Ein Komma an der falschen Stelle kann viel anrichten.

(tell me about it)

so alas, this post is NOT on my shiny new iMac (i have not had a chance to pick up my check, plus verizon is still screwing me over on the internet in my house) but my macbook is in the mail so that's a start, right?

it's a time of beginnings and endings. tomorrow is my last day at my temp job and the first day of orientation at peabody. those, in themselves, are two very interesting things. all of a sudden, the streets of mount vernon are alive with peabody students (and my friends) like they had been they're all along. i'm still nursing a grudge (against no one in particular) about being alone all summer so i'll just sit on my hands like a five year old until someone gives me a call. it's pathetic, i know. but peabody itself is all a bustle with activity which is great...well until wednesday.

the beginning of large ensemble auditions. i have decided that i just can't care the way i did before, which really shouldn't be anything new because this is how i ALWAYS get. i was so worried about haffner and hyped up that i was making myself crazy. i had to sit myself down and say "you are not the only one who's going to have trouble with the mozart. play it as cleanly as you can and just make sure the other excerpts are rock solid." i can't do any more than that. and if that doesn't get me into PSO then what(the fuck)ever. i've been making myself consciously nervous to see what kind of mistakes i would make under pressure. it's eye-opening. a lot of work.

but yeah, who looks forward to that?

as word spreads about me finishing my final days, people are saying their goodbyes which really took me be surprise. i mean i've been here for a month but i didn't think people were going to miss me. well, i'm going to miss them, too. i don't know if i'm surprised by that, either.

i've got a lot on my mind, as usual. that's how you can tell the fall has started.

Es sei uns dein gnädiges Antlitz erfreulich!

this summer has been an odd one at best.

i mean, i couldn't play due to injury, couldn't make any money (due to my ridiculous job), couldn't go home, just cause but i lost a whole dress size, learned how to play poker and ventured out to north baltimore. i'm glad it's over.

but, honestly, who is ever really glad that summer is over? when i got to sleep and exercise and cook and do what i want, i loved it. it's the freedom of summer that makes it so magical (even it's the freedom to work your ass off) and i will miss it. as wonderful as this upcoming school year seems to be (my assistantship, great classes and preparing for my recital/starting my thesis) it brings its usual birthing pains (auditioning for ensembles and then BEING in those ensembles)...it is no walk in the park, my friends.

but things work out, they always do. within minutes of finding out that i was being let go from my temp job early (because they found someone to hire permanently), i found out that i would be receiving my financial aid check the day before that (hopefully, my next post will come on my shiny new iMac). i told sarah that the reason i'm bugged out about LE auditions is that i'm giving up power and i hate that. it is one of the main reasons that i am not actively seeking an orchestral performance career. i do not like to give up power. and one thing i've learned over the years is that you can do your best and still not make it...and it will have nothing to do with you, musically. i am not a fan. i create my opportunities and seize my power. school is a very delicate balance of this, you have to give up a little bit of your power to gain some. i'm good at it, but it doesn't mean i like it. i'd rather do yoga on the beach at sunrise.

again, the beauty of summer.

so this is my last full week at my temp job. next week i head straight into auditions and orientation; simply meaning "all hell will break loose". luckily, in between, ally will be in town to romp and frolic along the streets of baltimore. and now with my new-found job freedom, i'll be taking a very necessary trip home for labor day, the last of the summer. what self-respecting southern girl wouldn't go home for a labor day barbecue?

the office

okay, now a lot of things have happened since i last wrote (i don't have the internet...AGAIN) but i'll get to all of that later. first, the post which derives from this title.

i am temping in an office until school starts and it's a really nice job, admin assistant/front desk sort of deal, full time. but here's the thing. i'm working in an office filled with normal people. that's right, i said it. now first let me clarify: normal does not equate to "unintelligent" or "droll" or anything like that. it just means they have a 9-5 job, homes, families, the whole kit and kaboodle.

and for me that is effing weird.

the offices are cubicles, there is a casual friday, it's surreal. you have to remember that i've been working in non-normal places for over five years. (i mean new york city opera? give me a break. my office was a restored coat room in the state theater) and it's almost comforting. the problems are normal (and very intense - it's in mental health care) and i don't have to hear anything about bossy parents or anyone's school system or finding somewhere to buy pointe shoes/lieder/costumes/wigs/sheet music/metronomes, etc.

but it is obvious that i am the odd man out. in my few days here, i've become the public transportation riding, über-recycling, homemade lunch bringing, 800 page non-fiction book reading, opera-singing girl who is studying TWO degrees that no one knows about and talks to herself at the front desk in foreign languages. but it doesn't matter because i'm funny and talk to people and listen and am courteous and that's all people really need, sometimes. (one small caveat, however. since i AM the girl mentioned above, maybe, people in and around this office should not hit on me. it's dead in the water)

so even though it's full time work for the next month or so, which is exhausting (i get up every morning at 6 and don't get home until 6), it's a breath of fresh air. and money, don't forget money.

wherever you stand be the soul of that place.

today was finally what my summer should have been like all along. too bad it seems increasingly fleeting. but the tale i must impart.

i woke up this morning planning on be productive. claire and i ran errands for the house, including applying for a job at plaza art materials. claire then told me that she and ben were going to the american visionary art museum in federal hill to watch, as part of an installment, monks make a sand mandala. for those of you who don't know what that is, it looks like this:



it is created painstakingly by monks tapping out colored sand. it teaches the beauty of impermanence and non-attachment in that after the mandala, which takes hours/days to create, is finished, it is blown away like so much sand on a beach. so of course, i had to go. claire proposed that i take a cab since they were riding their bikes. at the last minute i decided to walk all two miles from my house to federal hill. it was not really that bad and it was a beautiful day. the exhibit, "all faiths beautiful" was beautiful and beyond inspiring and watching the monks awakened something inside me long dormant. my commitment to study and practice buddhism (as much as anyone can actually do those things) has waned as of late and i felt reinspired. (my tweets also mention honeybees. i've been reading so much on our current honeybee plight and i feel this becoming a cause) so after the museum, i walked to the harbor, got some italian ice and dinner and just looked out on the water. it felt good.

four miles later, my body is hurting but it's the good kind. i'm so glad that i've really stuck to exercising. i think i'm starting to see the results which is happy. don't get me wrong, i'm still bored out of my mind and sad that all of my friends have gone away but at least i'm content with my life. that's saying quite a lot.

it really says something about lovers leaping like gazelles

so it seems that i may have jinxed myself, you be the judge.

shortly after i wrote my last post, i found out that the savage mountain arts chamber music institute, to which my trio and i were to be a part, canceled this summer, due to low enrollment. this was a crushing blow, let me tell you. i had been looking forward to this since last fall. however, these things happen, especially to smaller camps. i've seen similar during my time at nyu. it just seems that all of my fabulous plans for the summer imploded on themselves (arabian nights, summer opera theatre, savage mountain) which leaves me at home to practice and prepare for the fall, which would be great except for the fact that i have carpal tunnel in both hands, the reason why i couldn't do some of these things in the first place. so this turns into another one of those summers where i'm at home, nursing my broken and feeble body. don't worry, it's nothing new.

so i guess part of me is counteracting that by working out. hard. i mean i worked out a lot last summer with my father after my unsightly (and unexpected) weight gain due to massive traveling on the part of grad school auditions. and i did lose weight and get myself back. but this summer it's all about getting stronger...

we can rebuild her, make her stronger, faster.

...and losing some of that baby fat that refuses to go away. that and the fact that i'm bored as hell and working out every day helps me to relieve my every day stress. my injuries feel better, too, but that's not rocket science. (i'm actually typing this after i finished about 40 minutes of yoga). hopefully, something will come to show of it.

as you know, i've shown some real disdain for baltimore this summer due to my incessant boredom. but something has come along to make me proud to be a resident of charm city. thanks to alex ross for bringing this to my attention. baltimore's own, hybrid groove project have just put out "hgp anthem" dissing the likes of peabody faves alarm will sound and so percussion not to mention bang on a can, james levine and many more. this might be the best battle rap i've heard in a while. okay, maybe not but it's pretty badass. read about it here and, well, big ups to mobtown.

there were a lot of no's in that sentence

there's something very cathartic about cleaning. it lets you get your physical space together as well as your mental one. since i have, virtually, nothing to do, i've been cleaning quite a bit. washing everything in sight, sweeping a whole house of wood floors, watering plants, folding clothes, you name it. it helps keep me at peace and let me sleep at night. because let me tell you, the terrors and fears are never too far behind.

today i got an email from PK. it was really sweet. he asked me about my trip to the caribbean. he also told me that he thought the playing in my jury was the best he had heard from me. that really meant a lot. he discussed a summer plan for me to really get me moving this fall and i was just so grateful that he took the time to do that. it wasn't degrading or anything like that. just a teacher being helpful. i really took it to heart. if i had a ridiculous ego and no shame i would have taken it as an offense. good thing that's not me at all. unfortunately, i have to email him and let him know about the CTS. i'm sure that will invariably change his plans for me.

like the line in one of my favorite movies, "we never seem to get a break."

so june has been pretty pointless for the most part even though i had to miss one of my very dear friend's wedding and the senior recital of one of my favorite people. you know, tied to a very nonsense job that leaves even my co-workers confused. next week, however, i will be up in NYC for a bridal shower (its the summer of weddings!) so that will be an experience. i'm really just counting down to july. i miss my trio and i can't wait for the time we'll have up in frostburg.

i'm reminded of father's day. my own father and other fathers. i feel like maybe dads get the short end of the stick sometimes. i'll be the first person to say that the relationship between my father and i is much different from that between me and my mother. don't get me wrong, i love them more than life itself and i couldn't get along without them. but i'm a girl and have always been attached to my mother. but i'm not going to leave it to one day to express the love i have for my father. he and i have been through a lot and he's number one in my heart. i was deeply saddened by the passing of tim russert on friday, moreso than by any other "celebrity" figure i can think of, especially upon hearing the touching stories of him, his father and his son. too little do we hear stories about great fathers. maybe because we don't think they deserve the credit, or "that's their job" (a phrase i loathe) i know for a fact that i would not be where i am without my father and i grieve for the russerts in this loss of their father, son and husband.

i'd really rather not end this on such a sad and poignant note so i'll have to come up with something...i don't know, thoughts escape me. i guess i'll just wish everyone a very happy father's day! (love you daddy!)

i heard it in the wind last night, sounded like applause.

music is a funny thing.

this weekend was one for which i wasn't really prepared. it involves music and, i guess, the past. my two great loves. part of my vacation was to be part of two alumni concerts, one at my high school and the other involving my youth orchestra. and it seems like everything that occurred around those two events showed me how much the passing of time can either romanticize things or harden our hearts.

the first thing that i noticed was the litany of phone calls i received in a few short days. people with whom (unfortunately) i had not spoken to in years, called me. and immediately, it was like restarting a conversation that had been cut off. it was so easy and natural and surprising in that way. being the sentimentalist that i am, i welcomed it. they are all people that i love and had missed dearly. not to mention that in that wave of phone calls came others from people in my present that i also love dearly. it had a profound impact on me.

the next thing was the concerts themselves. and here comes the divide. i had a lot of problems in high school. sometimes, my band program and i were not on the best of terms and that is most definitely not how i left. i carried around a lot of resentment because being in that program became my whole life. certain people left me feeling jilted and after so many years of believing in them, that's a hard feeling to stomach. but the thing about all of that is, underneath all of that pain lay a deep love which i have always wanted to rekindle. and the moment that i walked into the building and set my eyes upon a man that i had not talked to in almost eight years, and those last words were an argument between us, all of the hurt inside me melted away. i had missed him. what i didn't realize was that while i had thought i still felt the initial pain from my past, time had worn it away and only left the feelings with which i had started. it felt good. i felt good. yes, being at my high school, playing on that stage is mildly unnerving, considering. but i definitely left feeling that the whole thing had been worth doing. i even left with a few tears in my eyes. now today was the youth orchestra alumni concert and i will just say that it was the complete and total opposite, the antithesis, really of what had happened before. the anger that i felt came welling back to the surface (i will make an EXTREMELY long story short by saying that we were never on good terms) and what it turned into was a complete reversion --- i turned into the 17 year old troublemaker. and it felt kind of good, i'll be honest. i made wisecrack remarks in the back, making everyone around me laugh and tossed everything to the wind. here, i felt like nothing had changed and i hated that. it even seemed like things had gotten worse over the years rather than better. i think people wonder how i remember such small things with such veracity. they just made such an impact on me...but what i realized was that i don't care anymore the way i used to. i cared then because i had to care, had to believe that i was committed to something and was going to make it work. i am now free of those shackles, thanks to time and the advancement of age. i think i understand that some things will never change but i have to. doing this makes that tangible.

funny how music can bring everyone back...back together, back to life. i saw people i haven't seen in years and worried that i would never see again. a lot of them are working in the real world (it's the real world to me, my own world seems quite imaginary), starting families and creating new lives for themselves. if anything, i envy them because they've made so much change in their life. i'm still the girl behind the bassoon. but in any case, i respect them and they respect me. we sit down together and just make music. it couldn't be any more simple. and i honestly wish that it could always be that way. i know, however, that that is not the case. i am happy that these past couple of days have allowed me to regenerate new connections. those ties that we make to people never really break. i think in the end, that's how our lives will be measured, by the connections that we make. i hope that people will come to remember and think well of me.