I wanted to write about this because I feel like this most days and try to avoid thinking about it by writing about other things. I'm grateful for the many things in my life that allow me a break from thinking about these feelings, I just wish I had some things in my world that would allow me a break from feeling them. Like a fellow benchwarmer sitting out the game, or a really excellent fantasy novel. I need a choir.

I've been thinkin' about my doorbell, when ya gonna ring it? When ya gonna ring it?

Well last night was a whole bowl of crazy. I was the closer at the restaurant, and the thing about upstairs patrons is that as snobby and as well-versed as they are in fine wines and delicate food, they're very gung-ho when it comes to Halloweening and rocking out. I'm not sure what I went as. I had this pleated skirt and black and white stripey socks and boots and painted-on scars like Salley from nightmare before Christmas and my hair in pigtails and dramatic eyes completely lacking in subtlety that I blame on Marci. It was fun. It was Halloween. The place was packed with people, everyone dancing (and drinking) and patrons and staff were dressed up as well which was nice because it meant the night lacked that intense formality that makes working there so exhausting sometimes: there was a dj, there was candy everywhere (and it totally wasn't a big deal), there was a pretty great pre fixe that finished with a devils food cake cupcake covered in so much buttercream that it was actually the size of my head (and that wasn't a big deal either). Nothing can be a big deal when your bartender is a giant telletubby and your waitstaff consists of a hippy, a zebra, a paper boy, a pirate lady, a matadore, and me, the chicest dead girl you've ever seen. Hopefully someone will send me some pictures of everyone.
My favorite part of the night happened before we'd even opened the doors yet, whem Maggie grabbed me by the hand and said "okay I need you to do my Zebra makeup". I followed her upstairs, we went to the handicapped bathroom, she got out all her white and black face paint, and slowly by slowly, I made her a Zebra. It's an odd thing when you're painting someone's face or doming somebody else's makeup or plucking someone's eyebrows...first of all when those activities go on it becomes a girl sanctuary with no boys allowed and gossip and chatting and whatnot, and I'm not particularly good at any of that. It's kind of a role I've learned to play when needed, but it doesn't come naturally. Also, there's always the awkwardness about physically being so close to someone- you're right in their face, focusing on the details and imperfections of their skin, and I've never fully figured out the rules here: do you pay attention closely to what you're doing or do you make small talk and how do both parties ignore the fact that the other can see every blemish or patch of dry skin on on your face and most importantly what if you do a bad job of what they've asked you to do?! That's damning, right?
I guess it just made me happy because it felt like one of those moments when you're proud to embody the stereotype. My friend had asked me to do her makeup and I did and we giggled through it. That's it. Only it didn't end up being the stereotype that I'm no good at because she was funny and had no expectations of me doing a good job of zebra-ing her and glamor wasn't really the focus here she wasn't awkward at all, in fact it was cool because I didn't feel self conscious about myself and self-deprecating about my makeup talents (which by the way I think I did a damn good job on). I don't know. In reading it back it doesn't seem like a huge deal, and I guess it wasn't, I just liked that she trusted I would do a good job on her face paint, that she would be comfortable with me in the girl sanctuary, and that she thought nothing of grabbing my wrist and saying "lets go". I guess it means she thought of me as a normal person, like a normal girl with friends who was comfortable anywhere, and that felt kinda cool. I aspire to that :)

Anyhow, after the night of waitressing and clean-up and preparation for service tomorrow, by the time I got home my feet were blistered and my makeup was smeared and oogey so I put myself right into the bathtub where I promptly fell asleep for a bit and I woke up with goosebumps and put myself to bed.
It's about half past ten now and I've just woken up, my pillow covered in the face makeup I haven't attacked yet, and I'm starving. So breakfast it is, hopefully accompanied by an episode of Sex and the City if it's on.

That was my Halloween. That means it's November first. Rabbit Rabbit. That means my grad applications are due in a month. Dinosaur Dinosaur.