Holiday Music

Holidays generally bring a lot of work for classical musicians. Three out of 3.0000001 of the gigs are cringeful. For me that once-in-a-while sincere service, or fun party or whatever, makes me just a wee bit hopeful every time I agree to play again. The gigs I hate most? Poorly done Christian services, because who likes to see their own beliefs represented by jackholes... From the choir leader who told us where to "tear up, if you like", to the pastor trying to bargain with an already dirt cheap high school quartet for his lavish private party, there's nothing like those involved with religion to make a girl nauseated.

That really is the problem with doing whatever it is you actually like for a living. My own mother won't do her art for money now because she doesn't want to have to do any one project, and she wants her freedom. Who wants to fake enjoyment of creating something just because you have to, because you've got an agreement? I secretly (how secret can it be? Hi mom!) think she'd be way too busy if people could buy her time & art with money. And let's cut right to the real issue here, shall we; just exactly who would we get to babysit?

Money and kids, man, they do change the way you do things. Don't get me wrong, I love both, not even in that order. (They are like matter and anti-matter, though, now that I think about it.) Decisions just take on more weight when they're involved because options are no longer equal and there's no denying time is shrinkingly finite.

This morning friends and I were talking about meditation, about taking time to think about our faith, pray, study daily. We chatted up the differences between the Christian sense of the word and the yoga-eastern-zen view, though there are some similarities. I had always thought of it as tethering or constraining my mind, in order to ultimately broaden it. Today we talked about engaging creativity, emotion, even imagination in meditation of Scripture. This appeals to me, where my preconception of meditation as a slack-jawed time spent trying not to count the seconds did not.

Toby has at least one more tooth poking through today, which may explain yesterday. He's back to himself today. I think I'll sell everything I own and give the money to charity as supplication to God Almighty that his good mood will stick. It would be worth it to me, just to get some time to myself to meditate, and play some Christmas carols.

Cooperation: DEnied

Young Tobias has discovered his separation anxiety and/or deserves several Oscars. He cried for a good 15 minutes straight tonight. In a spot-on imitation of the Captain Kirk school of acting, he pounded on his side of the sliding glass door while I drilled holes in the beginnings of a crappy 4-tier shelf on the other. There were tears, there was an incredibly flexible bottom lip, you should have been there. No, really, I wish you all were here.

I thought he'd eventually wind down and take notice of the fact that I was less than 4 feet away, or that he was surrounded by toys or that he was BEing riDICulous. Babies are insane! Run for your lives... wait, I'm alone here, aren't I?

Thankfully, J just called and we are going out for SUSHI!! Because it cures all, incoherance and inability to do a cool mirror pic included!!!

Exclamations!!!!!! Are the best kind of histeria!

Little VIOLA Things

The viola is a many splendored thing. I love being a violist; playing, listening, even practicing it most of the time. It is difficult, though, to explain what it is I do in the practice room to people who haven't studied an instrument.

Here is my bow. Here is my bow on drugs. Actually, here it is in two places on the string- one will generally make a stronger sound more easily, the other can make a lightly singing sound. They aren't very far apart.













The left hand requires even finer control. In the first pic, I'm playing an f# high up on my g-string. G-string viola jokes just never ever get old, do they? In the second pic, I'm playing an entirely different note, G. In between F# and G there are 1,209,543,875 possible shades of pitch. Most people can hear at least two distinct "quarter tones"- in the music of India there are some players who regularly perform tunes relying on four or more. InBETWEENthe keys of the piano. Little, yet significant.





I spend my time practicing these tiny motions, and some bigger ones. I record myself and listen back daily because all of these minutiea exist to create a specific sound, and that's all that really matters. Then there's musicality and taste- the inflections that make music beautiful and Kenny G a pawn of satan. Let's just not mention Celine Dion.

When I've worked on a tricky passage until I can play it, I then repeat it so I forget it was ever difficult.

I'm sure there are correlations to be drawn between accomplishments in life and in the practice room, but I think most would be lies. Practicing the viola is a strange, specific skill. Like embalming, perhaps, or post-modern thought.

Little Things

When I took that test they give you in the Guidance Counselor's office in high school, the result was something lame. I don't remember what it suggested, but the program had a field you could fill in and find out why your actual interests were nowhere in your list of suggestions. Turns out music was ruled out when I told it I didn't want to do meticulous, detail-oriented work. Guess I should have just been a drummer. (Bah-dum-bum CHH)

I was trying to think about why "little things" appeal to me. Not miniatures, but things complete in their smallness. I love macro photos. Travel-sized items, bite-sized foods, even fine print- especially handwritten yet legible.

I've just returned from a concert and will collect my thoughts to post some pictures of the little things I work on in my playing.

Little posts are also neat, don't you think?

In Alaska we didn't HAVE coats...

I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska.

We moved there in November when I was in 3rd grade. Woodriver Elementary was just blocks from our new home, so I walked. It was cold, probably 20 below or worse, and I remember my nose hairs freezing, my eyes watering. My eyelashes froze. My thin acrylic scarf filled up with condensation from my breath and also froze, thawing into a musty soggy knot inside the school.

The sound of my feet crunching sulkily on the road took on a peculiar glassy high pitch at that temperature. Cars drove by, exhaust trailing forlorn behind them for several minutes. Much colder and all the pollutants will stagnate near the ground, creating "ice fog". No, really, Google it.



It seemed like years before I liked anything about Alaska. Shuffling along that stiff iced path, it was impossible to lift my head and look around without allowing frozen air to infiltrate and spontaneously explode my lungs. It just didn't seem worth the risk.

I began to move toward enjoyment of snow and Fairbanks in teensy tiny baby steps. The first time I liked anything there was probably while cross country skiing. I liked the sounds, the warm-cheeked sense of controlled risks. Once I swaaaah- swisssssed my way into an opening off the side of the trail behind the university. I looked up at the trees, boughs bent with an unusually wet load of warm-air snow, and decided I stood in a singularly lovely spot.

Why not take off the old skis and explore a bit? WHOMP! Instantly hip-deep in snow, I swam in it as it swam in around each hemmed chink in my down stuffed armor. Climbing up and getting the skis back on was hard work. When I returned to the trailhead a friend's mom warned that people had been dangerously stuck in just such stunts- probably bull, but I still remember it. Skis = good. Snow = fluffy.

I know it's cliche, but snow really is just a fact of life in Fairbanks. I don't think of it as a symbol of Christmas because it showed up as early as September, still hung around there through April, sometimes continued to muck up the roads in May. It honestly wasn't much of an obastacle. Now that I'm in the wimpiest city in the world when it comes to flakes, I can't imagine relying on it to establish the atmosphere of winter for me.

In exchange for just enough snow to freak out the unwashed masses, Portland provides random days each winter of such sunny, sixty-degree crisp beauty as to restore one's faith in God. Seriously, every so often you wake up and look out at Hood & Helens and it makes you wonder who came up with all that glory.



Someday I suppose I'll morph into that Grandma, chiding Tobias' kids for complaining about the cold while telling the uphill-both-ways stories. Hopefully T himself will visit Montana and Alaska enough to understand what winter really means. Eggnog, Hot Cocoa, Grand Marnier! Can't we have winter all year long?

自己紹介

That's the kanji for Jikoshoukai, or self-introduction. As a representative of internationalism and English teacher in Japan, I was expected to have one ready at all times. These presentations were fairly formal (Japan being formal- shocking, I know) and were meant to include photos and other momentos from a person's life. The department of education encouraged us to prepare for them almost from the moment we were hired and to construct our spiel with the student audience in mind. Presents like pencils with flags on them, stickers or candy gave me my 15 minutes of fame with those kids.

The Holidailies prompt for December 1 recommends such an introduction of myself/myblog, but the strange thing about a blog is its absence of distinct audience. By selecting certain topics (if only I had catagories... soon, grasshoppers!) the blogger creates an audience, which turns my standard writing process inside-out. Come closer, my pretties.

Like moving to a new town, each introduction affords a contrived opportunity to choose which way I'll roll next. For now I'm sticking with "Confident, yet friendly." Toby is "Cranky, yet flirtaceous." Personas! Incomplete, yet fun to invent!

Obviously the problem is that my blog, like my brain, is a stunningly exquisite gem defying categorization. Ahem.

Mommy blog? Ugh- I hate the word mommy in self-reference. And the color yellow. And when people finger butter knives absent-mindedly. And, above all, automatons including those hideous lighted holiday deer looking to-and-fro, to-and-fro, to-and-oh you get the point.

Music blog? I am a classical musician with a flippin debt-inducing doctorate, but I also love to play off charts in rock-pop-jazz-country-folk groups. And I listen to everything, including rap, though I don't like much new country. I bet I have a cd every single one of my readers would like (all four!). I'm too cheap to buy enough music to be a reviewer, though. I also have the bad habit of listening to the same 3 discs exclusively, mostly while driving. Very unprofessional.

Christian blog? I guess you have me there. While that certainly informs who I am, I don't write directly about it much.

Foodie blog? If I thought anyone would send me free stuff to try, I would gladly become a foodblogger. I like cooking and recipes. Send me some, I'll eat them right up.*

*Unless they have beef, chicken, turkey, pork, almonds, walnuts, pecans, peaches, plums, apples, cherries or a bunch of other things in them. I am a delicate flower.

Weight loss blog? See above.

Wanna-be runner blog? Again, above. I've been a runner off and on for the past (GASP!) 12 years. If I was able to keep it up consistantly, I would be faster and skinnier by now. Bah.

So, welcome Holidailies-eristas. My persona is up for revision. はじめまして。 Consider us introduced.

Holidailies!

So, I guess I really cannot get enough of myself.

I don't have school to force me to think, nor do I have (much) work on the outside to stimulate creativity. But I do have this blog, and coming up with something daily makes it more interesting. It gives me license, and I have a ready-made excuse when I post something that feels insignificant and unfinished, which is 99.987643% of what you see here.

I had never even heard of this.

So of course, I marched right over and signed up.

Please keep commenting, because I am truly a glutton for comments.

Pleasing

This home for at-risk (meaning young, fighting addiction, unsupported or otherwise compromized) moms is a great thing. I'm so raring to go get involved. They need gliders, bedding, and hang time with other moms. Visit them here.

I'm reading Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis, and David Crowder's Praise Habit. Before last night at Borders I didn't know about either.

We were introduced to Bell's Nooma videos back in Madison- very slick, contemporary, fresh takes on theology. I'm partway through his book, which at times skitters around the heretical, but I still like it. My favorite passage thus far:
...sometimes when I hear people quote the Bible, I just want to throw up. Can I just say that? Can I get that off my chest? Sometimes when people are backing up their points and the Bible is used to prove that they are right, everything within me says, "There is no way that's what God meant by that verse."
Sometimes I question his motivation in distancing himself from The Church, but my conclusion so far is that he's sincere and has a good foundation.

The Crowder book is just fun without being dumb. So is his Blog. So is his music (when it doesn't pop out completely leaving me feeling old... but mostly I love it.)

I'm having a really great day. Toby is being a flirty goof- and with those cheeks, you can imagine he's quite proficient.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can totally be consistant about something when I put my mind to it.

Just give me an arbitrary group of prizes I am unlikely to win and I'm all over it. Prizes!!

The public nature of Nablo was highly motivating to me. Now that it's over, I want to move our stuff here to a better platform. On the new blog, I plan to have several areas where I can post whether I've done x that day. Not the drug x, but whether I've completed certain tasks. I'm hoping that posting my practicing or working out will help me maintain habits that make me happy. And wouldn't category tags be nice?

Writing something daily has given me an excuse to think about what I'd like to remember about now, to collect, to discuss, to display; having a challenge made navel-gazing just a bit less embarassing.

So in the *hopefully* near future, I want to make this blog comfy, personalize it. Maybe I'll use this picture. Anyway, Happy end of Nablopomo!

Sopranos. Shush.

I am going to complain now. About work. On my blog.

The soprano soloist is horrible. I guess she's Russian; she's singing a Russian hymn thingie. The choir is excellent, conductor's great, orchestra's okay.

The soprano's soooo bad. Like, people were snickering. She's out of tune, she has super-chipmunk vibrato and she got lost in THE Mozart soprano piece. Three times.

During the break in the bathroom theeere she was. I could not wash my hands fast enough- right there in the teeny room she had to start up the caterwalling in her stall. It actually hurt my ears.

Heroes

Oh my halleluja how I like Heroes.

First off, Ali Larter's in it, which rocks. And I've liked Hayden Panettiere- shown here looking all singed yet powerful- since Ice Princess. {WAIT, don't write me off as a poofter with crap for taste, that was a perfectly forthright cute Disney fest, and it was about skating. Skating! Because if you take that treacle and raise it one spandex costume with jazz hands, you've got drama gold for all the white bread girls, baby.}

Heroes also has a whole story line in Japanese. The characters not only have hip, edgy coversations replete with well-written dialogue (subtitles are placed around the screen like in comics), they struggle with believable contemporary dilemnas. One of them says he doesn't want to be just like everbody else, "homogenous (like) yogurt". His friend replies, "We're Japanese." I love that exchange- you have to see it to appreciate it. I wonder if the Japanese actors were thinking that parts in an american "dorama" would involve plotless twists and random shower scenes just like back home.



As a slightly cheesy, well-soundtracked world-saving fantasy it may simply be filling the gaping void left by Buffy, (or Wonder Woman for that matter) whose loss was keenly felt in the core of my hero-adoring being. Whatever the root of my fascination, I highly recommend giving it a chance. There's a marathon today (God bless TIVO) so go program that season pass. We can make popcorn & brownies and braid each other's hair. I'll wait here. Go.

Atomic Tumor

I saw this blog mentioned on somebody's nablo site, and started following it around the first week of November.

A man's wife was sick, they have three kids, he was an interesting read and so I read. Then his wife died on November 17th.

I'm still reading.

Apocalypse Now: PDX

Oh my gosh, you GUYS!
It's snowing. In Portland.
Weatherpeople across the state woke up and experienced very personal implosions.
Don't go out- don't even look out the windows. If you step one foot closer to your car, the snow will GET YOU, levitate the vehicle into the air, slam it down on its roof, crush some kittens in the process.

You better say a couple KumBaYas for us now.

The dolls... The Dollllllls.

Did you see my new persona? My profile pic:















I am trying to conquer my fears. It's not on my 35 list yet, but still. Some dolls are frightening. Not automaton-frightening, obviously.






























These guys- ladies, rather- belong to my aunt Sally, who keeps them fetchingly arranged in a sweet antique high chair in her tastefully appointed dining room, which I loooove. So I stole pics, and decided to get over my fear that some of them might have those nasty moving eyes (none did... or did they?) or require batteries (nope). And look- they really don't make 'em like they used to.

Joy! Now pay.

Home sweet home!!!


I thought J & I would be the happiest to arrive at home tonight, that a wee babe wouldn't care where he played, but I thought wrong.

T full-body squealed when I carried him inside, crawled all over, then came over to pat me on the leg and cackle his approval.

I fully expect him to reward me with extravagant gifties. I'm thinking something in about a 12-hour stretch, extra silent... Our relationship has developed to such depth, I feel we're both ready for such an exchange, don't you?

Sledding (Beta version)

Papa & Toby

There's just something about a boy and his great grandpa.

35 x 35

I'll be turning 35 on May 22, 2008. Thirtyfive is the oddest age. Younger people think you're old- on the decline from hipness, losing grip of the here and now. Older people remember being your age and feeling younger than they do now.


I find reading these things boring, but if I put it up here, it will feel more "official". And... if I can do a post-a-day for a month then maybe I can capitalize on the momentum and do these.



1. Run 15 fun runs
2. Play entire Bartok in recital
3. Weigh xxx OR gain no more than 30 in pregnancy
4. Paint the big canvas
5. Spend a day junking with Mom
6. Get a system for photos (boxes? books?)
7. Spend at least 4 days straight tent camping in Oregon
8. Paint Toby’s room: Chalk board paint, tree.
9. Take 4 Dobro lessons
10. Arrange five songs for viola
11. Continue tattoo
12. Publish article in a music journal
13. Learn how to do pincurls
14. Learn how to self-braid
15. Volunteer 3 places
16. Record a CD (for school jobs, also to sell)
17. Make a bonfire on the coast
18. Help Mom paint something in her house
19. Make glass panels for entryway
20. Refinish Toby’s table/chairs
21. Eat low sugar for one month straight
22. Make 3 (1 yr, 1.5 yrs, 2 yrs) video cards of Toby for relatives
23. Set up old viola for baroque
24. Take 4 baroque lessons
25. Build one bookshelf or window seat
26. Visit Madison House
27. Play duets for John Ward
28. Make wheat bread like Papa
29. Personalize case
30. Practice 5 days/week with MD player
31. Get into Precepts (at least 3)
32. Give my testimony- no holds barred
33. Plant pots outside
34. Go to a dinner show at Kennedy school
35. Make a monthly picture capsule

Smellular rant

Exhibit A: the multitudes whip around to scowl at the poor sap whose ringer interrupts something formal like church or a concert. Exactly 78 seconds later, another one rings. And another one rings. Weren't those people JUST thinking, Wow, is that guy over there ever an idiot. Thank you Lord for blessing me with such a large and pulsing brain...
Well, hey, maybe it's Himself calling to congratulate you for ignoring the hint he just gave you to KILL YOUR OWN PHONE.

Exhibit B: I am struggling with my eavesdropping addiction. I believe it dates back to living in Japan, where I enjoyed listening to extremely personal conversations cloaked in the assumption that I couldn't speak Japanese. You learn alot about a people that way.

So just remember when your cell rings in the Marshall's dressing room: you are not alone. And having never actually bailed out a boyfriend, been in a catfight, or purchased drugs, I will be hanging on your every word, yo.

Exhibit C: My friend Andrea posted here about an obnoxious When the Saints ringtone and the very next day I heard one like it in a bookstore. I laughed out loud and couldn’t help but look over at the guy, who scowled back. What, he was hoping I would mind my own business, ignoring the aural equivalent of hot pink sequins with four-inch fringe on a man who could be a linebacker? Not a chance, big man.
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Jurassic Post

FRIGHTENING monster skull discovered in rural Montana. Scientists recommend buying generators and stocking canned goods a la Y2K.













Oh. Nevermind.